To be clear, I'm not in any ...
To be clear, I'm not in any way saying that they should - just that I can see it as a possibility!
Latest
Technology
Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?
[Mathew Ingram] Mathew Ingram's overview of the WordPress drama continues to be updated with new information. The hole just seems to be getting deeper and deeper. As he says: it's a mess. "It's pretty clear that Matt sees what he is doing as
Technology
It feels like 2004 again.
[Anil Dash] Anil Dash makes a pertinent observation about the current state of the web: "At the start of this year, I wrote The Internet Is About To Get Weird Again, which began by calling back to the Internet of 2000. In thinking more about it, though, we more
Revisiting Known
I thought it would be fun to revisit Known, the open source publishing platform that powers my site. How it works Known allows a team or community to publish news on any topic to a single, searchable stream of content that’s easily accessible from any device. It is not
Technology
WordPress.org’s latest move involves taking control of a WP Engine plugin
[Wes Davis at The Verge] The feud between Automattic (or more specifically, Matt Mullenweg himself) and WP Engine is getting bonkers: "WordPress.org has taken over a popular WP Engine plugin in order “to remove commercial upsells and fix a security problem,” WordPress cofounder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg
AI
Insecure Deebot robot vacuums collect photos and audio to train AI
[Julian Fell at Australian ABC News] "Ecovacs robot vacuums, which have been found to suffer from critical cybersecurity flaws, are collecting photos, videos and voice recordings – taken inside customers' houses – to train the company's AI models." So in effect these robot vacuums are tiny spies
It turns out I'm still excited about the web
I’m worried I’ve become cynical about technology as I’ve gotten older. But maybe technology really is worse. Someone asked me the other day: “what [in media and technology] are you excited about right now?” We both agreed that it was a surprisingly difficult question. And then came
Media
Why Reach journalists are being asked to write up to eight articles per day
[Charlotte Tobitt at Press Gazette] "Paul Rowland wrote in an email to staff on 27 September that article volumes were being talked about “a lot in newsrooms at the moment” and blamed, in part, the volatility from previously huge traffic referrers like Google and Facebook." "A separate
Society
Waffle House Index labels Hurricane Milton red, closes stores
[Ben Kesslen at Quartz] "Waffle House, the iconic American restaurant chain with over 1,600 locations known for cooking up Southern breakfast food, has developed an advanced storm center FEMA consults with." Stores in the path of Milton were closed in advance of the storm, which is rare
Culture
Forums Are Still Alive, Active, And A Treasure Trove Of Information
[Chris Person at Aftermath] "Over the years, forums did not really get smaller, so much as the rest of the internet just got bigger. Reddit, Discord and Facebook groups have filled a lot of that space, but there is just certain information that requires the dedication of adults who
Climate
Earth’s ‘vital signs’ show humanity’s future in balance, say climate experts
[Damian Carrington at The Guardian] Meanwhile, while we're all paying attention elsewhere: "More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse, said the report, which assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide
Notable Links
Silicon Valley, the New Lobbying Monster
[Charles Duhigg at the New Yorker] "As the tech industry has become the planet’s dominant economic force, a coterie of specialists—led, in part, by the political operative who introduced the idea of “a vast right-wing conspiracy” decades ago—have taught Silicon Valley how to play the game