When AI Prophecy Fails – Cory Doctorow (Enshittification) on why AI is essentially one big MLM scheme. “What’s Amazon to do? How do they convince you to buy enough AI to justify that $180b in capital expenditure? Somehow, they have to convince you that an AI can do your workers’ jobs. One way to sell that pitch is to fire a ton of Amazon workers and announce that their jobs have been given to a chatbot. This isn’t a production strategy, it’s a marketing strategy – it’s Amazon deliberately taking an efficiency loss by firing workers in a desperate bid to convince you that you can fire your workers.”

No HTML Club – A small compendium of websites built only using text files. One of the sites, ASCII Bar, is a long-scroll of cocktail recipes. I’m not sure exactly why, but this text-only approach is really doing it for me aesthetically. Via No CSS Club.

How To Live Off The Rails – “Since the time when I started my career we’ve seen a collapse in opportunities. And a rise in exploitation…Late stage capitalism, which has effectively pokévolved into authoritarianism, has destroyed the liberal arts.” Via Kottke and Elle

Lorde’s Perfectly Imperfect Interview – “We’re conditioned now to try grab it all and grow without limit and it’s making us feel sick. Let something of value pass you by this week. Even better if it feels wrong to do so/presses into an uncomfy spot. See if the feeling you’re craving can be achieved using tools you have.” I mean, couldn’t love this woman more.

Your World of Text – “An infinite grid of text editable by any visitor.” The best way I can think to describe this site is a never-ending collection of bathroom stall graffiti conversations. Each custom URL generates a blank page that can have anonymous text added to it, and the page continues to live in perpetuity. Some fun examples are: cats, heaven, hell, poetry.

Calvin_412 – I’ve become recently obsessed with this Instagram account of photography in and around Pittsburgh. I’m finding a sort of peace in these quiet, liminal street scenes, and a romance that reminds me of my own childhood in the similarly rust-belt town of Buffalo. I cannot articulate why, but there is just something so beautiful about a humming tungsten street lamp on an empty residential street or nature that has been left to consume the manmade world.

Compost.party – A web server hosted on a retired smartphone, running on solar power. Via Ms. Information on Are.na

Bop Spotter: Like a “shot spotter” used by law enforcement to detect gunshots, but used instead to identify songs that are playing in San Francisco’s Mission District. “This is culture surveillance. No one notices, no one consents. But it’s not about catching criminals. It’s about catching vibes. A constant feed of what’s popping off in real-time.” Via Spencer Chang on Are.na

LatentScape – A virtual art gallery of sorts that culls imagery from Are.na and presents it in latent space (a term I needed to look up on Wikipedia)

Max Bittker – So much fun stuff on this personal website: a super cool personal bookshelf, links to lovely little digital experiments like this loom that weaves with keystrokes.