benwerd 1 year ago

The $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen

Ben Werdmuller

The $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen

[Tim Stevens at The Verge] It's rare these days that I see a new product and think, this is really cool, but seriously, this is really cool: "Mee...

benwerd 1 year ago

Trump ‘Alarmists’ Were Right. We Should Say So.

Ben Werdmuller

Trump ‘Alarmists’ Were Right. We Should Say So.

[Toby Buckle at LiberalCurrents] This resonates for me too. About the Tea Party, the direction the Republican Party took during the Obama adminis...

benwerd 1 year ago

Grumpy morning thoughts

Ben Werdmuller

Grumpy morning thoughts

I earn 5-10X what I did when I lived in the UK, but my quality of life is markedly worse. My whole thing boils down

benwerd 1 year ago

Building our "native-AI newsroom"

Ben Werdmuller

Building our "native-AI newsroom"

[Henry Blodget] Henry Blodget, former co-founder of Business Insider, has started a new, "AI-native" newsroom. It's not, in my opinion, a positive...

benwerd 1 year ago

‘The goal of a protest song is to make people feel strong and alive’: Ani DiFranco on Broadway, Fugazi and 30 years of activism

Ben Werdmuller

‘The goal of a protest song is to make people feel strong and alive’: Ani DiFranco on Broadway, Fugazi and 30 years of activism

[Ani DiFranco interviewed by Kate Hutchinson in The Guardian] Ani DiFranco, the artist I've seen live more than any other, answered my question as...

benwerd 1 year ago

DOGE Is Building a Master Database to Surveil and Track Immigrants

Ben Werdmuller

DOGE Is Building a Master Database to Surveil and Track Immigrants

[Makena Kelly and Vittoria Elliott at WIRED] The Holocaust was organized on IBM punch cards. Hitler gave the head of IBM, Watson, a medal for his ...

benwerd 1 year ago

If I ran Mastodon

Ben Werdmuller

If I ran Mastodon

A community platform for a vibrant, diverse social web.

benwerd 1 year ago

Trump Halts Data Collection on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change, More

Ben Werdmuller

Trump Halts Data Collection on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change, More

[Alec MacGillis at ProPublica] The statistics that help us navigate our world are under thread: "Every year, year after year, workers in agencies...

benwerd 1 year ago

Creator economy businesses - a correction

Ben Werdmuller

Creator economy businesses - a correction

I realized I misspoke in today’s piece about Bluesky product strategy. In it, I said this:I’m generally not bullish about creator econo...

benwerd 1 year ago

If I ran Bluesky Product

Ben Werdmuller

If I ran Bluesky Product

What Musk is branding, Bluesky may build.

benwerd 1 year ago

Where we're at

Ben Werdmuller

Where we're at

A quick aside:I now believe it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better (if it gets better). I’m not going to enumerate

benwerd 1 year ago

Yes to a diverse community.

Ben Werdmuller

Yes to a diverse community.

[Tony Stubblebine on The Medium Blog] In the midst of some challenging cultural times, Tony Stubblebine and Medium are doing the right thing: "Ov...

benwerd 1 year ago

Integrating a News Publication Into the Fediverse

Ben Werdmuller

Integrating a News Publication Into the Fediverse

[Sean Tilley] Sean has been integrating We Distribute with the fediverse for years. It's been hard - particularly at the beginning, which is the p...

benwerd 1 year ago

CaMeL offers a promising new direction for mitigating prompt injection attacks

Ben Werdmuller

CaMeL offers a promising new direction for mitigating prompt injection attacks

[Simon Willison] Prompt injection attacks have been one of the bugbears for modern AI models: it's an unsolved problem that has meant that it can ...

benwerd 1 year ago

EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying fears

Ben Werdmuller

EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying fears

[Andy Bounds in the Financial Times] The last few months have radically changed the risk assessment for people traveling to the US from abroad - a...

benwerd 1 year ago

Notes from Perugia: journalism, values, and building the web we need

Ben Werdmuller

Notes from Perugia: journalism, values, and building the web we need

We can own the platforms that support us

benwerd 1 year ago

The Social Security Administration Is Gutting Regional Staff and Shifting All Public Communications to X

Ben Werdmuller

The Social Security Administration Is Gutting Regional Staff and Shifting All Public Communications to X

[Zoë Schiffer at WIRED] The Social Security Administration is changing its communications strategy in a surprising way: ““We are no longer p...

benwerd 1 year ago

After leaving Substack, writers are making more money elsewhere

Ben Werdmuller

After leaving Substack, writers are making more money elsewhere

[Alexander Lee at Digiday] Substack isn't the best deal in town for independent journalists: "A year after leaving Substack in early 2024, newsle...

benwerd 1 year ago

Denial

Ben Werdmuller

Denial

[Jeremy Keith] Jeremy Keith highlights the hammering that the public service internet is getting from LLM vendors: "When we talk about the unfair...

benwerd 1 year ago

What was Quartz?

Ben Werdmuller

What was Quartz?

[Zach Seward] I first met Zach Seward when he was running Quartz, the news startup with the quippy haiku notifications that had, at the time, capt...