Digital platforms mix “digital water” and “sewage” in the same pipes, polluting our information systems and undermining the foundations of our culture, our public health, our economy, and our democracy.
from “Stop Drinking From The Toilet“
I wrote rants against “bad information” and calls for media literacy on my blog before Facebook even existed. People making shit up so they could sound like experts, or to support a pet theory or mindset. Mistakes and guesswork with the disclaimers filed off, presented as fact. Old science, poorly done science, or outright fraud, since disproven but echoing on regardless and finding new ears. Conspiracy theories, whether benign or bigoted. And intentional disinformation.
The situation absolutely got far worse when companies began to profit off of “engagement.”
And I feel like it s gotten a notch worse in the AI era. There are far too many people who are all too trusting of AI — they are language models, not truth models. It’s another disinformation tool that is absolutely exploited and multiplied by bad actors. People want to believe the politicians they support, who they are maybe only supporting because of the lies in the first place.
Be careful out there.
Album #41 (that’s the only name it has so far) has been hopping along. There’s 33 minutes of material, and I have a plan for the next bit. It definitely has a flavor, with a lot of noisy/glassy digital oscillators and some resonant filters introducing spectral movement, though those words of course don’t adequately describe the sound.
One of the spices in that flavor is the Decadebridge Sn (Tin), a pocket-sized 3-op lo-fi FM drone synth with simplified controls. It has CV control, but a good bit of latency on its pitch and FM inputs but none on its VCA, so if you plan to sequence it, it might call for a gate delay to keep pitches and envelopes aligned. It makes some lovely growls — not really something I couldn’t do with Algo or Spectraphon or a bit of fumbling in software — but it puts inspiration on tap at an almost toylike price.
The past couple of weekends, I’ve gone for walks around Mallard Lake. It’s 2.6 miles, so it’s decent exercise that I can recover from fairly swiftly instead of feeling wiped out for days. It has a paved section (with many bicyclists, joggers, dog walkers and families with strollers) more exposed to the sun until it runs in the shadow of a tall highway bridge across the river valley, and a dirt/gravel section (pedestrians only and much less traveled) that runs alongside a cliff with little trickling waterfalls, and a moderately heavily wooded, swampy area before emerging into a small tallgrass prairie. It’s a lovely place to walk.
I’ve walked it occasionally before — usually only a few times per year while the weather is cooler, usually in the Halloween to Christmas range. Until this year I haven’t seen wildlife other than birds (lots of birds!) and bugs, but these last two times there have been deer.