- Behind the One-Way Mirror: A Deep Dive Into the Technology of Corporate Surveillance The EFF’s analysis of third-party tracking.
- Big Tech’s Big Defector Interesting New Yorker profile of Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor who has seen the light — and written a book to prove it.
- Capitalism needs the nation state more than the state needs it. Terrific essay by a great economist, Dani Rodrik. Should be required reading in Silicon Valley. And by tech elites everywhere.
- Mike Bloomberg has just made Trump look reasonable Scathing column by Jack Shafer about the conflicts of interest implicit in a media mogul running for president.
Category Archives: Links
Linkblog
- Slow-Reading is the New Deep Learning If you want to understand (and retain) something, read slowly.
- China is researching methods of linking DNA to facial recognition Remarkable reporting ny the New York Times. Basically, it’s DNA phenotyping. “The Chinese government is building “essentially technologies used for hunting people,” said Mark Munsterhjelm, an assistant professor at the University of Windsor in Ontario who tracks Chinese interest in the technology.
- Bestiality, Stabbings, and Child Porn: Why Facebook Moderators Are Suing the Company for Trauma The human costs of making Zuckerberg even richer and keeping the rest of us complacent about social media.
Linkblog
- 52 things I learned in 2019 Fascinating: by Tom Whitwell.
- ‘Distracted walking’: Should it be made illegal? Yes! Smombies are a danger to themselves and others.
- The Internet Archive Is Making Wikipedia More Reliable Wow! Thanks to a new initiative by the Internet Archive, you can click the name of a cited book and see a two-page preview of the work, so long as the citation specifies a page number. You can also borrow a digital copy of the book, so long as no else has checked it out, for two weeks—much the same way you’d borrow a book from your local library. Wikipedia was one of the great ideas of the 20th century. So was the Internet Archive. Now they’re joining forces. Which is why I donate regularly to support Wikipedia. You?
Linkblog
- All new cell phone users in China must now have their face scanned How long before the UK governments says: “that’s a cool idea”?
- Dilbert’s creator has two rules for a more civilised Internet Scott Adams on learning from his experience.
- Why clean energy isn’t enough to tackle climate change Sure, we need to switch to renewables and electric cars etc. But first we have to reduce our use of fossil fuels. And that’s the really hard bit.
- How Memes Got Weaponized: A Short History Memes might start as a joke, but some people are starting to see them as the serious threat they can be. Sobering tale.
Linkblog
- The TLS’s Books of the Year Predictably cosmopolitan, often abstruse and quirky. Lots of serious books I should read but probably won’t. Sigh.
- Go Master Lee Sedol says he quits because he’s unable to defeat AI Go machines Sensible chap.
- What is a “narrative violation”? No, I didn’t know eIther. Turns out, it’s just a way to challenge conventional wisdom. But apparently it is the obsession du jour in Silicon Valley at the moment. It’s the kind of thing that gives superficiality a bad name.
- Why you shouldn’t spend too much time thinking about 5G Horse sense from Benedict Evans.
Linkblog
- Guardian’s obituary of Clive James
- Serious noticing Tim Adams’s review of James Woods’s collection of essays Lovely review. I particularly liked this bit: “In the opening essay, Wood contrasts the two famous recordings of the Goldberg Variations made by Glenn Gould, one aged 22, the other three decades later; the first is “cocky, exuberant, optimistic”, the second “reflective, seasoned, wintry”. Wood’s mature ear prefers the latter, but part of him always “wants to be the first!” He doesn’t make the connection with his own work, but reading these essays, written over more than two decades, the comparison seems apt in some ways.
- Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against. The growing threat of abrupt and irreversible climate changes must compel political and economic action on emissions. Yeah, but will it? You know the answer.
Linkblog
- Meet the Leftish Economist With a New Story About Capitalism New York Times profile of Mariana Mazzucato. Don’t you love the term “leftish”?
- What happens to your Bitcoin when you die? There’s an insurance outfit that has you (and your legatees) covered. Isn’t capitalism wonderful? Full disclosure: I don’t have any cryptocurrency assets, so this is purely theoretical for me.
- Seeing Like a Finite State Machine Terrific challenge by Henry Farrell to the conventional Western wisdom about China and AI. The Comments thread that accompanies it is also interesting and thoughtful.
Linkblog
- The Second Wave of Algorithmic Accountability Frank Pasquale thinking ahead, as usual.
- Building a More Honest Internet Ethan Zuckerman on what would social media look like if it served the public interest.
- The Possible Minds Conference Conversations between an extraordinary range of thinkers.
- The day before JFK was assassinated What America was like then.
Linkblog
- The Seductive Diversion of ‘Solving’ Bias in Artificial Intelligence Terrific article by Julia Powles and Helen Nissenbaum.
- Uber loses its London licence Aw shucks.
- Free eBook: Neural Networks and Deep Learning Clever and innovative teaching text by Michael Nielsen. If you find it useful donate £5.
- Robot debates humans about the dangers of artificial intelligence In the Cambridge Union, so perhaps not an entirely serious forum.
Linkblog
- Date with IKEA Drew Austin’s reflections on store design.
- Five Ways Entrepreneurs Misunderstand VCs That’s Venture Capitalists, by the way, not holders of the Victoria Cross.
- What should newsrooms do about deepfakes? These three things, for starters Rather interesting deepfake at the head of the article, though.
- Here’s a better way to convert dog years to human years, scientists say It’s not the old simple rule-of-thumb of seven to one, apparently. Maths warning: Logarithms are involved.