Daily notes

New newsletter out today, which I have switched to Substack. It does feel like building personal networks through things like email might be the answer to the breakdown of more public social media like Twitter etc https://daveslist.substack.com/p/daves-list-vol-3-issue-1

Anyway, I would be grateful for any feedback.

The best non-fiction tech books of all time – https://www.theverge.com/c/23771068/best-tech-books-nonfiction-recommendations

I can’t believe the above doesn’t include Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy or What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff!

Haringey Council have launched a new blog on my localgov.blog service, chatting about their website redevelopment project. Do check it out, and if your council wants a free blog, you know where to find me. https://haringey.localgov.blog/

I do need to have a think about localgov.blog and what I ought to do with it. Right now it’s fine and it ticks along quite nicely, but there are improvements that in an ideal world I would like to make. Currently though, am not sure the effort would really be justified!

I still haven’t reinstalled any social media apps on my phone, and I am still ok with it. Am I spending less time on my phone as a result? Maybe, but think I’m browsing the open web a bit more than I was.

This is infuriating: https://neal.fun/password-game/

Whenever Catherine Howe posts, it’s usually a good idea to read it: https://curiouscatherinehowe.medium.com/taking-the-red-pill-c30839bedb7f

More Twitter woes: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/07/03/everything-continues-to-be-going-just-great-at-twitter

“So where are we all supposed to go now?” https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/3/23782607/social-web-public-apps-end-reddit-twitter-mastodon

This is a good and challenging read on what even is an online community these days “The End Of Platform-Centric Strategies” https://www.feverbee.com/communityeverywhere/

Yet another note taking application for me to tinker with: https://www.qownnotes.org/

THIS from Dave Winer: “I wonder if now what I’ve been trying to do with RSS, blogging and podcasting, get underneath the bigco’s and live on a plane that doesn’t require any one of them, makes a bit more sense now.” It sure does http://scripting.com/2023/07/03.html#a143645

More fedi-fun: run your own YouTube clone with PeerTube. Sounds like a good way to bankrupt yourself if you aren’t careful – https://joinpeertube.org/

“Marc Andreessen Is (Mostly) Wrong This Time [about AI]” https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-marc-andreessen-labor-politics/

First day in my new job over. Am enjoying the feeling of getting to know my new surroundings, and using that new job motivation to start various balls rolling.

Jukesie on ‘minimum viable unconference’ https://digitalbydefault.com/2023/06/30/minimal-viable-unconference/

“Twitter bug causes self-DDOS tied to Elon Musk’s emergency blocks and rate limits: “It’s amateur hour”” https://waxy.org/2023/07/twitter-bug-causes-self-ddos-possibly-causing-elon-musks-emergency-blocks-and-rate-limits-its-amateur-hour/

I do really enjoy podcasts, and I love that it’s remained an open system. But in terms of them paying for themselves, it worries me slightly that all the ads on podcasts are for other podcasts, which doesn’t seem awfully sustainable.

What if failure is the plan? https://zephoria.medium.com/what-if-failure-is-the-plan-2f219ea1cd62

Another one! Argh! https://t2.social/

“AI and the automation of work” https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2023/7/2/working-with-ai

Our daughter Jade has launched a podcast with her friend at work. We are super proud of her, and you should definitely check it out and subscribe if you’re interested in what’s up with social media these days https://shows.acast.com/the-social-sisters-podcast

I think she’s more interested in people watching the YouTube stream than the audio, which just shows how younger people think differently about podcasts than grey beards like me https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-jPaF2wC1FExsh3Tjk1zIQ

I wrote a lengthy response to someone asking about decision making and governance in local government IT and digital. At some point I will write it up properly as a blog post, but in the meantime, here’s a copy and paste of it: https://app.simplenote.com/publish/zsmqVq

Am clearly loving Simplenote’s publishing feature. I’ve been looking at Notion again, but it does feel a bit over-features for my needs.

A deep dive (sorry) into the mess of that Titan submarine thing. It was never going to go well: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjvjdb/it-is-a-huge-vast-opportunity-how-oceangate-went-from-disruptive-startup-to-catastrophic-deepsea-failure

If you don’t love crazy stories about long lost consumer electronics, there’s something wrong with you. This is a belter: https://www.vice.com/en/article/ak3k34/2200-forgotten-vintage-computers-are-being-liberated-from-a-barn-in-massachusetts

I still mourn the loss of Google Reader. I used to star the things I liked and then something like IFTTT would add it to Del.icio.us, pump it out to Twitter AND add it to my blog for me: https://www.theverge.com/23778253/google-reader-death-2013-rss-social

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