Long-form & Off-script

Ramblings

Not everything fits neatly into a service description or a news headline. This is where we think out loud — about technology, AI, business, and whatever else is worth writing down. No agenda. No sales pitch. Just honest observations from the coalface.

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AI March 2026 · 11 min read

AI Slop: Why UK SMEs Should Worry About the Internet Filling Up with Synthetic Rubbish

AI slop is not just annoying internet clutter. For UK SMEs it creates a trust tax — more time checking reviews, content, code and supplier output for signs of machine-made rubbish. This article looks at fake reviews, SEO sludge, maintainability risks in AI-generated code, and why low-effort synthetic content is becoming a genuine business problem.

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Technology March 2026 · 12 min read

The World's Over Reliance on US Technology, in an Uncertain Political Climate

Most of the modern business world runs on a technology stack controlled by a handful of US firms. In a more confrontational political climate, that dependency is becoming a strategic risk — not just a commercial inconvenience. We look at the legal fights, the lack of alternatives, the Russia precedent, and what it means for UK businesses.

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AI March 2026 · 8 min read

AI Control Is Coming — Whether You're Ready or Not

AI adoption won't remain optional for UK small businesses. The shift is already underway — not through robots, but through quiet dependency on AI-powered tools embedded in everyday software. We look at what AI control really means, who holds it, and what local businesses can do to stay in the driving seat.

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AI March 2026 · 10 min read

AI Costs Can Only Go Up

The AI market looks cheap from the outside. For most small businesses, it already isn't. And once the land-grab phase ends, there is very little in the history of software, cloud or SaaS to suggest the pricing environment gets more generous. We look at why AI costs are structurally more likely to rise than fall.

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AI March 2026 · 10 min read

AI Is Breaking the IT Supply Chain — And the UK Will Feel It Hard

The AI boom is distorting the global market for chips, memory, servers and power — and the UK is unusually poorly placed to absorb the fallout. We look at how AI demand is crowding out ordinary IT procurement, why Britain's energy costs make this worse, and what it means for businesses that simply need kit to arrive on time and at a sensible price.

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AI March 2026 · 11 min read

SaaS Is Dying. Long Live Whatever Comes Next

SaaS won by forcing businesses to adapt to software. AI may flip that around — making it cheaper to generate software around a business than to sell it a generic subscription. For UK SMEs, that could finally be good news. For a lot of software vendors, the market has already started asking uncomfortable questions.

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Business September 2025 · 3 min read

Why Our Forum Closed on 3 March 2025

We closed our public forum on 3 March 2025. The Online Safety Act 2023 changed the compliance obligations for anyone running a public discussion space — and for a small IT support business, the regulatory burden simply wasn't justified.

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