I'm determined to continue writing publicly, but haven't been able to find much to focus on and understand in relation to my path. Perhaps, this is thanks to the uncertainty of that path, especially in my professional life. That needs sorting, but I love writing so decided to save ten tabs that I found interesting or at least slightly worthwhile from my phone. I don't like reading on my phone, but when I do it allows me to be a very networked affair, inspired by what I'm doing elsewhere, which means there's both a little connectivity and diversity to my general activities without being too focused and specific on a narrative.
Hopefully people find the pieces herein interesting.
This was a really important read for me. I've known that some of the elements of this bill have been problematic, but never quite got my head round exactly what the key issues are. I appreciate these will be subjective, but over time the rhetoric of UK news has felt biased towards the idea that the "Online Safety Bill", intrinsically given a name to that belies it's coverage (no change there), is benevolent at it's heart and not at all leveraging public fear and misunderstanding with respect to technology to control information freedoms.
I really advise reading this, it's a bit old now but it's a great introduction and I will be reading far more from Article 19 in the future.
This was an interesting read, especially as (to me) it seemed like a very pointless and damaging journalistic piece, using lazily cherry-picked statistics (from an unknown source) and divisive assertions to express the opinion of the author. The ideas stated in the article that organic farming is trying to overtake the market, claiming health benefits (via the consumers) or working at the expense of other novel approaches to food production is assumptive, especially when the consumers are cited as the proponents of these messages. It seems to me to be an example of poor journalism, but on an interesting topic to consider: people are becoming ever more zealous in their discussion around food and this article highlights that from the way it's written.
I really like reading and writing, as well as food (organic or otherwise), but I lost respect for the arguments of the author with the tone of the language. That's a real shame, as the last paragraph was the best at bringing across a sensible message that we need sustainable and varied solutions for food production into the future. Organic farming offers insight into how things can be done better, in an accredited, responsible and controlled fashion: that's something that can be learnt from positively. I think it foolish to talk negatively about any industry that is trying to diversify and experiment for the benefit of us all.
This, especially now (since the subsequent release of ChatGPT) is a very poignant article that really does get to the heart of the issue with using Large Language Models (LLM), in this specific case for the generation of code. The fact that Microsoft developed the system based on its unprecedented access to open source code for the purposes of generating revenue flies in the face of their "commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation."
This is worth thinking about, as it's a blatant exploitation of the openness of the internet. Not one that is unprecedented so much as one that highlights how things aren't changing in this space as time presses on, despite our collective knowledge that a few big players are taking the piss.
This is an interesting piece to read. What's more interesting is how interoperability and federation are used as terms, they're extremely vague and generalisable. I recently stated in a meeting "federation has no discernable meaning alone, you need to state what you're federating." People love using these without clear context because it sounds really impressive if something is interoperable and federated. In the dire rhetoric-fest of Digital Twinning, these come up a lot.
This article is quite good at highlighting that interoperability is an important subject. Federation is mentioned too, hence my mentioning it. It describes how people are thinking at the legislative level how to ensure people are not trapped and beholden to individual providers. More importantly though, it shows how woolly and vague these terms can be, lacking in manifestation for readers. I like this article on many levels, and dislike it on many others. That's probably a good thing!
"Earthwatch has been using ‘citizen science’ – actively involving non-scientists in scientific research - long before that term was invented."
I like the concept of citizen science, but mainly saved this page as I thought that the quote above was hilarious. Does anybody else get the impression that this is the culmination of two children one upping each other in a conversation until the one-ups get so ridiculous, that it just ends in "whatever..."?
I really like maps and posters, and I like that someone has gone to the pain of making these. Also really nice to see both IPv4 and IPv6 (partially) represented!
Whilst watching a particularly involved documentary called "The US and the Holocaust", the experiences of both Edgar Ansel Mowrer and Dorothy Thompson came to my attention in one episode. The film is really insightful and extremely engaging, though understandably horrific. I implore people to watch it, but I think with my desire and fascination around journalism, I'll be following up on my studies regarding these two in particular.
I've saved this tab as I thought it was interesting. However, it highlights that no matter how much interest I might have in reading something, without a reason to read it I just don't find the time if it's on a phone. I've kept it, because it was the end result of a wikipedia bimble whilst watching the film above, and sounded like a very interesting theory to read up on.
I'm very interested in being able to monitor and model the house I live in, and in the UK getting data from your own electricity supply, which runs a Home Area Network HAN in your home without any transparency to the user, seems somewhat cheeky. Following some conversations I narrowed in on a potential source of data, which I will investigate in due course.
One final tab, that is a really useful tool for seeing where internet oppressions might be taking place. This is a real eye-opener and a tool I've no doubt useful for me and others. Hopefully, we in the UK won't find ourselves on this at any point, but I'm an outward looking person and it's a fantastically useful site to help highlight the oppression of information freedoms elsewhere. Definitely take a look.
Comments
Please do leave a comment. I'm moderating them manually for the moment and the Isso project I'm finding slightly experimental, but AMAZING nonetheless. I won't reset the comments database now though, so feedback will be valued!