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Mastodon Annual Report 2022
Amazing work. Consider how much this team has been able to achieve with a tiny fraction of the budget of a VC-funded tech startup - and the impact of their work is phenomenal. #Technology [Link]
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How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet
It turns out that Google quietly alters your search queries into ones it can more easily monetize, without you knowing. It's the kind of anti-user nonsense only a monopolist could pull off. #Technology [Link]
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Weird A.I. Yankovic, a cursed deep dive into the world of voice cloning
I think I'm a clone now. #AI [Link]
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Predictive Policing Software Terrible At Predicting Crimes
"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 [Link]
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A New Social Web Working Group at the W3C
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 [Link]
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The Philadelphia Inquirer launches 7-figure ad campaign to lure millennials
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 [Link]
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Critics Furious Microsoft Is Training AI by Sucking Up Water During Drought
"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
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Photoshop for Web
Insanely good. It blows my mind that this can be done on the web platform now. #Technology [Link]
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Amanda Zamora is stepping down as publisher at The 19th
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 [Link]
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Meta in Myanmar, Part I: The Setup
"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 [Link]
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US surgeons are killing themselves at an alarming rate. One decided to speak out
"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 [Link]
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Oxford University is the world’s top university for a record eighth year
This presumably means that the Turf Tavern is the best student pub in the world. #Society [Link]