Hello and welcome back to another edition of THE POSTCARD, Unregistered’s fortnightly roundup of recommendations.
Thoughts, tools, and treats
AI hype or not, tech’s a bit dull these days, wouldn’t you say?
Presentations
Apple’s product presentations have become „pre-cooked, sanitized and homogenized,“ Ken Segall observes.
Products
Find my two cents here.
Press
Tech journalists in an age of incremental improvements, as seen by Freddie deBoer: „Their words say ‚this is cool,‘ but their shoulders say ‚we’ve been here before.‘”
No rule without an exception
Jasmine Sun deconstructs the „new lexicon of silicon valley“ and finds „an uneasy blend of ironic zoomer nihilism and a triumphant tech bro resurgence, big-mouthed hustle-posting with an undercurrent of AI status anxiety.“ Excellent piece!
It wasn’t always like this
What if „interactive technologies were not just about getting things done but also about broadening our horizons? What if their effects were not hidden but rather immediately made visible? And what if AI was not about cutting humans out of the loop, but, rather, about allowing us to develop new talents and sensibilities?”
Noteworthy
“You’re not fighting Nazis, you’re buying artisanal outrage. Meanwhile, the actual work of opposing right-wing extremism (organizing, electoral politics, policy advocacy, journalism that takes more than an afternoon to research) remains conspicuously disconnected from debates over which online newsletter service to use. (...) The only thing that works in the long run is the hard, often thankless work of persuading people that your ideas are better than theirs – and the great irony of terms of service liberalism is that it’s a politics built around avoiding that work entirely.“
—Freddie deBoer, reinforcing his arguments against “terms of service liberalism”
A mystery link leading into the unknown
Who makes the party happen?
• It’s...
As always,
Dirk
P.S.: Feel free to send me pointers to articles, books, sites, pods, tools, and treats that could be interesting for this roundup. While I cannot promise to link them, I read and appreciate every hint.