Ben Werdmuller
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Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller

Most Republicans Support Declaring the United States a Christian Nation

“Fully 61 percent of Republicans supported declaring the United States a Christian nation. In other words, even though over half of Republicans previously said such a move would be unconstitutional, a majority of GOP voters would still support this declaration.”  #Democracy [Link]

21 Sep 2022

Generating genre novels with OpenAI

I asked OpenAI to write me outlines for some genres of novels, all set in the same post-apocalyptic commune in California. Here they are, verbatim. Prompts in bold are mine; the AI wrote everything else. Write an outline for a horror novel set in a post-apocalyptic commune in California. The

21 Sep 2022

Your 401(k) hates you

This is an edited version of a piece I wrote a few years ago elsewhere, which I’m now updating and publishing here. At the time, I was working on understanding what might be an interesting evolution of retirement plans. The 401(k) was created by accident as a result

20 Sep 2022

Food Means Home

A recipe book collated by 30 unaccompanied minor asylum seekers. Just completely lovely.  #Culture [Link]

20 Sep 2022

Pentagon reviews psychological operations amid Facebook, Twitter complaints

“The Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms’ rules.”  #Technology [Link]

20 Sep 2022

More US Employers Are Trapping Workers in a New Form of Indentured Servitude

“Bosses in industries such as retail, health care and logistics are reverting to an old tactic and trapping people in miserable jobs by threatening to saddle them with debt if they quit. Workers across the United States in fields ranging from nursing to trucking have been discouraged from leaving jobs

19 Sep 2022

The Internet We Could Have Had

“The internet we do have, however, is figured much differently. It is figured as a tool of political domination. It is the apotheosis of the forms of domination secretly hidden inside the stories of progress and liberation. It is capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and environmental destruction all rolled into one

19 Sep 2022

The smoking gun in Martha's Vineyard

“Migrants from Venezuela were provided with false information to convince them to board flights chartered by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R). The documents suggest that the flights were not just a callous political stunt but potentially a crime.”  #Democracy [Link]

19 Sep 2022

Gender differences and bias in open source: pull request acceptance of women versus men

“Surprisingly, our results show that women’s contributions tend to be accepted more often than men’s. However, for contributors who are outsiders to a project and their gender is identifiable, men’s acceptance rates are higher. Our results suggest that although women on GitHub may be more competent overall,

18 Sep 2022

How a news investigation shed light on potential patient privacy violations

“The health system said the tracking tool was intended to help track the success of a promotional campaign to connect more patients to its MyChart patient portal, which involved Facebook advertisements. But it was configured improperly, which allowed Meta to obtain patient information such as email addresses, phone numbers, computer

18 Sep 2022

WordPress+IndieWeb as the OS of the Open Social Web

Nice indieweb thoughts and presentation. As an aside, I’ve added Hypothesis annotations to my site, inspired by Ton’s site.  #Technology [Link]

18 Sep 2022

5th Circuit Rewrites A Century Of 1st Amendment Law To Argue Internet Companies Have No Right To Moderate

“It effectively says that companies no longer have a 1st Amendment right to their own editorial policies. Under this ruling, any state in the 5th Circuit could, in theory, mandate that news organizations must cover certain politicians or certain other content. It could, in theory, allow a state to mandate

18 Sep 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.