Month: October 2018

Another busy month or so

Its going to be another busy month or so…

Tomorrow we start to Build a healthy public service internet in the first forum during Mozfest weekend. This will be further explored at Mozfest in the decentralised space on Saturday afternoon.

Not long afterwards I’ll be going to Skopje along the same lines as last year when I was in Sarajevo. This time we have the results of last years workshop, the living room of the future.

Then Berlin for Most wanted music with a adaptive narrative conference talk more focused on audio than video and our first perceptive podcasting workshop. Now this exciting but scary as its completely beta and being developed right now.

I’m back in Berlin not long afterwards for a look at object based media and how machine learning can work together for the future of storytelling, quite similar to TOA 17 but more exploring and more I can talk about now compared to then.

Finally wrapping up with a critical panel discussion titled New platforms, new ways of storytelling at the future of the book in London. I expect a few things I said at Oreilly’s Tools of Change in 2012 are still very relevant. But also Perceptive podcasting will be much more mature by then.

All exciting but quite a bit in one go…

Dormouse Chocolate now has a shop in Manchester

Cocoabeans

A hidden chocolate shop is now open just off Deansgate https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/hidden-chocolate-shop-manchester-dormouse-15283210

I read about dormouse chocolates in my feed and was excited to hear they have opened a shop in Manchester. I met them at the cococarunners event in takk a while ago and quite liked their chocolate although generally too milky for my personal tastes but they have darker too and they are good too.

My trainers have a problem

Adidas springblade problem highlighted
Noticed the green glue which makes clear the problem with Adidas Springblades.

I love my Adidas springblade trainers but the fault in them is pretty major.

Originally I thought it might be a technical problem with that one trainer but it turned out to be much more that just a one off. I actually bought 2 of them in different colours and slightly different style but had to send one back to Adidas for a full refund. They also offered a refund on the other one but I wanted to keep it as I kinda hoped superglue would help things. They did give me a part refund anyway.

They were excellent about it all, can’t point the finger at them for customer service. but I’ve carefully wore the other pair.

Adidas springblade trainers

However in almost a 2 years since I bought them and wearing them here and there mainly during summer, I looked at them again to see if I could fix things with glue, sponge or something else. I noticed something else was not right with the other shoe too.

To explain from the pictures; the blades (as they are called) are quite solid to support the weight of the wearer. The blades are set at a angle, so they slightly bend giving an amazing but slight bounce to walking and running. I can’t tell you how amazing it feels, and I’ve worn all types of trainers including Nike Air. I still remember wearing them on a walk form Check point charlie to krutzberg while on the Mozilla retreat in Berlin.

Adidas springblade trainers

But the rigidity nature makes it not good with the usual bending of shoe. There is some give but not enough and ultimately the rigid blades break away from the base unit. Not in a loose your heel in a street vent style but rather it cracks away from the base. This is where I was applying super glue but it would last a certain amount of time before the glue would break again.

To be fair the reviews are not that impressive either, no idea what they would write if they had it longer. To me it was  clear as day for me when the blade break had happened on the opposite shoe in the exact same manor.

I think Adidas may have gone too far with the blades and the Adidas A3 & Bounces were a better idea for general use. Especially when it came to traction with the floor. Having too little actual contact with the floor made any hint of rain on the road a hazard for walking on. It s a real shame because they are incredibly engineered trainers.

Some will say over-engineered? Maybe thats why I love them so…?

A thunderstorm in Barcelona mix

On the first night of the holiday in Barcelona, we were hit by something of a biblical thunderstorm. It was super humid, so its hardly surprising.

There is a video but it was so rainy you can’t really see much, so got the Pacemaker out and started mixing late at night. The mix was much longer but I had to cut it back due to some very dodgy mixing as I likely started to fall a sleep.

Enjoy the mix…

  1. Nightmare (Original Sinister strings) – Brainbug
  2. Opium – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
  3. Strike – Signum
  4. Prosac – Dj Tomcraft
  5. Delores – Indecent Noise
  6. Intruder – Armin vs MIKE
  7. The Oblivious – Muhamed Sherief & WAAJII
  8. Mass Noise 2015 (Stephen Kirkwood & Mark Friel remix) – Fred Baker & Seb B
  9. Helsinki Scorching – Super8 vs DJ Tab
  10. Opulence – Simon Patterson
  11. Whites of her eyes – Simon Patterson
  12. We are one (Instrumental mix) – Dave 202
  13. Seven Cities (V-Ones living cities remix) – Solar Stone
  14. Labyrinth (Paul Keyen remix) – Lee Cassells
  15. Perfect Wave – Peter Martin presents Anthanasia
  16. Brush Stokes – Simon Patterson
  17. Love Stimulation (Oliver Lieb Club mix) – Paul Van Dyk
  18. Surveillance – Jordan Suckley

50 years since the Olympics Black Power salute

John Carlos and Tommie Smith made headlines across the world when they raised the black power salute on the podium after winning in the 1968 Olympics

The 1968 Olympics Black Power Salute was a political demonstration conducted by African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their medal ceremony on October 16, 1968, at the 1968 Summer Olympics in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City. After Smith and Carlos won gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the 200-meter running event, they turned on the podium to face their flags, and to hear the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Each athlete raised a black-gloved fist, and kept them raised until the anthem had finished. In addition, Smith, Carlos, and Australian silver medalist Peter Norman all wore human rights badges on their jackets. In his autobiography, Silent Gesture, Smith stated that the gesture was not a “Black Power” salute, but a “human rights salute”. The event is regarded as one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympic Games.

One of the most powerful statements in history and its so weirdly ironic looking at the NFL players taking the knee at the same national anthem.

Actually… in the same article

John Carlos and Tommie Smith made headlines across the world when they raised the black power salute on the podium after winning in the 1968 Olympics. That protest brought them death threats, and they were expelled from the games.

Lot to take away and think about…

How good is the Oura ring tracker?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5U4F9xvWY

Its a nice looking device, seems to work well but at £300+ its a high price.

I do find the back story interesting however, especially since its been floating around the Quantified Self community for quite some time.

My usual worries about data-portability, app access (the android app looks like it needs work), etc all come into play but as a replacement for myband2 and sleep tracking on my pebble smart watch. It does interest me.

I don’t usually wear rings but I did obviously have a wedding ring and also did try wearing one of those cheap NFC rings.

The way of the finnish mix

Another Pacemaker device mix from Finland, this time a lot longer and a lot less polished but its got a certain charm which I quite enjoy. Note the Helsinki scorching remixes, as it would be rude not to play it in Helsinki. Theres quite a few classics in this mix and they still sound good.

Enjoy!

  1. Love Stimulation (PvD love club mix) – Humate
  2. Intruder – Armin vs MIKE
  3. My Beat (Jan Driver mix) – Blaze
  4. Opium – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
  5. Reflection (Extended mix) – Ferry Corsten
  6. Mass Noise 2015 – Fred Baker & Seb B
  7. Running up the hill (Jerome isma-ae bootleg) – Placebo
  8. Helsinki Scorching – Super8 vs Dj Tab
  9. Ligaya (Hiver & hammer remix) – Gouryella
  10. Circles – Robert Nickson
  11. Against the Flow (Astuni & Manuel Le Saux Extended relift) – Stine Grove
  12. Madagascar (Ferry Corsten mix) – Art of Trance
  13. Delores – Indecent noise
  14. Out of the Blue – System F
  15. Everythings been written – 8 Wonders
  16. Imagineer (Alex M.O.R.P.H remix) – Lange
  17. Gouryella (Extended mix) – Gouryella
  18. Without you (Dogzilla dub mix) – Dogzilla
  19. Helsinki Scorching (Alex Morph remix) – Super8 vs Dj Tab
  20. Who’s knocking (Ferry Corsten remix) – FB featuring Edun
  21. Higher state – Genix
  22. We are one (instrumental mix) – Dave 202

The intruders in Helsinki mix

Can’t even tell you how many mixes I have done over the last few trips but I’m slowly picking out the good ones and uploading them to my Mixcloud account.

I really enjoyed doing this mix on my pacemaker while enjoying a coffee near the Amos Rex, and happened to capture the scene of space intruders (really models dressed up in space clothes) climbing over the outside. Its a short one and you will see intruder by Armin vs MIKE is in there twice, as it was fitting with the stampede of space intruders.

  1. Madagascar (Ferry Corsten mix) – Art of Trance
  2. Love Stimulation (PvD love club mix) – Humate
  3. Running up the hill (Jerome isma-ae bootleg) – Placebo
  4. Reflection (Extended mix) – Ferry Corsten
  5. Mass Noise 2015 – Fred Baker & Seb B
  6. Intruder – Armin Vs MIKE
  7. Opium – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
  8. Blood Angels (Chris Liebing Mix) – John Starlight
  9. Amino Acid – Tau-Rine
  10. Intruder – Armin Vs MIKE
  11. My Beat (Ambassador extended remix) – Blaze
  12. The Expedition (Indecent noise remix) – Armin Van Buuren and Markus Schulz

Its all go at Mozilla Festival 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mozfest/24140492258/

Usually I’m busy at this time getting things ready for Mozilla festival, but this year I stepped down as a spacewrangler. Its always good to have new people try their hand at it all. Of course I’m still involved in Mozfest, as I submitted a few sessions for the festival and a couple were accepted including why is there a need for a public service internet; which follows a private event during the Mozhouse week.

This year, ideas from Mozilla’s first full-length Internet Health Report — a deep look at how the Internet and human life intersect — are at the heart of the festival. At MozFest 2018, we’ll strategize our next moves in global campaigns for net neutrality, data privacy, and online freedom. We’ll advance thinking on topics like ethical AI and common-sense tech policy. We’ll collaborate on code, on art and practical ideas, creating seeds for the next great open-source products.

Tickets are live for the festival and the schedule went live today.

Personal data stores are the new grey?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/slightlyeverything/8227615319/

If I had some money from all the people who sent me details of Tim Burners-Lee’s Solid I would have enough to buy a cheap flight to somewhere in Europe with a cheap airline.

Solid is meant to change “the current model where users have to hand over personal data to digital giants in exchange for perceived value. As we’ve all discovered, this hasn’t been in our best interests. Solid is how we evolve the web in order to restore balance – by giving every one of us complete control over data, personal or not, in a revolutionary way.”

Solid isn’t a radical new program. Instead, “Solid is a set of modular specifications, which build on, and extend the founding technology of the world wide web (HTTP, REST, HTML). They are 100% backwards compatible with the existing web.

Main reason why people seem to be sending it my way is because of another open source project I’m involved in called Databox.

For me the Solid is a personal data store, its like a secure vault for your data. This is good but like 2 factor authentication over SMS, not as secure as other ways. Put all your personal data in one place and its a central point for those who want everything at once. Think about how many times you have seen leaks of databases which contain credit cards, numbers, emails, names, etc… Its the eggs/data in one basket problem…

This came up at Mydata 2018, there was quite a lot of discussion about this through out the conference and touched on in Mikko Hypponen’s talk.

The data in one place is just aspect, others are more about the value proposal to people and technically how verified claims work; as expressed in how solid is tim’s plan to redecentralize the web.

The comparisons between Solid and Databox have been asked by many and I would certainly say Databox (regardless of its name) isn’t a place to hold all your personal data. You could use it like that but its more of a privacy aware data processing platform/unit. I remember the first time I heard about Vendor relationship management (VRM), it was clear to me how powerful this could be for many things. But then again I also identified Data portability as something essential while most people just didn’t see the point.

Everything will live or die by not just developer support, privacy controls, security, cleverness, but by user demand… and it feels like personal data stores still a while off in most peoples imagination.

Maybe once enough people personally experience the rough side of personal data breaches it may change?

For example today I received a email from have you been pwned saying…

You’re one of 125,929,660 people pwned in the Apollo data breach.

In July 2018, the sales engagement startup Apollo left a database containing billions of data points publicly exposed without a password. The data was discovered by security researcher Vinny Troia who subsequently sent a subset of the data containing 126 million unique email addresses to Have I Been Pwned. The data left exposed by Apollo was used in their “revenue acceleration platform” and included personal information such as names and email addresses as well as professional information including places of employment, the roles people hold and where they’re located. Apollo stressed that the exposed data did not include sensitive information such as passwords, social security numbers or financial data.

Till this is a everyday occurrence, most people will just carry on and not care? Maybe theres even a point it should be part of the furniture of the web, like the new grey?

Making Slack useable on x64 Linux?

 

Slack

Its been a while since I reinstalled my work laptop; one thing I haven’t reinstalled properly is the Slack app.

The amount of times I use to start it up and go and make a tea because it would make my ubuntu install act like Windows 95. Most of the time I would come back to find my laptop completely frozen.

I tried removing the amount of slack workspaces I had attached to the app but it made little difference. So I decided to hell with the slack app, which seems to be a wrapper for Chrome, with each slack instance being another instance of chrome!

This time I’m using Slack in Firefox and limiting how many I have open at a time. I noticed if you login into the different slacks, the cookie will hold them open for you without using the resources. This can be done from the main page using the Workspace options.

Slack home

I also noticed the enterprise slack version also has a front page which can be used to reach the other slacks.

Recently I decided to give Flatpak Slack a try. Interestingly I found you can launch the Slack app from the slack pages mentioned above.

It sounds like a lot of hassle but it works and mean my ubuntu system is fully useable.

Hopefully this will be useful for other Linux Slack users?