Werd I/O

I think I'm a clone now. #AI

"Crime predictions generated for the police department in Plainfield, New Jersey, rarely lined up with reported crimes, an analysis by The Markup has found." In fact, much less than 1% of the time. #AI

A look at the inner workings of getting standards built within the framework of the W3C. It honestly sounds like technical writers should be a part of the mix alongside other practitioners. #Technology

Notable to see a newspaper run an ad campaign that genuinely competes with another one. Kind of a bold move in a world where the whole market is declining. #Media

"Microsoft's data centers in West Des Moines, Iowa guzzled massive amounts of water last year to keep cool while training OpenAI's ChatGPT-4. [...] This happened in the midst of a more than three-year drought, further taxing a stressed water system that's been so dry this summer that nature lovers couldn't even paddle canoes in local rivers." #AI

Insanely good. It blows my mind that this can be done on the web platform now. #Technology

Amanda is absolutely fearless and I was privileged to work with her. As co-founder of The 19th, she was an absolutely core part of what it became: both a strategist and culture instigator. What she does next will certainly change media; I'll be cheerleading. #Media

"By that point, Meta had been receiving detailed and increasingly desperate warnings about Facebook’s role as an accelerant of genocidal propaganda in Myanmar for six years." We need more discussion of this - I'm grateful for this four-part series. #Technology

"Somewhere between 300 to 400 physicians a year in the US take their own lives, the equivalent of one medical school graduating class annually." #Society

This presumably means that the Turf Tavern is the best student pub in the world. #Society

"The vast majority of computer vision research leads to technology that surveils human beings, a new preprint study that analyzed more than 20,000 computer vision papers and 11,000 patents spanning three decades has found.” #AI

"I don’t think I’ve seen someone walk through their process for writing a blog post, though." I love this breakdown! Tracy's structured process shows up in the quality of her posts. I love the thoughtfulness here. #Media

This is really good: a browser extension (for Chrome-based browsers) that goes through your social networks and helps you update your settings to optimize for privacy and security. Really well-executed. #Technology

"Hostile immigration policy stokes racism but the foundation it builds upon itself is racist and maintains a 'colonial present'. Through dealing with migrants like pests, who deserve to be locked away in a prison barge, the British government continues to ignore the fact that, “Borders maintain hoarded concentrations of wealth accrued from colonial domination."" #Society

This: "The prevalence of “news deserts” has apparently led some to think it’s normal for neighborhood news outlets to function as lapdogs rather than watchdogs." The purpose of journalism is to investigate in the public interest. #Media

A solid argument against A/B testing. A lot of it comes down to this: "It fosters a culture of decision making without having an opinion, without having to put a stake in the ground. It fosters a culture where making a quick buck trumps a great product experience." I agree. #Technology

Thought-provoking for me: particularly as someone who thinks through ideas through writing. But perhaps that writing doesn't need to be in public, in front of an audience. #Business

"Amazon’s ongoing pattern of illegal conduct blocks competition, allowing it to wield monopoly power to inflate prices, degrade quality, and stifle innovation for consumers and businesses." Whatever happens here, it will be meaningful. It's also nice to see the FTC actually wielding its antitrust powers. #Democracy

I think this is the right impulse: people tend to follow and trust individual journalists, not publications. Building out profiles and establishing more personal relationships helps build that trust. #Media

"Web analytics sits in the awkward space between empirical analysis and relationship building, failing at both, distracting from the real job to be done: making connections, in whatever form that means for our project." #Media

Signal on UK privacy law: "We would leave the U.K. or any jurisdiction if it came down to the choice between backdooring our encryption and betraying the people who count on us for privacy, or leaving." Good. #Technology

The open access movement is an important way academics can fight back against predatory publishers for the good of human knowledge everywhere - but the publishers are still out there, grifting. #Media

"The news is yet another example of a government agency turning to the private sector for novel datasets that the public is likely unaware are being collected and then sold." #Technology

This report found that removing access to Twitter created significant economic and social impacts. Question: are some of these now replicated with the switch to X? #Technology

Another reason why the really sustainable solution to pollution from cars is better mass transit. #Climate