András Dancs

China Turns to A.I. in Information Warfare

“A.I.-driven propaganda is no longer a hypothetical future threat,” they wrote. “It is operational, sophisticated and already reshaping how public opinion can be manipulated on a large scale.” [PayWall Removed]
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/u...

YouTube video by Apex Clips 2001: A Space Odyssey 4K HDR | The Shutdown Of Hal

youtu.be/UwCFY6pmaYY?...

‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished

“History is best told as a story of organised crime,” Kemp says. “It is one group creating a monopoly on resources through the use of violence over a certain territory and population.”

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

🤞🏻🤜🏻🤛🏻

Opinion | Thinking Is Becoming a Luxury Good

"Long-form literacy is not innate but learned, sometimes laboriously. As Maryanne Wolf, a literacy scholar, has illustrated, acquiring and perfecting a capacity for long-form, “expert reading” is literally mind-altering." [PayWall Removed]
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/o...

YouTube video by gudbuytjane That Mitchell and Webb Look: Homeopathic A&E

youtu.be/HMGIbOGu8q0?...

You Have No Idea How Furious the Canadians Are There’s nothing like a common enemy to make a country come together.

“You think I’m going to let that fucking criminal take my country? Not a chance,” he said as we drank Canadian beers. “So suddenly we go from being really easygoing to a nation of hockey goons.”
nymag.com/intelligence...

‘I’ve £90k in student debt – for what?’ Graduates share their job-hunting woes amid the AI fallout AI isn’t just taking away entry-levels jobs, it’s helping thousands apply for the same job with almost the same CV

“But sadly, universities are now run like businesses. They sell dreams and young people buy them, and then often, when they re-emerge into the real world, it becomes a nightmare.”
www.theguardian.com/money/2025/j...

Thousands of BBC jobs at risk as broadcaster considers major outsourcing drive Exclusive: BBC understood to be speaking to US tech giants as it desperately seeks cost savings

"The plans being considered include the offshoring of jobs currently carried out in the UK, with the BBC understood to be talking to US tech giants as potential partners. It is said to include the outsourcing of recommendation algorithms..."
www.theguardian.com/media/2025/j...

Photo agencies to boycott Oasis tour over rights restrictions Exclusive: Move comes after band’s management says rights to concert images will last for only one year

“Photo agencies are to boycott the rest of the Oasis reunion tour, including the first “homecoming” gig in Manchester on Friday, over restrictions imposed on how newspapers, magazines, TV broadcasters and digital publishers can use pictures from the gigs.”

www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

Vancouver Art Gallery to make deep cuts to staff, programming as revenue hits 15-year low Exact number of layoffs unclear until it’s known how many people are taking incentivized buyouts

“The library and archives will close indefinitely, beginning this summer. Travelling exhibitions are on hold and plans to bring in a large Indigenous show from New York this fall have been cancelled.” [PayWall Removed]

www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/1b94ce2...

“Prime Minister Carney and President Trump have agreed that parties will resume negotiations with a view towards agreeing on a deal by July 21, 2025.”

Once upon a time when Coal Harbour, Vancouver was home - the concierges in my rental tower were respectively an Air Force colonel from the former Yugoslavia and a Russian mathematician and literal rocket scientist… alas.

A.I. Is Starting to Wear Down Democracy

"Since the explosion of generative artificial intelligence over the last two years, the technology has demeaned or defamed opponents and, for the first time, officials and experts said, begun to have an impact on election results." [PayWall Removed]
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/t...

Vicki Goldberg Dies at 88; Saw Photography Through a Literary Lens

“Goldberg brought a broad education, insatiable curiosity and relentless ambition to her work. She showed us that photography was part of our social and cultural landscape.” [PayWall Removed]

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/a...

Madison Avenue Braces for the AI Apocalypse As media buyers and advertising elites execs anxiously convene at Cannes Lions, all anyone can talk about is how much time the business has left.

“Nothing can match human creativity and experience, but from research to placement to creative, a lot of what the agencies have done can be replicated pretty well by AI.”
www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

Trump’s Parade Drafted the Army Into a War of Images

"The production — particularly the staging for the president and his coterie of viewers — was brassily, distinctively Trumpy, a display of dominance with a side of commerce and branding." [PayWall Removed]
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/15/a...

Advanced AI suffers ‘complete accuracy collapse’ in face of complex problems, study finds ‘Pretty devastating’ Apple paper raises doubts about race to reach stage of AI at which it matches human intelligence

“Upon approaching a critical threshold – which closely corresponds to their accuracy collapse point – models counterintuitively begin to reduce their reasoning effort despite increasing problem difficulty.”

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

The ‘death of creativity’? AI job fears stalk advertising industry WPP and others roll out AI-generated campaigns as Facebook owner Meta plans to let firms create their own ads

"You don’t need any creative, you don’t need any targeting, you don’t need any measurement, except to be able to read the results that we spit out,” Zuckerberg said last month, in comments that appear to render much of the advertising industry obsolete."
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

YouTube video by euronews Anniversary of the final days of Ceaușescu regime

This one never gets old…

youtu.be/wqF4pUumWpw?...

YouTube Loosens Rules Guiding the Moderation of Videos

“What we’re seeing is a rapid race to the bottom. The changes benefit the companies by reducing the costs of content moderation… This is not about free speech. It’s about advertising, amplification and ultimately profits.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/t...

Arrest of Union Leader Highlights Link Between Workers’ and Immigrants’ Rights

“If they can go after him, the head of the largest labor union in the largest economy in a labor friendly state, who is the government not going to go after?”

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/u...

Australian reporter shot with rubber bullet while covering anti-Ice protests in Los Angeles The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a statement declaring that ‘all journalists should be able to do their work safely’

“The first thing he [Albanese] must tell the president is to stop shooting at our journalists,” the Greens senator said. “Freedom of the press is a fundamental pillar of a strong, functioning democracy.”

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/j...

British photojournalist hit by non lethal rounds during Los Angeles protests Nick Stern to undergo surgery for wound sustained during the standoff between police and anti-Ice protesters

“In my leg was what felt like a five centimeter hole with muscle hanging out of it and blood all down my leg. The medic put a tourniquet on it, and a journalist I was with took me to ER.”

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

It’s President Trump Again, This Time in Full Frame

“Its lighting is immoderate, its tone forbidding, but compared to the last one its subject’s mood has actually brightened.” [PayWall Removed]

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/a...

YouTube video by Peter Montag E.T. Bike Chase Scene (1982 Original)

youtu.be/Ct6O2nSOMlI?...

In the Pantheon of documentary photographers, Salgado's plinth has been well and truly earned... here are two of my favourites from "GOLD"... if someone gave Hieronymus Bosch a camera and teleported him to the late 20th Century...

Sebastião Salgado, photographer known for Amazon rainforest images, dies aged 81 Brazilian photographer’s work highlighted injustice and introduced rainforest to the world

“His leftwing sympathies led him and Wanick to move to Paris during the political repression of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship. It was there that he took up photography in the 1970s, experiencing an instant rise to stardom.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...