Ben Werdmuller helps leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges.
I tend to get my links from three sources: my feed subscriptions, links I find on social media (particularly using Twitter Blue’s excellent “top articles from people you follow” feature), and stuff that people send me directly. If I read something and find it particularly interesting, I’ll save
“Not once at school was I told any of this stuff. I’d heard of the Raj before, although the British always spoke of it as if it was something to be proud of.” +1. And it is nothing to be proud of. #Society [Link]
Smartly pointed satire loosely disguised as a thriller. Witty and dark as hell. I loved it. #Fiction [Link]
Coding
“Copilot’s whizzy code-retrieval methods are a smokescreen intended to conceal a grubby truth: Copilot is merely a convenient alternative interface to a large corpus of open-source code. Therefore, Copilot users may incur licensing
At The 19th, we’re running our annual community survey. If you’ve read a story on The 19th, or if you’re a woman or LGBTQ+ person, or are interested in policy and democracy news that affects women and LGBTQ+ people, we’d love to hear from you. Complete
Last week, I asked you about your fiction-reading habits as part of my research for a personal project I’m working on. I also ran a separate survey on Google Surveys - getting in just before that service shuts down next month - to get a sense of what the average
Coding
“Guess which format is going to outlast all these proprietary syndication formats. I’d say RSS, which I believe to be true, but really, it’s HTML.” #Coding [Link]
“Parler was created in September 2018 as a free speech alternative to apps like Twitter and Facebook. The app was de-platformed from Google and Apple's app stores in January 2021, following the January Capitol siege.” #Technology [Link]
“For tenants, the system upends the practice of negotiating with apartment building staff. RealPage discourages bargaining with renters and has even recommended that landlords in some cases accept a lower occupancy rate in order to raise rents and make more money.” #Business [Link]
“Finally, after a month of work, he was ready: a lovingly wrought 6-foot recreation of Han Solo frozen in carbonite, made entirely of bread. The duo behind the creation, Hannalee Pervan and her mother, Catherine Pervan, called him “Pan Solo.”” #Culture [Link]
Coding
“I'm not sure what the rationale is for maintaining the text mode FP IDE. It seems kinda quaint in 2022 to maintain a recreation of the old Turbo Pascal editor, but I'm so glad that it's there.” #Coding [Link]
“More than 200,000 voting-eligible transgender Americans may find it difficult to cast a ballot in the upcoming midterm elections because of voter ID laws.” #Democracy [Link]