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08 Nov 14:08

Reader Profiles: Longform.org

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“Longform" is one of those mis- and overused words that is in danger of losing all meaning. The main complaint is that the term makes a virtue of length for the sake of length. We talked to Aaron Lammer, founder of longform.org, who has been collecting and publishing the best, curated collection of in-depth reporting, feature writing and essays since 2012. Though dark clouds hang over the journalism industry, he’s pretty happy about his site as well as the state of the craft of journalism. 

Longform journalism is as good as it’s ever been 

Maybe the coolest thing about the site is that is doesn’t just publish the best stuff of the current moment, but also reprints articles from decades past, mostly work that pre-dates the internet and isn’t terribly easy to find. “(Longform journalism) is as good as it has ever been,” Lammer says. ”It is never going to dominate the Facebook algorithm, but we provide an alternate place to find stuff to read.” 

Podcasting is the new longform

The site has also launched a podcast series with authors about how a non-fiction writer does their job in 2017. Lammer sees the podcast as a supplement, not a replacement for reading good writing. “I hope that they deepen readers’ relationship with the work and provide free training to future generations of reporters,” he says. 

Sex sells think pieces, too

The term longform may imply ponderous and overly serious treatment of a subject, but Lammer says that sensational and titillating subjects tend to get the readers’ attention. It turns out that, just like on social media, people share serious articles, but they actually, “read stories about sex and crime at the highest rates.” 

He was longform before it was cool 

Lammers admits the name longform has a lot of baggage, but says he ignores the haters. “We’re flattered that people are annoyed at the over-saturation of the word Longform,” he says. “The word "article” is probably sufficient but I’m not going to argue for or against the way language evolves online. We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing.”

What does Aaron read?

Lammer recommends following the New York Times an Kyle Chayka’s writing about design.

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SUBSCRIBE TO LONGFORM.ORG

16 Dec 12:29

Reverse Engineering an LCD Display

by Phillip Ryals

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The current marketplace allows hobbyists to easily find inexpensive, well-documented displays, but what if you wanted to interface with something more complicated, such as the screen on an iPod Nano 6? [Mike] has given us a detailed and insightful video showing his process for reverse engineering a device with little-to-no documentation. Here he covers the initial investigation, where one scours the web in search of any available information. In [Mike's] example, the display uses an MIPI D-PHY interface, which he has never worked with. He learns that the MIPI Alliance will provide design specs in exchange for a signed NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) and a modest $8000 fee. Nice.

[Mike] shows off some serious hardware hackery, tackling some extremely difficult soldering in order to set up a proper test platform. He then demonstrates how to use a rather awesome oscilloscope to better understand the display protocol. We found it fascinating to see the video signals displayed as waveforms, especially when he shows how it is possible to count the individual binary values. The amount of information he uncovers with the oscilloscope is nothing short of amazing, proving these little devices are more complex than they seem.

[via Hacked Gadgets]


Filed under: classic hacks, ipod hacks