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AI gives the news you need
I can't share a quote from this one without ruining it. But you should go read it. #AI [Link]
The internet, addiction, and me
I used to have a night-time routine. I would help my mother up the six stairs from the living room to her bedroom, give her a hug, and set her up in bed. Sometimes, if she was feeling particularly weak, I would bring her toothbrush to her with a mug
NotableLinks
Make better documents.
"We almost never never actually teach people how to use the ordinary tools of business communication in more effective ways. So, I'm gathering some advice that I regularly share with people, in hopes that this helps you get your messages across more effectively." This is brilliant:
ChatGPT as a writing partner
Confession: I’ve started to find ChatGPT to be useful in my fiction writing. And now, before proceeding, I must very quickly add that I haven’t let it write a word of the story, or come up with any ideas, or engage in any ideation. That’s all me.
Gardens and power
Manu Moreale discusses the dual use of the garden metaphor for both walled gardens and digital gardens: It’s interesting how we’re using the same metaphor—the garden—to describe two completely different things. [The walled garden] is the embodiment of the capitalist mindset applied to the digital ecosystem
NotableLinks
Downpour is out!
"It would not be worth all that to make a game that is a single stupid joke. And I like games that are single stupid jokes, and so I guess I have spent a few years in the hopes that I can let more people make more of them.
Startup pitch: Fediverse VIP
Here’s my pitch for a fediverse product for organizations. Think of it as WordPress VIP for the fediverse: a way for organizations to safely build a presence on the fediverse while preserving their brand, keeping their employees safe, and measuring their engagement. We’ve established that the fediverse is
The fediverse is really happening
Threads has begun its wider beta test of publishing to the fediverse. You can follow accounts that are part of the test from Mastodon, and even see them interact with each other. Here’s Evan Prodromou’s post on Threads, and you can see it if you search for evanprodromou@
Finding the best country in the world to live in
People are sometimes a little taken aback by my criticism of the US, just as they used to be about my criticism of the UK when I lived there. In both cases, it’s not that I don’t like the place — I just see all kinds of opportunities for
NotableLinks
A socialist writer skewered the Formula One scene. Then her article vanished.
"It’s almost unheard of for a news outlet to retract an article without explanation, especially a story of this size whose accuracy has not been publicly challenged." And yet, this brilliant article was. One pet peeve: this article describes Kate Wagner as "socialist". Not that
NotableLinks
Covert racism in LLMs
"Users mistake decreasing levels of overt prejudice for a sign that racism in LLMs has been solved, when LLMs are in fact reaching increasing levels of covert prejudice." Or to put it another way: AI is wildly racist. Although it has been trained to be less overtly so,
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The App Store, Spotify, and Europe’s thriving digital music market
This is kind of a disingenuous statement from Apple, but also an example of why "consumer harm" as currently defined is not the best yardstick for anti-trust. It's notable that Apple is calling Spotify out specifically here, with a side order of snark for the European