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In today's Slate Money podcast they interview Margret Sullivan on her new book about destruction of US local newspapers. She has an interesting factoid - those

In today's Slate Money podcast they interview Margret Sullivan on her new book about destruction of US local newspapers. She has an interesting factoid - those local governments with local newspapers have significantly and demonstrably lower costs of borrowing than those without - the conjecture being that over the years councils have been unable to get away with blatant corruption for fear of public humiliation- that the "watchdog" role of newspapers is not nice journalist ethics but actually measurable in tax dollars ICANN is part of the Internet's local government and we need to find new ways to keep watchdogs alive. [#] https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/slate-money/id876523888#episodeGuid=665d43c4-c5b0-11e9-a433-3348543b5915 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/slate-money/id87652388...

AnonFounders 6y ago
Random info - a factoid originally meant "a piece of information that becomes accepted as a fact even though it is not actually true", when it was coined a few decades ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid Of course, like "Literally" & "Decimated", the accepting meaning has drifted since then...
- gfody 6y ago
  Weird that wiki doesn’t mention that it’s just the -oid suffix for “like” the same way we can call a non-square box a cuboid. The rest seems suspect eg anyone could’ve coined it.
  - jcahill 6y ago
    Well, almost anyone. If the Progenitors had been startup devs we'd probably be approximately spherical meeple in a webgl tarski's world with "facty" and "fucky" truth values.
- mech422 6y ago
  for 'decimated' are you talking about the change from 1 in 10, or something more recent I missed ? "Literally" is literally my biggest pet peeve. Changing from 2 spaces to 1 at the end of sentences is another.
  - sgerenser 6y ago
    1 space after a period has always been correct unless you’re writing in a monospaced font (or with a typewriter).
    - mech422 6y ago
      exactly - 2 spaces was correct for anyone that learned to type before say y2k. Back when typing actually involved a typewriter :-)
    - PostThisTooFast 6y ago
      So... correct since the ‘90s. Got it.
- jacoblambda 6y ago
  How has decimated changed in meaning? Decimated comes from the Roman military punishment "Decimation" where for some military unit being punished, 10% of their ranks were to executed by their colleagues. The most literal meaning of decimated is "to reduce by 10%" but the common meaning is from the complete and total destruction of morale and resistance that results from being forced to kill your colleagues.
  - crowbahr 6y ago
    If you told the average American "We decimated the Iraqi army" they'd think America wiped them out entirely. Or at least 50%. Which is why the modern 1st definition is: > "kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of."

AnonFounders 6y ago

Random info - a factoid originally meant "a piece of information that becomes accepted as a fact even though it is not actually true", when it was coined a few decades ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid Of course, like "Literally" & "Decimated", the accepting meaning has drifted since then...

gfody 6y ago
Weird that wiki doesn’t mention that it’s just the -oid suffix for “like” the same way we can call a non-square box a cuboid. The rest seems suspect eg anyone could’ve coined it.
- jcahill 6y ago
  Well, almost anyone. If the Progenitors had been startup devs we'd probably be approximately spherical meeple in a webgl tarski's world with "facty" and "fucky" truth values.
mech422 6y ago
for 'decimated' are you talking about the change from 1 in 10, or something more recent I missed ? "Literally" is literally my biggest pet peeve. Changing from 2 spaces to 1 at the end of sentences is another.
- sgerenser 6y ago
  1 space after a period has always been correct unless you’re writing in a monospaced font (or with a typewriter).
  - mech422 6y ago
    exactly - 2 spaces was correct for anyone that learned to type before say y2k. Back when typing actually involved a typewriter :-)
  - PostThisTooFast 6y ago
    So... correct since the ‘90s. Got it.
jacoblambda 6y ago
How has decimated changed in meaning? Decimated comes from the Roman military punishment "Decimation" where for some military unit being punished, 10% of their ranks were to executed by their colleagues. The most literal meaning of decimated is "to reduce by 10%" but the common meaning is from the complete and total destruction of morale and resistance that results from being forced to kill your colleagues.
- crowbahr 6y ago
  If you told the average American "We decimated the Iraqi army" they'd think America wiped them out entirely. Or at least 50%. Which is why the modern 1st definition is: > "kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of."