Posts and links by Mike Tatum
A collection of writings that go back to 2006. The links are what I am reading now, with a note on why I'm sharing it. Reach me by email, LinkedIn, Bluesky, or X.
Recent
The Human-Origin Story Is Being Radically Revised ¶
theatlantic.com
One hundred thousand years from now, the Aquiry ruins might vanish altogether, and in Earth time, 100,000 years is nothing. In 10 million years, even the skyscrapers and continent-sprawling infrastructure of our own civilization will be crushed into sedimentary layers. Nearly everything that we have created will be reduced to trace elements and isotopes, but for a few specimens lucky enough to be fossilized. For all of the other details of our world to persist in human memory, science would need to get better, or civilization itself would need to keep existing, and telling its own story, from
A sobering assessment of what is lasting and the long arc of human development in the Atlantic.
vikingschoice - New Music Friday: Cool Samba, Sublime Drone, Chaotic Noise-Rock ¶
buymusic.club
Aug. 7 releases include Roy Montgomery & Martha Skye Murphy, daddy's boy, Tenniscoats with Tape, Joyce & Tutty Moreno, Hana Stretton, maya ongaku
It's Bandcamp Friday and there's no better way to find an artist to support and something to buy than Lars Gotrich's "Vikings Choice" playlist. Highly recommend subscribing: https://newsletter.vikingschoice.org/
Bingebuster — your streaming services, restocked as a video store ¶
bingebuster.net
Choose your subscriptions, enter the store and browse what you can stream like it is Friday night again.
Absolute genius. I look forward to the dispassionate MPCs walking around the aisles restocking and being cheeky if you ask them a question.
Soundtrack The Page — listening guides for the books that made you go and listen ¶
soundtrackthepage.com
Companion listening guides for the books that made you go and listen.
Easily one of the best ideas I've seen in a while. Look forward to seeing more books
Designing for the proxy. Why AI is changing who reads first. | by Aurélie Radom | Aug, 2026 | UX Collective ¶
uxdesign.cc
Marshall McLuhan argued in Understanding Media that every new medium changes not only how information is distributed, but also how it is created. Search engines rewarded discoverability, social media rewarded engagement, and LLMs reward interpretability. Whether we realize it or not, we are beginning to design with this new audience in mind. The problem begins when the signal replaces the thing it was meant to represent.
Great articulation of how we design information in the age of LLMs. Are we designing for humans or our LLM proxies?
Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy's Balearic Breakfast 4.8.26 ¶
mixcloud.com
Join us me on Tuesdays from 10am to 12pm GMT for Balearic Breakfast on my Mixcloud Live. Requests can be made on colleencosmomurphy on Instagram.
Starting to build my own programming clock of streams. Cosmo's Balearic Breakfast each Tuesday is one of my favs.
Simon Willison’s Weblog ¶
simonwillison.net
Simon has written more sensibly about link blogging than anyone, and his data model is what mine is based on.
It pays to be nice
In today's Superhuman post, which is a #mustread for me every day, they point to a meme made by Albertooz in the ChatGPT subreddit that reminded me of this post I wrote called Why AI Might Fear Us way back in 2016. I know it burns tokens, but I just got to think it is…
Continue reading →I've Got The Fire Of Hell In My Eyes– And It's ChatGPT
"— says the song 'in the style of Nick Cave', and that's kind of true. I have got the fire of hell in my eyes – and it's ChatGPT." Nick Cave from The Red Hand Files
Continue reading →Dreams
While I'm waiting for my old camera to be fixed, I'm using a FujiFilm X-T30 to take some photos and get back in the swing of using a camera. One of the tips I picked up this week was to take pictures using a digital camera's automated settings and see what ISO, Aperture, and shutter…
Continue reading →Photography School and Tools
Since I've decided to get back into photography this year, I picked up where I left off by brushing off my Minolta SRT-201 that I used in college for my photojournalism classes. Even when I got it in college, it was already "old", so now it's a freaking antique. Having been an early adopter of…
Continue reading →A New Year For Old Loves
The 1993 Univerty of Tennessee Advanced Photojournalism class. From left: Sarah Huff, Jason Gregory, Ruth Ware, Trevor Patteson, Karen Dyer, Professor Rob Heller, Shawnaa Pate, David McAree, Mike Whalen, Kellie Carter, Bruce Bracken, Tessa Beach, and me! (not pictured are Laura Weigel and Robert Anderson).
Continue reading →Town Squares
If Twitter is a "town square", then the last month has been like a western movie where some bad guy and his band of hoods rode into Twitter Town, bought it and the locals freaked the f&%k out. Many of us have fled to the dense woods of Mastodon or opted for the [sparsely regulated…
Continue reading →How Bad Is Your Spotify?
Turns out mine is bad. I'm also uncool and old. More on that in a bit. Let me tell you how I found out…
Continue reading →On Grinding
Judas Priest…grinding it out since 1969.
Continue reading →It's Not A Two Horse Race For Voice Assistants And Chatbots Aren't Dying
Our early virtual assistants are kind of janky. That's okay!
Continue reading →The Best of Everything
So many people have written great posts or tweets about Tom Petty and their favorite Tom Petty moments. I've loved reading how Tom Petty moved them or was a part of their life. Thought it might feel good to share a few of my own.
Continue reading →Announcing Tasted!
Regan Burns Cafiso, our Head of Content Strategy, doing a demo of Tasted
Continue reading →Why AI Might Fear Us
Illustration by Renan Cakirerk
Continue reading →The Tiniest of Ideas
Continue reading →
