Thomas Baekdal

Author, Professional Writer, Magazine Publisher, and Media Analyst. https://baekdal.com

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npub195vhmn2rlf55uzcmycwwrzpd74jpzn69m48thfnxw675k9vnputqs4tzgk

NIP-05 Address

baekdal@mastodon-social.mostr.pub

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nprofile1qqsz6xtae4pl562wpvdjv88p3qkl2eq3faza6n4m5en8d02tzkfs79s6pkyc3

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npub195vhmn2rlf55uzcmycwwrzpd74jpzn69m48thfnxw675k9vnputqs4tzgk

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Last Notes

2025-04-16 15:09:25

Because of other reasons, I have decided to create a new website (from scratch). There are many things I want to improve. But since I'm doing this anyway, I have also decided to switch to a whitelist model to stop bots. Last week, I had over 350,000 invalid bot requests to my site, peaking at 60 bot requests per second at one point. I'm just so tired of this crap, so I'm building a system that is based on whitelisted access, and anything else is auto-blocked.

2025-03-29 23:43:26

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It turns out LEGO has changed even more pages on their website to make it more Trump friendly: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7311893927979065345/

2025-03-28 21:35:04

What the actual LEGO!!! ... You are a f... Danish company. And even if you were a US company, this would be cowardice and unacceptable!
Now it not the time to remove diversity. Now is the time to firmly prove that you stand for it!
(source: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/lgbtq-og-diversitet-er-forsvundet-fra-legos-aarsrapport)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/242/194/799/544/399/original/b48e48395d67fca4.png

2025-03-06 09:30:43

In school, you learn that the USA is next to Europe, across the Atlantic Ocean. And that Canada is above the US. But in reality, Canada sits between the USA and Europe.
Just saying this in case Canada wants to join the EU to get away from all the madness ;)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/114/783/340/563/090/original/71437476e50a651d.jpg

2025-03-01 16:35:43

I'm getting really tired of European politicians and press downplaying the European market and capabilities. Yes, it would be much better for everyone to have a good alliance and partnership with the US, but Europe is massive on its own.
sources: GDP (Wikipedia, Army size (Macrotrends, spending (government websites + estimated/wikipedia)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/088/134/537/314/284/original/eb7ccd06666f2cfe.png

2024-12-13 20:36:05

Cat vs dog people ;)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/647/430/119/187/748/original/eb75711638d42306.jpg

2024-08-07 14:46:30

Analyzing the duration of news, fighting bots, and ignoring trolls https://baekdal.com/thoughts/analyzing-the-duration-of-news-fighting-bots-and-ignoring-trolls/

2024-07-29 11:03:00

Another day, another bot attack from DigitalOcean's cloud servers. This is not a new thing. DigitalOcean is used by so many bad bots.
I have tried contacting them about it a few times. But they require me to report each incident, but there are thousands of them, so it's just not possible to do.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/869/412/990/916/019/original/cca571ede5bf26eb.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/869/421/155/152/152/original/a42d27975ce39c34.png

2024-07-28 18:09:39

I have power meter on all my office equipment, and this is the usage for the past month:
- Desk (work computer, lights, camera, device charging): 9.78 kWh, €3.33
- Server: 16.70 kWh, €5.68
- Editing computer: 34.75 kWh, €11.82
Total: 61.23 kWh, €20.83

2024-07-19 09:30:48

They are right... if you use Crowdstrike, it will take down your business ;)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/812/454/107/045/998/original/7677a6c01132dbb2.png

2024-05-17 11:01:49

A view of our national grid right now (total electricity production and consumption in Denmark). We are consuming 4,806mw, but we are producing 4,238mw from wind and 2,999mv from solar ... in other words, as a country, we are producing way more renewable energy than we can use.
https://en.energinet.dk/
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/456/078/042/476/768/original/282782c3e4b8ed79.png

2024-03-04 01:35:03

Heh... for the past week, I have been unable to find one of my Sony earphones ... I just found it. Inside a bag of candy. That's a next level hiding place 😂
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/034/845/982/717/411/original/d90394d2da8665ef.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/034/846/454/994/617/original/d7d1047437aea4c8.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/034/846/987/252/489/original/21bf4f3038f23f19.jpg

2024-02-08 11:03:20

One insane thing about 4K video is how it fills your HD. I have a 14 TB harddisk, and it's nearly full ... why? Well, my video of the birds in my garden is 209 GB ... meaning I can only take 14 of those videos to fill up my home server...
In comparison, I calculated it... and my one video of the birds in my garden (209 GB) is the same as ... 153,953 floppy disks (3.5", HD)...
Imagine going back in time to the 1990s and telling someone that one video would be more than 150,000 floppy disks ;)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/895/512/372/745/548/original/6852e7a21f7e5c39.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/895/512/854/516/858/original/b8221347e1a198c9.jpg

2024-01-12 23:53:45

It's -41 C where my sister is at... which means if you throw hot water into the air, it instantly does this ;)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/745/671/135/687/059/original/e59c6a0c6c71e3de.png

2023-12-25 11:35:32

The search for survivors has begun all across the country... ;)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/640/845/003/291/241/original/912bf6cb9db71687.png

2023-12-21 08:11:57

OpenAI has released a prompt guide, and this section illustrate why ChatGPT is a poor tool for journalism.
If the answers it gives changes over time, how can you ever trust any of the answers? https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/prompt-engineering/six-strategies-for-getting-better-results
Again, Journalistic AIs don't work like this. They will give you the correct answer every time, and from the start. I wrote about that here: https://baekdal.com/newsletter/what-is-a-journalistic-ai/
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/617/369/279/468/068/original/8131504c8cc25e31.png

2023-12-12 19:27:08

The ultimate test...
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/569/090/231/563/200/original/4093dc4b1ea8bdfe.jpg

2023-12-06 23:31:41

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@npub1lrv…tth9 @npub1fjp…3dyz
I get what you are saying, but I don't agree. Demanding that important news should be made available for free (and by that extension, that important news should be paid for by the newspapers as a form of public charity to the public) undermines journalism as an industry because it means we can only make money from non-important news which is not profitable... and 20,000 journalists have lost their jobs this year alone.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/536/078/100/156/029/original/3d490672f7e54e2b.png

2023-12-06 09:39:41

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@npub1lrv…tth9 @npub1fjp…3dyz I'm sorry, but this is a misguided mindset. We are seeing massive levels of layoff in the industry, and journalists are not wealthy philanthropists.
In a time of crisis, you don't tell nurses to work for free to help the injured. So telling journalists to not get paid for their important work is wrong.
Instead, as a reader, you should support this very important form of journalism!

2023-12-06 08:41:44

It's that time of year where every woman likes to play mind tricks... ;)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/532/578/960/391/471/original/88df3398cbe79811.webp

2023-10-27 12:40:17

Why are publishers losing traffic from Google? https://baekdal.com/newsletter/why-are-publishers-losing-traffic-from-google-/

2023-10-18 18:37:04

Can I just say how absolutely annoyed I am by newspaper editors turning very important world events into cheap clickbait articles...
I mean... you are screaming to your audience that you don't care one bit about what is happening in the world. All you care about is 'clicks'.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/257/466/930/214/293/original/0b6d1d4debe7d611.png

2023-10-17 23:29:47

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@npub14k2…ed68 Hmmm... that's a good question. I looked it up and there are 5192 Starlink satellites up there... but, they are apparently not included in the list I posted earlier. According to the UN, there are currently 11940 object launched into space that are still 'in orbit' https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/osoindex/search-ng.jspx?lf_id=#?c=%7B%22filters%22:%5B%7B%22fieldName%22:%22en%23object.status.inOrbit_s1%22,%22value%22:%22Yes%22%7D%5D,%22sortings%22:%5B%7B%22fieldName%22:%22object.launch.dateOfLaunch_s1%22,%22dir%22:%22desc%22%7D%5D,%22match%22:%22starlink%22,%22termMatch%22:%22starlink%22%7D
But yeah... Starlink makes up for a ton of those
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/252/953/379/047/607/original/e64bf0de574cc10f.png

2023-10-17 23:12:10

We recently heard the news that Chinese and Australian satellites had a near-miss incident in orbit ... but how many satellites are there in space? Well... 8,744 !!
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/252/877/220/892/844/original/d071ff697d4d9038.png

2023-10-17 22:20:22

Always remember that the role of journalism isn't to do 'both sides', but to find out what actually happened. Or as one of my favorite quotes says:
"If one person says it's raining, and another person says it's not. Our job, as journalists, isn't to cover what these people said, but to look out the window and see what is actually going on.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/252/681/996/333/196/original/7f780c5acb1e63f9.mp4

2023-10-17 21:59:36

There was a time in the past when I believed that the internet would facilitate a new amazing world of 'citizen journalism' ... and that did happen, but then the internet get swamped by 'citizen opinions', where instead of doing actual journalism, people just 'make shit up' based on their personal biases and affiliations.
Today it's almost impossible to find actual trustworthy citizen journalism in all the noise of the rest.

2023-09-24 11:07:29

This is a game-changer in optimizing solar energy ;) (via the @NewYorker )
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/119/802/855/297/829/original/c6919729d80d9657.jpg

2023-09-16 23:13:13

The Search for a Comfy Box! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJHubhkqZlc

2023-09-07 13:43:43

Facebook called our bluff... https://baekdal.com/newsletter/facebook-called-our-bluff/

2023-08-14 13:26:05

In my latest newsletter, I talk about the growing trend around 'content wrappers. Apps and websites (increasingly using AI) that repackages publisher content. https://baekdal.com/newsletter/the-problem-with-ai-content-wrappers/

2023-07-07 16:38:59

Total electricity consumption (grey bars), and production yesterday for the country of Denmark. We were producing so much wind and solar that it far exceeded our consumption, allowing us to export a huge amount of green electricity to the rest of Europe.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/673/780/172/088/597/original/b02a7f1ba10e3fc3.png

2023-06-19 10:33:35

"The 'social contract' was that we provided the content, and they provided the traffic. They broke that agreement. " ...We are getting to the point where tech channels should pay us https://baekdal.com/newsletter/we-are-getting-to-the-point-where-tech-channels-should-pay-us/

2023-05-24 18:01:43

the original patent for the toilet paper/roll defines which way it should hang to create the right tearing motion :) https://patents.google.com/patent/US465588
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/424/967/739/359/585/original/639d2f74b6a46bd4.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/424/968/076/633/348/original/c8d9466cf7d43ce0.png

2023-03-31 22:16:42

Yup…
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/120/206/180/087/671/original/f86b877bd3af80fd.jpeg