Brit living in Belgium and earning an income from building interfaces. Interestes include science, science fiction, technology, and European news and politics
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Fighting for facts in the era of Trump and Musk

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The alliance between Donald Trump and social media platform bosses such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg represents a global threat to free access to reliable information. Le Monde has therefore decided to stop posting its content on X and increase our vigilance on platforms such as TikTok and Meta.
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PaulPritchard
1 day ago
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Belgium
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Note to No 10: one speed doesn’t fit all when it comes to online safety | John Naughton

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Legislation to protect children in the digital realm is essential. But if it results in the loss of small cycling and cancer-care forums, something’s gone wrong

London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed (LFGSS) is an admirable online community of fixed-gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London. Sadly, this columnist does not qualify for membership: he doesn’t reside in (or near) the metropolis, and he requires a number of gears to tackle even the gentlest of inclines – and therefore admires hardier cyclists who disdain the assistance of Sturmey-Archer or Campagnolo hardware.

There is, however, bad news on the horizon. After Sunday 16 March, LFGSS will be no more. Dee Kitchen, the software wizard (and cyclist) who is the core developer of Microcosm, a platform for running non-commercial, non-profit, privacy-sensitive, accessible online forums such as LFGSS, has announced that on that date he will “delete the virtual servers hosting LFGSS and other communities, and effectively immediately end the approximately 300 small communities that I run, and the few large communities such as LFGSS”.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

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PaulPritchard
9 days ago
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Belgium
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Kemi Badenoch was supposed to make the Tories serious again. She has failed | Rafael Behr

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By jumping on Elon Musk’s passing bandwagon and echoing the far right, the Conservative leader has shown she doesn’t understand her responsibilities

The House of Commons is built for confrontation, with rows of benches facing each other across an aisle. When the original Victorian chamber was blitzed to ashes during the second world war, Winston Churchill was adamant that the antagonistic geometry be preserved in the restoration. He spoke dismissively of the foreign, semi-circular assembly, which “enables every individual or every group to move round the centre, adopting various shades of pink according as the weather changes.”

Churchill was leading a national unity government, but that was a wartime expedient. Normal democratic hostilities resumed as soon as Germany surrendered. MPs might rebel against their whips, or even defect, but it takes a national calamity or international crisis for Labour and Tory leaders to declare themselves on the same side.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

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PaulPritchard
13 days ago
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Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Epicurean

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Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Currently reading through this stuff and the How To Live Your Life parts are like footnotes to page upon page of incorrect physics.


Today's News:
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PaulPritchard
13 days ago
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Belgium
acdha
14 days ago
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Washington, DC
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The most powerful person in Europe: Giorgia Meloni

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Check out the POLITICO 28: Class of 2025, with Giorgia Meloni as the most powerful person in Europe.

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PaulPritchard
42 days ago
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Where is Kemi Badenoch’s Tory tent? In a political no man’s land | Rafael Behr

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Having refused to learn from Rishi Sunak’s mistakes, the new Conservative leader looks set to repeat a lot of them

Election defeats are to some degree self-inflicted, so the first place that opposition parties should look for someone to blame for their predicament is a mirror. The Conservatives have flinched from that task.

The leadership race over the summer and autumn featured only a performance of reflection on mistakes made by the last government. The looking-glass was positioned askew so no one had to see themselves as part of the problem.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

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PaulPritchard
42 days ago
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Belgium
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