Kickoff For May 19, 2025
It's hard to believe that a good chunk of May has already passed us by. It's been an interesting first half or so of the month, and I can't wait to see what the next couple of weeks bring.
With that out of the way, let's get Monday started with these links:
In praise of subspecies — Wherein we're introduced to the titular concept, learn why it's a controversial topic among biologists, and find out why subspecies may be essential to the conservation of animal life on this planet.
From the article:
[W]hen subspecies become more distinct – more seen – it does change how we value them. ‘Taxonomic assignments inevitably shape perceptions of biological diversity,’ wrote John C Avise in 1992. ‘Yet once a Latin binomial or trinomial is in the literature, the group of organisms to which it refers almost automatically assumes an aura of reality that may or may not be commensurate with its true evolutionary distinctiveness.’
Why employees smuggle AI into work — Wherein we get a look at the (growing) world of shadow AI use at companies, what employees who violate prohibitions on those tools use it for, and the benefits they claim to get from breaking the rules.
From the article:
External AI tools are banned but Peter uses ChatGPT through search tool Kagi. He finds the biggest benefit of AI comes from challenging his thinking when he asks the chatbot to respond to his plans from different customer perspectives.
About Samizdat — Wherein we learn a bit about the privately produced (generally using typewriters) and secretly distributed form of literature that provided a voice to dissidents in the Soviet bloc during the time of communism.
From the article:
Solzhenitsyn’s work made it impossible for Western and Soviet readers to ignore the facts about the shockingly massive and punitive prison camp system that had existed under Stalin. Many also took note of an uncensored essay in 1968 by a soft-spoken but fiercely committed nuclear physicist named Andrei Sakharov, who proposed a path toward “Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom” for all countries. All three, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, won Nobel prizes for their work, despite the Soviet Union’s disapproval.
Remember the Mainframe! — Wherein we're reminded that mainframes haven't vanished from the computing landscape, why they're still in demand, and why they're still the best option for some tasks.
From the article:
There is a misconception that modernizing means moving to the cloud, Dickens said. That’s the right move for some applications, but not all. “It’s a case of looking at the workload, looking at its characteristics and non-functional requirements and saying, ‘What’s the best platform for the workload?’”, he said. “The more transaction-heavy, the mainframe is the right answer.”
The Great Social Media Diaspora — Wherein Renée DiResta looks at why and how people are moving away from services like Twitter/X and Facebook to more decentralized social media platforms, and the challenges that those decentralized services face with a growing influx of new users.
From the article:
The trade-offs are important to understand. If centralized platforms with their centrally controlled rules and algorithms are “walled gardens,” federated social media might best be described as “community gardens,” shaped by members connected through loose social or geographical ties and a shared interest in maintaining a pleasant community space.
Inventing Japanese Braille — Wherein Wei Yu Wayne Tan takes us through the introduction of Braille in Japan in the late 19TH century and how it was adapted to the needs of the visually impaired in Japan, and how that spread into wider Japanese society.
From the article:
Literacy in Japanese Braille got a boost at a time when commercial printing technology supported the circulation of knowledge. As more schools outside of Tokyo taught Japanese Braille in the next decades, and as literacy and proficiency in the script increased, the demand for reliable news and information grew within the blind population. To meet this demand, the first Braille newspaper, Tenji Mainichi (Braille Mainichi), was founded in Osaka in 1922.