"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." -- Edgar Allan Poe

Why Plain Text Is Still One of the Best Technologies We Have | Dead Parrot BBS #media #computers #technology #longread

The Limitations Are Real

Plain text is not the answer to everything.

I would not want to replace a photograph with a text description of its pixels, and I do not want a financial workbook turned into a pile of numbers that requires me to reconstruct all the formulas manually. Rich documents exist because presentation and structure sometimes matter.

Applications also provide useful abstractions. A database can enforce relationships that a directory full of text files cannot. A word processor can handle page layout that would be tedious to reproduce manually. Specialized software exists for good reasons.

The problem is not using richer tools. It is assuming that richer tools are automatically better even when the job does not require them. In a surprising number of cases, the simplest adequate representation remains the most durable one.

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People Across the Globe Increasingly Say Social Media Is Harming Democracy | Pew Research Center #internet #politics #rabbithole

Most think social media leads to manipulation and division, but they also say it informs people and gives them a voice in politics

The people holding up the internet | Data Drop #internet #rabbithole

Billions of phones run on code looked after by a handful of people. We counted them from the code itself.

orkut.com — You deserve better from social media. #internet #socialnetworks

Social media should help us find our people. Show you want a more human internet. Help Orkut to bring back what really matters: people, communities, and genuine connection.

Margaret Hamilton, computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program, dies at 90 | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology #promemoria

“Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world,” Margaret Hamilton said of her time as an MIT software engineer working with NASA’s Apollo program, which aimed to land the first humans on the moon. “There was no choice but to be pioneers.”

EU diplomatic arm under fire for bowing to US pressure over disinformation conference | Euronews #disinfo #debunk #politics

The EU diplomatic service pulled its backing from a disinformation conference after US pressure, angering MEPs and NGOs who say it undermines the bloc's own defence of civil society. The EU's diplomatic service is facing criticism from lawmakers and civil society after withdrawing its backing for a disinformation conference at the last minute, following pressure from Washington.

The European External Action Service (EEAS) pulled out of the conference, one of the few European-level gatherings devoted to the issue, saying its programme did not align with EU positions. Critics say the move contradicts the bloc's own approach to protecting civil society.

We are going to kill “unalive” - Anil Dash #censorship #freespeech

I talk to a lot of old people, those who were born in the 20th century, and if I ask them what the word “unalive” means, they usually have no idea what I’m talking about, except for some of them who have kids or who study Internet culture.

This will, of course, probably seem very weird to most people who were born in or grew up in the 21st century. Just to recap for the olds: “unalive” is the word you use to represent concepts like dying, or death, or killing or being killed, on digital platforms where saying those words accurately will cause the algorithm to punish or censor you. Or, maybe, where the perception is that using those words will result in being censored by the algorithm, and no one is actually willing to find out what happens if you use the forbidden words.

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Dainius