On December 17, five days after voting ended in the UK General Election, Thomas Stoeckle, Sam Knowles, and I got together for lunch in London followed by a good old chat over a few beers in a live conversation we recorded for episode 31 of the Small Data Forum podcast. We continued our conversation about the state of the UK we started earlier in the year, informed somewhat by the outcome of #GE2019 where we have moved onward from the hung Parliament territory of the 2017 General Election to … [Read more...] about SDF 31: Opportunity and chaos from #GE2019
Archives for 2019
FIR 190: Digital vs analogue behaviour in the UK general election
For the December edition of The Hobson & Holtz Report - aka episode 190 of the For Immediate Release podcast - Shel and I picked an eclectic list of topics to talk about. As a European and, specifically, a Brit, my hot one was about the result of the General Election that took place here in the UK on December 12 - the result was a landslide win for Boris Johnson and the Conservative party - and the role social media played in influencing voters. Did social media influence voters to … [Read more...] about FIR 190: Digital vs analogue behaviour in the UK general election
FIR 189: The first thing we do, let’s ease timekeeping for all the lawyers
The November episode of “The Hobson and Holtz Report” features Neville and Shel discussing these topics: MeWe and WT:Social are among the latest crop of social networks offering serious privacy in an attempt to dethrone FacebookA new tool lets brands remove negative comments from paid social media postsQR codes have made a comebackAI writer completes writing what you startedTelcos hope RCS will inspire you to give up WhatsApp, Messenger, and other third-party toolsPing raises $13 million to … [Read more...] about FIR 189: The first thing we do, let’s ease timekeeping for all the lawyers
The time of the AI writer
Developments in artificial intelligence that can write authentic-looking stories took a big leap forward earlier this year with the release of GPT-2, a predictive text-creation algorithm that can create a coherent, realistic-sounding continuation of a text input as short as one or two sentences. In other words, the software looks at a text you write and predicts the next words and phrases. It uses a huge data set as its training source: 8 million web pages which have been curated or filtered … [Read more...] about The time of the AI writer
SDF 30: Of Giants and Donkeys
On the first day after Brexit Day, Thomas, Sam and I joined in conversation on the Big Day that didn't happen. #NoBrexitDay, in a hashtag. In this latest installment of our Small Data Forum podcast, episode 30, we again discuss the political shenanigins in the ongoing Brexit saga as we now head towards a General Election in the UK on December 12. We set the scene with a just-published book from the four men behind 'Led By Donkeys,' a political activism campaign that unfolded on … [Read more...] about SDF 30: Of Giants and Donkeys
FIR 188: Translating the Internet into Arabic
Finding news and information online you can trust about things you're interested in is a high expectation for most people in these connected times in which we live. Unless you're looking for wide-ranging content in the Arabic language, that is. Just 0.6% of Internet content is available in Arabic despite it being the fourth most common language among internet users, according to a report by the Guardian. What some people like Ameen al-Jaleeli in the Iraqi city of Mosul, and … [Read more...] about FIR 188: Translating the Internet into Arabic
SDF 29: Back to the Future
By Sam Knowles, co-presenter, SDF Podcast. When Rome teetered on the brink of democratic collapse in the first century BCE, as it prepared – unknowingly – to move from a form of notional democracy to imperial rule, three men came together to save the ever-expanding city state and advance their political careers. Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus – the swashbuckler, the strategist, and the finance guy – effectively took power under emergency measures. Known collectively as the First Triumvirate, … [Read more...] about SDF 29: Back to the Future
FIR 187: It may be a Car but it Sounds like a Starship
With this September 2019 episode of The Hobson and Holtz Report or FIR 187, Shel and I discuss a handful of notable, even memorable, topics and include a segment we recorded two weeks beforehand in Winchester when we were together during Shel's UK trip. Automotive is a star feature of our discussion with a detailed exchange of views and thoughts on news out of the US about regulatory developments regarding electric cars, specifically on the sound they make. Which is a thing that concerns … [Read more...] about FIR 187: It may be a Car but it Sounds like a Starship