Articles We Referenced in September 2026
Hello everyone,
In the past we've received requests to share the links to articles we cited in episodes. Since I'm getting a bit more involved in writing the episode scripts these days, I wanted to finally get around to doing this. If the articles are paywalled, I've linked a de-paywalled version (this isn't always possible, but I'll do my best). This isn't comprehensive by any means, but if you wanted to get more detail about the subjects we covered...this is in fact what went into the episode scripts.
Jason Arday's marathon challenge and other claims found to be true after his death (Middle East Eye). This is an article in which the Middle East Eye reviewed broad swaths of the hack vulture journalism surrounding Jason Arday and determined that... the brilliant UK media failed to report on a bunch of Arday's claims actually being true. (We talked about this on the 2nd September episode Bribecoin feat. Zeke Faux).
Ministers embraced the ‘world’s safest phone’. Then it unravelled. (Financial Times). For some reason a family of failed restauranteurs in the Berkshire area created a tech company that the UK government wants integrated into every single phone sold in the UK, somehow. The problem is that apparently, among other things, it took about 5 minutes for a security analyst to discover a glitch in which a hacker could appoint themselves "guardian status" over the phones of every single child in Britain. Whoops! (We talked about this on the 4th September episode The Ortolan Connection).
“Kirk Force Ones”: Over 12 Million People Have Seen This Photo Of Erika Kirk’s Charlie-Inspired Shoes... (BuzzFeed News). We are also surprised to see BuzzFeed News writing news stories, even if this is admittedly clickbait, but reading it will give you an idea of what we meant when we said that Erika Kirk's weird custom shoes make it look like Charlie Kirk is holding a red shell from Mario Kart. (We talked about this on the 25th September episode Equality Under Garfield Law feat. Sapheen Meran).
LLMs are real, AI is fake (Pluralistic). Cory Doctorow appeared on one of our bonus episodes this month and he wrote a great piece about this distinction. It's not worth linking to the stupid "debunking" of his work by whichever tech industry fake magazine did it, but the explanation he includes here is really useful. Okay, fine, if you want to read it then feel free, but you'll wind up angrier than when you started. (We also had a great time talking to Cory on our 11th September episode What Would A Normal Person Do feat. Cory Doctorow and Mattie Lubchansky).
Unease in ‘newly independent’ Piddington as world media and Danny Tommo descend (The Guardian). This is a more in-depth article about the supposed independence referendum in Piddington and the ultra-online far right capitalising on it. (We talked about this on the 22nd September episode The Piddington Omakase feat. Nathan Akehurst).
Relevant to the above, there are a bunch of fascinating (and admittedly depressing) articles on the topic of the Central Mediterranean authored by Nathan Akehurst, who appeared on the show. I'll share them here because I think they're really worth reading:
Returning to Syracuse (The Ecologist, 6th February 2025)
All in the same boat: A decade of civilian search and rescue in the central Mediterranean (The New Humanitarian, 14th July 2025)
First They Came For the Migrants: How Europe’s expanding border machinery unites reactionaries and reproduces colonialism (Reactionary International, 2026)
Let me know if you enjoy this and I'll make it a point to do it at the end of each month from now on. Thanks so much for being a listener!
Nate + the TF cast