Werd I/O

And it will just keep coming. #Climate

[Link]

The impact of legislation like GDPR goes far beyond their jurisdictions, because it's hard to segment a data architecture for just some users. This ruling that Meta must provide its service to users who do not consent to tracking and processing of their personal data is potentially seismic. #Technology

[Link]

I think this is a legal challenge waiting to happen. While people who publish publicly online have a reasonable expectation that anyone can read their content, they don't have a similar expectation about content being modeled and analyzed. There's no de facto license to do this. #AI

[Link]

A lovely conversation with my friend Roxann Stafford, who has inspired and taught me so much. #Work

[Link]

If you own your relationships with your community, you'll never be locked into any platform. Start a blog, start a mailing list - get out of the algorithmic content game. This is even more important if you make a living from your work. Parker is right on the money here. #Media

[Link]

Plenty of people argue that the climate crisis is overblown. I think they're wrong. If anything, we need to be screaming about this more - and, I agree, calling out the deniers and green-washers. Billions of people will starve. Entire nations will become uninhabitable. It's not some kind of conspiracy; it's a call to action. #Climate

[Link]

So much of gender essentialism is self-feeding: the idea that men are born to be aggressive hunters was conducted by men who made assumptions based on contemporary societal sexism. Of course women hunted. Of course grandmothers hunted. There's so much value in re-examining the prejudiced assumptions of the past. #Society

[Link]

This seems like what a part of the future looks like: the island of Eigg has its own power, generated by renewable energy. Members of the community are trained and paid to maintain it. A power grid is not a bad thing for resiliency (see Texas), but I can imagine a world where community sources are federated, rather than run through a central power company. #Climate

[Link]

I love this kind of short story: small, personal, revelatory. I wish I could write like this. #Culture

[Link]

““Language skill indicates intelligence,” and its logical inverse, “lack of language skill indicates non-intelligence,” is a common heuristic with a long history. It is also a terrible one, inaccurate in a way that ruinously injures disabled people. Now, with recent advances in computing technology, we’re watching this heuristic fail in ways that will harm almost everyone.” #AI

[Link]

“King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands apologized Saturday for his country’s role in slavery and asked for forgiveness during a historic speech greeted by cheers and whoops at an event to commemorate the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Dutch colonies.” Now do Zwarte Piet. #Society

[Link]

“In general though, I think we should tread lightly.” This piece captures my opinion on the subject well. #Media

[Link]

““Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion.” A reprehensible decision. #Democracy

[Link]

“For a while, the internet got away from what Google Reader was trying to build: everything moved into walled gardens and algorithmic feeds, governed by Facebook and Twitter and TikTok and others. But now, as that era ends and a new moment on the web is starting to take hold through Mastodon, Bluesky, and others, the things Reader wanted to be are beginning to come back.” #Technology

[Link]

“The Supreme Court wants a version of the United States in which we ignore people’s life history, what they bring to the table in terms of their ability to go back to their communities and improve those communities, what it means to have differing voices and different backgrounds on campus. It is a true step back for our country.” #Democracy

[Link]

“To assess the effectiveness of current A.I.-detection technology, The New York Times tested five new services using more than 100 synthetic images and real photos. The results show that the services are advancing rapidly, but at times fall short.” #AI

[Link]

The silliest thing you’ll see today. #Music

[Link]

“With the Drupal Open Web Manifesto, we link our ethos of collaboration, globalism, and innovation to the preservation and advancement of the Open Web. Drupal pledges its active support for the Open Web and its core principles of open access, open standards, and digital inclusion as we guide and advance the Drupal project.” #Technology

[Link]

“GOP Senator Markwayne Mullin challenged Teamsters president Sean O’Brien to an MMA fight on Monday after O’Brien called him a “greedy CEO” and a “clown & fraud” in a tweet last week.” In other news, Brawndo has what plants crave! #Democracy

[Link]

“More than 100 U.S. leaders – lawmakers, presidents, governors and justices – have slaveholding ancestors, a Reuters examination found. Few are willing to talk about their ties to America's “original sin”.” #Society

[Link]

“It’s not surprising the WSJ is disinclined to entertain the real lesson of the story: that confident idiots who think regulation is for cowards can end up getting themselves killed, and taking innocent people with them.” #Society

[Link]

“The law, which passed in December, requires that employers provide accommodations for pregnancy-related medical conditions, everything from pregnancy to childbirth to postpartum recovery.” #Labor

[Link]

“AI-generated misinformation is insidious because it’s often invisible. It’s fluent but not grounded in real-world experience, and so it takes time and expertise to unpick. If machine-generated content supplants human authorship, it would be hard — impossible, even — to fully map the damage.” #AI

[Link]

This made me wonder: what if DoorDash, GrubHub, etc, added a checkbox to throw in a copy of the latest local paper with your delivery? Or imagine a breakfast subscription: bagels and a paper, every morning. #Media

[Link]

“Over 100 artists including Rage Against the Machine co-founders Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha, along with Boots Riley and Speedy Ortiz, have announced that they are boycotting any concert venue that uses facial recognition technology, citing concerns that the tech infringes on privacy and increases discrimination.” #Technology

[Link]