On this day, August 31

(Paywall-free popularization like this is what I do for a living. To support me, see the end of this post)

Interesting stuff that happened on this day, between 1941 and 2023.

(to know what this is, who does it and why, read the last paragraph)

1941

1997

2006

2008

2009

2010

2011

2014

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

What’s this, and who does it?

I am Marco, tech writer and aspiring polymath, researcher and popularizer of “Digital-Human Studies in many ways, including my newsletter.

Over the years, I have bookmarked thousands of articles and news of all sorts related to those studies, or to my personal interests. This post is a selection of the bookmarks that were published on this day, in several years (1).

I share them as a public service, because memory of what happened and serendipity MATTER. A lot. We are all too distracted and stressed by stuff that has no other merit than being “new”, or limited to our work, instead of being important (if you find broken links, please let me know).

You may follow this Almanac and my work via Mastodon, BlueSky, LinkedIn or X/Twitter, not to mention RSS, which remains the most efficient, less distracting, more private and more future-proof way to follow news online. If you don’t know why, read here. Last but not least, thanks for supporting my work in any way you can.

  1. This is in the spirit of the “Almanac of the next day”, an italian TV program aired from 1974 to 1994 that presented the most important historical facts happened on each day. This is a snapshot of its opening titles:
On this day, August 31 /img/almanacco/almanacco-6.jpg

Who writes this, why, and how to help

I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
I do it because YOUR civil rights and the quality of YOUR life depend every year more on how software is used AROUND you.

To this end, I have already shared more than a million words on this blog, without any paywall or user tracking, and am sharing the next million through a newsletter, also without any paywall.

The more direct support I get, the more I can continue to inform for free parents, teachers, decision makers, and everybody else who should know more stuff like this. You can support me with paid subscriptions to my newsletter, donations via PayPal (mfioretti@nexaima.net) or LiberaPay, or in any of the other ways listed here.THANKS for your support!