Note — — 37 words

Web

It’s nice to see that Google’s new Web Creators initiative has an RSS feed. Now maybe they could work on a product that helps people subscribe to those RSS feeds to foster this community of web creators…

Linknote — — 78 words

Politics — Technology — Web

When you browse Instagram and find former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott’s passport number — Alex Hope — The Mango Zone

Montage including redacted screenshot of Tony Abbott's Instagram post

A highly entertaining read about how someone used a photo of a boarding pass posted by Tony Abbott on his own Instagram account to find out the former Australian prime minister’s personal details including his passport and phone number. Alex Hope embarks on an adventure to find out whether he broke the law, figure out how he can inform Tony Abbott that he knows his passport number, and let the airline know about their hair-raisingly bad information security.

Linknote — — 106 words

Media — Society

Groundbreaking report reveals racial bias in English football commentary — Sachin Nakrani — The Guardian

Footballers' legs of different colours

A very interesting-sounding study has analysed English language football commentary from seven broadcasters and 80 live matches.

RunRepeat ratio-adjusted its numbers to account for the fact there were 1,361 comments about lighter-skinned players and 713 about darker-skinned players and found the former group more widely praised for intelligence (62.60%), hard work (60.40%) and quality (62.79%). Commentators are also 6.59 times more likely to talk about the power of a player if he has darker skin and 3.38 times more likely to reference his pace.

The study also found that 63.33% of criticism from commentators in regards to the intelligence of a player is aimed at those with darker skin, while the figure for quality is 67.57%.

Linknote — — 129 words

User experience

UX Diary — Helen Wiles

Sticky note with an illustration of a diary labelled: "Dear Diary"

Keep an eye on this impressive blog. Join Helen Wiles and explore the world of user experience.

This blog is quite new, but already there are brilliant articles on topics like:

  • Recruiting a representative sample of participants
  • Conducting remote usability testing
  • The difference between empathy and sympathy

They are all written in a very accessible and creative way, making it an enjoyable read.

One thing I have noticed from working in UX is that the concept of user experience itself isn’t exactly the most usable… as most people don’t even know what it is! So, I’m trying to create a space where I can give useful advice and tell stories that help to make it more accessible for everyone, as I think it’s so important.

Linknote — — 70 words

Current affairs — Society

A white woman, racism and a poodle — Cynthia Franks — FranklyWrite

Merlin, a black dog, in the passenger seat of a car

How a white woman discovered what it’s like to constantly be spuriously pulled over by the police, because she had a black dog.

One day, sitting at a restaurant having breakfast with my Dad; our old neighbor came in and said, “There’s a black man stealing your van. He’s behind the wheel right now.” I paused a minute and realized he was referring to Merlin. Bells went off.

Linknote — — 188 words

Media — Technology

Microsoft’s robot editor confuses mixed-race Little Mix singers — Jim Waterson — The Guardian

Jade Thirlwall and Leigh-Anne Pinnock from Little Mix

How about this for dystopia? MSN have replaced human news editors with a robot powered by Microsoft artificial intelligence technology. The problem is, it has already begun making racist decisions.

And then, in case you thought the story wasn’t already absurd enough, this:

In advance of the publication of this article, staff at MSN were told to expect a negative article in the Guardian about alleged racist bias in the artificial intelligence software that will soon take their jobs.

Because they are unable to stop the new robot editor selecting stories from external news sites such as the Guardian, the remaining human staff have been told to stay alert and delete a version of this article if the robot decides it is of interest and automatically publishes it on MSN.com. They have also been warned that even if they delete it, the robot editor may overrule them and attempt to publish it again.

Then the article ends on a delicious snippet — that Microsoft itself is concerned about the reputational damage this scheme will cause to its AI technology.

I’m immediately reminded of Microsoft’s disastrous Tay experiment.