Ben Werdmuller helps leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges.
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Marc Andreessen on poor people: “I’m glad there’s OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet.” This also resonated with me: "One participant was a British former journalist become computer tycoon who had been awarded a lordship. He proclaimed that the Chinese middle class doesn’t
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Buried here: "Vox Media’s technology news publication The Verge says it also has plans to federate its own site to have more ownership over its content and audience, according to The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel." The fediverse is both the future of social media and the future
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This is genuinely wonderful: “The FTC’s final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market.” This was already true for California; banning it nationwide is an enormous step for innovation everywhere.
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"This has long been the dream, and it seems like the platforms betting on it in various ways — Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Flipboard, and others — are where all the energy is, while attempts to rebuild closed systems keep hitting the rocks." Just an enormous deal: for the web, for
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"A recent MIT study indicated that “the cloud” now has a larger carbon footprint than the airline industry, and that “a single data center can consume the equivalent electricity of 50,000 homes.” The study also cites the enormous cooling costs, the huge volumes of water required, and the
I like mail-in ballots because I can do my research as I go, on my own time, in my own environment. To me, it feels a lot closer to giving the process the time and attention it deserves. I filled in my Pennsylvania primary ballot this morning. I’d never
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This is exactly what I'd hope to see from a standards organization like the W3C: "W3C leads the community in defining a World Wide Web that puts users first, by developing technical standards and guidelines to empower an equitable, informed, and interconnected society. The fundamental function of
So much of what we build on the web is about connecting people. It is impossible to connect people effectively without paying attention to social justice and equity. Otherwise we’re just connecting the privileged with the privileged, creating ever smaller networks of influence, and learning nothing new.
Solidarity with the 28 Google workers who were fired for protesting Project Nimbus this week. Anonymous Google and Amazon workers described the project as follows a couple of years ago: Project Nimbus is a $1.2bn contract to provide cloud services for the Israeli military and government. This technology allows
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"Too often, [...] we assume that the person who is the object of our feedback has something to learn and fail to notice the same thing about ourselves." This is a really important observation. Without checking ourselves, our feedback can be a way to ensure our vision remains myopic,
From the OpenJS Foundation: The recent attempted XZ Utils backdoor (CVE-2024-3094) may not be an isolated incident as evidenced by a similar credible takeover attempt intercepted by the OpenJS Foundation, home to JavaScript projects used by billions of websites worldwide. The Open Source Security (OpenSSF) and OpenJS Foundations are calling
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"I find my feelings about AI are actually pretty similar to my feelings about blockchains: they do a poor job of much of what people try to do with them, they can't do the things their creators claim they one day might, and many of the things