Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io

Updated visited countries

Countries in 2021A while ago I did a count of the countries I have been to. I know I’m privileged to have visited a lot of these countries. It was always strange to me because its not like I planned to do it, till I started putting in my new years resolutions visit a new country.

I updated the list to 2021 (although there’s not going to be much updates for a while I suspect). Its strange looking at the map because there is whole continents I haven’t even crossed on a flight.

South America, Africa and Australia. All I’d like to visit sometime, for example South America, love to visit Argentina, Brazil and Chile. In Africa Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. Finally Australia is a strange one for me, as I’m not so focused about Australia but I’d like to see Tasmania and New Zealand mainly to visit people I know. I was considering Singapore for a holiday as its in the UK green list for travel and I have always wanted to check it out (you know how much I love cities) but decided not being able to go into Malaysia would be disappointing with Kuala Lumpur being a few hours away.

Of course this may all change in the next few months but I decided to revisit Lisbon after my brief stop over 3 years ago.

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Been thinking about machine bias again recently

Amazon AR haircut

Yesterday I met up with some friends to celebrate a birthday. We went to the Wharf in Castlefield, Manchester. Nice outdoor space with a massive teepee to help with Manchester’s typical rainfall.

I had a few drinks so visited the toilet a few times and of course washed my hands well so needed to dry them. A few times I tried the hand dryer but there was a red light, so assumed it wasn’t working from a fault or due to the spread of germs? Once I noticed the paper towels were refilled and used that.

However the last time I went in there was white man using the hand dryer, I was surprised and naturally thought it must be fixed now. So afterwards attempted to use it. Did it work, did it heck!

This doesn’t come as too much of a shock as its not the first time and there are many examples on youtube. However with a lot more knowledge now, I’m pretty peed off about it. I wanted to record it but needed a white hand to trigger it and at the end of the night, very few people would join my video experiment. I can tell you I moved, flipped, waved, even touched the sensor with my hand. Nothing would trigger it.

After returning to the table, I asked if the men had used the hand dryer but didn’t get a clear yes or no. So I’ll have to go back to the Wharf soon to film this I think.

Another interesting point also came up after the hand dryer discussion.

Amazon opens its first hair salon, where customers can use augmented reality to experiment with hair colors

I instantly wanted to know if Amazon’s AR app will actually work on non-white people? From all the press pictures, its all pictures of white skin women. If it doesn’t work on non-white skin, expect an explosion of coverage, but it would speak volumes about the total bias of this whole industry. Something many have covered but watching Coded Bias during Mozfest made super clear.

Gates divorce after 27 years

Bill and Melinda Gates
This photo was taken by Kjetil Ree. © 2009 Kjetil Ree

The news has been full of discussion about this and being the Gates, its popped up in my news feed now and then. One thing I find annoying about the opinions I’m hearing, is how can they be splitting up after 27 years?

The romantic notion is sickly and although its always sad to see a couple split up, I have seen people say after 27 years they should stay together. Really?!

There is so much to say about our Disney view on love and relationships, but Alain de Botton and the school of life says it in much better than I ever could.

Time to get real people!

My own mixcloud, finally?

Mixing live in Skopje

I have been for a long time looking for an alternative to mixcloud. I have tried many things including some self hosted solutions like navidrome, subsonic, madsonic, airsonic and ampache. They have all been good except they are best for private sharing. I really wanted to use funkwhale but it was so geared up for single tracks it just didn’t make sense to run a node with my own mixes on it. There is so much I could suggest for  making these software/services better for DJs rather than musicians. A DJ version of funkwhale could be pretty cool, especially seeing the amount of DJs using Youtube and paying for Mixcloud premium to mix live during the pandemic. Heck you could even use web-monetization too (just done).

So with all this and finally thought I have the bandwidth and the storage, I just need a site and some simple software which can share the music files. So I decided to actually setup WordPress with it looking at the local file system (which I can easily have tons of storage). I was going to explore the static file generators again but decided to get something going.

Over the last few days between helping someone out with Linux and cryptocurrencies, I setup WordPress on my RaspberryPi 4 using Yunohost again. As its pretty much static, I think it makes sense.

So here is my own mixcloud site, which I’m still populating, but the latest mixes from my locked down, mixing out album are up complete with artwork. Expect to see more changes over time including a better audio player, more mixes and more everything.

Its not exactly a mixcloud replacement to be fair and my plans to use the .cue files and make better use of playlists, is put on hold for now. I’m sure there is audio plugin which will make use of them. Love to have UPnP and Subsonic apis access from wordpress, but I dream?

Do enjoy and let me know what you think could be improved.

Little update

Following my point about making it work for DJs and mixes. One of my biggest bug bears is playlists. I have been through many of the wordpress plugins for audio playback and I can’t find one which allows me to specify points in a long mix, when different music is played. Its simply a tracklist but all of the ones I have seen and tried are focused on single tracks. Meaning slicing the mix into pieces instead of marking out areas. None of them seemed to support CUE files or things like Ogg vorbis chapters. If there is one I should be looking at, do send it my way because it seems like such a simple thing to do, but I guess theres not enough interest to make it?

Another update

I have retired the old Mix site and replaced it with a new better one.
Learn more about the changes and WebMix.

Digital Italics WebMix

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (May 2021)

a dark forest

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing Facebooks dismissal of 530 million users data leaked and actively being exploited, joining the general dismissal of data leaks this month.

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 Google maps providing eco-friendly routes, Europe seeking to limit AI use in society and how Ben & Jerry’s combine activism with business.

Facebook/Nick Clegg attempts to gaslight us all

Ian thinks: Nick’s blog post is cleverly written ultimately saying the right things even touching on algorithmic transparency. However the key message is, you are the problem, and ignores the power dynamic an entity like Facebook really has over their users lives.

What is the dark forest theory of the Internet?

Ian thinks: Yancey (co-founder of kickstarter) shares his thoughts about the dark forest theory in light of a year plus in a pandemic and our ever increasing reliance on the internet. Recently followed up with more thoughts.

Is more data or a more human outlook the future of shopping?

Ian thinks: Data use is a worrying trend and it reminds me how Ford decided the data was the goal of the car sell, but maybe shopping is missing the human element?

How is remote working going to effect the future of work?

Ian thinks: A good summary of the development work if you are a office/knowledge worker. Little for other types of work which seemed a obvious hole in this all.

The doomsday machine: scale is the enemy of human progress?

Ian thinks: The comparisons of Facebook to the doomsday machine is quite a leap but the points made are clear and re-enforces my thoughts about scale being the enemy of humanity

Those face filters were never fun

Ian thinks: I turn off the filters as they are usually not flattering for black skin. However there is much greater affect on women who have their faces and bodies under the microscope every moment of the day causing anxiety and even worst.

A new decentralization pattern library

Ian thinks: Its great to see a pattern library focused on decentralised, distributed applications and systems. Its still early days but do get involved if you see something obvious missing from the current 22.

The future of 3D printing is truly impressive

Ian thinks: There is so much covered in this video, everything from 3D printed houses, food and organs. The most impressive for me after the organs is the bio-mimicry printed structures.

If you don’t know dark patterns, this will explain it all in moments

Ian thinks: Really good to share this with people are not clear on the effects of dark patterns, also interesting to see Trump using dark patterns recently.

Sudhir explores the motivations, mistakes and conflicts of mainstream social media

Ian thinks: Although nothing new, its interesting to hear someone who has spent time with gang leaders and street prostitutes; lend his thoughts to the ugly side of social media from the inside out, in new podcast.

Find the archive here

Mozilla Explains: Dating apps, AI and collaborative filtering

Ann Marie Carrothers from Mozilla is absolutely right, its something I have mentioned many times and recently decided enough is enough. Weirdly I have never had the discussion with Ann-Marie in person?

I avoid all dating apps and services which don’t allow me to search my own way through the people. I’m so sick of the systems forcing one way of interacting usually the tinder swiping.

For example OKCupid on the mobile app won’t allow you to search for people who use geeks in there profile. I can hear people say, “why on earth would you want this?!”

Uniqueness!

I’m personally not interested in generic people, I’m after unique people.

Uniquness in dating

Instead of searching through millions of profiles, why not cut through noise by finding someone who cares enough to add it to their profile? For example geek with my other filters in the website (like gender, age, distance, etc) got down to two women.

Uniquness in dating

My search for feminism got down to one woman.

Its not for everyone but thats fine, because the notion of swiping left and right looking at profile pictures isn’t for everybody either.

Embedded Inequality in the vaccine development process

I knew it was bad, but Vox spell out the embedded inequality. Remember for all the people being vaccinated in one country, it will never be over till most of the world is vaccinated. Vaccine nationalism needs to end!

In related news I got my call up for the vaccine… I was thinking it would be interesting if there was a system like the OLPC (remember that?) get one, donate one. I know it wouldn’t scale but it would at least focus us away from vaccine nationalism.

https://mas.to/@cubicgarden/106137630859489518

QNAP ransomware attack

Its the first time I have owned a NAS when a big ransomware attack is underway. Its clear QNAP haven’t done enough and learned about this a 5 days ago via bleeping computer.

I am very aware of ransomware attacks on standard computers and keep the firmware and software up to date when I see the updates. Its clear the notification of updates could be more viable, as its not that often I’m logged into the NAS. I have email and push on but I’d like to see more options on this front.

Bleeping computer has the full details of what you need to look out for and what you should do if you are being attacked.

Chilli Chocolate showdown: Carolina reaper vs Instant regret

Carolina Repear vs Instant Regret chocolates
Its the Chilli-chocolate-faceoff

I said I would film a video of me eating the some of the hottest chilli chocolate. So here is the video complete with my nose slightly running from the chilli. Not so pretty.

With some further time, I decided Instant regret was pretty horrible chocolate and I actually had some more Carolina reaper to try and remove the taste of instant regret. It just didn’t have anything about it, maybe a hint of chocolate which disappeared quickly and you are left savoring chilli. Not exactly what you want to savor…

Another thing I didn’t get around to saying on the camera was the chilli was quite different like the difference between Tabsasco and Sriracha. I guess thats due to the different chillis which are used.

If you want something which will make you have some regret, then look no further than instant regret. However if you want something which actually tastes good then Carolina reaper is calling your name.

Where I’m reading information about allergies and the vaccines

Covid19 vaccine

I have mentioned a few times previously about allergies and covid19 vaccines. A few people have asked me about my sources, so I’d thought I’d share the biggest ones.

Anaphylaxis.org.uk’s Covid19 vaccine update is a good overview and not too difficult to understand. The site is gear for people with severe allergies for many things including different vaccines.

The NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service is a very technical detailed site including the exact ingredients and some terms I needed to be looked up. But it cuts straight through the noise.

Hope these are useful to people too.