Category: Social Media

Sunday Morning Reading

Social Media, AI, and exoskeletons are all in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading

It’s Sunday. It’s a morning. Time for some Sunday Morning Reading with a bit of history, some looking forward on social media, and as usual, a mix of reading on AI and politics. Around here it’s always free for your reading pleasure.

Speaking of free, some say The Best Things In Life are Free. Not always. At least according to Natasha MH.

Molly White has some more than interesting thoughts about social media and how we use it. Check out POSSE: Reclaiming Social Media In a Fragmented World. Also check out Dave Winer’s Making The Social Web Really Work for his thoughts on POSSE and this discussion.

On the AI front Mike Elgan takes on a New AI Trick: ‘Synthetic Human Memories.’ I’m not sure if we’ll measure that in gigabytes or what.

Continuing on the AI front, Karen Hao takes a look at Sam Altman’s consolidation of power as OpenAI (and others) keep making moves behind the scenes that I doubt any LLM will ever be able to summarize. Check out OpenAI Takes Its Mask Off.

While we’re talking the Internet behind the scenes, Emma Roth gives us an explainer on what’s happening at WordPress in The Messy WordPress Drama, Explained. Hint: It’s always about the money.

Politics and the coverage of it continues to ratchet up anxiety levels. Dan Fromkin wonders What If The Media Has The Election All Wrong? At this point I don’t think they or we would have anyway of knowing.

Peter Wehner walks us through The Republican Freak Show, listing out most of the freaks most are already familiar with. It’s a good summary of the lineup, but as the cliché goes, it’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Speaking of MAGAt freaks, it’s one thing to be given a presidential pardon. It’s another to keep on committing crimes. Check out Trump Gave Them a Second Chance. They Could Not Stay Out of Trouble by Kenneth Vogel and Susanne Craig.

Here’s a couple of interesting reads that provide some necessary historical context. First up Paul Rosenberg takes a look at Who Created “The Constitutional Sheriff” Myth. Hint: It’s Not in the Constitution. Also check out The Fire of The Grand Dragon by Phil McCombs. The piece dates back to 1991. It’s not dated or old. It should serve as a reminder that what we’re seeing out in the open these days has been smoldering under cover for as long as most people keep conveniently  forgetting.

Here’s one more for some history and context: Blake Lindsey and Taylor Malone take a look at The Wide Awakes: The 1860 Election Was Influenced By Young People Advocating Against Slavery. 

And to close this out this week, issues surrounding the Right to Repair are always stewing around, but they are not hot button these days. Unless you’re a Paralyzed Man Unable to Walk After Maker Of His Powered Exoskeleton Tells Him It’s Now Obsolete. Check out the piece by Frank Landymore.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

Sunday Morning Reading

The price of chocolate is through the roof and even ideas seem to be melting away in some fashion or the other in this Easter edition of Sunday Morning Reading. 

The price of chocolate is through the roof and even ideas seem to be melting away in some fashion or the other in this Easter edition of Sunday Morning Reading. 

Leading off this Easter Sunday morning it appears the price of cocoa is soaring leading to worry for chocolate makers and chocolate lovers. Aliina Selyukh covers it in Pricier Easter Bunnies and Eggs. Half-Dipped Kit Kats. What’s Up with Chocolate?

Much of this week’s news was dominated by the Baltimore maritime disaster at the Francis Scott Key Bridge. This is an fascinating take from Will Bunch: A Ship Crashed Into a Baltimore Bridge and Demolished the Lies About Immigration.

Less fascinating perhaps, but also timely,  A.W Ohlheiser says The Slow Death of Twitter Is Measured in Disasters Like the Baltimore Bridge Collapse.

David Todd McCarty tackles the power and the mystery of ideas in The Idea of Things.

Moving into the poltical world Marc O. De Girolami may be late to the party but he’s correct when he says Something Other Than Originalism Explains This Supreme Court.

Perhaps the most important political piece written this week comes from Chris Quinn, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Check out Our Tump Reporting Upsets Some Reades But There Aren’t Two Sides To Facts: Letter From the Editor. Better yet, forward it on to the editor, publishers, and programmers of your local media sources. 

Andres Marantz wonders Why We Can’t Stop Arguing About Whether Trump Is A Facist. It begs the question as to who is arguing this anymore, but it’s a good read. 

Will Knight takes a look Inside The Creation of the World’s Most Powerful Open Source AI Model. 

Meanwhile Erik Hoel says A.I.-Generated Garbage Is Polluting Our Culture. 

And to round out this week’s edition, Catherine Rampbell tells us The Internet Was Supposed To Make Humanity Smarter. It’s Failing. 

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

At The Mercy of The Backend

Part of the Information Super Highway traveled some rough road this morning. Meta experienced an outage in all of its services today that took down Facebook, Threads, Instagram, Messenger, and I imagine everything else in the Metaverse. A source told the Daily Mail that the company’s internal systems were also down. Boomshakalaka, another day on the Internet.

We’re somewhat accustomed to Internet outages. In much the same way we’re sadly becoming accustomed to extreme weather events. Some are caused by malicious hacks, some by incompetence, some by rodents chewing through cables. Internet connectivity has made so much of our current world more convenient and convenience always comes with a cost. It’s a cost that those who own the servers, the services, and the connections, sometimes don’t want to pay for, leaving users stranded at times. It’s apparently tough to value an ounce of prevention on the Internet.

We hear about these outages when big ones hit. That’s sensational news. But far too often there are “backend” issues that happen that we never hear about. Those are the ones that only affect “a small percentage of users” or companies that don’t command the public’s day in day out appetite for connectivity.

Intriguingly enough, those charged with communicating with users when problems do arise sometimes never hear about them either, or if they do are they are told not to talk about them. Again, nothing surprising.

The corporate PR pros may or may not issue lawyered up responses, but rarely do users get any nuts and bolts answers as to what went wrong. Vague apologies, promises to do better, free credit monitoring when user info is hacked, etc… We’ll’ hear the now-clichéd “small percentage of users” modifier trotted out whenever things get righted. It’s funny/not funny how we all just move on.

Earlier this morning I was chatting with some folks on Threads who were seeing issues with Apple’s Weather app not updating as designed on their Apple Watches. I casually replied that it was probably an issue with iCloud’s backend and how it was associated with the provider Apple uses to offer up weather info. These issues with Apple always seem to manifest as they are rolling out new operating system updates, so my guess is more than a guess. (Apple rolled out iOS updates today.)

I’ve been going round and round with Apple for almost two years now trying to solve what is apparent to me, after much effort and investigation, an iCloud related issue. It’s not just apparent to me, there are several other users experiencing the same issues I’m having, as well as other users with other iCloud related issues in similar but different veins.

When I talk to Apple Support (a regular occurrence) we’ve developed this coded, often unspoken, acknowledgment that the issues are iCloud related. But as I said in this post, Apple needs to allow its support personnel to acknowledge directly what the problems are. And in my case, and those of others, so far that continues to not happen.

(Side note for those who might read the links above or are familiar with the situation: I’ve discovered a workaround to sometimes get things back to normal thanks to Dwight Silverman. Signing out of Messages and then back in works about 8 times out of 10. Otherwise I just have to wait it out.)

The problem is bigger than a social media network going down, or a streaming service buffering out during the big game for lack of bandwidth. Those may be frustrating but in the grand scheme of things merely inconveniences. But the more connected our daily lives become to our banks, our medical institutions, our governments, etc… the more reliant we become on services being well run, well maintained, and frankly just available and working as advertised.

I think of it as I think of streets and roads. We’re reliant on them and need them well maintained. The big difference is we see the potholes and understand the inconvenience we’re about to experience when the construction barriers go up.

When Apple, Microsoft, or Google releases a software update, they are not just updating the bits and bytes on your device. Corresponding updates happen on the backend as well. When your favorite app updates the same thing occurs. If that app provides a service, whether it be a social network, streaming media, or checking your bank balance something’s cooking on the backend.

And that’s just the backend updates we’re at least peripherally aware of. Perhaps we need better signage on the Information Super Highway.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome

Sunday Morning Reading

It’s one of those winter Sunday mornings. Time to share a little Sunday Morning Reading while trying to get back into a different groove after returning home from a long gig and nursing a couple of bulging disks in my back. Today’s version is a wide mix of topics today mostly in the cultural realm. Enjoy.

First up, check out Scott-Ryan Abt’s The Euphoria of Quiet Time. Quiet time is something I’m trying to find more time for.

Controversial theatre director Milo Rau is coming to America. Helen Lewis takes a look at why he’s controversial in The Theater Director Who Likes to Go Too Far.

Family squabbles over money and legacies are never fun. Certainly when they invovle art collections. Check out Kelly Crow’s piece about the Neuman family in The $1 Billion Art Collection That’s Tearing a Family Apart.

Legendary record producer Max Norman says there’s no point in making “world class” records any longer because no one cares anymore. Check out The Phonecian’s article on Norman here.

It’s no secret what most of us think of as journalism is in as much trouble, if not more so, than anything else. Phillip Longman offers How Fighting Monopoly Can Save Journalism. It’s a long, detailed look at a troubling issue.

Speaking of journalism, Kirstin Butler tells us why Dorothy Thompson Is The Most Famous Female Journalist You’ve Never Heard Of.

Michelangelo Signorile discusses an issue that I wish was a larger part of our political discourse in Welfare States Declare War On Donor States. But They Have No Money. It’s ironic how those who decry socialism need it to survive.

David Todd McCarty says I Owe You Nothing. He’s right. Go read the piece and find out why.

And finally this week marked the release of The Apple Vision Pro. I posted some links to some great review coverage of the device and what it may or may not promise here. This one, Apple Vision Pro Review: The Infinite Desktop, from Brian Heater is also worth your time, regardless of which device you read your bits and bytes on.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Some Things We Just Know On The Merry-Go-Round We Call Life Today

On the merry-go-round of life some things we just know. Some things we just know but find that others want to pretend something different. Here are some things we just know.

Donald Trump is a criminal, a rapist, an insurrectionist, a scumbag, a loser, a lousy liar, and more beyond redemption than most of the evil people in recorded history. He’d love to top even that list. He wants to dismantle the US Constitution and any other aspect of governance as long as he can stay out of a prison jump suit that might clash with the color of his makeup while grifting his way to the grave.

The Republican Party is the largest collecton of cowards and liars ever gathered under the guise of a political party, afraid of any shadow with a hint of orange in it, and terrified of the ignorant constiutents they represent and claim to love. They deserve whatever comes from their cowardice and lying. The rest of us don’t.

Elon Musk is a drug-addled fool who just happens to control a few companies, somehow has a national security clearance, a hoard of wealth, and could care less about anything other than for whatever is in his brain at the moment. Or the next.

Too many American voters don’t know which way to turn because either fork in the road seems like a tortured path. Too many American voters need to pay better attention, because if they are not careful they’ll lose the ability to make choose how severe the torture is going forward.

Big Tech isn’t Big Tech anymore. Big tech, like most other human endeavors, is in the Big “Let’s Make All The Money We Can before the merry-go-round stops” game. The merry-go-round always stops.

Artificial Intelligence can be both a boon and a bust. It will be both. You don’t have to be intelligent or real  to see that coming. 

Social Media can be fun. Social Media can be harmful. In either case, only if you let it. 

Wars are destructive, foolish expressions of ego and and desire. Rules and Laws of War are silly made up sing-songs  to allow men to destroy each other and anyone in their way in service to those egos.

The Media is a mess of its own making in covering any of the above, and seems to enjoy swimming in its own slop with its mouth agape. Anyone in their right minds would have stopped the bleeding by now. Unless they just enjoy self-harm. But if it bleeds it leads. Even it’s draining the lifeblood out of you.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Happy Christmas Eve! Sitting here away from and missing home, waiting for the clock to run out on my COVID quarantine (so far a very mild case). Life hits. You take the punch. You move on. So moving on, here’s some Christmas Eve Sunday Morning Reading to share.

Kicking off with a couple of pieces from one of my favorite writers, David Todd McCarty. First up for those into the holiday gift giving thing he offers The Ol’ Bowling Ball Bag Gift. 

Following that with another holiday themed piece about how small moments with a family can turn into life long touchstones in We’re All Tired, Dear.

Keeping in the holiday vein, Megan Angelo gives us My Selfish Christmas Tradition—And How You Can Do It Too.

Christmas is a time for new smartphones. NatashaMH takes on what happens if you lose your new precious in A Slave to The Machine.

Stepping away from the holidays for a bit, David Pierce has an excellent piece on The Fediverse entitled 2023 in Social Media: The Case for the Fediverse.

And just to keep things real amidst the holiday hoopla, Rogé Karma takes on Private Equity, one of the several unseen dangers lurking in our midst in The Secretive Industry Devouring the U.S. Economy. 

To close out back to the holidays spotllighting an Icelandic folk tale of Jólakötturinn, The Yule Cat that eats children who don’t wear the new clothes they received on Christmas. Guess you better don those new socks tomorrow morning.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Some culture, some politics, some tech, and some fun to share in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. There’s also a bit of Picasso tossed into the mix. I’m in Memphis starting rehearsals for The Lehman Trilogy at Playhouse on the Square so life’s rhythms are a bit fractured currently, but life’s slower on the Mississippi.

Kicking it off, David Todd McCarty in We Could Be Heroes asks what do we do when mystery no longer sustains us after we’ve moved past enlightenment? I’m thinking the answer is either drink more or drink less. Pick your poison. Also check out his weekday daily columns here.

Susan B. Glaser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos explain How The American Right Came to Love Putin. My $.02? It’s simple. It’s not about Left and Right in the traditional sense. It’s about take what you can because the good guys have proven they can’t really stop you.

Ray Naler in Time Magazine has an excellent piece on Artificial Intelligence called AI and The Rise of Mediocrity. We’ve been rising/sinking to that level for awhile now. The pace is quickening.

Speaking of quickening, what was Twitter continues to quickly plunge into past tense. The Verge has an excellent and fun piece called Elon Musk Killed Twitter from a team of writers.

More and more journalism these days seems to be telling us what we already suspected, already surmised, or already knew. Jodi Kantor and Adam Lipton fill in a few blanks on how the disaster that was the Roe v Wade decision came down in Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe v Wade.

Jason Snell makes a case for Apple to develop its own clipboard manger for macOS. He’s right.

NatashaMH in The Madness of Pablo takes a walk into the wildside with Pablo Picasso.

Continuing on the art beat to wrap things up this week, have you ever asked What’s With Those Hilarious Medieval Portrayals of Animals? Well Elaine Velie did and wrote all about it.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. 

Sunday Morning Reading

It’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and also the Sunday after Black Friday which seems to have been going on since the 4th of July. To help you recover from the hustle and bustle, both behind and ahead, here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share. There’s not a deal to be had. Just some interesting reads and good thinking.

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Kicking it off David Todd McCarty wonders just What Are We All Really Thankful For? There are times when my response would be “You got me.”

Chauncey Devega strings together a list of comments from a few pundits as they headed into Thanksgiving on the dangers they see ahead culturally and politically in Democracy’s Last Thanksgiving: Experts Imagine America in a Year if Trump Wins The 2024 Election.

Denny Henke (BeardyStarStuff) tackles the deepening political and social crisis we’re facing in this post with the looming threat of losing Democracy as we think we’ve come to know it. Here’s a quote: “It has been eroded to a thin veneer with little substance because the substance of democracy is the people. And the majority of people of the US stopped caring decades ago.” 

State of play? State of Mind? With 2023 heading to a close that means 2024 beckons and so too does another presidential election in the US. But this one seems a bit, well, let’s just call it divisive. There’s certainly tumult ahead. Some are picking up and moving to safer places. Do those exist? Timothy Noah takes a look at The Red State Brain Drain Isn’t Coming. It’s Happening Right Now. 

The bigger they are the harder they fall. But these days it just means they’re landing in a cushion of money. Douglass Rushkoff takes a look at the move fast and break things bunch in ‘We will coup whoever we want!’; The Unbearable Hubris of Musk and the Billiionaire Tech Bros. 

Speaking of broken things, what’s going on in the world of Artificial Intelligence after last week’s craziness with OpenAI and Sam Altman? No AI engine could possibly figure it out, much less a human. But Christopher Mims seems to think that ‘Acclerationists’ Come Out Ahead with Sam Altman’s Return to OpenAI. 

Apple doesn’t like to admit mistakes and makes us live with some of them far too long. *Cough* *iCloud* *Cough*. Jason Snell lays out A History of Apple’s Mistakes and Failures—and How It Hates To Fix Them.

And from the world of entertainment John Carreyrou takes a look at another episode of not admitting costly mistakes in The Strange $55 Million Saga Of A Netflix Saga You’ll Never See.

Just for fun, here’s another entertainment industry piece, Caity Weaver takes a look at the career of Flo. You know Flo. She sells insurance. But do you know the actress who plays her? Check out Everybody Knows Flo From Progressive. Who is Stephanie Courtney?

And since you’ve read all of this on some screen or the other, take a look at this piece from Scott-Ryan Abt as he wonders What Happened to the Man on the Train? Here’s quote: “Maybe there was a time when people didn’t stare at their screens, but those days are forgotten. Maybe there was a time when you’d have a shared human experience on a train, at an airport, at a coffee shop, or on the street. Screens have changed that.”

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. 

Thermonuclear It Ain’t. But Musk’s Lawsuit is More Than a Sneak Preview of What’s to Come

Another failed launch. Elon Musk continues mucking up all things that used to be Twitter and most anything else he casts his gaze on. After ripping off his thinly veiled disguise as a free speech advocate, he’s now enlisting fellow right wing crazies in his “thermonuclear” legal response to advertisers suspending or pausing their ad spends on the cesspit that remains of what Twitter once was before he X’d it into a bad SNL parody.

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Thermonuclear it ain’t. As TechCrunch writer Devin Coldewey points out the defmation lawsuit actually confirms that the legal filing actually turns in on itself and reveals the behavior it is supposedly being defamed for. It would be entertaining if not for the fact that it reveals exactly where we’re headed politically.

Texas’ criminal-in-chief, Attorney General Ken Paxton, is once again leading the charge. You might remember him for his many legal screwups, cheating on his wife, trying to declare elections in other states as illegal, and how he managed to recently avoid impeachment. But he’s just a player with plays to make if Donald Trump somehow manages to get re-elected. Paxton proves that those like him, Trump, and Musk can’t wait to use whatever mechanisms of government they don’t dismantle to screw the rest of us over.

This is supposedly a battle over Free Speech. But that’s bullshit. “Free Speech” has become the new shield to wield supplanting “States Rights” and “Religious Freedom” to bash stupefied opponents into inaction. These folks are going to use the laws they like as blunt instruments because they don’t need sharp-edged weapons or the precision they require.

We’ve been warned. We aren’t paying attention.

Sunday Morning Reading

Chili was on the menu last night and it’s a chlly Autumn Sunday morning. So it’s time to share some Sunday Morning Reading featuring a little poetry, some politics, some not so intelligent moves in the Artificial Intelligence world (is it a world?) and just some damn good writing worth your time.

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Let’s start with the poetry. One of my favorite new writing discoveries is NatashaMH on Medium. She popped out a piece of poetry, Pereginations, the other day on Ellemeno and this morning she’s got a terrific piece called The Day I Learned Poetry. Good stuff. Good times. Good fun. Nothing artifcial about the intelligence happening there.

Speaking of AI, it was and still is quite a weekend on that front. OpenAI’s board surprisingly fired poster boy CEO Sam Altman, now he may come back after lots of hueing and crying.  Or he may not. Who knows. Om Malik has a great piece called Foundational Risks of OpenAI looking at the story but rightly hitting the bullseye that this is more than about corporate chaos and investment returns. I’m not sure AI, or its champions, is built for looking back with a long view.

Our politics here in the U.S is still a mess with no foreseable correction in the cards. Dan Balz, Clara Ence Morse and Nick Mourtoupalas take a look at some of the foundational biases in the U.S. Senate that, in my belief, need to change before any next card can be revealed. Check out The Hidden Biases at Play in the U.S. Senate.

Sometimes an outside view is needed for perspective. In this case not so much. Even so, The Economist weighing in with Donald Trump Poses The Biggest Danger to the World in 2024 offers good context in its global round up.

Like it or not, much of our life on the Internet is changing. Social Media is a crazy free-for-all and so is the world of entertainment. In How Social Media Is Turning Into Old-Fashioned Broadcast Media, Christopher Mims takes a look at the stew that’s stewing.

And where would we be without critics? Probably better off, but that’s not necessarily the point of Siskel, Ebert, and the Secret of Criticism by Richard Brody. Here’s a quote:

Criticism is a fraught profession because it’s parasitical. It depends on the work of artists, without which criticism couldn’t exist. A critic who acknowledges and accepts the fact of this dependence is trying to salvage the dignity of the activity; critics who don’t are just trying to salvage their own dignity.

David Todd McCarty is starting a daily column entitled A Bit Dodgy. I recommend subscribing, following, but most of all reading. I’m sure it will be quite a ride.

And in case you’re wondering, worried, or concerned about all of the insanity happening in the world that makes it feel like we’re approaching the End Times, Jeannie Ortega Law tells us that Left Behind author, Jerry Jenkins thinks that all of those End Times prophecies have been fulfilled. So check that off your list.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.