Let’s be Fwends #159:

Weeks, Webs, Wandering and Wondering

“There is no rule that you have to follow the rules - unless you accept that the rules have power over you.”

~ Daniel Stillman

Hi, and welcome to Let’s be Fwends number 159. Today, we look at how time structures society (and society structures time). There’s some disconcerting news about AI and web search, a bunch of cool visualisations, and news about a state-sponsored intervention on the internet that is actually really good for a change.

I also report on an easter egg I placed on my website and the impact it had (scroll down for the unexpected results).

The Week as a Basic Building Block

Days, months and years track natural processes (even if imprecisely so). Weeks do not. They are completely artificial, invented something like 2.000 years ago.

How did they become the basic heartbeat of our societies?

In a fascinating essay, David Henkin explores the history of the week, its major impact it had on social life, and what future it might have, facing more and more blurring of social conventions through globalisation and remote work.

Is AI Killing the Web?

Is the future of the web a bit pipeline for moving data back and forth between ai systems that act as gateways?

There’s a significant shift in web search behaviour that signals a broader transformation in how people access information online. Search requests to Google from Apple Safari are declining for the first time in 22 years. AI usage amongst US-college students has risen from 66% to 92% percent.

This transformation poses an existential threat to the traditional web economy built on advertising revenue and page views. When search engines provide summarised answers directly rather than links to original content, creators lose both visibility and monetisation opportunities.

And what will happen once creators stop creating because they cannot generate any income (being it social or economic capital) out of it?

Will then the GAI models out there create the content for us then? I doubt it.

An Easter Egg Nobody Found

When I launched my website I added a little easter egg to the subscription form for this journal. Seven years later, I realised that nobody found it.

Being Sedentary

This is bad news for all of us who try to compensate an (mostly work-related) unhealthy lifestyle with working out: Looks like you can’t offset sitting around on your butt all day with physical exercise when it comes to brain aging:

In conclusion, we found that greater sedentary behavior was associated with worse neurodegeneration and cognition cross-sectionally and longitudinally despite high levels of physical activity among the cohort. (…) From a personalized medicine approach, healthcare professionals might consider assessing not only a patient’s exercise regimen but also the amount of time they are sedentary throughout the day, recommending a reduction in such sedentary behavior in addition to increasing daily physical activity.

So, regarding brain health, it’s the total amount of time spent sedentary, and trying to compensate with physical activity doesn’t work. What does that do to my idea of the ‘sitting budget’? I don’t know.

France is Embracing Open Source

France is the first government to embrace the UN principles of Open Source:

The 8 UN principles: 1. Open by default
2. Contribute back
3. Secure by design
4. Foster inclusive participation and community building
5. Design for reusability
6. Provide documentation
7. RISE (recognize, incentivize, support and empower)
8. Sustain and scale

(Mastodon)

And it’s not just a hollow promise: The french state already built and released an open source alternative to Notion, and a complete digital workspace suite. I haven’t tried any of it yet, so I can’t comment on quality or features, but it looks like an earnest effort to reduce the dependence on US-based tech companies the right way.

Where Should You Move (Based on Your Choice of Transportation)?

Super-nice visualisation of the modal split of cities around the globe. It even shows you which city matches your own transportation preferences.

(Hat tip to Tanja Tomić)

What are People Doing (Right Now)?

As the sun rises at sets over different parts of the earth, so engage the people living on these parts in different activities. What the Hell are ppl Doing? explores how the day shifts activities.

Let’s Be Fwends from the Past

Four years ago: How to experience more awe, a much needed inspiration in these trying times.

And one year ago: Do we need a new Internet?, and paradoxically, while we did call for an end of the business model of surveillance advertising, who thought that it might be replaced with something much worse?

That’s it for this edition of Let’s be Fwends. Do you know the old joke about cyclists? “When you stand, sit. When you sit, lie. When you lie, sleep.” - Maybe we need to reverse this? For brain health? 🧠