I don’t blame him, but Ian Dunt started his column last week with this:

Somewhere along the line, technology went from something hopeful to something threatening.

Given the continued overreach of the trillion Dollar companies (Meta, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon) this is understandable. Whether we like it or not, these companies have an outsized influence on the technologies we use. Their success allows them to push into even more niches, from your phone, to your watch, to your speakers, to your car, to your fridge. When they collectively decided that AI was the next big thing, they subjected us to it, whether we wanted it or not. These companies farm your personal information so they can sell advertising¹, and obscure what they do to make it impossible to opt-out or give informed consent.

A couple of years ago I did a conference talk called “On Cloud Nine: How to be happy migrating your in-memory computing platform to the cloud.” I wish I’d had “Cloud Without Compromise” back then. It covers much of the same ground but, as you’d expect in a book rather than a forty minute conference talk, in much greater depth. More importantly, it puts some concepts into context much more clearly that I did, either by explaining it better or by giving it a good name.

A few years ago we got an Amazon Fire tablet and I could almost copy and paste that review for the ninth generation unit [affiliate link].

My biggest complaint this time around is the battery life. It feels like it’s always in need of recharging. Almost everything else from last time is improved. It’s slightly smaller. The build quality is much better. It’s faster.

Having said that it’s still no iPad. While faster it still feels sluggish compared with Apple’s tablet, the screen is a lot worse and the software library is laughable by comparison. But, as before, it’s also a tenth of the price. As an almost disposable consumption device, I have few complaints.

• US switch to new lethal injection scrutinised – However you do it, killing people is a cruel and unusual punishment.
• Rudiments of Language Discovered in Monkeys – “Lemasson … suspects that a dense jungle environment drove the evolution of syntax. Since the monkeys had trouble seeing each other, they compensated by talking.”
• Google DNS – Why would Google make their own DNS service if there’s no direct way to sell advertising from it?