Links for the week...

Normally I post links on a Monday to give you something to read throughout the week, but hey, life got busy and growing new skin on your hand is hard (It’s all good) so you get your list of interesting stuff on a Wednesday.

Chat bots are all the rage and the grandmother of them all turns out to be a rather sinister character. Ben Tarnoff’s very long and utterly fascinating story about Eliza, the first chatbot, and its creator Joseph Weizenbaum is thoroughly engrossing. Grab a hot beverage and enjoy.

I am listening to a nine-episode podcast about The Santiago Boys. Evgeny Morozov has created a history podcast that will have you on the edge of your seat and at the end of it make you wonder what the world of technology could have looked like if Salvador Allende and the motley crew of geniuses who built Cybersyn in the early 1970s were allowed to create a socialist internet. The website and the episodes are absolutely worth your time.

Are video games dangerous? Well, for a long time the studies showed no correlation between violence and gaming, but the games changed and while they still may not make little Timmy into a raging homocidal maniac, they might make him into a gambling addict. Luc Rinaldi, writing for Mclean’s, has a long story on the nature of gaming industry and what it’s doing to some of the kids.

Canadian Architect magazine has recently shone a spotlight on some of the Indigenous architects and designers focused on imagining and building a different future for Indigenous communities and peoples.

The New Yorker has a long story on Erinn Springer’s book Dormant Season that looks like a must have for my collection of photography books about rural regions - this one is about rural Wisconsin.

The photo above is from one of the previous Regattas, so go out, eat lots of food, play silly games and have fun St. John’s