More of a short note but Richard Coyne touched on cities a few days ago in his post, Cities as media, and Shannon Mattern’s earlier book, Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: Five Thousand Years of Urban Media. I have the new one somewhere but the idea of smart cities existing since classical and earlier […]
Will Partin has written a post on the QAnon media literacy, What if modern conspiracy theorists are altogether too media literate?. A long-ish read that is well worth it, it reminded me of Whitney Phillips’s talk at the Digital Methods Initiative Winter school in 2019 and her contentions about media literacy. It raises challenging questions […]
Going through some older newsletters, I came across this brief interview with Tim O’Reilly, The unwavering optimism of Tim O’Reilly, on Infoworld. Whilst his optimism that “[h]aving technical literacy is on the same level as being good at reading, writing, and speaking”, there seems to be a question of how and what is taught and […]
One of the Saturday talks at Transmediale discussed CV Dazzle through make up to defeat, if temporarily, facial recognition. The Guardian had a small piece, Hiding in Plain Sight, on Dazzle Club’s work using make-up and other techniques to work against it.
A short post this time but I have been reminded me of something. A few months ago, news came through of the recreation of John F Kennedy’s lost speech (BBC news link) using voice synthesis. Small sections of voice with different pronunciations are algorithmically stitched together to present the whole voice as if it was […]
I’ve been thinking a little about Theresa May’s latest clarification of what her Government wants from Brexit and borders. I come at this merely as curious about some of the underlying models. A line in Dan Roberts’ analysis sums up part of what is bothering me: May’s convoluted proposals for avoiding a customs union would […]
I’m currently reading Videocracy (Allocca, 2018). As the Head of Culture and Trends, there is a clear bias but the breathlessness of the writing is intriguing. Has YouTube style become writing style? Allocca highlights some interesting videos and extrapolates these into trends and themes. Some are long lasting such as the power and use of […]
Ticketmaster, a large purveyor of tickets, appear to be attempting to suggest how a genuine fan might be constructed: Tickets: is this the system to finally beat the touts? Having taken the email address, they want other details to check if a purchaser is a Verified Fan via social media. I do wonder how long […]
The Guardian has a story on insurance companies refusing life insurance cover for those with mental illness. A concern is raised that: The suspicion is that insurers are cherry-picking customers to minimise risk and boost the bottom line. (Marsh, 2018) So are the algorithm’s health being shown by human health? It may or may not […]
