Update on Islington Wharf

Islington Wharf latest letter

You may have seen the previous blogs and the summer follow up.

This week we got the above PDF email/letter from Waterside places.

It seems there was a lot of support for the latent defect work but not enough to make it so. Although the actual figures don’t seem to add up or they were looking for 100% of residents to get in touch?

As you can imagine this has caused a lot of distressed. I made my position clear.

I said No to access to my flat before I got the answers back from Waterside places. They had planned to use the shared garden as workers yard for 2 years. Because of that I stuck to the original date sent off my reply 5 days before the original deadline to make sure its was registered.
Waterside places did push the deadline back and I engaged with them over email saying I will change my vote to yes if they can insure garden access throughout the 2 years. They never confirmed this over the multiple emails and because of this I had no real choice.

I had a lot of problems with the whole thing but Waterside places never made clear the garden position. The committee also made clear that if they could confirm the garden, most residents would change their position.

The engagement with the residents I feel has been mishandled (maybe deliberately?). The options on the table were poor then follow ups have been slow and brief.

Of course I do honestly feel for all the flats which are heavily affected by the latent defects. Its awful news, but something else will happen as the latent defects are clearly there and the court case with Laing o’rourke did end in a settlement. Still love to know how much?

Keeping the Pebble smartwatch alive

Pebble watch fix

My last pebble 2 smartwatch suffered a number of button problems. Luckily I was able to fix it with Sugru moldable glue. The pebble is showing a lot of wear and tear.

My Pebble with Sugru

I’m still looking for an alternative to Pebble smartwatches, but the there is simply nothing close, even the new Fitbit is LCD based. Although I’m considering maybe now I have the Oura ring, maybe I could rely less on the health and tracking parts?

 

Apple and their form of privacy

Apple's smug new iPhone ad says privacy matters, just ...

Ummmm right…

I get Apple are more private about data than others like Google (which pings Android phones so much people are suing for data charges) but there is something about misplaced trust with Apple which always bugs me. These latest adverts and recent news stories say it all.

Downloads outage down issues which is all around Apples Gatekeeper privacy and Apple’s latest OS update Big sur network traffic bypass.

Of course this is all clear reasons why I’m very much in the open source camp. Maybe I won’t understand the code, but someone will and can inspect it or track down the issue without signing an NDA. I urge for people to not blindly trust. Always look out for open code, zero-knowledge security, no logging, transparency, etc

Lagom: just about enough… internet

Lagom

Just enough internet…

I have been listening to a lot of audiobooks recently and my latest one being the inner level. While I heard the mention of the Swedish word Lagom.

The direct translation of the word lagom is actually moderate but it also roughly its used to say, just enough/right. A reminded of the great Rachel Coldicutt’s (OBE!) keynote speech during Mozhouse last year.

Still a real shame we never wrote up that event…I did, finally!

Small axe: Mangrove nine

Snakk axe

I heard the true story of the Mangrove Nine but to see it play out over a 2 hour TV show is just amazing. I wasn’t sure what to expect but with the great director Steve McQueen, I had a sneaky suspicion it was going to be (8/10) great. Its almost so great to see UK black history on the screen, as its usually displaced by American black history.

Really looking forward to the other episodes.

Join us at one of our Human Values framework workshops

Human values

Recently we released a number of podcasts surrounding the human values work from BBC R&D. Almost all the human values podcasts are available on BBC Design & Engineering’s 2LO Soundcloud account, as mentions previously.

There is much more to whats happening within the new forms of values work as you can see in the videos we recently put out. But another critical part is the work around the human values framework.

The framework is exactly that and is made to aid and support more a more human focused outcome. Of course this can’t be done alone and it was always made to be used alongside other frameworks. Frameworks such as Agile, OKR’s, Lean Canvas, Double Diamond, Doughnut economics, etc.

Digital WellbeingA few of the human values

How this exactly works is the research we are looking for creative people to help with. People like you!

Because of this we are opening up virtual workshops to explore how human values can sit with with the frameworks you are currently using or have used in the past. You are the experts by experience and we want to learn and collaborate with you all.

You can register your interest by going to our event page on tito.

Hope to see you in one of the workshops soon!

Some Indiewebcamp influence on my gratitude habit

Black heart

I attended IndieWebCampEast over the weekend and met some good people furthering the web. Like all IndieWebCamps, its well documented thanks to the amazing hosts Chris Aldrich and David Shanske.

I used the time I between the time differences (there was about 5 hours difference between GMT & EST) to make serious changes with my yunohost raspberry pi. Seeing how I mentioned how I wanted to understand more about micropub, indieauth and kinds. A good staring point is my own gratitude diary, as changing my blog is a bit more tricky.

So long story short, I setup wordpress on my Raspberry Pi, got IndieAuth working and was able to post from another micropub server. The most tricky part I found is actually replacing the placeholder image, which I had to SSH into the raspberrypi to replace as there seemed to be no other way?

Not bad for a weekend while locked down during a pandemic.

Massive thanks to all I met at IndieWebCampEast and the knowledge I learned and can now share.

Hello IndieWebCampEast

Republica 2019 and IndieWebCampBerlin 2019

Thanks to Chris Aldrich, I became aware of IndieWebCampEast

After the first one I attended in Berlin, it seemed like a good time to attend. Especially as I’m at home locked down like all of the UK right now.

When I first saw east, I did worry if it would mean a early morning start but of course its east as in America (GMT+5), meaning I still get my nice long sleep in. Whats not to love?

I have been wondering about the Indieweb community, especially with the increasing use of the fediverse and what decentralised models can provide to the public & civic space. Its also perfect timing as I had planned to have a play with Yunohost on my new Raspberry Pi4 on the weekend anyway.

Looking forward to seeing whats changed and meeting the new adventurers in the web space.

Ian Forrester's photo
Ian Forrester

:
RSVP yes
to IndieWebCampEast

Join the Mozilla Festival’s neurodiversity space in 2021

Calling all…

Artists, Illustrators, Film makers, Musicians, Technologies, Writers, Educators and Community organisers using a neurodiversity lens in your works.

Last year the Neurodiversity space was brand new and it was a fantastic space full of good sessions.

The deadline is Monday 23rd November and Mozfest as mentioned previously, this year will be a hybrid conference but mainly online.

Get your sessions in now.

Human rights aren’t about party politics, its about morals and values

I heard the news about Gina Martin and up-skirting (or really sexual abuse) a while back but her Tedx talk is very powerful, especially her questions to all men near the end.

I was quite taken by this slide.

Human rights aren't about party politics, its about morals and values
Taken from Gina Martin’s slides at TEDxWarwick

Theres a lot of parallels with many other things including black lives matter, transrights, disability rights, feminism, etc. All transcends party politics and the endless squabbling; this is a question of human rights and human dignity…