In the wake of the over 380 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in the US this year alone, including many recent bills explicitly targeting members of the transgender community, Concrete Computing unambiguously stands with the LGBTQ+ community and against fear, misinformation, and hate of all kinds. LGBTQ+ people are our friends and family. They are our neighbors […]
Category: Advocacy
Copyright and privacy in generative AI
ChatGPT knows a lot about us, but it won’t say what it knows about us. If you want, jump to the conversation below to see where I tried to get it to tell me about me. Or read on for some commentary first. Concretecomputing.com–at least, the parts that pre-date 2021–must be in ChatGPT’s training data. […]
Grant funding breaks everything
Grant funding, which asserts that big infusions of cash can bring some operation to a new level, sometimes handcuffs nonprofits. Think about this: when we attend a museum exhibition with an interactive technology element, we’re not at all surprised to see a lot of it not working right. There’s one very common reason for this. […]
List of Public Domain (Free) Books for Kids, by Grade Level
[Greetings, visitors. I want to let everyone know that I do tech consulting for nonprofits and small businesses. Any organization with less than about 50 staff that needs a rebuilt website, more effective CRM, or tech guidance or management (“virtual CIO” work) could probably use my help. I encourage you to check out my home […]
DuckDuckGo–the Search Engine You Should Be Using
The original version of this post is available at ARLIS/NA Multimedia and Technology Reviews. I am very grateful to Emilee Mathews, whose editorial work contributed immeasurably to the readability of this article. DuckDuckGo is a Web search site that competes with Google, Bing, and other major players. DuckDuckGo’s premise, and its major competitive advantage, […]
What are you watching?
[Edit: this turned out to pretty much be a red herring.] Let’s say a lot of people follow this blog. A lot of them probably wouldn’t remember when cable TV was rolling out in the 70’s and one of the BIG DEALS in their marketing rhetoric was how they don’t know what we’re watching and […]
News about the “Simian Selfie” is missing the point.
There’s a lot of talk this week (nice haranguing article in El Reg) about the unfortunate photographer, David Slater, who got a black macaque to take a great picture of itself a few years ago, and how Wikipedia editors can’t agree that the photo should be copyrighted to Slater, since it was actually taken by […]
Poor local broadband; no choices
Sent 17 May, 2014. —– Dear State Senator Espaillat, I’m writing to ask you to make the improvement in access to good-quality broadband Internet services a priority in your work and in your campaign for Congress. I live at 804 West 180th St. in Washington Heights. I have very few choices as far as broadband […]