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Is there ever a week where this doesn’t come in handy?
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Ian Betteridge
@ianbetteridge@social.vivaldi.net
mastodon 4.7.3+vivaldimodJournalist, anti-capitalist, degrowther, your pal. I work for the company. But don't let that fool you, I'm really an okay guy. The Eye of Sauron, but for headlines.
7862 Followers
1097 Following
50 Posts
Joined October 19, 2025
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So basically five muppets with a couple of vans is enough to see the US withdraw bombers from Europe? If the USSR had known that, the Cold War might have turned out quite differently.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmwyve191dlko
So let me get this right... SpaceX's "successful" orbital launch of Starship lost an engine in flight, was cut from a planned six orbits to two (and SpaceX isn't saying why), neither part is reusable, and the top part blew up on splashdown.
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Kudos to the Guardian for this description
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How come the far right stop the boats scum bags who attacked the infrastructure of Dover this morning weren’t arrested and charged with terrorism offences?
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That's it lads the robots are revolting
Imagine if instead of pumping billions into AI we gave the money to artists. What a flowering of culture we would gain.
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Meanwhile, Elon Musk is calling for the murder of British people and the government does nothing.
I get putting "Lake America" on US users' maps. Whatever, it's his country now. But why does the rest of the world – all of which call it Lake Ontario – have to have "Lake America/Lake Ontario"? If Iran decides to call the Straight of Hormuz "The Straight of Trumps Defeat" are Apple going to change it on US maps?
https://9to5mac.com/2026/09/01/apple-maps-renaming-lake-ontario-to-lake-america-following-trump-order/
This never gets old. https://www.reaction.life/p/britain-looks-like-brexit
We really are at the end phase of the decline of the American republic. Gold ballrooms, statues to Caesar, praetorian guard. Next we will have Didius Julianus buying the presidency.
Why I can’t bring myself to read Neal Asher these days.
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I always have to caveat this with “I am not a Marxist”, but neoliberalism and the globalisation which went hand in hand always contained the seeds of their own downfall.
Ever day, in every way, I thank my lucky stars that I bought 32Gb of RAM and a 4Tb SSD long before the AI idiots made it more expensive than rubies.
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Curious person: "Hey Ian, you're a journalist! Your living has long been paid for by advertising. Why do you use an ad blocker?"
Me:
I approve this exception
Good news for the people of New Mexico!
https://www.theverge.com/policy/921557/meta-threatens-leaving-new-mexico
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And of course, no post about the right is complete without a “whatever they accuse others of, what’s what they do”. So here’s Ben Cullen, currently awaiting trial on charges of making indecent images of children.
https://metro.co.uk/2026/06/30/raise-colours-figure-accused-making-indecent-images-children-28990224/
One of the things I enjoyed most about my degree was doing some astronomy. I was a humanities student but my minor was astronomy and I was taught by the lovely Iain Nicolson. I think about Iain every time I see the full moon
https://britastro.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/IainNicolson.pdf
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:67bgg4j34njbopitm62cvddy/post/3mndksvwamk2g
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And this is the problem with much of today’s political commentary – a refusal to believe that the neoliberal era is over. It’s over not because people have lost their minds (which would be their preferred explanation) but simply because it was never sustainable.
You’re not required to disclose you have a GRC but you can’t use the facilities of the gender you’re recognised as, thus making it obvious that you have a GRC.
Seriously who writes this shit, and do they ever actually bother reading it to find out how stupid it is?
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xurjtu2wa2akyi64gab34ahg/post/3mnd44iyzys2i
Once again, can I just point out how good Kagi’s Small Web is? Every Sunday I spend an hour using it to read blogs and other sites that I would never otherwise come across, and finding some proper gems. Thank you @kagihq@mastodon.social
I really like that @kagihq@mastodon.social has a feature called "SlopStop" that lets you downrank or exclude sites which use a lot of AI generated content.
Well @brokenbottleboy@mastodon.world is always good value but I love his latest piece on the completely fake “Farage banned from Desert Island Discs!” story. The sooner people realise that the Mail makes stuff up the better.
https://brokenbottleboy.substack.com/?utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web
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Going one better there’s Billy Allison, who took time out of his busy schedule grifting to buy flags from Temu to murder someone in a pub.
https://metro.co.uk/2026/05/28/raise-colours-founder-billy-allison-charged-murder-bar-owner-28555599/?ref=birminghamdispatch.co.uk
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Well, let’s start with Ryan Bridge, recently arrested for racially aggravated harassment. Bet his mother loves him!
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/raise-colours-co-founder-ryan-33702325
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@rebelrebel62@mstdn.social @DeliaChristina@sfba.social Well that gave me a chuckle
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Richard Denniss - Can Anthony Albanese be trusted to negotiate on AI?
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@woe2you I can pre-approve that one.
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Image from this excellent FT story:
https://www.ft.com/content/78d6b56e-48c8-40e3-930f-709bb9989e6e?syn-25a6b1a6=1
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@andycarolan@social.lol /me shakes fist at the sky
"If you’re under the impression that these models are 'glorified autocomplete' or that progress is slowing down, I need to urge you: stop thinking that."
No, really, do. Just because some dweeb is using them to make obviously-fake images or bad poetry doesn't mean they're not capable of much, much worse things.
https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/07/29/some-notes-about-anthropics-new-results/
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@gadgetgav@mas.to Same. It's one of those timeless albums that sounds like it comes from another planet.
I had exactly the same reaction to Arrival and I know that I'm not the only one
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:iu4j537hox5huj4bwnwgub4z/post/3mqvcmd7hpk2z
RE: https://mas.to/@carnage4life/116825465041766357
This, I suspect, will be a story that recurs. And as with most corporate errors, management will not be accountable at all.
Quoting
Ford has rehired hundreds of senior engineers after replacing them with AI backfired and has cost the company billions of dollars.
AI adoption is blamed for Ford being the most recalled automaker in the U.S. with 51 recalls covering over 11 million vehicles in the first half of 2026 alone.
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-human-workers-b3003787.html
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@methchild@mas.to @kagihq@mastodon.social It's just such a lovely little thing to make.
Replying to on click.ba.it
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@andy47@aus.social It was indeed!