I wonder if students today would be less likely to lean on AI for writing assignments if schools had made sure they could touch-type (at least 60wpm) before having them submit all their assignments online. 1/🧵
Ethan Plaut
@ethanplaut.bsky.social
Research: Disconnection, tech refusal & beautiful, broken media. Sometime coder & dusty journo. Now Aotearoa NZ, always Chicago, formerly Stanford, SF, Phnom Penh, Fukui. Silence when I can. Music when I can't. Tangata Tiriti, Jew, he/him. ethanplaut.com
I like this notetaking example. it is a good case of how gender works. Notetaking has never been about producing a transcript. It is a bureaucratic skill in the 20th c. organixarion because it is SENSEMAKING. Those women socialized to take notes? They have been doing men’s metacognition for them
Jennifer Romig @jennifermromig.bsky.social · 4d agoNotetaking in meetings is tiny case in point - used to be some predictable social assumptions who would do it; now anyone can offer to do ”notetaking” by turning on the AI listener. Further interesting scenario is human recollection / notes (taken by habit by a person) conflict with AI summary
“The problem dates back to the early 2000s when…publishers withdrew their NZ distribution warehouses to invest in Australia…[which] was, at first, considered no big deal…Books were commonly airfreighted at the low, low price of about 50 cents per kilo…That all changed with the coming of the plague…”
Publishers 'self-sabotaging' NZ books
An investigation into the biggest threat facing NZ bookstores
newsroom.co.nz
NZ’s climate goals off-track – Expert Reaction
NZ's climate goals off-track - Expert Reaction
The latest emissions reduction monitoring report says we're running out of time to meet our targets. Farming, electricity, and transport are the biggest risks to emissions budgets, the Climate Change…
sciencemediacentre.co.nz
truly wild thing for a mayor of a major city to email a journalist www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361... cc @columjournreview.bsky.social @poynterinstitute.bsky.social @niemanreports.org
I think there’s a lot for Critical AI to learn from the mass society / propaganda roots of comm studies — and radical publishing + radio — of the early 20th c; the TV critics + radical media collectives / community media centers of the 60s + 70s…
I made a website that lets you cut out old magazines from the internet archive (or any PDFs you own) and make collage art out of them: ✂️ clipart.studio
this is a wholeass hybrid genre that could’ve been, or might be — anachronistic in the best way, if not timeless… 💙 @kidkoala.bsky.social
4 bit Blues
YouTube video by Kid Koala - Topic
youtu.be
“…everyday hassles… carry a civic cost, leaving people with less time, less trust, and less energy to participate in their communities….”
Meet 'Project 2029' — and its war on the annoyance economy
Remember Project 2025? Democrats are building their own governing blueprint, and one proposal takes aim at the "annoyance economy": robocalls, endless hold times, hidden fees and other everyday frustr...
npr.org
breaking new frontiers in the english language, in a faculty meeting on every academic's favourite topic (how to do expense reports properly) I just heard a person use the word "workflow" as a verb
It's been evident for a while that 95bFM would not continue to have a physical home at the University of Auckland. This morning, after a lot of work, they announced that the station will be moving to a new home on K Road. It's the right place. 95bfm.com/news/were-mo...
We're Moving!
95bFM has announced it will relocate to Karangahape Road by Friday, 31 July 2026, marking a major new chapter in the station’s nearly six-decade history. After a long search for a suitable new home, 9...
95bfm.com
I’m the poster child for youth journalism, but does it have a future?
I’m the poster child for youth journalism, but does it have a future?
I have worked for a lot of youth news outlets, and all but one no longer exist....
thespinoff.co.nz
I am *delighted* to have a new article in @spectrum.ieee.org - this one is all about Assoc Prof Te Taka Keegan's work. He's developing sovereign AI to aid in the protection and revitalisation of specific dialects of Te reo Māori spectrum.ieee.org/indigenous-a...
Māori AI Voice Puts Language Ownership Back In Community Hands
Several projects around the world are working to develop indigenous-owned AI models
spectrum.ieee.org
intended to get the most basic alarm clock but this joystick adjusts +/- so I really had no choice
proposed NZ law allows Ministry of Social Development "use of an automated electronic system…to make any decision, exercise any power, comply with any obligation, or take any other related action under any specified provision, with appropriate safeguards."
Proposed law could see government use AI to make decisions about people's benefits
Coalition parties say the proposed law would make welfare system administration more efficient.
rnz.co.nz
New in Nature: LLMs give "the party line" in the languages of authoritarian regimes. This works when they control the media, which feeds pretraining data. We show more state control over the media means less critical LLMs. 6 studies spanning 38 languages & 13 models. Details ↓
“…hallucinated references disproportionately assign credit to already prominent and male scholars, suggesting that LLM-generated errors may reinforce existing inequities in scientific recognition…” 🧪 arxiv.org/abs/2605.07723
LLM hallucinations in the wild: Large-scale evidence from non-existent citations
Large language models (LLMs) are known to generate plausible but false information across a wide range of contexts, yet the real-world magnitude and consequences of this hallucination problem remain p...
arxiv.org
"Researchers have mapped... over 1,000 previously unmapped coral reefs...invisible to conventional surveys... 'If you look at any one satellite image, the water just looks like turquoise paint... But if we overlay 200 images... the swirly patterns... average out while the reefs are constant'" 🧪
Scientists map coral reefs off northern Australia | Computer Weekly
Researchers have mapped a previously uncharted network of coral and rocky reefs hidden in the murky coastal waters of Australia’s north, without ever setting foot on a boat.
computerweekly.com
Pouring one out for all the librarians and archivists who are now confronting angry patrons demanding to see an item that doesn't exist because "AI told me it does."* *story just recounted to me by a friend
I can never resist: a little preview of the new lab we’re building @skeuomorphpress.org with @drtlwagner.bsky.social The “Undead Media Lab” has a pretty catchy ring to it
Supermonkey intelligence Monkey-in-the-loop AI Monkey-centred computing
New brain-computer interface allows monkeys to navigate VR
Researchers have developed an intracortical brain-computer interface that could help paralyzed patients control devices such as wheelchairs.
rdworldonline.com
so preoccupied with whether or not they could
Josh Braun@joshbraun.bsky.social · 4mo agoWhat hath God wrought? 🤢
sursedey chnam thmey to all who celebrate technically it’s not Khmer new year for a couple days but it’s the weekend and this remix is timeless
Khmer New Year feat Fatman Scoop - DJ JIMMY [O' REMIX ]
YouTube video by jimster112
youtu.be