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Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Nov 2022)

Example of Solid with person and data surrounding them

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing the Palantir’s Secret Plan to Crack the NHS. Deliberate radio spoofing to distort live video, a distressing insight into Silicon Vallay’s tech elite and of course Twitter finally bought.

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 the open wallet foundation bringing standards to the chaos, Competition wins and American smart devices adopting security/privacy labelling.

Solid adoption faces the cultural problem?

Ian thinks: Personal data stores make a lot of sense, especially for developers as this post makes clear. However its consistent with the discussions I have had with startups with “The tech culture in the U.S. is a lot less suspicious of companies that are looking to centralise their data, because they can see a way to make money off of that”

Ian thinks: Following the personal data store dev discussion above, its a lot clearer for public interest companies who want to innovate and provide a different proposition from profit driven companies.

Mozilla’s unknown influence is very chilling

Ian thinks: This short documentary is pretty powerful and highlights how much worst the dumpster fire is outside North America and Europe. Well worth the 12 minutes of your time. Also worth mentioning Mozilla’s little mini-series is fun, educational and instantly shareable. I personally have shared a few with some less technical friends and its been well received.

Hacking google mini series

Ian thinks: Although a big advert for Google, there are parts which are worth while watching from a cyber-security point of view.

OFCOM is looking into cloud services, iot and messaging

Ian thinks: This is good news as the national regulator does have a lot of power to work in favour of the public, but has spent too much time focused on traditional media.

All the Unfinished videos are online now

Ian thinks: The Unfinished live conference has caused quite a splash since its inception. A lot of the talks are worth re-watching and if not seen before, you are in for a treat.

Shannon needs to look away from the mainstream

Ian thinks: Shannon is no longer excited by Technology, but through the post its clear she is focused on the big mainstream tech. Looking away form the mainstream into the indie & niches could be what she’s missing?

Enable our cookies, pay or get lost

Ian thinks: We all knew it was coming, but to see it happen in the EU first was unexpected by myself. Expect many more to follow suit, a high profile court case and hopefully a renewed look at micro-payments.

Bluesky discussed and dissected

Ian thinks: There was a small announcement about Bluesky coming soon, but I found at least the first part of this video with Kevin Marks and Jeff Jarvis looking through the AT protocol quite revealing of whats coming.

Find the archive here

I tried todo.txt and gave up

I was so fed up of Google’s lack of real support for its tasks system, that I packed it up and went for the todo.txt system. Its simple, works well and found it works for most of my systems (Android, Linux, etc)

However in recent times I found the syncing between systems painful. At one point it was so out of sync I got so fed up and recently moved to todolist. Seems I’m not the only one… The clients sleek, todo.txt android, markor and even a plugin for Joplin; were doing strange things on top of Google Drive (I did try Dropbox too, but sync on Android needs a kick up to make it sync). Even considered using Syncthing but using Android when less things eating batteries as better, decided against it.

After looking at my options it was todolist, which at least has a reasonable free option. I also consider installing a CalDav server on the NAS or Yunohost behind my VPN. But decided I really don’t need the headache.

Of course I left myself outs, with some of the clients including Planner, which supports CalDav. Todo.txt has potential. Something to look into again in a few months maybe.

Beeper is now my main messaging client

I have been using Beeper for a long while now. Its truly how instant/messaging should be.

Recently scheduled messaging was enabled on the desktop app, which is wonderful for someone who schedules a lot. However I did an upgrade on my Pixel 6 phone recently and found Beeper had the option to finally send messages to all contacts (previously you couldn’t start new conversations). Only a few days later there was the option to make beeper the default SMS app. Before this, there was a bridge option which worked but this is so much better.

With Beeper as my default client for almost everything, something strange started happening.

I have found myself forgetting which network is transporting the message. Which means I’m forgetting the limitations of each network but also which one a certain person contacted me on. Luckily Beeper has got a fantastic search meaning I don’t need to worry. Of course most instant messaging apps have this but when you add the likes of FB, Slack, Twitter, Linkedin, Discord direct/msgs. Then you got something useful, but also on the desktop too making it all very useful.

I never really used Linkedin for messages but its actually quite useful, just like Twitter direct messages. It would be great to have Mastodon messaging too. Maybe this is why I need to run it myself.

Do you chew your chocolate?

The guardian recently had a piece about Chocolate (anything to take our minds off the political climate right now and Chocolate is a good one)

I won’t go through the whole list but I originally laughed out loud when I read this…

Anyway, it appears that we haven’t yet covered chocolate. And a good thing too, because it turns out we’ve been eating it wrong the whole time.

Have we? We have, if you believe the food scientist Natalie Alibrandi, who has been analysing the results of a new 2,000-person study of the nation’s chocolate habits, commissioned by Galaxy.

Commissioned by Galaxy, because they are well known for their high quality/sustainable chocolate? Anyway its all the usual stuff but I found one part quite telling.

When do you usually eat it – at night?

No, usually about 11am. Right, OK, again that’s supposedly the correct time to eat it. Chocolate contains sugar and caffeine, which, according to Alibrandi, helps to give you the perfect pre-lunch boost. Also, your palate is fresher earlier in the day, so you’ll get the full hit of chocolate as it was intended to be eaten.

I’m not so convinced about this one, but I guess if you are eating milky/sugar filled Galaxy then it makes sense?

Nothing better than some 85% with some black smokey tea at night.

The future of public service broadcasting is closer than you think

The other day a family member said to me.

I remember ages ago you talking about something you were researching around personal data stores. Then I saw on the most recent click, something similar.

I looked it up, knowing colleagues in the team have recently done a interview with BBC click and found the above video. Its great to see it being used in unique ways and always reminds me of the great BBC news story “Why the BBC does not want your data”

To me its clear a personal data store is a key part of the public service internet ecosystem. There is much more to it but people controlled data is a key corner stone. Its also why the Perceptive Radio sits next to MyPDS/Datapod in the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI).

My role in personal data store project ended a while ago but I’m still involved in tangential research around this all. Part of it being the living room of the future and other new research.

The public service internet is one step closer… everyday!

Join us! Its going to be great!

Sorry Pebble Rebble

Over the last few months, I kept using my Pebble watches for many things but over time every single Pebble 2 (I have 2 which still kinda work) died, even with no buttons.The last survivor is the Pebble time but it got to a point where I need to charge it everyday and partly in the day. I looked into moving the battery from some of the dead Pebble 2’s to the pebble time but its so simple.

The pebble is a great smartwatch but I had to look at my options, so decided to look at the hybrid smartwatches again and wasn’t impressed. After looking at smartwatches which have longer battery lives, I found a number changes and low power modes increasing the battery lives from 1 day to a 3-5 days.

In the end I bought the Ticwatch Pro 3 Ultra with Wear OS (automatically updated to wear 0s 3), although I did originally buy the Samsung Galaxy watch 4 and considered one of the Huawei smartwatches, but I decided I should stick with Wear OS (even with the battery drain). I had hoped the Google Pixel watch would be the answer to my needs but was let down.

The idle mode seems to be the key to battery usage, and the viewable screen on the ticwatch 3, although not as clear as the epaper screen of the pebble time. Is still good even at extreme angles.

Its a shame having to say goodbye to the rebble (post pebble community, they were amazing and the rebble software engineering is incredible. But it had to happen, as little things like not knowing who is calling and not being able to reply to non-sms messages (signal for example) was grinding on me. The health side is useful but mainly covered by the Oura ring.

Would you travel to Hong Kong?

I just seen a post on Time Out.

The Hong Kong tourist board plans to give away half a million free plane tickets to encourage tourism in 2023.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board has already bought the tickets – it purchased them in 2020 from carriers including Hong Kong Airlines, Hong Kong Express and Cathay Pacific as part of the government support package for the aviation sector.

I have always wanted to go to Hong Kong but since the whole Hong Kong/ China mainline conflict. I thought its likely a bad idea to go.

However this is very tempting…

Would you go?

How was summer in my flat?

Most of you know I’m a quantified self person, and been meaning to measure the awful heat in my flat. Especially with glass changes to Islington wharf..

A few years ago I bought switch-bot temperature monitors, but it was only recently I decided to setup the sync feature. Till then I kind of thought it would save all the data but it turns out, it only saves a month at a time.

Living room

In the living room the peak was 33.7c, while the lowest was 21.7c which is better. I suspect with the 20 inch gym fan running and the one window off its restrictions, that might have brought the temperature down. I do have timings for the temperatures but I’m not going to work that out now.

Bedroom

In my bedroom the temperature started at 28.2c (yes the lowest!) and 29.7c was the highest. Imagine trying to sleep all the time between those ranges. Now you can see why I have to sleep with no sheets. The temperature will be higher, because I can’t sleep with the window wide open without the blinds down. This traps the heat inside even with the doors open.

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Oct 2022)

Bus stop in bladerunner style using AI — Created with Midjourney

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing the ongoing fight around ransomware. 2fa social engineered and youtube dislike meaning very little.

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 the EU ramping up its open source code access, South Korea’s win for privacy violations and solutions like Watomatic providing out of office replies for WhatsApp to aid with stopping using it.

Recommendations for a Digital Future to the EU

Ian thinks: Exit Platforms over the past year have brought together a group of experts, To chart out what a public service internet could looks like from a policy point of view. The last meeting being a hackathon in the European parliament. This is the report is a detailed from the last year of meetings.

Jack Dorsey realising the mistakes of twitter

Ian thinks: Jack’s thought about the mistakes are further clarified when Kevin Marks making it super clear how Twitter killed twitter as a API in favour of control and profit.

The future of Solar panels? Everywhere!

Ian thinks: Its fantastic to see solar panels in places I thought were simply a no go. Although the cost of panel is dropping there is still a need for a bigger drop.

Bus shelters turned into garden

Ian thinks: Although Manchester has had a bus shelter like described since 2016 and people point out its advertising driven. I do think its generally a good idea and better than looking at a metal frame in the pouring rain.

Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires (nsfw)

Ian thinks: Aspects of team human, this interview with Rushkoff is entertaining but its hard to see fault in the logic behind the new book.

EU puts its foot down around mobile waste and upgrades

Ian thinks: Although in draft form, its a move which may have serious consequences in many different industries.

Bluetracking around the city for better transport but at what cost?

Ian thinks: Contactless travel sounds fantastic but I’m not sure the trail will consider privacy and abuse cases. Something they really should.

Chris’s challenging talk about crypto gave me a bad taste

Ian thinks: Mydata is a good conference but this talk gave me a taste but I can’t exactly point at one thing. A lot of what Chris says is correct, but I can’t get his position over the keynote. Or maybe its just the bored ape t-shirt?

AI art has changed the game quietly

Ian thinks: I have personally been using mid-journey and dall-e2 for some personal works. It feels like something has changed, and we haven’t really acknowledged the effect yet.

What can be learned from Google’s smart city project?

Ian thinks: Sobering talk from Josh O’Kane about Google’s sidewalk labs project with plenty of insights for future smart city projects.

Find the archive here

Dealing with all that spammy requests

One of the tricky parts of blogging is one having time to blog and the amount of hammy messages you get when doing it for a long while.

In a conversation on mastodon with a few people about web3 (don’t get me started). I saw Rysiek’s blog which talked about the second problem. He calls it SEO link spam email.

Ah, SEO link spam e-mails. If you have a blog that’s been online longer than, say, three years, you know what I’m talking about:

Hey,

I read your article at <link-to-a-blogpost-of-mine> talking about <actually-not-the-topic-of-the-blogpost>. I think your readers would benefit from a link to <link-to-an-irrelevant-or-trivial-piece>.

Would you consider linking to our article?

For a long time I just ignored these, flagging as spam and moving on. Obviously I am not going to link to some marketing crap that’s there only to drive up SEO of some random site.

But then that one spammer showed up in my mailbox, and he was persistent. Several e-mails and follow-ups within a month. I decided I needed a better strategy.

To be fair Rysiek does lead with a large disclaimer but I do like the crowd sourced proposed strategy.

In short, offer a counter offer which makes up for the time of posting a post with their link using rel="sponsored nofollow" surrounded in a blog post pretty much tearing down the linked content.

I’m tempted to do this by creating a page on this blog and listing them as requested but with a clear sign saying they paid a lot of money for the crappy placement. Not exactly what they wanted but I’ll be upfront about it all. An alternative was to back date a blog post, so it would be on the blog but never appear on the aggregated page/rss unless you were searching for it.

As Rysiek says, its more about getting rid of the endless requests for placement on this blog. Its kinda clear get lost and beats marking all those emails as spam.

Adaptive podcasting is public and you can get it now

Last week BBC R&D launched the Adaptive podcasting ecosystem upon the world. There is a blog post to get you started if you want to dive straight in.

The Adaptive podcasting ecosystem is a combination of parts.

Adaptive podcasting beta Android app/player
Adaptive podcasting web editor
Adaptive podcasting XML specification (SMIL)

With the Android app/player you can listen to adaptive podcasts. With the app/player installed, you can load and listen to your own made podcasts. There is of course RSS support, providing the ability to load in a series of adaptive podcasts (replacing the default feed from BBC R&D).

With access to the web editor on BBC Makerbox, you can visually create adaptive podcasts in a few minutes. Its node like interface is running completely client side, meaning there is no server side processing. Just like the app/player, which does zero server callbacks to the BBC. Pure Javascript/HTML/CSS.

If you find the web editor not advanced/in-depth enough for you, there is the XML specification which is based on SMIL. As the code can be written or even generated. We even considered other editors like audacity.

With all 3, you have pretty much everything you need to get going, plus there is documentation gdoc and more information about the ecosystem here on github.

One of the most important parts is the community of practice around adaptive podcasting. Both on BBC Makerbox and Storytellers United. Also through research, I can see the podcast industry are very active and I was right with podnews, the podcast namespace, etc all throwing ideas around. Even the podfather added a comment.

I have written about Adaptive/Perceptive podcasting previously across my blog and talked about it at Mozfest 2021, for the Bristol Watershed and of course for the EBU. There is also an interview I did a couple weeks ago before the launch for podland, which is worth listening to with much more detail.

But I wanted to thank all the people who helped in making this go from the Perceptive Radio to Adaptive Podcasting. So far I started a github page but will write the history of how this happened when I got more time. Partly because its a interesting story but also because it demonstrates the power of collaboration, relationships, communities and the messy timeline of innovation.

Heart in the clouds of Amsterdam mix

Looking out across clouds mid flight to Amsterdam

I have been doing mixes in the car for my partner while she drives. Its one of the big advantages of the pacemaker device. Plugin the audio jack and you can DJ almost anywhere. My partner prefers vocal tunes to my usual style of tech trance, so I now have a case of vocal trance tunes. On top of this was a visit to the world’s first dance music museum with my good DJ friend Dirty Si.

So with all this in mind, here is my new mix recorded while going to Amsterdam recently for my lovely partner. The mix shifts along at a nice 135 bpm, is short (due to the flight to Amsterdam) but is full of hands in the air moments. Enjoy!

Tears from the moon (Tiesto’s in search of sunrise remix) – Conjure one Feat. Sarah O’connor
Drifting away (Large sunset dub) – Large Feat. Skye
Talk to me (Orjan Nelison Trance mix) – John O’Callaghan and Timmy & Tommy
Catch (Martin Roth remix) – Blank & Jones
Daylight (Frainbreeze remix) – Saad Ayub & Cristina Soto
Without You (Dogzilla dub) – Dogzilla
Halcyon (Alex M.O.R.P.H. remix) – Andy Moor
Not Over Yet ’99 (Matt Darey) – Planet Perfecto feat. Grace
The Power Of Love 99 (System F mix) – Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Available in full on my webmix garden and mixcloud if you prefer…

One of the problems of dating apps: filters

Ian and Alison together in the sun

Recently I met someone quite special. How did we meet? It wasn’t online or via a dating app.

I say this because although I’m very critical of dating apps, I keep finding personal experiences suggesting that they frankly suck.

We recently decided to look at our dating profiles to see what filters we applied.

One of the biggest differences was our accepted age ranges. I tended to go for women slightly older, and had my range from 38-46 but my partner is outside that age range. My partner who is much younger had a higher age range but not reaching 40+.

Meaning we would never have matched.

As I was experimenting with different filters before I met my partner, I had set my height filter between 5ft 7inches and 6ft 4inches (yes I know the average height of women in the UK is closer to 5ft 5inches and women in London are 5ft 7inches) but I thought I’d give it try. My partner is below the 5ft 7inches so would never have shown up too.

So, I hear you say… How did you meet?

Speed dating, yes old skool! But its worked out really well. Although I guess you could say the as speed dating has different age categories, that is a kind of a filter?

Getting deeper into some of the questions, things got more tricky. For example, I don’t want a kid but its not clear how to indicate, I would be open if the potential partner already has a older child and considering adoption in the future. Nope its flatten down to do you want children or not.

Same for politics and so much more. Its all boiled down to a binary or selection choice. Picking one will hide you from a whole ton of people who maybe ideal.

Its all so broken and as the dominate way people meet, deeply worrying.

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Sept 2022)

a group of people walking down a street next to tall buildings, cyberpunk art by Ji Sheng, cgsociety, afrofuturism, concept art HQ – via Midjourney

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing the ring door bell show, twitter not taking security seriously and Android stalkerware with a flaw affecting millions.

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 some cameras which can optically not see objects and people. Facebook messager pushed into deploying some-kind of encryption and Chokepoint capitalism look very well timed indeed.

1.5 million people avoided ransomware

Ian thinks: Ransomware is awful and is such a big problem. Interpol and others decided to do something about it, to encourage victims from paying out. The 1.5 million victims helped in a short time is impressive

Side by side, the differences between AI image generators

Ian thinks: Over the last few months, the AI image generation world has gone in overdrive. I found this comparison really intriguing although the story of midjourney speaks volumes.

The privacy and security problems of frictionless design

Ian thinks:: What Tiktok is doing is deeply worrying but it raises the bigger question of usability to avoid user agency and data rights.

Terraform: Stories from the future?

Ian thinks: I’m not usually a reader of Sci-Fi but now Black Mirror is cancelled, I am looking out for the audiobook of this book. Interesting short stories about the future we are slowly walking towards.

Could we ever trust robots?

Ian thinks: This talk from the Thinking Digital Conference in Newcastle, made me chuckle but highlights a lot of the problems with the future dreams of robots around the home. Its worth checking out the rest of the conference videos too.

In machines we trust?

Ian thinks: MIT’s podcast about the automation of everything is a good listen. Well thought out and I’m looking forward to the next season in this ongoing question about trust and machines.

The future is bright for open podcasting

Ian thinks: I am still fascinated and still impressed the podcasting industry is holding tight against the larger players. Innovating together and for the benefit of all, a great example of the public focused future.

What can be learned from Netflix’s downturn?

Ian thinks: Everyone has been beating up on Netflix recently, but I found this summary sensible, logical and raises questions about the multipliers of tech companies.

Ian thinks: For a long time, I have thought about a term which sums up the downsides of social media/networking. In the book Social Warming: The dangerous and polarising effects of social media, I feel Charles Arthur has found the perfect term.

Find the archive here

Illustrations for my book: AI or not to AI?

Black man and White woman in AI drawn picture

Some of you might know I have been writing a book about my dating experiences.

Its moving along thanks to some great friends who have done such a great job editing, structuring and shaping the book. But one thing I turned my attention to a while ago, is the illustrations.

I did pay for an artist out of my own money but wasn’t quite happy with every single illustration for each chapter, so only had about half done. The rest I’m talking to another artist about but recently been quite impressed with the AI art generators like DALL-E 2, Midjourney, Nightcafe.

The generated works are strange and abstract enough to fit with what I’m looking for in the book. Not only that, the ownership and copyright seems to be working out (from what I read using DALL-E 2).

(c) Copyright. OpenAI will not assert copyright over Content generated by the API for you or your end users.

I certainly seen the AI bias in some of the images generated. For example if I don’t say what gender or race the person is, the AI defaults to male and white. Its only when I deliberately say Black male / female it then switches. I would also say the images of black women are not as fully thought out as white women. Because I’m generating pictures of dating, it always defaults to straight dating unless I add something to the query. Likewise the women are always thin never curvy unless specified. Actually a few times, I got women who were pregnant. Of course every single time I make a query, it takes credit (money) making it costly to really test its bias, sure someones already on this.

The big question I have is, if I was to use DALL-E for illustrations in my book, what would that say or mean for my stance around AI, bias and data use? To be honest, I’m actually thinking about generating the front & back covers in full colour, rather than the in book illustrations.

Maybe I should be less worried about this? Or even better I was thinking about ways to not just make clear it’s AI generated but show the process of selection or something similar?

Thoughts?

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Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires (nsfw)

Have you ever considered the term social warming?