Dave Lee
My WorkBlogupdated 1 day ago

Interesting links, noteworthy journalism and other miscellanea from around the web.

Trump used the press as human shields but the White House Correspondents Association has barely raised a grumble. Margaret Sullivan on what should have been the last straw:

So what did the White House Correspondents Association do?

Its new president, Jacqui Heinrich, a Fox News correspondent, had a talk last week with White House officials to express the organization’s concerns and to suggest different protocols. She also sent an off-the-record memo to WHCA members explaining she had had a “candid and productive meeting” with White House officials.

And that, apparently, was that. A quiet meeting and a quiet memo — sadly weak — along the lines of all those pointless “thoughts and prayers” we hear about after a mass shooting.

Journalists as Trump's 'human shields' should be the WHCA's last strawmargaretsullivan.substack.comInstead, the response of the press group's leader, a Fox News correspondent, was pitifully weak

A 404 Media investigation was able to reveal Amazon’s book buying operation, which hasn’t been previously reported, by placing a tracking device in a rare book we suspected would be acquired by an AI company for training data, and following it around the country to its final destination.

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility404media.coWe placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.

We seem to be the last to know.

Google Turns On Gemini A.I. for Students Using Its Classroom Appnytimes.comGoogle enabled A.I. features for K-12 schools that have allowed student access to Gemini. Until this week, Google automatically enabled Gemini in Classroom only for students 18 or older.

Time and time again, this vindictive child has served up fabrications regarding the caterpillar’s appetite that consist of nothing but radical left talking points.

Karoline Leavitt Slams Toddler Son Over Baseless Accusations That Caterpillar Very Hungrytheonion.comWASHINGTON—Blasting the 2-year-old’s incessant lying to the American people, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday slammed her toddler son over baseless accusations that the caterpillar was very hungry. “Time and time again, this vindictive child has served up fabrications regarding the caterpillar’s appetite that consist of nothing but radical left talking points,” Leavitt […]

This Louis Vuitton-Singer-Porsche collaboration is beautiful work.

On the outside, the two latest vintage Porsche 911s reimagined by automotive design company Singer have little in common with a Louis Vuitton bag. But look closely at the interior of the cabriolet and coupe, and you’ll see patterns and finishes intrinsic to the French fashion house.

Louis Vuitton’s Next Release? Vintage Porscheswsj.comIn a collaboration with Singer, the fashion label made over two vintage sports cars.

Slate on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's plans for motherhood:

[W]hen Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Instagram recently to announce she is freezing her eggs, surely MAGA was resoundingly grateful to her for carrying forward this pro-baby message, right? Not quite. As the 36-year-old New York Democrat was no doubt aware would happen, MAGA commentators lashed out at her for preserving her ability to have kids in the future. Christian right commentator Allie Beth Stuckey said she was “selfish.” Podcast host Matt Walsh called Ocasio-Cortez’s choice “backwards and ridiculous.” The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway argued that the congresswoman’s video was a “sad public performance/display of unnecessarily unwise decision making.”

In the MAGAsphere, it’s not enough for a woman to want motherhood. If she doesn’t give up her career and even her personal happiness in the process of making babies, it doesn’t count. Being pregnant isn’t enough. Conservatives also seem to require the “barefoot” and “in the kitchen” parts of the traditional job description.

AOC exposes MAGA’s motherhood hypocrisysalon.comThe New York congresswoman freezes her eggs, and Republicans show their true feelings

The Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council had an important task: to attract foreign investment into Nigeria. It had a line in the federal budget, a sought-after office inside the Federal Secretariat in Abuja, where ministries are housed, and a website on the official government of Nigeria domain. There was only one hitch. It did not officially exist.

How a made-up agency found its way into Nigeria’s budgetft.comAlleged head of fictional investment council was allocated government funding and met top officials

An Australian man wanted to use AI agent OpenClaw to automate the booking of classes at his local gym. It was... rather good at it. TechCrunch:

When he asked the bot to book him a spot, the best it could do was No. 4 on the wait list, he told ABC. Then his agent told him it had found a way to book him into the classes in advance. Far in advance. Months before the gym made those classes available for sign up.

Bird asked if it could move him up on the waitlist. It did as asked and attempted to do so. The bot had found a vulnerability in the authorization portion of the appointment software the gym was using. It hacked in and canceled the No. 1 reservation on the wait list. The bot cheerfully told him, according to logs of the chat published by ABC:

Tech industry is buzzing after a Claude agent hacked into a gym | TechCrunchtechcrunch.comAn OpenClaw agent hacked into a gym's reservation system to bump its human boss higher on a class's waitlist. And the tech industry took notice.

The hypocrisy is at once comical and frightening. We like it when our athletes offer their opinions on this or that issue, except when we disagree with those opinions. (Stick to sports!) And athletes who choose not to play this silly parlor game are dismissed as cowards.

Aaron Rodgers, Sophie Cunningham speak out. Caitlin Clark doesn’t. Either way, they losenytimes.comThese days, we dissect athletes' every utterance in search of hidden meanings and innuendo. The hypocrisy is both comical and frightening.

social mediasportculture wars

A horror lede from Bloomberg's Olivia Carville:

When TikTok tweaked its algorithm in 2021 to stop users from being overwhelmed with harmful content, the company didn’t roll out the safer version to everyone, a confidential internal document shows. Instead, to see if the change might reduce the app’s stickiness, the company conducted an experiment. It created a control group of 10% of US users — at the time, that would have been about 15 million people — who kept the old version of the app. This group, according to the document, included 16-year-old Chase Nasca. TikTok’s algorithm pushed him thousands of videos about suicide, sadness, hopelessness and loneliness, right up until he killed himself.

TikTok Withheld a Safety Feature From Millions. One Died by Suicidebloomberg.comA confidential document says an algorithm adjustment was kept from many users “by design,” as part of an experiment to measure engagement.

safetytiktokbloomberg

Today and its TV counterpart, Breakfast News, then shared the same open-plan office at Television Centre, separated only by a row of possibly plastic pot-plants. On my first day, making sure that everyone could hear, Rod stood on Today’s side of the Berlin Wall. ‘That side, television,’ he said. ‘This side, journalism.’ I’m hearing there’s a vacancy for the breakfast TV editorship, I said with mock innocence. ‘I’d rather clean the toilets,’ said Rod, loudly.

Andrew Gilligan on his old boss, Rod Liddle, who died this week.

Rod Liddle was the most exciting boss I ever hadspectator.comThe best word for my feelings about Rod Liddle’s death is one that Rod was occasionally heard to use himself. Fuck. Rod was my editor at the Today programme, the most exciting boss I’ve ever had. He hired me, from a newspaper, to be part of a team he was building because he wanted reporters who would

bbcrod liddleandrew gilligan

What's a podcast?

In an age of content blurring across multiple platforms at once, Ashley Carmen on industry efforts to define what exactly constitutes a "podcast":

Here’s where the group ended up: “A podcast is an on-demand show rooted in the spoken word and fully intelligible as audio. Typically episodic and conversational, podcasts cover wide-ranging themes and formats. They are accessed as audio or video via open RSS feeds and other distribution methods.”

A shorter version boils down to: “If it works with your eyes closed, it’s a podcast.”

Finally, Podcasting Has a Definitionbloomberg.comAfter months of secret meetings, a group of industry heavyweights are releasing a white paper codifying new podcasting frameworks

mediabloombergpodcastsashley carmen

I confess: it was the title that lured me. Tell me you don’t feel the same.

Nigella Lawson (who else?)

Girdlebuster Pienigella.comI confess: it was the title that lured me. Tell me you don’t feel the same. I came across this in a recipe by Elinor Klivans, whom I often turn to for chocolatey solace, in her The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook, which includes the wonderful phrase “let the chocolate chips fall where they will”. Although her recipes always work to the letter, my recipe is not hers. I am inspired by the digestive and chocolate base and coffee ice cream filling (though if you’re feeding children, I’d suggest vanilla) but I like a butterscotchy topping, which sets the minute it hits the ice cream. Sometimes bits of ice cream bubble up to the surface, making the top gloriously Florentined. And the joy of the girdlebuster (as it is known for short at home) is that, should there be any left, you can put it back into its dish and just stash in the freezer again for midnight feasts. Admittedly, this is not huge, but a small slice is all that’s needed. Do not let it “ripen” out of the freezer before slicing because it all gets too sticky and drippy and messy.

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