Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
Available on the Fediverse or if you want just the audio.(its better with the video for our expressions)
Thank you very much Ozone for the fun time we had discussing everything.
I was talking with Evan recently in London and it spilled out to the Fediverse the next day. We talked about many things including a bit of passion for both of us, the absolute sorry state of online dating.
Its something I won’t even start on, but someone mentioned in a fediverse conversation a site called fediverse ideas.
Having a look, there were a ton of ideas to add from my head. However as they are proper Git issues, I decided its worth planning them out – likely over the holiday season.
Its a great thing to have for many reasons at such a early stage of the fediverse. Really speaks to the culture and innovation growing up around the fediverse and activitypub. My hope is this keeps going but I’m sure once the money comes into the space we will see less generosity, sadly…
A friend recently noticed North Tea Power was closed. I said really, you just noticed this? However, I remembered I had only posted this on Mastodon and I should be better about cross posting to my blog more. Especially since I have been using Mastodon a lot more recently.
I had the joy of representing BBC RD in Flipboards new podcast series dot social.
Starting with Mike Masnick and moving through quite an amazing list of people including @evan key contributor to ActivityPub, @coachtony Medium‘s CEO, @WMitchellBaker CEO at Mozilla, chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation and many more.
I was surprised to be number 3 in the line up which you can hear here.
The series is exciting showing off the maturing of the fediverse and the diversity of activitypub.Thanks to Mike McCue for reaching out and his great decision to move Flipboard to the fediverse early.
It feels like a while ago but Mike’s protocols not platforms paper, I have been reading again recently for some related research work. I also recently spent some time with Evan in London. Remembering what wonderful people and the rich history activitypub has.
We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed with the soap opera of Open AI, ai bias feeding ai bias and being anonymous getting more difficult.
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 Apple not advertising with X, Pebble/T2 restarts as a mastodon instance,
Ian thinks: Tim Bray is a well known figure in the older tech circles. His review/blog looking at C2PA is revealing, honest and just what I’ll be sending people interested in content provenance and trust.
Ian thinks: Signal revealed how much it costs to run Signal and its quite an open opener. Relying on donations and grants I am amazed and recently donated, but I do question if privacy should cost, as its so fundamental to being human.
Ian thinks: Mariana lays out a clear argument why solving the climate crisis is even further off than it should be.due to the way business and markets work. Strong warning but who is listening?
Ian thinks: Ok I’m bias, as a upcoming guest on the dotsocial podcast series but if you are confused or even a expert about the emerging space of the fediverse and activitypub. This is the podcast series for you.
Ian thinks: WordPress is huge on the internet and when Automattic announced ActivityPub support, it was exciting. In this podcast Matthias, explains how it all happened in a informative straight forward way for anyone to follow. I would recommend it to anyone interested in what the Fediverse means for the public service internet.
Ian thinks: There has been so much news, discussion and debate about self service tills. Its part of a much bigger question about how much automation society will accept vs how much businesses balance between profit and loss. Not just in profits but also publicity, trust and so much more.
Ian thinks: There is a lot in this short video but the research is solid in the face of a industry which avoids sharing critical data with researchers.
Ian thinks: This was not widely reported on but the online dating market is huge, full of personal & sensitive data and growing all the time. Facebook tried but while people may brush it off. Is it bluster? Who knows but its important to think about the bigger picture as online dating is the dominate way people meet across the world.
Ian thinks: I first came across this book from the talk at the Thinking Digital conference. Its a good read/listen with lots more detail than expected and strong advice for the future of this space. I can’t help but feel if it was released now, I’d love to hear the final take on Sam Bankman-Fried, who was recently sent to prison.
Find the archive here
We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed hearing how a man was trapped in a EV, AI facial recognition not being taken seriously and the online safety bill now part of law in the UK.
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 BBC setting guidelines for Gen AI, Mozilla saying hello to two privacy and adding fake reviews detector to help us all.
Ian thinks: The voice scamming is something most have heard about, but this podcast shows how vast the problem is in Asia. I suspect similar will be heading to the west soon enough.
Ian thinks: Cory’s new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, says it all but if you were not convinced this interview with Vice will clearly why the fight for the future is not over, why and how you should be involved.
Ian think: The Mozilla podcast is in full swing again with a focus on the humans behind and affected by large language models. Mozilla do a great job reflecting viewpoints from outside the western markets with important contributions from Kenya and India in episode 2.
Ian thinks: There has been a lot of discussion following the recent Isaacson book. I found this the very best series about Elon, not only critical of Elon but also a wider nod to many of the tech oligarchs and the culture surrounding them.
Ian thinks: Douglas Rushkoff is a character which some people enjoy and some less so. He was recently added to the Time person of the week, and this short podcast interview is a reminder of what the internet and technology could/should be and how it fits within human society, not consumes it.
Ian thinks: Taylor Lorenz’s book explores the tension between the owners and the women who drive the platform/service. Similar to Symons Browns’s Get rich or die trying, but focusing on usually stepped on female early adopters, this could shine a light on a sector never really covered.
Ian thinks: Its hardly a surprise people are finding their ways around the limitations of Gen AI systems but this really goes into details how people are social engineering sensitive information out.
Ian thinks: When Marc Andreessen published the techno-optimist manifesto. Most people just ignored it as silicon valley nonsense, but a few put together words to carefully deconstruct why. This blog is a perfect reply but also covers a lot of positive elements covered in this newsletter. Well worth the read.
Ian thinks: Repair is essential for sustainability, we all know this and recent changes within the tech/internet sector has helped this already growing trend. The question is when some of the big companies will fully throw their weight behind such movements?
Ian thinks: This post by the Verge sums up the struggle for many around social media right now. I highly recommend listening to the podcast, especially with interviews from Cory (pluralistic) and Manton (microblog), as they both give more definition to the problem. I would also recommend the deeper conversation with Manton, who discusses the Verge piece at a lot more depth.
Find the archive here
We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing AI generated images fooling so many, OpenAI’s CEO a bit worried about the risks of AI and the cropping bug popping up everywhere.
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 FTC banning better health. Content protections to identify fake/modified media and Solar tech being deployed in new and huge ways.
Ian thinks: During the busy Mozilla Festival, was the announcement Mozilla was investing in the emerging market of trustworthy AI. We all want it but is Mozilla too early or will we look back and say it was perfect time? According to Jaron Lanier maybe Mozilla is perfectly timed.
Ian thinks: Twitter’s plans to be yet another everything app is painful enough, but if you look deeper into the idea of everything apps. Its super clear the reasons to be the one app to rule them all.
Ian thinks: A good summary of the key concerns in Europe explained to an american audience.
Ian thinks: The FT’s series of podcasts about quantum is enlightening. Although quite dry its still a good listen for those like myself who know a surface level of information.
Ian thinks: I found this Rocket podcast episode, the most clear reasons why the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank actually matters. Its easy to ignore but looking at the long tail of startups and the people who rely on them, was eye opening.
Ian thinks: There is so much happening in this space of the fediverse its almost like the Metaverse has been forgotten? But I found this panel at the recent Mozilla Festival hit the tone perfectly for a workshop titled designing the future fediverse, run by myself the next day. I also recommend this indepth interview with Mastodon CEO.
Ian thinks:I found this Mozilla Festival session, answered one of those questions I wonder about. A QR alongside signs of surveillance, link to a human and machine readable datachain explaining its capability, who is involved, storage, etc. Best of all is the whole project is Apache 2 and CC licensed.
Ian thinks: Timely reminder in the wake of Twitter, social sites which have gone, been archived and the rich community which stay strong.
Ian thinks: Japan for me was always the future. However this critical view of robots in elder care really brought a number of technical and cultural concerns into clear view.
Find the archive here
In my latest mix the interdimensional transmission mix, I went to mixcloud to find, I’ve reached my limit for published shows. So been thinking about what mixcloud does do for me. Mainly distribution and a bit of charting.
On the distribution side, it seems like the fediverse could easily do a better job. Originally I would love to use funkwhale but from previous experience it doesn’t really support mixes well compared to single tunes. Which is why I setup my own webmixgarden.
Currently I’m using a static site generator (pubili) which is great because I could add webmonitisation. Although I’m wondering if I should switch to one which supports activitypub? However I feel there is a way which combines both and its likely another platform on the fediverse? I can’t be the only one who is putting out mixes right?
I tooted and had some suggestions. But decided to look at peertube to see if that could work. After finding a instance, which had rules which worked for what I was doing. I starter experimenting here but i’m waiting for my mix to be moderated (its a one man instance, so expect it might take some time). If things work out I might just install peertube on my server.
Update
My mix is now up on peertube via rankett.net, thats the big news.
However I wanted to talk through what happened.
William who runs the rankett instance of peertube messaged me via email asking about copyright details of the mix. This was a surprise because we are all use to faceless entities moderating via machine learning. We had a little chat over email and I explained what I was doing and shared this blog post. Happy with the explanation, my mix was unblacklisted and its now available for all to play.
I’m currently looking at ways to add chapters markers to the mix, by slightly abusing the captions feature. I can’t really see another way to do it.
Another update
LPS messaged me on mastodon and pointing out a undocumented feature of peertube.
I can easily add time points in the description and with the correct formatting will automatically turn into jump points into the mix.
We also talked about setting up peertube using yunohost, which I’m already using. So theres little excuse now for me to just set it up one day soon.
We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing the UK government setup a discord server, A podcasting app sharing user location to podcast creators and whats its like to work in India as a woman in tech.
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 India following the EU with USB C. Flickr putting weight behind ActivityPub and even more calls to make privacy a human right.
Ian thinks: I actually chuckle at the #askfirefox videos but this video makes good points about buying a surveillance device for friends and family this festive holiday. Shop smart with Mozilla’s privacy not included.
Ian thinks: Solid the personal data store has found its place in the W3C groups, Tim Berners-Lee’s welcoming email is beautifully written, starting a genuine new phase of the internet.
Ian thinks: Its good to see this discussion at this level but am concerned there isn’t more focus beyond broadcasting. Public service is much bigger and its time to bring what makes public service unique to this space.
Ian thinks: Mozilla although well know in certain circles, has been losing a lot of market share. However has good plans to build on its community roots for a bright and sustainable future. Don’t forget the Mozilla festival’s call for proposals ends Dec 16th
Ian thinks: Tim Bray’s measured thoughts on blockchain technology is a good read. Its easy to say blockchains were not mature back when AWS started but Tim thoughts today haven’t changed much.
Ian thinks: There is so much to say about this take over of Twitter but I didn’t want to spend the whole newsletter talking about it. However I’m sadden by the lack of understanding from Elon and the way employees have been treated.. No way was Twitter the public square.
Ian thinks: Interesting points made and worthy of listening to in full. Likewise this small panel with the folks from Bluesky, Manyverse and others exploring the possibilities way beyond what’s currently available.
Ian thinks: Its always great to see new systems deeply looked at by the EFF and Open rights group. Mastodon comes out looking great. However you certainly have to go about it differently.
Ian thinks: This is great news Automattic (WordPress) are once again supporting the standard ActivityPub and joining the large open network of the fediverse. How Tumblr will work on the Fediverse is another question.
Find the archive here
I was away during the weekend when the news that Elon finally bought Twitter. Since then, there has been a steady flow of people finally checking out Mastodon.
This is good news but its interesting how people are talking about it, literally a replacement for twitter. This is a mistake and will burn people.
Mastodon is part of the Fediverse, the fediverse is a number of different interlinking services using the W3C’s ActivityPub as the interlinking protocol. There has been a bunch of news stories which have highlighted this which is good, but too few are and think of Mastodon as a straight replacement without all the things which make it different.
I have seen a bunch of complaints including too much choice in which instance to join. There is a bunch of reasons why this makes sense including more robustness to take over, but I’m more interested in the fact there is friction.
Friction to encourage people to slow down, think and act with some agency. Yes its painful when you are use to frictionless centralised services which happily lead you down a path which suits their business model. Having to actually read the rules of the instances/servers, what’s not/allowed, whats the manners, etc. Is important and makes for a better solution than everyone must abide by one rules. We already know scale is the enemy of humanity (well thats my thoughts) and the fediverse allows for things I personally find vaguer and distasteful if you look for it. But also delightful things which can be joyful if you look for it.
Some advice for those new to the fediverse. Plus my own quick thoughts from things I have tooted over the last week.
