Endless_Thread

The front page of the Internet straight to your 🎧. Hosted by @thebrockjohnson and @amorymusic. Made by @WBUR. Start here:

[Endless_Thread @Endless_Thread]

IT'S TRAILER DAY, FELLOW KIDS! Listen here and get pumped for the launch of our series about memes, comin' atcha next Friday, 10/1! https://t.co/nsl0XNMo2z

[Zeb Hermann @zeb_hermann]

Wild to see the shift from "the only public discussion is that data centers = bad" to "the public is fairly informed about AI risks" in just a few weeks

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Try to find where a picture came from today and Google hands you a shopping list. That comes out of a legal settlement. Getty Images complained to European regulators that Google was promoting piracy, the two sides made a deal in February 2018, and one term of it deleted the button that took you straight to an image's original file.

The "Search by image" button vanished the same day. Getty walked away with a licensing deal and bigger copyright notices on the page, Google walked away with Getty's photo library to use across its products, and the tool that traced a picture back to where it came from quietly lost its spot.

March 2022 finished the job. Right-clicking an image in Chrome stopped saying "Search Google for image" and started saying "Search with Google Lens." By August, uploading a picture to Google Images sent you to Lens too, with the old behavior tucked behind a small "Find image source" link.

Lens was built to answer a different question. Google says it handles close to 20 billion visual searches a month and that a fifth of those are people shopping. It compares your photo against a catalog of more than 45 billion things for sale, then shows prices, reviews, and ads. Google's search advertising made $63.3 billion in the three months ending in June, up 17% on last year. About $700 million a day.

"Where did this image come from" sells nothing. "What is this and where can I buy one" sells everything.

The haystack got bigger too. Google's own image generator has spat out more than 50 billion pictures, up from 5 billion last October. Searching for exact copies only works if a photo gets taken once and then passed around. A generated image gets made once, for one person, and plenty of them never get posted anywhere at all.

Nothing under the hood broke, which is the part I find annoying. TinEye, a Toronto outfit doing this since 2008, has more than 85 billion images on file and still finds the crops and resizes of whatever you hand it. Lens has an "exact matches" tab buried in it. Google blocks face matches for privacy, so fact-checkers and investigators keep Yandex and TinEye open next to it.

The button that answers "where did this come from" is now a tab you have to know about. The one that answers "where can I buy this" opens by itself.

[UCLA Game Lab @uclagames]

The Game Lab’s own David O’Grady shares his expertise on the evolution of joysticks in Episode 2: “Stick It to ’Em,” from Hidden Levels on @WBUR, a new podcast series by @Endless_Thread and @99piorg exploring how video games have reshaped our world. https://t.co/4RSwdriuve

[Boston Globe Opinion @GlobeOpinion]

Brooke Eby speaks with @Endless_Thread hosts @TheBrockJohnson and @amorymusic about the long road to her ALS diagnosis, how humor has helped her cope, and what she hopes to change for future patients. https://t.co/5oQu2fP9do

[Olivia Moore @omooretweets]

AI ASMR is blowing up

This account was started three days ago with just 11 videos…but has racked up 82k followers 👇

[Jonathan Goldstein @J_Goldstein]

After a year of shadowboxing in front of a mirror while asking myself who's the boss, I'm back. And so are @kalilaholt and @LaneStevie. @heavyweight is back. And we're on @pushkinpods. We're ALL the boss. bcc @TonyDanza @JudithLight @AlyssaMilanoUSA

[Hark Audio @HarkAudio]

HARK DAILY: Today's best podcast moments in one playlist. Featuring:
- Is there any way to stop a terrorist driving into a crowd? @NPRKelly
- The strangest sandwiches in history @Endless_Thread
- When roller skating goes wrong @TheMoth
https://t.co/9yZOUCHan5

[Merissa Hansen @merissahansen17]

Tesla lays off 2,688 Texas employees immediately following having 2,639 H1B visas approved in 2022-23

Abbott begged Elon to come to Texas, offering him tax breaks to do so, while keeping our property taxes high -resulting in taxing seniors out of their homes.

Follow the money.

[David Folkenflik @davidfolkenflik]

Today marks the 20th anniversary of my start at NPR.

I first appeared on its air that October when I was still with the Baltimore Sun. I couldn't yet tell anyone I was joining.

If I sounded nervous, it's because I was!

What a ride. Thanks to all who have tuned in since.

[𝕯𝖎𝖑𝖉𝖔 𝕭𝖆𝖌𝖌𝖎𝖓𝖘 @EmmaTolkin]

Am I the only one

[doctor ew @queerjobcreator]

need to write a thinkpiece about this genre of video where a young upwardly mobile email boy in a highrise goes about his isolated daily routine (part of his bourgeois “hustle”). my first thought is that the whole style is derived from the american psycho opening sequence

[Endless_Thread @Endless_Thread]

@lcfrst2 We think you're gonna like next week's episode

[Sofie Kodner @SofKodner]

I'm grateful to have had the most career success of my life this year. Slow Burn won Best Podcast. Beyond All Repair hit #2 on Apple Podcasts. I also produced 99pi's Not Built For This and Slate's Decoder Ring. All dreams come true! And now, my 2025 schedule is open. Hmu (plz)!

[BaphoMatt @xfloormattx]

Two incredible podcast episodes today, @CriminalShow and @Endless_Thread.

[Lina Benabdallah 🎩 @LBenabdallah]

It was super cool to chat about a variety of #Africa #China topics (and bad assumptions) with the good folks of @Endless_Thread! Many thanks to @gracetatter for the invitation! Tune in and take a listen! https://t.co/R9rz3L79qT

[✨Sophie ✌️🧡🎒 @sophontrack]

Listened to this episode of podcast @Endless_Thread about the decline of seagulls https://t.co/XkYeZiIdwC then remembered a guy from Bristol who’s an ornithologist and he’s actually studying the same thing here in Wales (I’m in Wales) https://t.co/qK6nrfCsCH

[Hark Audio @HarkAudio]

Today is #NationalPetDay. In this touching moment from @Endless_Thread, a vet technician writes a heart-felt letter to people who have to put down their pets.
https://t.co/6Mc7ndVieg

[Amory Sivertson @amorymusic]

Good morning to everyone but *especially* to folks who’ve supported #BeyondAllRepair and woke up to episode 7 in their feeds EARLY this morning 😎 On Thursday, they’ll be getting episode 8 a full week early. Join them if you can! https://t.co/fxn1Z2YE8c

[Hark Audio @HarkAudio]

Today is #AutismAwarenessDay.

In this special moment from @Endless_Thread with @amorymusic and @TheBrockJohnson, hear a teenager’s heartwarming reaction when she received her autism diagnosis.
https://t.co/UENW1UCjdf

[Rebecca Lavoie @reblavoie]

Check out todays ep of ⁦@CrimeWritersOn⁩ - in which we talk about the closest-to-perfect podcast I’ve ever heard: Beyond All Repair from ⁦@amorymusic⁩ ⁦@mrzacsp⁩ and ⁦@WBUR⁩ https://t.co/MnReBzP9Ts