US support to maintain UK’s nuclear arsenal is in doubt, experts say : Downing Street sought to play down concerns earlier this week after diplomatic figures including the former British ambassador to the US Sir David Manning floated the scenario of an end to Anglo-US nuclear coo … | Continue reading
Microsoft pushes ahead with GenAI games that no one wants: “When we rely on this stuff we are implicitly empowering a class of people who own these tools and don’t give a fuck about how they reshape our lives.” The replacement of craft with capital continue apace. | Continue reading
In the past couple of months I’ve subscribed to 404media, The Verge, and Wired, and I’m really happy to do it. All three of them are doing exceptional work and great reporting. While mainstream media is generally failing us all, tech sites are stepping up to the challenge. | Continue reading
Of course Y Combinator is investing in and cheering on technologies which dehumanise low paid workers. Of course they are. | Continue reading
Grok, the AI part of X, got caught spinning responses in a way which prevented it from surfacing posts which accused either Elon Musk or Donald Trump of spreading misinformation: Grok, Elon Musk’s ChatGPT competitor, temporarily refused to respond with “sources that mention Elon … | Continue reading
This quote from James Murdoch is absollutely telling, and absolutely true. Tabloids were the original media trolls: Musk and his acolytes are just the digital native equivalent. | Continue reading
Like many people who grew up in media in the 90s/00s, I am endlessly fascinated by the Murdochs, and this Atlantic piece on James is absolutely juicy reading. | Continue reading
I’m watching a video from someone who switched from MacBook to Ubuntu on a ThinkPad and they have have HELL getting DaVinci to work. God bless them. | Continue reading
Apple asks court to halt Google search monopoly case | The Verge: Apple writes that if its appeal isn’t handled until after the remedies trial has begun and it’s unable to participate, “Apple may well be forced to stand mute at trial, as a mere spectator, while the government pur … | Continue reading
A brief history of the Finder – The Eclectic Light Company: Thus, each Finder window could only show the contents of a single folder, and that location couldn’t be changed within that window. Navigating from one folder to another was accomplished by opening windows. It wasn’t unc … | Continue reading
Ted Cruz thinks that kids having access to free internet is “censoring conservative viewpoints”: Cruz’s press release said that “unlike in a classroom or study hall, off-premises hotspot use is not typically supervised, inviting exposure to inappropriate content, including social … | Continue reading
Kudos to Google for open sourcing the Pebble operating system. And I’m really looking forward to getting a Pebble this time round: Rather than buy another smartwatch, Migicovsky decided to try and get Pebble going again. He sold his most recent startup, a messaging app called Bee … | Continue reading
WANT: Part of prolific fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld’s estate is currently being auctioned off. The auction includes what you’d expect from an average estate auction: flatware, silverware, artwork, and books. | Continue reading
Wait what now? Linux is malware? The same Linux that Meta runs a load of servers on? Facebook is banning posts that mention various Linux-related topics, sites, or groups. Some users may also see their accounts locked or limited when posting Linux topics. Major open-source operat … | Continue reading
The unread email count on Mike McCue’s home screen is literally giving me the fear. | Continue reading
So much of this Reid Hoffman article on “making AI work for us” reads like someone who didn’t have any friends when they were a child and now wants a robot friend who is wise, kind and doesn’t try to steal their lunch money. It would be sad if these guys weren’t bending the world … | Continue reading
It’s really hard to comprehend this level of idiocy. | Continue reading
I’ve been saying this for a long time: SEO should not define your content strategy, and long term the publishers which do so will pay a hefty price. That doesn’t mean you don’t consider SEO important. It just means it’s not everything. | Continue reading
Lewis Goodall is really on point with this: That is how Trumpism is best understood. It is about the free expression of power, without hindrance, even over our collective understanding. And this week, it reached a new apex: Trump wants the power to shape not only the present, but … | Continue reading
One of the genuinely fascinating things about this interview with Marc Andreessen is how much it reeks of “they made me do it!” – the cry of a little boy who never grew up. Andreessen, like all his cohort, cannot accept personal responsibility for anything. | Continue reading
‘He feels empowered’: DeSantis kicks off takeover of second liberal Florida school: Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, has engineered a second “hostile takeover” of a liberal-leaning state school, education watchers say, after he installed a number of staunch conservativ … | Continue reading
Exclusive | Meta’s Free-Speech Shift Made It Clear to Advertisers: ‘Brand Safety’ Is Out of Vogue - WSJ: Brand safety “has become politicized and it was never motivated by politics,” said Brad Jakeman, a former marketer at PepsiCo. The movement around brand safety happened becaus … | Continue reading
Daring Fireball: Siri Is Super Dumb and Getting Dumber: Old Siri — which is to say pre-Apple-Intelligence Siri — does OK on this same question. On my Mac running MacOS 15.1.1, where ChatGPT integration is not yet available, Siri declined to answer the question itself and provided … | Continue reading
Congress finds Trump's TikTok sale scheme confusing, possibly illegal - Live Updates - POLITICO: Members of Congress are declaring themselves bewildered by Donald Trump’s latest proposal to save TikTok by brokering a joint-ownership deal. “I don’t know what he means by that," sai … | Continue reading
Quarter of English councils may have to sell homes to balance books, study finds: As part of other efforts to balance budgets, 28% of councils said they expected to sell off existing housing stock, while 45% are already using reserves to cover day-to-day spending. Of the 76 counc … | Continue reading
German ambassador warns of Trump plan to redefine constitutional order, document shows Germany’s ambassador to the United States has warned that the incoming Trump administration will rob U.S. law enforcement and the media of their independence and hand big tech companies “co-gov … | Continue reading
Honestly, if you fancy a glimpse into some of the most batshit stuff on the planet, doing a site search on citizengo.org for the word “woke” will leave you with your mouth open. Apparently it’s mostly “the transgenders”, of course. Woke, the lot of ya. | Continue reading
The Slop Society Meta hasn’t “made a right-wing turn.” It’s been an active arm of the right wing media for nearly a decade, actively empowering noxious demagogues like Alex Jones, allowing him to evade bans and build massive private online groups on the platform to disseminate co … | Continue reading
Most Mac users of a certain age remember Power Computing, the Mac cloner who undercut Apple with better machines back in the mid-90s. Apple ended up buying Power Computing out and putting an end to the clone market. Well if you can’t compete, use your financial muscle. It’s often … | Continue reading
Foxes are cute, they said, look how cute they are, they said. | Continue reading
Ed Zitron, on “The Slop Society”: Meta hasn’t “made a right-wing turn.” It’s been an active arm of the right wing media for nearly a decade, actively empowering noxious demagogues like Alex Jones, allowing him to evade bans and build massive private online groups on the platform … | Continue reading
Systemic Risk Reporting: A System in Crisis? Instead of relying on platforms or regulators to define how risks should be conceptualized and mitigated, a joint approach is needed—one that builds on expertise by civil society, academics and activists, and emphasizes best practices. … | Continue reading
The “something” that I was testing earlier (which worked) is the integration between Drummer and Micro.blog. I’ve always been a fan of outliners, and I’m interested in maybe using this one. | Continue reading
File under “things which make absolutely no sense at all” | Continue reading
Testing something which I hope will work. Wish me luck! | Continue reading
Tom MacDonald and Roseanne Barr have written what can loosely be called ‘a song’ for Trump’s inauguration. And it is as bad as you might expect. The first lines are: We won, you mad/It’s done, too bad/Boo-hoo, so sad/Now your daddy’s home | Continue reading
SpaceX calls their explosions “rapid unscheduled disassemblies,” which I think is intended as a joke, a parody of corporate euphemisms (while still trying to deflect attention from the danger). It reminds me of the language used by manufacturers of certain types of light bulbs. W … | Continue reading
Did Donald Trump Really Just Drop a Solana Meme Coin? - Decrypt On-chain sleuths pointed to potential red flags, including the apparent fact that the project was seeded with millions of dollars of funds from Binance and Gate—two exchanges that don’t serve U.S. customers. But some … | Continue reading
Over on my big school blog, Ten Blue Links is a day late, but you’ll forgive that, won’t you? | Continue reading
Some nifty news: Ghost is getting ActivityPub features this year. This makes me even happier that I moved from WordPress to Ghost. | Continue reading
Mark Zuckerberg lies about content moderation to Joe Rogan’s face In fact, many of the controversial moderation calls Facebook made in the pandemic were during the Trump administration. Take, for instance, the “Plandemic” video hoax: Facebook removed the video in 2020. Joe Biden … | Continue reading
What Will Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy Accomplish with DOGE? | The New Yorker Nothing good. | Continue reading
Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation is planning to target Wikipedia moderators. So there’s that. forward.com/news/6867… | Continue reading
Flat tax rate is an ‘attractive idea’, Kemi Badenoch says | Kemi Badenoch From the department of batshit Tories, we bring you this: At the moment, we are a welfare state with a little bit of a productivity attached to it. We’ve got to turn that around. | Continue reading
I’m going to make a subclause of Betteridge’s Law for this one which changes “no” to “nothing good”. | Continue reading
Meanwhile, the billionaires would very much like you to know it’s now illegal not to give them your money. | Continue reading
It’s nearly November and I’m wearing a t shirt. Global warming, eh? Not a fan. | Continue reading