Cubicgarden.com...

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Oct 2023)

Person in trousers points a pen at paper work on a table

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing criminals creating their own ChatGPT clones, Fitbit becoming useless without data sharing and those Tiktok frenzies.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this with the EU naming the gatekeepers, the 1.26 million Kardashion crypto fine and Signal’s CEO calling out AI surveillance technology.

Thinking about buying a creepy car?

Ian thinks: Thanks to Mozilla’s privacy not included project, its clear almost every major car brand is sharing your personal data without any consideration of privacy. Everything from race, weight and health is free shared without the drivers consent.

Cannabis could save the environment?

Ian thinks: This piece from German broadcaster DW really makes clear the positive potential impact of Cannabis in the fight for a greener more sustainable economy. Its a real eye opener and for reasons you didn’t think.

Regularly using the internet can half the risk of dementia

Ian thinks: When I first read this, I had looked through the paper taking it a part to see if there was something which could be wrong. However it’s solid and surprised it didn’t get much attention.

The big con, How the Consulting Industry Weakens society

Ian thinks: I started reading this excellent book, really digging into the 4 audit consultancy and Its ultimate affect on more than just businesses. I noticed DW’s mini documentary about most of the problems raised in the book is good start..

Is this the UK Government U-turn you wanted?

Ian thinks: In short no, it sounds like the UK government might have done a U-turn on the encryption in the new online safety bill. But it is still there waiting for the right moment.

Crypto was never really the saver

Ian thinks: Sex workers and adult entertainers are usually demonised by the mainstream, turned to crypto made sense. But like most things in the crypto space, its never so simple and the wired piece outlines some horrible and disturbing problem. There has to be a better way for the sake of so many.

Living Next Door to Russia, Ensh*ttification and Veilid explained at Defcon

Ian thinks: In the last few weeks, Defcon, Tech Open Air and Techcrunch disrupt have uploaded their conference videos. I found Mikko, Cory and the Veilid talks the best so far. Although I will give a nudge for the Opera and Vivaldi founder from TOA.

What people don’t know about the Luddites

Ian thinks: The word gets thrown around a lot and very few people know the history. In this podcast it becomes clear the luddites image of techbophic is very wrong. With thoughts for the future with generative AI and power, the Luddites image is due a rethink.

Learning from the Fediverse

Ian thinks: The fediforum is the unconference for the fediverse. I took part in the September one and learned a lot including how activitypub can become the plumbing channel between the usual (microblogging) and unexpected applications like event management (gath.io)

Find the archive here

Dying daylight in Utrecht mix

I had the joy of going to Utrecht in the Netherlands for a Storyjam. On that plane ride I started a mix, which I thought was good. Then did it again during of the nights in the Airbnb recording it live to my external recorder. It was good but then on the plane ride back I let rip and the results is what you hear in the mix.

Ayla (Veracocha mix) – Ayla
Crazy for you – Greg Downey
Daylight (Frainbreeze remix) – Saad Ayub & Cristina Soto
Go Fast! – Orjan Nilsen
Doppelganger – Niels van Gogh
The Great Escape – Rank 1 Vs Jochen Miller
Carte Blanche (David Gravell Remix) – Veracocha
Apocalypse – Yuji Ono
RAMsterdam (Jorn van Deynhoven remix) – RAM

You can hear the whole mix at full quality on my mixgarden or on peertube.

Someone has to say something about the dog… owners!

Many people know I’m not a fan of dogs, I have been chased and bitten a few times. In pandemic times, a lot of people bought them to manage their wellbeing. However now we are endemic times, a lot of those dog owners went back to work and the dogs became an after thought?

I say the above, having experiencing some irresponsible owners over the last few years. In the Channel4 piece which contained a deeply distressing video of a dog attacking people, something I really didn’t want to see.

They question someone who would like to see a breed of dog banned in the UK. As the dog charity says, banning American Bully XL dogs won’t do much. Its the owners, the irresponsible owners.

The owners who don’t control their dogs, the owners who assume their dog can do no harm, the owners who take their young puppies to restaurants and happily let it climb on other eaters, the owners who don’t clean up after their dog, the owners who are transfixed on their phone rather than their dog tripping people up on the street, the owners who allow their dog on the cafe furniture and even the table in coffee shops, the owners who don’t use a lead in public spaces, owners who can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t love to see their dog, the owners who don’t take owning a dog seriously at all.

I can tell you as someone who has been bitten on a public road a long time, that owner was completely distraught and cursing themself for leaving the gate open, when the police took their dog away. Even a few years ago when my ex was bitten in a hotel, the owner didn’t give a toss, its completely unfair on the customers and even the dog.

In recent times quite a few people have come to me and share their absolute contempt for the dog owners who bring their dogs everywhere (even some dog lovers and owners). They say how great they can share their thoughts. Because they are so worried about what others would say. Dogs are every where online, but as someone said to me…

“its not about the Instagram picture, its about the love, care, support – parenting of the dog. That huge responsibility is not for everyone – unfortunately too many are not cut out for it… and that can turn a good dog into something else”

I’m sure I’ll get some grief for this post but honestly, I don’t want to see dogs hurt by irresponsible owners

Motorcycling tech I seen recently

When I heard about the BMW motorcycle glasses, I was finally thinking yes at last a heads up display (HUD) to solve the google maps navigation problem I have had for ages. Its way too expensive but a interesting development.

Originally I thought why isn’t this built into the helmet but then I watched F9’s video. Shoei’s in-build HUD system is looks pretty awful but alas its development from sticking a phone to the phone or mapping it to the inbuilt display.

Recently I have been looking at what I would do if my Honda Silverwing Scooter needed to be scrapped due to a change to the planned ultra low emission zone (ULEZ) in Manchester (My silvewing is ok as things stand), started falling apart, etc. I finally found the Honda Forza 750 while in Lisbon. Decided to look into a test ride and was super impressed.

However I did find the keyless entry something worrisome after watching whats happened with some cars. Don’t mind if this was an option but as the only option?! Following the car like route, I was interested in the pairing of the smartphone to the onboard display, which could be useful for the Google maps problem, maybe…?

Of course I keep thinking, where is the electric maxi-scooters, and when will I get my test ride BMW?

Seems like a bad move to buy another petrol maxi-scooter right now?

Sinead’s baroque troy mix

I recently put together a new pacemaker device mix for Sinead O’Connor. Its a short mix and quite deep in parts, but Sinead’s voice is the main point at the start and the end. Its recorded live using the later beta firmware.

Troy (push remix) – Sinead O’Connor
Please save me (push mix) – Push Vs. Sunscreem
Follow Me (Roger Shah Extended Deeper Translation Remix) – Jam & Spoon
Trick – Carlo Ruetz
Club Quake (Oliver Klein Hard remix) – 5 Below zero
Fiction (Extended Mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
Panoramix – Laurent Garnier
Troy (push remix) – Sinead O’Connor

You can hear the whole mix at full quality on my mixgarden or on peertube.

Rest in peace Sinead…

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Sept 2023)

2 FBI agent's casually question Reality Winner outside her house

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed the unthinkable awful end of apps, the breach of UK voters data and zoom’s new business model.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this with Meta threads supporting Mastodon’s verification. the whitehouse cracking down on data brokers and ABC in Australia closing down almost all of its twitter account.

Colbalt the hidden side of the energy revolution

Ian thinks: This documentary by German broadcaster DW is a real eye opener of the real inequality happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo and its effect across any potential energy revolution.

The really deep problems of Venture Capital

Ian thinks: This interview outlines not just the well known problems of taking capital from a VC but how deeply broken the whole ecosystem is. Nothing better said that the market place won’t solve everything, it may make it worst?

No one gets fired for buying Microsoft?

Ian thinks: Local first but when will companies and the C suite care enough to take it seriously? You might have thought the serious damage of ransomware and malware might be a factor for the future to mitigate such damage?

AI right down the middle

Ian thinks: Although I was sceptical of the talk, there were some good points made about the problem of markets. I especially the responsibilities, coordination and the public/society interest.

A race to the bottom where everyone loses

Ian thinks: I hadn’t heard the term Moloch but Liv makes it clear what the term is and give great examples of Moloch. Although Liv and Tristan brush over the thought this is the market and capitalism in effect.

The world is a mess lets fix it?

Ian thinks: Defcon 31 has showed there is a number of incredible revelations on hacking voting machine to the Cult of dead cow’s open-source, privacy peer-to-peer networked framework.

When are we going to finally listen to the minorities who know?

Ian thinks: This fine group of black women have been ringing the bell about the real problems of AI for such a long time. They refuse to be silenced and as we are starting to understand they were absolutely right.

The awful truth about facial recognition and black people

Ian thinks: Simple as this, facial recognition can’t tell black people apart. So why the heck are we still deploying it? Its a question I just can’t wrap my head around, If you don’t trust business insider read the actual paper here.

Reality asks whats in the public interest?

Ian thinks: This film ended up in a lot of small cinemas but the true story of Reality NSA whistle blower is portrayed exactly how the FBI recording captured. Its quite compelling and raises questions about the public interest and what happened next.

Find the archive here

The way of the firestarter?

3 graphs showing the design process from start of a project to the end — The way of the firestarter’s design process, treat as alpha version 00.2

I was talking with a colleague in London the other week. One of the great thing about working in the same space face to face is being able to noodle together. (I won’t talk about any endless whiteboarding right now).

Anyway one of the things which was mentioned was the design process being messy before it becomes clearer. (Without going into the number of different design methodologies). While they were drawing the multiple iterations, I started to think about how I work.

This is when I started to draw something like the bottom graph and started thinking to what degrees the existing methodologies are incompatible with a collaborative future. I don’t mean just co-designing together but actually building things which people can take forward in a slightly different direction or space.

When I drew it I thought about how I like to starting and proving the worth through research/experiments but also attracting more people into the project to share ideas and thoughts. Ideally there would be other lines which intersect with lines joining and leaving I guess? My old manager use to describe me as a different type of researcher but I can never remember what he called it.

I got a few examples I was describing when drawing. they mainly come from the Perceptive Media space including the Living room of the future and hopefully Adaptive podcasting soon. But even looking at the BBC Backstage era of creating a platform for others to explore above and beyond.

Context collapse with Beeper

Beeper client with all the networks it can connect to

I have been meaning to write about context collapse with beeper for a long while. I have written about Beeper previously.. In short Beeper is a messaging client which takes advantage of Matrix’s bridge system to connect/bridge to many different networks.

This means I use Matrix every single day on my laptops and smartphones. Its great, as its connects to so many different networks including Discord and Slack, all without installing Slack or Discord on my phone and even laptop if I wanted to.

However there is a effect which is best described as (like) context collapse.

The amount of times I have received a message from someone on Linkedin, Facebook msg, Twitter direct message (which I don’t think works anymore – as you can imagine)., etc, etc. They all end up in my inbox and its super useful but sometimes I need to look at the little icon to then figure out what I should do next.

Should I treat it as serious, should I reply straight away or not worry too much. This is very apt when you are getting linkedin or twitter DMs. This is similar for Facebook messages.

It also affects the way you reply too, should I reply in my usual laidback style, should I add emojis, should I write a lot back, voice reply, etc etc.

It sounds stressful but actually I’m ok with it because the alternative of having lot of apps on my phone or laptop running would be far worst in my head. If there was a way to make the notifications per network that might be useful, but generally I’m ok with the context collapse, as the icons make it clear enough and force me to think.

This changes a bit when using my Android wear watch, which strips out such detail. So I generally don’t reply unless I know its from a friend or family. Although even that can be interesting as my mother is on sms & signal or a friend who is on sms, discord and facebook msg.

I kinda want to see a matrix bridge for activitypub (fediverse) but honestly with the amount of context collapse, I don’t think it would personally be a good idea for me.

Interested what others think about this all and would you like one client to do all your messages and potentially your social networking too?

The problem is ultra-processed food?

I have on my long list of audiobooks to read and one of them is Chris van Tulleken’s Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop?

I assume there is a lot of debate about what counts as ultra-processed food and the result on the body. But I wanted to add 2 points ahead of reading the book..

A while ago I had a NHS dietitian and I was very shocked about the advice I was being told. Everything was about calories and counting them. Even when I rejected the advice, I was strongly asked if I actually want to lose weight? Although I had already established the dietitian had many clients and many of them came back regularly.

In short I was being told to eat packaged meals as it made counting calories easy, ignore most exercise as it doesn’t help weight lost and finally sleep doesn’t have that much effect (which I pretty much had a argument about). It completely blew my mind and in the end I just gave up and sustainably lost weight ahead of my crazy busy few months.

I’m one of those people who usually cooks my own food and like food which is pretty raw. For example my stirfrys don’t include sauces just the raw ingredients. But I am guilty of having sugar free and fat free things .

This is why I found the whole ultra processed notion very interesting and could explain so much, although there sounds like a lot more research is needed (especially around the gut biome)

In the Zoe interview, I was sadden/upset by the solution to avoid ultra processed food. Simply money, to pay for just processed or lightly processed food. This can’t be the only way!

Anyway, sure once I actually read/listen to the book, I will have much more to say and write. Till then, have a watch and let me know what you think?

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Aug 2023)

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed thinking about the eyeball scanning worldcoin, Tesla’s secret range suppression team and dare I even mention @x.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this with the BBC joining the fediverse, all those Firefox tips in one video. and EU plans to force replaceable batteries in smartphones.

UK’s online safety bill breaks encryption

Ian thinks: Its clear the UK government like most governments around the world have a difficult problem with end to end encryption. In my own experience anything which weakens encryption means there is no encryption. Anything which weaken encryption is an open door with a door mat and bright lights saying try here and welcome.

AI everywhere, bias everywhere

Ian thinks: This is a disturbing piece about shop owners using facial recognition to protect their stock in the UK. Face-watch is a worrying trend especially knowing how much AI systems are desperate for more training data.

PublicSpaces 2023: The collective of videos

Ian thinks: All the Publicspaces videos are now on peertube and linked on this page. If you only watch one video, I highly recommend the keynotes from Ruha Benjamin, Levien Nordeman and Eli Parser

Ian thinks: I didn’t see this live in Mozilla House Amsterdam but had a really good talk with Symeon who convinced me to finally read his amazing book.

Is it time to give up on the global internet?

Ian thinks: I hate to say it but this piece has some really good points and its hard to argue against them. The vision of a global internet has been torn apart by many companies, governments and pure greed.

The Eliza effect is big business

Ian thinks: With all the talk about AI, you can’t help but stumble into the chatbot space. Although its easy to laugh, we already know there is a demand to connect with people and there is a ton of companies willing to supply them with better versions of clippy. But do spare a deep thought of all the data being shared and sold too.

A old form of colonialism in effect?

Ian thinks: It was through the tech won’t save us podcast I came across the paper on Open AI’s whisper and indigenous languages. This isn’t just a cautionary tale, its actually as close to the playbook of colonialism. Glad the author and the community are call it out.

Had enough of Captcha’s?

Ian thinks: Although a emerging technology, privacy pass could bring an end to those captcha’s which are annoying, don’t stop a lot of malicious activity, are basically free labour which is used to sell to others. Could this client-side privacy pass protocol which uses un-linkable cryptographic tokens finally put an end to them for good?

Posting without consent is immoral?

Ian thinks: This is a question which has existed for a long time. Even mentioning a persons name can have dire consequences. Two things which were not mention is the interconnected nature of this all.and the EU laws around the right to be forgotten.

RIP Free Kevin

Ian thinks: When i heard Kevin Mitnick died aged 59, I thought back to all the things I had learned through his books, experiences and the free Kevin movement. Well worth re-reading his books and this piece in the register. Rest in piece Kevin.

Find the archive here

Smartwatches: after the Pebble on to wear OS

Since the pebble I have been a bit fed up with the selection of smartwatches.

Originally I kickstarted the Bangle JS 2 smartwatch then bought the TicWatch 3 pro, but the battery life just frankly annoyed me so much and sent it back to get the Amazefit GTR 4.

I liked the Amazafit GTR 4 because the battery life was 3-5 days but the setup was something else. It doesn’t run Wear OS but I was fine with this because battery life made a big difference.

There is a review I read after getting the watch which sums up the problems with the watch. I like to hack and customise things but the options were insane. Then to add to this was the apps which included the default Zepp app and another one to pick up on the shortcoming of Zepp. Ultimately there were so many options but some of the basic things I expect were not covered.

Replying to messages by voice wasn’t possible, although the watch does support voice commands and even Amazon Alexia integrations. The other thing which got me was the calendaring. With the pebble, the calendar was always up to date and I could trust it to know what’s next. With the Amazefit the calendar only updated when I opened the Zepp app, stop the calendar sync and then re-enabled it again. My calendar changes sometimes hourly so an updated calendar is super important.

In the end I got so fed up with a watch I couldn’t really trust, and finally I made the decision to sell the watch on ebay after reading reviews about the new TicWatch 5. I decided the reasonable battery life, quick charge, wear OS 3 support was enough to convince me to switch (although I am wondering if wear OS 4 will make it to the watch). Its great to have proper sleep as android support again too.

Its still early days but I do miss some things like the automatic workout stuff, I have no idea what to put diaboloing under in my workouts. But generally if I’m charging the watch every day while in the bathroom, everything should be great.

The fast charge really has made a big difference and makes up for the smaller battery life. I can see this working when away from home due to cheap USB chargers (unlike the Oura). But that element of trust when looking at my notifications, calendar and tasks is something which can’t be underestimated.

New Pacemaker device mix: Knights of the new republic

Another recorded live mix due to the Pacemaker’s latest firmware. I was listening to some of my older mixes and the Knights of the old republic recorded while in another conference (republica in Berlin) stuck out to me. So I thought it was time for a redo as I was in Amsterdam at a similar conference (publicspaces).

Of course it includes the tune I’m still loving at the moment, Carl Cox’s Inferno and similar to the last mix, I decided to switch Blaze’s my beat to the Jan Driver remix. Which in my mind is a dance floor disputer.

As its recorded live with the loop feature, there is very few edits just a bit of normalisation.

You can listen to it on my mixgarden in full quality with Webmonitzation or peertube.

The playlist is here

Altern8 – Infiltrate 202
Miki Lutvak & Ido Ophir – Shnorkel (Thank you city remix)
Leftfield – Open up
Tomcraft – Happiness and Loneness
RAM – Grotesque (Alex MORPH & RAM mix)
Blaze – My Beat (Jan Driver mix)
Inferno – Carl Cox
Moogwai – The Labyrinth (part one)
The Prodigy – Charly
Floyd (Extended mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
Home (Cosmic gate remix) – Paul Van Dyk Feat. Johnny Mcdaid

Not so easyjet

I have just spent 15 days in the Netherlands, on the whole it was great but after 5 hotels and a generous friend it was hard work. A bunch of things happened which are hard to explain without a lot of detail, which I can’t go into. However…

There was a bunch of problems with my flights which had a knock on effect.

Sunday 18th June, I was booked, packed and had my boarding pass ready to get on my evening Easyjet flight to Amsterdam from Manchester. I just got back from the Northern Quarter after having brunch with a friend. Funny enough she asked me when my flight is and I joked it was 90mins from that moment.

On the walk back from brunch, I received a text message fr0m Easyjet.

We’re really sorry that your easyJet flight 2167 from MAN to AMS on 18-06-2023 has been cancelled due to poor weather. We understand that this will be disappointing news and we want to make it as easy as possible for you to make new plans.

What the hell I thought then when I got home I saw the email. 3 options were available.

Switch to a new flight for free.
Choose a voucher for the full value of your ticket
Request a refund

I picked option 1 but there were no flights available to Amsterdam till late the next day. Meaning I would miss a lot of the first day of Mozilla House. With some authorisation and time running short, I triple checked KLM were still flying and booked that one for about a hour or so later than the original Easyjet one. I can’t even explain how stressful this was because I couldn’t leave till I had the boarding pass on my phone & gdrive. With a small amount of time I could only get a Uber to the airport check in with my cabin luggage (I can’t do 2 weeks with a small amount of luggage), get through security and board the plane.

When I finally got to Amsterdam, the hotel was completely automated by email, which I never answered due to the change of flights. Luckily one of the team saw my signal messages after midnight and let me in so I could actually check in.

2 hotels later and a great Mozilla House event in Amsterdam (more on this in another blog post). My plan to visit a friend in Rotterdam was thrown into chaos with Rotterdam upgrading its railways. This meant booking another hotel very last minute but I did end up going to Walibi Holland still.

Goliath x8 (not steel dragon 2000, but similar in construction)
Untamed x10 (first time I been on a RMC steel converted woodie and it was brutal)
Speed of sound x3
Loss of gravity x15 (not the smiler, but same maker and track style, not enough inversions)
Xpress platform 13 – x1

As I wasn’t spending 4 hours getting back to Rotterdam, I got to do a bunch of other stuff including watching the Flash with Dutch subtitles.

Anyway back to flights and travel. On my return to Manchester on Easyjet, I got to the Airport with plenty of time. My partner had joined me after the Publicspaces conference in hotel number 5 and we had booked flights a long time ago just incase. I spent a long time (30+ mins with the messaging system) cancelling my part of that flight and then moving my new flight seat next to my partner on the return. Worth noting Easyjet wouldn’t cancel my extra luggage, although I wouldn’t be on that booking any-more.

I get to the Amsterdam airport and try to check in to find my boarding pass isn’t valid. We try different ways to check if I’m on the flight but none of them work. I call Easyjet and the company who booked the flight. Its a long story but by the time I understand what happened, my options to leave were fading away to zero. I even considered the Eurostar and almost booked one of the last business class seats on KLM but they couldn’t guarantee I would make it to the plane in time.

Luckily my good friend Si had offered following me a room after having to book a hotel due to Rotterdam.

Finally after 15 days, 5 different hotels and 2 conferences; I was back in Manchester again.

The thing I learned is Easyjet cancels both flights even if you request to cancel only the outgoing flight.I gather this isn’t true for every airline but I don’t think they are the only one. Easyjet insists they sent emails to me but as I wasn’t the booker, it didn’t get to me. Although they did have my mobile number and email address. Right now we are going through this all to see what went wrong.

Dont get me wrong I had a amazing time in Amsterdam, worked really hard throughout but got the right blend of work and pleasure. However my credit card looks pretty damaged although I will get back the flights, some hotels are on me.

Eurostar’s shrinking ambitions

I read a piece from the Guardian while in Amsterdam for a couple of conferences.

I honestly felt crushed by this, enjoying the pleasure of the Dutch while Brexit has clearly had an effect on so much.

While growing up I was blown away about the channel tunnel and being able to take a train to mainland Europe. But so much chimed in the guardian piece. For example I really wanted to take the train from Manchester to Amsterdam and although it would have taken a lot longer (well actually under 7 hours compared to Easyjet cancelling my flight and me having to order another one last minute, maybe not) but the cost on the UK side was a issue.

Trains to London from Manchester can be expensive and slower than you would imagine. On top of this if you get a lot of cancellations. HS2 will/could help but the biggest barrier is the border control due to Brexit. Hopping on and off is a complete fantasy now.

Dare I say the UK (Britons who want to rejoin EU at highest levels) has truly kicked the dream of frictionless travel into Europe I had when I was young into the gutter then set it on fire to burn.

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (July 2023)

Woman typing on laptop while sitting on a sofa in a coffee shop

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing students using AI to learn languages, the malicious use of AI and Meta’s Voice AI,

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this with the EU AI act, Amazon prime dark patterns finally being acted on and a look at the tangible risks of AI.

PublicSpaces: For a collective internet?

Ian thinks: I am biased as I took part in this years Publicspaces conference, however this is a conference worthy of watching once the 2023 ones are added to the others in peertube. Some highlights include Ruha Benjamin, Eli Pariser, Public broadcasters and private social networks, Building Digital Commons.

Who added the creepy?

Ian thinks: I found this interview with Dave Eggers worthy of a mention. The EFF push him on his thoughts and get quite a lot back. I was struck by the line “…but who decided to insert the creepy?”

What is the public service view on AI?

Ian thinks: This interview with Acemoglu is quite enlightening and highlights the critical question of how would AI & ML operate and look like if it wasn’t about increasing the bottom line or hoovering up data?

The link between AI and loneliness and isolation

Ian thinks: Murthy in this interview has so many good points and ultimately links the possibility of loneliness with basic needs like hunger and thirst. I’m sure many disagree but as described in Turkle’s Alone together, its clear there is an unbalanced use of technology directly contributing to something.

Ian thinks: Following the previous link, Mozilla’s research deserves more attention. Consent is critical for trust and you would have thought the mental health industry would trust as their top priority? Maybe I’m naive and the commercialisation of the industry is self-evident.

Re:publica 23, its all about Cash? (day 1, day 2, day 3)

Ian thinks: Every year I see such great talks and come from Republica, most are in German but there are also a number in English. I am pretty sure they will separate the talks in time.

Ian thinks: I needed to add my thoughts on this challenge against openness by those leading the charge for openness (yes confusing). I understand the potential but its more likely Meta will close their instances to the fediverse, lets not be that person ahead of time.

Digital nomads reshaping the cities

Ian thinks: As someone looking to be a digital nomad, this is a hard pill to digest. I certainly would like to see more meaningful exchange with the locals rather than dive in an carve out a new bubble?

Get Rich or Lie Trying

Ian thinks: This book has come up so many times, but it wasn’t till I met the author at MozHouse Amsterdam. I decided to put it on top of my list. Symeon digs deep into the social dumpster fire and clearly points out the damage which has been done at all levels.

Find the original here – https://cubicgarden.com/2023/07/01/public-service-internet-monthly-newsletter-july-2023/ and the archive here