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We’ve got a cross-post episode this week, with Mike’s recent appearance on the Computer Says Maybe podcast hosted by Alix Dunn. The discussion starts out looking at decentralization and Bluesky, then goes way beyond that into the early days of the internet and the concept of the Eternal September. You can listen to the whole conversation here on this week’s episode....
You can’t do mass deportation without being indiscriminate. That’s how things are working out in Trump’s second term in office, with ICE, etc. entirely abandoning any pretense of just trying to rid this country of dangerous criminals who are here in the country illegally.
Raiding Home Deport parking lots to round up people just looking for work isn’t enough for ICE and Kristi Noem’s DHS. It’s...
When you read about Adam Raine’s suicide and ChatGPT’s role in helping him plan his death, the immediate reaction is obvious and understandable: something must be done. OpenAI should be held responsible. This cannot happen again.
Those instincts are human and reasonable. The horrifying details in the NY Times and the family’s lawsuit paint a picture of a company that failed to protect a...
They say you should never stop learning, and with the Stone River eLearning and StackSkills Unlimited Bundle, you’ll never have to. With Stone River, you’ll get full access to 800+ courses and 4,800 hours of online learning, covering everything from iOS mobile development to graphic design. Plus, you’ll get a range of VIP perks, including unlimited eBooks, personal guidance on what to learn, and...
We’re all familiar with what grand juries should be able to do to the proverbial ham sandwich. But in Washington DC — the unwilling host of Donald Trump’s martial law test run — federal prosecutors can’t even get an indictment to stick the person throwing the sandwich.
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday were unable to persuade a grand jury to approve a felony indictment against a man who threw a...
The rushed integration of half-cooked automation into the already broken U.S. journalism industry simply isn’t going very well. There have been just countless examples where affluent media owners rushed to embrace automation and LLMs (usually to cut corners and undermine labor) with disastrous impact, resulting in lots of plagiarism, completely false headlines, and a giant, completely avoidable...
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is BernardoVerda passing along a quote about a specific speech issue that has (ridiculously) been put back up for discussion:
“I prefer a man who will burn the flag and then wrap himself in the Constitution to a man who will burn the Constitution and then wrap himself in the flag.”
Texas State Senator Craig Washington (D–Houston) on 6 July...
Five Years Ago
This week in 2020, the Secret Service joined the list of law enforcement agencies using data brokers to dodge warrant requirements for location data, much like the CPB was still doing via a broker being investigated by congress, while other agencies were throwing tax dollars at junk science — but at least the court in Massachusetts insisted that cops need warrants to engage in long...
When people use the term “Orwellian,” it’s not a good sign.
It usually characterizes an action, an individual or a society that is suppressing freedom, particularly the freedom of expression. It can also describe something perverted by tyrannical power.
It’s a term used primarily to describe the present, but whose implications inevitably connect to both the future and the past.
In his second term...
There’s a particular kind of person who cheers when the president deploys military forces against American cities over the objections of their elected leaders. They call themselves patriots. They wrap themselves in the flag while applauding the systematic demolition of everything that flag once represented. They claim to love America while celebrating the transformation of American governance...