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Archive for the ‘Journalism’ Category

It’s About What You Write, Not the Number of Words

I 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.

Writing More Because Bad People Want You to Write Less

Today 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.

Prisons Are for Criminals

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

Cake and Toasting

IN 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.

Unverified Quotes

db-looked

I don’t think the quote above has anything to do with Snowden and an actor claiming to be Snowden is just a for-profit Hollywood production.

Unverified quotes are not a new problem. It’s not an LLM slop issue, wherein they call it “hallucination”. Even decades ago one could easily find false “wisdoms” and fake (or misattributed) quotes online. Those were not satires, though sometimes people passed off satires sans the disclosures.

The best solution is to check the credibility of the sources or trace quotes back to their source.

SLAPPs Did Not Work

15-Year Anniversary Party for Tux Machines

A very pleasant anniversary of Tux Machines was celebrated this summer. Tux Machines came under SLAPPs (lawfare) over 2 years ago, just months before it turned 20. That didn’t hurt the site, it only made it more popular.

We’ve meanwhile seen politicians who want to crack down on SLAPPs appointed to the new cabinet and this new report on legal regulation reform from the Legal Services Consumer Panel says abolish the SRA and BSB. They are part of the problem, they don’t regulate.

I will soon do a long series about the SRA.

22 Years of “the Tux”, Still Going Stronger Than Ever

Crossposted from Tux Machines

When we say “the Tux” we mean Tux Machines

We’re only about two days away from July. The exquisite weather today (cool and sunny) is a fresh breath of air after a week(ish) of heatwave and even bursts of heavy rain last night. I’ve purchased Rianne many boxes of mochi, I’ve begun grinding down the coffee beans, and we’re now in a position to make it a fruitful summer with many editorial pieces, not just curated story picks.

2025 was a busy year for us due to lawfare (we received sound advice), but in 2026 we are catching up and we’ve already made several technical improvements to the site. Our development team enhanced some bits without adding bloat and we’re probably more robust to DDoS attacks this summer (after some attacks crippled us).

We are also grateful for the fact that we forged some new alliances with friendly groups that share similar goals. We help promote them like they help promote us.

Despite what may be claimed online (evil tongues), we have earned a lot of respect in the past few years and made a big leap since the site was 15 (my wife and I became chief curators when the site was 9).

Rianne is still the soul and motor of the site, even if she does not add many original editorials. Behind the scenes there are technical people who keep the site fast and perpetually available, fully patched, properly backed up etc.

Writing About Crime is Not a Crime

Crossposted from Techrights

We are exposing serious corruption every week and maintain 100% source/leaker/whistleblower protection record after 20 years

Jimmy Lai

Yesterday we published post/page #14684 in “New Techrights”, 42 days after this year’s first (#13769). That’s 915 new ones in 42 days or almost 22 per day, on average (it would be 7952 for the whole year or 365 days at this pace). That’s in spite of me writing many more original articles in the sister site. Not everyone is happy about this. The hired guns of the Microsofters, who admit third parties pay for their litigation against me and against my wife, are trying to put me in prison, as noted in:

I cannot stress strongly enough how absurd this is. Thankfully we have NGOs and politicians involved.

The hired guns in London are eager to turn the UK into another China. On behalf of despicable Americans and against the locals.

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