Hello! I work in digital literacy with a particular interest in communications, the Web, and social media. Education and the natural and built environments (not to mention good food) are particularly close to my heart.
But, fair play to Rotterdam: “[We] consider it very important that other governments and organizations are aware of the risks of using algorithms,” says Rotterdam’s de Rotte. “We decided to give you maximum insight into the model, not only because of our desire to be an open and transparent organization but also to be able to learn from the insights of others.”
“The algorithm converts ‘honest mistakes’ into learned associations between poor Dutch skills and propensity for fraud, allowing welfare officials to claim that migrants who do not speak Dutch are scientifically untrustworthy,”Eye-opening article about the dangers of blindly following an algorithm. Coupling biased training data with poor understanding of the tech is a recipe for disaster for the most vulnerable.https://www.wired.com/story/welfare-state-algorithms/#intcid=_wired-verso-hp-trending_4623a989-4a6e-460e-bb21-32ddfaad6a32_popular4-1
I love this writer's description of their experience of the new Ghibili Park in Nagoya. Almost an opposite to Disneyland: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/magazine/hayao-miyazaki-ghibli-park.html?src=longreads
https://points.datasociety.net/you-think-you-want-media-literacy-do-you-7cad6af18ec2 I’ve had this link in my reading list for a while, but it is quite timeless. I think we have a sense of the media landscape having found its footing after the upheaval of the internet’s arrival, but really, I think the last 20 years have only been the beginning of our reckoning of […]
I’ve been [badly] writing WordPress themes for this blog since sometime around 2006 or 2007. With new block themes supported, I've tried an experiment to recreate my classic theme for full-site editing.
I got the idea to try these weekly posts after realising how many links I was saving while browsing the Web. It isn’t my goal with this little project to provide a comprehensive exploration of an area, more of a stroll through the bits that interest me just now. So with my excuses out of the way, HyperThursday 2 is about AI, or to be more precise, how we live with AI.
I'm trying something new here. Rather than write a screed about how we should all get on bicycles and take up blogging again, I'm going to share some links to things I found interesting on the Web this week. It might become a (kind of) weekly thing and probably will go out on Thursdays. So, lets start with the natural habitat of links, or hyperlinks: hypertext.
Until a few days ago, it is safe to say that I spent too much time on Twitter. I've had my account there for long enough that I've seen the platform evolve from the SMS-based, fail whale infested, early days, right up to today's algorithmic hellscape.