Ben Werdmuller
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Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller

Notable links

Being quietly radicalised by being on holiday

[Matt Webb] "The EU may (or may not) be making technology policy missteps, but they are gently and patiently promoting a certain way of life which feels globally very, very special, and fundamentally counter to the hypercapitalism found elsewhere." I love Europe, and this is a large part

31 Aug 2024

AI

No one’s ready for this

[Robin Rendle] Robin Rendle on Sarah Jeong's article about the implications of the Pixel 9's magic photo editor in The Verge: "But this stuff right here—adding things that never happened to a picture—that’s immoral because confusion and deception is the point of

30 Aug 2024

Notable links

'This Is What the US Military Was Doing in Iraq': Photos of 2005 Haditha Massacre Finally Published

[Brett Wilkins at Common Dreams] "After years of working with Iraqis whose relatives were killed by U.S. Marines in the 2005 Haditha massacre, American journalists finally obtained and released photos showing the grisly aftermath of the bloody rampage—whose perpetrators never spent a day behind bars." These

30 Aug 2024

Technology

The secret inside One Million Checkboxes

[Nolen Royalty] "On June 26th 2024, I launched a website called One Million Checkboxes (OMCB). It had one million global checkboxes on it - checking (or unchecking) a box changed it for everyone on the site, instantly." This story gets deeper from here: how he found a community

29 Aug 2024

Notable links

Silicon Valley’s Very Online Ideologues are in Model Collapse

[Aaron Ross Powell] ""First, there’s what I’ve referred to in the past as the “Quillette Effect.” Because we believe our own ideas are correct (or else we wouldn’t believe them), we tend to think that people who share our ideas are correct, as well."

28 Aug 2024

Labor

Labor union disapproval hits 57 year low, per Gallup survey

[Emily Peck at Axios] "70% of Americans said they approved of unions, per Gallup's most recent poll, conducted in August." This represents a giant change in American society: labor unions haven't been this popular since 1967. But at the same time, union membership is

28 Aug 2024

What I've learned about writing a book (so far)

Some things I’ve learned about me and writing recently: 1. I’m impossibly distractible. It’s a learned behavior: I check all my social networks, take a look at my email, fall down Wikipedia rabbit holes. Writing on the iPad seems to help me a lot. Those things are

28 Aug 2024

Media

*Online Participation Disclaimer

[Heather Bryant] Arguing that it's harder to just be a human online, Heather Bryant has published an online participation disclaimer: "The following disclaimer applies to participation in discourse as it relates to my individual experience as a human being in a global online community and the collective

27 Aug 2024

AI

Productivity gains in Software Development through AI

[tante] Tante responds to Amazon's claim that using its internal AI for coding saved 4500 person years of work: "Amazon wants to present themselves as AI company and platform. So of course their promises of gains are always advertising for their platform and tools. Advertising might have

27 Aug 2024

Notable links

The toll of America's anti-trans war

[The 19th] "To understand how the anti-trans agenda could reshape all of our lives, The 19th set out to examine how the laws and rhetoric behind it are impacting Americans." My friends at The 19th dive into how the wave of anti-trans legislation and rhetoric is impacting American

26 Aug 2024

Technology

Telegram messaging app CEO Durov arrested in France

[Ingrid Melander and Guy Faulconbridge at Reuters] "[Telegram founder] Durov, who has dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship, was arrested as part of a preliminary police investigation into allegedly allowing a wide range of crimes due to a lack of moderators on Telegram and a lack of cooperation

26 Aug 2024

Fediverse

A Developer's Guide to ActivityPub and the Fediverse

[Martin SFP Bryant at The New Stack] "How do you get started if you want to integrate your own software with ActivityPub? [Evan] Prodromou has written a new book on this very topic, and we caught up with him to explore the practicalities of linking up with the fediverse.

25 Aug 2024
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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.