Month: June 2023

Mark O’Neill on AI https://bearoneill.com/2023/06/27/daisy-daisy/

I sent out an email newsletter yesterday, just containing some of the links I have been sharing in these notes recently. I’m nopt altogether happy using TinyLetter for it, but not sure I can really justify spending real money on using something like Mailchimp (which I would have to do given the subsriber numbers). If you don’t get it, and want to, you can here: https://sensibletech.co.uk/newsletter/

“WinGPT: AI Assistant for Windows 3.1” (of course!) https://www.dialup.net/wingpt/

Relistening to the audiobook of Dan Lyons’ Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start Up Bubble and while it’s flawed and clearly problematic in places, it’s also pretty funny and a great takedown of the sheer brazen hypocrisy of VC backed startup land: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disrupted:_My_Misadventure_in_the_Start_Up_Bubble

“Opinionated Infrastructure: Platform Engineering for Productivity. Golden Paths and Guardrails” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXhTRxhu-i4

“Let’s welcome Meta, not block them” (more Fediverse wittering) https://www.manton.org/2023/06/27/lets-welcome-meta.html

I think in all honestly on the Fediverse platying nicely with Meta / Facebook / Threads / whatever, my view is either you’re open or your not and if you are, you have to accept some of the risks as well as the opportunities. I dare say that if some of the more esoteric Mastodon servers operating decided to block Threads, very few people would know or care. If some of the bigger ones, like mastodon.social, were to do so, that might be more of an issue.

“‘He tells you it’s all right to be miserable’: why Nick Drake enchants every new generation” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/28/he-tells-you-its-all-right-to-be-miserable-why-nick-drake-enchants-every-new-generation

Simplenote link for this note: http://simp.ly/p/1F70w1

I’m trying a tweak to the way I write these notes, in that I have switched from using Obsidian to Simplenote. Main reason for this is that Simplenote has apps across Windows, MacOS and iOS and syncs across them all – https://simplenote.com

I don’t often want to add stuff I see on my phone, but it happens just enough to make it annoying that my previous workflow didn’t allow for it.

It lacks the ability to post direct to WordPress but I think I can get it to work via my phone by sharing the note in question with the iOS WordPress app. Will let you know how that goes.

It’s owned – I think? – by Automattic (effectively the corporate overseers of WordPress) so am a bit surprised there isn’t more obvious integration. It is possible to publish a note though, like this: https://app.simplenote.com/p/gvHGj3

Simplenote is free but has an option to pay about £200 a year for no extra features whatsoever, which is an intriguing value proposition.

Giles Turnbull recommends hiring more writers: https://gilest.org/hire-more-writers.html

This is fasincating. I know nothing of Simple Minds at all: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/27/a-nuclear-reactor-of-music-the-story-of-simple-minds-classic-album-empires-and-dance

“A Dialog in Real Time (Strategy)” https://www.filfre.net/2023/06/a-dialog-in-real-time-strategy/

“Meet ‘Heina’ Chen, The Secretive Executive Holding The Purse Strings At Binance” https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2023/06/14/binance-sec-cz-guangying-chen/

"Why I quit my job at Google to work in local government" https://laurenjong.medium.com/why-i-quit-my-job-at-google-to-work-in-local-government-dc372221048b

The blog post that ‘invented’ hashtags: https://factoryjoe.com/2007/08/25/groups-for-twitter-or-a-proposal-for-twitter-tag-channels/

"Transforming Service Delivery in the Public Sector" (largely US based) https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/14883/583381

Teignbridge Council are looking for a Head of Digital https://jobs.teignbridge.gov.uk/itlivetdc_webrecruitment/wrd/run/ETREC107GF.open?VACANCY_ID=9431212Ag3&WVID=4966600DE4&LANG=USA

There’s a QR code scanner app built into iOS?! https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/06/19/qr-codes-iphone

Not That Kind of Open: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/06/19/not-that-kind-of-open

Essex County Council hosted "a generative AI Hackathon" https://servicetransformation.blog.essex.gov.uk/2023/06/19/hosting-a-generative-ai-hackathon/

Am really enjoying the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast – just the perfect pitch of cynicism and loathing of silicon valley https://techwontsave.us/

This is a fabulous read about an episode that was totally new to me: "‘Why I might have done what I did’: conversations with Ireland’s most notorious murderer" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/20/ireland-most-notorious-murderer-malcolm-macarthur-why-i-might-have-done-what-i-did

“Why did the #TwitterMigration fail?” https://blog.bloonface.com/2023/06/12/why-did-the-twittermigration-fail/

On similar lines: “Bluesky Has Problems” https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/2023/06/12/bluesky-has-problems/

I suspect Twitter will sort itself out before any of these others things manage to take off.

This seems interesting: https://blockprotocol.org/wordpress (Background: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2022/12/19/progress-on-the-block-protocol/)