Nostr notes by Mathew Ingram

Social media may be bad for you but the remedy could be worse ...

2026-04-02T13:29:28Z

Social media may be bad for you but the remedy could be worse

Some might be celebrating two recent legal rulings ordering Meta to pay for its flawed products, but the result of those cases could turn out to be far worse for both the internet and for free speech

https://mathewingram.com/work/2026/04/02/social-media-may-be-bad-for-you-but-the-remedy-could-be-worse/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=jetpack_social

If Havana Syndrome is real it implies a massive coverup Many -- ...

2026-03-12T13:47:14Z

If Havana Syndrome is real it implies a massive coverup

Many -- including me -- dismissed Havana Syndrome as a psychological illness but weapons that cause such symptoms appear to be very real and U.S. intelligence has known this for some time

https://mathewingram.com/work/2026/03/12/if-havana-syndrome-is-real-it-implies-a-massive-coverup/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=jetpack_social

There's a definite possibility that AI incorrectly targeted a ...

2026-03-05T19:40:24Z

There's a definite possibility that AI incorrectly targeted a school for a missile strike and killed 160 children

Building the Panopticon: The doorbell camera version In this ...

2026-02-12T15:10:08Z

Building the Panopticon: The doorbell camera version

In this week’s Torment Nexus, I wrote about how Amazon and Google’s control over doorbell cameras raises disturbing questions about the kind of ubiquitous surveillance environment we are all living in

https://mathewingram.com/work/2026/02/12/building-the-panopticon-the-doorbell-camera-version/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=jetpack_social

In case you're keeping track, in the past 24 hours Trump has: ...

2026-01-30T17:02:42Z

In case you're keeping track, in the past 24 hours Trump has:

-- arrested a journalist even though two judges refused to OK it
-- offered Maduro a pardon to say he rigged the election
-- sued the IRS for $10 billion
-- said he's going to arrest Barack Obama

Why blogging is better than social media Social media removed the ...

2026-01-22T15:12:21Z

Why blogging is better than social media

Social media removed the friction of publishing, and in doing so it made it even more difficult to separate the signal from the noise

https://mathewingram.com/work/2026/01/22/why-blogging-is-better-than-social-media/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=jetpack_social

Looking forward to it! Also, is this you? ...

2025-12-04T16:28:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…q6ga
_________________________

Looking forward to it! Also, is this you? https://www.cargroup.org/person/dr-david-j-atkinson/

Self-driving cars are an unambiguous social good Self-driving ...

2025-12-04T14:48:20Z

Self-driving cars are an unambiguous social good

Self-driving cars are so much better than cars driven by human beings that it doesn't seem fair to even compare them. It's like arguing that toasters are better than jamming a piece of bread on a stick and holding it over a fire

https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/12/04/self-driving-cars-are-an-unambiguous-social-good/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=jetpack_social

In a recent edition of The Torment Nexus, I wrote about ...

2025-11-13T14:39:20Z

In a recent edition of The Torment Nexus, I wrote about Wikipedia, which I argued was one of the best things the internet ever created (or that we all created with the help of the internet). In my opinion, there is another thing that ranks right up there with Wikipedia on the list of great things, and that is the Internet Archive.

https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/11/13/the-internet-archive-should-be-protected-not-attacked/

There’s a Kodak camera in the novel Dracula: ...

2025-10-17T15:43:30Z

There’s a Kodak camera in the novel Dracula: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/17/theres-a-kodak-camera-in-the-novel-dracula/

Have smart glasses finally hit an inflection point? I know what ...

2025-08-21T13:08:09Z

Have smart glasses finally hit an inflection point?

I know what many of you may be thinking now, as you read the headline of this post. You might be remembering the photo reproduced below, in which Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (who, it must be said, has a large and rather egg-shaped head, no offense intended) is standing with Bill Maris, the head of Google Ventures, and veteran Silicon Valley investor John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers…

http://mathewingram.com/2025/08/19/have-smart-glasses-finally-hit-an-inflection-point/

The Scopes "Monkey Trial" started on this day 100 years ...

2025-07-10T22:37:52Z

The Scopes "Monkey Trial" started on this day 100 years ago. Clarence Darrow won, right? No he did not. He lost and then lost on appeal — all four challenges rejected. The case was dismissed on a technicality, and the law it was fighting existed for another 40 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_trial

Why Substack shouldn’t be the future of online publishing: ...

2025-07-03T14:11:49Z

Why Substack shouldn’t be the future of online publishing: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/07/03/why-substack-shouldnt-be-the-future-of-online-publishing/

Mozilla shutting down Pocket pisses me off. I know that things ...

2025-05-25T18:34:50Z

Mozilla shutting down Pocket pisses me off. I know that things can't last forever but they said they bought it to keep it operating, and I have about 100,000 bookmarks saved in it

The ankle monitor was inspired by a Spiderman comic strip: ...

2025-05-22T15:11:55Z

The ankle monitor was inspired by a Spiderman comic strip: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/05/22/the-ankle-monitor-was-inspired-by-a-spiderman-comic-strip/

Nostr event nevent1qqs2fm3jc8m9yemwe7mwxhklg2kafc3u59khk5uu43j3t0qzp60yy2czyrfx9yfhxrxrsnvvuhpvhwe2k9gs2glp40fyhex56txq8pjnf9sfgza7srs

2025-05-14T19:10:35Z

We Visited Rumeysa Ozturk in Detention. What We Saw Was a Warning ...

2025-04-25T13:53:15Z

We Visited Rumeysa Ozturk in Detention. What We Saw Was a Warning to Us All https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/opinion/trump-rumeysa-ozturk-ice.html?unlocked_article_code=1.CU8.ZRZz.atE482UMbtvb&smid=url-share

This week in The Torment Nexus, why you should be careful what ...

2025-04-11T16:11:00Z

This week in The Torment Nexus, why you should be careful what you post on social media part two: https://torment-nexus.mathewingram.com/be-careful-what-you-say-on-social-media-part-2/

Ghost — the open-source platform I use to publish my daily ...

2025-03-17T19:07:46Z

Ghost — the open-source platform I use to publish my daily "When The Going Gets Weird" and weekly "The Torment Nexus" newsletters — has integrated with the fediverse through ActivityPub. So you can follow the daily one through When The Going Gets Weird (npub15xg…7u62) and the weekly one by following The Torment Nexus (npub1ukk…s8xw)

Nostr event nevent1qqsd8nrjpa5x9yv9lpfazja5zk34vs6qmmmuwnufjxk0qklzg4sz7zszyrfx9yfhxrxrsnvvuhpvhwe2k9gs2glp40fyhex56txq8pjnf9sfgt4f0ea

2025-02-14T15:51:13Z

So the incoming president of the United States is promoting a ...

2025-01-18T15:45:52Z

So the incoming president of the United States is promoting a crypto coin named after himself. I guess I shouldn’t be shocked, but I confess I didn’t expect things to get this stupid this quickly. My bad! https://decrypt.co/301691/donald-trump-drops-solana-meme-coin

Are people arguing that an app where people watch video clips of ...

2025-01-17T15:02:12Z

Are people arguing that an app where people watch video clips of cats riding Roombas is a threat to national security? Yes. And is this just as ridiculous as it was the last time I wrote about it? Yes https://torment-nexus.mathewingram.com/the-tiktok-saga-has-gotten-even-stupider-if-thats-possible/

“We make plenty of money already”: ...

2024-12-09T20:09:29Z

“We make plenty of money already”: https://mathewingram.com/work/2024/12/09/we-make-plenty-of-money-already/

Random question for anyone who knows things about federating: ...

2024-11-28T18:29:07Z

Random question for anyone who knows things about federating: tried to connect my blog to Bridgy Fed so I don't need to crosspost things manually, but my blog is located at a subdomain (mathewingram.com/work) and Bridgy says no when I try to connect it. Is there any way to make this work?

Nostr event nevent1qqs95cyl59ynlhez0d7lk8qc0rwsaegfdx3nf7nje3pdnwdwgcc3pggzyrfx9yfhxrxrsnvvuhpvhwe2k9gs2glp40fyhex56txq8pjnf9sfg7jryl7

2024-11-16T23:03:36Z

It's tempting to think that disinformation on social media ...

2024-11-09T14:18:54Z

It's tempting to think that disinformation on social media made people vote for Trump, but the reality is that what happens on social networks is more of a symptom than a cause https://torment-nexus.mathewingram.com/social-media-is-a-symptom-not-a-cause/

Nostr event nevent1qqstg2he4yzfj9t2sy29r66e438dpqyq2777c5jjg6dfntplg6ljhhczyrfx9yfhxrxrsnvvuhpvhwe2k9gs2glp40fyhex56txq8pjnf9sfgv7wxup

2024-11-06T14:36:29Z

Today in “When The Going Gets Weird,” the Stanford Prison ...

2024-11-01T16:03:35Z

Today in “When The Going Gets Weird,” the Stanford Prison Experiment was faked, and no one knows why it’s called a monkey wrench https://newsletter.mathewingram.com/the-famous-stanford-prison-experiment-was-a-fake/

New from me at The Torment Nexus: Forcing Google to give the ...

2024-10-31T14:14:55Z

New from me at The Torment Nexus: Forcing Google to give the media $100 million is not a win https://torment-nexus.mathewingram.com/google-giving-100-million-to-the-media-isnt-a-win/

“It finally shows the world what WordPress really is, an ...

2024-10-30T17:50:07Z

“It finally shows the world what WordPress really is, an abusive, predatory organization/community lying about its virtues to abuse other companies and organizations in an effort to get free work” https://chriswiegman.com/2024/10/so-long-wordpress/

Media elites are the last people to ask about the future of ...

2024-10-24T19:50:32Z

Media elites are the last people to ask about the future of journalism: “The whole exercise is a bit like canvassing the designer of the Hindenburg on the future of air travel” https://www.thenation.com/article/society/new-york-media-elites/

I’ve seen the best minds of my generation spend their days ...

2024-10-23T15:59:10Z

I’ve seen the best minds of my generation spend their days trying to invent new games so people will subscribe to the New York Times

Start a new life in the Offworld colonies! ...

2024-10-18T00:50:30Z

Start a new life in the Offworld colonies!

Note to writers everywhere: Not everything is a “liminal ...

2024-10-17T15:31:29Z

Note to writers everywhere: Not everything is a “liminal moment” or a “liminal space.” Give it a rest for pete’s sake

Got a good look at Comet A3 just after sunset tonight ...

2024-10-14T01:14:00Z

Got a good look at Comet A3 just after sunset tonight

An update to my post on WordPress: Matt sent me a Google Doc with ...

2024-10-11T23:31:02Z

An update to my post on WordPress: Matt sent me a Google Doc with responses to some of the points I raised. I’ve updated the post with a link to that doc and my response: https://torment-nexus.mathewingram.com/is-matt-mullenweg-defending-wordpress-or-sabotaging-it/

Using the social web as a distribution platform for news has ...

2024-09-19T15:05:21Z

Using the social web as a distribution platform for news has become increasingly problematic. Is joining the fediverse a potential solution? https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2024/09/19/is-the-fediverse-the-future-of-social-media-distribution/

So Israel didn’t just hijack some pagers already in the supply ...

2024-09-19T12:57:27Z

So Israel didn’t just hijack some pagers already in the supply chain — they set up a front company and actually made pagers: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html?smid=nytcore-android-share https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

Hi everyone — I'm launching a newsletter called The Torment ...

2024-09-05T22:37:54Z

Hi everyone — I'm launching a newsletter called The Torment Nexus, where I hope to bring some analysis and perspective to coverage of technology and culture. You can find it at https://torment-nexus.mathewingram.com or on Substack at https://tormentnexus.substack.com

I think the court made a mistake in this case -- the IA arguably ...

2024-09-04T19:47:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…fmp9
_________________________

I think the court made a mistake in this case -- the IA arguably has *more* of a case than Sony did in the VHS case, since it is a nonprofit. And its books are only lent to one person at a time. It is a library in everything but name.

Man who is missing 90% of his brain leads a normal life ...

2024-08-22T14:38:19Z

Man who is missing 90% of his brain leads a normal life https://mathewingram.com/work/index.php/2024/08/22/man-who-is-missing-90-of-his-brain-leads-a-normal-life/