Here's a short thread of the questions I asked the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, on the ICO’s investigation into Cambridge Analytica's seized servers and use of personal data. @CommonsDCMS

November is here, and that means a massive shift is coming. And by "massive" I am of course referring to the redefinition of the kilogram unit of mass that the world has been building up to for more than 100 years. Let me explain:

1/ I've had an unhealthy fascination with metrology (the study of measurement) ever since my 2nd year as a physics major when I took a class devoted to duplicating historic physics experiments, so please indulge me for going into heavy detail (get it?) about the kilogram.

2/ So what actually *defines* a unit of measurement? If you're American, you probably know a mile is 5280 feet and a foot is 12 inches and an inch is 2.54 centimeters etc. But where does this chain of definitions end? Is it turtles all the way down?

3/ It's actually not! For all units (even the imperial units used in America) the answers all end with the Système International (SI) unit definitions established and maintained for over 100 years by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIMP) in France.

4/ At the base of this tower are the SI base units. Just 7 SI base units define every other unit in existence. They are:

Kilogram, kg (mass)
Meter, m (distance)
Second, s (time)
Kelvin, K (temp)
Ampere, A (electric current)
Candela, cd (luminous intensity)
Mole, mol (quantity)

I think I'm giving up on mainstream marketing content.

I'm giving up on social media consumption too.

So little substance.

Need to devote more time doing. More time creating.

Who needs another "5 ways to boost growth" post? I click and am disappointed every time. Not again.

I don't want to poop on content marketing, but marketers need to step it up.

Or at least, founders need to know that doing something is not always better than doing nothing.

Why is content marketing not as effective as it used to be? An innumerable amount of factors...

But one things for damn sure.

Things have to change.

Two of the chief sins:
1. Unoriginal research/story/study/etc
2. Not having anything more to add that's meaningful

Why blog/podcast/vlog/etc about something that's already been said? Already been done?

Do we really need another interview with founder of x hot startup? Do we really need another ultimate guide about facebook ads?

Not all content is like this...

Sometimes, you get an occasional piece that truly leaves you better off than you were before. That doesn't make you want to skim.

An original case study. A first time interview with a founder. An honest account of an experiment. An explanation of a change, shift, or realization.

There's been a lot of talk about the missionary killed by the natives of North Sentinel Island. They're probably so aggressive because of this weirdo, Maurice Vidal Portman. So here's a big thread about this creep and some facts from my decade-long obsession with the island.

The Sentinelese are often described as “uncontacted,” but this not strictly true. They had a very significant contact in 1880 with Commander Portman.

Portman, the black sheep third son of some minor noble, was assigned by the English Royal Navy to administer and pacify the Andaman Islands, a job he pursued from 1880-1900 with the full measure of his own perversity.

Portman was erotically obsessed with the Andamanese, and he indulged his passion for photography by kidnapping members of various tribes and posing them in mock-Greek homoerotic compositions.

During his 20 years in a sexualized heart of darkness, Portman measured and cataloged every inch of his prisoner’s bodies, with an obsessive focus on genitals.