“the central problem is that we live not so much in a time of lies as one of stupidity” writes William Davies. “The challenge posed by this political crisis is how to take the stupidity seriously without reducing it to a wholly mental or psychiatric phenomenon.” “In a fully platform-based world […]

The approval rating of Trump among US voters has not changed for the past 6 months at about 43%. #uspolitics https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/upshot/poll-analysis-trump-times-siena.html

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com p.s. my new book of science cartoons 'Physics for Cats' is out now. Visit www.tomgauld.com for details

Google deletes history: https://www.thebriefing.ie/google-just-erased-7-years-of-our-political-history/

For years I've been fiddling with idea of familiarise myself with Linux by setting up a virtual machine on my Mac, just to be ready when the time comes to leave Windows and MacOS behind. The time nigh. #linux #bigtech

.@pluralistic: “[AI companies] can't be profitable. They keep the lights on by soaking up hundreds of billions of dollars in other people's money and then lighting it on fire. (…) This isn't like the early days of the web, or Amazon, or any of those other big winners that lost money before […]

I'm a loyal customer of some Apple products. But the arrogance of a company challenging regulatory efforts by threatening to stop shipping products to the EU is only encouraging me to start looking for alternatives. Like I already did with other arrogant companies abusing their dominant position […]

Trying to silence a public figure can badly backfire: Jimmy Kimmel's ratings averaged 1.6 million viewers. His return on air, though barred from all 30 Nextar and all 40 Sinclair affilate stations, scored 6.2 millions viewers. Not to mention over 15 millions views (and counting) on YouTube. It's […]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/115224321548138026 Big Tech: Move fast, break things. Mastodon: Take you time, get it right. (And you can quote-post me on that.)

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/115224321548138026 Consistent with the spirit of Mastodon to take the time to get it right, it becomes gradually possible to "quote post," but in a way that mitigates the risks of abuse (dunking, etc.) seen on other micro-blogging platforms. (And this was […]

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com p.s. this week I am on a USA/Canada tour with my new book. Details and preorder links at tomgauld.com

Margaret Sullivan identified new issues that need be added to journalism ethics codes. E.g. “How news organizations should deal with artificial intelligence. How to cover politicians who lie and mislead the public as an essential part of their personas—and who get away with it (…). How social […]

1. This development essentially entails that all authors in the participating countries now have a venue where they can publish #openaccess without any fees. 2. The vision is to develop Open Research Europe (ORE) "as a collective non-profit open access publishing service for the public good" […]

“The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality, and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

“Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person's obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that […]

How is independent tech research faring in 2025 amidst extraordinary headwinds & what can we do to preserve / grow it? A new report, "Power in Numbers" @transparenttech summarizes reports on interviews with 90+ researchers on the struggle for public-interest tech research worldwide: 1 […]

Stunning: This morning's front pages of the British press display utterly contrasting framing: FT and Guardian use a photo framing Channel crossing migrants as desperate victims narrowly escaping horrific death, while The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

It takes some effort, but if you try to find Europe-based providers for tech-related products or services, most of the time not only will you find one, but you'll be surprised how good and different it is. The marketing of US and Asia-based big-tech companies is overpowering any effort by […]

How do you teach the humanities (and evaluate your students) in the age of AI? “Through a combination of oral examinations, one-on-one discussions, community engagement and in-class projects.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/opinion/humanities-college-ai.html #ai #humanities #teaching

Detailed account of, and concrete recommendations against, the rising threats on academic freedom and freedom of expression: “[W]e call for a reorientation of our field’s normative foundations—one that not only emphasizes democracy but also resists authoritarianism, thereby more explicitly […]

“The public sphere, once imagined as a space of critical engagement, has become a feudal court, where the sovereign displays his might through the orchestrated abasement of the enemy. The people, reduced to spectators and occasional participants in the ritual, are interpellated not as citizens […]

Krugman about news coverage of Trump policies: “to say that the president of the U.S. is making drastic policy changes in order to cure a problem that only exists in his imagination, that’s a very difficult … that sounds unbalanced. That sounds like you’re shilling for the Democrats, when it’s […]

"Archivists Recreate Pre-Trump #cdc Website, Are Hosting It in Europe." https://www.404media.co/archivists-recreate-pre-trump-cdc-website-are-hosting-it-in-europe/ "A team of volunteer archivists has recreated the Centers for Disease Control website exactly as it was the day Donald Trump was […]

I'm stunned by the bold creativity of the tech industry. Imagine: Twitch starts testing vertical video stream. Genius! I'm sure TikTok has a secret plan for short horizontal videos, but shhhh, it's top secret. https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/17/twitch-starts-testing-vertical-video-streams/

Anyone else being charged again by #adobe for a subscription abandoned years ago? Had to block my card, then they insist by mail that there was a problem with my payment and if I click the link in that mail to check my account, there's no subscription or pending invoice. I initially suspected […]

Survey: “About three to four times more Americans said they did not feel free to express themselves, compared with the number of those who said so during the McCarthy era. (…) The robust debate so necessary to deliberations in a democracy is squelched as the views of a minority come to be seen […]

Please report any account that tells you that you need to verify your #mastodon account to continue using it through a private message. It is a scam. We do not require identity verification. Real staff accounts either have a special role badge on their profile or are verified through the […]

People get ecstatic about how thin the next iteration of their fav smartphone will be, and they speculate endlessly about the colours that will be available. Then they'll jam it into a thick, opaque, garish silicon case anyway, and none that will matter. 🤷‍♂️ #smartphone #geek #absurd

“[E]ven if an L.L.M. was trained exclusively on the best peer-reviewed science, it would still be capable only of generating plausible output, and “plausible” is not necessarily the same as ‘true.’ And now A.I.-generated content — true and otherwise — is taking over the internet, providing […]

Alarming story about UN event organizers going slide by slide through @abebab’s talk and forcing her to remove mention of companies that might be made uncomfortable by her research […]

If you need to explain the #fediverse to someone who's never heard about it, @_elena has you covered: her short video will let anyone grasp the nature and benefits of the Fediverse in just over 3 minutes. (And by just clicking on the link, they'll discover and experience PeerTube!) […]

Worthy alternatives to greedy, privacy-wrecking big tech exist. Many come from Europe, some significantly better and cheaper too. In the past few months, I've come a long way: Photoshop ➡️ DxO PhotoLab Illustrator ➡️ Affinity Designer WhatsApp ➡️ Signal Twitter/X ➡️ Mastodon Chrome ➡️ Firefox […]

Microsoft announces a revolution in its Windows OS: the end of the infamous “Blue Screen of Death.” Note that it will be replaced by a “Black Screen of Death.” https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/26/windows-killed-the-blue-screen-of-death/

“This is how Silicon Valley has tried to sell artificial intelligence to consumers, at least on television. In commercial after commercial, humans are oblivious, enfeebled, barely functioning idiots beset by more tasks, stimuli and demands on their time than anyone could reasonably handle. (…) […]

Hey, fellow media researchers! I'm looking for a way to search through movie scripts for particular phrases. I'm curious about when certain phrases became popular enough to appear in movies. So I'm not looking for a quote from specific movies -- rather I want to search across many scripts […]

Well done AI, well done Meta: “WhatsApp AI helper mistakenly shares user’s number.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/18/whatsapp-ai-helper-mistakenly-shares-users-number #ai #meta #whatsapp

Today's the day: I'm retiring Firefox to make @Vivaldi my default browser. Much gratitude to @mozilla for all the work and the efforts to provide a credible alternative to commercial browsers (aka personal data harvesters). #browser #vivaldi #firefox

#denver #nokings #ica25

Laura Ahva (U of Tempere): A broad literature review revealed 337 different “[something] journalism” terms coined between 1856 and 2023. For the period between 1997 and 2023, the most popular were: online, citizen, digital, peace, participatory, data, immersive, constructive, entrepreneurial […]

All-stars panel at #ica25 : 25 years of Journalism and Journalism Studies — critical reflections on the pioneering academic journals in the field.

How I miss the intensity and the wit of the microblogging blitz that flooded our timelines during each ICA annual conference back in the golden age of Twitter. I'm very disappointed that our community, of all academic communities, didn't find a new home to save and cultivate all that jaunty […]

It won't be long before some apps and services will proudly claim to be “AI-free.” It will be to tech what “GMO-free” or “pesticide-free” is to food. It will likewise be initially seen as backward and against progress, before it turns out to be healthier. Some companies will offer the choice […]

Can everybody please *stop* apologizing for cross-posting? Oh, and can you also stop hoping your message finds us well, while you're at it? I bet the carbon footprint of these completely unnecessary, and utterly grating e-mail openings approaches that of block-chain and AI combined. Thank you […]

@npr : Nature Careers reveals a sudden 32% increase in US-based scientists applying for jobs abroad. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/1250811328/trump-medicine-scientists-farming-federal-cuts #braindrain #research #uspolitics #shortwave

Stand by! The Afrikaners refugees are coming. From: @newyorktimes https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/politics-dp69e5lqz/-/a-5xhIn9drSdqRzMeiM5Zf5A%3Aa%3A3195393-%2F0

The Fediverse is quintessentially enshittification-proof. And this might be the most effcient framing to evangelise among those who are still stuck on commercial platforms. It's also a great opportunity to explain enshittification and get people acquainted with @pluralistic ! #fediverse […]

On the eve of World Press Freedom day, the president of the US orders to end federal funding for @npr and PBS. The vast majority of their funding comes from other sources, but even if this is mostly symbolic, it constitutes a major historic milestone […]

PRO TIP for street and outdoors photographers: this website / app lets you determine direction of the sun and footprint of shade at any point in time (if whether permits, obviously). Much fun and very useful to plan your outdoor shoots! Just change the date and slide the timeline to find your […]

Turns out many voters, most media, and too much of the progressive political circles have learned nothing from the Brexit debacle, almost 9 years on. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2025/may/01/local-elections-2025-full-mayoral-and-council-results-for-england #ukpolitics […]