Links I liked
This, my young friends, is a (West German) coin-operated payphone. Like cigarette and bubble gum vending machines, they were ubiquitous during my youth. Now, this is literally a museum piece, which I spotted in Frankfurt a couple of days ago. Very rarely, people forgot to collect the coins that remained when they ended their call.…
LLMs tackle Bluesky feeds, disinformation takes a backseat, AfD’s ticket scandal unfolds, and Europe grapples with far-right normalisation.
Like many others, I had a great time on Twitter. I joined in October 2008, more than 16 years ago. I had a slow start, but eventually I produced about 22,800 tweets, equivalent to about 1,400 posts per year or about four per day. During the last decade, it was more like 10 per day.…
Everyone & their gran are leaving Twitter for Bluesky. Here are some links to help you get started.
If you are not worried, you have not been paying attention. “National populism” – itself a polite misnomer for a radical right ideology that also claims to attack the elites – is going international. Viktor Orbán, bankrolled by the EU and the Hungarian treasury, is trying to establish himself as the impresario of this transnational…
Need to something uplifting? 50 minutes to spare? Listen to how the hunt for alien life is gearing up.
This week, the Internet is full of interesting stuff about the 2024 European elections, which were sort of momentous. Here are four links I liked, and one that helped me to cope.
The old Internet was full of stuff like this: people giving a lot of thought to the earnest analysis of entirely fictional worlds. We should bring that culture back.
I somehow missed this excellent interview with Vicente Valentim on his research into the dynamics of the radical right’s normalisation in Europe, but nearly two years later, it has become even more relevant. Reading it is well worth your time and attention.
Feed your inner sceptic, listen to this Big Picture Science Podcast from December 2023.