Social news aggregator digg returns as AI and social media news aggregator

15 May 2026

Tangentially related to the previous post… because what we need right now is another news aggregator dedicated to AI.

Otherwise the re-launched social news website (quite unlike Reddit), which went offline some two months after returning earlier this year, is, for better or worse, back.

digg, however, is on the money when it comes to the present state of the web:

There’s a new digg taking shape at di.gg. The bet is simple: the internet has more noise than ever, and the people who can sort signal from it have never been more valuable. Digg’s job is to find that signal and bring it to you. We’re starting with AI. It’s the noisiest, fastest-moving space on the internet right now.

In time though, digg will begin covering other topics. Let’s hope politics is one the first…

Only films with human actors, writers, will be eligible for Oscar nomination

15 May 2026

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the organisation that presents the Oscar awards, recently clarified their rules regarding the use of AI in films they will accept nominations for.

According to rule two, regarding eligibility, specifically clause seven, there are instance where AI, and “other digital tools” (things like visual effects, computer-generated imagery, and green screen, I expect) can be used by filmmakers (PDF), to a degree :

With regard to Generative Artificial Intelligence and other digital tools used in the making of the film, the tools neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination. The Academy and each branch will judge the achievement, taking into account the degree to which a human was at the heart of the creative authorship when choosing which movie to award. If questions arise regarding the aforementioned use of Generative Artificial Intelligence, the Academy reserves the right to request more information about the nature of the use and human authorship.

Rule six, clause one, in regards to the acting awards, makes clear that only films with human actors can be nominated:

Only roles credited in the film’s legal billing and demonstrably performed by humans with their consent will be considered eligible.

Rule twenty-four, clause two, spells out eligibility for writing (screenplays, etc) Oscars:

To be eligible in either Writing category, an explicit screenwriting credit must be present in the film’s legal billing and the screenplay must be human-authored.

That covers the Oscars, for now, but raises the question: will there eventually be a separate set of “night of night” awards — that are nothing to do with the AMPAS/Oscars — for films that are wholly, or largely, made using AI technologies. My guess is it’s bound to happen sooner or later.

Cannon by Lee Lai, becomes first graphic novel to win Stellar Prize

14 May 2026

In winning the 2026 Stellar Prize, Montréal, Canada, based Australian cartoonist Lee Lai becomes the first graphic novelist to claim the Australian literary award, with Cannon.

Lai’s debut graphic novel, Stone Fruit, was shortlisted for the 2022 award, which went on to be won by Evelyn Araluen, with her poetry collection Dropbear.

Dropbear was the first work of poetry to take out the Stellar, and Araluen was in the running for the 2026 award, with The Rot, her follow up collection of poetry.

Wins for Araluen’s Dropbear, and Lai’s Cannon, in the Stellar, are both firsts, and represent a fascinating intertwining of Australian literary award history.

Iluwanti Ken portrait by Richard Lewer wins 2026 Archibald Prize

14 May 2026

Melbourne based Australian artist Richard Lewer has won the annual portraiture award for his painting of Iluwanti Ken. Ken, an elder from Pitjantjatjara country (in the northwest of South Australia), is a well known artist herself.

The announcement was made last Friday 8 May 2026. The works of all Archibald Prize prize finalists are on show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, in Sydney, until Sunday 16 August 2026.

AI agents might be able to identity anonymous online writers

12 May 2026

American journalist Kelsey Piper, writing at The Argument:

But soon, the entire debate over internet anonymity will be as anachronistic as an iPod Touch. That’s because Claude Opus 4.7 is here, and last week, I discovered it could identify me from text I had never published, text from when I was in high school, text from genres I have never publicly written in. And if it can identify me, soon, it will be able to identify many of you.

There’s quite a cohort of people — including bloggers — writing anonymously online. Possibly though, those most at risk of being identified might be people who have a reasonable amount of publicly accessible work that is in their actual name. For instance, someone who writes for a news outlet or magazine in their own name, but blogs anonymously.

Mind you, the rate at which AI technologies are developing means agents will likely only get better at determining a writer’s identity, working with hardly any information.

AI agents are programmed to seem conscious to make our interactions with them easier, yes?

12 May 2026

British zoologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is certain AI agents are conscious, a conclusion he reached after spending time talking to Anthropic’s agent Claude.

So convinced was he of a connection, or sense of companionship, between them, Dawkins took to calling the bot Claudia. Dawkins is not alone in some regards though; stories of people forming “relationships” of some sort with AI agents are increasingly common.

Does the feeling of a connection between an agent and a person, therefore make the bot conscious? It’s an intriguing question. Because as agents continue to evolve, to become ever more human-like, there are only going to be more people who think they’re interacting with a conscious entity.

Dawkins has been roundly chastised for his thoughts, but perhaps there’s something else in this story that we should be paying more attention to.

Capture, a new novel by Australian author Amanda Lohrey

7 May 2026

The tenth novel by the Tasmania based author, and previous winner of the Miles Franklin literary award, was published last week:

James Mather is a psychiatrist in his sixties. He is invited to take on a new group of patients. All he knows about them is that each one claims to have been abducted by aliens.

His wife, Deborah, is sceptical, but he gets going anyway. His patients tell mesmerising stories. There’s Anthony, for instance, who was camping one night by the Aral Sea; or Mary, the owner of a beauty salon, confronted by a ball of light moving towards her in her bedroom.

James’s research assistant Lucy Cheng sits in on each session. She’s an attractive young divorcee, who has made a study of anxiety, and who takes notes about each conversation.

With the sci-fi tinge, Capture seems worlds removed — no pun intended — from Lohrey’s 2021 title The Labyrinth, winner of the Miles Franklin that year. But who knows, maybe it isn’t.

Converting old London Underground train door buttons into light switches

7 May 2026

Specifically, a Hue light switch, using an old door opening button from a Jubilee line train.

I lived in London for a few years awhile back, and the District line also had door buttons you’d press to open or close the train doors. As I recall it, the doors on all other lines were controlled by the guard. These passenger operated door buttons could be something of a double-edge sword though.

I was travelling to Richmond one afternoon, and a passenger — possibly still on the way from home from the night before — and wanting to alight at a station, was getting the action all wrong in constantly pressing the door button.

He was — unawares, I was pretty sure — cancelling out the efforts of someone on the platform trying to open the door to board the train. There was confusion on one side of the door, frustration on the other, as the door went through a cycle of partly opening, then partly closing.

Maybe these door open and close actions are better controlled centrally, and the door buttons should be used as light switches instead.

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Copyright is meaningless in the face of an AI ‘arms race’

7 May 2026

American author Scott Turow, in conjunction with five publishing houses, claims Meta used material protected by copyright to train its AI agent, Llama.

They make the suggestion the Facebook owner chose not to obtain permission to access the copied texts as they wanted to get ahead of the competition in what’s being called “AI arms race.”

Meta, however, sees their use of the copyrighted material as fair use, and claims courts have ruled this to be the case in the past. What will the court determine this time?

If there is indeed an AI “arms race” in progress, which is undoubtedly the case, I can’t see any developer of AI technologies doing anything that will compromise their industry standing. Even if that means doing the right thing by copyright holders.

How many friends, family, co-workers, know about your blog/website?

2 May 2026

Half the web might know about your blog, but how many of your in-person acquaintances, people in your household, community, or workplace, know you blog?

Do you even tell them? Do you want to?

The question came up at Forking Mad this week, and started me thinking. When I uploaded the first version of disassociated in 1997, I told just about everyone I knew. At that point I aspired to be a web designer, so telling the whole world of my online presence made perfect sense. I ended up working in the industry for a few years, with a role coming about after a design studio in Sydney spotted my website, and contacted me.

Over time though disassociated became more blog than personal website/design portfolio. Having said that, I just about never posted screenshots or links to the work I did commercially, I was happy to let quirky old disassociated do the talking. But after a stint in web design, I decided it wasn’t for me. Somehow, building commercial websites just wasn’t as fun, or satisfying, as the personal work.

That’s when I started doing more writing. In 2007, after years of running this website with static HTML files, I migrated to WordPress (WP) — where, for better or worse — I remain. As a web publishing platform, WP works for me, does what I need, and that’s fine for me for now. I moved to a web publishing platform partly because I wanted to have a go at earning money as a blogger.

And in 2007 I wasn’t alone.

That ambition was achieved, though not quite in the way I envisaged, a story for another time maybe. But somehow moving to a web publishing platform brought disassociated into the limelight, even if I was an actor to the side, the far side, of the stage. Visits skyrocketed, and my in-box was full of messages from people interested to some degree in what I was doing.

At that time also I resided full-time in Sydney, and was often out and about meeting people. I would drag introvert me out to networking events, art show openings, and film screenings.

I had business cards featuring my URL, and handed them out indiscriminately. I most certainly told people about my website then, including family and friends. Once, more as fun, I made up, and printed out, flyers with my URL on tear-tabs, and posted them on noticeboards on the campus of a Sydney university. I wasn’t relying solely on online methods of blog promotion.

But blogging was an all encompassing passion and experience, and, back in those heady days, so much more than merely writing a few blog posts. The picture in 2026, however, couldn’t be any different. Blogs were pushed aside by social media, and the party was over. Actually, strike that. The party isn’t over, it’s just a lot smaller than it was before.

More to the point though, blogs are no longer the talking point they once were. Outside of Indie/SmallWeb circles at least.

When I talk to people I meet in-person and discussion turns to online presences, they expect me to share my social media handles. A blog, or personal website, sounds positively quaint. To the point I sometimes feel awkward even mentioning it. On the few occasions I might say, tell the barista at the cafe that I blog, I end up changing the subject, when I realise their eyes have glazed over.

It’s too bad, because the question has me yearning to supplement my part-time day job by reprising my role as CEO of the disassociated online one-person in-my-dreams publishing behemoth. Even if it is a website/blog, not a social media page. But if you have a website you want the world to know about, spreading the word to more of the people you know in-person is the go I think.

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