We have two dominant visions for digital tech: one from major corporations that maximizes profit at any cost, and another based on cyberlibertarian ideals that assumes you must code to participate in society.
We need another: where the public sector builds and funds tech for the broad public good.
In Singapore, which is known more for its urban planning and manicured landscape, desire paths become examples of disorder and disobedience, and even an exercise of democracy kawan.kontinentalist.com/exploring-de...
This is an excellent article by @readingtheend.bsky.social about how Heated Rivalry uses sex scenes to convey character and relationship arcs. But it has also made me realize how completely this show has solved the dreaded "second screen" problem. readingtheend.com/2025/12/10/a...
This is what I love/find so interesting about Sinners--it has the vampires, which we can read as metaphors for all sorts of things, but it also has the KKK, which is about as direct as it gets. Much of the complexity of the film lies in the relationship between these two forms of social commentary.
For many, the end of the year is an opportunity to catch up on reading or to purchase books as gifts. In 2025, a number of authors joined the Tech Policy Press podcast, providing fresh insights into how technology interacts with people, politics, and power. Check out the list:
Thinking about “Hamnet”, “Pluribus” and “28 Years Later” as media this year that is (among other things) very overtly about the absurdity of trying to grieve the recent massive global pandemic in a world that often refuses to acknowledge the enormity of the tragedy.
Pluribus (2025, created by Gilligan)
pluribus is the only show brave enough to ask if one mean lesbian could save the world
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
'Students at the University of Staffordshire have said they feel “robbed of knowledge and enjoyment” after a course they hoped would launch their digital careers turned out to be taught in large part by AI.' 1/3
A worthy reminder in the era of Big Tech that domination can take the form of manufacturing dependence. And once that dependence has been consolidated, re-establishing autonomy and sovereignty can be a nearly impossible task: it took China a century to recover from the effects of the Opium Wars
The other remarkable bit in today’s context is the way in which dependence on opium structured a relationship of domination, and eventually humiliation, between the West and India/China.
What’s heartbreaking is the portrayal of Canton as a brief moment of heterotopia, where people, languages, and cultures from across the Indian Ocean and the West have come to an uneasy and fragile balance — albeit one that will soon be tipped over by the forces of opium, colonialism, and war
I just finished River of Smoke, and wow, what an excellent book! Ghosh brings the world of Canton on the eve of the Opium War to life in gorgeous detail, with liminal figures who chart stirring and tragic arcs, culminating in the inevitable move towards imperialism and war in the name of trade
Lots of great moments thus far, but a standout is when artist Robin contemplates the staggering singularity of Guangzhou, only to be rebuked by a merchant who points out the historic temple of Guanyin, another Buddhist temple, and a mosque - it's globalisation all the way down!
3/4 done with Amitav Ghosh's River of Smoke, and the way he dramatised opium's supply chain on the eve of the Opium War and used it to sketch a picture of mid-19th century globalisation from the vantage point of the Indian Ocean is nothing short of brilliant
🤖 "Holes in the web: Huge swathes of human knowledge are missing from the internet. By definition, GenAI is shockingly ignorant too."
Excellent essay on algorithmic epistemological knowledge and the collapse of knowledge throughout mean-driven data machines.
aeon.co/essays/gener...
“It’s hard to get China to commit to a long-term goal.. But when we commit, we really want to get it done, and all aspects of society — government, policy, private sector, engineering, everybody — work hard toward the same goal under a coordinated effort.”
Policy-making in the ChatGPT era: answers rich, but questions poor sverhulst.medium.com/generative-a...
I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections
We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.
“awful people don’t deserve to be killed, but they don’t deserve to be praised, either” is apparently a thought too complex for the pundit mind
"Nicholas faced potential charges for possession, consumption and trafficking of a CBD-based pain relief cream. He bought the cream from a US-based company to help manage worsening chronic pain from an injury during his national service days after little success with over-the-counter options."
Zohran looking out on a victory night crowd.
In the words of Nelson Mandela: it always seems impossible until it’s done.
My friends, it is done. And you are the ones who did it.
I am honored to be your Democratic nominee for the Mayor of New York City.
True story: I used to cringe when reading a blogpost or news article with obvious grammatical or linguistic errors. Now, I heave a sigh of relief when I spot them, because I know it means someone actually cared to think through the piece and craft their thoughts into expression
"The stakes aren’t just about preserving linguistic diversity — they’re about protecting the imperfections that actually build trust."
The printing press standardised language and slowed down the speed at which written language evolved over time; LLMs could either homogenise language to a greater extent, or prompt a counter-movement of intentional language muckery and play
www.dictionary.com/e/printing-p...
Part of me wonders if the only way around the distrust that AI use - or the suspicion of AI use - engenders, is for writers and artists to begin messing with and innovating their use of language in a way that outpaces LLM evolution.
