Welcome to Reading List, a weekly collection of great tech reads from around the web. This week explores how the internet has spawned a new class of phrasal constructions a la “rage quitting,” whether Bitcoin could work in prison, how department stores have shaped our culture, and more. Enjoy!
- From Victorian London to modern day mega-malls, department stores have changed the way we shop and have shaped global culture. BBC’s Jonathan Glancey investigates. [BBC Culture]
- Could Bitcoin be the new prison currency? Charlie Shrem, a Bitcoin pioneer who’s headed to prison for helping to enable illicit drug trafficking via the Silk Road, wanted to find out. Turns out, without computers or cell phones, a Bitcoin-like system can still work.[Motherboard]
- Tech companies may be sending your secrets to crowdsourced armies of low-paid workers. Apps such as “Invisible Boyfriend” use freelance labour forces distributed across 180 countries to perform a service, in this case, sending personally curated texts from an anonymous lover. Should users be kept in the dark? [Fusion]
- A fascinating piece on how internet culture has spawned a new class of phrasal constructions that pair a negative mood word with a verb. Well-known examples include “rage quitting, ” “ugly crying,” and “humble bragging,” but more of these phrases are making their way into our lexicon every day. [JSTOR Daily]
- Wired’s Davy Alba investigates the struggles faced by the new world of on-demand drivers, some of whom juggle rides for multiple services, including Uber, Lyft and Sidecar. They have got no benefits and no safety net, which is why these drivers have started banding together, forming their own union-like organisations. [Wired]
- When Pablo Garcia was admitted to the hospital, he felt fine. Then he was given a 39-fold overdose of a routine antibiotic. His story offers a cautionary tale about how technology can cause breathtaking errors that never could have happened in the age of pen and paper. [Medium]