You can now create deepfake videos in the safety and comfort of your home
I cloned myself and lived to tell the tale.
Is the far right behind the large-scale farmers’ protests in Germany?
The far right is not the driving force behind the farmers’ protests, but their style is indicative of an erosion of democratic norms in Germany
Will the real Naomi Klein please stand up?
Feed your inner sceptic, listen to this Big Picture Science Podcast from December 2023.
Political beliefs & multi-partyism, plagiarising politicians, the robustness of Twitter, and Alex Jones: 4 links I liked
4 short articles on stuff that interests me – the far right, social media, political beliefs – that I read and would like to share b/c they are worth your time
My 7 most popular posts in 2023
Click here to see the 7 most read posts on my blog in 2023.
“Bard, tell me a joke about Max Weber”
Sure, here is a joke about Max Weber:Why did Max Weber become a sociologist?Because he was interested in the sociology of bureaucracy.I hope you found it funny! As a coda to a grey and mildly depressing Sunday, I checked in with Bard to see if it was any better than half a year ago. The…
2 invite code for Bluesky (but Twitter is fine)
Twitter may be burning, but I’m not leaving yet (as I have said a thousand times before). Still, it is good to have alternatives, and so I set up an account on Mastodon back in November ’22 when we all felt the evil presence of You-Know-Who. But much as I like the ideas behind Mastodon…
Gespräch mit dem Handelsblatt: Sollte die AfD verboten werden?
Eigentlich müsste die Frage lauten: Sollte die Politik ein AfD-Verbot anstreben? Darüber hat Dietmar Neuerer mit Matthias Quent, einigen Staatsrechtlern und mir gesprochen. Das Ergebnis ist recht spannend. https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/rechtspopulistische-partei-die-afd-verbieten-das-sind-die-wichtigsten-antworten/29502740.html
A world before PowerPoint
I do remember PowerPoint arriving at the computing centre on a designated PC that was reserved for 'desktop publishing', as it was called then. This machine was considered ridiculously powerful by the standards of the time. It was probably equipped with a (gasp!) 386 processor.
Peer review: a drama in 3 lines
When even so-so- journals reject promising manuscripts if even one reviewer doesn’t like them, the system is broken. That’s the long and the short of it.