Not a lot to say in the way of introduction this week. Actually, I've got nothing. So instead of forcing the issue, let's get Monday started with these links:

Ready or not, the digital afterlife is here — A dive into the world of griefbots, interactive digital simulcra of deceased loved ones. It's a mix of fascinating, comforting, sad, creepy, and so much more.

From the article:

The researchers said interviewees seemed willing to suspend disbelief to have closure with the people who had died. Some used the bots to deal with unfinished business — anything from saying goodbye to managing unresolved conflict with the deceased. According to one participant, the chatbot helped them to process and cope with their feelings after losing someone. Another said it was therapeutic to be able to “have those ‘what if’ conversations that you couldn’t have while they were alive”.

The 3,000-year-old story hidden in the @ sign — Who'd have thought that the innocuous and ubiquitous keyboard symbol has such a long and interesting history? Before reading this article, I sure didn't!

From the article:

"Merchants had to communicate the idea that 'I'm going to sell you a certain number of amphoras of something or other at a particular price' quite a lot," Houston says. And eventually, people started drawing an "a" with a long tail wrapped around the it and skipping the rest of the letters.

How To Raise a Reader in an Age of Digital Distraction — A surprisingly measured take on distraction in the modern age, especially among younger people, that doesn't blame technology directly but how technology has evolved to actively compete with the very cognitive processes that reading requires.

From the article:

The children who are thriving as readers in 2025 aren’t growing up in some idealized, screen-free bubble. They’re learning to navigate a complex media landscape with intention and purpose. Their parents understand that the goal isn’t to return to some imagined golden age of childhood, but to apply what we now know about brain development to create a new (and equally beautiful) childhood where deep reading can flourish alongside thoughtful technology use.

Mythbusting Illiteracy in the Middle Ages — An interesting look at what being illiterate meant in that bygone age. It's a definition that doesn't square with what we think as illiteracy today, and it was something that didn't prevent more than a few people from thriving and advancing in medieval society.

From the article:

Illiteracy in medieval times was a not significant obstacle. The illiterate man did not really have limited economic opportunities. He had a hindered access to specific knowledge. The theoretical knowledge of theological studies certainly concerns a small part of the population but the fact that certainly exceptions of students of low extraction can study suggests a certain freedom.