Some small good news among the far right rioting and violence that's been sweeping the UK this last weekend, a fundraiser to replace the books damaged at #SpellowLibrary in #Liverpool had a target of £500 and at the time of posting has received more than £50,000

https://www.gofundme.com/f/books-for-spellow-lane?

If you want to stand in solidarity with the Internet Archive, go to https://BattleForLibraries.com for multiple petitions you can sign. If you’re in the US, you can also contact your legislators. We have over 30,000+ petition signatures already. How many more can you help us get this week?

I’m looking to connect with other artificial intelligence/machine learning reporters out there (or tech/science reporters with an interest in AI/ML). I’m the Deputy Editor at @deeplearningai. Reply and let me know where you write! And friends, please boost for visibility. Thanks!

🆕 blog! “Book Review: The Internet Con - How to Seize the Means of Computation by Cory Doctorow”
★★★★⯪

This is beloved firebrand Cory doing what he does best. Rallying the rebellion with righteous indignation and a no-nonsense approach to fixing technology's ills. If you've read any of his fiction, or liste…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/book-review-the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation-by-cory-doctorow/
⸻
#BookReview #CoryDoctorow #internet #politics

Worldcup! Exciting and good timing for me. Can really do with some good football

UPDATE: the govt killed it a month later: https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-scraps-brossard-traffic-light-that-rewards-good-driving-says-it-wasn-t-consulted-1.6456678

This. Is. Amazing.

Montréal suburb has a school zone traffic light that only turns green when its camera detects a car driving under the speed limit.

The light is on a 90-day trial, on a 2-lane residential street. Similar signals are widespread in Europe.

Before installation, vehicles averaged 40 km/h. But in the past week, average speed has dropped to 29 km/h.

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2023/05/05/steal-this-idea-in-quebec-a-new-traffic-light-only-turns-green-for-safe-drivers/

#Montreal #VisionZero #WalkTO #BIkeTO

Arbitrary arrests of republican protesters against monarchy to suppress dissent begins https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/06/head-of-uks-leading-anti-monarchy-group-arrested-at-coronation-protest #Coronation #metpoliceviolence #antimonarchy

Happy international workers’ day. To celebrate, support striking nurses! Maybe join a union yourself? #mayday #joinaunion #solidarity #nursesstrike

News emerged of Jah Shaka’s passing today. I saw the giant of soundsystem culture in one of the strangest and most ironic gigs in the early 2000s at the national maritime museum in Greenwich. When the curators got worried about what the bass was doing to their artefacts in their glass vitrines he turned the volume up #restinpower #jahshaka #postcolonialism #soundsystem #dub #reggae

Exciting that this beginners course on #contentdesign is back on https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2023/04/04/introduction-to-content-design-course-is-back-on-futurelearn/ #lifelonglearning #govdesign

I’m the treasurer for my local allotment society and for various weird and wonderful reasons we had to restart all the infrastructure. Found out about “treasurer’s accounts”, which only some banks offer, accept unregistered associations and take five weeks to get approved. It’s like 1992 all over again! Even harder if you need to accept cash deposits. Big respect to everyone spending time keeping these shoestring community orgs going! #volunteering #allotment #allotments #SE15 #southwark

Kommunikationsvorahnungsenttäuschung. Prompted by a friend, I made a German compound word today:
The disappointment of anticipated communication, for example seeing the three dots of someone typing in chat and never receiving a message. Try and use it in a sentence today #germanwords

Sign the letter and demand 🐦Google 🐦Meta 🐦Apple 🐦Twitter protect our messages with E2EE: http://makedmssafe.com

This is as clear a reminder as any that--as Timnit Gebru and others have been at pains to stress--what we think of as "AI" is frequently guided by humans in explicit ways, and that this invisible human labour is disproportionately done in the Global South and/or by underpaid and undervalued workers. *They* are the ghosts in the machine.

It's notable that Sama's slogan is "The Soul of AI."

(HT to @annaleen for the link)

https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/

Auditor General says UK MPs should declare their corruption 🤦‍♂️ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/11/mps-and-peers-should-declare-links-to-firms-they-back-for-contracts-says-nao #parliament #mp #corruption #VipLane #tories

Went to the funeral of a local community organiser and activist today. She has had a great impact on the lives of many people and communities by keeping things consistent, practical and local. There is much we can do bu organising locally #mutualaid #refugeesupport #allotments #CommunityGardening

🆕 blog! “Book Review: The Really Good Idea Test - Julia Shalet”
★★★★★

My mate Julia has written a book! And, as per the title, it is really good. This is a book about helping you discover if that idea you've had - for a product, feature, book, business, whatever - is likely to catch on. It does this through the lens of understanding users. The Really Good […

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/01/book-review-the-really-good-idea-test-julia-shalet/
⸻
#BookReview #digital #users

Posts about ChatGPT have really just proven to me that people have NO concept of what it's doing. It gives fake citations on articles it writes because IT DOESN'T KNOW WHAT A CITATION IS, IT ONLY KNOWS WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE. It recommends fake books with both fake and real authors because IT DOESN'T KNOW WHAT A BOOK IS, IT JUST KNOWS WHAT BOOK TITLES AND AUTHORS LOOK LIKE.

I need some help: I’ve joined my #allotment organising committee. Most things were handled informally before and it didn’t go so well, so we have to formalise some things. How is your allotment setup? As #associations, #communitygroups #coop, registered #society or something else? Would also be good to know how you created a bank account and how you forecast for water bills…#communitygardens #horticulture #foodgrowing

*work post*

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