Martin SFP Bryant
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martinsfp.bsky.social
Martin SFP Bryant
@martinsfp.bsky.social
Uncovering early stage startups at PreSeed Now, working on Geekout, helping the tech world communicate better with Big Revolution… always doing something.
That Pluribus cliffhanger this week. Damn you, Gilligan!
November 29, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Bluesky gonna Bluesky
Really appreciate the person who responded to this by scolding me that books belong in a library not a home, whose post was up for about 30 seconds before they (apparently?) thought better of it and deleted it. I donate tons of books every year to my library. But I keep some...
I am a strong believer that every household bookshelf should have a Tom Stoppard section. RIP.
November 29, 2025 at 7:33 PM
I wanted to control it
But love, I couldn't hold it
BBC Radio 6 Music
6 Music's Indie Forever

Now Playing
Camera Obscura
French Navy
November 28, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Reposted by Martin SFP Bryant
Damn they got there quickly on this one, impressive
China's top economic planning agency warns about the risk of a bubble forming in the booming humanoid robotics industry; 150+ manufacturers operate in China (Bloomberg)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
November 28, 2025 at 5:02 AM
Sad that they're doing this now after trashing their brand for years through ad overload, irrelevant content from around the UK etc.

Online publishing is certainly not easy but the MEN has deserved better.

Manchester Evening News launches premium subscriptions.
Manchester Evening News launches premium subscriptions - Prolific North
Manchester Evening News has become the first Reach title to introduce premium subscriptions for its online title.
www.prolificnorth.co.uk
November 28, 2025 at 11:36 AM
This is good from @stephenkb.bsky.social on immigration:
www.ft.com/content/cb00...
November 28, 2025 at 10:01 AM
The dumb truth behind that budget leak, according to The Times 🙃

www.thetimes.com/article/ee66...
November 27, 2025 at 8:23 PM
The Office of Budget Communications Irresponsibilty
Leak comes as OBR accidentally uploaded their forecasts early (not HMT's fault!)

But surely huge consequences for OBR - blind fury about this in government
BREAKING The entire Budget has leaked early

- £22BN of headroom
- £26bn tax rises
- Freeze on tax thresholds
- Pay per mileage confirmed
- Changes to capital gains
November 26, 2025 at 12:16 PM
David Sacks tried to kill state AI laws — and it blew up in his face: A leaked executive order draft reveals the tech billionaire making a power play to become America’s AI policy gatekeeper.
David Sacks tried to kill state AI laws — and it blew up in his face
A leaked executive order reveals that the tech billionaire would have become America’s AI policy gatekeeper.
www.theverge.com
November 26, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Martin SFP Bryant
new favourite New York Times term for a British thing just dropped
November 26, 2025 at 10:05 AM
I shared this on Threads too, and most of the replies are ‘the general public is stupid so I’d prefer judges to decide cases by themselves’ 🤨
Er, this seems very bad if true.

“Juries will decide only murder, rape or manslaughter cases under a shake-up of the legal system which could signal the beginning of the end for trial by jury.”
Jury trials to be scrapped except for alleged rapists and killers
David Lammy is proposing that judges hear cases alone for crimes that could result in a sentence of up to five years to tackle court backlog
www.thetimes.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by Martin SFP Bryant
As David Lammy put it in 2020 👇🏻. Sadly he seems to have literally eaten his words. Disappointing indeed.
November 25, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Martin SFP Bryant
If anybody has any idea why my Twitter account is Japanese, let me know!!
"The X account of Hank Green, a popular YouTuber, says his account is based in Japan; Green told me Sunday that he’d never been to Japan"

A little reminder that all of you trust Elon Musk's website way too much.
Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors
How X blew up its own platform with a new location feature
www.theatlantic.com
November 25, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Er, this seems very bad if true.

“Juries will decide only murder, rape or manslaughter cases under a shake-up of the legal system which could signal the beginning of the end for trial by jury.”
Jury trials to be scrapped except for alleged rapists and killers
David Lammy is proposing that judges hear cases alone for crimes that could result in a sentence of up to five years to tackle court backlog
www.thetimes.com
November 25, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Just chaired a panel on the UK creative industries and AI at the Beyond conference in Salford. I think the audience moved slightly from favouring “opt-in only” licensing to a more nuanced “it depends” view. No-one wanted blanket permission for AI companies with an opt-out though. Sorry, Sam Altman.
November 25, 2025 at 1:19 PM
This is a really interesting startup...

Mining... without the mine?

Thunderstone wants to shake up the mining industry with electricity.
Thunderstone: Mining... without the mine
Thunderstone wants to shake up the mining industry with electricity
preseednow.com
November 25, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Martin SFP Bryant
Yup. A lot of publishers made a great deal of money from affiliate ecommerce revenue. How much? Well, in 2024 Future made over £303m, 38% of total revenue. That easily eclipsed advertising (£225m).
Fuck me, RIP to Future's business model, I guess
OpenAI unveils a free shopping research feature in ChatGPT that delivers a personalized buyer's guide, powered by a custom version of GPT-5 mini (Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
November 24, 2025 at 8:15 PM
I got this message this morning. I don't remember opting in to WhatsApp specifically as a marketing channel, and while they might have it covered with SMS consent, it just comes across as instrusive.
Amazon UK has decided to start spamming people on WhatsApp today 🙄
November 24, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Wow, Spotify has acquired WhoSampled. I’m pretty sure I was the first journalist to write about it back in 2009. Such a useful resource.
Spotify's acquisition of WhoSampled sparks fears of "sample snitching"
The streaming giant acquired the community-driven database platform as part of its new SongDNA feature
mixmag.net
November 23, 2025 at 2:23 PM
How many foreign influence accounts does Musk interact with regularly?
November 23, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Reposted by Martin SFP Bryant
I saw a lot of people send the original article my way, which i did not share because it seemed like obvious bullshit. Now that has been shown to be true. I know people are worried about AI stuff, but try to be a bit more careful about what's real and what's not.
If you have been sharing that Malwarebytes article on the Gmail thing, you should note the giant correction up top.

www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...
November 22, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Reposted by Martin SFP Bryant
Daily Mail owner DMGT has just signed a deal to buy the Telegraph, which would unite the UK’s two strongest right-wing papers under one owner.

It will almost certainly trigger a competition probe. Another major moment coming for Lisa Nandy as culture secretary.
November 22, 2025 at 9:20 AM
The Manchester branch of the ‘Church’ of Scientology has Christmas decorations up, which makes me wonder if Jesus took a free personality test. Did he have a problem with Body Thetans?
November 22, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Reposted by Martin SFP Bryant
I think this clip is the key to understanding why Trump acted the way he did with Mamdani. His world revolves around TV ratings.

"I tell you, the press has eaten this thing up."
November 21, 2025 at 10:10 PM
This reminds me of Travis Kalanick claiming he had got close to breakthroughs in quantum physics by talking to Grok 🙃
I am by no means a prominent public intellectual, but my inbox is increasingly filled with messages from people who have been convinced by sycophantic chatbots that they have discovered revolutionary theories that entirely upend our scientific understanding of the universe.
November 21, 2025 at 8:19 PM