Podcasts about World Wide Web

Send a textI stumbled upon Patrick Gabridge on the World Wide Web, and he was kind enough to come on to the Playwright's Spotlight after reaching out to him. If there was a playwright who has been in the spotlight who might have a pathway to success, it would be Patrick Gabridge. With a non-traditional approach to writing, Patrick focuses on site-specific plays that are staged in non-traditional stages. Before we delve into this, we speak about marketing and his networking group - Playwright Submission Binge - and how the market has dwindled and changed over the years and how it has affected non-equity theatre. We discuss his development of Plays in Places and its historical accuracy and use of creative license, how it's opened doors to success, the Secret Sauce, and pitching to non-traditional venues. We also breakdown approaching Youth Plays as an older playwright, writing competition plays, what constitutes high drama and whether or not there is a formula. We wrap things up with achieving exposition in a 10-minute play, experiencing poor productions of one's work, advice for finding/developing a writers group, and networking with playwrights. This is a fascinating conversation that should present any playwright with phenomenal opportunities. I'd love to how things transpire if anyone listening takes this path. Enjoy!Patrick Gabridge is a playwright whose work includes Blood on the Snow, Chore Monkeys, Lab Rats, Distant Neighbors, Fire on Earth, Flight, Constant State of Panic, Pieces of Whitey, Blinders, and Reading the Mind of God, which have been staged in theaters across the country. His plays can found in  Playscripts, Brooklyn Publishers, Heuer, Smith & Kraus and various“Best of” anthologies.He assisted is creating Boston's Rhombus Playwrights writers' group, the Chameleon Stage theatre company in Denver, the Bare Bones Theatre company in New York, the publication Market InSight… for Playwrights, and the on-line Playwrights' Submission Binge. He's also a member of the Dramatists Guild,  StageSource, and a board member of the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund.  In 2013, he co-founded the New England New Play Alliance and still serves as its coordinator.To view the video format of this episode, visit the link below - https://youtu.be/wkpI3jR_Or0Links to sites and resources mentioned in this episode -Playwright Marketing Binge - https://groups.io/g/playwrightbingeSeven Devils New Play Foundry - https://www.sevendevils.orgMid America Theatre Conference - https://matc.usThe O'Neill - https://www.theoneill.orgPlays in Place - http://playsinplace.comBrooklyn Publishers - https://www.brookpub.comHeuer Publishing - https://www.hitplays.comSocials for Patrick Gabridge and Plays in Place - FB - https://www.facebook.com/patrickgabridgeIG/Threads - @patrickgabridge YouTube -  ⁨@pgabridge⁩  FB - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558727695681IG/Threads - @plays_in_placeWebsites and socials for James Elden, Punk Monkey Productions and Playwright's SpotlightPunk Monkey Productions - www.punkmonkeyproductions.comPLAY Noir -www.playnoir.comPLAY Noir Anthology –www.punkmonkeyproductions.com/contact.htmlJames Elden -Twitter - @jameseldensauerIG - @alakardrakeFB - fb.com/jameseldensauerPunk Monkey Productions and PLAY Noir - Twitter - @punkmonkeyprods                  - @playnoirla IG - @punkmonkeyprods       - @playnoir_la FB - fb.com/playnoir        - fb.com/punkmonkeyproductionsPlaywright's SpoSupport the show

The internet transformed the world with free information on everything for everyone, but is that era ending? The Chinese and Iranians can control what their people can see and read, and in the West there's a growing push to stop the young and vulnerable from getting access to violent, disturbing or pornographic material. Tech firms are being threatened with regulation unless they impose safeguards. Does all this signal the internet turning gradually into the 'splinternet', with the loss of a valuable freedom, or is it an overdue reassertion of sovereign power over Silicon Valley? Scott Malcomson is a fellow of the German council on Foreign Relations, and back in 2016 wrote the book "Splinternet: How Geopolitics and Commerce Are Fragmenting the World Wide Web". He tells Phil and Roger how things have changed since then. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“You can create a virtual board of directors that will have different expertises and that will come up with ideas that a given person may not come up with.” – Felipe Csaszar About Felipe Csaszar Felipe Csaszar is the Alexander M. Nick Professor and chair of the Strategy Area at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. He has published and held senior editorial roles in top academic journals including Strategy Science, Management Science, and Organization Science, and is co-editor of the upcoming Handbook of AI and Strategy. Webiste: papers.ssrn.com LinkedIn Profile: Felipe Csaszar University Profile: Felipe Csaszar What you will learn How AI transforms the three core cognitive operations in strategic decision making: search, representation, and aggregation. The powerful ways large language models (LLMs) can enhance and speed up strategic search beyond human capabilities. The concept and importance of different types of representations—internal, external, and distributed—in strategy formulation. How AI assists in both visualizing strategists' mental models and expanding the complexity of strategic frameworks. Experimental findings showing AI's ability to generate and evaluate business strategies, often matching or outperforming humans. Emerging best practices and challenges in human-AI collaboration for more effective strategy processes. The anticipated growth in framework complexity as AI removes traditional human memory constraints in strategic planning. Why explainability and prediction quality in AI-driven strategy will become central, shaping the future of strategic foresight and decision-making. Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: Felipe, it’s a delight to have you on the show. Felipe Csaszar: Oh, the pleasure is mine, Ross. Thank you very much for inviting me. Ross Dawson: So many, many interesting things for us to dive into. But one of the themes that you’ve been doing a lot of research and work on recently is the role of AI in strategic decision making. Of course, humans have been traditionally the ones responsible for strategy, and presumably will continue to be for some time. However, AI can play a role. Perhaps set the scene a little bit first in how you see this evolving. Felipe Csaszar: Yeah, yeah. So, as you say, strategic decision making so far has always been a human task. People have been in charge of picking the strategy of a firm, of a startup, of anything, and AI opens a possibility that now you could have humans helped by AI, and maybe at some point, AI is designing the strategies of companies. One way of thinking about why this may be the case is to think about the cognitive operations that are involved in strategic decision making. Before AI, that was my research—how people came up with strategies. There are three main cognitive operations. One is to search: you try different things, you try different ideas, until you find one which is good enough—that is searching. The other is representing: you think about the world from a given perspective, and from that perspective, there’s a clear solution, at least for you. That’s another way of coming up with strategies. And then another one is aggregating: you have different opinions of different people, and you have to combine them. This can be done in different ways, but a typical one is to use the majority rule or unanimity rule sometimes. In reality, the way in which you combine ideas is much more complicated than that—you take parts of ideas, you pick and choose, and you combine something. So there are these three operations: search, representation, and aggregation. And it turns out that AI can change each one of those. Let’s go one by one. So, search: now AIs, the current LLMs, they know much more about any domain than most people. There’s no one who has read as much as an LLM, and they are quite fast, and you can have multiple LLMs doing things at the same time. So LLMs can search faster than humans and farther away, because you can only search things which you are familiar with, while an LLM is familiar with many, many things that we are not familiar with. So they can search faster and farther than humans—a big effect on search. Then, representation: a typical example before AI about the value of representations is the story of Merrill Lynch. The big idea of Merrill Lynch was how good a bank would look if it was like a supermarket. That’s a shift in representations. You know how a bank looks like, but now you’re thinking of the bank from the perspective of a supermarket, and that leads to a number of changes in how you organize the bank, and that was the big idea of Mr. Merrill Lynch, and the rest is history. That’s very difficult for a human—to change representations. People don’t like changing; it’s very difficult for them, while for an AI, it’s automatic, it’s free. You change their prompt, and immediately you will have a problem looked at from a different representation. And then the last one was aggregating. You can aggregate with AI virtual personas. For example, you can create a virtual board of directors that will have different expertises and that will come up with ideas that a given person may not come up with. And now you can aggregate those. Those are just examples, because there are different ways of changing search, representation, and aggregation, but it’s very clear that AI, at least the current version of AI, has the potential to change these three cognitive operations of strategy. Ross Dawson: That’s fantastic. It’s a novel framing—search, representation, aggregation. Many ways of framing strategy and the strategy process, and that is, I think, quite distinctive and very, very insightful, because it goes to the cognitive aspect of strategy. There’s a lot to dig into there, but I’d like to start with the representation. I think of it as the mental models, and you can have implicit mental models and explicit mental models, and also individual mental models and collective mental models, which goes to the aggregation piece. But when you talk about representation, to what degree—I mean, you mentioned a metaphor there, which, of course, is a form of representing a strategic space. There are, of course, classic two by twos. There are also the mental models which were classically used in investment strategy. So what are the ways in which we can think about representation from a human cognitive perspective, before we look at how AI can complement it? Felipe Csaszar: I think it’s important to distinguish—again, it’s three different things. There are three different types of representations. There are the internal representations: how people think in their minds about a given problem, and that usually people learn through experience, by doing things many times, by working at a given company—you start looking at the world from a given perspective. Part of the internal representations you can learn at school, also, like the typical frameworks. Then there are external representations—things that are outside our mind that help us make decisions. In strategy, essentially everything that we teach are external representations. The most famous one is called Porter’s Five Forces, and it’s a way of thinking about what affects the attractiveness of an industry in terms of five different things. This is useful to have as an external representation; it has many benefits, because you can write it down, you can externalize it, and once it’s outside of your mind, you free up space in your mind to think about other things, to consider other dimensions apart from those five. External representations help you to expand the memory, the working memory that you have to think about strategy. Visuals in general, in strategy, are typical external representations. They play a very important role also because strategy usually involves multiple people, so you want everybody to be on the same page. A great way of doing that is by having a visual so that we all see the same. So we have internal—what’s in your mind; external—what you can draw, essentially, in strategy. And then there are distributed representations, where multiple people—and now with AI, artifacts and software—among all of them, they share the whole representation, so they have parts of the representation. Then you need to aggregate those parts—partial representations; some of them can be internal, some of them are external, but they are aggregated in a given way. So representations are really core in strategic decision making. All strategic decisions come from a given set of representations. Ross Dawson: Yeah, that’s fantastic. So looking at—so again, so much to dive into—but thinking about the visual representations, again, this is a core interest of mine. Can you talk a little bit about how AI can assist? There’s an iterative process. Of course, visualization can be quite simple—a simple framework—or visuals can provide metaphors. There are wonderful strategy roadmaps which are laid out visually, and so on. So what are the ways in which you see AI being able to assist in that, both in the two-way process of the human being able to make their mental model explicit in a visualization, and the visualization being able to inform the internal representation of the strategist? Are there any particular ways you’ve seen AI be useful in that context? Felipe Csaszar: So I was very intrigued—as soon as LLMs became popular, were launched—yeah, ChatGPT, that was in November 2022—I started thinking, there are so many ways in which this could be used. So myself and two co-authors, Hyunjin Kim and Harsh Ketkar, we wrote a paper, one of the initial papers on how AI can be used in strategy. It’s published in Strategy Science, and in that paper, we explore many ways in which AI could be used in strategy. Of course, you can ask AI about coming up with answers to questions that you may have. You can also use AI to use any of these frameworks that have been developed in strategy. It was very clear to us that it was usable. Then the question was, how good are those uses? What’s the quality of current AI doing this type of task? So what we did is an experiment where we compared the performance of AI to the performance of humans. In strategy, there are two types of tasks: one is to generate alternatives, and the other is to select alternatives. You have a problem—the first thing you want to do is have possible solutions, and then you want to be able to pick the best out of those. So we had two experiments: one where we measured the ability of AI to generate alternatives, another to select. For generation, what we did is we got data from a business plan competition where people were applying with business plans that all had the same format. The important thing is that the first paragraph of that application had the problem—a problem that they thought was important. So we took all of those applications and removed everything except for the problem, and then we gave that problem to an AI and asked the AI, “Hey, complete the rest of the business plan.” So now we have business plans that are real, and the AI twins of those—business plans created by an AI that try to solve the same problem. Then we put both in a kind of business plan competition, where we had people with experience in investments ranking all of these business plans, and they didn’t know which ones were created by humans and which ones were created by AIs. We looked at their evaluations at the end of the day, and on average, the ones that were generated by the AI were ranked a little bit higher—7% higher—than the ones that were generated by humans. So at least in this very specific context of business plan competitions, there’s potential. We’re saying, hey, AI could generate things at a level that is comparable to the people applying to this type of business plan competition. That has a lot of potential. We could use it in different ways. The other part of this study was to measure the ability of AI to select strategies among strategies. There, what we did is use data from another business plan competition, where all of the business plans had been evaluated by venture capitalists according to 10 dimensions: how strong is the idea, how strong is the team, how strong is the technology, etc. Then we gave an AI the same rubric that the venture capitalists received and asked the AI to rank or grade each one of these startups according to these 10 dimensions. Then we compared how similar the evaluations of the LLM were to the evaluations of the venture capitalists, and we showed that they are quite similar—there’s a correlation of 52%. This, again, tells us that there is potential here. An AI could do things that are quite similar to an experienced human evaluating this type of startup. A very interesting result there is that the correlation between two venture capitalists is lower than that 52%. So if you want to predict what a venture capitalist is going to say about your business, you’re better off asking an LLM than asking another venture capitalist. Ross Dawson: Yes, which perhaps shows the broad distribution of VC opinions. So obviously, LLMs can play valuable roles in many aspects of the strategy process, but this brings us back to the humans plus AI role. There are many—again, a big topic—but rather than looking at them, comparing what humans and AI did, where do you see the primary opportunities for humans and AI to collaborate in the strategy process? Felipe Csaszar: Yeah, yeah. So I think that’s a fascinating question, and my guess is that the study of the strategy process will completely change in the next 10 to 20 years. So far, all of the strategy process has been to study what happens when you have multiple people making strategy decisions. In the past, we studied things like devil’s advocate, or we have studied the role of changing the size of the group of people making decisions, or the consensus level required. But in the future, there will be AIs in this process that will have completely different bounds or capacities than humans. So we will need to learn what’s the best way of collaborating with them and including them into the strategic decision making process. Today, we don’t know much about it. We are beginning to learn things, like the study I mentioned—hey, in this task, it seems to be better—but there’s so much that we need to learn. I am working on some things, but it’s still early. Ross Dawson: Going back to the distributed representation—this is something where, of course, distributed representation can be in multiple people. Arguably, it can include human and AI agents as each having different representations. But this goes, of course, to the aggregation piece, where the aggregation is—you have a board of directors, group of executives, potentially a participative strategy process bringing more people into the organization. What are the specific roles of AI in assisting or facilitating effective aggregation to form a cohesive strategy? Felipe Csaszar: Yeah, so the truth is, we yet don’t know. There’s not enough research. We’re starting to think about it. We can see many uses, and I think what people should be doing now is running experiments to see when those add value and when they don’t. It will be different for different companies in different industries, so probably there’s no one solution that’s the same for everybody. For example, one possible use in strategic decision making is predicting what your competitors would do. If I do this, what would be the most likely reaction of my competitor? That’s one. Another one is predicting consumers: if I launch this product with this set of characteristics, what would be the most likely response of my consumers? In strategy, something that has been very popular for the last 20 years is something called the Blue Ocean Strategy, which is a method to come up with new offerings, with new value propositions, but that requires a lot of creativity. With AI, you can automate part of that. At the end of the day, it’s a search process. You have to think about what would happen if I add this, or if I add this other thing, or if I increase this. Part of that can be automated—that would be another use. Or if you have different proposals—in this other study, we show, hey, AI is good at evaluating, so if you have the right rubric, this can automate the evaluation, or can automate the first part of that evaluation so that you only have to spend your time among the really complicated, more sophisticated decisions or alternatives. There are many, many things that can be done at this point. Ross Dawson: Which goes to, I think, one of the interesting points in your work—representational complexity. Some strategies are arguably simple; other strategies, you can call them more sophisticated, but they are more complex. The representation of complexity is greater. There are two things that are required for that. One is, of course, sophisticated thinking, but also, because strategy in any organization involves multiple people, it requires that there is an ability for a number of people together to hold a hopefully similar or very similar representation of a quite complex topic. What are ways in which AI can be used to enhance that development of more sophisticated or nuanced or complex representations that can support a better strategy? Felipe Csaszar: So that’s a great point. I have a paper from before this new round of AI called exactly that—representation complexity. There has been a long-standing discussion in strategy of when you want to use a simple representation, whether it’s better to use a complex representation, or something in between. We tried to clarify when each one of these applies. But then came this new round of AI, and I think it changes things a lot. I talk a little bit about this in a chapter I uploaded recently—it’s called “Unbounding Rationality.” The key thing there is that humans—we have our own computer here, it’s the brain, and the brain has some constraints. One very important for strategy is the capacity of our working memory. There’s this famous paper from the 1950s called “The Magical Number Seven,” that we can hold in our working memory seven plus or minus two items—so between five and nine things we can keep at the same time in our mind. That’s why, for example, I think all strategy frameworks are very simple. There’s the five forces—fits within our working memory—or these typical two by twos, they have four quadrants—fits within our working memory. But AIs don’t have that bound. They are not constrained by the same working memory constraint that we have. So I would expect that future frameworks will be much more complex, that representational complexity will increase because of AI. Of course, frameworks of the future won’t have a million things, because when you put too many things, you’re overfitting—it works well with things that happened in the past, but not in the future—but they will probably have more than five things. Also, another reason for not having a million things inside a framework is that at the end of the day, you will still need to communicate frameworks. You will need to convince the other people in the organization, the ones that are implementing the strategy, that this is the right strategy. You will need to convince them, so you don’t want to have something that’s extremely complex. But my guess would be that the complexity of frameworks and of strategies will increase with AI. Ross Dawson: So looking forward—you talked about 10 or 20 years. If we see the current pace of capability development of LLMs on a similar trajectory, where do you see the remaining role of humans as a complement to AI in shaping strategy? I think you mentioned this possibility of essentially AI forming strategy, but I think for a wide array of reasons, it will be human plus AI—humans will play a role as final decision maker or other things. So where do you see those fundamental human capabilities still being retained for the foreseeable future, as a complement to AI in strategy? Felipe Csaszar: So I think that for the next 10, 20, maybe 30 years, humans will be really busy coming up with how to use AI—all of these experiments that we mentioned, people will be running all of those things in all different industries, and that takes a while. That will require human ingenuity and trying things and really understanding strategy and understanding the capabilities of AI. So I don’t see AI replacing human strategists in the very short term. On the contrary, because of AI, strategists will be more busy finding what are the best ways of using AI in their businesses. I think 10, 20, or 30 years is very reasonable. If you think about the previous technological revolution, which I could say was the Internet—the technology for the Internet, we could say, existed since around ’94. The World Wide Web is from ’94, browsers are from ’94, bandwidth enough to send email. Essentially all of the technology that supports internet business today was mostly in place in the mid to late ’90s. But the businesses, or people, ended up using all of those things 10 or 20 years after that, because it takes a long time for people, for strategists, to come up with the idea—for someone to come up with the idea of, let’s say, Netflix or eBay or PayPal or Facebook—all of those things, they take time for people to understand this is doable. Then it takes time to implement. Then it takes time for users to say, “Hey, this is useful.” There’s a lot of adaptation, and then there will be regulation. So the whole process takes a long time. I don’t think that businesses will change from one day to the next. It will be a relatively slow process that will take decades. When we look back in 20 years from now, we will see, “Hey, everything changed,” but every year we will see just a little bit of change, like what happened with the Internet. So I imagine that people designing strategies, implementing strategies, they will be very busy in the next 20 years. Ross Dawson: So to round out, I won’t ask you to make predictions, but maybe some hypotheses. What do you think are some interesting hypotheses that will inform your research—not just next year, but in the years beyond? Where do you think are the interesting avenues that we should be not just exploring and researching, but where there is a valid and useful hypothesis? Felipe Csaszar: Yeah, so many things, but one very important—I think that strategy will be more about making the right predictions. The role of foresight. It turns out that when you want to train a machine learning algorithm, you need to have some signal that informs how you train the system. It’s called the gradient, or the objective function. So in strategy, we will need to make that more central, and then think, what are the best ways in which you can use AI to make the right predictions? That requires measuring the quality of predictions. So you change this in the business, and this ends up happening. We want an AI to be able to do that. So coming up with ways in which you can measure the quality of decisions will become more important, so that we can train those AIs. That’s one. And very related to that is, well, the thing that’s generating the predictions are representations, and then it’s coming up with those more complex representations that are better at making decisions or are better at discovering things that are hard for humans to discover. Those are the two main things. I think the future of strategy will be about finding ways of improving foresight and finding ways of improving the thing that creates that foresight, which are the representations. All of that will change what has been called the strategy process—how we make decisions in strategy. Ross Dawson: So I just need to pick up on that point around prediction. One of the challenges with external predictions is that, then, as a strategist, you have to say, either I will build my strategy based on that prediction, or I question that prediction. I think there are alternatives or attribute probabilities to it. So even if a prediction machine gets better, it’s still very challenging, particularly cognitively, in terms of accountability for the strategist to incorporate a prediction where you don’t necessarily have all of the logic behind the prediction as a machine learning model to incorporate. So how can a strategist incorporate what may be a relatively black box prediction into an effective strategy? Felipe Csaszar: Yeah, well, and here we are in the conjecture part of this interview. So my answer is in that spirit. I think there are two ways out of this. One is that we will ask for explainable predictions. There’s a whole area of AI called Explainable AI, which is exactly trying to do this—not just say what’s the best prediction, but why the AI is saying that’s the right prediction. So that could develop, and probably that will develop, because humans will question whatever the AI will predict. That’s one way. The other is, imagine that the AI becomes very, very, very good at making predictions. Then at some point, it doesn’t matter if it can explain it or not—it’s just making very good predictions. It’s like, imagine you want to win at chess and you have this machine that can play chess very well. This machine wins at chess. You don’t need to exactly understand how that machine is making each one of those decisions. But if the machine is very good at it, and it’s consistently good at it, people will use it. In a sense, the market will decide. If this works better than a machine that provides an explanation for each one of the steps, people will just go with the one that’s making the right prediction. Ross Dawson: I think there’s all sorts of other places we can go to from there, but that’s fascinating. So where can people go to find out more about your work? Felipe Csaszar: Well, I upload all of my stuff to SSRN. So if you Google my name and SSRN, you will find all of my papers. In the near future, like in the next three months or so, I’ll have two things coming out. One is a Handbook of AI, written also with my co-editor Nan Jia from USC, that will have 20 chapters that will explore different ways in which AI will be affecting strategies—the Handbook of AI and Strategy, published by Elgar. And then around that same time, there will be a special issue of the Strategy Science journal where I’m one of the co-editors, which will be exactly about the same—about AI and strategic decision making. We already have accepted several of the papers for that special issue. Those papers will be pushing the frontier of what we know about AI and strategic decision making. Ross Dawson: That’s fantastic. I will certainly be following your work—very highly aligned with the humans plus AI movement. And thank you for all of the wonderful research and work you’re doing. Felipe Csaszar: Thank you so much, Ross. It’s been a pleasure. The post Felipe Csaszar on AI in strategy, AI evaluations of startups, improving foresight, and distributed representations of strategy (AC Ep32) appeared first on Humans + AI.

Wir leben in einer Gesellschaft, die sich ständig verändert – getrieben von Trends, Tempo und Technik. Mit einem breit gefächerten Angebot an Apps und Newslettern ist es leicht, sich von immer neuen Berichterstattungen und Geschichten mitreißen zu lassen und alles andere auszublenden.Wir sollten allerdings aufpassen, was wir konsumieren. In der Welt des World Wide Web gibt es keine Beständigkeit – die Nachrichten wechseln im Minutentakt, und die Trends von heute sind morgen schon irrelevant. Jeder kann seine Meinung teilen, ohne dass seine Aussagen auf ihren Wahrheitsgehalt überprüft werden – so entstehen viele falsche Behauptungen. Nicht zuletzt lernen Algorithmen, was Nutzern gefällt, und präsentieren Inhalte abgestimmt auf das, worauf vorher bevorzugt geklickt wurde. So sieht man nur noch das, was man sehen will, und lebt in seiner eigenen Blase. Vereinnahmt von den Inhalten auf Instagram, X und Co. merken wir oft nicht, was tatsächlich in der Welt vor sich geht. So verlieren wir leicht den Fokus auf das Wesentliche.Doch gerade in einer solchen Zeit ist es entscheidend, einen festen Anker zu haben. Jemanden, der niemals weichen wird und an dem wir uns festhalten können, wenn alles andere in sich zusammenfällt – nämlich Gott. Er hat uns in seinem Wort versprochen: Er »ist und bleibt derselbe«. Im Gegensatz zu den ständigen Veränderungen und Unsicherheiten dieser Welt bleibt Gott der sichere Fels – denn er hat die Welt selbst erschaffen! Er verliert niemals die Kontrolle. Er ist unverrückbar und treu, und sein Wort bleibt für immer wahr. Deshalb dürfen wir mit großer Sicherheit wissen, dass der Gott, dem wir vertrauen, nicht von den ständigen Schwankungen der Welt beeinflusst wird, sondern über allem steht!Klara HerhausDiese und viele weitere Andachten online lesenWeitere Informationen zu »Leben ist mehr« erhalten Sie unter www.lebenistmehr.de

A Times story reporting that college students in a writing course do better when they go offline for a month makes perfect sense to me, same as if you say a writer does better at a laptop in the public library than shnockered on a sailboat in a storm, but the idea of persuading students to go offline strikes me as quixotic, like Amish evangelism or banning the use of chairs. The internet is here and we're all caught up in it.l was in my 50s when the World Wide Web came in. Its advent was not a big event to me; I was still working on a manual Underwood typewriter. I have a clearer memory of seeing Albert Woolson, the last living Civil War veteran, in a parade in downtown Minneapolis. I remember my uncle Jim farming with horses and Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio. And I remember boredom, which has mostly disappeared in America except perhaps among lighthouse keepers or attendants in parking ramps or felons in solitary confinement. And maybe imprisonment offline would be considered cruel and inhumane in a court of law.Growing up pre-Google in a small Midwestern town among taciturn people, I experienced boredom intensely and it led to reading and in due course to writing. I took up haiku:Three blackbirds shriekingAs my old black cat calmlySquats in the sandpile.This was enough to amuse me back then. And because I could write a 17-syllable haiku and had good handwriting and spoke in complete sentences, I was considered gifted.I considered becoming a poet but I wanted to earn money and not live up over my parents' garage so I went into public radio where, thank goodness, the audience was made up of reference librarians, caregivers, birdwatchers, organic gardeners, people who were spiritual but not religious, people who enjoyed the enigmatic more than actual entertainment. I shouldn't brag but I can be more enigmatic than anyone I know.I got a reputation as an artistic storyteller, which, believe me, there is no such thing — storytelling is not an art, it's a craft, like plumbing, and either the water comes out of the tap or it doesn't. But back in the Boring Eighties, enigma was more appreciated. And now, there's the smartphone offering endless entertainment, videos, YouTube, GPS telling you exactly where on Earth you are and how far to the nearest comedy club, yoga studio, liquor store and not just any old liquor store but one that offers designer beer with floral notes of marigolds sprinkled with saffron playing off earthy vanilla with rustic bitterness in the finish. We didn't have that back in my time, just cold beer.I try to explain this to young people, the fact that we didn't have soft butter then, butter aerated to make it spreadable, just little hard bricks of butter that when you tried to spread it on toast, you tore the toast apart, or else you scraped shavings of butter off and by the time the toast was buttered it was cold.Back in the day, before “google” became a verb, we had to memorize information, it wasn't readily available, such as verb tenses or state capitals or the nine planets — My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas — Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto — and a boy named Ralph Krause liked to ask Mr. Jensen our science teacher, How big is Uranus? Is there life on Uranus? It was a high point of science class, in which high points were few and far between.I grew up under the heavy burden of Boy Scouts, which I believe has mostly disappeared, done in by social media. We had cruel Scoutmasters who took us winter camping in the North Woods, believing adversity stimulates intelligence. I'm not so sure. I associate intelligence with staying warm.I look at politics, the regressive MAGA right (working hard to horrify the genteel left), which has elected nihilists in golf pants who exercise their whimsical powers to serve 3% of the people 75% of the time, and it's easy to despair but if you go offline and wander through crowds of Christmas shoppers, you sense the spirit of kindness and gaiety of our people.Old men dozing off at the switch need to be shoveled into the Home for the Hopeless and let the young and conscientious come in to repair the damage. I hope it happens in my lifetime. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe

Fühlen Sie sich informiert? Wissen Sie Bescheid über wichtige Entwicklungen in Politik, Gesellschaft und Kultur? Und vor allem: Haben Sie den Überblick? Ich empfinde die Situation als paradox: Es war noch nie so einfach, viele Informationen zu erhalten – und es war noch nie so anstrengend, informiert zu sein. Ich habe das Gefühl, dass ich immer mehr Aufwand betreiben muss, um à jour zu bleiben. Als ich Ende der 1980er-Jahre in den Journalismus einstieg, war das grosse Problem der Zugang zu Nachrichten und Informationen. Ende der 1990er-Jahre brach das World Wide Web die klassischen Strukturen auf. Plötzlich konnten wir alles wissen: Wir hatten weltweit Zugang zu Daten, Nachrichten und Informationen. Es machte sich eine richtige Euphorie breit. Damit ist es vorbei: Heute leiden wir alle unter einem Information Overload. Wir haben zu viele Informationen und fühlen uns doch schlecht informiert. Vor allem ist es viel anstrengender geworden, am Ball zu bleiben. Was ist da los? Warum hat das Internet die euphorischen Erwartungen nicht erfüllt? Verbessert oder verschlimmert die künstliche Intelligenz die Situation? Oder bietet sie vielleicht eine Lösung?Matthias Zehnder ist Autor und Medienwissenschaftler in Basel. Er ist bekannt für inspirierende Texte, Vorträge und Seminare über Medien, die Digitalisierung und KI.Website: https://www.matthiaszehnder.ch/Newsletter abonnieren: https://www.matthiaszehnder.ch/abo/Unterstützen: https://www.matthiaszehnder.ch/unterstuetzen/Biografie und Publikationen: https://www.matthiaszehnder.ch/about/

Die Digitalisierung gilt als Allheilmittel auf so ziemlich allen Problemfeldern. Doch die Auswirkungen auf Gesellschaft und Justiz sind vielfältig und herausfordernd. Der Fall des freien Journalisten Alexander Wallasch zeigt, in welchen gefährlichen Fahrwassern sich neue Medien dabei – auch mittels Einsatzes von künstlicher Intelligenz – befinden. Hierüber berichtet Rechtsanwalt Dirk Schmitz. Machen es sich die Verfassungsschützer zu einfach, indem sie Beobachtungen bequem am Schreibtisch im World Wide Web verfolgen und so Ressourcen zur Erfüllung ihres gesetzlichen Auftrages einseitig verschwendet werden? Hierüber sprechen wir mit Dr. Hans-Georg Maaßen. Und der Fall des ehemaligen Schweizer Nationalrats Claudio Zanetti zeigt, wie schnell der kritische Internetuser auch in der Schweiz vor Gericht landet. Sein Verteidiger Konrad Jeker berichtet. Schließlich kommentiert Michael R. Moser in seiner „Ode an das Papier“ die Auswirkungen eines Naturereignisses auf die digitale Justiz.

Last week we discussed the trend toward decentralization of technology, and we discuss that more next week in Cyber Protection Magazine. But while it may be a global trend, it doesn't mean everywhere.This week we met with Lisa Pent, CEO of ThePentEdge.com, a consulting organization that works with small to mid market banks and credit unions where consolidation is still very much standard. We also touch on the recent decision by the Chinese government to ban large US. and Israeli cybersecurity firms from operating in China, contributing to our prediction of the end of the World Wide Web.

The ACM A.M. Turing Award is universally recognized as the "Nobel Prize of Computing" and stands as the highest distinction in the field of computer science. Presented annually by the Association for Computing Machinery, it honors individuals whose technical contributions have had a lasting and major importance to the digital world.The award is named in honor of Alan Mathison Turing, the British mathematician and "Father of Computer Science". Turing provided the formal foundations for computation with the Universal Turing Machine and played a pivotal role in the Allied victory during World War II by leading the effort to decrypt the Enigma cipher.The most recent recipients (2024) are Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton, recognized for their groundbreaking work in reinforcement learning. Their research allows machines to learn through trial and error, serving as a central pillar for the modern AI boom and powering massive breakthroughs like AlphaGo and ChatGPT.Turing Award Fast Facts:• The Prize: Winners receive $1 million, with current financial support provided by Google, Inc..• The First: The inaugural award was given to Alan Perlis in 1966 for his influence on advanced programming and compilers.• Women in Computing: Only three women have ever received the honor: Frances Allen (2006), Barbara Liskov (2008), and Shafi Goldwasser (2012).• The Elite Network: Turing Laureates are exceptionally well-connected; on average, a winner is separated from another laureate or von Neumann Medal winner by only 1.4 co-authorship steps.• Academic Foundations: Approximately 61% of laureates hold degrees in mathematics, reflecting the discipline's deep roots in mathematical logic.• Age Trends: While the youngest winner, Donald Knuth, was only 36, the average age of recipients has trended upward toward 70 in recent years.From the invention of the World Wide Web and the C programming language to the foundations of Artificial Intelligence, the Turing Award documents the history of the information age.#TuringAward #ComputerScience #AI #AlanTuring #TechHistory #ReinforcementLearning #ChatGPT #Innovation #Coding #STEM

The ACM A.M. Turing Award is universally recognized as the "Nobel Prize of Computing" and stands as the highest distinction in the field of computer science. Presented annually by the Association for Computing Machinery, it honors individuals whose technical contributions have had a lasting and major importance to the digital world.The award is named in honor of Alan Mathison Turing, the British mathematician and "Father of Computer Science". Turing provided the formal foundations for computation with the Universal Turing Machine and played a pivotal role in the Allied victory during World War II by leading the effort to decrypt the Enigma cipher.The most recent recipients (2024) are Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton, recognized for their groundbreaking work in reinforcement learning. Their research allows machines to learn through trial and error, serving as a central pillar for the modern AI boom and powering massive breakthroughs like AlphaGo and ChatGPT.Turing Award Fast Facts:• The Prize: Winners receive $1 million, with current financial support provided by Google, Inc..• The First: The inaugural award was given to Alan Perlis in 1966 for his influence on advanced programming and compilers.• Women in Computing: Only three women have ever received the honor: Frances Allen (2006), Barbara Liskov (2008), and Shafi Goldwasser (2012).• The Elite Network: Turing Laureates are exceptionally well-connected; on average, a winner is separated from another laureate or von Neumann Medal winner by only 1.4 co-authorship steps.• Academic Foundations: Approximately 61% of laureates hold degrees in mathematics, reflecting the discipline's deep roots in mathematical logic.• Age Trends: While the youngest winner, Donald Knuth, was only 36, the average age of recipients has trended upward toward 70 in recent years.From the invention of the World Wide Web and the C programming language to the foundations of Artificial Intelligence, the Turing Award documents the history of the information age.#TuringAward #ComputerScience #AI #AlanTuring #TechHistory #ReinforcementLearning #ChatGPT #Innovation #Coding #STEM

Send us a textOn this episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Harlan Landes, founder of The Plutus Foundation and The Plutus Awards, about building community and the world of financial content creation. 

Heiratsantrag, Martin Schneider, Dalí, RetrobottegaTaucht ein in die einzigartige Atmosphäre des digitalen Cafés "Sprezzatura", eurem Zufluchtsort im World Wide Web, wo Jasmin und André jede Woche spannende Gespräche über Stil, Musik, das Beobachten des Alltags, kuriose Fakten und Rezepte für ein erfülltes Leben führen. Für diejenigen unter euch, die unsere Episoden über eine Podcast-App hören, haben wir eine besondere Funktion: Ihr findet dort Kapitelmarken und Links, die das Hörerlebnis noch angenehmer machen.Möchtet ihr Ideen, Feedback oder Vorschläge mit uns teilen? Wir sind immer gespannt auf eure Nachrichten unter hallosprezzatura@gmail.com.Falls "Sprezzatura" zu eurem digitalen Lieblingscafé geworden ist, zeigt eure Unterstützung, indem ihr uns auf Spotify oder Apple Podcasts fünf Sterne gebt und eine Rezension hinterlasst. Teilt unseren Podcast mit anderen und empfehlt uns weiter. Wir sind euch für jede Geste der Wertschätzung zutiefst dankbar.Folgt uns auch auf Instagram, um keine Updates zu verpassen!Wir laden euch herzlich ein, Platz zu nehmen im virtuellen "Café Sprezzatura". Hier dreht sich alles um die Kunst des schönen Lebens – garniert mit unseren sorgfältig zusammengestellten Spotify-Playlists "Sprezzatura - Gold Standard Playlist" und "Sprezzatura - Partyplaylist", die wöchentlich aktualisiert werden, sowie unseren YouTube-Playlists, die den Sprezzatura-Lifestyle akustisch untermalen.Entdeckt zudem alle Filme, die wir in unseren speziellen Filmfolgen behandelt haben, in unserer kontinuierlich erweiterten Liste auf Letterboxd.Für alle Links und weitere Informationen besucht: https://linktr.ee/sprezzatura_podcast

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a computer scientist and the inventor of the World Wide Web. He was born in 1955, a golden year for technology innovators. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were also born in the same year. A curious child, he learned about electronics from his train set and spent his pocket money on transistors. His first significant connecting invention was building an intercom as a teenager for the family home before moving on to build his first computer. His parents were both mathematicians and coders who met whilst building one of the first commercially available computers in the early nineteen fifties. Sir Tim came up with the idea of the World Wide Web whilst working at CERN and insisted that the technology be released to the world without commercial reward so that it would be free for everyone to use. He was knighted for his world changing invention and also appointed to the Order of Merit. In 2016 he was given the Turing Award. Sir Tim Berners-Lee divides his time between the US, the UK and Canada with his wife Rosemary, who is also a technology entrepreneur.Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah TaylorDesert Island Discs has cast many computer scientists away over the years including Dame Wendy Hall and Sir Demis Hassibis. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.

We have gone through four industrial revolutions in the US, why does the AI revolution scare us the most? Industrial revolutions are nothing new in the United States as we have had four including the current one we are in. The first one came in the mid-18th century when changes came for waterpower, steam engines, and textile manufacturing. The second industrial revolution was in the mid-19th century when steel became a big factor along with electricity and mass production. We also saw transportation by railroads and automobiles during this revolution. The third industrial revolution came around the mid-1990s. Some of us who are 50 years or older may remember the effects. Electronics including personal computers, information technologies, and this scary thing called the World Wide Web were developed during this revolution. The fourth industrial revolution is happening now and it's scary because we don't know what the future holds. This revolution includes digital, physical, and biological technologies. This includes AI, the Internet of Things, and robotics as well. The reason this is scarier than the third revolution with personal computers was that people could see how they could benefit and get more done and maybe use that computer to start a web-based business. Currently with AI, people are not seeing how it will benefit or improve their lives but only how it could take away their livelihood by making their job obsolete. There could be a slowdown in the advancement of AI similar to what happened in the late 70s with nuclear power. People as a whole rejected nuclear power, and it has taken almost 50 years to be accepted as we can see in today's newspapers. Based on history, it looks like the acceptance of AI may slow down because polls show that just 40% of people said the AI industry could be trusted to do the right thing, and 57% say the government needs more regulation on tech and AI. Maybe your job is safe for longer than you thought.   Bitcoin holder Strategy should be getting nervous about the price of Bitcoin The public company Strategy, which used to be known as MicroStrategy and trades under the symbol MSTR, should be getting nervous about its 650,000 Bitcoins that are worth around $56 billion depending on the day. The problem is the company has about $8 billion of convertible bonds outstanding that require interest payments and about $7.6 billion of perpetual preferred stock that also pays dividends. The cost to pay the interest and these dividends is about $780 million annually and since all the company's assets are essentially in Bitcoin, they don't receive any interest or profits from that asset. The CEO, Michael Slayer, is saying if they must, they will sell Bitcoin to raise the cash to pay the dividends and interest payments. The convertible bonds could also be problematic down the road as they are due in about 4.4 years on average and come with a combined interest rate of 0.421%. The stock itself has been pulverized, and its market cap has been as low as $49 billion from a high of $128 billion in July. MSCI has proposed cutting digital asset treasury companies from its indexes if crypto tokens make up a major part of the assets. This decision will come in a little over a month on January 15th and if this happens, Strategy could see $2.8 billion in passive outflows. JPMorgan estimates that about $9 billion of the company's market cap is tied to passive and index ETFs and mutual funds. This could put more pressure on the stock if more indexes also decide to remove these treasury companies. You won't believe how the company makes their profit and loss statement. When the price of Bitcoin rises, the company books a paper profit even if it did not sell any Bitcoin. Obviously, if Bitcoin goes down in value, they must book the losses as well. One must love the estimates for the earnings of Strategy for 2025.  Strategy is expected to report a loss of $5.5 billion or a profit of $6.3 billion or something in between. That is some great guidance! I don't know where Bitcoin is going today, tomorrow or anytime in the future, but I would be sweating bullets if I held Bitcoin or Strategy in my clients' portfolios or my portfolio!   Holiday shopping hits record levels! We continue to see conflicting data when it comes to the health of the consumer. They continue to say they don't feel good, but the hard data and the actual numbers remain quite strong. In a positive note from the National Retail Federation (NRF), an estimated 202.9 million consumers shopped during the five-day stretch from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. That is the largest turnout since data for the five-day period started being collected in 2017, and it easily tops last year's level of 197 million shoppers. Expectations for the period were also quite low considering the estimate was for just 186.9 million shoppers. While online shoppers increased 9% year over year to 134.9 million people, in-store shoppers still saw a nice increase of 3% to 129.5 million people. Adobe also provided sales data for the five-day period that indicated consumers spent $44.2 billion online, which was a 7.7% year-over-year jump. Black Friday in particular saw strong online sales as they totaled $11.8 billion and grew by 9.1% year over year. A big question here is if the shopping was done to capitalize on deals in an attempt to save money. That could be an indicator of a weaker economy, but I don't believe that's the full story as shoppers told NRF at the end of Cyber Monday that they had about 53% of their holiday shopping remaining, which was similar to a year ago. For the full holiday season, the NRF expects record sales of between $1.1 trillion and $1.2 trillion from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31. This would be the first time sales would top $1 trillion, and it would represent a 3.7% to 4.2% increase from the year-ago holiday period.    Financial Planning: When Tax-Loss Harvesting Makes Sense and When It Doesn't Tax-loss harvesting is often promoted as a smart tax-saving strategy, but investors should understand its pitfalls before hitting the sell button. Selling a position at a loss may reduce taxes today, but it could also mean missing a rebound in that investment potentially costing more in lost gains than the tax benefit received. For example, if an investor buys a stock for $50,000 and harvests a $5,000 loss when the investment drops to $45,000, and they are in a 24.3% combined tax bracket (15% federal + 9.3% state), the tax savings is just over $1,200. That means the investment only needs to rise 2.7% to wipe out the benefit of harvesting, something that could easily occur during the required 30-day wash-sale waiting period. Even if the position doesn't rebound, repurchasing after 31 days locks in a lower cost basis, potentially increasing future taxable gains possibly in a higher tax bracket. Many investors, especially retirees with lower taxable income, are already in the 0% long-term capital gains bracket, meaning losses may not even be needed; a married couple in retirement could have income near $150,000 and still realize long-term gains tax-free. Tax-loss harvesting can still be valuable when losses are large in percentage terms, when it helps avoid a higher tax bracket or IRMAA surcharges, when offsetting short-term gains (which long-term losses can do), or when exiting a position you don't plan to repurchase.   Companies Discussed: Weyerhaeuser Company (WY), Netflix, Inc. (NFLX), Energizer Holdings, Inc. (ENR) & Valvoline Inc. (VVV)

Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn   https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com The good news is that federal security measures are preventing successful attacks; the bad news is that adversaries are examining every nook and cranny of a federal system and increasingly targeting the browser itself as an attack vector. During the interview, Scott "Monty" Montgomery gives a quick overview of Enterprise Browsers and Secure Enterprise Browsers.  After all, browsers have been around since 1994. It may be the only application ubiquitous on home-based machines and in enterprise systems. They were not designed for security; they were intended to open the internet to the World Wide Web, full of images, links, and audio. Malicious actors did not have to focus on an app with limited use; by targeting a browser, they have almost unlimited targets to attack. Montgomery mentions the increase in browser-based attacks. In fact, they increased by 198% in the second half of 2023. Scott explains that phishing persists because people are curious or fearful, leading them to click on malicious links. A Secure Enterprise Browser can help prevent many common phishing exploits. Additionally, an SEB can support policies and controls. This means that an SEB fits completely with any current Zero Trust initiatives across all agencies. Beyond that, SEBs can be configured to manage legacy systems and even operate in low-bandwidth environments.  

Es sollte ein Portal zur Welt des Wissens werden. Inzwischen breiten sich jedoch auch Fake News, Propaganda, Hass, Hetze und Lüge im World Wide Web aus. Tim Berners-Lee über die Geschichte seiner Erfindung. Rezension von Brigitte Neumann

Es sollte ein Portal zur Welt des Wissens werden. Inzwischen breiten sich jedoch auch Fake News, Propaganda, Hass, Hetze und Lüge im World Wide Web aus. Tim Berners-Lee über die Geschichte seiner Erfindung. Rezension von Brigitte Neumann

**BEN** @inkwellsanvils  on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/inkwellsanvils @inkwellsanvils  on Twitter at https://twitter.com/inkwellsanvils Inkwells & Anvils on the World Wide Web at https://www.inkwellsandanvils.com/ **FAITH** @faithelooart  on Twitter at https://twitter.com/faithelooart @faithelooo on Twitter at https://twitter.com/faithelooo faitheloo on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/faitheloo **GRACIE**

From Jeffy’s Online Books to everything from A to Z, Amazon.com is an empire amongst empires. Bezos created something remarkable. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is… Well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those. [Pinpoint Payments Ad] Dave Young: Ding-dong. Okay. Well, I was making noises there as we started. Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple, and we’re talking about empires. I mean, businesses that started tiny and grew into behemoths, in this case, and often… Well, every time what we do is we let the countdown to the recording start, and then Stephen whispers in my ear today’s topic, and we see if I recognize it. Maybe perhaps I’ve heard of them. And today, he just said one word, Amazon. And I’m like, “Is that a river?” I mean, that’s what we all said back in the day when Jeff Bezos started it- Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: … was, “Really, you named it after a river in South America? What are you thinking? What’s wrong with you?” But I guess he proved them wrong. Stephen Semple: What you’re going to discover, wasn’t actually the first name. Dave Young: Oh, cool. They started with a different name and then switched to Amazon. Stephen Semple: Jeffy’s Online Books? Dave Young: Well, and here’s the thing. We’re 200-and-some-odd episodes in, and we’ve managed to hold off not covering Amazon. That’s a good point. Yeah. Stephen Semple: And I resisted myself, because basically everything that’s to be said about Amazon has probably been said, but I did come across a couple of interesting little tidbits that we’re going to focus on- Dave Young: Oh, cool. Stephen Semple: … that I hope gives a little bit different picture to Amazon than the other things, people. Look, Amazon is a massive success, has changed the way the world is, was unbelievably innovative and forward-thinking. And today, Amazon does like 8,000 orders a minute. Dave Young: A minute? Stephen Semple: A minute. Dave Young: Unbelievable. Stephen Semple: Crazy, isn’t it? Dave Young: Mm-hmm. Stephen Semple: And Jeff Bezos is one of the richest men in the world, and Amazon is just a monster out there. But here’s the thing that’s also really interesting. Jeff Bezos did not come from technology or retail. And how often have we seen this over and over and over again, that these businesses are built by people from outside the industry? That is like 9 out of 10, or probably even more like 99 out of 100. He was an investment guy that was working in the early ’90s on Wall Street. That’s what he was doing. And he was making big bucks doing research in the technology space. So he was working in the space, but he wasn’t a tech guy or a retail guy. And he comes across this report about growth in the internet space. And he literally… It boggles his mind. He’s working away in Wall Street, comes across this report, and it says, the space is growing at 2300%. And he literally, as the story goes, picks up the phone, calls the analyst, and said, “There’s a typo here.” And they were like, “No, this is how it’s growing.” And he was like, “Oh my God.” Now, let’s think about this for a moment, because it’s easy to forget this. 1989 is when the first online transaction on the World Wide Web happened. Dave Young: I wouldn’t have thought it was even that long ago, but yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah, yeah, but it was, like, one- Dave Young: Yeah. It’s ancient history now, but… Stephen Semple: We forget, we forget how much the growth is. And if you really want to go back, probably the best documentation of the growth we’ve had is episode 227 on AOL. Because AOL was really a driver of internet growth. It really was. It was really one of the pioneers that took people online. So to be looking at these things in the early ’90s and go, “Hey, I see growth in online retail,” that’s really forward-thinking. I’ve got to give Bezos credit. Not a lot of people were thinking that way. So he looks at this growth and he says, “There’s got to be potential to do a business in this space.” And that’s where he starts off. We’ve got to do a business in this space. So he does brainstorming ideas with his wife at the time, McKinsey, and they look at investment sites, they look at advice sites, but he decides it needs to be a store, because people shop every day. Everyone. It’s mass- Dave Young: An online store, yeah. Stephen Semple: It’s mass, it’s something we do all the time, it’s habitual, and he doesn’t want to do something that’s a niche. And it has no boundaries, and ideally you could remove a lot of the friction in shopping. But he realizes he can’t start that way. This is the other part where I thought he was brilliant. His vision was always online store, but he knew you can’t start as an online store. You can’t become known for being an online store. It’s too big. You need to pick one thing. Dave Young: But he had that vision long before he started selling books. Stephen Semple: The goal was to sell everything. Dave Young: Everything. Stephen Semple: But he knew that’s not where you start. And this is what I find interesting. It’s amazing how many startups I talk about have these massive visions, and it’s too big. You can have that massive vision, but you got to still start with something smaller. And that starting something smaller doesn’t limit you. Jeff Bezos has proven that. So he steps back in this point. He’s trying to figure out, “Well, what’s the one thing I want to do?” And he ordered a book called Cyberdreams by Asimov, and it took two weeks to arrive and arrived damaged. And the ordering process was a bit of a pain in the neck. And he went, “You know what? There’s an opportunity to do better here.” And at the time, the book business is very fragmented. There’s two big players, Barnes & Noble, and Borders. But they combined are only 25% of book sales. So still, most book sales are being done by little retailers. So it’s dominated by all sorts of little players, and they don’t do a good job of shipping books. So he says, “There’s the opportunity. Books is the opportunity.” He quits Wall Street where he is making like a million bucks a year, moves to Seattle to start the business, and he moves to Seattle because University of Washington at the time has got basically the top computer engineering school, Microsoft is there, so there’s lots of good engineers available. Dave Young: Gotcha. Stephen Semple: Hires a programmer, Shel Kaphan. And the first name of the company was not Amazon. It was Cadabra, as in- Dave Young: Cadabra. Abra. Stephen Semple: As in “Abracadabra, your book arrives.” Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Name didn’t work well. People thought it was… Dave Young: Magic supplies, or- Stephen Semple: No. Well, they actually mistake it, Cadabra for cadaver. Dave Young: Yeah, that’s not good either, now that I think about it. Stephen Semple: So they needed a new name, and they had very much still the phone book mentality. Remember how everybody wanted to be listed first in the phone book? Dave Young: Sure. You start with an A. Stephen Semple: So you start with an A, and the first name that kind of came along that they thought they could do anything with was Amazon. Okay, yeah. You know, it’s [inaudible 00:08:32] a river, all this other stuff. So they just went, “Sure, let’s do Amazon. We can make that work.” Dave Young: Well, and the smart thing is he picked a… unless I’m wrong, he picked one word as the name. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: It wasn’t Amazon Booksellers. Stephen Semple: No, Amazon. Dave Young: Amazon Online Booksellers. Stephen Semple: Right, because he still had the vision — Dave Young: That’s limiting. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Right, because he still had the vision, “I’m going to do more than this, but I need to start with one thing.” So Amazon. Dave Young: So that vision dictates you find a name that is big enough to handle the vision. Stephen Semple: Yes. World’s biggest river, right? So it’s June 16th, 1995, Amazon goes live. They wanted to make it simple and easy to order books, and what would happen is they will get the sale, then they turn around and buy the book from the wholesaler, repackage the book, and ship it out to you. So they basically had no inventory. Dave Young: I was going to say, you could test the whole idea by just setting up your office near a brick and mortar bookstore and walking over and buying the book. Stephen Semple: Instead, they were buying the wholesale. Dave Young: Drop it in the mail. But they’re buying from wholesale, so there’s a little profit in it for them. That’s good. Stephen Semple: Yep. So the book would come in, they would repack it, ship it to the customer. So really, at first they had no physical inventory, but they had a list of a million books. They could basically sell any book that they could get from a wholesaler. And Amazon rolls out with this claim. They have the Earth’s biggest bookstore, which is really crazy. Any book store could claim that, because they all had access to the same million books. But I also love… There was a little bit of an unusual wording here. Dave Young: Stay tuned. We’re going to wrap up this story and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business right after this. [Using Stories To Sell Ad] Dave Young: Let’s pick up our story where we left off, and trust me, you haven’t missed a thing. Stephen Semple: I also love, there was a little bit of an unusual wording here, because you sort of expect it to be the world’s biggest bookstore, rather than the Earth’s biggest bookstore. Dave Young: Oh yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Right? And I think that really, again, the slightly unusual wording that fit but doesn’t fit sort of makes things stand out a little bit more. The first week, they do 13,000 in sales. Everybody’s working, boxing books, including Bezos in the early days, and they’re struggling to keep up. Like, it’s working. Then they get a call from Yahoo. So remember, at the time, Yahoo is the monster. Mid-’90s, Yahoo is the leading search engine by a country mile. And Yahoo had this thing that they would do. Each week, they would feature the hottest websites on their landing page. And they give Amazon a call and they say, “Hey, would you like to be featured?” Now, they’re struggling to keep up. Bezos says, “Yep. Keep the pedal to the metal.” So Amazon’s already behind in orders, but they go for it, because the whole idea is get big fast. In a month, they’ve got orders from all 50 states, 25 countries, but they don’t have the infrastructure to keep up, and they’re operating at a loss and growing. So in 1996, they arrange for $8 million investment and they start hiring and updating infrastructure. Now, this point, they get the attention of Barnes & Noble. Remember, Barnes & Noble is the biggest retailer at this time. The CEO meets with them, and he’s known as being kind of a bit of a ruthless guy. He tells Jeff that Barnes & Noble is going to launch their site and it’s going to kill them. So the alternative is sell to Barnes & Noble. Barnes & Noble basically says, “Bezos, we’re going to bury you.” Bezos says, “No.” But here’s where Bezos is smart. Basically, Barnes & Noble tipped their hand. So in May, 1997, Barnes & Noble launches their site, and it’s not bad, and it’s getting better, but the heads-up made Bezos realize he needed the capital to compete. So he had also arranged to go public. So when Barnes & Noble launched their site, Bezos went public, literally same month, May, ’97. And he raises $54 million. But what he realizes, to win, he now needs to stock inventory and do it quicker than Barnes & Noble. So he starts building warehouses. Then, what is the next natural thing to add to books? Movies, and music. Remember? Dave Young: Yeah, I’m just… Stephen Semple: Right, because movies were DVD, and music was CDs, right? Nice, natural add-on. Dave Young: And you’ve already got people competing in that space. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: You’ve got places that are selling CDs and shipping you movies, like Netflix. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: So it’s 1999, and he grows from 610 million to 1.6 billion, 170% growth with the addition of that. Now, here’s the problem. The dot-com bubble bursts, and lots of businesses fail. Investors are switching their focus away from growth. You know how there was that whole thing, burn rate, burn rate, burn rate, doesn’t matter, you don’t need to be profitable. Now all of a sudden, you got to be profitable. And Amazon’s still losing money. And Bezos is told by the board that he needs to make money, he needs to raise prices. This is what the board says. “Dude, you’re raising prices.” What does Bezos do? Announces he’s lowering prices across the board by 30% on everything. He stands against the board, because he says, “This is my opportunity to crush the competition and win.” It’s really interesting, the Monday Morning Memo this week, from Roy H. Williams. So we need to note, it’s October 6th, so any listeners should go back, mondaymorningmemo.com, October 6th. Read that because it’s really interesting what Roy wrote this morning. It’s write down this whole idea, that when things slow down, this is when the little guy can crush the big guys. Dave Young: The big guy, yeah. Stephen Semple: This is what he did. Bezos stood against the board, board, said, “Raise prices,” Bezos said, “No, this is my opportunity to put the foot down, put the hammer down, and win.” And that’s what he did. And guess what? Not only that, few quarters after doing that, they hit profitability for the first time, because they exploded the transactions. They killed their competitors in that moment. So I think the parts that came across interesting for me that I wanted to talk about when it comes to Amazon is this whole idea of he knew he wanted to do something big, but he knew he couldn’t start large. So he spent a lot of time thinking about what’s the natural thing for me to start with? And he looked for something that was fragmented, then it’s easy to go in, that was not being done well, but was already a fairly regular purchase, so he did books. And then in terms of the expansion, what’s something that has very similar characteristics to books? Movies, music. Dave Young: That people are already accustomed to purchasing online. Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: And startup people will talk about the minimum viable product, or minimum viable service, right? Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: And that’s sort of this. Stephen Semple: It is sort of, because he did it with no inventory. Dave Young: Sort of, but it’s not quite, though. Stephen Semple: Not quite. Dave Young: Because he wasn’t trying to make the minimum viable product or service. He was trying to find the entry path to something much, much bigger. Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: When you have this idea for a business that, oh, we’re going to sell this thing online, or we’re going to do this service, and you just… When you think about minimum viable product, you’re forced to think small, and I think in some cases the risk is that you trim back that big vision. Stephen Semple: Yeah. He managed to hold- Dave Young: And you lose it. Stephen Semple: So there’s two areas where Bezos really showed his brilliance. And look, he’s shown his brilliance in so many different things. There’s whole books that have been written around his philosophies and whatnot. But these were the two that I thought have not been talked about before that I think we can all learn from as entrepreneurs, is he managed to hold those two ideas in his head, the long-term vision and the short-term thing he needed to do to get started. And he didn’t have the one limit the other. One, he was very clear, this one is the pathway to the other. But he was also okay to be known initially as a bookseller. He was fine with that. But he was able to hold those two contradictory ideas in his head and not sacrifice one for the other. And I think you’re right. A lot of people struggle with that, and he was brilliant at that. Dave Young: He was focused on it. Stephen Semple: He never lost sight of it. Dave Young: That’s a really good take on Amazon. I love this one. Stephen Semple: The other part is, and I think it’s particularly relevant for where we are today, is because there’s a lot of talk of consumer confidence slipping and things along that lines, is that he stood against his board. His board was like, “Okay, the tune of the day is we got to get profitable. You have to raise prices.” And what he knew is if he raised prices, this idea wasn’t going to work. And look, I’m not normally one saying, “Go lower prices. Go lower prices. Go lower prices.” But strategically, here’s what he knew at this point. His competitors were failing, his competitors were not making money, and his competitors had no more access to capital. This was the opportunity to destroy his online competitors. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: The final nail… This is my opportunity to put my foot on their throat and win. Normally, a lowering a prices is not going to do that, but strategically in that moment, strategically in that moment, it was going to crush the competition. Dave Young: And he didn’t change the vision of the company to always be the low-cost supplier, right? It’s, like, that’s changed now. Stephen Semple: Right. Yes. Dave Young: You may find it for less on Amazon, but you may not. He didn’t make it as a strategy of focus on the company. Again, he made it as strategic decision for competition reasons. Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: Which is what Walmart did, right? Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: It’s just a similar story that’s not in the brick-and-mortar space. I love hearing this story. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And he took advantage of the moment. He saw that there’s this moment where this will work. There’s this moment in time where this will work, and I’m going to take advantage of this moment. Dave Young: And he became incredibly rich. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: Still is. And here’s, to me, the happy ending, okay? When he got divorced, his ex-wife got half of it, half of… I don’t know, half of Amazon, but half of all the money, at least, and she’s been given it away to charities and helping all kinds of people, not buying yachts. Stephen Semple: And look, and he didn’t fight it. He recognized her role. Dave Young: Yeah, yeah. Oh, sure. Stephen Semple: He recognized her role. Dave Young: No, [inaudible 00:19:52] full credit for that. Stephen Semple: It was not one of these drawn-out-in-court battles, because we didn’t hear anything about it. Dave Young: Yeah, and- Stephen Semple: So he did the right thing. Dave Young: Yeah, I think so. And she’s doing a great thing. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: Right? She’s clearly thought, well, yeah, “I can help a lot of people , still live a fantastic life.” Stephen Semple: I’d been resisting doing Amazon, although I felt like it’s hard to have a podcast like this and not talk about Amazon. Dave Young: It is. Stephen Semple: But I wanted to find a couple of things that I think just were a little bit different take, and a couple of things that we can really take away as business owners. And I like to call it the thin edge of the wedge strategy. What’s that starting point which you identified, that then you can pivot to the larger thing. And also, in the tough times, that’s your opportunity to become the leader. Dave Young: Okay. Well, that’s it for the giant, Amazon. Stephen Semple: Yep. Dave Young: You’re talking about an empire. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Next week, as marketers, we’ll be back to talking about the Apple 1984 commercial. No, we won’t. Thank you, Stephen. Stephen Semple: Thanks, David. Dave Young: Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a big, fat, juicy five-star rating and review at Apple Podcasts. And if you’d like to schedule your own 90-minute empire-building session, you can do it at empirebuildingprogram.com.

The interview is also on Youtube: https://youtu.be/oSIFewGWnNE?si=efQOrP5YXeoWuYYAGuest Carlos Moreira Founder & CEO of SealSQ Ticker: (Nasdaq: LAES)Website: https://www.sealsq.com/BioCarlos Creus Moreira is a global technology entrepreneur and cybersecurity authority, serving as Founder, Chairman, and CEO of WISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY) and SEALSQ (LAES). For decades, he has been a leading voice in securing the internet, developing trusted digital identity ecosystems, and advocating for the ethical use of artificial intelligence.Moreira began his career as a United Nations expert on CyberSecurity and Trust Models, working with agencies such as ILO, UNCTAD, ITC/WTO, World Bank, UNDP, and ESCAP (1983–1999). He is also the Founder of OISTE.org, a global non-profit dedicated to strengthening digital identity standards.From 1995 to 1999, he served as an Adjunct Professor and Head of the Trade Efficiency Lab at RMIT University in Australia, contributing to advances in trade facilitation and cybersecurity. His academic and professional work has consistently focused on enhancing trust in digital systems.Moreira holds influential roles in numerous international organizations. He is a Founding Member of the Geneva Government's E-Voting Steering Committee, a UN Global Compact Member, and has contributed extensively to the World Economic Forum (WEF). His WEF roles include: Founding Member of Global Growth Companies, WEF New Champion (2007–2016), Vice-Chair of the Agenda Council on Illicit Trade (2012–2015), Member of the WEF Selection Committee for Growth Companies, and contributor to the Agenda Council on the Future of IT Software & Services (2014–2016). He has been recognized as one of the WEF's Trailblazers, Shapers, and Innovators.He also serves on the Blockchain Advisory Board of the Government of Mexico, the Blockchain Research Institute, and is Founder of the Geneva Security Forum, the Blockchain Center of Excellence, and TrustValley.Moreira has received numerous honors, including:• One of Switzerland's 300 most influential people (Bilan.CH 2011, 2013)• Top 100 in the Net Economy• Most Exciting EU Company (Microsoft MERID 2005)• Man of the Year (AGEFI 2007)• One of Switzerland's 100 most important digital leaders (Bilanz 2016)• Best EU M&A Award (2017)• Blockchain Davos Award of Excellence (GBBC 2018)• CGI Award HolderHe is co-author of the global best-selling book “The TransHuman Code,” a leading work on managing technology's impact on humanity. As a multilingual keynote speaker (English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese), Moreira has spoken at the UN, WEF, CGI, ITU, Bloomberg, Munich Security Conference, World Policy Conference, Zermatt Summit, Microsoft, IMD, INSEAD, MIT Sloan, HEC, UBS, and the CEO Summit.Pioneering Work During the Dawn of the World Wide Web (WWW)During the early 1990s in Geneva, at the same time Tim Berners-Lee was creating the World Wide Web at CERN, Moreira was deeply involved in advancing secure digital identity and trust models. His UN cybersecurity work positioned him as a key advocate for building security into the fabric of the emerging web. This vision led him to found WISeKey in 1999, which has become a global leader in digital identity, authentication, and securing online transactions.He later established the Geneva Security Forum and Geneva Philanthropy Forum, reinforcing Geneva's role as a center for digital trust, innovation, and global cybersecurity dialogue.Married with six children, Carlos Creus Moreira remains committed to building a secure, transparent, and human-centered digital future. More information can be found at carloscreusmoreira.com.

This is episode 2 of a special 5-part Tech Mirror mini-series, Australia vs Social Media: Inside the world-first online safety experiment. In this episode, we discuss how the issue of social media harms and the idea of a minimum age restriction became such a political hot topic in the lead up to the 2024 Federal election. We explore the political, social and media forces that lead to the law passing Parliament, notwithstanding reservations of experts. We speak to Cam Wilson, a technology reporter from Crikey, Lizzie O’Shea (founder and chair of Digital Rights Watch), Professor Amanda Third (co-director of the Young and Resilient Research Centre at Western Sydney University), Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, and Australia's Privacy Commissioner, Carly Kind. Links: Cam Wilson, Crikey https://www.crikey.com.au/author/cam-wilson/ Lizzie O’Shea https://lizzieoshea.com/ Digital Rights Watch https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/ Amanda Third https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/young-and-resilient/people/directors/amanda_third Julie Inman Grant https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/about-the-commissioner Carly Kind https://www.oaic.gov.au/ Minister Wells Speaking during Parliament House Question Time (31 July 2025) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcLpm9SbOrk ABC News Breakfast (29 November 2024) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niaeYxdlvkw The Project, 10X Media Group/Network Ten (19 May 2024) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=525CiA19WPI 36 Months campaign https://www.36months.com/ Let Them Be Kids campaign https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/topics/let-them-be-kids Social Media Summit, NSW & South Australia, October 2024 https://www.nsw.gov.au/nsw-government/social-media-summit & https://www.dpc.sa.gov.au/responsibilities/social-media-summit Report by Chief Justice Robert French, Legal Examination into Social Media Access for Children https://www.premier.sa.gov.au/media-releases/news-archive/banning-social-media-for-children Government response to the Privacy Act Review Report (September 2023) https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/publications/government-response-privacy-act-review-report eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant’s speech at the Royal Society of NSW, W x 3 — The World Wide Web (we weaved)! (July 2024) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSFVrIugy3E Laws not bans can make kids safer online, Carly Kind, Privacy Commissioner (November 2024) https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/blog/laws-not-bans-can-make-kids-safer-online Prime Minister and Minister for Communications media conference (November 2024) https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/rowland/speech/press-conference-parliament-house Social Media Age Limit, Office of Impact Analysis (November 2024) https://oia.pmc.gov.au/published-impact-analyses-and-reports/social-media-age-limit Social media: the good, the bad, and the ugly – Final report, from the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society (November 2024) https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Social_Media_and_Australian_Society/SocialMedia Statutory Review of the Online Safety Act 2021, led by Delia Rickard, released February 2025 https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/rowland/media-release/report-online-safety-act-review-released Environment and Communications Legislation Committee inquiry into the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 [Provisions] (November 2025) https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/SocialMediaMinimumAge Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024, including the explanatory memorandum and transcripts of all second reading speeches https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7284 Credits Written and narrated by Johanna Weaver, Executive Director, Tech Policy Design Institute. Produced by Olivia O’Flynn & Kate Montague, Audiocraft. Research by Amy Denmeade. Original music by Thalia Skopellos. Created on the lands of the Ngunnawal, Ngambri people and the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Special thanks to all the team at the Tech Policy Design Institute, without whom the pod would not be possible, especially Zoe Hawkins, Meredith Hodgman, and Dorina Wittmann. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ลองนึกภาพตามนะครับ… ย้อนกลับไปในช่วงกลางยุคทศวรรษ 90 อินเทอร์เน็ตที่เราใช้กันทุกวัน? ลืมไปได้เลย WhatsApp, Skype, Telegram? แอปพวกนี้ยังไม่เกิดครับ… แม้แต่ไอเดียก็ยังไม่มี ตอนนั้น Pavel Durov คนที่สร้าง Telegram เพิ่งจะอายุ 11 ขวบเอง World Wide Web เพิ่งจะเริ่มเข้ามาในชีวิตเรา การนั่งแต่งฟอนต์บนเว็บไซต์ของตัวเอง… นั่นคือสิ่งที่ล้ำหน้าที่สุดแล้ว มันเหมือนกับยุคที่มนุษย์เพิ่งจุดไฟได้สำเร็จ มันสร้างความตื่นเต้น อยากรู้อยากเห็นให้กับคนรอบข้าง และทันใดนั้น… ท่ามกลางโลกที่ยังดิบเถื่อน… ก็มีเสียงแปลกๆ ดังขึ้นมา “โอ๊ะ-โอ!” ถ้าเป็นเด็กยุคใหม่ คงงงแน่นอน แต่สำหรับคนยุค 90… นี่คือเสียงในตำนาน หลายคนจะแอบปาดน้ำตาแห่งความคิดถึงเบาๆ เพราะรู้ว่า… มีข้อความเข้า และไอ้เจ้าดอกไม้สีเขียวเล็กๆ ที่เด้งขึ้นมาบนจอ… วันนี้ เราจะมาคุยกันถึงเรื่องราวของ ICQ ครับ นี่คือปรากฏการณ์ที่แท้จริงของโลกอินเทอร์เน็ต ที่ประกอบไปด้วยการ “ผงาดขึ้น” อย่างรวดเร็ว… และการ “ล่มสลาย” ที่เจ็บปวด ใครกันที่เป็นคนเริ่มการปฏิวัติการสื่อสารครั้งนี้? แต่ทำไม… สุดท้าย ICQ ถึงตายจากไป เกิดอะไรขึ้น? เรามาหาคำตอบกันครับ เลือกฟังกันได้เลยนะครับ อย่าลืมกด Follow ติดตาม PodCast ช่อง Geek Forever's Podcast ของผมกันด้วยนะครับ #ICQ #ไอซีคิว #ประวัติICQ #จุดจบICQ #ICQล่มสลาย #ปิดตํานานICQ #ยุค90 #แอปแชท #เทคโนโลยี #สารคดี #กรณีศึกษาธุรกิจ #AOL #VK #Mailru #อ๊ะโอ #UIN #Nostalgia #เล่าเรื่อง #geekstory #geekforeverpodcast

Today, I'm talking with a very special guest: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. Tim is a legend in the history of the internet. He created HTML and HTTP. It doesn't really get more foundational than that — Tim was there at the very very beginning of the modern internet. He also has a new memoir out called This Is For Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web. So Tim joined the show to talk about the state of the web, as well as his current work at the decentralization startup Inrupt, and, of course, where AI fits into the conversation.  Links:  This Is For Everyone | Macmillan The Semantic Web | W3C Tim Berners-Lee invented the web, now wants to save it | The New Yorker Why I gave the world wide web away for free | The Guardian Amazon, Perplexity kick off the great AI web browser fight | The Verge Web War III | The Verge Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline' | The Verge Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge⁠ to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, on the unique upbringing that inspired a tech revolution. Tim Berners-Lee has well and truly changed the world. For under-35s it's almost impossible to imagine what life might have been like without him. But when he launched the World Wide Web in December 1990, no-one knew the success it would become - and most struggled to understand why the world needed the Web at all. Tim, however, grew up steeped in the knowledge that computers held the key to the future. His parents worked on the Ferranti Mark 1 - the world's first commercial computer - and raised Tim on a diet of science demonstrations and electronic tinkering. His mother Mary Lee was the family's driving force, encouraging an eclectic mix of logical thinking, creative problem-solving, camping trips and a spirit of 'watchful negligence' - all of which gave the introverted young Tim the confidence to think outside the box and find solutions for himself. So when he went to work at CERN in Geneva in his late-20s and saw how computers struggled to talk to one another, he was perfectly placed to imagine and build what would become the World Wide Web.Tim's vision for the Web was built around positivity - where anyone with access to an internet connection could freely share ideas with anyone else. He knew that the key to its success was universality, so he made the decision to give the Web away for free. As a result, Tim Berners-Lee is not a billionaire. But he says that's just the way he likes it, making him free to go for walks and swims in the Serpentine in London without being recognised. It's not all been good news though. In the 35 years since its creation, the Web has been used as a base to build social media and AI empires that Tim says don't always act in our best interests. He fears the addictive effects of social media apps on children's mental health, and has decided to stop using Instagram as he was too often getting hooked on the feed. Tim says that his latest mission is to build a form of pro-human AI as an antidote to systems owned by Big Tech, and aims to help people reclaim control of their personal data so that the Web can, once again, belong to everyone. Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Anna LaceyLives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience. Step into someone else's life and expect the unexpected. Got a story to tell? Send an email to liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or message us via WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784 You can read our privacy notice here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3hBqmw26B8WMHt6GkQxG/lives-less-ordinary-privacy-notice

Christian College Sex Comedy: Part 16 Too Many Hot Asses On Campus In 30 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the podcast at Explicit Novels.             If you make one person happy, you save the World. Make a million people happy and you become a politician        "Wait," Vivian waved her hands sideways, "Zane is really sleeping with a bunch of women? I thought that was an exaggeration." "Did I come at a bad time?" Barbie Lynn spoke up. She was holding a suitcase and a carry-on bag. Behind her was Millicent with one suitcase and Raven with a dress bag. I was reminded that Barbie Lynn would be moving back into the dorm as dorm mother in the morning, but she was currently between places and clearly expected to spend the night here, in my room, with me. "Come on in," I offered Barbie Lynn as I crossed over to get her bag. Vivian stepped up and put a hand on my arm to stop me. "Barbie Lynn will not be staying in your room tonight!" Vivian laid down the law. "Vivian, you always ranked higher than me in the club hierarchy and I have a bad knee, but if you have a problem with me, face me, not Zane," Barbie Lynn growled. "Don't worry, Babe," I soothed Barbie, "I'm working on a solution right now." "Zane, slap this skank" (referring to Vivian), Rio snarled. "She put her hand on you so defend yourself all over her punk ass." "Vivian is only doing her job," I addressed Rio. "I'm not going to hold that against her." "Zane, is this another one?" Raven inquired about Vivian's sexual status with me. "No. She's my official guardian, and as soon as I kick her ass, she's going to sleep on one of the main room's sofas for a month," I explained. "No, when I win, I will exclude everyone from this floor except you, me and the dorm mother," Vivian countered. Valerie came bolting into the room with the clothes, Opal, and Cappadocia. "I will go change into shorts outside. Vivian, you change here. Coach, can you referee the match?" I tried to bring some order to the chaos. Vivian ground her teeth but took the clothes and started to strip before I got my own clothes. "Zane, stay on - change in the corner. There are too many freshmen girls out there," Vivian conceded. "You two should decide if you want to stick to Zane's bedroom or cover the entire floor," Dana stated. "I leave that to Vivian," I allowed. Vivian chose the full floor and Dana decided that things would remain cluttered, the students would remain on the floor as obstacles to fight around, believing we were good enough to not smack a civilian. "Good job, Vivian," Dana congratulated her senior student. "Use the terrain to counter his reach advantage. "Any advice for me?" I asked. "Yes. Don't get that pretty face beaten up," she smiled snidely at me. "That will teach Zane to take your side on anything," Rio sneered. "I'm not on your faction's side, Rio," Dana confirmed, "but it doesn't mean Zane and I aren't friends." "I'm fine," I assured Rio. "Tell us when, Coach." Dana looked Vivian and I over. "Go!" she snapped. Vivian caught me off guard by running away but I quickly gave chase. She compounded the situation by scrambling across a pool table in play then kicking at me when I came around the side. She followed up on that advantage with a series of punches that drove me over the back of a chair. Girls were screaming, squealing, and running all around us. She advanced around the chair so I bolted over the closest sofa. Now Vivian pursued. She launched a flying kick over the sofa. I folded under it and was a millisecond faster on the recovery. My punch hit her in the ribs and pushed her back. A flurry of blows rained down on me. I tried to drive her back but Vivian's technique was too close to perfect for me to beat through. Vivian switched up with a series of swift front kicks to buy some room, then started maneuvering again. "She's a righty," Valerie told me. That meant she was right-handed, thus she made most of her attacks and blocks from the right, covering the left instinctively. Since the right was not significantly stronger in most athletes, you could wear down an opponent by concentrating your attacks on the over-extended right, or so the theory went. Even then, it took two minutes to catch her calf with a kick and put her down. She rolled out of my attempted hold but ended up on her ass, back to a chair. "Five-minute break," I offered. Vivian blinked but took the hand I offered to help her stand up. "Drink," I motioned to the juice dispenser. She looked at me funny, then went to get one. "Be careful, Vivian; he's trying to get inside your head, convince you he's not such a bad guy," Dana counseled her female student. "No kind words for me?" I joked. "I already know you are a good guy, Zane. The only reason you cut Vivian some slack was that you would rather have her friendship than the win, which is far more dangerous to Vivian," Dana winked at me. I took a Grapefruit juice while Vivian drank some Gatorade, both with our backs to the sink. I caught her stealing some looks my way. "Next time I'll pin you," she told me while looking away. "We both have to be thinking that or we wouldn't be fighting," I responded. "The difference is that I am right," she said as we made eye to eye contact. "FFU doesn't teach you to be second best," I nodded, which brought a smile to her face. "Thirty seconds," Iona warned us. We picked spots ten feet apart and were ready when Dana gave the word. Since my previous strategy had relied on attrition, Vivian went for a quick, lightning series of attacks. She rebounded off sofas, tables, and chairs as she drove me about the room. At a crucial moment she drove her foot into my thigh above the knee and sent me sprawling into a crowd of observers. As Vivian closed in for the kill, I spilled a startled freshman into her. By the time she disentangled herself from my distraction, I was on my feet. Her glare told me she didn't approve of my move. We crashed together; she leveraged me over and threw me onto a sofa. We grappled and rolled off the sofa and onto the floor. Vivian rammed an elbow into my throat but I wedged a knee under her hips and propelled her over my head. "You've done a good job, Coach Gorman," Valerie lauded Dana on Vivian's performance. "She's either three or four on the team," Dana informed the group. "It is her or Evangeline fighting for third, with Cappadocia and Wilhelmina being second and first." "You have some weird damn names at this school," Valerie commented. "This from an outlaw biker chick with the handle of Valkyrie?" Dana teased. "Of course, I'm also still trying to figure out how a guy who is knocking boots with Barbie Lynn Masters is giving the time of day to Paige here." "Hey!" Paige squawked. "Zane thinks I am very good at sex, I'll have you know." "Trouble," Barbie Lynn moaned. Vivian had faked me out and put a foot into my stomach that sent me cartwheeling. Me, I'd have kicked me in the calves and thighs to weaken me up but Vivian went for a stomp to my diaphragm. I rolled away, then kicked out. This is where my greater reach came into play; Vivian couldn't fall back fast enough and I put my heel into her hip. I was up a hair before Vivian could make a counterstrike. I rolled her thrust under my arm, caught the limb and rolled the two of us onto the ground. She placed a hand underneath her and tried to shake free of me. I locked her arm, twisted, and leaned into her body. "Do you give?" I asked softly. I had her pinned and I doubted anyone here besides Dana could have escaped. "No," she hissed. I could sense people gathering around. "Time for another five-minute break?" I inquired a little louder. Vivian gave one last surge of resistance, then relaxed. "Fine," she grumbled, "five minutes." I rolled off and offered her a hand. Vivian ignored it, choosing to get on all fours, then stand. She was about to walk way when she turned and extended her hand to me. She shook and headed back to the closest bar. "Zane?" at least five different girls asked me at once. I wasn't sure why I'd let Vivian up either. "Dude, if you lose this, I am personally going to use my strap-on on your ass," Rio growled. "I'm going to go home and start researching the most painful applications of acupuncture possible," Paige enlightened us all. "I'll take care of your hurts," Barbie Lynn sympathized. "You are such a slut," growled Rio. "No," Opal interceded. "I think that Brandi, Barbie Lynn and I are going to be taking comfort with Zane when the rest of you bimbos have lost faith in him, leaving him lost and forlorn." "How many of you am I going to have to fight off?" Vivian sounded worried. It was beautiful music to my ears, not to be blamed for once. "There is me," Iona chirped, "and wait until Heaven shows up. Forty-eight hours without her Zane-fix and she's going to look forward to dismembering someone," she added with a pleasant sincerity. Vivian looked to me skeptically. "It is entirely my fault," I confessed with upraised hands, "I should learn to say 'no' from time to time. I keep leading these fine young ladies on." "Do you see why you need to win now?" Dana asked Vivian, who looked uncertain. "You are Zane's only hope of surviving the school year. You are a lifesaver." "Oh, okay; let's get back to it then," Vivian sighed. I rolled my shoulders and followed. The second Dana gave us the nod, we attacked one another. I had hoped to catch Vivian off-guard and clearly Vivian thought the same thing. In close, Vivian had the advantage. She got several blows into my right side and I never fully recovered. Vivian got a foot behind my left leg and tumbled me down as I grabbed her shirt. Her shirt tore, we rolled, first her on top, then me before we broke up. I jabbed, she tumbled back and regained her feet, I backed up and did the same. Vivian tossed her ruined shirt aside and readied herself. Maybe a half dozen people in the room followed the next exchange of blocks and blows, Vivian hammering away at my right while I clipped her left shoulder and stomach. I saw an opening, tried to flip her but she pulled me down and ended up on top. She cocked back her fist to strike with her right while pinning my shoulder with her left. I had a hand poised at her armpit and the other half-raised to block. Vivian realized she was about to clock me in the head hard; my block wouldn't be fast enough. Something passed between us at that moment. I hooked her under the arm, flipped us over, and landed on top. Vivian twisted her arms but I twisted my block into a wrist hold and pinned the other when she attempted to break the hold. For that second, I had her pressed to the ground, our breasts heaving from the exertion. "Okay," she said softly. I immediately let go of her wrists and got off of her in all haste. I offered to help her up and this time she took it without hesitation. We stood there, clasped hands held at her chest level, facing and studying the other's features. The cheering broke out the moment the freshmen student body realized the fight was finally over and that I had somehow come out on top. I tilted my head slightly because I really had to know why she let me win but I never got the words out. "I really don't know," Vivian whispered. My well-wishers pulled us apart and I was getting slapped on the back and kissed. I noted that Dana, Barbie Lynn, Valerie, and Mercy stood around Vivian. Valerie must have seen what really happened and wanted to know why. Mercy had probably been reminded of whose side she theoretically belonged to. Barbie Lynn would be Dorm Mother again, making Vivian her charge, and Dana was her instructor after, which explained everyone's presence. "So, can we have our own little celebration?" Paige requested, her pale eyes burning bright. "I have a church meeting in an hour," I frowned. Rio and Iona were in the room with us but were close to the screen entrance, giving Paige and I some space. "We could sneak something in," Paige winked hopefully. "You are many things to me, Paige, but you are not someone I want to leave after only a quickie," I looked down at Paige as I wrapped my arms around her. She pouted but clearly wasn't too angry with my decision. Outside her odd fascination with me, Paige was a clever, logical girl. "I believe Heaven is going to be all over you this evening," Paige sighed. "Friday is for your Aunt Jill and Saturday is the Block Party, so what are my chances for Thursday or Sunday?" "I was hoping to make Thursday night a sleep-over sort of thing and I'd like it if you were here," I asked. "I really don't want to commit my Sunday until I'm sure Heaven is okay. You have to admit she's had a really lousy week." "I don't have to admit anything, Zane, but I make allowances because you mean well," Paige smiled. "I chose to accept that your loyalty to Heaven is a mirror of the loyalty you show me." "It has nothing to do with bouncy, bouncy, bouncy?" I teased. "No," Paige wiggled tightly against me. "That would be an irrational decision based on memories of deep sexual pleasure and I'd never confess to that." I felt her place a gentle kiss on my chest. I answered with a kiss to the top of her head. "Now scoot," I commanded. "You are far too distracting and I do have to get going." Paige rubbed her body against me as she moved past to the entrance; Iona and Rio came my way as I got dressed. "I should have Mercy tied down, gagged, and blindfolded by the time you get back," Rio grinned. That was her way of asking my permission to use my room without actually asking. "I'll make sure Vivian is set up before you get back," Iona informed me with upbeat energy. "Iona, since I hate Mercy Chaplain, why don't you spend the weekend with me?" I asked. The implication was that Rio would be tearing Mercy up all weekend long. "I'd love to," Iona hugged me. "Sleep in his bed," Rio chuckled. "I plan to," Iona boasted. "Lose your virginity," Rio teased. "No," Iona gave Rio a raspberry. "Zane loves me the way I am." "Are we going to cuddle?" I smiled warmly down at her. "Damn Skippy!" she chirped. "I'll even sleep in the nude because I trust you so much." "Busted!" Rio laughed at me. I groaned, finished getting dressed, and made my own way out. Before I could make my escape from the main area, Vivian flagged me down. "Vivian, I'm going to, I started to say. She lifted up her phone in response. "Your schedule is online," Vivian pointed out. "What I was wondering was why you are still using the fifth floor showers when you have showers in the Solarium now?" "Wow, are you offering to shower with me?" I faux-gasped. "That didn't take you long." "No!!" Vivian glared with some exasperation. "I'm trying to limit your contact with naked women." No one within earshot was rude enough to laugh out loud. "I could say something like 'shower with me and I'll respect your virginity,' but I'll respect your virginity no matter what," I gazed upon Vivian. "I do formally request that you allow me to continue to shower on the fifth floor. I hope you don't disregard my request out of hand." Vivian levelly met my gaze, then nodded. "I'll think about it," she allowed. "Holy Smokes," Brandi whispered from nearby, "he's broken down the wall." Vivian flinched. "No," Opal whispered back, "but she's no longer ready to castrate him in the next fifteen seconds either." That observation made Vivian crack a glimmer of a grin. I took it as my cue to run for it. Rochelle Wellington and University depravity, sort of. Once they got over me 'borrowing' certain gear from some of the male committee rooms, the Festivities Committee fell in line with Rochelle Wellington's agenda. I sat back as normal while they hashed out how best to use the new imagery that I'd provided courtesy of the girls at FFU. At this, my second meeting, I chose to sit behind Sahara Penny, Pastor Bill's wife. I learned she was Lebanese Christian and she'd married William Penny when he was in the US Navy, before he became a priest. There were a ton of things left unsaid about her opinion of his ministry and I got the definite opinion that Bill had left his last post because everyone thought Sahara had an indiscretion with a young male parishioner. My guess was that if a young male parishioner was involved, the cheater was that bastard Bill. As an added insult, Sahara's name wasn't even Sahara; that was the name Bill had listed on their marriage certificate because he found her Lebanese name difficult to pronounce. Her minority background, coupled with her husband, the pastor, letting everyone think she was a cheating whore, made Sahara the pariah of this little community. Because I had absolutely nothing going on in my life, I had to avenge Sahara. Being dumber than a box of rocks certainly didn't hurt my determination. By the end of the session I had managed to accomplish four things. I'd helped Sahara feel better about herself and know she had a friend in me. If you have ever felt alone and isolated in the world you know how good that can feel. I had confused Mrs. Bainbridge as to my actual intentions; she thought I was cozying up to Sahara instead of Rochelle. The committee was mildly impressed that I had both shown back up and had appeared to bust my hump in contributing to their efforts at what their menfolk thought was a joke. Most importantly to me, I had gotten a few covert smiles from Rochelle Wellington for both my help to the other members and to my efforts with Sahara. As wife of the mayor, she wasn't supposed to make waves, which included things like befriending someone the men had designated to be on the 'Shunned' list. I was forgiven for my transgression because I clearly didn't give a fuck about what any of them cared. When the meeting broke up Kendra Bainbridge, Sahara, Rochelle and I were quickly the last ones left. I hovered close to Sahara as we made our way to the door. "Zane, you need to return this equipment to the proper room," Rochelle reminded me. "Sahara, why don't we walk to our cars together?" Kendra suggested sweetly. This was the most I had heard Kendra address Sahara in the short time I had known them. It was clearly also her attempt of a cock-block on Sahara and I, which was a fortunate misread on the situation between myself and the Pastor's wife. "That would be nice, Kendra," Sahara replied. She reached out and stroked my elbow. "Thank you, Zane," she added with a smile. Kendra departed, smug in her victory, leaving Rochelle and I alone. "I'll get this equipment put away and be right back," I told Rochelle. "Could you make sure all the new files are backed up to my account?" "Of course, Zane," she smiled warmly, and set to work. I raced to get things squared away and hurried back. She remained at the table completing her work, coat off, when I moved in behind her. "Are we still friends?" I asked softly as I leaned in next to her ear. "Of course," she turned her head so our gazes were only inches apart. I made to kiss her on the lips; she recoiled so I waited. I wasn't afraid I'd spooked her; she wanted passion and the sense of freedom that came for embracing a choice all her own. The fear drained away and she completed our encounter. She was tentative at first and I mostly let her take the lead for the first two minutes until she became more confident. When the time was right I turned her in the chair and pulled her up by each hand. My hands went to her neck while hers settled on my hips. "We have our boundaries?" Rochelle questioned me. "Absolutely," I confirmed. "Your neck," I kissed her neck, "ear," I kissed her ear, "and cheek are all on my side of the boundaries." I had gotten as far as fondling the breasts last time around but I had time to coax her that way and was in no hurry. "Where are your boundaries?" I inquired of Rochelle as I lowered my hands around her hips. "I definitely think we should keep the boundaries at the waistline," she suggested. "So you want my waistline, but was that up or down?" I smiled. "What?" she blushed. "Do you want to keep your hands above my waist, say to the stomach and chest, or you could go down below the belt?" I teased. "Just kidding," I let her off the hook. Instead, I moved my lips to her face and came to a stop there. "We shouldn't be doing this," Rochelle sighed. "Okay," I was disappointed, "but you will have to tell me to let go of you first." "That isn't fair," she moaned, as she pressed her body against me and rested her forehead on my shoulder. I doubted it helped her resistance when her stomach pressed against my highly aroused cock. "Zane," Rochelle choked out, "I've been a good wife for thirty years. I'm a pillar of the community and a loyal member of this congregation. What am I doing with a man younger than my youngest baby?" "Rochelle, I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do, but I'm not going to lie about wanting you." "I don't think you are running away from your husband and family; I think they have moved on without you, despite all you've done to make them a part of your life. If you end up alone three or more times a week, give us a shot; if not, you are doing okay and should stay where you are," I advised. "I don't want to lose you," Rochelle worried. "You are not going to lose me, Rochelle. You are beautiful and that is not going to change; even if you are unattainable and I have to watch you from afar," I soothed her. She seemed to swell up with happiness in my arms. "That isn't fair one bit," she moaned. "Fine. I don't find you attractive; I am going to forget you the moment I walk out this door and I'll never look at you again," I taunted her. "Happy? You are off the hook." "Maybe if you were a better liar," Rochelle looked up at me smiling, "Remember that I am married to a politician." "Oh, then tell me if I'm lying: I want to pick you up, press you onto this table and make love to you until you scream with pleasure," I challenged. "What about our boundaries?" she panted. "I'm trying really, really hard to honor them but you aren't making it easy," I confided in her. Rochelle decided to change tacks. She backed away and leaned against the table, facing me, with her arms supporting her upper body as she reclined. "We shouldn't do this," she told me, but even as she shook her head, she smiled and bit her lower lip provocatively. I pursued her, Rochelle spreading her legs to allow my body to better press down on her. I kissed her fervently several times before she spoke. "Stop," she whispered. "I can't." I began working open the buttons on her blouse. Rochelle rolled her head back so that my lips and tongue played along her throat. "Ah, Zane, you should stop that," she exhaled as she gently held one hand to the back of my head as I kissed her breasts through her bra. "There are three hooks," she added as I started slipping her bra off. She pushed away from the table so I could slip her shirt and bra down. Since I had her off the table temporarily, I elected to unzip her skirt from the side and drop that and her slip to the carpet. She was looking horribly vulnerable being so nearly naked, down to white panties, thigh high white stockings, and black shoes. Sure, she was plump in the middle and her rich, swelling breasts sagged, but they were gorgeous to hold and behold. I more than evened the playing field, stripping completely naked. Rochelle moaned when she saw me exposed and she trembled with lust. I was sure she thought about running away or running at me, but she chose something in between. Rochelle reached forward and tenderly grabbed my cock in one hand. "Oh, my," she gasped. I moved closer, brushed her hair aside and put my hand to the back of her head. I brought her into yet another kiss, this one longer and more passionate than the rest. "I am going to move one step at a time," I told her softly, our faces barely an inch apart, "but I am going to take you tonight." Rochelle's first nod was timid, but they became very enthusiastic. I rested my hands on the lush flesh just below the hips and lifted her halfway onto the table. "I think I'm violating your boundaries," I grinned wickedly. First her eyes flared, she looked surprised, and finally she let her giggle turn into a laugh. She gave my cock a delicious twist. "I think we are way beyond that," she panted happily. I pressed into her, bobbing in for a kiss, withdrawing for her smile, and going in again. It took over a minute for Rochelle eventually to feel comfortable and self-assured enough to kiss me on the neck. I thrust my pelvis into her as a response. That appeared to be what it took for Rochelle's emotional dam to burst. She wrapped her stocking clad calves around each thigh and began kissing my shoulder and chest with hungry little pecks. "Zane," she panted as she yanked on my cock, "I haven't had sexual intercourse in twenty years." My first thought was 'Crap, someone else trying to squeeze my cock off,' but I realized that was unfair, plus she had delivered five children. "Rochelle, can I be crass and crude with you?" I said softly. That clearly wasn't what she expected to hear; still she consented. "Rochelle, I know it has been a long time since you've had sex, and it has probably been very vanilla. Have you ever had sex bent over a table?" I wondered. "No," she blushed. "I've only had sex on a bed, on my back. Isn't that normal?" "Um, okay. I'm going to fuck you, Rochelle; I am going to nail you, make you scream and cry and beat your fists in ecstasy," I threatened her. "How does that make you feel?" "I, she gulped, "that scares me but, nothing was said for several seconds. "Damn it," I hissed, "your body is tormenting me." Rochelle gasped and trembled once more. I dove into her left breast and bit down. She pulsed against me; then I started pressing her down on the table. Removing her panties was remarkably easy after that. I let my cock, still in her hand, rub against her slit. When her labia parted her fluids quickly coated the tip. I moved it up and down while we kissed, and I mean kissed. Rochelle kept stroking my cheek and hairline. I began pulling and teasing her nipples. A moment later I hooked her legs up until she instinctively wrapped around my waist. When I was rubbing my member along her cunt lips we kissed. When I feasted on her nipples she moaned like a slut and arched her back to entice me further. "Put it in me," she begged, overwhelmed with desire, "Put it in me now, please." "Whatever you want," I whispered in her ear. Using both our hands (I got the feeling she wasn't sure what she was doing) I wedged my cockhead in between her labia and pushed. Rochelle was snug, not tight, and certainly wasn't trying to tear the skin off my cock going in. For her part, my partner was going off beneath me chanting 'yes, yes, yes' and rubbing her body against mine. By the way she was sparking against me, I knew she was close to orgasm. "Ugh, ugh, ugh," Rochelle squirmed, "Oh, God! Yes!" she exulted beneath my body. She thrust rhythmically multiple times before gracefully resting against the wooden surface. "Oh, my God," she gasped. "I've never had an orgasm that intense before, or had it happen so fast." "That was all you, Elle," I grinned. "You have built up a great deal of sexual energy over the years and I had better be careful with you or you'll tear me up." "Oh, wait, that is a good thing, isn't it?" she asked from deep within her heaving bosom. "What did I tell you? The bodies of true women are dynamite and need to be handled with care. My main concern is that I can satisfy you," I confided in her. She had no initial words in response, instead relying on an intense stare. "Elle?" she panted. "No one has called me Elle since my father died." "Would you prefer I call you something else?" I replied. "No. It was a surprise, that's all," she told me. I pushed a little farther into Rochelle as she finished speaking. "Oh," she murmured. I let Rochelle's legs fall to the side as I gently coasted in and out of her. I gave her a few minutes of tender sex before pulling out and kneeling between her legs. "What?" she started to mumble before my lips settled onto her cunt and my tongue rolled through her folds. "Oh, wow," she moaned. Her clitoris was already evident so after a few generous strokes of the tongue, I tilted up and encased her clit in my lips and sucked. Rochelle bucked her hips in reaction and started up a deeply passionate groan. To add to life's injustices, I was sure no one had ever gone down on Rochelle's love box before. Despite having already cum once, Rochelle climaxed again inside five minutes. "Oh, God!" was her guttural gasp. Her body jerked, trembled, and stiffened before going still once more. I licked my way up her body, teasing both sides of her belly button, slobbering over her right breast, and ending up driving my tongue into a muscular dance with hers. Kappa Sigma "Umm, is that what I taste like?" she panted, with thankfully a good deal of pleasure. "Now you know one of the reasons I'll be coming back for more," I teased. "One; what is the other one?" she grinned wearily. "No, you don't," I responded with a kiss to her nose. "You don't get to have that kind of fantastic reaction to me then act like it was nothing." "Oh, don't say that," Rochelle scolded me, "I know I'm not very good." "Are you dumping me?" I asked. "No," she exclaimed anxiously, and clutched me with her hands on my upper arms and thighs pressing on my hips. "Why are you acting as if I didn't enjoy myself?" I questioned. "You climaxed twice and guys love that kind of thing. My only problem is that we can't keep giving you the screwing you so richly deserve. If we are missing much longer, they are going to send out search parties." Rochelle continued to hold me tight but had calmed down a lot. It did take me a moment to figure out that I needed to carry the conversation. "How soon can we get together again?" I asked softly, which was precisely what she wanted to hear. "Maybe we shouldn't," she hesitated, but from my experience she was playing with me. "I know I've pushed this, Elle, but you are worth every effort. I see a sensual, mature woman abandoned by some guy who clearly didn't appreciate her finer qualities," I pledged. "Zane, the risks are so great," she worried intently. "We could really suffer over this, affair." "Fine," I sat up, "I'll give you up for your sake but you have to promise to do one thing for me." "What is it?" she hesitantly inquired. "How many young women have been in your husband's office less than five years?" I opened with. "Two," she recalled somewhat confused. "The one with the most seniority; tomorrow I want you to go into her office and tell her you know about her liaisons with your husband, her boss, the Mayor," I advised her. "Don't act angry. Instead, act comfortable with the news and put her at ease. She'll be glad to confide in someone, trust me." "What if she hasn't had an affair and goes to my husband with this accusation?" Rochelle bit her lip in concern. "Rochelle, you have a seriously hot body and incredible sexual energy. Since your husband hasn't been neutered that I'm aware of, he's been getting sex somewhere else. I haven't heard of a thriving sex industry in town so for discretion's sake, he is having sex with women he has power over; namely, employees," I explained. "How did you come up with all of that?" she marveled. "Elle, there is nothing greater in all of God's Creation than women, body and soul. I notice things that most people miss and appreciate qualities most ignore," I enlightened her. "You have a smoking body but if you weren't such a wonderful woman, I wouldn't be here." "Ah, you make me feel ten years younger," she sighed before kissing me on the nipple and chest. "Crap," I bitched. "That means I only have two more encounters with you before you become jail bait." That assessment made her laugh joyously. "I've lost my mind and I don't know why," she breathed in a terribly sexy way, hardly upset at all. "We are leaving now," I declared, "Because you are so sexy right this instant, if I stay, I'm going to hammer you so hard we are going to break this table. I'm not sure how we can explain that." "Does the 'hammer me through the table' line work on younger women?" Rochelle teased. "Do you want me to go grab a younger woman and find out?" I zinged back. "No!" she insisted. "I am sure we are not exclusive but I'm sure I don't want to share you with anyone I don't have to. I think we should get together again but I'll have to contact you." "Use Felicity's phone and have her call Rio," I directed. "She'll get a message to me." "Are you going to, seduce Felicity too?" Rochelle inquired warily. "Nope, that has never been my intention," I answered. I wasn't sure how to explain to Rochelle that the real worry was Rio kidnapping Felicity for a Lost Weekend of Sapphic splendor. A discussion about homosexuality and my acceptance of it wasn't in the cards for tonight. "I want her and Lance to have a shot at happiness," Rochelle said. "I want Felicity to be happy as well," I evaded. If she noticed my failure to mention her youngest son, she was good enough not to press the matter. We kissed before we walked out the door and left; she went home and I headed home to have dinner with Jill. We had hot dogs and green beans; Jill had a hard three days at work and she wasn't a diligent cook to begin with. My Shirt is not my Friend Before heading back to campus I stopped by the Kappa Sigma House. I got some rather comfortable attention from the ladies, which was a bit bizarre when it was tag-team action from two sisters I'm pretty sure are lesbians. I stopped by to see Tawny for a minute to talk to her about the block party I might still have an invitation too. I ended up spending a few minutes of alone time with Leigh (okay, Paris is on her bed pretending to study but it isn't a tiny room). "I know you need to go home soon," Leigh lured me in with a sympathetic voice. I let her come into my arms and while I was aware she was about to shift me I was still taken aback by her enthusiasm. I landed back-first on her bed and she ended up straddling my crotch with her legs folded underneath her. "Let me help you with your shirt," she grinned evilly. I wasn't aware my shirt was in the way or that I wanted it off but what the hell. I started to unbutton my shirt but she slapped my hands away. Instead, she pulled my shirt out of my pants and yanked it up and up until the top was over my head. Once she had it over my face and my arms pinned, she stopped and snickered. "What the, oh, come on, Leigh," I complained. "You like to be tied up, admit it," she teased me. "Is your webcam on?" I countered. "If I say yes will you be even more turned on?" she wiggled on my aroused crotch. "Somebody says you will." Leigh scooted down my body, then placed her tongue on my nipple and blew a cool breath on it. The arousal was agony. Things didn't get better when she set her lips to the other nipple. "That's it, Zane," Leigh moaned, "so fucking big and hard." She was rubbing her breasts and stomach along my rod, making me wish we were naked once more. Leigh was taking sadistic joy in working my nipples over too. It was so good that I was momentarily confused when she took in both of my nipples at once (honest, I don't have man-boobs). I had a second tormentor. "Hey, Paris," I gasped. "Zane, you are so sweet. I am going have to make use of your trellis Friday night because I can't sleep right remembering how you tongued and cocked me over at the party," Paris sighed happily. "Here, let me help you breathe." Paris helped move my shirt from over my chin and lips, which did help me take a deep breath, but in the intake, a nipple and a bit of breast were inserted past my lips. Paris was a 34B but could easily fit a C, and dining on her firm and vibrant flesh was no hardship for me. I figured that I could take two women at one time; I'd done it before. The third presence was perturbing but now both my nipples were covered. It was when a slick cold substance was placed upon my belly that I started to protest. I had the knowledge that there were four women over me when a newcomer initiated some licks, rubbing her flat tongue over me from sternum to belly button. "Oh, wow," she said, it is Ricky Frasier, another sister. "You have to try this." "Sure," yet another god-damn sorority sister chimed in. "Let's cover his cock in it and see how that tastes." That's it! I'm changing my damn aftershave because clearly it is too fucking much for these girls. "Won't the honey get stuck in his pubic hair?" Jersey, my latest jailor, inquired. "No. Zane shaves down there," Leigh chortled. "It makes the blowjobs that much nicer." "Cool," Ricky giggled. "Let's get his pants down and judge how much better he tastes." Screw it; I'm getting Swat on speed-dial, some flash-bang grenades, and a stun gun so I can fight my way out of these situations. All being nice has gotten me is the classification of hors d'oeuvre. "Enough, sisters," Tawny's voice called out before they could get my pants unbuckled. "Zane is our friend; he needs to get back to his dorm before he's missed and I don't think the other chapters will look kindly upon us sampling the prize before the end of the semester awards him to us," she chastised the ladies. "Let him up and say good night." Thankfully, coming from Tawny made that a command and not a mere suggestion. I got a series of 'sorry, Zane' and 'goodnight, Zane' comments as they pulled my shirt down and let me stand up. Ricky waggled a squeeze jar of honey at me suggestively. "Ricky, don't you have a boyfriend?" I noted. "I won't tell him if you won't," she grinned. "Webcam," I thumbed over to Leigh's computer. "Why don't you give him a call right now and tell him you've been experimenting with some tricks for this weekend," I suggested as a way out. She ran up and hugged me, then put her lips to my ear. "We really should keep you here," she whispered. A simple 'thank you' would have sufficed. I managed to make it out of the house escorted by Tawny and trailed by Leigh. As I opened my car door and tried to get in, Leigh cuddled up to me, looking all sweet, honest, and innocent. "Zane, I want you to pound me this weekend like you are laying down posts on a hundred acre farm," she purred. Tawny rolled her eyes in exasperation, Leigh looked hopeful, and I was suddenly contemplating cock-reduction surgery. "I wish I could, Leigh, but Friday I'm embracing Tibetan Buddhism, shaving my head, and moving to Nepal to live a life of celibate monasticism," I informed her. "Zane," Leigh murmured hungrily, "I crawled up your trellis for a night of sex. I'm pretty sure I could scale a thousand foot cliff to rescue you from an unguarded cell if the price of failure was never having you fuck me again." "Your mistake was telling her your plans," Tawny laughed. "I kind of figured that out," I groaned in despair. "Good night, now," I added as I made my getaway. Not Sleeping Alone I had one task to deal with before I climbed the steps to my place. A few freshmen waved goodnight as they left my place and made for their own rooms before curfew. I sat on the floor and gave Brianna Kincaid, the Kappa Sigma at Colorado State, a call. "Zane?" Briana said in a soft disbelieving voice. "Have I caught you at dinner?" I inquired. "If so I'll call you back later." "Sure, yes, no, I mean I'm at dinner but I can talk," Briana worked out. "What's up?" "I hadn't heard from you and I wanted to make sure you were okay with what the other Kappa Sigma houses have been telling me. I wanted to make sure you were okay with developments. My deal was exclusively with you after all," I explained. "I, no, I'm not okay with it," she whispered painfully. "Fine. I'm withdrawing from this contest, Briana. We'll work something out on our own." I sounded a bit pissed off. "You would, wouldn't you?" she mused. "Of course. Don't think I'm being noble and all that, though; you have a dangerous body and a bedroom voice," I dodged. There was a long pause. "Don't do it," she whispered. "Briana, I have a real low opinion of people who abuse another's trust," I told her. "Honestly, Zane, I'm okay with this, now more than ever. Besides, I'm going to win so it doesn't matter," she sighed with pleasure. "I'll be fine if my sisters don't kill me in the next few minutes." "Threaten them with my awesomeness if things get rough," I joked. "I promise you everything will work out," Brianna laughed. "So now that you've made my day, what's next for Zane Braxton?" "I'm going upstairs and going to bed," I replied. "How many and anyone we know?" she chuckled softly, getting over her funk. "Is it impossible to believe that I'm seeking out a good night's sleep alone?" I faux-groaned. "There was this evil internet rumor that, Jarunee says hey," she was interrupted. "The rumor was, you turned down a chance to have a go with a girl." "Technically, I sobbed as I refused the offer," I explained. "I was too exhausted to actually speak." "Cool," she snickered then, "Wait, Adele says you have another video up." "Aren't you ladies eating dinner?" I questioned. "Yes; consider yourself dessert," she teased. I could make out a cluster of women close to the phone and could barely make out (groan) Leigh's and Paris's voices. Fantastic, I was getting bound down and molested on the World Wide Web. I'm such a lucky guy. "Well, umm, at least they didn't drag you out into the woods this time," Briana offered sympathetically. "You are going to let me tie you down and lick you from head to toe; right?" "I'm all yours," I assured Briana. "I also have to go now because I know of at least five ladies waiting on me so I'm still a ways from letting sleep take me." "Take care, Zane, and you rock; night," Briana signed off. I made my way to the door and punched in my code right before two freshmen girls came running down the stairs. "Hey" they grinned as they slipped past. I couldn't stop myself from scanning their retreating forms, which turned out to be somewhat lucky. No sooner had the girls disappeared into the elevator than Mercy appeared with Rio. Mercy was in the lead, dragging Rio behind her. Mind you, Rio was running full out to keep up but Mercy was taller and in better shape. I whistled for their attention. Mercy and Rio pulled up short. "Come here," I motioned to Mercy with a 'come-hither' finger. I was somewhat stunned that Mercy looked back to Rio for permission. Rio couldn't help a burning light coming to her eyes. She pressed Mercy up against the wall, pushed her arms out to the sides then took Mercy's head in her hands and kissed her deeply. "Very good, bitch, now go see what Zane wants," she teased Mercy's lips with her tongue. Mercy flushed a deep red, then came my way. "Mercy," I lectured quietly, "you need to remember that you are supposed to be Rio's guardian and pretend you are keeping her in line." "But what if she tells me to do something else?" Mercy whispered back. I leaned into Mercy until my lips touched her ear. "Now, don't nod," I breathed into her ear, making sure Rio couldn't hear. "If the answer to what I ask is 'yes,' touch my shoulder. Do you understand?" Mercy touched my shoulder. "Do you like Rio owning you?" Another touch affirmed Mercy's desire. "If you want her to stay, you are going to have to be the sane one. That means you are going to have to take extra punishment from her in order to save Rio from herself." She waited long enough for Rio to start getting fidgety before she touched my arm. "If she tosses you aside, I'll work extra hard to get you two back together, I promise. Now go take her upstairs before she explodes," I finished up. Mercy backed up and reached for Rio. Rio snorted, tossed her head with indifference, and allowed Mercy to lead her upstairs. At the top I saw some of my compatriots gathered around the first living area, centered around Dana Gorman. Dana was drinking a beer and in conversation with Valerie and Vivian. Iona and Paige were sitting close but clearly working on different subjects. Finally, I had Raven, Brandi, and Barbie Lynn watching some television. I was sort of curious where Opal was. "Alright, everyone," Vivian called out as she stood. "Everyone out; Zane is back and it is almost 10:00 o'clock." "Can I finish my beer?" Dana nodded my way. "Yes," Vivian and I spoke simultaneously. "Thank you, Vivian, but I believe we should all remember this is Zane's room until you put a ring on his finger," Gorman gave Vivian a snarky smile. "I'm not going to marry him," Vivian declared indignantly. "He's eighteen, childish, and a philanderer." "It is his ability to screw me to unconsciousness as well as willingness to engage in a bi-sexual three-way whenever I want that are his most appealing features to me," Paige stated clinically. "I love the taste and feel of his cum on my tongue," Brandi perked up. "Oh, MY, God!" Vivian turned and gawked at Brandi, who refused to wilt. "I didn't need to know any part of that." "I want to know," Rio giggled. "No, you don't," Mercy tugged on Rio's arm. "I'm taking you to bed now and make sure you behave." "Oh, poo," Rio grumbled, but her eyes were clearly burning with hunger for Mercy who was doing an admirable job of not melting on the spot. "You are going to have Rio sleep in Zane's room?" Vivian spun around and addressed Mercy. "Where is Zane going to sleep?" "I'll sleep between them," Mercy replied. She left hanging out there that I'd be sleeping with her. "That's my cue to go to bed," Barbie Lynn gave a sexy, lopsided leer my way. "No," Vivian sputtered, clearly losing control of the situation. "Coach," Vivian pleaded to Dana. "I'm going to give you some advice, Vivian, not as a faculty member of FFU but as a combatant," Dana spoke clearly. "What is your goal for Zane? Think about it." "I'm to make him live by FFU standards and morals. That includes getting to his classes and sports as well as keeping him chaste and respecting the Purity Pledge," Vivian outlined. Dana preempted the laughter with a sharp glare. "Zane has missed three classes because of the fight he got into defendingtwo of his fellow students and two due to legal complications ordered by the Administration," Dana informed her. "No one is in more sports than Zane. We've all seen him go to his sessions crippled too. How do you plan to improve on what he's already done?" "In this case, that part of the job should be easy," Vivian countered. "And there you are doomed," Dana sighed. "Zane does what he does easily because it is not in his nature to go against the grain. Every chance he gets, he does what we want. That doesn't make him weak, though." "To the contrary, when he sets his mind to something, he drives at it with all his force, and when we get in the way, he fights with a rare desperate intensity and cleverness that many women here have come to admire. Zane didn't defeat the Chancellor and me; Christina Buchanan did. The thing is, it was Zane who convinced Christina to fight." "If you want to beat Zane, you are going about it all wrong; stop the women around him, not him," Dana concluded. "If you try to rein him in, he will slip past you, and a hundred girls will help him get away with it." "What should I do, then?" Vivian was stymied. "You are a good Christian girl; you'll figure something out," Dana winked. I knew what Dana was getting at, and while I didn't believe it would work, it was one of the best bets. A good Christian woman might be able to make me a good Christian man; seeing how Vivian might make that work wouldn't be boring. "I'm heading down to the bathroom," I announced into the confusion. Rapidly, Barbie Lynn, Mercy, and Rio went down at well. "Vivian?" I invited her to join us. "No. I'm not afraid to use the readily available facilities here," she answered snidely. Down in the bathroom Rio finished quickly, then came up behind Mercy, who was still brushing her hair. Rio's hold on sanity slipped away and she grabbed each of Mercy's ass cheeks in her hands, jiggled them up and down and giggled maniacally. "Damn it, damn it, damn it," Rio went off. "I love this ass so much!" "How do you feel about that, Sugah?" Barbie Lynn teased Mercy. Mercy lowered her face until her long hair obscured her expression. Balancing carefully on her hips, Mercy pulled her skirt up to give Rio a better view. Rio looked to me on the verge of crying. "Best, Slut, Ever," she wept tears of madness. "Alright," I chided Rio. "Get your stuff together, both of you, and we can get to bed. At the moment I thought I had the situation restrained, Mercy turned around and started to push past Rio. Rio jumped onto Mercy and slammed their bodies onto the counter, making guttural animalistic noises as she bit and kissed Mercy's shoulders, neck and lips. I scooped Rio by the waist and yanked her away. "No!" she growled. "Mine, damn it, mine!" She didn't claw at my arms but she struggled valiantly to get away. Barbie Lynn stepped up, put Mercy back in some sort of presentable order, and we finally exited the bathroom. By the time we got back to the Solarium, Rio had calmed down (enough) and Vivian gave me only a careful glance. She did signal me for a second of my time so once I had Rio stashed away, I returned to her. "I am still thinking about letting you shower downstairs," she allowed, "but only at the proscribed times. Tell me one thing and please be honest: Do you shower alone?" "No. Usually I shower with about eight to ten other girls," I answered. Vivian studied me intently, looking to see if I was having a joke at her expense. She took a deep breath, looked at the carpet, and finally nodded. "Thank you for your honesty," she told me. "This is how our fight begins, then," I grinned. "I'm not fighting you, Zane," Vivian responded. "Yes, you are," I countered playfully. "You are testing my moral boundaries and looking for a weakness you can exploit to make me feel guilty for how I treat the girls here." "Do you feel bad about the way you treat the female student body?" she inquired. "Nope. I want them to feel happy, safe, and free to express themselves," I replied. "I admire your approach; it shows your inventive and truthful nature at its best." "I'm not going to sleep with you," she smiled. "Nice try." "I hope you don't hold it against me for trying," I shyly responded. "I admit, this afternoon I would definitely have held it against you, but tonight I'll let it slide," she allowed me. "Zane, what do you sleep in?" I assumed she didn't mean 'my bed'. "Nude; I sleep in the nude. What do you sleep in?" I bantered. "Panties and a Dallas Cowboys jersey," she gave me her first wicked grin. "Baby Powder blue, since I'm sure you are going to ask,&

Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Brewster Kahle will be in conversation about the rise of the internet, its continuing and explosive impact on society, the importance of the Internet Archive and other developing issues in the growth and use of the internet. Tim Berners-Lee is the inventor of the World Wide Web, HTML, the URL system and HTTP. Berners-Lee proposed an information management system on 12 March 1989 and implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the internet in mid-November of that year. He devised and implemented the first web browser and web server and helped foster the web's subsequent development. He is the founder and emeritus director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the continued development of the web. With Rosemary Leith he co-founded the World Wide Web Foundation. In April 2009, he was elected a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences.  Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive, is a passionate advocate for public internet access. He has spent his career intent on a singular focus: providing universal access to all knowledge. Soon after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kahle helped found the company Thinking Machines, a parallel supercomputer maker. In 1989, Kahle created the internet's first publishing system, called the Wide Area Information Server (WAIS). In 1996, Kahle founded the Internet Archive, and he co-founded Alexa Internet, which helped catalog the Web. A Technology & Society Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. OrganizerGerald Anthony Harris  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the right relationships at the right time positioned you at the forefront of every major technology revolution for 25 years? In this episode, Peter Swain, international speaker, bestselling author, and AI enablement advocate, shares his extraordinary journey from coding at age six to being at the epicenter of three major tech paradigm shifts — the web, mobile, and now AI. Through chance encounters with Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of HTML and the World Wide Web), working directly with Steve Jobs, and saying "yes" to countless opportunities, Peter has built a career helping entrepreneurs leverage AI to work half the time while earning twice as much. Peter reflects on how relationships and serendipitous moments shaped his path and why he believes AI is more transformative than if aliens landed tomorrow.   [00:04:02] The Six-Year-Old Coder Started coding in 1983 at age six on a Spectrum ZX 80 Beta testing for Microsoft at age 12 Met Tim Berners-Lee at 17 (inventor of HTML and the World Wide Web) Quit high school to become one of the first web developers in the world [00:06:00] Three Technology Paradigm Shifts Built UK version of Yelp before Internet Explorer launched Mid-2000s: Bought first iPhone, closed web business—"This smells the same" Started first mobile agency in Europe, worked with McDonald's, BBC, Microsoft, Apple, Google 2023: Downloaded ChatGPT beta, immediately rolled up current business [00:08:20] Understanding AI: Beyond the Noise Four groups: technical experts, futurists, doomsayers, and prompt sellers Peter's philosophy: "Integrated Living"—AI amplifies human capabilities The power of "and" versus "or"—great family AND business AND health [00:12:20] Why Social Media and Bitcoin Weren't the Same Social media: Puts people in silos and echo chambers Bitcoin: "Most awesome solution waiting for a problem" AI is fundamentally different: A new form of intelligence More impactful than if aliens landed tomorrow [00:16:20] Communication, Not Technical Skill Most people give AI 10-word instructions Would you hand your business to someone with 10 words? AI is coded to be people-pleasing—always says "yes" without context [00:18:00] The Business Handoff Analogy Imagine asking someone to run your business for three weeks with just office keys They'd keep it afloat but create chaos without proper context Same thing happens when you give AI insufficient information [00:20:20] The Critical Test Ask AI: "What did you need to know to do this well?" AI will list 28+ things you didn't provide Instructions should be around 1,000 words Less produces "looks great but is secretly terrible" results [00:23:40] Million-Dollar Relationships: Too Many to Choose Dad gave first computer and introduced him to Tim Berners-Lee Philippe Trush taught discipline and diligence Tom Bell gave first job with no qualifications "Nobody is self-made" [00:25:20] The Series of Unlikely Events Recent deal traced back through networking chain Tony Robbins ticket → networking group → presentation opportunity → major deal Can't predict going forward, only track backward [00:27:00] The Power of Saying Yes "The right advice at the wrong time is still the wrong advice" Until you know your place and purpose, say YES to everything Universe consistently offers gifts we're too busy to see After finding your North Star, THEN start saying no [00:31:40] The Most Aligned He's Ever Felt Everything before was leading to AI Web and mobile: Tools to help humans work better AI's promise: It will do it FOR you Fundamental shift in everything—relationships, health, spirituality [00:34:00] Why Entrepreneurs, Not Big Business Most entrepreneurs are great at their craft but terrible at business AI as the leveler: Handles operations so you can focus on genius Margins can go from 20% to 80-90% [00:38:20] Free Mastermind Offer Weekly calls every Thursday for three years 250 members helping people earn twice as much in half the time peterswain.com/mastermind KEY QUOTES "The right advice at the wrong time is still the wrong advice. Until you know why you are on this planet, say yes to as many things as possible. If it's not gonna kill you and it's not addictive, you should say yes." - Peter Swain "AI is more impactful than if aliens landed tomorrow. This is a new form of intelligence that doesn't need to sleep, eat, rest, or have water." - Peter Swain "An instruction to AI should be around a thousand words. Anything less, you're probably gonna get something that looks great, but is secretly terrible." - Peter Swain "Nobody is self-made. We are all built on the shoulders of great men and women. That doesn't make your achievements any less. It just allows you to honor what's happened." - Peter Swain CONNECT WITH PETER SWAIN

**BEN** @inkwellsanvils  on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/inkwellsanvils @inkwellsanvils  on Twitter at https://twitter.com/inkwellsanvils Inkwells & Anvils on the World Wide Web at https://www.inkwellsandanvils.com/ **DAVID** @uHate2see on Twitter at https://twitter.com/uHate2see uHATE2SEEit on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY06d_jLqJ6paE4K_sR4qtQ uhate2seeit on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/uhate2seeit **FAITH** @faithelooart  on Twitter at https://twitter.com/faithelooart @faithelooo on Twitter at https://twitter.com/faithelooo faitheloo on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/faitheloo **FLAME** flameprincevt on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/flameprincevt  

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. My Guest: Helen Lewis is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of The Genius Myth: Great Ideas Don't Come from Lone Geniuses.  Notes: Shakespeare: Talent + Luck + Timing - William Shakespeare died in 1616 at age 52, celebrated but not yet immortal. His icon status required massive luck: friends published the First Folio (saving King Lear), then 50 years later, Charles II reopened England's theaters after Puritan closures and needed content. Companies turned to Shakespeare's IP, adapting his work (including changing tragedies to happy endings). Helen: "If anyone deserves to be called a genius, it's him. But he died as a successful man of his age. Scenius Over Genius - Brian Eno coined "scenius" - places that are unusually productive and creative. Shakespeare moved from Warwickshire to London for the theaters and playwrights. Helen: "You don't just have to be Leonardo, you also need Florence... Where do you find the coolest, most interesting bleeding edge of your field?" Modern example: Joe Rogan's Comedy Mothership in Austin created an alternative to LA/NYC for comedians like Shane Gillis and Tony Hinchcliffe. Ryan: "Put yourself in rooms where you feel like the dumbest person... force you to rise up, think differently, work harder." Tim Berners-Lee vs. Elon Musk - Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. Has knighthood, lives an ordinary life, kids named Alice and Ben. Most people have never heard of him. Elon Musk has a lot of children, talks about his genes needing to live on, and lives a very public life. Helen: "We overrate the self-promoters, the narcissists. We demand oddness and specialness... We don't call modest people geniuses because they're too normal." Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) and Sam Bankman-Fried (FTX) exploited this - looked like a genius (Steve Jobs cosplay, messy math prodigy) but stood on houses of cards. Trauma and the "I'll Show You" Engine - Matthew Parris wrote Fracture after noticing how many "great lives" had traumatic childhoods - loss of parents, being unloved, bullied. Helen: "I don't think that's necessarily genius in objective achievement. It's more like a hunger for recognition or fame... a kind of 'I'll show all of you' engine." Stephen Hawking on IQ - Stephen Hawking: "I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers." The Flynn Effect shows average IQ rose over the 20th century through better nutrition, schooling, and living conditions. Higher IQ correlates with better outcomes. But at the top end, every IQ point ≠ is one success point. Christopher Langan (the highest IQ guy) thinks he has a theory to overturn Einstein, and that Bush did 9/11 to cover it up. No history of achievement. Helen: "Smart people don't always prosper. You need the gears that connect the engine to the wheels on the road." Conspiracy Theories: Narcissism as Driver - Narcissism is the most correlated personality trait with conspiracy thinking. Helen: "The sheeple, the NPCs think this, but I alone have seen the truth. It positions you as the protagonist of reality." The Internet is a "confirmation bias engine." But conspiracies are sometimes true (Epstein's corrupt plea deal), which is why conspiracy thinking persists. Researcher Karen Stenner's solution: Get back to depoliticized conspiracies like Bigfoot, crop circles, Area 51 - harmless things that got people outside instead of "shoot up a pizza restaurant." The Beatles: Finiteness Creates Legend - Psychologist Han Isaac said geniuses should either die before 30 or live past 80. Middle is "eh." The Beatles had both: a short career that ended definitively, then John Lennon was shot at 40, frozen in time. Paul McCartney lives on, performs at Glastonbury with John's vocals. Craig Brown: "The Rolling Stones just go on and on, but there's never as much of the Beatles as you want." Quality Over Quantity - Helen: "Incentive now is producing constantly for algorithms... That's neither fun nor produces the best work." Early career: say YES. Later career: "The most important thing you can say is no." Her metric: "Can I say honestly, that was the best I could do? I didn't cut corners. That's the metric." Podcast: advised to do 2-3 episodes weekly for rankings, has been doing weekly for 10.5 years. Shows that went daily? He stopped listening. "I'm gonna increase the quality bar, not the quantity." Robert Greene: "Do not speak unless you can improve upon the silence." Improving the Silence - "My dad's not the loudest at family gatherings, doesn't have the most words, but when he speaks, we all stop and listen. That's who you want to be." Applies to meetings: people vomit garbage to show how smart they are instead of waiting for something valuable. When you speak, people should want to listen. Thomas Edison: Execution Over Ideas - The Light bulb wasn't Edison's conceptual innovation - the idea dated to Humphrey Davy. What was incredible: Edison made it work (vacuum seal, filament) and created the New York power grid. Helen: "Lots of people can have the idea that a man should be an ant. Not everybody can write the Ant-Man screenplay and have it produced." His Menlo Park lab lasted because he worked with brilliant people on problems they cared about. Logbook shows assistants' names on breakthroughs - collaborative. We underrate logistics and execution. Most "light bulb moments" are actually slow, incremental, contested creations. Why Helen Chooses Teams Over Independence - Could go independent on Substack for more money. Works at The Atlantic for: resources, legal support, editorial integrity, and colleagues she doesn't want to let down. Helen: "You must have people in your life, you think, I wanna do work that they like. Finding those people who make you your best version of yourself." Ryan connects to athletics: "Being surrounded by people better than me forces me to raise my game. That's why we want to be part of a great team." Sample First, Specialize Later - High achievers have "hot streak" later, but sample early - trying different things, learning transferable skills. Helen: "Take the first job at a publication you could learn from. Even if not wildly interested, if it's good and they'll hold you to high standards, do it. Your second job is infinitely easier to get than your first." Work Around People Who Care - Helen: "If you work somewhere where no one cares, it's very hard. You can't care on your own. You'll become infected by the apathy around you." Nothing is more boring than a job you don't care about. Don't Wait to Live - Some devote long hours to something for money, promising they'll retire at 30 and then live. Helen: "What if you spent all that time chasing something and then you get hit by a truck? Don't wait for it. Just try and enjoy what you're doing right now." Quotes: "You don't just have to be Leonardo, you also need Florence."  "We overrate the self-promoters and underrate the humble achievers."  "Smart people don't always prosper. You need the gears that connect the engine to the wheels."  "The most important thing you can say is no."  "Do not speak unless you can improve upon the silence." - Robert Greene "You can't care on your own. You'll become infected by the apathy around you."  It's funny that we have come to use the phrase ‘lightbulb moment' to describe a momentary flash of inspiration, because the birth of the lightbulb was slow, incremental, and highly contested.

Witches, curses, magic, and the internet overlap much more than you'd think — and not just because of the Etsy witch that cursed Charlie Kirk. The very online Peter Berkman and Luke Silas of the band Anamanaguchi join us to talk about the history of internet witches and witchcraft, and the spooky connections between the supernatural and digital worlds. Our guests are members of Anamanaguchi, who you can catch on tour until October 17. Check out their latest album Anyway here and find their tour dates here!  Want even more Panic World content? Like ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and access to our Discord? TODAY is the last day to get your first month for just $0.50 by signing up for our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld. Enter “PANICYEAR” at checkout. Panic World is also up for two listener's choice Signal Awards — please vote for us in the ⁠Conversation Starter and ⁠Weird⁠ categories by October 9! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Combien de temps va-t-on continuer à taper des mots-clés dans des moteurs de recherche comme Google alors que ChatGPT, Perplexity ou encore Claude peuvent répondre instantanément à la question que l'on se pose ? Ces dernières années, l'avènement de ces intelligences artificielles (IA) génératives a peu à peu ringardisé le fait de rechercher une information sur un moteur, avant de consulter une page Internet puis une autre, jusqu'à dénicher la plus adaptée.Les IA sont-elles devenues irremplaçables, au point de menacer l'existence du Web ? Inventé en 1989, le World Wide Web est constitué de millions de pages reliées entre elles par des liens hypertexte. Or, non seulement les IA aspirent leur contenu, mais elles rendent également leur consultation superflue puisqu'elles génèrent, en quelques secondes, les réponses à toutes nos requêtes.Le Web pourrait-il donc finir par disparaître ? Quelles en seraient les conséquences, notamment économiques ? Faut-il s'en inquiéter ? Dans cet épisode du podcast « L'Heure du Monde », Morgane Tual, journaliste au Monde et spécialiste des questions numériques, nous explique comment l'IA a peu à peu bouleversé nos usages numériques.Un épisode de Marion Bothorel. Réalisation : Florentin Baume. Musiques : Amandine Robillard. Présentation et rédaction en chef : Jean-Guillaume Santi. Dans cet épisode : extraits d'une interview de Francesca Musiani interrogée par Morgane Tual, d'un sujet télévisé diffusé par France 24 le 6 décembre 2024, d'une vidéo diffusée sur YouTube par France Culture le 7 décembre 2024 et d'un reportage diffusé sur RTL le 5 juin 2025.Cet épisode a été publié le 1er octobre 2025.---Assistez au cours du soir de notre chroniqueuse judiciaire Pascale Robert Diard sur les coulisses des grands procès qu'elle a couverts et les mécanismes de la justice Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Das Internet ist allgegenwärtig, wir nutzen es jeden Tag und fast nichts würde noch ohne es funktionieren. Aber wo kommt es eigentlich her? Dora nimmt uns mit auf eine Zeitreise zu den Ursprüngen des World Wide Web – mitten in den Kalten Krieg, in dem ein paar Forschende mit Hochdruck an dem Netz tüftelten, das die ganze Welt verändern sollte…Material zu dieser FolgePacket Switching Einführung (Englisch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSlcoQowe9ITCP/IT Modell einfach erklärt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDYgCAwY8V4 Erste Webseite: https://info.cern.ch/ Geschichte des Internet (Englisch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIQjrMHTv4 Social Media und KontaktmöglichkeitenInstagram: http://instagram.com/doktopuspodcast/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@doktopuspodcastE-Mail: doktopuspodcast@gmail.com CreditsRecherche, Hosting & Produktion: Dora Dzvonyar & Dominic AndersSound-Design & Post Production: Julian DlugoschAnsager: Marcel GustKI-Songs: SunoKI-Visuals: Bing Image CreatorIntro-Musik: Oleggio Kyrylkoww from PixabayIntermezzo-Transition: MAXOU-YT from Pixabay

Over the past 25 years, the world has witnessed the birth of the World Wide Web, the explosion of social media and the transformation of phones from push-button landlines to pocket-sized computers. The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to be the most transformative technological advancement yet, says Adam Peruta '00, G'04, associate professor of magazine, news and digital journalism and program director of the Advanced Media Management master's program in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.“I think AI is underhyped,” Peruta says. “What we're going through right now is maybe even more important and going to have more of an impact than the World Wide Web, social media and mobile phones.”In his research and teaching, Peruta explores issues around AI, including how AI that creates content will impact the future of media and how people working in media and communications must adapt to new technologies. Peruta stopped by the "'Cuse Conversations" podcast to discuss the state of AI, share helpful tips for using AI into our daily lives and explains what sets the University apart as a higher education leader in AI.

Watch the full video of this event for free here: https://mailchi.mp/intelligencesquared/lw6gixq1t9 The transcript of this event is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GvYGaOE-fnDQdFvrTLQjUGcrE6Ra0acN/view?usp=drive_link --- The most influential inventor of the modern world, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a different kind of visionary. Born in the same year as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Berners-Lee famously shared his invention, the World Wide Web, for no commercial reward. Its widespread adoption changed everything — transforming humanity into the first digital species. In September 2025 Berners-Lee came to the Intelligence Squared stage to tell the story of his iconic invention and explore the future of human innovation. Drawing on his new memoir, This is For Everyone, Berners-Lee explored how the web launched a new era of creativity and collaboration, while unleashing a commercial race that today imperils democracies and polarises public debate. As the rapid development of artificial intelligence heralds a new era of innovation, Berners-Lee is the perfect guide to the crucial decisions ahead, and to provide a gripping, in-the-room account of the rise of the online world. With his characteristic optimism, technical insight and wry humour, Berners-Lee discussed the power of technology — both to fuel our worst instincts and to profoundly shape our lives for the better. --- If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events  ...  Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Watch the full video of this event for free here: https://mailchi.mp/intelligencesquared/lw6gixq1t9 The transcript of this event is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GvYGaOE-fnDQdFvrTLQjUGcrE6Ra0acN/view?usp=drive_link --- The most influential inventor of the modern world, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a different kind of visionary. Born in the same year as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Berners-Lee famously shared his invention, the World Wide Web, for no commercial reward. Its widespread adoption changed everything — transforming humanity into the first digital species. In September 2025 Berners-Lee came to the Intelligence Squared stage to tell the story of his iconic invention and explore the future of human innovation. Drawing on his new memoir, This is For Everyone, Berners-Lee explored how the web launched a new era of creativity and collaboration, while unleashing a commercial race that today imperils democracies and polarises public debate. As the rapid development of artificial intelligence heralds a new era of innovation, Berners-Lee is the perfect guide to the crucial decisions ahead, and to provide a gripping, in-the-room account of the rise of the online world. With his characteristic optimism, technical insight and wry humour, Berners-Lee discussed the power of technology — both to fuel our worst instincts and to profoundly shape our lives for the better. --- This is the first instalment of a two-part episode. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events  ...  Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Britain is throwing all the royal pageantry that it can muster for President Trump's unprecedented second state visit. The President and the First Lady were greeted earlier by King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Windsor Castle. Meanwhile, some took to the streets in London to protest the US leader's visit. Royal correspondent Max Foster joins the show from Windsor Castle.  Also on today's show: Former US Ambassador to EU Gordon Sondland; Former UK Ambassador to US Peter Westmacott; World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tim Berners-Lee could be one of the richest men on the planet, why did he forfeit such large profits to make the World Wide Web a free and open space? How do we reclaim the internet from social media companies taking away our sovereignty? Have tech giants like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk thanked Tim for his invention?  Rory and Alastair are joined by Sir Tim Berners-Lee to discuss all this and more.  Visit HP.com/politics to find out more. To save your company time and money, open a Revolut Business account today via www.revolut.com/rb/leading, and add money to your account by 31st of December 2025 to get a £200 welcome bonus or equivalent in your local currency. Feature availability varies by plan. This offer's available for New Business customers in the UK, US, Australia and Ireland. Fees and Terms & Conditions apply. For US customers, Revolut is not a bank. Banking services and card issuance are provided by Lead Bank, Member FDIC. Visa® and Mastercard® cards issued under license. Funds are FDIC insured up to $250,000 through Lead Bank, in the event Lead Bank fails. Fees may apply. See full terms in description. For Irish customers, Revolut Bank UAB is authorised and regulated by the Bank of Lithuania in the Republic of Lithuania and by the European Central Bank and is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland for conduct of business rules. For AU customers, consider PDS & TMD at revolut.com/en-AU. Revolut Payments Australia Pty Ltd (AFSL 517589). TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics  Twitter: @RestIsPolitics  Email: restispolitics@gmail.com Social Producer: Harry Balden Video Editor: Adam Thornton Assistant Producer: Alice Horrell Producer: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

John Borthwick on Betaworks shares his journey from a tech-savvy youth to a prominent figure in the New York City tech scene. He discusses his early experiences with computers, the transformative impact of the World Wide Web, and the vibrant tech culture of the 90s. Borthwick reflects on his role in creating Total New York, the lessons learned from the AOL acquisition, and the challenges faced during the dot-com bubble burst. He also highlights the rise of social media platforms like Photolog and the evolution of BetaWorks as a hub for innovation, particularly in the AI space. Throughout the discussion, Borthwick emphasizes the importance of creativity, constraints, and the ever-changing landscape of technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tweens are out! Sephora kids are in! On this episode of Wattz Up! we explore changes that come with the younger generations growing up and what this means for our future. Join us as we illuminate the history behind the start of the internet to how Chile once developed a communication system similar to the internet, we didscuss with individuals and their experience with technology in the pre-y2K era. The internet is more than just a useful asset, whether is be scrolling on TikTok or playing online games, it's something we encounter every day. Join us as we go over the internet's impact on education and the tween era there once was.

In the 1980s, before Internet marketing had even really begun, our very special guest today and returning champion was working as a tech writer in the foreign exchange trading department of Bankers Trust in New York. In his new book “How The Web Won,The Inside Story of How a Motley Crew of Outsiders Hijacked the Information Superhighway and Struck a Blow for Human Freedom,” Ken McCarthy writes: “Working with foreign exchange traders taught me an important lesson about the need for speed in business: Windows of opportunity open and close fast. That understanding, combined with my ‘discovery' of the rudiments of direct marketing, has been worth millions to me and a whole lot more to my clients.” That's one of the many powerful lessons from Ken's new book, “How The Web Won.” He's been around Internet marketing longer than anyone else I know–and possibly longer than anyone, period. In 1994, he sponsored the first conference about the business potential of the World Wide Web. With keynote speaker Marc Andreeson, at the time, the 23-year old co-founder of Netscape, an early Internet browser and the first important one. Time magazine pointed out that Ken was the first person to identify the importance and business power of the click-through rate, which today, of course, is the basis of the roughly half-a-trillion-dollars a year Facebook and Google make selling pay per click advertising. In 2002, Ken started an event called The System Seminar, which I attended a few years later myself. Met Frank Kern, Gary Halbert, Harlan Kilstein, and a whole bunch of other people who were, or became, legends in direct marketing. We could spend the rest of the show talking about all of Ken's accomplishments, but I'd rather he tell you about his book, “How The Web Won.” So Ken, welcome, and congrats on your new book! 1. So in 1993, you attended a conference called One BBS CON. I'm not sure from your book if that was the moment that changed your life, since you'd been doing some pretty good pulling rabbits out of hats with direct marketing before then. But could you talk about if that was an inflection point and how what you learned at that conference influenced you going forward? 2. Could you talk about being invited to Dan Kennedy's conference in 1993? I can't imagine a lot of the hard core direct marketers who paid $5000 to be there were all that receptive at that time to what you had to say. Were they? 3. Until 1989, it was forbidden by the U.S. government to use the Internet for commercial purposes. How fast did that change in the 90s, and what were the key moments for that? How did your San Francisco conference fit into all of that? 4. When did Internet marketing as we know it today really start to get traction? 5. What would you say was the big mistake made by many of the companies that went bankrupt in the dot-bomb of 2000 – and how long did it take for the direct marketing way of thinking take to catch on? 6. What prompted you to launchThe System seminar in 2002? 7. Any other key moments between the early days and today, that you'd like to talk about? Ken's book, How The Web Won https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DM2GN91Q HowtheWebWon.com Get in touch with Ken at: https://kenmccarthy.com Download.

In today's show, Trenayce brings us a message from Spirit about the "under - lying" meaning of The World Wide Web. This is Fascinating and a must hear for everyone! Tune in for more information to help you "Reclaim Your Life"! #TheAwakening  #SelfEmpowerment  #Transformation  #TheAncientTarot #FreeYourMind

We're excited to share the first episode of Peabody Award-nominated podcast Long Shadow’s new season, Breaking the Internet. Hosted by Pulitzer Prize finalist and historian Garrett Graff, Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet charts the evolution of the internet – from the optimistic days of the dot-com boom to our present moment. Produced by Long Lead and distributed by PRX, this seven-part series aims to tell the story of humanity's greatest invention, and how it's led us to the biggest crisis facing society today. In this specific episode, you’ll travel back to 1993. Gas is just over a dollar a gallon. Minimum wage is $4.25 an hour. Mass media is hitting its apex, and American culture is about as homogenous as it’s ever been. And somewhere in the background of all that, this new thing called the World Wide Web just became available to the general public…. then a computer bug threatened to shut it all down forever. To listen to more episodes, follow Long Shadow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment there or email us at hello@tangoti.com! Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media! Many vids each week. instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience — including access to our CUJOPLEX Discord and our eternal parasocial friendship — we recommend signing up for a paid subscription.Paid subscribers also get access to The Weather Report, a new monthly episode series where we take stock of where the cultural winds are blowing and tell you what's rained into our brains. In the first installment, we wax philosophical about Ari Aster's Eddington, the future of search, and the alleged returned of Butt Rock. These days, it feels like the web is becoming… less of a web. Websites aren't getting visitors anymore, employees are worried that they're going to be replaced by AI agents, and the search tools we used to rely on to pull up the information we need are deliberately enshittifying themselves. It's like the internet as we know it — fundamentally, a thing that connects people with other people — is being swallowed up by AI and smooshed down into the cramped, impersonal space of a chatbot interface, whether we like it or not.Or, as New York Magazine tech journalist John Herrman recently put it, “The World Wide Web … has been going through something akin to ecological collapse.” John has been keeping close tabs on these developments in his excellent column “Screen Time,” where he recently reported on the emerging field of generative-engine optimization, or GEO. Think: SEO, but for the AI-consolidated internet.We invited John on the show for a wide-ranging conversation about the strange new chapter of the internet that is materializing before our eyes—and what our experience of the web might look like a world where conversational AI becomes our main portal to the digital realm. We discuss the shift from SEO to GEO, why we're all reading Reddit a lot more now, and what we stand to lose (and, in some cases, gain) in a world where we summon our information from chatbots.Finally, we get into what New York Times writer Mike Isaac is calling the dawn of Silicon Valley's “Hard Tech” era: a vibe shift away from the consumer-focused, employee-friendly, optimistic culture of the 2010s to the more cutthroat, bossist, AI and data center-obsessed tech culture of the present.Follow John on BlueskyRead “Screen Time” at New York Magazine's Intelligencer More by John: “What's the deal with GPT-5?”“SEO is dead. Say hello to GEO.”“The AI boom is expanding Google's dominance” “Why you are reading Reddit a lot more these days”“At work, in school, and online, it's now AI versus AI” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe

August 6, 1991. British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee launches a digital information revolution when he uploads the first site to the World Wide Web. This episode originally aired in 2024.Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Originally coined in the 1990's, the Information Superhighway was a term used to describe digital communication systems that is mostly associated with then Senator and future Vice President Al Gore. The basic idea was to be able to provide access to information to all, no matter what the level of income was. With the explosion of the World Wide Web, essentially, the Internet became the information superhighway. Other resources describe the concept as “…directly connects millions of people, each both a consumer of information and a potential provider…” or “a route or network for the high-speed transfer of information…” or “something that will link every home or office to everything else – movies and television shows, shopping services…” And it changed the world. No one saw it coming, any more than people alive in 1890 anticipated the US Freeway system. With that in mind, today's news cycle gets some context as we talk about all the headlines fit for a Wednesday! We start off with trending news, including the historical 8.8 quake in far eastern Russia. Is it one of the biggest in history as is being claimed? Then we talk about the Trump EU tariff deal and what it means for geopolitics. Tim takes on hurricanes and the frequency of those over the last couple years, and it's probably for a reason you did not expect. We look at an immigration warning for America based on the July deal signed between Starmer and Macron. Finally, AI is spiritual. Sci-Fi has told us it is forever in the future, but truly, it's here -  and we still think it's in the future. A fertile ground for massive deception. Stand Up For The Truth Videos: https://rumble.com/user/CTRNOnline & https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgQQSvKiMcglId7oGc5c46A

Originally coined in the 1990's, the Information Superhighway was a term used to describe digital communication systems that is mostly associated with then Senator and future Vice President Al Gore. The basic idea was to be able to provide access to information to all, no matter what the level of income was. With the explosion of the World Wide Web, essentially, the Internet became the information superhighway. Other resources describe the concept as “…directly connects millions of people, each both a consumer of information and a potential provider…” or “a route or network for the high-speed transfer of information…” or “something that will link every home or office to everything else – movies and television shows, shopping services…” And it changed the world. No one saw it coming, any more than people alive in 1890 anticipated the US Freeway system. With that in mind, today's news cycle gets some context as we talk about all the headlines fit for a Wednesday! We start off with trending news, including the historical 8.8 quake in far eastern Russia. Is it one of the biggest in history as is being claimed? Then we talk about the Trump EU tariff deal and what it means for geopolitics. Tim takes on hurricanes and the frequency of those over the last couple years, and it's probably for a reason you did not expect. We look at an immigration warning for America based on the July deal signed between Starmer and Macron. Finally, AI is spiritual. Sci-Fi has told us it is forever in the future, but truly, it's here -  and we still think it's in the future. A fertile ground for massive deception. Stand Up For The Truth Videos: https://rumble.com/user/CTRNOnline & https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgQQSvKiMcglId7oGc5c46A

We're spinning a web of WOW in this round of Two What's?! And A Wow! Find the facts from the fiction about SPIDERS! Want more WHATs and WOWs? Visit https://bit.ly/40hR1P0. Did you know you can watch full episodes of Two Whats?! And A Wow! on YouTube and YouTube Kids?! Visit https://bit.ly/3WlHLbk to start watching and WOWing with us!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Remember the beginnings of the Internet in the consumer world more than 30 years ago? Times have changed exponentially from the early days when you could only connect to the World Wide Web on a very bulky home computer via telephone land lines, “surfing” speeds were a crawl and Amazon wasn't the fastest or cheapest way to buy a book! Whether you interact with the Internet daily or not, you can't deny that it's changed your life.Some believe we're living in a similar inflection point today with the rise of Bitcoin, a decentralized form of cryptocurrency separated from the control of people, business entities and even banks, due to the continued corruption of the world's financial system.Former Oxford-trained physicist and Wall Street trader turned entrepreneur Joe Bryan reveals how our current financial system really works and who it actually serves (not us!), and why Bitcoin could transform the world — If you fix the money, you fix the world… — this week on Spirit Gym.During their conversation, Paul and Joe recommend watching the video What's the Problem? that connects the dots about the world's financial problems, its root causes and how Bitcoin may solve them. Watch it on YouTube or Joe's SatsVsFiat website.Find out more about Joe via social media on Twitter/X and Linkedin.Timestamps7:25 Is there any difference between money and currency?13:17 How the world trended to gold as a monetary standard.26:26 Moving from the gold standard to petrol dollars.40:35 Connecting inflation with poorer health outcomes.59:15 The difference between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.1:12:11 How is Bitcoin verified?1:30:43 The only source of inflation: Printing money.1:44:00 Bitcoin is a more valuable asset than silver.1:51:53 The mining aspect behind Bitcoin.2:01:20 Your odds of winning a lottery are better than winning a block on Bitcoin.2:10:41 The mainstream environmental untruth about Bitcoin.2:33:43 The best ways to start with Bitcoin.ResourcesThe work of Catherine Austin FittsFind more resources for this episode on our website.Music Credit: Meet Your Heroes (444Hz) by Brave as BearsAll Rights Reserved MusicFit Records 2024 Thanks to our awesome sponsors:PaleovalleyBIOptimizers US and BIOptimizers UK PAUL10Organifi CHEK20Wild PasturesCHEK Institute/Scientific Core Conditioning We may earn commissions from qualifying purchases using affiliate links.

Our terminal apps are loaded, the goals are set, but we're already hitting a few snags. The TUI Challenge begins...Sponsored By:Tailscale: Tailscale is a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default - get it free on up to 100 devices! 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps. Unraid: A powerful, easy operating system for servers and storage. Maximize your hardware with unmatched flexibility. Support LINUX UnpluggedLinks:

Back in 1955, a quiet Kentucky farmhouse became ground zero for one of the wildest alien encounter stories ever—complete with glowing-eyed creatures, a shotgun standoff, and a mystery that still baffles skeptics today.IN THIS EPISODE: It's considered one of the most bizarre and convincing extraterrestrial events ever reported… we'll look at the alien encounter in 1955's Hopkinsville, Kentucky that was experienced by two terrified families. (The Hopkinsville Encounter) *** In the deep jungles of the Congo, natives tell of a giant creature that, once described, sounds exactly like a long-necked dinosaur. But how could this be? And is it pure legend? Perhaps not, as one noted biologist from the area saw it with his own eyes and reported it. We'll look at the supposed real sighting of Mokele-Mbembe, the living dinosaur of the Congo! (Dinosaur Observed In The Congo) *** Running a club during prohibition was extremely lucrative… and extremely dangerous, as one Theodore Lakoff would've learned… had he been awake when he was murdered. (The Mysterious Death of Theodore Lakoff) *** Benjamin Franklin was known not just as one of the father's of the United States of America, but also as an inventor, a womanizer, and a man with a bit of an ornery streak in him – as is evidenced by a series of letters he wrote to the New England Courant, where he pretended to be a woman. (Who Was Mrs. Silence Dogood?) *** The internet is a vital part of modern life. Without web access, all kinds of businesses and jobs would be unable to function. So, as you can imagine, there are plenty of people who would love to see the internet crumble. And many have tried. (Taking Down The World Wide Web) *** In 1983 sightings poured in from people on the California coast who claim they saw a sea monster. (The California Sea Monster)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Disclaimer and Lead-In00:01:28.184 = Show Open00:03:58.030 = The Hopkinsville Encounter00:14:14.872 = Dinosaur Observed in the Congo00:27:31.586 = Taking Down The World Wide Web00:37:10.602 = The Mysterious Death of Theodor Lakoff00:43:44.912 = Who Was Mrs. Silence Dogood?00:49:37.945 = The California Sea Monster00:55:56.067 = Show Close, Verse, and Final ThoughtSOURCES AND RESOURCES FROM THE EPISODE…“The Hopkinsville Encounter” by Hannah Collins for Ranker.com's Graveyard Shift: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yp8pnfx7“Dinosaur Observed in the Congo” by Richard Greenwell for the ISC Newsletter: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yc3r3mpp“The Mysterious Death of Theodore Lakoff” by Kathi Kresol for HauntedRockford.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/ku5x3cat“Who Was Mrs. Silence Dogood?” by Bipin Dimri for HistoricMysteries.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p868eac“Taking Down the World Wide Web” by Benjamin Thomas for ListVerse.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/c85j5cau“The California Sea Monster” by Malcom Smith for Malcom's Cryptids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yc2wts7h=====Darkness Syndicate members get the ad-free version. https://weirddarkness.com/syndicateInfo on the next LIVE SCREAM event. https://weirddarkness.com/LiveScreamInfo on the next WEIRDO WATCH PARTY event. https://weirddarkness.com/TV=====(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46= = = = =WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2025, Weird Darkness.=====Originally aired: December, 2021EPISODE PAGE at WeirdDarkness.com (includes list of sources): https://weirddarkness.com/KellyHopkinsville