The most terrifying enshittification I've discovered has been learning that Microsoft Word documents no longer auto-save if you are not saving them to one of their own proprietary cloud services. I'm slapping control-S like it's 1999.
Simon
@simonxix.com
📚community-led open publishing 🐧open source developer 📽️film critic 🐦birder 🏴he/him 🔗 https://simonxix.com
3/ the core claim: these publishers charge ~10x what article processing actually costs them. They’ve locked down copyright terms that block cheaper alternatives to public access (green OA). The complaint alleges that they caused unreasonable and unnecessary charges to the government.
1/ In 2024, I filed a false claims act lawsuit against Elsevier, Springer, Wiley & Informa alleging they systematically overcharged US federal grants for article processing. The gov declined to intervene and now it's public. Some thoughts on what this is, and what it isn't:
A huge Scottish estate with its own private island is set to be purchased by the local community after a £1 million grant was secured
Locals win £1m to buy 27,000-acre Scottish island estate after 14-year campaign
thenational.scot
A terrific articulation from the Zetkin Collective of the ideological underpinning linking the "war on motorists" and the far-right.
Very dark shit going on here. As with the above, seems to reek of institutional support/advice
Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · yesterdayLeaders of flag-raising group Raise the Colours Oxfordshire placed trackers on highway workers’ cars to find out their home addresses, the High Court has heard. RTC then attempted to intimidate the highway staff into no longer removing flags by repeating their addresses to them.
Walking to work and I see that 2026 is the year of the GenAI-slop Fringe show posters. Very much a minority but they're here and they all use that same font that AI-slop flyers always use.
At some point, AI boosters are going to have to engage with the fact that the people who have most fully and prominently bought into this product are also the stupidest, most evil people on the planet.
PBS News@pbsnews.org · 6d agoThe State Department said it takes "full responsibility" for "hastily" altering and then presenting a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference that mislabeled every single country it highlighted. An analysis by Reuters found a watermark in the map image that suggests it was made with OpenAI.
I have, with my own eyes, watched my tax dollars in the form of missiles as they hit buildings inhabited by civilians. I'd much prefer subsidizing a grocery story I don't use.
USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 2d agoOpinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.
"I'm entitled to whatever I want whenever I want it for any reason and I don't care what satisfying these urges does to me or the world" well okay dude, seems like there's something deeper going on here, but that's just my take
TV genuinely was better when there were 20 episodes a season, maybe 5 of them were really good, another 5 were absolute stinkers, 1 was a clip show and the rest kind of forgettable
lmao this is a truly world class Take she isn’t even talking just video games here, this is a blanket ban on sports, board games, cards, darts, all of it
Pavel@spavel.bsky.social · 3d agoThis may sound radical but "games are shit" is actually the median opinion of every Gamer.
I've been watching all of Christopher Nolan's filmography in order and have seen more affinities with David Lynch's work than I would have expected. MEMENTO is Nolan's LOST HIGHWAY (boxd.it/fyBCeP) and INSOMNIA is Nolan's TWIN PEAKS.
A review of Memento (2000)
Christopher Nolan's LOST HIGHWAY: structured in two clearly distinct narrative parts, a wife-guy has some kind of mental breakdown after the death of his wife and seeks revenge in entirely the wrong p...
boxd.it
This is clearly a real divide in the Scottish Labour left - but stepping back, this sentence is crazy. Not only did Monica Lennon back the GRR reform bill, but every Labour MSP was *whipped* to back it! The movement has been entirely on the other side in the last four years!
RDCK98@comradekenobi.bsky.social · 3d agoReading this, and thinking about the 2026 election where activists boycotted campaigning for Scottish Labour and LGBT+ voters held with SNP on the constituency and Greens on the list, wondering what on earth the theory of victory is from left-wing transphobes www.heraldscotland.com/news/2642848...
ANYONE REMEMBER WHEN DINNER MEANT EVERYONE AT THE TABLE… NO PHONE ALLOWED, NO DISTRACTIONS, JUST TALKING ABOUT YOUR DAY WHILE SLOWLY, IMPERCEPTIBLY AT FIRST, MORPHING INTO WINNIE THE POOH CHARACTERS? ANYONE REMEMBER THAT??
Jesus Zoidberg: 40s is the new 20s.@jesuszoidberg.bsky.social · 5d agoOk, this one might be my favorite, haven't stopped laughing
This might sound elitist, but I don’t think the people liking the Peanuts slop posts should have rights
Barbara Longley Author (no DMs) 📎@blongley.bsky.social · 5d ago
obsessed with the font on IKEA's clam chowder packaging. this is what's in the freezer on the Nostromo
—Yes, you're right. You were deceived. I did make another ring. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom. I forged in secret, a master ring, to control all others. And into this ring I poured all my cruelty, my malice and my will to dominate all life. I was wrong—I'm glad you called me out.
Board for the Operation: Aliens game, based on the abandoned Aliens cartoon series from 1993. Purest pop art.
LinkedIn training their users to do unpaid outsourced data work to label AI slop posts to train an AI model to discriminate between what AI generated posts humans perceive as AI slop, which will raise the quality of AI slop to be more undetectable in order to help users “connect with real people”.
Joseph Cox@josephcox.bsky.social · 6d agoUpdated with comment from LinkedIn executive. The button will help train LinkedIn's models for identifying AI slop www.404media.co/linkedin-int...
Everyone talking about the ScotRail new app disaster but I'm still stuck on the Met Office releasing an unfinished new version that still hasn't got promised features six months later.
Simon@simonxix.com · 7mo agoThe Met Office has updated their Android app but it's actually missing features the previous version had. How does software this unfinished get released?
I'm on the train from Montréal to Toronto. There's just been a reminder that it is MANDATORY to use headphones when watching video. I can't believe this guys have resorted to legislation, rather than our system of having 75% of the carriage sit in murderous, futile rage.
The logical endpoint of no longer even having the option to do this
Siobhan "Shiv" Craig - DarkEden21@darkeden21.bsky.social · 6d agojust in case you wondered how graham is doing lol
Bridget Phillipson, reflecting on her years spent standing idly by while UK higher education crumbled into the abyss and tens of thousands of university workers implored her to do something, literally anything, to save their jobs: BUT WHAT ABOUT ME THO www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
‘It hurts to lose a job you love’: Starmer loyalist Bridget Phillipson fights on despite cabinet demotion
Exclusive: The former education secretary on her new role as Labour chair and continuing as the minister for women and equalities
theguardian.com
It’s like when my dad brings up The Fast Show or Shooting Stars and laments there’s nothing like that anymore. No, not on TV, it was all purged to satisfy the political faction you consistently vote for. But it is out there, on YouTube, and it’s also 1000x funnier and more sophisticated.