Zagaja.com

• Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for AI Fight. It’s too bad they don’t treat filtering out low quality content farms with the same seriousness.
• Why we all need subtitles now goes deep into a topic I explored last week.
• Tapbots, maker of Tweetbots, has released Ivory for Mastodon. Paul and Mark are talented app builders and this is by far the most enjoyable way to use the growing Mastodon network. Coincidentally you can now follow Phil Schiller there.
• Cory Doctorow writes on the enshittification of TikTok. A long but insightful explainer why social networks and Google search have been getting worse over time.
• From the archives: John Mayer covers American Pie for David Letterman.
• The lights at a Massachusetts school have been on for over a year because nobody can turn them off.
• The FBI shut down a major ransomware gang. Impressive work by the feds here.

Yesterday I read this article about the most streamed shows according to Nielsen. While it was not a surprise that Stranger Things sat at the top, there was something…strange…about the shows that followed:

• NCIS
• Cocomelon
• Ozark
• Encanto
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Criminal Minds
• Bluey
• Gilmore Girls
• Seinfeld

I will skip the intro and share the TED talk:

From Merriam-Webster:

The GQ giants names [Rihanna] Queen of the Thirst Trap, which they define as: “the act of disingenuously posting sexy photos-while suggesting the subject of the photo is something else entirely-in an effort to elicit the lust (thirst) of followers.” We like this definition. — Jess Wilson, The Mirror, 3 December 2013

On Friday Google became the latest tech company to cut its workforce. 12,000 people, nearly 6% of the Google workforce, were mercilessly cut off from their corporate accounts with a brief email informing them of their termination. LinkedIn has the vibe of attending a wake.