I don’t think I’ve ever had so many people send me a “Streisand Effect” story as the one about a small town having nearly every copy of a newspaper stolen. Many people assumed that the culprit who stole the papers did so to try to perhaps protect the perpetrators of a sexual assault (or possibly […]
A far-right state lawmaker in the Oklahoma state legislature has started his first term on the civil liberties shortbus. Sen. Dusty Deevers, a Republican lawmaker and Southern Baptist pastor, introduced a complete ban on consensual pornography despite its First Amendment protections. Senate Bill 1976, sponsored by Deevers alone, features fascistic language looking to completely ban the viewing, […]
Any school shooting is horrific. But the Uvalde school shooting went far beyond the usual nightmarish levels of something that happens so often in the United States, we can actually use the modifier “usual.” Police officers entered the school three minutes after the shooter did. But they did not actually end the terror until more […]
Color is everywhere and, with the innovative Nix Mini 2, you can now capture and recreate it anywhere you go. This compact, portable, and highly sophisticated device is designed for those who find color inspiration in everyday life. Now, you can harness the power of technology to bring color into your creative, professional, or personal […]
A couple of weeks ago, a friend sent me Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar’s and Rep. Madeleine Dean’s proposed NO AI FRAUD Act, which purports to “protect Americans’ individual right to their likeness and voice against AI-generated fakes and forgeries.” Now, there are legitimate concerns about uses of generative AI tools to create fake images, videos, […]
The FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), part of the 2021 infrastructure bill, currently provides 23 million low-income Americans a $30 broadband discount. While it didn’t get much hype, that’s a big deal in a country where broadband affordability is a massive obstacle due to muted competition. But those 23 million Americans are poised to soon […]
Lots of tech is being thrown at cops with the intent of helping them work smarter. While this might sound like the early waves of a sea change, the end result — at least so far — is just more of the same stuff we’ve seen for decades. Crime rates may be at historic lows […]
Last year, I wrote here about FutureCast, a very adaptable “game” framework that was designed as a foresight tool, to help explore pathways to change. It was developed by myself and our partner in all things game related, Randy Lubin of Leveraged Play. Randy and I created it in partnership with the United Nations Global […]
I mean, there was no way not to see this coming. Last year we wrote about how Trump had lost his vexatious lawsuit against the NY Times regarding its interactions with his niece, Mary Trump. Mary had leaked some tax documents to the NY Times, and Trump sued the Times, arguing (laughably) that this constituted […]
Journalists have long used Google News to track news cycles. But for years users have documented a steady decline in product quality parallel to similar complaints about the quality of Google’s broader search technology. Many stories and outlets are often no longer indexed, low quality clickbait and garbage are everywhere, and customization seems broken as […]
“They’re not sending their best.” – Donald Trump, June 26, 2015 I hear ya, Donnie. Just look at the jamokes you’ve inspired to set fire to the Constitution, if only because they failed to set fire to Capitol Hill following the 2020 election. Florida’s full of them. The state legislature is infested with people who […]
Lean Six Sigma is one of the most popular business strategies for reducing waste, accelerating product delivery, and ultimately driving profit. With 4 courses, this bundle will help you learn lean project management principles and implement them with your organization’s overall business process. This will contribute to making data-driven decisions, saving more time, and improving […]
It’s kind of pathetic how desperate Elon Musk is to convince people that ExTwitter is a good platform for posting their video content. I assume it’s a perfectly okay place to post videos, but it’s hardly where most people go to watch videos, and Elon may discover sooner or later just how difficult it is […]
Read the latest edition of The Sky Is Rising at The Copia Institute » Twelve years ago, we released our very first research report, the Sky is Rising. Back then, in 2012, the commonly accepted wisdom was that the internet was killing various creative industries, from the music industry (especially!) to movies, TV, and books […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about Ubisoft saying people need to get used to not owning games they play: What the world needs is a DRM-ed digital currency you can use for buying DRM-ed digital content. If the seller makes the product vanish, the buyer can […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2019, an appeals court let the FBI off the hook for breaking the law during its Playpen investigation, while a federal judge said compelling people to unlock their phones with fingerprints or faces violates the Fifth Amendment, and another judge recommended vacating the sentence of one of the FBI’s […]
We’ve done a metric ton of posts here over the years pointing out one unfortunate trend that has come along with the move from physical products to digital purchases: you don’t own what you’ve bought. In some cases, it’s you don’t own what you think you’ve bought, because nobody actually reads EULAs and all the […]
Join our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1928! » The latest edition of our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1928, is well underway. As always, we’re calling on designers of all stripes and all levels of experience to put this year’s newly public domain works to use in digital and analog […]
The state-based attacks on social media take all different forms. And the specific attacks on TikTok are some of the most notable in how little state officials seem to care about basic concepts like the 1st Amendment. The most obvious example is Montana’s failed attempt to just outright ban TikTok, but we’ve also seen other […]
Things become heated and tangled when it comes to free speech, religion, and the government’s attempt to control either of these things. Government entities tend to feel the best way to avoid the appearance of favoring any religion is to stay out of it completely. A wise move by the government, but not the best […]
stLouIST