strypey

strypey, 17 days ago to TikTok

Seems TechDirt's take on Biden's TikTok ban is similar to mine;

"Enacting this legislation has undermined this long standing, democratic principle. It has also undermined the U.S. government’s moral authority to call out other nations for when they shut down internet access or ban social media apps and other online communications tools."

#JasonKelley #BrendanGilligan, 2024

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/07/biden-signed-the-tiktok-ban-whats-next-for-tiktok-users/

#TikTok #US #FreedomOfExpression

strypey, 17 days ago to random

"If we could expand that, by drawing in local media and cooperating with each other, then that sort of model could be expanded to all the community stations nationally.

This is an essential public service - and a not-for-profit is a good way to go because if it becomes successful, the owners aren't just going to flick it off to a bigger company or shut it down during a downturn which is what's happening to a lot of our old newspapers."

#PeterFowler, 2024

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018938002/bid-to-backstop-local-news-in-tight-times

#MediaWatch

strypey, 17 days ago to facepalm

"The price gap between new dwellings and existing properties is forecast to narrow as tax rules become less favourable for new developments."

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/512857/price-gap-between-new-homes-and-existing-houses-expected-to-narrow

#FacePalm

#housing

strypey, 19 days ago to TeslaMotors

"A power system that is already prone to shortages like those currently forecast on Friday is facing never-before-seen demand from electric vehicles (EVs) and big data centres.

Vector is preparing for it - but the lack of laws and regulations and an Energy Ministry are in its way."

#PhilPennington, 2024

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/516449/govt-must-regulate-to-smooth-evs-and-data-centres-demand-on-power-grids-vector

#EV #DataCentres #Vector

strypey, 20 days ago to RSS

"But the real tragedy of Reader was that it had all the signs of being something big, and Google just couldn’t see it. Desperate to play catch-up to Facebook and Twitter, the company shut down one of its most prescient projects; you can see in Reader shades of everything from Twitter to the newsletter boom to the rising social web."

#DavidPierce, 2023

https://www.theverge.com/23778253/google-reader-death-2013-rss-social

#RSS #SocialWeb

strypey, 20 days ago to Podcasts

"I think the defining economic reality of the modern platform media world is that all the platforms realized that an infinite supply of teenage creators are cheaper to deal with than media companies or groups of media individuals or powerful creators."

#NilayPatel, 2024

https://www.theverge.com/24087834/hank-green-decoder-podcast-google-youtube-web-media-platforms-distribution-future

#podcasts #TheVerge #Decoder #platforms #GigEconomy

strypey, 20 days ago to fediverse

Marshall McLuhan wrote books and taught students about his theories of media for decades, and is widely known as "as the father of modern media studies";

https://ama-toronto.com/inductees/marshall-mcluhan/

Phrases he coined are so quoted they've become cliches; like "the global village", and most famously "the medium is the message".

What is the message of the fediverse as a medium?

#MarshallMcLuhan #MediaStudies #fediverse

strypey, 20 days ago to random

Photographed in a backpackers hostel in Te Wai Pounamu. The text reads;

"The truth about using HostelWorld and booking.com

• they take 15% of your payment -
  Try always to book directly with the hostel or hotel
  Owners of booking sites live in luxury and don't do any work"

#accomodation #BackPackers #hostels

strypey, 21 days ago (edited 21 days ago) to Podcasts

"We're also competing against a lot of people in politics who come along and say... it's those rich people's fault, we'll just take even more money off them and give it to you."

#DavidSeymour, 2024
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/30-with-guyon-espiner/story/2018936159/david-seymour

This is the fundamental lie of neoliberal politics. A total inversion of the truth, which is that neoliberal parties say 'it's those poor people's fault, we'll just take the money off them and give it to you', and they do.

#podcasts #RNZ #30WithGuyonEspiner #neoliberalism

strypey, 21 days ago (edited 21 days ago) to random

#FreudianTypoOfTheWeek

Needia (n.): Subscription-based news.

strypey, 21 days ago to random

"Facebook is used by 79% of New Zealanders aged 16-64 last year..."

#PeterGriffin, NZ Listener, May 11-17, 2024

Another way to describe the same data is that 21% of 16-64 year olds - about 1 in 5 - choose not to use FarceBook. Despite the common perception that it's normal for everyone to use it. I do wonder if that 21% includes people who don't count Meta's Messenger as being part of FB. Griffin doesn't give a source for his data, so there's no quick way to check.

strypey, 21 days ago (edited 17 days ago) to Podcasts

"Again, this is that lovely, quaint, sort of late 70s idea, that computers would be better than us at deciding things, isn't it. It's very, very old fashioned. But yeah, they let the computer weigh up the evidence."

#NeoZAZ, 2018

https://neozaz.com/dev-tarrant/

#Blakes7 #podcasts #InCharacter #AI

And this is that lovely, quaint 2010s idea that computers deciding (or designing) things instead of humans is old-fashioned, instead of being the everyday dystopia they were already starting to live in.

strypey, 22 days ago to random

"In the two weeks before October's election, more people than ever before (454,000 people) enrolled to vote, including more than 100,000 enrolments on election day.

The Electoral Commission did not expect this number of late enrolments, putting pressure on its systems, the report said."

#KatieScotcher, 2024

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/516189/official-2023-election-result-final-check-done-in-a-few-hours-under-extreme-pressure

#elections #Election2023

strypey, 21 days ago to random

"Today, my colleagues in astrobiology no longer assume that life started at hot vents deep in the oceans. For many, the focus has shifted to locales on land — notably hot spring environments. This shift has also transformed science’s consideration of where life might start in the universe and how common it could be, and provides an upgraded framework to address the age-old question: Are we alone?"

#BruceDamer, 2024

https://www.lucid.news/a-psychedelic-journey-to-the-origin-of-life/

#astrobiology #OriginsOfLife

strypey, 22 days ago to random

"Don’t get me wrong. I am not nostalgic for the past. There were attitudes we thought once thought were acceptable that I am delighted to have seen the back of – strapping and caning children, imprisoning gay men, denying work, promotional and aspirational opportunities to women simply on the basis of gender."

#BryanBruce, 2024

https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2024/05/07/guest-blog-bryan-bruce-how-i-became-a-radical-by-standing-still/

strypey, 22 days ago to random

"... because Bennett will now be governing a public agency specially designed to have an arms-length relationship with the government of the day, to retain public confidence in Pharmac’s integrity, she will have to display total independence from the ministers that she is closely associated with."

#BryceEdwards, 2024

https://democracyproject.nz/2024/04/30/bryce-edwards-paula-bennetts-political-appointment-will-challenge-public-confidence/

#PublicService #Pharmac

strypey, 23 days ago to Podcasts

"The clock is ticking for Tiktok in the US with the government giving the social media giant a deadline to sell its US operations."

#ImogenWells, 2024

https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/newsable/

The US government wants to make sure only they can use DataFarming platforms to spy on and influence US citizens. They're following the example set by the CCP, which has been blocking foreign-owned platforms for years, for similar reasons.

#podcasts #Stuff #Newsable #TikTok

strypey, 23 days ago to random

It would be useful to see journalists collecting clips of the claims and promises made by politicians during an election campaign, then comparing that against what they're saying and doing in government or opposition, 3-6 months into the new term. I mean literally putting the before clip next to the after clip, so people can decide for ourselves how consistent they are.

strypey, 23 days ago to til

#TIL that the Te Reo Māori word for transgender is iawhiti.

#TeReoMāori #transgender

strypey, 23 days ago (edited 23 days ago) to Podcasts

As I've mentioned before, there was a time when traditional newspapers being outcompeted into oblivion by network media would have seemed like good news to me. But that was when most network media were community-controlled and non-commercial. Locally-based, commercial outlets being driven out of business by corporate-owned propaganda machines, masquerading as neutral 'social media' platforms, was not the outcome I was hoping for.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018937014/mediawatch-for-5-may-2024

#podcasts #RNZ #MediaWatch #NewsMedia

strypey, 23 days ago to random

"I began this post with the (now laughable) intent of offering a few brief comments on Marc Andreessen’s Techno-Optimist Manifesto published in October of last year...

I would frame the manifesto as a revivalist sermon, or more specifically perhaps, a jeremiad, calling for repentance and a return to the religion of technology. Such a sermon is a response to the process of secularization, which has accelerated in the last decade."

#LMSacasas, 2024

https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/secularization-comes-for-the-religion

#religion #technology

strypey, 25 days ago to ip

"When Oxford University developed the vaccine AstraZeneca ended up owning... It was actually Bill Gates who lobbied Oxford... to say no, this has to be sold to a drug company'... so it becomes 'IP'... the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have been central players in ensuring that no precedent is set in the context of COVID for commercially valuable products to break the normal market-based rules on how what's called 'IP' is distributed."

#ArunKundnani, 2023

https://audioboom.com/posts/8340285

#COVID #IP

strypey, 25 days ago (edited 25 days ago) to Podcasts

"There was a desire - even on the part of some liberals - to call for the state to be even tougher in imposing lockdowns, in enforcing vaccines... [The left were] reluctant to talk about the question of policing during the pandemic, because it seemed like this would play into the conservative anti-lockdown movement but... it was a mistake really for the left or for liberals to not take up those issues."

#ArunKundnani, 2023

https://audioboom.com/posts/8340285

#podcasts #TransNationalInstitute #TNI #COVID

strypey, 25 days ago to random

"There are now two 'N' words that regrettably dominate our discussions today. One I cannot say because I am not black, the other I must say because I am a Jew:

'Nazi.'

... The point we need to remember is this: all Nazis are assholes, but not all assholes are Nazis. So is the Substacker who pecks out his midnight screed about “The Jewish Question” between games of League of Legends a Nazi, or is he an asshole? I’m going with asshole."

#ShalomAuslander, 2024

https://shalomauslander.substack.com/p/the-asshole-question

#SubStack

strypey, 26 days ago to random

Why don't city buses form loops at the end of their outward run from central transport hubs? That way, with almost the same resource use, people could bus between the neighbourhoods at the end of the lines. Without coming all the way in to central interchanges, or the orbiter services, which usually connect the suburbs halfway between the centre and the end of each line.

#PublicTransport #bus