I started this mix following the one in Malta, It’s been kicking around on my phone for a while but didn’t sound quite right. With my flight from Amsterdam I got time to redo it and decided on the fly to give it more tunes, which just worked.
I use freedom, as its my first mix now being free from the BBC and although nervous, gives me a lot of freedom which I’m starting to fully understand. I feel like I’m on a different frequency.
This was done during the flight and slightly edited at the end because the air pressure in my ears made it more difficult to hear the mix fully. I won’t lie this mix kicks and is full of highs and deep tunes, hope you enjoy it too.
I have great news I will be at Republica in Berlin this year. Its such a great festival/conference and vast in size. But better still is the subjects covered.
Last year I went to 2 great sessions about death and legacy by Linn Friedrichs, and then Savena Surana and Arda Awais from Identity 2.0. Last year Linn gave this talk and the Identity 2.0 women this one.
Framework laptop and Android phone in the Vanitas style (generated)
I enjoyed both and felt like they needed to be introduced, so I connected them, along my own interests in digital legacy. Now we’re on a stage together talking digital legacy a super important subject which doesn’t get enough attention.
How do we die online? Innovation, hypes, and glitches – the shifting tech landscape chips away at the taboos surrounding death and reshapes how we address loss and legacy. Join a candid conversation about digital death care, forever-promises, AI ‘seances’ and a new dimension of digital rights.
It was David Eastman who introduced me to the Shelfies project. I sent my post a while ago but didn’t hear anything, assuming I might not be of interest because I generally listen to Audiobooks and have a shelf of books to lead out to friends and family. I also tend to post a status of my book reading on Bookwrym.
…a unique peek each week into one of our contributors’ weird and wonderful bookshelves! We love books – and we’re the sort of people who love checking out other people’s collections! With Shelfies, we’ve asked a wide range of readers, authors and collectors from all walks of life to share not just their shelves with us – but the books that changed them.
You should go check out my thoughts and also other peoples book shelves. Heck maybe one day I’ll update it with my own book maybe… Thanks Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin for accepting my shelf.
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.”
Ian thinks: Mozfest has been a great festival and the house events have been good but the big global one is back. I have to also say I am involved again as a space wrangler and the theme of unlearning is perfectly timed.
Ian thinks: You may have noticed the backlash against Tesla recently. 404’s podcast got me thinking. The Cybertruck is made for a future which is too dangerous to drive through, its almost like its planned for this future? Not great to think about.
Ian thinks: During Solid World in February, the ODI took over the Solid project. This video outlines reasons and whats planned for the future. If you want the text summary its also available here.
Ian thinks: I am usually not interested in this type of thing but AMD seem to be releasing their AI LLM model with everything including the training material and its all under a pretty fair licence. Although mainly for research, could this be a benchmark for future open AI models?
Ian thinks: Lets be honest, if you haven’t seen Adolescence by now, find some time to watch it. For many its cinematography and use of no cuts is great. But deeper down its a clear wake up call for parents, educators and all of us how young people are being manipulated to potentially society harming and lethal scales.
Ian thinks: This is a on going trend, as people learn more about what personal data means in terms which directly effect them. This is a good thing and certainly highlights all the efforts by activists and organisations shouting about the importance of personal data for decades now.
Ian thinks: Amy Webb’s new insight company FTSG, follows on from Future Today Institute reports of previous years. This years report is a huge 1000 pages and covers so much of the emerging technology bounded around the tech industry. The exec summary is a good place to start a long weekend through this all.
Ian thinks: This interview of Professor Wajcman, is short but filled with so many good points about the endless lines being fed to us from mainly Silicon Valley. I challenge you to not shake your head in support of at least one point she makes.
Ian thinks: In this interview with Chris Messina, the inventor of the hashtag. We are reminded of the hashtag for connecting communities and how they are still relevant in the next generation of federated social platforms.
Its the final day of my position at BBC R&D and I had a really good first leaving party yesterday.
This a day I have prepared for and didn’t really think would come, but over the last 7 months realised will come. It has been made slightly easier by the 4 different leaving dos I planned (2 in Manchester and 2 in London, drinks and dinners).
Its been great catching up with many different people, old faces and current faces. Its clear to me, I have really moved on and although that doesn’t distract from the difficulty of many layoffs in the BBC. I’m very aware so many people have been affected and
My focus is on my future and what I am doing next, I even finally set my linkedin as #opentowork. While in London for the weekend, seeing the R&D’s lighthouse (White City, W12), talking deeply with the security guards for a long while and chatting yesterday. It hit me, all the back and forth, leadership coaching, talks with friends, etc has got put me in a good place. I have made peace with everything and potentially this is great for difficult times ahead.
Quoting John Lennon…
Life is what happens when we are busy doing other things. Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are and something you give away.
My position is still going to close and I have taken redundancy, which means I will leave at the end of March 2025. I had a stupid amount of leave to take and spend most of my time off. When I put in for the holidays it felt like a long time away but its come super quickly, along with my leaving date.
My huge task list for planning things out is still in action but with a lot of adjustments. I didn’t really account for the heavy amount of what I will call general zuck and how it zaps time away. Either way, I have done quite a bit.
Some things I have been up to.
I spoke at the first united artist AI social club which was good, yesterday talked about social media and digital legacy at the Children’s Media foundation coffee chat and have agreement to do some lecturing later in the year. I can’t say yet but I will become an adviser for a special EU project and will be a large part of a major festival later this year. There might be a second one with a very good friend, which I’m also keeping tight lipped about (fingers crossed on that one). Theres also a very related author who I’m in touch with who could really make this all have huge impact.
I have been working up some of my side projects including DJ hackday and the Adaptive podcasting applied to music is gaining some traction.
The dating book I mentioned previously is super close to being finished with feedback taken on board and the understanding the first edition is always going to be bad and have a ton of errors you can fix in the second and third editions. The book will include something special to keep the conversation going. I finally setup Gitea to finally deal with all the versioning as it was getting out of hand! I also stuck a bunch of my other markdown projects into it too including my Markdown CV, Markwhen, etc. On the digital legacy front, I have news but I’ll share that soon as things are announced.
Part of the redundancy from the BBC includes outplacement options once I’m officially given my formal notice. I was filling my limited spare time over the festival holidays with my family, seeing friends, writing my CV’s, life after layoff and Linkedin learning till I learned I will still have linkedin learning after I leave with the BBC outplacement service.
There is something I wouldn’t have access to a small amount of formal training funding, so looked into my options. I considered my declarative, linked data and semantic web background; considered my design background and even project management. However it became clear what would really help is coaching, as I had some incredible coaching after my brush with death. This was going to be very expensive and heavy going but I made it happen with help from my line manager, BBC HR and access to work being dyslexic. I was able to get leadership coaching over the last month. Unfortunately its only available while I still working for the BBC and that has means some long intense sessions every week and homework. Its been excellent and very glad I could make it happen right at the end of my BBC employment. Certainly best use of my time at this moment…This and going on holiday to Malta with my partner.
Myself and my partner in Malta
As I am just shy of 21 years at the BBC (weeks shy) I am never going quietly (into the night) and have setup 4 different events for my leaving. 2 in London and 2 in Manchester. Each city has a general drinks/snacks, then a smaller sit down meal. I know it seems over the top but as its close to my birthday too, so its a double reason to celebrate.
You could say why are you arranging your own leaving party’s?
But honestly with the amount of people leaving BBC R&D and different people with different plans, some to leave quietly some less so. Its just easier on everyone to arrange it myself (of course with help from colleges who are not leaving of course).
If you didn’t get the invite, let me know via email or the fediverse. Its been hard to remember who to send this all to…
A key part I have been doing is sorting out how I manage this all, because although tasks lists are ok this just don’t work for me as a long term sustainable solution. I do love Kanban’s (as I call it kambams) and used Trello in the past a lot. Then I switched to Microsoft planner at work which was awful but just about usable. Combined with the need have self control over this all… I started looking at self-hosting Planka on Yunohost. (Bearing in mind, I have been looking into knowledge management systems for awhile.
I attempted to put Yunohost on my old Dell XPS 12. Those stickers are a trip through history
I have enjoyed Yunohost and bought a cheap Intel NUC PC on ebay for this and other applications I want to host them using docker but they were tricky on my Qnap NAS. I also do have Yunohost on a Raspberry PI 5 but I realised some apps need a AMD64 environment and with a always on VPN I can run and use them anywhere? I also looked at Wekan and keep trying to get Vikunja working.
But back to where I am…
The biggest issue right now is prioritising what I do, how much I setup now and redo after my leaving date. There are things like buying a new laptop I had to do and have decided to not include any work related stuff on to including Microsoft Edge, One drive syncing and Slack (although I do use slack for other communities so that will change). I have my PAC code for my work phone, so I can move that number soon enough.
I had planned to drive around on the scooter and see friends but the weather in the UK has been bad for riding and frankly its something I can do after April.
That’s where I am right now…
Focus on leadership coaching, finish up work (future of social report), write some recommendations for BBC R&D, a intriguing final email (maybe also in audio), lean in on the different opportunities from my network, have a great time at the leaving parties for March/April. Finally I should switch my Linkedin to open to work maybe?
I do plan to take a break straight afterwards for my birthday and the Easter holidays. Then I’m back and will be in touch with many of you, as the scooter is ready to go.
Yes I am looking at where to go next but I’m carefully looking at options, rather than jumping to the next place. I am very aware there are a lot people being made redundant, its rough out there. I can only rely on my network and unique skills to find my next steps.
I recently dropped one of Pacemaker devices while in Malta but I was able to get a mix off it before it stopped. While on the plane I created a couple of mixes. This is a early version of a longer version I did later in the flight. Originally I did think about recreating it once I got back to the UK with the last working Pacemaker device, I decided it just needs to be as it is, and maybe one day I’ll try and recreate the ending.
There are certainly some crossfader mistakes or changes I would do instead but I did enjoy this mix. Hopefully you will all enjoy this shorten mix complete with a series of new tunes
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.”
Ian thinks: This list of the worst offenders of enshittification, is interesting but I am very surprised to not see cars and dating apps on this list. Something which is regullaryly on Mozilla’s privacy not included lists.
Ian thinks: Mate crime is a short term for exploitation by people who are close. It’s increasing and there is a lot of pointers to the less that ideal anti-social spaces we live in now. Isolation is a killer and starved of social contact, we can become easy prey for toxic friendships.
Ian thinks: This is a good short piece about making a AI news anchor. The process is understandable but what got me was the wider impact of this has on general trust of news. Ultimately this all adds up to a lack of trust all around.
Ian thinks: We already know how important undersea cables are but few are fully aware of the ongoing war happening not only in Europe but also across the world including the east China sea. As you can imagine with Taiwan and China.
Ian thinks: Back in 2015, I headed up a project which needed 25+ types of music. I worked with students to identify the music; but there was a unreal moment when I needed to explain Spotify does not contain all the music in the world and they should look elsewhere. This interview is a clear reminder of the impact of Spotify and what the alternatives are.
Ian thinks: Eli parser’s speech at Vatican is a real detailed one, raising up a lot of the underlying fodder we seem to have forgotten. The line lets have faith, is just perfect
Ian thinks: This conversation is full of interesting points from the question of the 3rd place, mental health, etc. But what I found most interesting is the difference in cultures. Its why BBC R&Ds future of social report will go a step deeper. However the notion of online connection as the junk food of connection is quite interesting.
Ian thinks: I think this is great. Similar to how many others are starting to use the user interface mechanics used to trap and keep people hooked. How many times in the past have you spent time clicking through Wikipedia, learning more as you read more.
Ian thinks: This is a important question which Rachel Coldicutt uncovers. Our European neighbours have taken a clear stance of safety, while the American oligarchy find this bizarre, and can’t resist telling them during the AI summit. As the UK like the USA refuses to sign a international AI declaration. Is this a clear sign?
As part of my redudancy I needed rethink my computer setup at home. For the longest time I have used my work laptop as mine. It fits with the blur of work and personal life. Although I did run Ubuntu on the Dell XPS 13 and had pretty much complete admin control to it.
Ultimately I needed to give it back and wipe it clean using Dban of course, meaning I needed to pick a personal laptop. As Dell has dropped the XPS 13 range, now was a good time to switch to Framework.
There has been a few times when I considered one. Once when my laptop bag strap broke as I was crossing the road and squashed the cornder. It didn’t smash the screen or damage the USB C port luckily. Anyway I clearly remember a conversation with Cory Doctorow who I was hosting for his new book at the time, he showed me how cheap and easy it was to replace the audiojack, USB C’s and just being able to replace every aspect of it.
I was pretty much sold but it wasn’t till about a 18 months later when the reality set in that I should actually buy one. I did a ton of research and asked peoples views including Andy Piper and found the only disadvantage is advance configurations and the firmware doesn’t get updated as quickly as other laptops. Nothing major.
With that I opted for the Framework 13 DIY Edition (Intel Core Ultra Series 1). I bought the most amount of memory (1x 32gig DIMM) and storage (4tb) my budget would take on Amazon then put it all together. It wasn’t difficult but I was very careful as I didn’t want to cause any problems for myself. I’d say it was easier than building PCs in the past but more fiddly.
I choose Intel, mainly because I had problems with AMD and Linux in the past. Maybe this was a legacy mistake but its done now.
Once it was put togther, I installed Ubuntu on it giving the silly amount of storage I have 100gig of swap (mainly for when I do get another 32gig Dimm)
Its been a few days and honestly its a great machine.I have had problems mainly with Ubuntu and moving things between the Dell and Framwork. Ubuntu defaulted to Wayland and Unity cruff. I couldn’t get Appimages to work and moving mainly to Flatpaks required a lot of permission tweaking.
The laptop its self is good but large compared to the XPS 13, it only just fits into my laptop bag. The keys are taller than what I’m use to but the trackpad feels great. I think Ideally I would have a black graphine body rather than the silver. It reminds me of the Mac books.
Weirdly the fan does come on sometimes (like old mac books) and its a bit noisy but I’ll get to the bottom of it in time.
I really like the expansion ports which there are 4 of. I thought the audio jack was also on an expansion port but its built in. The screen suporised me as I have very good eye sight and opted for the 2.5k screen with a max resolution of 2880px x 1920px at 120hz! I have mine set to 60hz to save on battery. Talking of which its been great at about 8-9 hours with the battary limited to 80% in the bios. To be fair replacing the battery isn’t a problem with the Framework laptop, when it gets low after lots of use.
This is a good buy and glad I went this route, although maybe I bought too soon… the 12 inch looks good but would I replace my Raspberry Pi 5 desktop for the desktop framework unlikely.
I do love a good spa and I have been to many over time. Sometimes they are ok, some have been shockingly bad. For example the 5 star nobu hotel in Barcelona was good except the spa which only happened because my partner made sure our junior suite (except they made some stupid last minute comment saying all suites except the junior ones include spa access!) was a nice spa but so cold! Nothing worst than sitting on a stone slab in a cold steam room!
I say nothing worst but the Mercure in Bournemouth had half of the facilities advertised and the Jacuzzi wasn’t filtering out the old water, meaning not only did my end up with a rash on the back of her neck where she had been resting; but I also caught a stomach bug from the dirty water for 24hrs and couldn’t eat anything! Makes the Nobu look positively heavenly.
This spa was a surprise it was underneath a park and buildings but was large with from memory at least 6 types of sauna’s and about 3 steam rooms. The pools were huge too and surprised me as I originally thought that was the whole place till went through a door into the spas. Honestly it’s a bit of a maze. It was reasonably priced from what I remember too. I would talk about Finland, Iceland and Norway but I haven’t been to any which are as good as this one in Sweden.
As it’s Scandinavian, I think there aspects of being naked but it was a long time ago so can’t remember exactly. Pretty sure like liquidrome to come, the pools are clothed and spas are naked.
Another aspect of this spa is it’s just around the corner from Urban Deli too if you are hungry. We need more of this type of setup in the UK.
My next big one is the one which got me into spas back in 1999.
My good friend who was born in east Berlin took me to liquidrome and I was kinda blown away. Every time I head to Berlin I find time to visit liquidrome, especially because it’s open till 1am on the weekends. It took a while to get over the naked spas, dripping only on to your towel etc but now it’s just not a thought. It’s changed over time but currently 4 saunas, 2 steam rooms, dive pool, outdoor pool, juzuzzis and best of all the sea water pool where you float with ambient music & lights above and below the water. It’s incredible!
I have been to Amsterdam so many times and only been to a spa for the first time in 2023 and it was a hotel spa Corendon Vitality Spa). Then Margaret last year clued me into Zuiver!
This is not a spa it’s a bloody retreat with about 8 steam rooms, 8 Saunas, 3 juczzis, steam baths, swimming pools and so much more inside and outside! Also open till late and like liquidrome. There is even a restaurant if you get hungry! All not super far from Zuid station.
Just like liquidrome there is some naked aspects. Twice a week they have naked days and for some reason I just seemed to end up picking those days due to conference days.
I can’t tell you how amazing it was being in the warm water wood barrow looking up at the night sky and seeing the stars. Then wondering over the huge sauna to get the full effect of the communal sauna (as I first experience in Oslo’s Salt) Next time I’m in Amsterdam I’ll be there for sure, hopefully with my partner too. Can’t believe it took me so long to explore the Dutch spa scene.
The Hyatt’s Oasis spa was just excellent in so many ways, I could have spent all day there. Not so many spas but each one had the touches which make for a great spa. Free water, free fruit, seats in the right places, lots of space and perfectly placed ice room, etc.
In Lisbon, I wanted to note Serena Spa for the best treatment I have had. Myself and my partner were treated to a special couples treatment called the 4 seasons. 1 hour of different flavours, smells and levels of impact. From the careful ice cold touches to the warm embrace of a hot towel and the leaves and vapour! Just amazing like they were experimenting with some new and exciting things.
i would give a thumbs up to the Onsens in Japan but when I compare them to the best I have in this list, they just don’t compare for what I’m looking for in a spa. It didn’t help that I didn’t feel comfortable wearing unfitting clothes and being stared at by groups of business men.
