Can’t believe I made the newsletter. Wasn’t expecting to see my own face staring back at me 😹 and yes, it’s felt appliqué not cross stitch. But I would be happy to make a cross stitch version of the webworm logo if you ever wanted one. Thanks for being so kind and for a great event!
Sick as a dog right now, so doubly jealous of everyone who attended.
I've started adding "Reddit" to the end of searches. It sadly gets me more accurate results than whatever slop Google is serving these days.
Maybe it's just the naive Star Trek nerd in me, but there's something so depressing about building these amazing inventions and the most interesting thing people can think to do with it is how to make more money.
Just a cold I think, but it knocked me on my back for a couple days. Started in the sinuses and worked it's way down to my chest.
Luckily I was able to drag myself up to see my family for the holiday. They're the ones who gave it to me anyway, and being sick and alone is just the worst.
I'll keep my fingers crossed for your continued health. Being sick on vacation is probably the second worst.
So far, so good. I think just too much talking. I hate how when you get a cold you just strap in for the ride as various symptoms take over your body. The throat one day, then "Oh it's in the nose now" then "Oh a cough". Just like the world's lamest rollercoaster ride.
The irony of that is that apparently Reddit searches are so poor that you need to use Google to search Reddit, but need to constrain Google to the Reddit content in order to get good results there. That recommendation was published by a tech writer that I read (I think Joanna Stern of WSJ) which just made me laugh that nothing works quite right unless you manipulate it - and I work in tech to build/create some of these types of things.
And if you want to explicitly search only the Reddit site, you should instead add "site:reddit.com" to specifically constrain your searches to pages in the Reddit domain rather than any random page that might have the word "reddit" on it. But just typing "reddit" is probably good enough and is a lot easier.
I use kagi as a paid search provider. Have been for over a year. It’s great. All the gripes people have with google I just can’t relate to. It’s also flat out better than duckduck go or ecosia which I used to use in protest of google.
US$10/mo to not be annoyed every time I have to use the internet is a good deal for me. Plus their logo looks exactly like my dog ♥️
That’s what I was here to ask for! Anyone else have any other recommendations? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to try to optimise, a service that makes sometime happy enough to recommend it for us$10 a month is better than my current experience with yucky Google (which I once decided was going to be the company I gifted with my data because I had to gift it to someone, well they broke my heart and I’m going elsewhere!) so I’m going to just make things better, I don’t have to shoot for the best.
The search results were bad. It got to a point where I knew going in that what I was asking was above ecosia’s pay grade. Type the same thing into google and immediately get the right result. I’ve never had that with Kagi so far. Maps and images are lacking but I don’t use them heaps.
I saw the title of this newsletter and just knew my poor countrymen were about to get called out for being gullible marks.
I know it's not the point of the piece, at all, but a little bit of context around the Dublin Imaginary Parade - a theatre company called Macnas (they make nightmares out of papier mache) did actually do a Halloween parade in the city the previous year. It was on the other side of the country in Galway this year. So between the grift and the AI, there was some precedence for an actual event.
Just so you don't think the island of Ireland are staring at pictures of shrimp Jesus in awe and wonder.
FWIW, I didn’t come away blaming the people here. All I’ve been thinking about is Google and enshittification. The amount of people able to see through it seems lower. The joke “I heard it on the internet so I know it’s true” went from a sarcastic joke to reality.
I don't think there was any blaming in the text at all, but when this happened not 20 mins from my house, my first thought was how gullible people can be which was very incorrect.
And I suppose, there's a lot of people out there who look at something like this and think "well, I'd never fall for it" which is exactly how we ended up with thousands of people standing around Dublin City Centre on a shitty Thursday night.
Hey Siobhán, I should have mentioned in the piece, I actually lived in Dublin for a year and loved it & the people very much! So, no shade intended. I miss O'Connell St!
I was at a conference yesterday and noticed the person next to me had a webworm shirt (the animal one) on under their jumper; we had a moment! Webworm designs are everywhere. :)
I am very old fashioned - a 90 year old in a 49 year old's body. So I much prefer working with paper and actual books that smell papery and, well, bookish. At first the internet wowed me - as a lover of knowledge I was so excited I could type in "gothic architecture" and then watch the results come tumbling down my screen (as fast as dial up would allow). But the shine quickly wore off, too often the knowledge was rubbish. And now with AI I feel it muddies the water further. Incorrect information on top of incorrect information on top of incorrect information - quicksand. Luckily there are places like Webworm to keep us from straying into that quicksand - thanks David (& Tony). 😊
Google's AI-generated trash was the last straw for me. I switched to DuckDuckGo for 95% of my searching. It seems to be doing the job. I'd consider a subscription-based service, since searching for information on the internet is a huge chunk of my work, but that's going to have to wait until I get more idea of how I'm going to earn a living.
I'm so frustrated and angry about how this is being foisted on us by tech monopolies. I keep myself sane by writing things that I'm sure AI wouldn't do better than me and coming up with ways that I'm going to deprive tech companies of income in the future
Enshittification pretty much sums up a lot of what’s happened to a lot of the internet that I use now, apart of course, from Webworm and the sites and work of the wonderful contributors. It’s such a mess and unless the crap information is really obvious, like eating rocks, how would you know? I’m going to go back to the old google search engine that Mike provided a link for. Thanks Mike
Interms of favourite new words, enshittification is one of my new favourite words. It describes so much of what has been driving me crazy about the internet.
Another favourite is Verschlimmbesserung. A great German word about making things worse by trying to make them better.
Be ready for plenty of Verschlimmbesserung from Trump and his merry band who are more than able to destroy, but will not be able to establish.
It’s really frustrating, I love the internet and all it can offer, and can’t see the value of flooding it with generated content. Especially when AI hallucinates. It’s now producing natural speech, video that looks real, all sorts of really amazing and clever tech but what’s the value?
Not to mention as Ed Zitron points out, every AI query loses someone money, OpenAi burns something like 400 million a month. And there’s several companies doing similar. Then there’s the power and water needs. Surely it has to implode?
Also - it's so hard to live ethically with all this shit. Even Pokemon Go - INNOCENT, surely. A good time. Pure. Out there playing with your fellow humans in the real world. Well, no, apparently:
Every time someone shows me a 'photo real' video of someone generated by AI, I'm like, great, but what function does this serve? What is its purpose? I've heard so many stories of demos given in board rooms that amount to nothing but smoke and mirrors.
My favourite question to test AI chat bot things "Which cricketer has the highest international T20 runs?" and while I've only asked 2, they both got the answer incorrect, as it has clearly been designed to look at only one gender when checking.. Heck one of them went for highest total runs, not T20 runs. (for those wanting to play at home, the correct answer is White Ferns batter Suzie Bates). I can cajole the AI to provide the correct answer, by first telling it it is incorrect.
Thank you for visiting Sydney, it was amazing to meet you! Also just realised that in the third photo of the pop up is my tattoo of Rhys Darby (OG cryptid factor fans unite) so that’s a little meta hahaha
Oh, that rules. I caught up with Rhys and his wife Rosie a few weeks ago for an upcoming Flightless Bird episode. And the other day a friend was versing me on Bob's Burgers - and there was Rhys voicing a character. Nutty.
Nice to meet you too. Thanks for coming. I had a blast. Good vibes all around.
Ahaha the world is a little wild sometimes! Keen for that episode!
I should also thank you for introducing me to one of my favourite bands now Mogwai, I started listening to them because you shared an IG story of their concert and I was immediately obsessed with their sound and caught them last time they were in Sydney!
PS - thanks to The Age for writing about this Australia trip - it is really nice to have help spreading the word: https://www.theage.com.au/culture/movies/the-filmmaker-with-nothing-to-lose-isn-t-afraid-of-being-sued-20241118-p5krjr.html
Can’t believe I made the newsletter. Wasn’t expecting to see my own face staring back at me 😹 and yes, it’s felt appliqué not cross stitch. But I would be happy to make a cross stitch version of the webworm logo if you ever wanted one. Thanks for being so kind and for a great event!
I sent a photo to my brother who designed the logo about 4 years ago. He's stoked. Thank you.
Kind.
Amazing!
That is absolutely perfect appliqué. It's a great idea and a really thoughtful gift. You're a gem.
Thank you!
It's so cool 🐛 nice work! 🩵💙
Thanks!!
Sick as a dog right now, so doubly jealous of everyone who attended.
I've started adding "Reddit" to the end of searches. It sadly gets me more accurate results than whatever slop Google is serving these days.
Maybe it's just the naive Star Trek nerd in me, but there's something so depressing about building these amazing inventions and the most interesting thing people can think to do with it is how to make more money.
What sickness? Hoping one that is over QUICK. I feel something in the back of my throat and just hope it's from talking too much this week.
Just a cold I think, but it knocked me on my back for a couple days. Started in the sinuses and worked it's way down to my chest.
Luckily I was able to drag myself up to see my family for the holiday. They're the ones who gave it to me anyway, and being sick and alone is just the worst.
I'll keep my fingers crossed for your continued health. Being sick on vacation is probably the second worst.
So far, so good. I think just too much talking. I hate how when you get a cold you just strap in for the ride as various symptoms take over your body. The throat one day, then "Oh it's in the nose now" then "Oh a cough". Just like the world's lamest rollercoaster ride.
Oh no! Hope you feel better quickly.
I am also adding "Reddit" to the end of most of my Google searches. 🫠
Thank you!
The irony of that is that apparently Reddit searches are so poor that you need to use Google to search Reddit, but need to constrain Google to the Reddit content in order to get good results there. That recommendation was published by a tech writer that I read (I think Joanna Stern of WSJ) which just made me laugh that nothing works quite right unless you manipulate it - and I work in tech to build/create some of these types of things.
And if you want to explicitly search only the Reddit site, you should instead add "site:reddit.com" to specifically constrain your searches to pages in the Reddit domain rather than any random page that might have the word "reddit" on it. But just typing "reddit" is probably good enough and is a lot easier.
I use kagi as a paid search provider. Have been for over a year. It’s great. All the gripes people have with google I just can’t relate to. It’s also flat out better than duckduck go or ecosia which I used to use in protest of google.
US$10/mo to not be annoyed every time I have to use the internet is a good deal for me. Plus their logo looks exactly like my dog ♥️
That’s what I was here to ask for! Anyone else have any other recommendations? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to try to optimise, a service that makes sometime happy enough to recommend it for us$10 a month is better than my current experience with yucky Google (which I once decided was going to be the company I gifted with my data because I had to gift it to someone, well they broke my heart and I’m going elsewhere!) so I’m going to just make things better, I don’t have to shoot for the best.
I second using Kagi. Read their origin story here https://blog.kagi.com/age-pagerank-over - it's very compelling.
this place is great! thanks
Thanks for the tip, I've been a bit meh about DDG lately and wanting an alternative
Why did you stop using Ecosia? I only use it because they plant trees. I haven’t actually checked they do.
The search results were bad. It got to a point where I knew going in that what I was asking was above ecosia’s pay grade. Type the same thing into google and immediately get the right result. I’ve never had that with Kagi so far. Maps and images are lacking but I don’t use them heaps.
Yes I’m finding this too, I start with Ecosia and end up using Google anyway.
I saw the title of this newsletter and just knew my poor countrymen were about to get called out for being gullible marks.
I know it's not the point of the piece, at all, but a little bit of context around the Dublin Imaginary Parade - a theatre company called Macnas (they make nightmares out of papier mache) did actually do a Halloween parade in the city the previous year. It was on the other side of the country in Galway this year. So between the grift and the AI, there was some precedence for an actual event.
Just so you don't think the island of Ireland are staring at pictures of shrimp Jesus in awe and wonder.
FWIW, I didn’t come away blaming the people here. All I’ve been thinking about is Google and enshittification. The amount of people able to see through it seems lower. The joke “I heard it on the internet so I know it’s true” went from a sarcastic joke to reality.
I don't think there was any blaming in the text at all, but when this happened not 20 mins from my house, my first thought was how gullible people can be which was very incorrect.
And I suppose, there's a lot of people out there who look at something like this and think "well, I'd never fall for it" which is exactly how we ended up with thousands of people standing around Dublin City Centre on a shitty Thursday night.
Hey Siobhán, I should have mentioned in the piece, I actually lived in Dublin for a year and loved it & the people very much! So, no shade intended. I miss O'Connell St!
I was at a conference yesterday and noticed the person next to me had a webworm shirt (the animal one) on under their jumper; we had a moment! Webworm designs are everywhere. :)
Oh, this is a dream result. I really like bringing Webworm out into the "real" world with these little meetups, and clothes/hats. Makes me very happy.
I am very old fashioned - a 90 year old in a 49 year old's body. So I much prefer working with paper and actual books that smell papery and, well, bookish. At first the internet wowed me - as a lover of knowledge I was so excited I could type in "gothic architecture" and then watch the results come tumbling down my screen (as fast as dial up would allow). But the shine quickly wore off, too often the knowledge was rubbish. And now with AI I feel it muddies the water further. Incorrect information on top of incorrect information on top of incorrect information - quicksand. Luckily there are places like Webworm to keep us from straying into that quicksand - thanks David (& Tony). 😊
You can set your homepage to https://www.google.com/search?q=
Which will give you the old-school google experience, which is neat
Oh, many thanks Mike.
No worries. It goes back a bit too far in the past for how I use Google. But it was nice for a few months
Great tip, thank you!
Google's AI-generated trash was the last straw for me. I switched to DuckDuckGo for 95% of my searching. It seems to be doing the job. I'd consider a subscription-based service, since searching for information on the internet is a huge chunk of my work, but that's going to have to wait until I get more idea of how I'm going to earn a living.
I'm so frustrated and angry about how this is being foisted on us by tech monopolies. I keep myself sane by writing things that I'm sure AI wouldn't do better than me and coming up with ways that I'm going to deprive tech companies of income in the future
Enshittification pretty much sums up a lot of what’s happened to a lot of the internet that I use now, apart of course, from Webworm and the sites and work of the wonderful contributors. It’s such a mess and unless the crap information is really obvious, like eating rocks, how would you know? I’m going to go back to the old google search engine that Mike provided a link for. Thanks Mike
Interms of favourite new words, enshittification is one of my new favourite words. It describes so much of what has been driving me crazy about the internet.
Another favourite is Verschlimmbesserung. A great German word about making things worse by trying to make them better.
Be ready for plenty of Verschlimmbesserung from Trump and his merry band who are more than able to destroy, but will not be able to establish.
It’s really frustrating, I love the internet and all it can offer, and can’t see the value of flooding it with generated content. Especially when AI hallucinates. It’s now producing natural speech, video that looks real, all sorts of really amazing and clever tech but what’s the value?
Not to mention as Ed Zitron points out, every AI query loses someone money, OpenAi burns something like 400 million a month. And there’s several companies doing similar. Then there’s the power and water needs. Surely it has to implode?
Also - it's so hard to live ethically with all this shit. Even Pokemon Go - INNOCENT, surely. A good time. Pure. Out there playing with your fellow humans in the real world. Well, no, apparently:
https://singularityhub.com/2024/11/27/niantic-is-training-a-giant-geospatial-ai-on-pokemon-go-data/
Every time someone shows me a 'photo real' video of someone generated by AI, I'm like, great, but what function does this serve? What is its purpose? I've heard so many stories of demos given in board rooms that amount to nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Off topic but releasing my 2 free tickets for the Melbourne show, bought 5 for the other show so I could go with my friends. ♥️
Oh, you're kind.
Here is the free RSVP link that will now have those 2 free tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/webworm-presents-tickled-at-the-nova-melbourne-tickets-1013185102917?aff=oddtdtcreator
My favourite question to test AI chat bot things "Which cricketer has the highest international T20 runs?" and while I've only asked 2, they both got the answer incorrect, as it has clearly been designed to look at only one gender when checking.. Heck one of them went for highest total runs, not T20 runs. (for those wanting to play at home, the correct answer is White Ferns batter Suzie Bates). I can cajole the AI to provide the correct answer, by first telling it it is incorrect.
Ugh, I guess it's trained on what humans have done - so humans being sexist assholes is just picked up in the data the AI's are working with.
🙋😂So is it a positive thing to say I know better than an AI chat bot⁉️😁🤷
Thank you for visiting Sydney, it was amazing to meet you! Also just realised that in the third photo of the pop up is my tattoo of Rhys Darby (OG cryptid factor fans unite) so that’s a little meta hahaha
Oh, that rules. I caught up with Rhys and his wife Rosie a few weeks ago for an upcoming Flightless Bird episode. And the other day a friend was versing me on Bob's Burgers - and there was Rhys voicing a character. Nutty.
Nice to meet you too. Thanks for coming. I had a blast. Good vibes all around.
Ahaha the world is a little wild sometimes! Keen for that episode!
I should also thank you for introducing me to one of my favourite bands now Mogwai, I started listening to them because you shared an IG story of their concert and I was immediately obsessed with their sound and caught them last time they were in Sydney!
I'm so pleased you're having a good escape from America right now! I need to do that...someday!
Honestly, Sydney has been a dream. The event was great fun, I am seeing nice friends. This is my holiday for the year, I'd say.