So What, Who Cares (vol 2, issue 28) Who's in the mood for a follow-up round-up?
Hello! For some weird reason, last night's edition of So What, Who Cares (vol 2, issue 27) is appearing in the archive, yet has hung up on delivery. I'd fulminate about this, but I am using a free email service, so I gets what I pays for, ja? If you really want to read about why retailers are about to start telling the origin story of every cotton boll in your socks, you can!
Before Tinyletter would let me send out anything tonight, I had to run every URL through a URL-shortening service. Let me know if anything's not working, please. Hit me up via email or Twitter.
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Who's in the mood for a follow-up round-up? Today's newsletter is going to be a series of quick hits about continuing developments in stories that SW,WC has covered in prior issues.
Apple is building two massive data centers in Denmark and Ireland, a move that will allow it to make nice with European Union privacy regulators. How? Data stored by European users in European data centers on European soil will presumably be safer from the United States and its differing approach to privacy. You'll
recall that right now, the U.S. and Microsoft are wrangling over a fairly significant question: To whom does cloud data belong -- a user who is the citizen of one country or the company that's based in another? (vol 1, issue 68) Apple's move suggests it's hedging its bets against the U.S. winning the argument that where data is stored matters less than who owns the data center.
Here's what really helps app discovery: Having your app featured on Shark Tank. Sarah Perez's illuminating follow-up of what happens to apps featured on ABC's entrepreneurial reality show: They get great visibility and downloads, and the genuinely savvy folks manage to parlay that into lasting success. SW,WC covered one way to blow open app discovery with the Pinterest/Apple team-up (vol 2, issue 22), and this past weekend, I did cover an app pitch on Shark Tank for Previously.TV.
I heard from more than one former Penny Power subscriber (vol 2, issue 25) -- not surprising, because you are all clearly my people -- and so I thought you'd all appreciate learning that Jean Chatzky, the financial editor of NBCs Today show, has teamed up with Time for Kids and the PwC Foundation to compile a monthly magazine called Your $ for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders. It is available via schools. Clearly, between the new magazine and the national parks deal, it's a good time to be a fourth-grader in America (vol 2, issue 26).
So it turns out sharks are not the only animals observed to have distinct personalities (vol 1, issue 27). Scientists have now documented proof that cockroaches have personality traits as well. Université libre de Bruxelles researchers say that personalities confer evolutionary advantage, because different personalities will survive different types of challenging situations. And for a human take on that theory, read the BBC's "How To Survive a Disaster," which postulates that approximately 75% of people confronted with disaster will freeze and be unable to respond, 10% will be dangerous to others because they'll freak out uncontrollably, and the remaining 15% will get through. It's a fascinating funhouse-mirror perspective to the whole study of resilience (vol 1, issue 13) or courage (vol 1, issue 45).
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Today's moment in pop culture: So this is our new Aquaman, per the vision of Zack Snyder. I dig it, because it makes sense that Aquaman has some sort of cultural connection to the world's most brilliant marine navigators.
While this Metafilter post is ostensibly about an i09 article detailing Aquaman's origins as a hero to be reckoned with, what I found a lot more amusing were all the Aquaman references commenters brought to the post, like the inevitable comparison to Marvel's Namor (this post is a reminder that Texts from Superheroes is a very funny Tumblr), the hilarious work of Kate Beaton and this H.P. Lovecraft/Aquaman crossover. Truly, the Internet is teeming with people who find Aquaman both hilarious and underestimated.
I personally think the one comic book that does a lot of great things for Aquaman's characterization within the larger Justice League of America framework is JLA: Year One, by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn and Barry Kitson. It manages to be both poignant and funny as it points out how hard it is to interface with an alien (land-dwelling) culture, no matter how good your intentions. And you don't have to know years of DC Universe continuity to really appreciate the story-telling.
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