Ben Werdmuller
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Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller

The magic behind the earth

Over the last week I’ve found myself, many times, wanting to phone my mother. “I should tell Ma,” I’ll think, and it’ll take me a beat to remember. I can’t tell Ma. Ma’s gone. In the little library nook that sat in the corner of

27 Oct 2022

Mark Zuckerberg Is Going To Kill His Company

“As funny as it is that Zuckerberg responded to “don’t spend as much money on the metaverse” with “I will now spend more on the metaverse,” anybody with half a brain can see that he is burning his company to the ground. Zuckerberg is experiencing peak founder-brain - that

26 Oct 2022

Uline’s billions fund voter suppression

“The Uihleins are ideologues, but it's a mistake to view their authoritarianism, antisemitism, racism, and homophobia as the main force of their ideology. First and foremost is their belief that they deserve to be rich, and that the rich should be in charge of everyone else.”  #Democracy [Link]

26 Oct 2022

Little Rules About Big Things

“Tell people what they want to hear and you can be wrong indefinitely without penalty.”  #Business [Link]

26 Oct 2022

Thinking about leaving Twitter

Regardless of what happens after the Elon Musk acquisition (if it even still goes through!), I’ve been thinking a lot about the effect social media - and particular, Twitter - has had on me, and how to change my relationship to it. Alongside the sentiments of a lot of

26 Oct 2022

Proposed bill labels LGBTQ+ information as 'sexually-oriented' material

“Multiple LGBTQ+ researchers and policy experts told The 19th that they had never seen a bill like this one at the state level, introduced in the current Congress, or passed into law in recent memory. A bill that so overtly depicts LGBTQ+ people as sexually inappropriate, especially around children, is

26 Oct 2022

Coding

The transitional web

“What I mean is that we’re at the start of another wave of change in our industry, where old trends and best practices give way to something new.”  #Coding [Link]

26 Oct 2022

An intent-centered desktop

I’ve been thinking about how I use my computer, and why I’m so dissatisfied with the experience. Here’s what I think, in a nutshell: My computer, as currently set up, is application-centric (or, if I wanted to be really uncharitable, brand-centric). If I want to save a

26 Oct 2022

Publishing Prejudice: The Oregonian's Racist Legacy

“The newspaper helped create the Oregon of today: A majority white state, with the West Coast’s smallest proportion of Black residents, anchored by Portland, America’s whitest big city. Despite Oregon’s progressive reputation and growing population of color, its major institutions — lawmakers, schools, police, housing systems and health

26 Oct 2022

The Hollow Core of Kevin Kelly's "Thousand True Fans" Theory

“On closer examination, it turns out there are many things wrong with it. Thousand True Fans is a hollow philosophy. It is Chicken Soup for the Digital Creator's Soul, ultimately devoid of any real nutritional value. […] We can have a tiny rich patron-class whose tastes and whims are

25 Oct 2022

BBC And Disney Branded Television Join Forces on Doctor Who

I don’t know what Doctor Who with a Disney budget even looks like, but I’m in. Obviously.  #Culture [Link]

25 Oct 2022

The Only Crypto Story You Need, by Matt Levine

“Which is why we asked the finest finance writer around, Matt Levine of Bloomberg Opinion, to write a cover-to-cover issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, something a single author has done only one other time in the magazine’s 93-year history (“What Is Code?,” by Paul Ford). What follows is his brilliant

25 Oct 2022
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Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller

Writing at the intersection of technology, journalism, and community.

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Ben Werdmuller explores the intersection of technology, democracy, and society. Always independently published, reader-supported, and free to read.