Jack Carter Benjamin

Whole GOP is complicit for voting to confirm a known anti-vaxxer. The whole party should wear this stain, not just Trump.

Applebaum on Autocracy Anne Applebaum warns that Sudan’s descent into chaos shows what happens when institutions fail—and why a free press is essential to prevent America from following the same path.

Anne Applebaum: "If American media can’t convey how dangerous this behavior is—for our prosperity, for our health, for our democracy—then American media will eventually cease to exist."

More from our convo in @status.news: www.status.news/p/anne-apple...

How is this not satire

And a few more from Arcachon and the Dune of Pilat, which is absolutely stunning.

Recently went to Bordeaux and since I stopped posting on Instagram I don't have as much to do with the pictures, so here's a few I'm proud of. All on the X100F.

The irony of it all is that crappy employment numbers are one of the few things that actually *would* get the Fed to lower interest rates.

But Trump's ego can't take the fact that he's responsible for a massive economic downturn, so he's gone full Stalinist and fired the BLS commissioner.

"If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any." - Donald Trump, June 15, 2020

Replayed BioShock 1 on the Switch earlier this year. While a remake would I'm sure be beautiful, honestly the original still totally holds up. The art design is still absolutely stunning.

if i were a pro-trump financial type i might view the destruction of reliable government data with the kind of anger and apprehension that might lead me to reevaluate my politics, but then if i’m a financial guy throwing my weight behind strongman rule, i’m already too stupid to breathe

The commodification of news is a huge issue without a real solution. Moments after you publish a scoop, it's circulated everywhere else and traffic goes elsewhere.

In this instance there's extra irony, but most outlets do the same thing.

And then we wonder why only 17% of Americans pay for news.

Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End America’s run as the premiere techno-superpower may be over.

A sad statistic: 75% of American scientists said they are considering leaving the country.

China is recruiting them, and the EU has set aside money to do the same.
www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Traffic Apocalypse Google’s AI Overviews are killing click-throughs to news sites.

"Worldwide search traffic has fallen by 15% in the past year, estimates Similarweb, a digital intelligence platform. The culprit: AI search." www.cjr.org/analysis/tra...

Why does this matter? Lighter traffic to news sites means less ad revenue and fewer chances to convert readers into subscribers.

How do you define “success” when he hasn’t given a clear definition for what “superintelligence” looks like?

Galloway lays out a really well-articulated argument I disagree with.

I think it’s great to offer to pay. I also think it provides a good foundation of equal footing to ultimately agree to split. That could also take the form of her paying for the next date (a good segue to ask for one).

Until proven otherwise, “superintelligence” is the new “metaverse” — that is, something totally undefined, pushed entirely on hype rather than evidence of consumer demand, and designed solely to attract speculative investment (and stroke Zuck’s ego).

"Discourse—a shorthand for the way that a particular topic gets put through the internet’s meat grinder—is a misnomer, because none of the participants is really talking to the others."

It is news outlets’ responsibility to report the truth. Facts. Cause-and-effect.

It’s not their responsibility that the GOP has become divorced from reality. But it is their responsibility to seek accuracy, not “balance” between an outrageous position and a reasonable one.

“If you report what’s really happening, it sounds liberal.”

Want to destroy trust in your news organization? Instead of reporting the truth, even if it’s opposed to one party’s position, unnecessarily “balance” it with rhetorical gymnastics.

Google Zero is close, the question is whether publishers have enough time to change their business and editorial models to sub/membership and commerce.

Seems unlikely for the vast majority of magazines and news brands, outside of the big ones. Would love to be proven wrong.

It's a concept of a deal.

All religions can be melded into whatever political ideals those in power have in mind; there is no “should”.

Sure, Jesus was supposedly something of an ancient communist. And yet the church that spread his gospel has long hated gays and contraception and all sorts of progressivist ideas.

I don’t think it’s a reason to not vote for the guy, but I also don’t blame any American who is sick of religion in politics.

The US is the only country in the West that doesn’t really have secularized political discourse (in either party). From the outside looking in, it’s wild.

My #1 annoyance is seeing press releases and reporting that cite viewership figures for especially short-form videos, without taking a second to consider how those “views” are measured.

On TikTok and Shorts, a “view” is any time a video was served to a user. That’s not a view! It’s an impression.

No-one knows whether YouTube is TV or social — not even YouTube TV has earned trust because its numbers are verified, scrutinised and benchmarked. Social media? Not so much. Google needs to decide where YouTube stands.

“[YouTube] claimed that YouTube Shorts are now averaging over 200bn daily views.

“There are about 8bn people in the world. That would mean each person is watching 25 Shorts per day. Every day.

“That’s not viewership. That’s exposure.”

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Post-Split Companies Will Be Warner Bros. and Discovery The post-split companies also set their senior leadership teams.

From the company that brought you HBO Max -> Max -> HBO Max...

UK tech newsbrand Digital Frontier is "pausing" and has laid off all 16 members of staff just 17 months after launching.

Co-founder Josh Hewes: "The work we produced struck a chord, but the momentum never quite followed."

Another brutal result for a promising publishing startup.

Remarkable to me that amidst all the (rightful) furor over inflation this year and last, the climate crisis has largely been left out of that conversation.

On top of everything else, by not addressing global warming we are making our futures drastically more expensive. Bad for business.

VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in Jump in apps disguising internet users’ location threatens to undermine government efforts to protect children

VPN use is surging in the UK post-Online Safety Act enforcement. Who could've guessed.

“We would normally associate these large spikes in sign-ups with major civil unrest. This clearly shows that adults are concerned about the impact universal age verification laws will have on their privacy.”

My biggest hometown take is that tavern style >>> deep dish