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Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (May 2025)

Man looks around a scene from his past using a new technology which allows him to step into a picture

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed reading how social media is impacting young people, how everyone can be scammed even Troy Hunt was phished.

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 Hull Uni’s research into loneliness, a short prologue to the future of social and of course the FTC taking Meta to court.

Mozilla Festival 2025 global call for participation

Ian thinks: The Mozilla global festival 2025 call for participation is live. The theme this year is unlearning and includes unlearning design, security, harmful tech systems, traditional profit models, tech governance and tech Immateriality. A lot of unlearning! Get your proposals in before the 21st May deadline

The importance of the digital legacy across the world

Ian thinks: Not only do I think Digital legacy is important (even playing a part in Black Mirror’s Eulogy), if you attend Republica 2025, do look out for our conversation titled six feet under the data centre. One part of the conversation is how different nations/cultures face digital legacy and what could be learned for the future. This rest of world article is just the start.

Starlink’s impact on the Amazon?

Ian thinks: Unreported world is great at highlighting these stories and this one reminds me of the same problems of surveillance, and parents and young people are facing all over the world

Equality breeds conflict and vulnerability for us all

Ian thinks 3 white men (Zuckerberg, Bezos and Musk) are on track to become trillionares a level wealth that is unimaginable. This video is a good summary of where we are and huge problem. The Buy, Borrow and Die loop hole is so prolific even I have heard about it. Gary Stevenson has plenty to say about this all and is included in the video

How surveillance works in protests

Ian thinks: With the up-tick in surveillance, is it possible to protest without being tired to a protest? Short answer not really but there are some practical tips to consider when near or in a protest. I wonder how many of us knew about the London tube trial?

The digital coup and surveillance fascism?

Ian thinks: Carole Cadwalladr’s nervous but ever-so important talk, is right on the nose and strongly worded. Well shared and delivered right at the moment but if you find it short on substance; I recommend the follow up spicy interview with Cadwalladr and Anderson.

ReWild and ReWeirding the internet?

Ian thinks: Watching Rushkoff’s talk from SXSW 2025, with his thoughts from being an agent of change to an agent of care. Its clear to me there is so many connections with Maria Farrell’s ReWild the internet. If only they could come together in some way?

Growing with scale is so 2015

Ian thinks: This short which is a clip from the larger session about building communities across the social web. The whole session is worth a watch from SXSW’s social web space, covering the Fediverse (ActivityPub & ATproto) with a interesting panel from across the Fediverse. Also keep some time for Cory Doctorow in the same space.

The decline of ownership we all experience now

Ian thinks: Rossmann, is a loud critic of the right to repair and ownership battle. Although he’s style is pretty in your face, he raises good points and many examples demostrating how enshittification and DRM go hand in hand with dense EULAs. Synology’s change and Black Mirror’s common people are examples.

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Freedom frequency in the Netherlands mix

Looking out the window of a flight at the Netherlands

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.

Enjoy on Peertube or my own mixgarden

Gouryella (Alan Fitzpatrick Tribute to ’99 extended remix) – Gouryella & Ferry Corsten
Aluminium (Extended Mix) – Robert Nickson
Fade To Grey (Moreno J Remix) – Visage
Inferno – Carl Cox
Seven Cities (V-One’s Living Cities Remix) – Solarstone
Killer Instinct (Original Mix) – Sneijder & Bryan Kearney
Erase – Brooks Aleksander
Whites Of Her Eyes (Original Mix) – Simon Patterson
Inferno (Space 92 remix) – Carl Cox
Emotions Of Colour (Extended Mix) – Cosmic Gate
Tell Nobody – Basil O’Glue
Floyd (extended mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
The Girl With Her Head In The Clouds (Ellie’s Song) (Extended Mix) – Factor B
Adagio In G Minor (Extended Mix) – DIM3NSION
Outlaw (extended mix) – Fatum

Six Feet Under a Data Centre: Let’s talk about Death and Legacy online

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.

See you all there!

Shelfies #29: Ian Forrester

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.

However I was wrong and it was also David who posted on Bluesky (his shelfie is here) about my own book shelf.

It appears to be the shelfie of my podmate @cubicgarden.com shelfies.beehiiv.com/p/shelfies-2…

— eastmad (@eastmad.bsky.social) 2025-03-28T15:39:34.372Z

Ultimately the shelfie project is…

…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.

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (April 2025)

https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/249042-adolescence/images/backdrops

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed reading how DVDs are rotting away, the UK’s first permanent facial recognition camera installed and Meta has never heard of the Streisand effect?

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 watching Whittaker’s talk about privacy at SXSW 2025, Apple’s fighting for encryption and the notion of a eurostack is back.

Mozilla Festival global is back for 2025

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.

Cybertrucks build for a planned future?

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.

ODI take over SOLID

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.

AMD’s Instella AI, sets a open benchmark?

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?

The hard truth behind Adolescence

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.

Are you also trimming your online profile?

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.

Tech report SXSW 2025

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.

Don’t believe the hype silly rabbit

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.

The power of hashtags and unique ID’S

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.

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My last day in BBC R&D

A couple of cards one with a luck cat and good luck written on it

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.

Facing redundancy with a list of tasks

I wrote a blog post about how I have been since August 2024, when I first learned my position at BBC R&D was at risk and likely to close. Now its March and a lot has happened…

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.

Ian and my partner in Malta with the sunset behind them — 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.

My old Dell XPS 12 with a lot of stickers on the lid — 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.

Discover the truth about Malta (Tell no one) mix

Beautiful darken sky looking out from Malta — The truth of Malta

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

Enjoy!

Listen on peertube or on my personal mixgarden.

The tunes used…

Invada (S.H.O.K.K. Extended Remix) – Binary Finary
We Ain’t Ever Coming Down (Jody 6 Extended Remix) – Antonio Moreno
Tell Nobody – Basil O’Glue
Fiction (Extended Mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
Silence (Jerome Isma-Ae Extended Remix) – D-Nox, Baya, LENN V
Artist Of Your Life (Extended Mix) – London & Niko
Do You Feel (Extended mix) – Atleha
The Girl With Her Head In The Clouds (Extended Mix) – Factor B
Interstellar (YORK’s Back In Time Extended Mix) – Torsten Stenzel
Brute – Ferry Corsten vs. Armin van Buuren

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Mar 2025)

Female newsreader faces a camera with green screen behind her

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 over 200 UK companies committing to the 4 day work week, Pebble smart watch is opensource and the social web foundation and W3C get closer.

Enshittification hit list

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.

Building AI news anchor with Channel 4

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.

Undersea cable wars

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.

Spotify’s affect on the music industry and society?

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.

Town squares are not global

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

How loneliness is affected by culture and place

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.

Making better use of doom scrolling time

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.

Where does the UK stand on AI?

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?

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I bought a Framework 13, heres my early thoughts

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.

Framework DIY edition screen bezel in a box

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.

Framework laptop with ubuntu with my background

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.