Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
I found this video incredible to watch the damage one person can do to democracy. Remember just don’t read the comments!
Its great to see Joe Biden straight to work the next day over ruling trumps previous decisions including leaving the World health organisation (in the middle of a pandemic!) and leaving the Paris accord.
I saw this post and had to add it..
This is why I created @56BlackMen / To change the narrative for life.
— Cephas Williams (@CephasWilliams) January 21, 2021
This is why I’m working on the ground in the UK through @BlackBritishNet so one day, someone can do this with a Black Prime Minister
And this is why I wrote #LetterToZion https://t.co/hmcXwHB90q pic.twitter.com/qDmdEyVAmH
Me and Claire who I haven’t heard from in a very long time got talking about last year. From the covid19 pandemic, to the vaccine, systematic racism and to trypanophobia. It was during that conversation mind the gap was mentioned.
I had never really imagined or thought the images and books medical students might be learning from, may not have people with dark skin. Meaning an unbalance in the treatment of dark skinned people simply because of education.
Simple things like finding veins which are relatively easy to see under white skin can be challenging under black skin (generally). There were other aspects which I hadn’t ever thought about…
This where mind the gap came up… from the root
A Zimbabwe-born medical student living in London is filling in an important blind spot in the medical community: informing healthcare providers and patients how symptoms for a broad range of conditions appear on darker skin.
It’s the kind of problem that feels shockingly outdated for the 21st century, but as 20-year-old St. George student Malone Mukwende recently told the Washington Post, the lack of teaching about darker skin tones, and how certain symptoms would present differently on nonwhite skin, was obvious by his first class at the University of London school.
“It was clear to me that certain symptoms would not present the same on my own skin,” Mukwende told The Post, referring to conditions like rashes, bruises, and blue lips. He quickly extrapolated that the same would be true of other people sharing similarly dark skin.
If this was dated in the 80’s I would understand but Mukwende started the book which is free to download in 2020!
Shocking but so glad of the solution, although its worth noting there is things missing from the book where you could help.
For the longest time people have asked why I don’t use Whatsapp? As someone who sees the flaws and reads the terms/conditions, I was never happy with the use of data. In the last few days its become much clearer with Whatsapp privacy change forcing you to accept the changes or stop using it (no opt out).
The core issue with the change is…
“As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies,” the new privacy policy states. “We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings.”
In some cases, such as when someone uses WhatsApp to interact with third-party businesses, Facebook may also share information with those outside entities.
Ok so they can’t read your (signal) encrypted messages but like we learned a long time ago, the metadata is sometimes tells more than the actual message.
Surely its time to switch?!
No? Remember this… dumb f**ks.
I found Jon Udell’s blog about public telephones funny but also quite telling of so much more.
Found this funny but there is a serious point made about public infrastructure.https://t.co/ZpQu852CyH
This is why its so important to have a #publicserviceinternet— Ian | #blacklivesmatter | @cubicgarden (@cubicgarden) January 3, 2021
Public infrastructure is important for so many reason including for equality.
If you take the telephone as communication infrastructure and apply that same thinking to the internet infrastructure. You see a clear rationale for public wifi, public internet kiosks at public libraries, etc – Yes and also the systems which surround it. This rules out the likes of Facebook free basics, which isn’t a public service.
Interestingly the public phone is also somewhat anonymous. Data is collected once used like where the call is coming from at what time, etc; but you don’t need to register first to use them or sign in to use them. Each of the companies setup to deliver these public infrastructures have a aim of coverage not profits (or they should). There might be legitimate and less-legitimate times when you want this, but this is a choice you can make, rather than be forced into.
These all seems so obvious if you live in a country which encourages public service but worth pointing out. Plus I’m focused on the notion of a public service internet.
There are so many things I have said and want to say but I found the VPRO (Dutch public service broadcaster) really worth watching. As always its good to see Brexit from the view of our neighbours.
Good documentary, hard to watch but very fair leaning on Brexit: civil war, the horrible class divide in the UK, the lies of the Boris bus, targetted advertising, the problems with nostalgia, etc..
We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed, hearing how much Salesforce have spent on Slack, the news about Solarwinds and Airbnb’s IPO (why exactly?)
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 emerging with Snowdon telling us its possible to fix things, the Economist’s look to 2021, this inspiring list of books of hope and the final end of proprietary Adobe Flash.
Ian thinks: Following BBC R&D’s new forms of value, one of the key research aims is using personal data stores. Solid is one such personal data store and its hit a mile stone with a number of different partners.
Ian thinks: The ODI’s summits are always full of great talks and discussions. This years virtual summit is no exception with talks ranging from how we collaborate across border (perfectly timed as the UK leaves the EU) to Elizabeth Denham on who decides how we can use data.
Ian thinks: Yuval Noah Harari’s speech about the state of liberalism and Europe is worth listening to even if the panel is less so. Its a German conference but the subtitles help, while Yuval speaks in English throughout. His points are strong and worth remembering, especially the Netflix one.
Ian thinks: A good summary of different businesses which operate in a more human fashion and the benefit they gain from this approach. Doesn’t include the usual B-corp names like Ben & Jerry’s and Patagonia.
Ian thinks: We hear so much about this happening elsewhere, not your local supermarket. Although its adopted a closed loop system, there’s still questions about the bias set in the algorithm being used.
Ian thinks: Brexit has far reaching ramifications, but many didn’t foresee their personal data being moved to American law. First Google and now Facebook. Look out for more in the new year.
Ian thinks: It was during a conversation with the Future Today Institute about my Estonian e-residency and potential digital nomad visa. Than the notion of a subscription to nation states was considered a possible future. Might seem strange but its clear the idea of a nation state is overdue a change.
Ian thinks: I found the choice of stories quite different and varied for 2020. I imagine every other year previously in Techcrunch would be much less focused on the effect of technology on society.
Ian thinks: Hearing the numbers of affected people increasing as Shannon gets closer to number one, is just unbelievable. I expected Solarwinds to be number one but yes number one is absolutely deserved. So clear how integrated the digital & physical are.
Ian thinks: Good honest discussion with EFF on topics affecting the internet right now. On a similar vein, you may also like a podcast Manchester Futurists recorded with Derek Caelin too.
Ian thinks: Lets be honest 2020 was a awful year, but there was lots of good things within the year which do need to be remembered and taken forward into 2021.
Like this, find the archive here
Everytime I think about Brexit, my heart sinks and I can’t help but shake my head. But a deal has been done, which is better than no deal (which was looking so likely).
The guardian and BBC have reasonable summary but I found the TLDR news a very good friendly summary.
Here’s their summary from the UK point of view
And there is the European point of view, which I’m glad they did because like during the debates before the Brexit vote; there was too much focus on what it means for the UK and not for our friends and neighbours.
There was something which John Ashton said at the end of his video for Double Down News.
He mentions during the first nation wide lockdown in the UK, people supporting each other with pick up of community shopping, lists of help on different social sites, etc, etc. The trust between each other and the NHS was high.
As we went into the second national lockdown, all eyes were looking to the top. Rather than looking at each other for support. I think part of this comes from the formulation of the tiers which seemed to turned people against each other, in lieu of any transparency from the top. There was a lot of finger pointing from Tier 3 Liverpool at Tier 2 Manchester back 2-3 months ago for example.
Its clear countries where the government are more trusted seem to be doing much better in their R number rates. But in lieu of this, we need to work together to make it work for ourselves and our communities.
I recently saw a great example of this with the total mess of lorries trying to get into Europe. Its the kindness of people and communities which can make the difference.
When we leave the EU in the new year, its clear almost all the American corps will shift UK data from their European servers to American ones. Not only because of cost but GDPR is a pain for them (boohoo).
Facebook are not the only ones, (Google too) but I certainly am considering removing a lot of data from Facebook before this happens. I already moved a lot out of google over the year. But I’m also considering maybe its time to get that Estonian PO Box address?
I have been weighing up options and it seems all possible.
First I spotted there is a PO Box service for Estonia e-residents. It does seem to mean setting up a business however? Something I’ve been thinking about for a good 10+ years. Its currently 10 euros a month
Spotted someone on Reddit who was just looking to set up a PO Box a couple years ago.
If I find other options or anyone knows other ways, do comment or tweet me.
Still not 100% that Google, Facebook, etc will accept the PO box but its worth it at least to document it for others thinking the same.