Governments Are Using Spyware on Citizens. Can They Be Stopped?: Companies like the NSO Group are happy to sell commercial spyware to governments who will predictably use it for bad things.

The Subprime AI Crisis: Ed Zitron worries about what happens when the unprofitability of the current generative AI business becomes unsustainable.

Get Me Out Of Data Hell: The day Nikhil Suresh’s software engineering work pushed him so far into the pain zone that he has to quit there and then.

Ban smacking in England now, says children’s commissioner: Proposal to ban smacking one’s child in England, similarly to existing Scottish and Welsh legislation.

The Shareholder Supremacy: One of the many original sins of modern-day capitalism was when we decided companies should focus on pleasing their shareholders rather than their customers.

The Other Bubble: Why “Software as a Service” (SaaS) products - especially the enterprise-oriented offerings - often end up being so awful.

When therapy goes wrong: the problem of underqualified practitioners: Far more people should see therapists, but it is wild that there’s technically nothing to stop anyone claiming to be one.

XOXO festival 2024 playlist: Videos from the final outing of the ‘experimental festival for independent artists who live and work online’.

Who owns your shiny new Pixel 9 phone? You can’t say no to Google’s surveillance: Researchers find the Pixel 9 phone transmits “location, email address, phone number, network status, and other telemetry” to Google every 15 minutes by default.

A Personal Take on Using LLMs: Eleanor Konik’s view on when she finds it reasonable to use large language models.

The Return of the Deniers and the Revenge of Patoshi: One of the analyses that suggest that the creator of Bitcoin owns around 1.1 million of them.

Using static websites for tiny archives: What Alex does with the files that survive the decluttering.

Digital decluttering: Alex Chan’s process of deleting their less valuable files.

Revealed: International ‘race science’ network secretly funded by US tech boss: Andrew Conru previously gave >$1 million to the ‘Human Diversity Foundation’.

You should be using an RSS reader: RSS is great (& Cory Doctorow uses Newsblur for it).

Undercover police officer admits spying on Keir Starmer when he was a barrister: I’d maybe have been more actively excited about Starmer in his ‘radical barrister’ phase of life.

Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance: Arguments against the nothing-to-fear trope.

The Art of Working Loudly: Don’t hold back from talking about what you’re working on.

Armed man arrested near Trump’s California rally was plotting to kill him, police say: Are there usually quite so many assassination attempts on a US presidential candidate?

Induction chemotherapy followed by standard chemoradiotherapy versus standard chemoradiotherapy alone in patients with locally advanced cervical cancer: Research finds that a bout of chemotherapy before the standard chemoradiotherapy reduces deaths from, and recurrence of, cervical cancer.

Expensive sci-fi dreck: The title refers to Elon Musk’s latest robo-stuff of course.

Starmer’s Brexit “Reset” is Not What the Public Wants: Starmer’s transition from committed defender of our previous European freedoms to someone content to make the most minor tweaks to the relationship.

Muscle matters: the effects of medically induced weight loss on skeletal muscle: Losing large amounts of weight, whether via using pharmaceuticals or otherwise, can cause substantial muscle loss.

28 things I’ve learned: Mainly about how to treat both yourself and other people.

Pure Blogger: ‘Pure blogging’ is ‘blogging because you have something to say’.