Decided to put the fire pit back into service.

Some thoughts on journalism, trust, AI and… a 20 year old debate?

Trust me, I’m a journalist.

Hat-tip to @ayjay for starting this thought process off.

A flashback to an old feeling: opening up the office copies of a new issue…

The latest issue of XCity magazine is here. Congrats to our magazine students.

Spring is bursting with colour today.

A vibrant cherry blossom tree in full bloom is surrounded by street lamps and buildings on a sunny day.&10;

Brighton by Night

A lively pedestrian street at night with people walking and dining outdoors. Buildings are lit with colorful lights, and a restaurant with string lights has patrons seated inside. The atmosphere is vibrant and festive.

This is the end. Embrace it.

Hassocks Station. 📍

Testing the new check-in feature in Micro Social…

This is a lovely piece of artistic graffiti, but it’s the “official” notice next to it that really makes it.

A stencil artwork depicts a child holding strings attached to golden, balloon-shaped outlines on a dark background.A notice forbids tampering with artwork, mentions verification processes, and reminds the public not to deface property. It is clearly satire.

Layoffs at Automattic:

This restructuring will result in an approximately 16% workforce reduction.

Ouch. Sympathies to those impacted.

Rule for life.

A neon sign reads "but first coffee," illuminated in white and blue. It’s in Clubhouse Coffee, Shoreham by Sea.

Discussion of it is everywhere, and @paulrobertlloyd is bored of it.

I know how he feels.

ChatGPT has remade me in Studio Ghibli style:

Adam Tinworth on a boardwalk in wetlands, rendered in Studio Ghibli style.

Listening to an interesting talk by Professor Nick Couldry, who pointing out that we legislate to stop companies filling our rivers and land with pollutants. Isn’t it about time we started doing the same to companies polluting our social ecosystems with toxic social interactions?

He’s written a book exploring these ideas and how human solidarity survives social media, called The Space of the World.

Yeah, going to read that.

Taking advantage of micro.blog’s new EU hosting option to move adders.blog’s hosting to the EU.

For obvious reasons.

Turns out there’s a lot of books I wrote in the pirated data Meta used to train its LLM. And I’m not the only family member impacted, either…

I’d be a lot more sanguine about this if it wasn’t, well, Meta.

Meta’s AI Will Suggest Comments for Users to Post About Your Photos:

Meta is testing an Instagram feature that suggests AI-generated comments for users to post beneath other users’ photos and videos.

So an AI can leave a comment on an AI-created image, while being shown an AI-created ad, and we can do something more meaningful with our lives.

Finished reading: Lucius: The Faultless Blade by Ian St. Martin 📚

Interesting dipping back into Warhammer fiction after 30 years. Surprisingly good for tie-in fiction. Predictably grimdark, but does a good job of making you care what happens to the characters, while still amazing it clear they are early all irredeemable monsters.

Print isn’t dead, and doesn’t need to die. Because, in a digital-first world, it’s an invaluable form of retreat and escape.

Bit on the nose…

(From a recent issue of the Avengers Academy digital comic.)

A person reacts with concern, anticipating a podcast from a “nazi sound guy”, in a vivid comic-style scene with energetic action lines and dialogue bubbles.

Betteridge’s Law applies: Will big AI save the world?