We’re living in a world shaped by algorithms. They’re not just curating our feeds, they’re changing the way we speak.

Dexter talks with Adam Aleksic, aka the Etymology Nerd, about his new book Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language. They unpack how algorithmic censorship on social media is reshaping the way we use language online, and how it’s bleeding into real life.

Read + Watch:

Make sure to check out Adam’s book: Algospeak

Where to find Adam online:
https://www.etymologynerd.com/

https://etymology.substack.com/

Or @etymologynerd on social media.

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AI music generators are not only the product of scraped (read: stolen) music, they’re also threatening the livelihood of musicians. But there are people who are finding ways to fight back – by using a technique called poison pilling. This week, Dexter talks to two of them: Benn Jordan, a musician and YouTuber who developed a tool called Poisonify, and Jian Liu, the lead developer of HarmonyCloak and Music Shield. These programs add imperceptible noise to a music file rendering it indecipherable to an AI model – and we got to test out how these work with our own theme song.

Read + Watch:

Benn’s YouTube video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMYm2d9bmEA

Jian Liu and Syed Irfan’s paper on HarmonyCloak – https://mosis.eecs.utk.edu/publications/meerza2024harmonycloak.pdf

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @killswitchpod on IG, or @dexdigi anywhere.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once upon a time streaming delivered a utopian fantasy – anything you wanted to watch or listen to, at your fingertips. Now, we’re saddled with dozens of subscriptions and our digital library is at the whim of big tech companies. Even your Kindle books can be deleted without your consent. Is there another way? Dexter talks to Janus Rose, a journalist and artist, who has a solution to this problem: become a digital packrat. That means keeping all of your favorite digital media locally and setting up your own server. And if you want to try it for yourself, this episode will walk you through how.

Resources:

Janus’s article on 404 – The Digital Packrat Manifesto

Download Plex: https://www.plex.tv/

Download Handbrake (use this to rip DVDs): https://handbrake.fr

Download MakeMKV (not mentioned in the show, but see below): https://www.makemkv.com

### YouTube How-To Links ###

"3 Ways to Start Your Own Plex Server" (15 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKDSld-CrHU

"Plex Media Server for Mac" (4 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNRcIOf0YYE

"How to rip DVDs with MakeMKV and Use Handbrake for Hardware Transcoding" (15 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_xdrscVB0Y

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @killswitchpod on Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.