Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
Available on the Fediverse or if you want just the audio.(its better with the video for our expressions)
Thank you very much Ozone for the fun time we had discussing everything.
Conference season is pretty much over and my last event was the excellent Mozilla Festival, this time in Barcelona. I took a KLM flight via Amsterdam on the way and created the base of a interesting mix. On the way back I flew via Heathrow on BA (a reminder how much I don’t like Heathrow, and use to fly from Gatwick when I could).
On my BA flight, I re-did the mix with a few tweaks and the resulting mix was created. Created using the very ageing Pacemaker device on KLM and remix/raised on BA? as such?
Its a strange one because there is a bit of reusing of the same tunes, which isn’t a thing you do when DJing, but it kind of worked. Also maybe the early mornings, 4 hours of sleep and climbing what felt like 100 steps to the festival, had gotten to me?
What ever it is, I have been enjoying this longer mix, as it includes new tunes, especially Bring back the techno which I also heard DJ B Jones playing on the Saturday night party.
Enough typing… You can listen to the mix in full quality on my mixgarden or at reasonable quality here too.
About a month ago I was in Helsinki for the Mydata conference, one of the things I like to do is find new places. A guy I knew from Manchester suggested a really amazing speakeasy place to me, while I complained about the sugar-horrific gin & lemon in a can one night.
So I checked it out and thought it was a fantastic bar, although having your phone locked away when you needed to know the last train is quite something. However I met a stranger at the bar and we talked for a while and even walked back to the train station. Then on a second night after going to the theme park in Helsinki, he was there again. Although not a familiar stranger, it was some inspiration for this mix.
Recorded on the flights back to Manchester and a bit of tweaking, I present the Helsinki familiar stranger mix at 192k on peertube and now finally on my own peetube mixgarden in full quality.
We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing the deliberate thoughtfulness of Tilly Norwood, Deloitte’s AI report to the Australia government and Windows 10 end of life is a e-waste disaster?
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 Sir Tim’s thought on the future of AI, renewable overtaking coal as the worlds source of electric and digital sovereignty grows bigger in Europe.
Ian thinks: Recently I attended the Society 5.0 conference and attended a workshop on how the internet is changing architecture and physical public spaces. At the same time by chance McNeil and Marx talk through the same tensions.
Ian thinks: This discussion between Taylor and Drew is very revealing, how prolific Ai slop really is. Its a detailed discussion and with lots of in-depth commentary on the process of how its made and why.
Ian thinks: Everyone is talking about the AI bubble but this video breaks down what a bubble looks like and with a critical eye how money is being passed around. How this works and are we really looking at the collapse of the last decades?
Ian thinks: During the PublicSpaces conference earlier this year, there was a great keynote talk in Dutch but a big part of the talk was around European culture and Startup culture clash. The German Digital-Mittelstand is a strong example of the long-term view of the European landscape.
Ian thinks: Bluesky has been talking about federation for a long while but its clear over this high profile this conflict with Blacksky.
Futher conflict is around the corner with the Trump administration’s arrival on Bluesky.
Ian thinks: The emphasis on smart glasses recently has raised a ton of red flags. It feels like there is so little learned from the past including Google glass. Gilliard and Paris break down what I have been thinking how little has been learned. On a more casual note.
Ian thinks: Cory has been on the circuit talking about his new book Enshittification. I have heard a few interviews but one of the best is certainly the one with Rushkoff where they talk about so much more. Second best is this one on Vox’s grey area.
Ian thinks: Talking of Douglas Rushkoff, he’s monologue on a potential intentional international collapse due the Ai bubble, greed, quality and so much is a sobering reminder of what’s at stake. But also the small steps we can do to make a difference.
Ian thinks: You may have come across this story about Mark Bray and his radical works casing him and his family to be put on a watch list of radicals. It’s a story in a worrisome trend of researchers joining such lists along side journalists and activists.
Amazon goes down and so many of the services we rely on daily and there are many thoughts about that? However there is so much more to this story than first imagined. This video explains how deep this all potentially runs.
I was surprised to find myself on Youtube,
It was a really good conference and the machine readable wishes workshop went down very well. You can see the slide deck linked here.
Myself, Sam and Solana have started a blog here and there is a github repo started here. Expect more soon, and get in touch if you find the project interesting.
The man says, what are you going to do when the gym shuts down?
I was shocked, what do you mean? This weekend it will close for good. This is the moment I found out the last Bannatyne will close for good and my weekly spa time with it. I confirmed this with the staff, as I left for the last time, not only to get clarity but to find out when I’ll be getting a refund for my yearly payment (which I now have). I was told the nearest Bannatyne gyms are Blackpool (55miles) and Buxton (27miles) now.
The thing which got me is how over August Bannatyne sent 12 emails about their new app in August but zero about the closure of the last Manchester gym.
It’s laughable how this has all turned out and so quickly! At once point there was 3 different Bannatyne’s in Manchester then with the last 3 years they have shut down.
The main reason I blog about this is because I’m looking (Lazyweb) for a Spa/Gym which is based in Manchester city centre. It must have a steam room, sauna and a way to cool down (cold shower, Jacuzzi, etc) following this a weight room. Currently I’m using Kontrast for my sauna but with steam room and zero weights its a stop gap (although I do like the late night weekends).
Honestly, I’m open to suggestions because I see many gyms and a few Saunas but very few which have all three without a seriously huge cost. I would even consider having different subscriptions if cost effective. I’m currently looking at Nuffield and others
They would be a great time, when all those Manchester spas/gyms would see this and get in touch with there best options.
We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing AI attempting to rewrite history, Agentic AI browsers fooled and Rabbit R1 is back?
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 good counter-points parts [1][2][3] to tell the AI die-hards, a uptake of LoRaWAN and low energy decentralised networks thanks in part to meshtastic and alternative to typical internet servcies but European based look no further.
Ian thinks: Rushkoff’s story about borrowing a drill and community has become similar to the billionares and the event story. Rushkoff calls it a revolutionary act, I call it an act of community interest, something we rarely see in
Ian thinks: This interview with professor Ingrid Robeyns, is a good listen especially after reading Limitarianism and thinking about the problems of inequality. I wonder if anyone in government is taking notes as there are so many voices and credible research pointing to the same conclusion.
Ian thinks: Like it or not, Rossmann speech about the right to repair, how we can’t own anything as the makers find more clever ways to enshittify is on point. I am sure Samsung’s fridge with adverts you can’t turn off, would be in a updated version if redone now..
Ian think: Karen Hao, has been the rounds recently with the Empires of AI book. This is one of the best conversations/interviews I seen with her. The mid point and end points are well argued by Hao, touching deeply on the need to make their own religious pyramids of technology.
Ian thinks: Do you remember when people use to “hard” post? What happened? According to Chayka many things. From algorithms, ephemeral, context collapse, advertising, etc. Let’s not forget the effect of bots too.
Ian thinks: in 1985 most won’t remember the Ozone hole threat as its so baked into the world we live in now. Tristan talks with Susan about the solution and how it can be applied now to the AI challenge.
Ian thinks: Nobel peace-prize winning journalist’s conversation with the Daily shows’s Jon Steward about the state of journalism and authoritarian, is a rare and frank exchange with Maria Ressa making it super clear how the playbook happened almost a decade ago and how they tried to alert the world back then.
Ian thinks: If this is true and the video summary isn’t off the mark. There is a big question about where do people go? We always knew having a duopoly for mobile devices was going to blow up in our faces.
Ian thinks: Meredith Whittaker tells it as it is, is great in this interview about how she got started in the tech industry, signal gate, AI, masculinity and so much more. Her insight on how “useful” AI agents are infiltration services such as Whatsapp and Signal is spot on.
Like this newsletter? Find the archive here
There is a lot of great things in the conversation but this got me really thinking (about 36:50, I couldn’t get the link to timestamp working). Sorya Chemaly uses a personal experience of talking with 2 men with teenage children at a party who also have a book club book group. They find out she is a writer/author, then ask her if she likes writing non-fiction?
Soraya mentions she likes writing it but is frustrated because men generally only read non-fiction by men not women. So as a woman, she loses half the audience straight away.
The men have a discussion between themselves in the open asking if they ever had a female written book in their book club. Turns out no they had not ever, and start to openly wonder why. Soraya, puts it clear what the problem in the podcast.
This got me thinking how many non-fiction books have I read which are written by a woman?
As I read a lot of non-fiction, I looked though my bookwrym to see.
So far in 2025 I have read 20 books. The ones which are written by a female are. Unprocssed, Supremacy, Empire of AI, Careless people, Data a love story, Mood Machine, Refusing compulsory sexuality and Limitarianism.
8/20 is better than I thought it would be, I am currently reading a few book including Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown for example, which is very thoughtful.
In 2024 I read 24 books and the ones which were written by a female were the Shock doctorine, Extremely online, Doppelganger, Extremely hardcore, Radical intimacy, Lets talk about loneliness, The tech coup, Automating Inequality and Together.
9/24, less good but happy I am improving in 2025.
For companion, 2023 was pretty bad with only 3 women, Silicon Values, The big con and The will to change.
However the discussion doesn’t stop there, because how many of the women I read are women of colour? From a brief look. Karen Hao, and Sherronda J.Brown from this year and Simone Heng and Sophie K. Rosa from 2024. Although Bell Hooks from 2023 which is a important writer on this exact subject.
Soraya makes the important point that if you are not aware of this all, nothing will change. My eyes are wide open now. Thanks!
You may have noticed cubicgarden.com has gone through a bit of change since I left BBC R&D. After setting up a Cubicgarden ltd, I quickly made some changes. One of them, is a quick page before you see this blog.
However I have finally got my Yunohost setup working thanks in a small part to Gemini, which filtered my queries down to something more understandable (It was a combination of a Yunohost bug which was fixed in the latest update, SD cards wear and reinstalling and DNS problems)
However, I now have moved things around to different domains.
We now have…
Cubicgarden.com = My personal blog
Cubicgarden.uk = My business site – Needs work
Cubicgarden.info = My mixgarden/Dj site – Still need to upload my many mixes, anyone know how to add the ability to subscribe and copy a channel with yunohost peertube?
Datingmanifesto.cc = The online dating manifesto – Still needs work and I need to move from Github to Codeberg too.
Expect more changes soon
Its September and the Mozilla Festival is right around the corner. Now is a very good time to book a hotel and get your ticket for the first global festival since London in 2019.
If you haven’t heard the tickets or badges have gone through a bit of a change too, thanks in part from the space wranglers speaking up and the Mozilla Foundation hearing our heartfelt concerns. The wranglers have always been thinking about the communities we represent and the result of this is the community badges/tickets.
But don’t worry, if you want to support the Mozilla Foundation which are (I imagine) thinking a lot about the recent DOJ judgement, but earn a bit of a bonus too. Use the promocode – IF-WRANGLER to get 25% off and individual tickets and 50% off group tickets (when buying in batches of 5 or more).
Really look forward to unlearning together with this incredible group of space wranglers this year.