Simon Willison: My piece this morning about the Marimo acquisition is an example of a variant of a TIL – I didn’t know much about CoreWeave, the acquiring company, so I poked around to answer my own questions and then wrote up what I learned as a short post. Curiosity-driven blogging if you like. This is how I might...

Anna Washenko, writing for Engadget: The company’s official line is that the plugins “reflect an earlier era of web development, and their usage has naturally declined as the digital landscape has evolved.” But Facebook also plays a much smaller role in the broader Meta business operation than it once did, and...

67 has been named word of the year by dictionary.com: If you’re the parent of a school-aged child, you might be feeling a familiar vexation at the sight of these two formerly innocuous numerals. If you’re a member of Gen Alpha, however, maybe you’re smirking at the thought of adults once again struggling to make […]

alive internet theory, all lower case, by Spencer Chang: alive internet theory is a séance with this living internet. Resurrecting tens of millions of digital artifacts from the Internet Archive, visitors are immersed in a relentless barrage of human expression as they travel through the life of the web as we...

Tatiana Siegel, Brent Lang, and Matt Donnelly, writing for Variety: The hope is to have a fresh “Star Trek” movie, though the studio has moved on from the idea of bringing back Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and the rest of the ensemble from the J.J. Abrams reboot. The news probably comes as no surprise to […]

The Rot, by Indigenous Australian author Evelyn Araluen (Instagram page), follows up 2021’s Dropbear, which won the 2022 Stellar Prize. The Rot is a recalcitrant study of the decaying romances, expired hopes and abject injustices of the world. A liturgy for girlhood in the dying days of late-stage capitalism, these...

I don’t know how this works in other countries, but the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), a statutory authority that regulates communications and media services locally, has allocated a range of non-existent phone numbers for use in things like films and TV shows. Actually, this is the first I’ve...

The bus I’m on arrives at an interchange stop but a minute late and misses the connecting service which left a minute earlier than scheduled. The bean grinder at the cafe breaks down just as I arrive. The door phone at a friend’s apartment is on the blink, and I’m in a phone black spot […]

Located along the shoreline of inner Sydney suburb Circular Quay, Sydney’s Writer’s Walk commemorates well-known authors and playwrights, who are either Australian, or visited the country at some point, with circular plagues set into walkways in the area. Local writers include Miles Franklin and Peter Carey, while...

Brisbane based Australian musician and singer, and founder of Pub Choir, Astrid Jorgensen (Instagram page), recently published her memoir, Average at Best. Average, says Jorgensen, is underrated, given how difficult it is to be the best: By its very nature, ‘best’ is rare and elusive: you’re not going to get much of...

Just about every online publisher has experienced a decline in the number of people reading articles and information published on their websites. Search engines presently do such a good job of breaking down the main points of news reports, blog posts, and the like, that seekers of information are seldom reading the...

Tabbed browsing, was, says OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the last significant web browser innovation. Although tabbed browsing didn’t become common place until around 2002, the idea dates back to 1994, with the arrival of InternetWorks, a browser made by BookLink Technologies. Altman seems to be suggesting browsers have...