Human Capital

“TED was for bearing hearts, not souls.” A fun short story from the world of Reap3r.  #Culture [Link]

Pound plummets as UK government announces biggest tax cuts in 50 years

I'm very sorry to see what's happening to the country I grew up in. Sabotage after sabotage after sabotage. #Democracy [Link]

Have I Been Trained?

I plugged my own face into the site, and sure enough, I’m part of the training set. It also showed me pictures of my friends. Feels weird. See if you can generate something involving me?  #AI [Link]

Pet Door Show

My sister Hannah Werdmuller hosts a new music show, Pet Door Show, on Shady Pines Radio every Thursday from 2-4pm (5-7pm ET, 10pm-midnight UK time). She describes it as “a unique, cross-genre playlist of new music by independent, under-the-radar artists from all over the world” - and Hannah’s eye

Facebook Report: Censorship Violated Palestinian Rights

“Meta deleted Arabic content relating to the violence at a far greater rate than Hebrew-language posts, confirming long-running complaints of disparate speech enforcement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The disparity, the report found, was perpetuated among posts reviewed both by human employees and automated software.”  #Technology [Link]

Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century

“The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality. […] Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began only around the 20th century. These gains coincide with

California's dead will have a new burial option: Human composting

“This new law will provide California’s 39 million residents with a meaningful funeral option that offers significant savings in carbon emissions, water and land usage over conventional burial or cremation.”  #Society [Link]

US Military Bought Mass Monitoring Tool That Includes Internet Browsing, Email Data

“Multiple branches of the U.S. military have bought access to a powerful internet monitoring tool that claims to cover over 90 percent of the world’s internet traffic.”  #Technology [Link]

Most Republicans Support Declaring the United States a Christian Nation

“Fully 61 percent of Republicans supported declaring the United States a Christian nation. In other words, even though over half of Republicans previously said such a move would be unconstitutional, a majority of GOP voters would still support this declaration.”  #Democracy [Link]

Generating genre novels with OpenAI

I asked OpenAI to write me outlines for some genres of novels, all set in the same post-apocalyptic commune in California. Here they are, verbatim. Prompts in bold are mine; the AI wrote everything else. Write an outline for a horror novel set in a post-apocalyptic commune in California. The

Your 401(k) hates you

This is an edited version of a piece I wrote a few years ago elsewhere, which I’m now updating and publishing here. At the time, I was working on understanding what might be an interesting evolution of retirement plans. The 401(k) was created by accident as a result

Food Means Home

A recipe book collated by 30 unaccompanied minor asylum seekers. Just completely lovely.  #Culture [Link]