Forcing the world into machines https://tante.cc/2025/04/24/forcing-the-world-into-machines/ #AI #AIHype

I'm a big fan of 404, both the quality of the writing and reporting and of their business structure, as exemplified in this piece. Check 'em out if you haven't already.

How 404 Media Is Navigating 'Economic Headwinds' https://www.404media.co/how-404-media-is-navigating-economic-headwinds/

@jwildeboer on the business model behind the recent explosion of aggressive AI web crawlers:

There's a shady market out there that gives app developers money for including a library that sells users network bandwidth.

"If you think your web-scraping is acceptable behaviour, you can thank these shady companies and the 'AI' hype for moving you to the bad corner."

https://jan.wildeboer.net/2025/04/Web-is-Broken-Botnet-Part-2/

"This AI output is highly inaccurate."
"Nah, you're just prompting it wrong."
"How do I go about prompting it the right way?"
"You really need to know the subject you're asking about. Then you can help it avoid making mistakes."
"If I know the subject deeply myself, why am I asking an AI about it?"
"It helps to train the AI."

Wie mir diese KI-generierte Suppe überall gerade auf den Keks geht. Mülltrennung, Balkonsolar und überhaupt sehr ökologisch am Start und dann lasst ihr lustige Bilder mit Actionfiguren von euch erzeugen? Merkt ihr es noch?

New addition to the Emacs collection: UniPress Emacs V2.20 from 1989.

It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Clifford Lynch, a visionary leader in the field of networked information & libraries, and the esteemed executive director of CNI since 1997.

Known for his kindness, warmth, and humble disposition, Lynch was a renowned figure, lauded for his impact across many areas, including scholarly communication, information policy, the research enterprise, digital preservation, and countless others.

Read more: https://www.cni.org/news/in-memoriam-clifford-lynch

If you are an office worker of any kind please understand Copilot Recall for what it is: Microsoft wants a training dataset of _what your job looks like_ in order to _replace you_. The nepo baby your oligarch puts in charge will happily pay half your salary to Microsoft to get even most of your job done without you.

Wealth wants access to skill without giving the skilled access to wealth.

https://mastodon.acm.org/@MrBerard/114320032919296961

#Microsoft #AI #Copilot #Recall

eine Bitte an Personen, die in #GLAM|s erschließen: für einen Workshop bin ich auf der Suche nach Screenshots, die zeigen, wie in den verschiedenen Systemen die #Normdaten|einbindung funktioniert. Falls also jemand helfen kann, wäre ich für ein Bild + Namen des Systems dankbar! Ich würde das Material gerne auch öffentlich zugänglich machen. Namensnennung auf Wunsch gern!

gern auch per Mail an winkler@zib.de

Vielen Dank für die Hilfe!

#followerpower

An organic, fair-trade, community-governed, collectively-owned, open-source oil rig is still an oil rig.

Intentions, governance, ownership, etc. are all super important, but you also need to be honest about what the thing does and the consequences.

I'm lookin' at you "Open-Source Local LLMs".

@hvdsomp @phonedudemln.bsky.social @cni Thank you for this look back at how something so important started. And an even bigger thank you to all involved in creating OpenURL and OAI-PMH. These are still essential to my daily job, and I love how this 'old' technology just works, even in 2025.

(Now if only all metadata would be perfect so all our OpenURLs would always resolve correctly ;))

In response to popular demand, I am re-sharing the URL of the blog post I wrote with @phonedudemln.bsky.social about the Universal Preprint Service prototype we built in 1999 that led to the OAI-PMH and OpenURL specifications and their adoption. A tribute to Cliff Lynch who retired from @cni earlier this week https://ws-dl.blogspot.com/2025/04/cliff-lynch-invisible-influencer-in.html

Ich suche für die Abteilung #DigitaleForschungsdienste / #DigitalScholarshipServices hier an der @stabihh eine neue Hilfskraft! Studis aus #Hamburg hier, die mit einem netten kleinen Team zusammenarbeiten möchten und Lust haben auf ein buntes Sammelsurium aus #DigitalHumanities und #Wissenschaftskommunikation? Gerne weitersagen.

https://blog.sub.uni-hamburg.de/?p=39945

There is something really depressing about library-related databases, like WorldCat, adding AI services to "find similar books". Have we not been determining and making accessible linkages between works for ages? Do we not have an entire corpus of subject and name headings and facets to facilitate such linkages? How can we possibly respect ourselves and our profession if we just negate our expertise in favor of murky, thieving systems that make things up entirely out of our control?

Hallo, da ich mit meinen Bewerbungen bisher noch keinen Erfolg habe, versuche ich es hier:

Ich suche im Raum #Oldenburg nach einem Praktikumsplatz im Rahmen meiner Umschulung zur #Fachinformatikerin für Anwendungsentwicklung.
Es handelt sich um ein 9 monatiges Pflichtpraktikum, das ab Ende Mai beginnen sollte.

Falls ihr Ideen habt, wo ich noch Bewerbungen hinschicken könnte, bin ich darüber dankbar!

Bitte teilen!

#fedihire #jobsuche

I am wondering what all the “Open Infrastructure” aficionados are doing while #scholcomm repositories around the world are struggling to keep their doors open as omnivorous AI Bots are hammering their sites. Writing another Principles document named after a city where it’s nice to have a meeting, maybe?

The piggy is so full that I had to shove a twenty dollar bill in the slot because I couldn't fit the rest of the quarters.

Somebody's getting smashed!

I'm proud to announce the project I've been working on for the last two years - Xee: a modern implementation of XPath and XSLT in Rust.

I know XML isn't hip anymore but this is a programming language implementation in Rust, according to extensive specifications!

https://blog.startifact.com/posts/xee/

#RustLang #xml @thisweekinrust

Since I'm sure this is going to get linked to by HN-loving ignoramuses asking, "Why is jwz so mean to HN?"

It's a VC fan club, your go-to spot to simp for billionaires. Bad enough! But there's also Y Combinator's stochastic terrorist, cryptofascist, christofascist CEO Garry Tan.

This — that attitude, and that piece-of-shit motherfucker in particular — is what you're supporting every time you click on or share a "Hacker" "News" link.

Stop hanging out at the Nazi Bar.

https://jwz.org/b/yklG