This essay of mine was just selected as a 2024 Notable Essay in the annual The Best American Essays series, joining a list of great writers like Lydia Davis, Ben Lerner, Mary Gaitskill, Elif Batuman, and Geoff Dyer.
Category: Random
Pure Blogger
Jason Kottke, one of the blog elders and author of Kottke.org, celebrated Dave Winer’s 30th blog anniversary by calling him “one of the purest of the pure bloggers.” To that, Dave asked Jason what he meant by “pure blogger.
The world sees Japan as a paragon of minimalism. But its hidden clutter culture shows that ‘more’ can be as magical as ‘less’
In 1990, a young Japanese photographer named Kyoichi Tsuzuki began capturing a rarely seen view of domestic life in one of the world’s most densely populated cities. Over three years, he visited hundreds of Tokyo apartments, photographing the living spaces of friends, acquaintances and strangers.
Using ChatGPT to make fake social media posts backfires on bad actors
Instead of radically altering the threat landscape, OpenAI tools like ChatGPT are mostly used to take shortcuts or save costs, OpenAI suggested, like generating bios and social media posts to scale spam networks that might previously have “required a large team of trolls, with all the costs and leak
Dungeon-mastering emotions: D&D meets group therapy
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). A game of creativity and imagination, D&D lets players weave their own narrative, blending combat and roleplaying in an immersive gaming experience.
The Most Sought-After Travel Guide Is a Google Doc
When her friends want to know where to go in London or Milan, they go to Emilia Petrarca. The 32-year-old is a writer by day, but an avid curator by night—not of things, but of places in the cities she’s visited abroad.
The Editors Protecting Wikipedia from AI Hoaxes
The group’s goal is to protect one of the world’s largest repositories of information from the same kind of misleading AI-generated information that has plagued Google search results, books sold on Amazon, and academic journals.
Waffle House has its own hurricane index and storm center. Milton is Code Red. Here’s what that means
Common sense would tell you Floridians concerned about Hurricane Milton would turn to the news and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to stay informed about the storm’s impact. But there’s a third source that many in the South are using that may come as a surprise.
Dave, Happy 30th Blog Birthday
It would be an understatement to say that Dave Winer has been influential in my life. His early work set me on the path of blogging. I wouldn’t be where I am without blogging, as a my ideal medium of expression.