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/

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/