ASL selfie, Internet sex markets, John Deere software, the enduring fax, Apple car

1. How the American Sign Language community works out how to sign new words like “selfie” and “photobomb.”

“As a collective, we see various signs until one emerges as the agreed upon sign by a collaboration of the community. A few months ago, this became a very hot topic online, people were throwing out suggestions for different signs that could designate the concept of ‘Glide.’ We eventually narrowed it down to one sign that everyone in this online community agreed to use… In terms of Instagram, I still see quite a bit of variety regarding the sign usage, we haven’t seen a consensus yet.”

+ This is worth looking at for the delightful GIFs alone.

2. What the Internet did to the sex market.

“RedBook may be gone, but the migration of the sex trade from the streets to the Internet is only accelerating. Some sex workers use social media to advertise (search Twitter for some combination of the city you’re in, and #escort, #incall, or whatever kink you’re into). Others have their own websites, often built using specialized services like Escort Design—a kind of WordPress for people in the sex industry. But the most common way to connect with clients online is through sites similar to RedBook that have yet to be shut down by the authorities. Scott Cunningham, a Baylor University economics professor who studies prostitution and black markets on the web, says that while exact figures are unknown—no national census has been conducted—he has no doubt that the vast majority of today’s paid sex arrangements originate through the Internet. ‘Sites like these, and the Internet more generally, have taken most of the action off of the street,’ he says. ‘It’s likely that these websites have actually expanded the market.'”

3. If you thought going into farming might let you get away from buzzwords and Dilbert-style software releases.

“John Deere has introduced the MyJohnDeere Opera­tions Center. According to the company, this will allow data to be uploaded securely using back-up tools or right from the field using JDLink. Some of the many current tools on the Operations Center are Field Analyzer, online Documentation Analysis and Reporting tool and Data Sharing. ‘The MyJohnDeere Operations Center provides customers with tools to improve machine uptime, logistics management and agronomic analysis in a secure, accessible way,’ says Chris Batdorf, product marketing manager, John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group.”

4. Maybe the fax machine helped prepare people for the web.

“Faxing achieved more than all that. It introduced the world to a very contemporary concept: instant, sophisticated communication. And that’s what defines our modern era of the web, of course. ‘In reality faxing was actually furthering digitisation by getting people used to the idea of getting information and images at a distance, the idea of instant communication,’ says Coopersmith.”

5. If Apple is looking at building cars—and who really knows—these are some of the questions the people in charge are probably asking.

“Is there something here? What are the issues with entering a new industry? What do we need to create ourselves and what do we buy from suppliers? Do we do this ourselves or with partners? Should we buy someone or invest in someone? Are we really building a car, or just subsystems for a car? And is this all a bad idea that we should forget ever happened?”

Today on Fusion: Public figures like Michelle Obama and Reese Witherspoon leaked location data through their Instagram accounts. Oops.

Today’s 1957 American English Usage Tip:

digit has technical uses in mathematics, and in anatomy &c; as a substitute for finger, it ranks with PEDANTIC HUMOR.

The Credits

1. hopesandfears.com 2. wired.com 3. precisionag.com 4. bbc.com 5. sixcolors.com

Subscribe to The Newsletter

Subscribe on FB

Quite a Bit of Variety Regarding the Sign