Ronan Price
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ronanprice.bsky.social
Ronan Price
@ronanprice.bsky.social
Journalist and games critic at Irish Independent. Data enthusiast. Runner. These are my opinions - you can't have them
Which? magazine found that on the day of Black Friday 2024 NONE of the items it looked at were at the cheapest price they had been over the surrounding year.

www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Black Friday discounts fail to offer cheapest prices, Which? research finds
Products sold by retailers including John Lewis and Very among those cheaper outside of November discount period
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Kinda depressing read on the secondary market for goods returned to big retailers such as Amazon - you buy a pallet unseen for a chunk of cash in the hope of lots of bargains (only to get mostly polyester junk). Consumerism gone wild. www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/r...
We Bought a 450-Pound Mystery Pallet Packed With Returned Goods From Amazon and Beyond. Here’s What We Found Inside.
Pallets of overstock, returned, and undelivered-mail packages are an indicator of just how much stuff there is in the retail ecosystem.
www.nytimes.com
November 18, 2025 at 9:31 PM
This is a brilliant long read by Josh Dzieza, beautifully presented, about the repair crews who maintain the intercontinental undersea cables carrying all our internet traffic, amid cheapskating pressure by the likes of Google and Meta www.theverge.com/c/24070570/i...
The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat
How one crew risked radiation, storms, and currents to save Japan from digital isolation.
www.theverge.com
November 6, 2025 at 3:01 PM
An interesting move in Australia to give all homes free electricity during a three-hour daytime window to maximise use of solar power and shift the usage load from the peak evening period www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...
Australian households to get free electricity three hours a day
Saying there is enough solar power for everyone in the daytime, the federal government will direct retailers to provide three hours of free power every day to consumers.
www.abc.net.au
November 4, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Don't know whether to be appalled or impressed but The Simpsons are coming to Fortnite (or the other way around actually) and the trailer for the new season riffs cutely on the TV show's title sequence www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqQD...
November 3, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell offers a plausible if ultimately unconvincing justification why he he agreed to appear at that infamous Saudi comedy festival alongside the likes of Louis CK, Jimmy Carr and Dave Chapelle www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
I Watched Stand-Up in Saudi Arabia
What the surreal Riyadh Comedy Festival foretold about the kingdom’s future
www.theatlantic.com
October 30, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Fewer
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 currently has less wishlists on Steam than the Palworld dating sim. https://bit.ly/4nn3p9L
October 28, 2025 at 9:37 PM
That Amazon Services meltdown last week had more comical implications for some - some people using "smart beds" were variously woken up with roasting mattress temperatures or stuck in an upright position www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
Smart beds flipped out during the AWS outage, and so did their sleepy owners
Some Eight Sleep mattress users had a rude awakening after the Amazon Web Services outage, with reports of beds stuck upright and haywire temperatures.
www.washingtonpost.com
October 23, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Ronan Price
Here are Groucho Marx and birthday girl Margaret Dumont reunited on The Hollywood Palace in 1965. This episode was recorded just a few days before her death.
Groucho Marx & Margaret Dumont on The Hollywood Palace 1965
YouTube video by Stringer's Stuff
www.youtube.com
October 20, 2025 at 10:00 PM
It heartens me to learn that the over-55s make up almost a quarter of all gamers, according to new global research by the Entertainment Software Association www.theesa.com/resources/th...
Power of Play: 2025 Global Video Games Report
Video games affirmed as a source of connection, stress relief and mental stimulation in one of the largest consumer surveys ever conducted of more than 24,000 video game players in 21 countries across...
www.theesa.com
October 14, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by Ronan Price
Whoah!
Holy shit someone uploaded the entire stage play adaptation of the Yakuza videogame series with English subtitles and it’s glorious and 500x better than the Amazon show youtu.be/Z2Msr4si6dU?...
October 12, 2025 at 7:31 AM
I’m surprised it lasted on the Apple App Store this long…
New: Apple just removed ICEBlock, the app for reporting sightings of ICE, from its App Store after DOJ pressure. ICEBlock's developer tells 404 Media "we are determined to fight this."

"Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move."

www.404media.co/iceblock-own...
ICEBlock Owner After Apple Removes App: ‘We Are Determined to Fight This’
Apple removed ICEBlock reportedly after direct pressure from Department of Justice officials. “I am incredibly disappointed by Apple's actions today. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never t...
www.404media.co
October 3, 2025 at 7:06 AM
Meta Ireland faces a face of €100,000 a week from Dutch court if it fails to give users in Netherlands a permanent and simple way to get algorithm-free timeline. A pittance but still…

www.dutchnews.nl/2025/10/cour...
Court tells Meta to give Dutch users algorithm-free feed option - DutchNews.nl
Meta must allow users in the Netherlands to set a chronological, non-algorithmic feed as the default on Instagram and Facebook, a court in Amsterdam has ruled. The case was brought by digital rights g...
www.dutchnews.nl
October 2, 2025 at 2:50 PM
End of support for Windows 10 is happening in less than three weeks but Microsoft has now been forced to make its extended security updates totally free in Europe for another year www.theverge.com/news/785544/...
Microsoft forced to make Windows 10 extended security updates truly free in Europe
You won’t have to enable Windows Backup to get extended Windows 10 security updates in the European Economic Area.
www.theverge.com
September 25, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Cork-based Void Interactive the latest firm to part company with a worker for comments made over Charlie Kirk murder kotaku.com/ready-or-not...
Ready Or Not Community Manager Fired Over Charlie Kirk Comment
Void Interactive says it is focused on 'fostering a respectful and professional community'
kotaku.com
September 24, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Ronan Price
ON THIS DAY! 22nd September 1987 - Zig and Zag made their first TV appearance on #DempseysDen on @rteone.rte.ie

That’s 38 years ago maths fans! Are you feeling old yet?!

#ZigAndZag #IanDempsey #zigandzagday
September 22, 2025 at 6:34 AM
Great! Ads on your smart fridge that you can’t opt out of! Who wouldn’t want that?! Thanks, Samsung! www.theverge.com/news/780757/...
Samsung brings ads to US fridges
Samsung’s ‘screens everywhere’ initiative is morphing into ads everywhere.
www.theverge.com
September 18, 2025 at 12:36 PM
So they are not totally useless junk…

bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/project...
Hosting a WebSite on a Disposable Vape
Someone's trash is another person's web server.
bogdanthegeek.github.io
September 16, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Sony has taken its sweet time but it has finally launched a standalone parental control app that enables you to keep tabs on your children's PlayStation gaming. Nintendo has long had something similar but Microsoft now lags behind blog.playstation.com/2025/09/10/a...
Announcing PlayStation Family App for parental controls and family management
Available on the App Store and Google Play Store starting today.
blog.playstation.com
September 11, 2025 at 9:34 PM
The Onion is one of the few media organisations willing to take on Trump - and it recently started a print newspaper. What's not to like? The CEO explains... www.wired.com/story/uncann...
Onion CEO Ben Collins Hasn't Given Up on Print—or Buying Infowars
A year after relaunching The Onion as a newspaper, Collins visits Uncanny Valley to talk about why “going into something and not ruining it is bravery.”
www.wired.com
September 2, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Reposted by Ronan Price
The @imirt.bsky.social Steam Curator List is so close to 600 followers!

All follows and shares help Irish game devs! Please and thank you. 😊

#speirghorm #irishgamedev #speirgorm #indiedev #gamedev #irishcreatives #indiegame

store.steampowered.com/curator/4145...
Steam Curator: Games From Ireland
Games developed in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, from Irish creators, or playable in the Irish language (Gaeilge).
store.steampowered.com
August 31, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Digital downloads now make up 90% of game revenue across Europe including Ireland, with only 10% being physical sales www.gamesindustry.biz/digital-purc...
Digital purchases made up 90% of European gaming revenue in 2024
Gaming sector revenue grew 4% year-on-year (YoY) in 2024 in key European markets, with digital purchases accounting for…
www.gamesindustry.biz
August 29, 2025 at 6:12 PM
The increase of EV charging point installations hit 53% in China last year. Here in Ireland we’re lucky if it’s at 15%.
August 29, 2025 at 7:34 AM
Reposted by Ronan Price
Created by @galen.reich.me.uk , this is a local democracy reporting tool that enables researchers to search for keywords in auto-generated transcripts by the councils' multimedia provider, available for different authorities across the UK and Ireland.
August 28, 2025 at 4:50 PM