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The Ghost In My Browser (L.V. Anderson for Digg)
The electronic media around us has a tendency to turn into so much background noise, and sometimes, our lack of observation cuts off off.
The mental event that occurred a couple of weeks ago — what I am calling, for lack of a better term, “noticing” — came in the form of an observation: “Hmm, this is strange.” The lines of the essay I could see didn’t ring a bell. My gut reaction was that I was the victim of some weird Opera bug.
The case against cruises (Aditi Shrikant for Vox)
Cruises are wildly popular, and cruise ship companies are growing cannier at marketing to expand their demographic from retirees. But the industry comes with a dark side.
But there are bigger problems than being trapped in a consumerist funhouse. Ships can also be dangerous, with high sexual assault rates, frequent poisonings, and the ever-present possibility of going overboard. And, of course, cruises are horrible for the environment: Their heavy and growing use of fossil fuels means someone on a seven-day cruise produces the same amount of emissions as they would during 18 days on land. And they can damage fragile ocean ecosystems, due to practices like irresponsible disposal of sewage.
How Sweetgreen Got to $1 Billion (Daniela Galarza for Eater)
It’s just a salad. Or is it?
With investors chasing the next Shake Shack, companies like Sweetgreen (which has 90 locations) and Joe & the Juice (with nearly 300 locations and plans for a $1.5 billion IPO in 2019) seem to be rushing into high valuations just to drum up buzz. But how did Sweetgreen, a relatively small chain known for serving vegetables in oddly shaped bowls, become the first real restaurant unicorn?
How Aura Photography Invaded Instagram (Molly McHugh for The Ringer)
Fads spread quickly through Instagram. Tracking them reveals fascinating things about the ecosystem of the wildly popular photo sharing app.
Julia Summers says the app inspired her own aura photography business. About a year ago, the owner of the Los Angeles–based Auradome began to see aura photos populating Instagram’s Explore tab. “I had never heard of it before and I was instantly obsessed,” she says. Take a quick scan of the #auraphotography hashtag and it’s not hard to see why. Row after row of Polaroid-like portraits have hues splashed across them to create a spilled-paint effect, as if someone had emptied jars of paint on top of the grid. It’s mesmerizing. It’s almost as if aura photography were made for the platform.
Quitting Instagram: She’s one of the millions disillusioned with social media. But she also helped create it. (Elizabeth Dwoskin for the Washington Post)
Speaking of Instagram, here’s the story of how one of its creators soured on it.
This shift is part of an existential crisis for Facebook, which has seen a slew of top executives resign this year, including the leaders of its major acquisitions: Oculus, WhatsApp and Instagram. Some people are also abandoning Facebook: It lost 4 million users in Europe in the last six months and growth has plateaued in the United States.
Image: Neil Turner
