Daily notes

This is a lovely piece by Giles Turnbull and I will be first in the queue for the book when it emerges! https://howteamsremember.com/

“I created Clippy”:

I’ve signed up for and downloaded Threads. I don’t like the lack of a web interface, if I’m honest and it makes a mockery of my no-social-media phone policy. Hopefully one will come soon. It’s also full of a lot of “suggested content” that I’ve not chosen to see and there’s no apparent way to turn that off. Which is a turn off.

John Gruber’s take seems to hit all the nails on their heads https://daringfireball.net/2023/07/threads

“The Local Authority Data Explorer
for the Office for Local Government (Oflog)” https://oflog.data.gov.uk/

“New recurring payments and webhook features available through GOV.UK Pay” https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2023/07/05/new-recurring-payments-and-webhook-features-available-through-gov-uk-pay/

I wonder if there’s a tweak to Betteridge’s law of headlines that states that when the headline ending in a question mark is related to AI, the NO answering it is even more emphatic than normal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

“Bringing Digital Skills to Public Purpose Organisations” https://public.digital/2023/07/03/bringing-digital-skills-to-public-purpose-organisations

Someone asked me about CRM today and I was able to point to my answer from 2018 which is still broadly what I think: https://da.vebrig.gs/2018/06/15/do-you-need-to-buy-a-crm/

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