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

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/)

Happy Bloomsday! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday

A fairly sensible take on AI stuff from dxw https://www.dxw.com/2023/06/artificial-intelligence-is-here-what-do-i-need-to-know/

Can’t work out if this is a good idea or not https://www.beeper.com/

"Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-law. But always meeting ourselves."
― James Joyce, Ulysses

"Strive for alignment rather than aiming for universal agreement" https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/strive-alignment-rather-than-aiming-universal-robert-musekiwa

"Multi-Cloud, Still an Actual Thing after All These Years" https://tanzu.vmware.com/content/blog/state-of-kubernetes-2023-multi-cloud

"Proven Practices for Developing a Multicloud Strategy" https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/enterprise-strategy/proven-practices-for-developing-a-multicloud-strategy/

(Those last two both via Coté https://social.lol/@cote)

Am enjoying Spellcaster, a podcast about crypto-bozo Sam Bankman-Fried and his FTX disaster zone https://wondery.com/shows/spellcaster/ (I don’t necessarily understand it all but I feel better for having read it)

"Some blogging myths" https://jvns.ca/blog/2023/06/05/some-blogging-myths/

I published a thing on LinkedIn about why councils (etc) should take digital culture and skills seriously, if they want their transformation projects to succeed: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-culture-skills-make-digital-magic-happen-dave-briggs

"The next phase of technology-driven transformation is data. Are you ready to set your strategy?" https://www.bepivotl.com/insights/the-next-phase-of-technology-driven-transformation-is-data-are-you-ready-to-set-your-strategy/

So Lemmy is basically Redditodon? https://join-lemmy.org/

I don’t do so well in this heat.

I’m really enjoying an Apple Music playlist, Living the Library – fairly quiet, mostly instrumental ‘electronic’ music. Good to work to.

Interesting point made by Brandon on Software Defined Talk, that I hadn’t really thought about before. The advantage of distributed networks like Mastodon for organisations is the ability to host a server and control who has accounts on that server. So rather than (say) BBC employees going through a verification process to prove who they are, like on Twitter in days gone by, instead they just have an account on the official BBC Mastodon. Bit like having a bbc.co.uk email address. Makes sense. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/414

Neville Hobson shares his thoughts on Bluesky, an invite only Twitter clone https://www.nevillehobson.com/2023/06/06/early-days-experiences-on-bluesky/

Some really interesting jobs going in Birmingham, to embed digital culture and capabilities into the team https://jobs.digitalbirmingham.org/culture-capability/

"Communities of Practice within and across organizations: a guidebook" https://www.wenger-trayner.com/cop-guidebook/

Busy couple of days, hence no notes until today.

"Are.na is a platform for connecting ideas and building knowledge" https://www.are.na/ via Coté.

"Inside Snopes: the rise, fall, and rebirth of an internet icon" https://www.fastcompany.com/90901113/inside-snopes-the-rise-fall-and-rebirth-of-an-internet-icon

Emily Webber has published The Team Onion Book, which describes "a model to keep teams small, break down silos and create shared responsibility across team boundaries" https://teamonion.works/buy-the-book/

"Is web3 bullshit?" (yep) https://blog.mollywhite.net/is-web3-bullshit/

I love markdown but using it for presentations might be pushing it a bit https://ia.net/presenter

"Why did Usenet fail?" https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/06/why-did-usenet-fail/

Log into twitter. Ooh! Notifications. 5 tweets in a row from someone called Elon Musk who I don’t follow. Log out again.

…and on that note, "Twitter Briefly Pretended To Take A Stand Against Hate, But Then Elon Admitted It Was All A Mistake (Or A Marketing Campaign?)" https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/02/twitter-briefly-took-a-stand-against-hate-but-then-elon-admitted-it-was-all-a-mistake/

A pleasant walk along the drain at lunchtime. Merlin enjoyed having a swim and a sprint.

“Redbridge Council launches digital housing repairs service” https://www.ukauthority.com/articles/redbridge-council-launches-digital-housing-repairs-service/

I spend most of my working day using a Windows all-in-one desktop thing, and less time on a Macbook. I use way more web based stuff in Windows, and way more native apps on the Mac.

https://12ft.io/ is a service that makes me nervous, as stealing is always wrong. However it’s also tempting. What solves this ethical conundrum for me is that it hasn’t ever worked when I have tried it.

To quote my favourite tech philosopher, Taylor Swift, I think I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending: “DWP, Home Office, MoJ and Defra launch £1bn tender for shared services tech providers”

“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” James Joyce, Ulysses.

2 cracking posts from dxw on what service designers get up to during the beta phase of a project https://www.dxw.com/2023/05/what-do-service-designers-do-in-the-beta-phase-of-a-project-part-1/ (there’s a link at the bottom to part 2)

Videos from the 2022 Service Design in Gov conference: https://govservicedesign.net/videos

Fab stuff from Polly Thompson on helping "colleagues (who aren’t interested in tech) understand the health of an IT estate" https://medium.com/valleys-to-coast-design-tech-blog/the-state-were-in-c7549cb03938

Quite enjoying The Color of Nothing by ford. https://fordsounds.bandcamp.com/album/the-color-of-nothing

Have been a John Naughton fan for a loooooong time and his blog has been following a kind of daily note / commonplace book type approach for a while now. His follows a kind of structure I would find it impossible to stick to. https://memex.naughtons.org/

And one of John’s posts pointed me to "The Gutenberg Parenthesis: Thomas Pettitt on parallels between the pre-print era and our own Internet age" https://www.niemanlab.org/2010/04/the-gutenberg-parenthesis-thomas-pettitt-on-parallels-between-the-pre-print-era-and-our-own-internet-age/

Cote gives his take on my blogging formats post from yesterday https://cote.io/2023/05/31/193136.html

Another good In Our Time, this time on the Dead Sea Scrolls https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ljc0

Am going to try this note without bullets, just to see how that goes. Feedback welcome!

I’ve deleted all the social media apps from my phone as an experiment.

Cote has done a daynote: https://cote.io/2023/05/30/day-note.html

“We Need to Rethink ‘Digital’ in Most Public Services” – I am really not sure what this article is suggesting? Rethink from what, to what? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-need-rethink-digital-most-public-services/

I’ve just discovered (🤦) the ‘advanced’ view in Mastodon, which is more Tweetdeck like with columns. Makes things a bit easier. Wondering if I should start paying some money towards Mastodon too https://www.patreon.com/mastodon

“Lisa’s Final Act: how Apple invented its future by burying its past” https://www.theverge.com/23724804/lisa-computer-apple-steve-jobs-burial-utah-sun-remarketing-documentary

In Our Time about Walt Whitman https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001l99w

I randomly wondered earlier what Marissa Mayer is doing these days. Turns out she’s running a startup trying to fix phone contacts, which is a worthy endeavour if not, if I am honest, a lucrative-sounding one https://sunshine.com/