Dolphin intelligence and humanity’s cosmic future.
If we truly are alone, in an otherwise mute cosmos, the positive impact of our actions could be truly astronomical in scope.
He got Facebook hooked on AI. Now he can't fix its misinformation addiction.
Everything the company does and chooses not to do flows from a single motivation: Zuckerberg’s relentless desire for growth. Quiñonero’s AI expertise supercharged that growth. His team got pigeonholed into targeting AI bias, as I learned in my reporting, because preventing such bias helps the company avoid proposed regulation that might, if passed, hamper that growth. Facebook leadership has also repeatedly weakened or halted many initiatives meant to clean up misinformation on the platform because doing so would undermine that growth.
Hunspell. 17 (ever so slightly) weird facts about the most popular dictionary format.
(…) the dictionary format of Hunspell has a lot of peculiarities. Depending on your mindset, you might find the facts below curious, fascinating, ridiculous, or just plain boring. From my perspective, they are, first of all, didactic: they demonstrate the blossoming complexity of organically evolved software that solves the complicated task.
Relevant: Rebuilding the spellchecker.
#TeamRSS
Newsletters are Walling Off Your Freedom.
The Internet started as a new frontier of mutualism and open protocols, and it seems at each crossroads, somebody is trying to stamp out or control the protocols and processes that enrich people through freedoms of the Internet.
Let’s play master and servant.
GitHub, f*ck your name change.
We’re going to change the branch name because it could be seen as offensive but we’re still going to sell police facial recognition software that is biased against black people and women. Facial recognition software that misidentifies black people as gorillas. Facial recognition software that was used to identify unmasked BLM protesters. We’re going to change the branch name to be more inclusive of minorities but we’re going to carry on selling software to ICE. Get the fuck outta here.
We really don’t need to arm police with any shitty, biased facial recognition software. Their eyes already do a perfectly good job of that. George Floyd and Breonna Taylor can both attest to that. I can attest to it.
Actually, it’s about zebra mussels, but still: 😲
The U.S. Government Is Begging You to Destroy Moss Balls.
Zebra mussels are “pretty much bad news all around. (…) They filled this niche and they don’t have any predators. They’re taking something out of the food web, and not putting anything back in. (…) we never expected zebra mussels to travel through aquarium plants”
Dither Me This Image Dithering Tool.
Use this tool to reduce the file size of an image… but in a stylish old-school way. It reduces the colors in an image, and places dots to emulate the missing shades.
Relevant: Creating Patterns With SVG Filters.
Good, Better, Best: Untangling The Complex World Of Accessible Patterns.
How do we know which patterns are good, better, best when it comes to accessibility? Is it better to use an established pattern/library or create new ones? With the myriad of choices available, we can quickly become caught up in a web of confusion on this topic.
Relevant: CodePens by Carie Fisher.
LiebeHeide (via densediscovery.com).
This new digital font not only contains the latest font technology but also years of lettering experience of its designer Ulrike Rausch. LiebeHeide is a digital script font that authentically reproduces the writing of a ballpoint pen.
Non-fungible means 💩
The Environmental Cost of CryptoArt (via densediscovery.com).
(…) the average NFT has a footprint of around 211 kg of CO2 equivalent. That's the same as an EU resident's electric power consumption for more than a month, driving for 1000km, or a return flight from London to Rome. And that's just for keeping track of who owns it - it doesn't include the energy consumption used in the creation of the work, its storage, or the website it's hosted on.
