Notices by Ian Betteridge (ianb@mastodon.well.com)

What a week.

https://www.ianbetteridge.com/ten-blue-links-the-madness-of-king-donald-edition/

Oh dear.

https://kotaku.com/switch-2-preorder-price-tariff-trump-nintendo-1851774764

Quite.

"Relaxing, ambient* content”

(*fascist propaganda)

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2025/03/an-off-switch-shell-get-years-for-that-2/

Ha ha ha get fucked you orange shitweasel

“The sums, it turns out, are ephemeral. There is a very real chance that Rachel Reeves has agreed to sell out the soul of the Labour Party – and the futures of 50,000 children – to make a spreadsheet add up for five hours on a Wednesday afternoon.”

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/james-ball-is-this-really-what-labour-went-into-government-to-do/

Tax breaks for the tech bros and cuts in welfare. A great look for a Labour government.

Do you think that Google realises that it being able to remove one category of content without any effect on its revenue is a clear demonstration that it's a monopolist?

https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/our-experiment-on-the-value-of-european-news-content/

Bloody love this.

Ten Blue Links, "fly me to the Moon" edition: https://www.ianbetteridge.com/ten-blue-links-2/

I have complicated feelings about scraping and copyright, but one thing is clear: if someone scraped and reused Meta's proprietary code or data in the way it used and shared Libgen to train its AI, they would hit you with a lawsuit so big the "thud" of it landing on the judge's desk would set off earthquake detectors.

Liz Truss: "I managed to almost tank the British economy with a single speech”

Donald Trump: "Hold my beer”

Worth remembering when you think how Europe might “struggle" to match Russia: UK+EU+UA defence expenditure already sits at about $400bn. That’s as much as China and Russia combined. The issue is what it's spent on, not what's spent.

https://www.iiss.org/publications/the-military-balance/2025/defence-spending-and-procurement-trends/

I've been thinking a lot about why Apple has been so slow to the AI race. The news that it's going to be late with its new, personalised Siri crystalised some of those thoughts into an actual post.

https://www.ianbetteridge.com/hardware-dreams-ai-nightmares-apples-crisis-of-imagination/

Kyle Clifford watched up to 10 videos by Andrew Tate in the lead up to raping and killing his ex, and murdering her mother and sister. But sure online misogynists aren’t a problem.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/06/kyle-clifford-watched-andrew-tate-videos-before-triple

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.

Gramsci would recognise Trump's social media activity as a form of "war of position" - conquering cultural territory before political victory. His ability to bypass traditional "organic intellectuals" and speak directly to voters illustrates how digital platforms reshape hegemonic struggle.

Or, to put it another way, he's a slippery little shit.

Things about journalism I have learned:

Journalism is a practice, not a role.

Journalism is a trade, not a profession.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

It's a shame, because ADP is great for anyone who is handling sensitive data (including, of course, journalists). Knowing the company you're getting storage from simply can't access it, either for their own use or at the secret request of a government, is reassuring in a world like ours.

Right call from Apple, absolutely the wrong call from the UK government (on both counts). Time to move any data you have in iCloud Drive to alternative providers who have zero-access encryption and are beyond the reach of the UK government.

https://9to5mac.com/2025/02/21/apple-removing-end-to-encryption-uk/