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Cory Doctorow: “You can single-handedly disenshittify your experience of virtually the entire web, just by switching to RSS…”
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Obituary of pioneering Saudi female artist Safeya Binzagr.
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Our big read on the Saudi economy: After eight years of whirlwind construction activity and unprecedented spending, the kingdom’s new watchword is prudence.
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“With a web flooded with AI generated slop and the platforms themselves encouraging it, the role of curators is gonna become more and more important. Who knows, maybe with a digital world filled with low-quality garbage we’ll find refuge in old-school printed magazines.”
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KAUST president pledges to stop any AI collaboration with China that could jeopardise the Saudi university’s access to US-made chips.
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“There is no love lost between Hizbollah and Saudi, but Lebanon is a sovereign state and this is a very dangerous precedent that the Israelis are setting. They are making it complicated for everybody,” a Saudi official said.
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Dave Winer, one of the people who inspired me to blog, celebrates 30 years of blogging today: “Every time you post something you’re proud of on a social media site, how about taking a moment and posting it to your blog too.”
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My latest: Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal resumes work on the Jeddah Tower project, which is set to surpass Dubai’s Burj Khalifa as the world’s tallest building when completed in 2028
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Saudi ambassador to the UK: “As the government in Israel seems further away than ever from understanding this key fact, as demonstrated by its behaviour in Gaza and elsewhere, it’s clear that normalisation of the kingdom’s relationship with Israel is currently not possible.”
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OpenAI was a research lab — now it’s just another tech company.
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“A website is, among other things, a container. The shape of that container both constrains and makes possible what goes within it.”
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Saudi Arabia is ready to abandon its unofficial oil price target of $100 a barrel as it prepares to increase output to take back market share.
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My latest: The rise of MBS saw a relaxation of the Saudi dress code, but we are now seeing a pushback towards more formality as social change fault lines are becoming increasingly blurred.
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“Roads are barren, inhospitable landscapes whose only redeeming value is allowing us to reach somewhere much more pleasant than the road itself. When roads come to dominate the non-road area of a city, you have, by definition, built too much road.”
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Weekend in al-Baha, southwest Saudi Arabia.
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As Saudi Arabia reassesses its priorities and the PIF shifts focus to huge domestic commitments, the era of the kingdom being perceived as a source of easy money is coming to an end.
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Saudi Public Health Authority says no cases of mpox detected in the kingdom, urges citizens to avoid travel to countries where outbreaks have been reported.
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Russian fuel oil exports to Saudi Arabia doubled between June and July to power generation plants during the hot summer season as demand for air conditioning hits its peak.
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Saudi PIF injects another $1.5 billion into Lucid. The EV maker told FT earlier this year that the company must not rely on the “bottomless wealth” of its largest shareholder.
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Second-quarter profits were 40% down at Americana, which operates KFC, Pizza Hut and Krispy Kreme in the Middle East, as consumers boycott western brands in protest of the war on Gaza.
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Saudi Arabia is set to officially submit its bid book for the 2034 World Cup in an event hosted by Fifa in Paris this week. The crown prince endorsed the bid ahead of its submission.
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17-year-old Saudi swimmer Mashael Alayed finishes 6th in the W 200m freestyle H1. She leaves the games with a new personal record.
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“..a monetary commitment—even a small one—is a helpful tool to find people who are genuinely interested in what you’re creating.”
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My latest story: Saudi Arabia lures foreign filmmakers with beautiful landscapes, modern studios and financial incentives. But some in Hollywood are still reluctant to come to the kingdom.
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“You are not creative and then create something, you become creative by working on something, creativity is a byproduct of work.”
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