@thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@overholt@glammr.us this literally just is "tell me you don't understand the value of reading without telling me you don't understand the value of reading." It so demonstrates that AI is driven by people who care only about outputs and hate the actual process of, well, anything. It's 0% the journey, and 100% just a picture of the destination with these goons.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@futurebird@sauropods.win @GeoffWozniak@masto.hackers.town have you tried Kagi's Small Web? It does precisely that, but I'm not sure if it only works if you have their subscription.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@pluralistic the blog in question is here: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/19/billionaire-solipsism/#sirius-cybernetics The reference to the cat is from "Designing Freedom". And to prove that I'm personally pro-cat, here is a photo of our very own guardian. #cats #cybernetics #tech

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Social media without socializing (19 Jan 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

#Labour going for ye olde misleading graph tactics in the Scottish elections.

Yes. Fine. You'd be the largest party if nothing had changed since the 2024 general election. Shame for you that time is a thing though.

#scotpol #ukpol

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@jon@social.vivaldi.net @h4890@merovingian.club Yes, I agree. Many people have a fairly instinctive dislike of Big Tech and aren't happy with the service they get, or worry about privacy. But they won't change without an easily available alternative. I should really give LibreOffice another go, but it has always been a bit disappointing whenever I've tried it. 🙁

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

I remain baffled by the insistence of recipe books to underestimate how long it takes to cook something, usually by a factor of two. #cooking

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@Flisty @wayne @ChrisMayLA6 100% I'm really done with articles where they find a bunch of retired folk to moan about how workers aren't worked hard enough. If the BBC had been around in the 19th century, we'd have had articles going "This city outlawed child labour, but how will it clean its cotton mills?".

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@KimSJ John McDonnell rightly called it social murder (though in relation to austerity) and was excoriated for it by both the press and politicians of all colours, as it was too rude. This is a country where if you steal some bottles of water you go to prison, but if your policies kill thousands of people, you end up on the Board of the British Museum. (Though come to think of it, that is fairly apt).

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@geolaw @pluralistic I did not know about this, but it doesn't surprise me. The solution always seems to be "if my system doesn't work, *you* just have to adapt".

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

And we're off on our posh #interrail. First stop, London!

writing.exchange

Writing Exchange

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

Billions spent on #AI, but can Word keep a caption attached to an image or even keep pictures on the page where you want them?

No.

Should've stuck with LaTeX.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@Flisty @KimSJ @wayne @ChrisMayLA6 I will concede the point once they find someone to argue in favour of fully automated luxury communism in every article in the business section 😆

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

RE: @iFixit@mastodon.social

And this is why I'm still happy with my #fairphone

mastodon.social

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@cstross@wandering.shop @crystalvisits@mas.wrong.tools @pzmyers@freethought.online I came across the phrase "Stares in European" on here the other day, and I wonder if we should add "Cries in scientist"...

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 7mo ago

RE: @pluralistic@mamot.fr

This excellent blog by @pluralistic@mamot.fr chimes with my observation that, at least in the UK, public provision always feels like it's purposefully unpleasant and ugly, to hammer home that government is bad, and so are you for relying on it.

It also convinced me to move "The Big Con" by Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington to the top of my to read pile.

mamot.fr

Cory Doctorow: "Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Socialist ex…" - Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 8mo ago

@FediTips @molly0xfff There's also @write_as and @writefreely , but I realise it's more of a niche offering 🙂

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@jwi@aus.social @QasimRashid@mastodon.social You're assuming that right wing voters wouldn't approve of the censorship of progressive voices. I'm not sure the concerns about cancel culture were ever in good faith.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@girlonthenet@mastodon.social what an incredibly impressive achievement! And a glorious photo! What was your favourite moment? (Possibly an unfair question, there may be lots of favourite bits).

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

Great time today having to work out why a BIOS update pushed by our laptop's manufacturer breaks windows secure boot, effectively bricking the machine. 😖 #tech

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Tamtam @phantanews @pluralistic It's a very astute observation. You're definitely right that in lots of countries, men are drifting Right, but (young) women are drifting Left. I think you're correct, that men are reacting not just to services disappearing, but also to women no longer being willing to just pick up all care and reproductive labour. Whereas women also suffer from degradation of the public realm, but they know they'll suffer even more under fascist patriarchy.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@Brett @geolaw @pluralistic Presumably this is why the next upgrade to self driving cars will be self targeting guns...

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@ErikUden there's also a great bit from Neal Stephenson's Anathem which is too long to quote here, but I found it here https://medium.com/@k0ryk/neal-stephensons-llm-predictions-7fbb3b39607

medium.com

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@Em0nM4stodon@infosec.exchange stupid question from a non-expert, but where do analytics fit into this? Not the "we want to analyse what you're buying" kind but the "how do you use our site" kind. Because I've noticed even government sites use the banner and presumably they don't sell your data. I'm tangentially involved with building a public sector web portal, and we would like to understand if and where users struggle with the service. Or is that not done with cookies and/or would those class as essential?

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@StarkRG @scalzi Yeah, the "how could anyone have predicted this" vibes are strong with this one.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 9mo ago

Replying to on old.mermaid.town

@ben_hr@old.mermaid.town Thank you for doing this, I really enjoyed the analysis and have bookmarked the list. It has prompted me to consider giving Scavenger's Reign another go. I've really enjoyed writing about solarpunk novels and games I've come across, but I hadn't thought much about movies, so this is really stimulating :) Thank you very much.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@tante@tldr.nettime.org and this is despite CoPilot infesting every MS Office product like a rash. Maybe the business model will turn out to be that they'll force users to pay extra to get rid of CoPilot.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@MostlyBlindGamer@dragonscave.space @tante@tldr.nettime.org Oh yes. You can already see that in how AI gets in the way of user experience everywhere. I'm sure I'm a CoPilot 'user' because the top search result on Bing is now only available in an AI box, and every document now has a 'helpful summary' i can't switch off.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 6mo ago

Replying to

A year is also a good time to reflect. So far I have really enjoyed it here. It feels like Twitter but in the really old days, where you found random people who were interesting, and the algorithm didn't feed you crap all the time. Given the people on here, I am learning a lot more about tech and trans experience than I expected, which has been a great bonus.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot "who argue that current rules have allowed what they describe as abusive proposals, forcing companies to divert resources away from long-term growth to deal with short-term investor demands." Lfmao. Late stage capitalism being famous for taking the long term view and all.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

RE: @pluralistic@mamot.fr

This is some hard needed optimism, but I worry that for the #UK some of it is misplaced. The 'drill baby drill' brigade is getting louder, which is due in part to the enormous 'spark gap', ie the difference in cost between gas and electricity.

With electricity still four times the price of gas due to quirks of the UK energy markets, even highly efficient heat pumps are barely competitive with boilers.

mamot.fr

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@http_error_418 100% This is so indicative of a worldview that thinks that racism, transphobia etc aren't the problem, but people _noticing_ these things is.

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

We're getting loads of pamphlets now for the Scottish elections, and it's dispiriting how banal they all are.

Everyone wants to improve the NHS. Everyone wants to address the cost of living crisis. Everyone hates the other parties. There's no real ideological dividing lines, so if you're not "into politics", you can be forgiven for not knowing how to vote.

I wonder how much this is a consequence of a society unmoored from ideological anchors like church, union or party. #ukpol #scotpol

writing.exchange

Writing Exchange

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 5mo ago

The inevitable has happened and we've now been told to "make #ai happen" at work, without any clear direction about why, how, or what it's supposed to achieve.

Maybe I'll task it with selling paperclips.

writing.exchange

Writing Exchange

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The Casual Critic @thecasualcritic@writing.exchange

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@h4890@merovingian.club @jon@social.vivaldi.net When I've used it previously I found it's formatting more limited, particularly for slides. Probably exacerbated by constant conversion issues with .docx etc documents. Which I know is not their fault, but that knowledge doesn't help much if you keep having to adjust layouts and formatting.

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