can see 535,926 Web requests in Techrights and I can recall the days when it was 5k or 50k. The incentive to publish (write original articles) back then was profoundly different and writing more was not guarantee of more readers. What matters is the substance.

This is what LLM slop proponents don’t get and may never get. You cannot judge something based on the number of words.

Many legal documents are very carefully written and expensive to produce.

They will perhaps be read by two people – a recipient and judge.

The same is true for academic (scholarly) papers. They will perhaps be read by few people in the same field. They lack mass appeal. Many cannot even comprehend these.

HAVE been getting back to regular blogging in my personal site, which is turning 25 next year and today surpassed 2,900 blog posts. Soon it’ll be over 3,000.

Prior to Techrights this was where I was most active. I sort of neglected this space after participating in Tux Machines as well.

oday I published 46 short and long articles across 3 sites and it feels like a pace that I can maintain because of my habits and growing focus, a devotion to the task at hand.

Doing so without compromising other essential tasks (including sleep) is the bigger challenge, but it boils down to good workflows, discipline, and rational life rhythm.

What motivates me to write even more are the growing efforts – even violent threats – to silence me. When someone makes such demands, the only good response is to do more of the same.

T was nearly a decade ago that we bought the above percolator, which must have prepared thousands of litres of coffee, maybe 1,500-2,000 litres. It still works. We bought it about 80% off RRP in a closing down sale of Clas Olson in Manchester.

Today, for the first time in perhaps a year, I purchased some instant coffee. The price was right and I sort of miss the hassle-free way of making coffee.

Doing it the “instant” has many downsides, especially quantities. Growing up, I felt like “instant” was the only way. Nobody was brewing coffee except “old people”.

“Criminals often call other people criminals as a form of psychological projection, deflection, or hypocrisy.”

N case it’s not obvious, there are some people out there who believe that reporting crimes, opposing online abuse, and generally blogging about tech is sometimes something one deserves prison for. Worse yet, there is collective punishment extending to one’s wife.

It’ll never work. It can only ever backfire badly, both for those who wish for it to happen or those who facilitate or entertain this wish.

Later this year we celebrate 15 years and we still live in a country which cherishes free speech and freedom of the press.

AM reminded today that the Clacton by-election is 11 days away because the BBC has updated its article about it. The election has many candidates on the ballot. “In a statement on his website, external, Pocock, who is a software engineer, is asking voters to
read about his work on ethics in technology, safety of children online, artificial intelligence,
cryptocurrency and cybersecurity,” the BBC says.

This is “short and buried among the loonies,” a friend told me, “but at least he is mentioned [...] how does the math work out in regards to splitting the vote there? If all the anti-Farage and protest votes are spread too thinly…”

Well, it’s very unlikely that Pocock will win and many of the rest cannot win, either. The more potent contender can lose votes to the marginal candidates, but so can Farage.

The outcome will be interesting.

first created a site in Geocities. It was around 1997. It was my first site. It wasn’t until the early 2000s (some time around 2001) that I began developing something about myself, back then a Software Engineering student. It was modeled after the academic page of a lecturer whom I respected.

The Web is waning for many reasons (not just slop), but people still read, some watch videos (usually short ones), and there’s no sign that people will quit caring about literature altogether.

So we all carry on.