iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Mike Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

It looks like the MIT Technology Review did the equivalent of the dril candles post but for real open.substack.com/pub/andymasl...

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Travis Brown @travisbrown.dev · 08/05/2025

The new pope signed up for Twitter in 2011 with a Hotmail email address that he also used for a lot of other stuff, which is how I know that he's probably the first pope on Zynga and almost certainly the first pope on Tumblr

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Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

this is not a dunk, but the fact that this detail is blowing up despite the book it came from coming out 2 months ago shows that if you want to bury a damning scoop, put it in a book

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 29/04/2025

1. Can you figure out where I was standing when I took this picture? ChatGPT could. Given the photograph (scrubbed of all header information), the new chain of thought model, ChatGPT o.3, was able to pinpoint the location with a few meters.

A cityscape at twilight, from the middle of a street.

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David Pierce @davidpierce.xyz · 05/04/2025

Views are the only number anyone cares about on the internet anymore. I tried once again to figure out what views mean, and I got… nothing. Views are lies.

theverge.com

On TikTok, YouTube, X, and everywhere, ‘views’ are lies

You might think a “view” means you watched something. You’d be wrong.

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Karen Hao @karenhao.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Some news many years in the making: My book EMPIRE OF AI, out May 20, is ready for pre-order at empireofai.com. It tells the inside story of OpenAI as a lens for understanding the moment we’re in: the tech elite's extraordinary seizure of power and its threat to democracy. 1/

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Jon Keegan @jonkeegan.com · 21/03/2025

Lovely chart from our pals at Chartr. It does appear we are at the peak of Streaming Mountain. What’s coming next? sherwood.news/business/bri...

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Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 20/03/2025

I’ve long used FiveThirtyEight’s interactive “Hack Your Way To Scientific Glory” to illustrate the idea of p-hacking when I teach statistics. But ABC/Disney killed the site earlier this month :( So I made my own with #rstats and Observable and #QuartoPub ! stats.andrewheiss.com/hack-your-way/

Screenshot of the linked Quarto website, with input checkboxes to change different conditions for a regression model that predicts economic performance based on US political party, with a reported p-value

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Setting The Last of Us S2 trailer to You Know You’re Right is all kinds of perfect (including perfectly complementing Future Days).

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Marianne Aubin Le Quéré @mariannealq.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

An excellent breakdown. What I take from Kevin's post is the need to understand the information people are exposed to at the content (not source) level. This emphasis on content-level analysis is partly why I'm excited by the conscientious use of LLMs as tools for large-scale, yet nuanced enquiry.

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

How does Finder still not have a “recently closed” / “reopen recent” menu option?

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Layla Mashkoor @laylam.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

“In exchange for the ability to establish operations in China, Facebook will agree to grant the Chinese government access to Chinese users’ data — including Hongkongese users’ data,” one privacy policy staffer wrote. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

washingtonpost.com

Zuckerberg’s Meta considered sharing user data with China, whistleblower alleges

Meta went to extreme lengths, including developing a censorship system, in a failed attempt to bring Facebook to millions of internet users in China, according to a whistleblower complaint.

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Jon Keegan @jonkeegan.com · 07/03/2025

Here are the slides for our talk “Who’s Behind This Website?” that @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social and I just gave at #NICAR25. Slides: bit.ly/nicar25-behi... Repo with cheatsheet: github.com/jonkeegan/be... And here’s experimental “NICAR Website Sleuth” GPT that can help you: bit.ly/nicar-sleuth...

bit.ly

BEHIND-THIS-WEBSITE-NICAR25

Who’s Behind This Website? Priyanjana Bengani Data Reporter Bloomberg Bluesky: @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social Mastodon: @acookiecrumbles@indieweb.social Jon Keegan Tech reporter / Data journalist Sherwo...

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Jon Keegan @jonkeegan.com · 06/03/2025

I'm excited to be in Minneapolis for @ire-nicar.bsky.social #NICAR25 ! If you are here, please say hello! @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social and I will be reprising our talk about website investigations "Who's Behind That Website?" on Friday, March 7, 11:30 a.m. schedules.ire.org/nicar-2025/

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

The Sports live widget is great…except that the timer keeps going even after FT.

Screenshot of the Apple Sports live widget that shows the timer at 102 minutes even though the game was 90+4.

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Kevin Collier @kevincollier.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

This is a shocker. Apple is winding down Advanced Data Protection in the UK, company says in press email, rather than build a backdoor for that government, which is impossible to do safely. Every Apple user in the UK is now less safe. Other countries not affected.

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

😍🤩 wikitok.vercel.app arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Here we go again: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Periodic reminder to give apps limited access to Photos because, if not, well: www.theverge.com/news/606649/...

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

I’ve had qualms about third-party app stores from the beginning and… well… daringfireball.net/2025/02/hot_...

“The screenshots and video previews are blurred-for-obfuscation by default, but Hot Tub’s website makes pretty clear that the content it aggregates is serious porn. Figuratively speaking, they’re not fucking around. Literally speaking, that’s exactly what they’re aggregating — including an in-app “teens” channel.”

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

What is with Apple icons lately? First Playground and now Invites. They could’ve at least tried to do balloons instead of the random colourful circles. (And, no, this isn’t nostalgia for the good ol’ skeuomorphic days.)

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LG @drleightg.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

“Disproportionately, the datasets that are no longer accessible through the portal come from the Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of the Interior, NASA, and the Environmental Protection Agency.”

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Josh Spero @joshspero.ft.com · 31/01/2025

This list of options is 🤨

I am a/an:
Individual/family
Entrepreneur
Family office/UHNW
Financial intermediary
Female investor
Student/other

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Daphne Keller @daphnek.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

For Americans who didn't follow it, the Schrems case -- much like the TikTok case -- was driven by concern about (1) sending platform user data to a country, and (2) foreign spies getting their hands on it as a result. @margotkaminski.bsky.social beat me to posting on this :)

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Weird one on Apple News. I read this a couple of days ago and yet it shows up right now as “45 minutes ago.” Date on the story is 12th.

Sceeenshor from Apple News showing a WSJ story right now that was published on the 12th. The timestamp on it is “45m ago.” (It’s not a time-sensitive story)

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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 14/01/2025

Lemley firing Meta as a client is a big deal.

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

The AI Opportunities Action Plan (Matt Clifford report), trailed in today’s morning news is now out in full. I’ve read it, and here’s a few observations 1/10 Link to full report assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6784eb...

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

“What’s really rich about Meta and Zuckerberg’s incessant complaining about being restricted by Apple’s rules for third party software on Apple’s platforms is that Meta doesn’t allow third parties any sort of access to their successful platforms.“ daringfireball.net/linked/2025/...

daringfireball.net

Zuckerberg Disses Apple With Joe Rogan: ‘They Haven’t Invented Anything Great in a While’

Link to: https://9to5mac.com/2025/01/10/mark-zuckerberg-joe-rogan-apple-innovation/

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Kevin Roose @kevinroose.com · 11/01/2025

Inspiring words on innovation from the inventor of Stories, Reels, and Threads.

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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

Interesting piece. Are we becoming a post-literate society? - on.ft.com/4fBSEwy via @FT

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Josh Spero @joshspero.ft.com · 26/12/2024

Some great unexpected recommendations

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Ray Douglas @raydouglas.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

Wales’ Raspberry Pi quietly hit a £1bn market cap last week, fuelled by its Dec 9 launch of a low-cost desktop setup. Shares have since soared 50%+ 🚀 Now among the largest pure tech firms on London’s market A rare win for London’s struggling stock market #RaspberryPi #RPI

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liz pelly @lizpelly.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

For years, the public has called them "fake artists." But internally at Spotify, the program has name: Perfect Fit Content. My investigation, and the first look into my book Mood Machine, is the January cover at @harpers.bsky.social harpers.org/archive/2025...

harpers.org

The Ghosts in the Machine, by Liz Pelly

Spotify’s plot against musicians

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

OK, but surely I should get another notification telling me whether they’ve scored or not.

Screenshot of an Apple TV notification notification from “13 minutes ago” saying United won a penalty, but no follow up notification as to whether they scored or not.

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Matt Peterson @mattpeterson.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Just four months after his release from Russian prison, Evan Gershkovich has the lead byline on an incredible story about the ultrasecret Russian agency behind his kidnapping. He and the Journal identified the precise individuals involved. Astonishing. www.wsj.com/world/russia...

DKRO leaders also enjoy rare access to Putin himself. One of the few Russian officials privileged enough to play ice hockey with the president is the head of the FSB’s first service, which oversees DKRO, Lt. Gen. Vladislav Menschikov. He personally briefed Putin before and after my arrest, the Journal reported while I was incarcerated. Barely known outside a small circle of Russia analysts, the spy chief previously ran the presidential directorate responsible for Russia’s nuclear bunkers.

His subordinate, who runs DKRO itself—the goateed Lt. Gen Minaev—has a hands-on role in selecting which Americans to arrest, and which Russians to trade them for. Awarded the prestigious Hero of Russia medal for bravery during Russia’s war in Chechnya, he is described by intelligence chiefs who have met him as frighteningly perceptive. “He understands everything about his environment—everything,” said one Western officer who has met him several times. “He knows immediately who is a shark and who is a pussy.”

Minaev usually stays in the shadows, but he was present from the beginning to the end of the Aug. 1 swap. I first saw him when I was escorted from the Lefortovo prison onto a gray coach with other prisoners on the morning of the exchange. At 10:30 a.m., Minaev climbed aboard and stood at the front, resting his arms on the backs of two seats on either side of the aisle. He was a representative of the FSB, he announced, and we prisoners were gathered for an exchange. He didn’t give his name.

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J.M. Berger PRE-ORDER THE POPE'S HITMAN @jmberger.com · 12/12/2024

In the future, there will be no products, only advertising.

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Pri Bengani @acookiecrumbles.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

TIL that Excel treats a number in parentheses as a negative. (Numbers too.)

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RJ Andrews @infowetrust.com · 06/12/2024

How to start a data-graphics library, illustrated. "Once one gets locked into a serious book collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can." Details on each title here: www.chartography.net/p/how-to-sta...

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Alice Evans @draliceevans.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Turning off social media personalisation reduced toxic content exposure by 27%, BUT... Heavy consumers of toxic content just worked harder to find it - sharing what they found at higher rates & switching platforms. This suggests that algorithmic fixes alone won't solve online toxicity.

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