Mirjam

Mirjam

@mirjam.bsky.social

174

Posts

Journalist, researcher | tech, data, privacy, finance | parttime cyclist | sometimes internet historian | side-eyeing hypes.

Bluesky private netizen. Likes are bookmarks

I mix Dutch and English.

Posts Replies Media

I am not sure there is any kind of self-torture as uniquely torturous as writing. It does have an ability to make me happy, but that's mostly the type of elation that's the result of an icebath.

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The furries remain undefeated

Important. Also, the way people use and experience social media can be so different per language and region, for so many reasons. To keep looking at it and judging from a single perspective makes no sense.

I know a lot of white Americans keep calling Twitter the Nazi bar and lament people still on the app, but Twitter has been integral to the current Kenyan protests. the individualist approach of leaving and judging everyone who remains doesn't do anything.

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I wrote about how Wikipedia has evolved into one of the more reliable sources on an internet awash with junk, AI-generated sludge, and toxic lies. www.forkingpaths.co/p/in-a-sea-o...

In a sea of disinformation, why is Wikipedia so accurate?www.forkingpaths.co Wikipedia was once an unreliable source, used as a tool for advancing biased agendas. Today, it's extraordinarily accurate, a modern wonder in a world defined by disinformation. How did that happen?

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This is really good. Rebecca Solnit. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Why is the pundit class so desperate to push Biden out of the race? | Rebecca Solnitwww.theguardian.com Yes, Biden had a bad debate – but so did Trump. The media is once again repeating the mistakes of 2016

For anyone who wants an easy entry into the galleries of AI generated insanity at Facebook (which may not yet have escaped containment from the English-speaking world?): Search "why don't pictures like this ever trend" (quotes optional). But a simple "shrimp jesus" works too, of course.

Sometimes I think people underestimate how different the web can be for people whose language *doesn't scale*. In a relatively tiny language, it's all different. Changing media, opportunities. How it influences subjects. Platforms, moderation. I think a lot about scale.

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This Week in AI: With Chevron’s demise, AI regulation seems dead in the water

This Week in AI: With Chevron’s demise, AI regulation seems dead in the watertcrn.ch Hiya, folks, and welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. This week in AI, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down “Chevron deference,” a 40-year-old ruling on federal agencies’ power that required courts to defer to agencies’ interpretations of…

When writing a piece feels like being stuck on a road consisting of an endless string of roundabouts with signs that only point toward the next one or another, and you don't have a map.

Kort ritje vandaag

Tour 2024: Renners finishen vandaag na een bocht op 300 meter van de streep

Tour 2024: Renners finishen vandaag na een bocht op 300 meter van de streepwww.wielerflits.nl De vijfde etappe van de Tour de France zal eindigen met een nieuwe clash tussen de rappe mannen, zo is de verwachting. De sprinters kunnen zich opmaken voor een snelle finale en een toch wel gevaarlijke laatste kilometer. Op 300 meter van de streep volgt er namelijk een laatste bocht.De Belg

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Discriminerende algoritmes groot probleem bij instanties, waarschuwt waakhond - nos.nl/l/2527103

Discriminerende algoritmes groot probleem bij instanties, waarschuwt waakhondnos.nl De directeur van de Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens vindt dat er veel meer aandacht voor het probleem, en de oplossingen, moet komen.

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It's hard to explain how widespread the repercussions of overturning Chevron deference will be. Even if you narrow the scope down to tech policy, you're left wrangling a super-explainer on a friday afternoon www.theverge.com/24188365/che...

What SCOTUS just did to net neutrality, the right to repair, the environment, and morewww.theverge.com The end of Chevron deference will touch on everything from broadband policy to climate change.

Search Engine, exploring Berghain and so much more What a fantastic story/miniseries this is shaping up to be. audio.nrc.nl/episode/9976...

Why didn’t Chris and Dan get into Berghain? (Part 2) / Search Engine - NRC audioaudio.nrc.nl We travel to Germany to trace techno's history from Detroit to Berlin. The story of how, after the Wall fell, Berlin exorcised its...

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another day, another "welp" my latest @ WIRED: "Surprise! The Latest 'Comprehensive' US Privacy Bill Is Doomed" www.wired.com/story/apra-p...

Zo. Dat is in een klap een flink stuk geschiedenis door het putje. Oude afleveringen zijn ook niet te vinden achter de nieuwe paywall.

2002: "Careful, kids, the Internet is forever!" 2024: "Oh, hey, all the work you did for a decade of your life was just deleted from the Internet for Business Reasons." latenighter.com/news/paramou...

Paramount Axes Comedy Central Site, 25+ Years of Daily Show Clips Gonelatenighter.com One of the richest repositories of late-night videos—including 25 years of clips from 'The Daily Show' and the entire run of 'The Colbert Report'—is no longer.

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We spent $365 to build an AI news site that publishes 50 times a day, plagiarizes directly from our original reporting, uses services like Fiverr and popular WordPress plugins, is SEO optimized for Google and Adsense & breaks the rules of none of them www.404media.co/i-paid-365-6...

I Paid $365.63 to Replace 404 Media With AIwww.404media.co Paying a freelancer on Fiverr to create a plagiarizing ChatGPT-powered news site revealed an industry of middlemen and services trying to game Google Search.

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BIG BOAT STUCK everyone gets the rest of the day off, that's the rules

The Cambridgeshire branch of the Ever Given Reenactment Society is at it again.

Cargo ship has grounded in the River Nene, Cambridgeshirewww.bbc.co.uk

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The Cambridgeshire branch of the Ever Given Reenactment Society is at it again.

Cargo ship has grounded in the River Nene, Cambridgeshirewww.bbc.co.uk

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New from 404 Media, something we've been thinking about for a while: has Facebook just given up? The site is overrun with AI and scams, and the experts who used to help with content moderation there tell us Facebook has stopped asking them for help www.404media.co/has-facebook...

Has Facebook Stopped Trying?www.404media.co Facebook has been overrun with AI spam and scams. Experts say Facebook has stopped asking them for help.

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NEW: The inevitable happened www.wired.com/story/perple...

Perplexity Plagiarized Our Story About How Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machinewww.wired.com Experts aren’t unanimous about whether the AI-powered search startup’s practices could expose it to legal claims ranging from infringement to defamation—but some say plaintiffs would have strong cases...

Longform rekindled my love of storytelling, of media. Its many guests helped inspire the ventures I went on since I discovered it (which was years into its run). Many thanks and well-wishes to the hosts. Though I'm sad to see it go, it's been great.

The 'Longform' podcast told the story of an industry: defector.com/the-longform...

The 'Longform' Podcast Told The Story Of An Industry | Defectordefector.com Wednesday morning, I saw a tweet from the Longform podcast: Jay Caspian Kang, a staff writer at The New Yorker, was the guest on for their 583rd episode. I perked up. Kang was one of the founding edit...

Na meer dan een jaar losse oordopjes te hebben gebruikt weet ik het zeker: Losse oordopjes zijn een valstrik. Losse oordopjes zijn nergens anders goed voor dan de verkoop van meer losse oordopjes.

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Butt teeth! Butt teeth! Butt teeth!

hermit crabs line up biggest to smallest and swap shells when they need to look for new homes youtu.be/zpjklLt1qWk?...

Hermit Crabs LINE UP To Swap Shells! | Life Story | BBC Earth Kidsyoutu.be These clever hermit crabs have organised themselves so they can all swap shells! Hermit crabs often live together in large groups of over 100, giving them plenty of chances to swap shells with each other as they grow. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/BBCEarthKidsSub #LifeStory #AmazingCrabShellExchange #BBCEarthKids Life Story A natural history landmark different to all that has gone before, with an intimate new experiential approach and distinct visual style. Critically it will be structured as a serial, not a series. For the first time we will follow a cast of star animal characters from episode to episode as they struggle to overcome the fundamental challenges of life. The result: the most complete picture ever of the epic fight to survive - from birth to death. Welcome to BBC Earth Kids, combining fun facts, amazing creatures, your favourite faces and a whole load of cool stuff about our planet. Be prepared to squeal and squirm as creepy crawlies frolic over some famous faces, discover all the best tips, tricks and hacks to help you draw incredible animals, and poke your nose into every part of life with a pampered pet pal. Not to mention bringing you the best clips from the BBC’s natural history programmes, chosen specially for our most curious explorers. This is a commercial channel from BBC Studios.

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Butt teeth! Butt teeth! Butt teeth!

In the 880s, Alfred The Great launched a literacy campaign. He brought in clerics and scribes to teach English. This was a huge change in politics, and needed a lot of diplomacy. It's not an exaggeration to say he saved the English language.

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Het Nederlands Kampioenschap voor vrouwen is het sterkst bezette nationaal kampioenschap ter wereld

Het Nederlands Kampioenschap voor vrouwen is het sterkst bezette nationaal kampioenschap ter wereldwww.wielerflits.nl Een klein wereldkampioenschap, zo wordt het Nederlands Kampioenschap wielrennen bij de vrouwen ook wel genoemd. Niet zo gek ook, als je kijkt over hoeveel wereldtoppers Nederland beschikt. En hoewel er zeker nobele onbekenden op de erelijst staan, is het aantal grote kampioenen op het palmares niet

Talked about this with a friend and checked some notes I made a long time ago. Sure, it was not quite that simple. The underlying disagreements were about perceived bureaucracy, gatekeeping and... moderation. Yep. As well as fights about names.

The alt.* hierarchy that made Usenet the force it became, was the direct result of a fight between members of the so-called 'backbone cabal' over the name of a newsgroup about food recipes. Instead of the admittedly bland 'rec.food', the creator christened the group 'alt.gourmand'.

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Not one person has been able to satisfactorily explain to me why Microsoft is trying to cobble-together an AI search function WHEN THE BASIC SEARCH FUNCTION OF WINDOWS DOESN'T FUCKING WORK HALF THE TIME. IT'S BEEN THAT WAY FOR MORE THAN TEN YEARS. THEY NEVER CONSIDERED FIXING IT A PRIORITY.

The alt.* hierarchy that made Usenet the force it became, was the direct result of a fight between members of the so-called 'backbone cabal' over the name of a newsgroup about food recipes. Instead of the admittedly bland 'rec.food', the creator christened the group 'alt.gourmand'.

ok i have another quote tweet prompt. what's something, big or small, related to your job or hobby, that most people don't know that you would like to have them know? it can be a concept, a piece of history, some vocabulary, or something else.

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Thousands of UK travelers had their faces scanned by Amazon software. “The image recognition system was used to predict travelers’ age, gender, and potential emotions—with the suggestion that the data could be used in advertising systems in the future.”

Amazon-Powered AI Cameras Used to Detect Emotions of Unwitting UK Train Passengerswww.wired.com CCTV cameras and AI are being combined to monitor crowds, detect bike thefts, and spot trespassers.

Imagined quote: 'Though yes, admittedly, the widgets on the homescreen of my phone can do this too.'

Perplexity now displays results for temperature, currency conversion and simple math, so you don’t have to use Google

Perplexity now displays results for temperature, currency conversion and simple math, so you don’t have to use Googletcrn.ch Perplexity could already fetch this data from the web and display results in a descriptive way, but the company is adding some visual flair to these results to make them more prominent and quick. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use…