In 2025, British Telecom plans to shut off its ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) and PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) services entirely, in favor of modern technologies like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). https://tedium.co/2024/01/12/isdn-history-retrospective/

4-year-old accidentally shatters Bronze Age jar at museum
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/28/style/israel-haifa-museum-boy-breaks-artifact-hnk-intl/index.html

The Platform Governance Archive “collects and curates policies of major social media platforms in a long-term perspective.” https://www.platformgovernancearchive.org

.

"Researchers at Stanford University and the American University of Beirut (AUB) have developed a portable antenna that could be quickly deployed in disaster-prone areas or used to set up communications in underdeveloped regions. The antenna, described recently in Nature Communications, packs down to a small size and can easily shift between two configurations to communicate either with satellites or devices on the ground without using additional power." https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/01/new-portable-antenna-help-disasters

TIL the Chinese term 面试陪跑 literally “interview running companion:” To attend a job interview where the candidate is already chosen and you are just there to maintain the illusion of fairness.

The new digital price tags could be updated at any time from a central computer or employee handheld device, creating the possibility that a price could change from the time a consumer picks an item off the shelf to the time they arrive at the cash register. https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-privacy/digital-price-tags-with-real-time-updates-proposed-by-kroger-walmart-and-others-raise-privacy-concerns/

Along with the Ruby Slippers, the Smithsonian has some fabulous footwear in the collections.
https://www.si.edu/spotlight/shoes

I'm not sure how "underrated" these are (the El Rancho Motel in Gallup, really? and I like it a lot but wouldn't call it "luxury"), but this is a nice listicle of smaller ma-and-pa hotels.
https://roadtrippers.com/magazine/underrated-route-66-motels

I wanted this phone scanner stand to work. It did not.

https://amzn.to/3AR1WWz

No matter how much you like pterodactyls, you’ll want to think twice before telling someone that they’re your favorite dinosaur.

https://www.britannica.com/story/why-are-pterodactyls-not-dinosaurs

The song “We’re Not Gonna Take It” came out more than 40 years ago but I feel like we have, in fact, continued to take it.

Forum on the Future of Personal Computers: Boston Computer Society, 1981 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4OgJluTPwU&list=PLQsxaNhYv8dYDtr5UtEoZ8oXU54Yn74CR&index=2&t=0s

Star Wars Outlaws is a good game. It could have been a great one. https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/reviews/star-wars-outlaws

Numbers to Know for Managing (Software Teams)
https://staysaasy.com/management/2023/03/20/numbers-to-manage-by.html

The privacy equation: Data is not information until it is useful
a story that David Gerrold wrote for me in 2018 https://web.archive.org/web/20220812000516/https://www.hpe.com/us/en/insights/articles/the-privacy-equation-data-is-not-information-until-it-is-useful-1805.html

My advice on how freelancers should raise their rates https://estherschindler.medium.com/how-to-raise-your-rate-as-a-freelancer-1f4cb31c6920

The story of how a homemade anti-capitalist game created by a woman becomes a mass-produced uber-capitalist game that profited a man. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-landlords-game/

What the Lobstermen of Maine Tell Us About the Election

(Y'all know we lived on Deer Isle for almost 7 years.)
(gift link) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/25/opinion/maine-lobster-climate-change-election.html

New Randy Rainbow just dropped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyQ2MLldGRI