Mark Vent

@markvent.bsky.social

Problem-solver. Tech-nerd. Comedy-geek. Magic-fan. Book-lover. Rationalist & Atheist. Swansea Jack. You cannot live as I have lived & not end up like this.

“The problem with Fox News: It won’t broaden our horizons.” “The problem with Truth Social: It won’t broaden our horizons.” “The problem with the Manosphere : It won’t broaden our horizons.” Come back to us when you’ve fixed their echo chambers.

The Globe and Mail@theglobeandmail.com · 2y ago

Opinion - The problem with Bluesky: It won’t broaden our horizons: In the wake of Donald Trump’s election win, the social-media platform has enjoyed a surge of new users looking for an alternative to Elon Musk’s X. But will it be useful, if it just creates an echo chamber for the left?

If you have a bookshop near you, make sure to pop in regularly and check that your favourite bookseller has enough water and is being taken for regular walks (Or just buy a book on their website)

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Are they calling it “long-awaited” because they think we will forgot that 10 days ago Israel said Hamas’s HQ was in the basement of a hospital in northern Gaza? Cause we did not forget it was like last week ffs.

NYT push alert: “Breaking News
Israel has begun an invasion of southern Gaza, images show. The long-awaited ground operation could decide the fate of the war with Hamas.”

Spotify is a data hosting and handling service. They don’t write any songs. Deciding they can’t be arsed to do the fiddly accounting that comes with their business’ USP (access to all recorded music) is them failing to do their only duty: to handle data and account. Of *course* it’s easier not to.

Remember when I worked in bookselling, knowing that most of a shop’s stock never makes a penny, but it being there at all is what makes a bookshop feel well stocked and attracts customers. We never considered just stealing those books from authors to fill the shelves.

It’s the business model perfected by supermarkets and described in the book Tescopoly. Make suppliers give you their stuff for nothing, then still put it on the shelves. How the ingredients in value added meals are sourced: by rejecting them, not paying for them from farmers, but still using them.

If you say "an established good or service, but you can charge less for it because you don't pay people" into a mirror three times $13bn of seed capital will magically appear.

GIVEAWAY! I'm going to give TWO lucky people five paperbacks of their choice - worth up to £50! There'll be one winner on here and one on twitter. Simply retweet and follow by 8pm on Sunday 22nd October for your chance to win! Here's what 5 paperbacks looks like, just in case.

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So ... it' appears I'm also here, very much wanting to drop there as soon as all those there are here - in the meantime I vacillate, between two stools as it were ... which is a fine trick if you can pull it off, as the actress said to the bishop ...