Notices by Ian Betteridge (ianbetteridge@writing.exchange)

Daughter of Crispin James Alan Nevill Money-Coutts, 9th Baron Latymer, says what?

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.

(Reminder: Google Messages “RCS” is not the actually RCS standard, and forces all messages to go through its servers, giving it all the sweet, sweet unencrypted metadata it wants)

https://9to5google.com/2024/02/29/google-messages-rcs-rooted/

The university of Kent, where I virtually live (long story) wants to lay off over 50 academics, including closing its journalism course. Please sign this petition.

https://www.change.org/p/save-arts-humanities-and-social-sciences-subjects-at-the-university-of-kent?recruiter=203519596&recruited_by_id=c8cf45a0-9083-11e4-b3c5-710ce9c0bb18&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf&share_bandit_exp=initial-37878885-en-GB

One of the greatest tricks capitalism pulls is the myth that if a service is run privately it magically becomes so efficient that not only is it a better service for customers, it can generate enough for a tax we call “dividends” going to shareholders. Well, we don’t get the efficiencies - but they get dividends anyway.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/01/royal-mail-killed-lying-politicians-lousy-managers-ruthless-moneymen

Yeah, yeah, I know. Fool me once etc.

https://ianbetteridge.substack.com/p/substack-and-platform-risk

And for those who would prefer a non-Substack version...

https://ianbetteridge.com/2023/12/22/substack-and-platform-risk/

@dogwonder Amazingly, it took all of five minutes: there's a Substack-specific content importer which just takes the zip file you export from Substack. And the subscriber importer accepts a zip file. The biggest tricky bit for anyone is, I think, going to be billing: you can mark someone as a paid subscriber, but they have to authorise payment again (even though it's all done through Stripe, for most publications).

@aral If this whole tech thing doesn't pan out, you have a great future in comedy ;)

Listening to the latest "Sharp Tech" podcast with Ben Thompson, and they're talking about how governments can't build things... I had to stop it when James asked "why didn't the government build SpaceX?"

Mate, you never heard of the Apollo programme?

Remember everyone, when a job is so low paid the government has to top it up via benefits, it's a direct subsidy from taxpayers to shareholders, and from the poor to the rich.

I see 30p Lee, a man so dense he warps the gravitational field of the Earth, has had another hissy fit. He thinks of himself as a "man of the people" but he's really the pub bore, the one who wanders over while you're trying to play the fruit machine to give you the benefit of his views, loudly.

There is a certain irony in calling a march calling for a ceasefire of a bloody conflict "disrespectful" on a day which remembers a ceasefire which ended a very bloody conflict.

Do you think that when Marc Andreessen quotes the Futurist Manifesto he's also aware that Maranetti, who wrote it, was a fascist?

Marc Andreessen's manifesto: https://technovia.co.uk/2023/10/16/marc-andreessens-manifesto.html

Once again I have no idea who originally created this, but I salute you.

I have no idea who originally made this graphic, but whoever you are, you are a genius.

I kept saying this yesterday – the government *did not* remove clauses requiring companies to spy on E2EE communications. The situation remains exactly the same, it intends to get access to all encrypted communications in the UK. This was NOT a victory. All that happened was a minister pointed out that Ofcom could not issue an order to do something which wasn’t technically possible.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/09/07/uk-tries-to-claim-it-hasnt-backed-down-on-encryption-at-all?utm_medium=rss

It's long past time for Apple to stop advertising on Twitter: https://ianbetteridge.micro.blog/2023/09/04/its-long-past.html

Hmmm, now what's the phrase I'm looking for? Oh yeah – the record labels are parasites on creative people and should go to hell.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/music-labels-sue-internet-archive-over-digitized-record-collection-2023-08-12/

@aral LLOLLOLOLLOLOLLLLLLL

(Literally laughed out loud at that one!)