Ian Forrester, founder of QS-Manchester back in the day, gave a fascinating talk a couple of weeks ago at EMF Camp on machine-readable wishes: applying the logic of automation rules to the question of what should happen to your personal data after you die. Ian’s talk made me think about my personal archives in a different way. He makes the case that a personal archive should contain executable instructions and provides an open-source framework to help you do this without entangling yourself even further in rent-seeking cloud services.
I do think Gary, has the right idea. Machine readable wishes could be used to connect items and (for example) open source data sets for the public research. Or more realistically, create a custom last note to friends and family. Imagine leaving a beautiful infographic of the key moments in your life which were super meaningful to you. I am always reminded of Fabio who tracked all his conversations. Imagine if that conversation after the Quantified self was so impactful and then 40 years later you have a message reminding you how much it meant to the person who recently passed?
Ok bit far out or even creepy, but I was reminded of someone who helped me through my divorce without really knowing how impactful it was to me at the time. Sadly I think that person died.
I do have a markdown document of all the key moments in my life using the markwhen syntax. It wouldn’t take a lot to convert the document to something more readable then provide a few lines in my machine readable wishes to convert it into something beautiful to maybe part of the funeral booklet/order of service; if my executors allow it.
For a long while I have been posting stills from my diabolo sessions on pixelfed. It makes a lot of sense as I was recording at 90 frames/sec making good still images.
Recently I found myself in rural southern France and of course, my Pacemaker device and headphones came with me. It was weird being surrounded by nothing but grapevines. Certainly wine country.
I took a nice shot with a very rare dark sky. With a bit of tweaking, you got the cover for a storm in a french grapevine.
The tunes are certainly not safe for work, and I just doubled down on the nsfw tunes with a uplift in bpm too. I do like mix, its got a good selection of old and new mixed together. Considered going longer but it didn’t need more.
My Yunohost is a bit broken still, so its only on my Peertube channel right now. Remember to enable Sensitive content in the filter to see it in the list of mixes.
My loving supportive partner Alison while Japanese whiskey tasting
Its been around 4 months since I officially left BBC R&D. Its been a while since I did a catch up of where I am and a lot has happened.
First of all I have setup a limited company, one of the main reasons is to seriously pursue how to build the public space as an viable alternative to commercial and government space.
A large part of this is working with others on the notion of a digital public space. One of the leaders in this space is New_Public and I’m really excited to announce, I am going to be working with them to achieve their open source plans. As most of you know, open source isn’t just about the code but about the community and everything which surrounds it. Hence my time running BBC Backstage, is certainly useful.
On the digital legacy front following on from the Republica panel discussion with Identity 2.0 and Linn. I have been thinking about the letter of wishes and how it could actually work in line with HDI (human data interaction) and public values? Its actually something I felt a public service company like the BBC could transform, as it screams public value but it wasn’t to be.
To this I entered my thoughts into a call for participation with the Mydata conference and happy to say they really liked it as a workshop. Which means in September, I will host a workshop around the notion of a machine readable letter of wishes. I am hopefully going to be joined by a fellow digital legacy collaborator but prepared to run it alone.
Been seriously thinking about how to make this real and a standard format seems the best way to go. What software/services which can read and execute this fungible document, is something for others; but a prototype is perfectly possible. Even if it scratches my own itch, it could also help me play/learn with some of the new declarative (React, Vue.js, Xproc) or even object-originated programming languages/frameworks (Rust).
In a similar space, of me rethinking what a public service company could do to be more relevant in the age of endless scroll, enshittification and a loneliness epidemic; as touched on in the future of social report recently.
With all this, I have been writing my own book about this all and pretty much finished. Can I also say how amazing Librewrite has gotten for editing complex books like this…
In the last few months I submitted my book to Conduit Books and signed up to a course by Kenyon author services. Mainly to rethink how I proactively encourage people to buy the book or at least read it. Considered going through the publishers and agent book again but I just don’t have the time, plus I have a plan of action which includes a online dating manifesto, potential podcast and maybe a potential dating service which clings to public values and the HDI principles mentioned before. Some of this might come sooner than expected, as I actually mentioned the dating manifesto (borrowed heavily from Julia) and even showed the cover & title (tbc) to my book at the PublicSpaces conference, during the lunch break.
The manifesto which will be collaborative, will feature at the end of the book and is something Mydata is interested in because its very related to HDI and use of data. I did put it in as a session but it may work better as a short workshop. Watch this space…
I have had a long relationship with Mozilla via the festival (Mozfest), which this year goes global in Barcelona in November. Unfortunately the call for participation has closed and the wrangling part has started. The spacewrangler role is very important, as we are the face and hearts of the festival. One thing which concerned the spacewranglers was the price of the tickets compared to 2019 ticket prices in London. Yes that was a while ago ,a lot has happened including a pandemic and global inflation. However the wranglers have pushed back on the Mozilla foundation. Mozilla have listened and replied with a number of changes including community badges which are a similar price to the ones in London in 2019!
Lets be honest this is a deal, especially with all the challenges Mozilla is facing right now. I would grab your community ticket for €45 now and join us as we write the internet’s next chapter.
Running a limited business comes with a bunch of administrative challenges including accounting. Originally I thought I could use something open and self host it but, the realisation that no accountant will use it and even if I transfer it to something like Xero, Freeagent or Quickbooks. They would need to run through the whole thing again. So I am using Quickbooks for now and seeking a good accountant which isn’t too expensive, can deal with international clients (I have spent far too much time trying to understand and fill in the W-8BEN-E form) and manage my lack of interest in taxes. The notion of a portfolio career keeps coming up, but its really not me… However I do generally have quite a few projects going on at once. This post is testament to this.
In the meanwhile, I have been travelling a lot, my carbon footprint isn’t great but I did recently go to southern France. Somewhere re-reading my school report I wanted to live. Crazy eh?
In the background, I have made a lot of changes to my self hosting setup. I still need to fix quite a few things including my Yunohost Pi server which was broken due to the Debian bookworm update. I decided my mixgarden should just be a Peertube instance which makes a lot of sense. I certainly need to sort out my docker setup because that would make things so much easier. In the meanwhile I have finally settled on Anytype for my personal knowledge store and Vikunja for tasks and kambam. My Framework laptop is going well, especially with a 64gig of memory now, however Ubuntu is doing strange things with the keyboard while using Wayland.
Considering blogging more and setting up separate spaces for the publicservice internet notes, business stuff (which I really need to sort out) and a few other things.
Another strange thing, I just started is baking my own Sourdough bread. Its early days but will attempt my first loaf tomorrow. Yes I know its years after everyone was doing it during the pandemic but hopefully I’ll get into it.
There is so much more but not for public blogging right now. I’m still seeing friends when ever possible, mainly in the UK but when I’m out of the country, catching up with international friends.
I’m very fortunate to have a loving, caring and understanding partner, who is helping me through all this insane amount of change.
On my last trip to Europe, I flew to Amsterdam to get a train to Brussels and flew back from the awful Brussels South airport. I won’t be doing that again if I can help it. During that time I got time to another Pacemaker device mix. The self hosted mixing site is still broken, its a thing I am trying to fix as its a bigger problem with Yunohost and the bookworm update. So its peertube again. (I noticed the mix points links include the domain, which means I can add them here too)
Recorded in two parts on a plane and on the coach to the airport, then stitched together because of the short flight and being bounced around on the Flibco bus. This mix has a lot of the tunes I’m loving at the moment but also a bit of throw back too. It truly is a mix across 2 different countries.
Enjoy the mix and see if you can work out which half is Dutch and Belgian?
00:00:00 – You got the love (Sonny Noto remix) – Florence + The machine
I mentioned in the last post which was another mix. I have been out and about quite a lot, with time for creating more mixes. My self hosted mixing site is a little broken at the moment, so I’m relying on peertube again.
This mix was recorded as you can guess in Berlin during Republica in late May. I had some time before heading back to the UK and decided Berlin needed something a little lighter from the previous ones I did on the Berlin ring.
Walking across Oberbaumbrücke, I was reminded of my time at Watergate club in the early 00’s, which is now closed down. This mix is a combination of tunes, starting dark and moving into something lighter. Delirium and encounter is certainly something I experienced at Watergate and many of the other clubs in Berlin.
I have been out and about quite a lot, which means time for creating mixes on the pacemaker device. My self hosted mixing site is a little broken at the moment.
However I have shared the mix on peertube. This one was recorded on my flight from Bremen earlier in May. I quite liked Bremen, but like Hamburg but still not Berlin. However I enjoyed the sunshine on the industrial backdrop. The view outside the plane was stark too, just like the start of this mix.
This is a mix I have been listening to most of the month but finally got time to put together the art work and a bit of clean up in the editor.
I recently dropped one of Pacemaker devices while in Malta but I was able to get a mix off it before it stopped. While on the plane I created a couple of mixes. This is a early version of a longer version I did later in the flight. Originally I did think about recreating it once I got back to the UK with the last working Pacemaker device, I decided it just needs to be as it is, and maybe one day I’ll try and recreate the ending.
There are certainly some crossfader mistakes or changes I would do instead but I did enjoy this mix. Hopefully you will all enjoy this shorten mix complete with a series of new tunes
I recently got some new tunes mainly for the party mix I last shared. While checking out a number of new tunes, I discovered the amazing Tell nobody by Basil O’Glue and instantly thought this driving tune is tech trance at its best. I needed to mix it along side Follow Me (Jerome Isma-Ae Extended Remix) by Jam & Spoon.
Of course Tell nobody is just one of a few new tunes in this mix, expect them to pop in future mix for sure.
I recorded this mix on a very long train journey in the UK and it includes all the subtle crossfader mistakes. However this is one heck of a mix and it will get much better as I learn the new tunes.
I recorded this mix live on the Pacemaker device’s build in recorder/editor while mixing at our work end of year do. Its a little ropey in places but its all mixed live and with new tunes that I wouldn’t normally mix with. This is similar to the Amstels thriller chiller mix in some of the tunes.
As it goes out on Peertube, I need to mark it as explicit because it contains one swear word in the first tune – Animals (Christmas remix).
Some will enjoy this short mix, we only had 30 minutes to play and went over that even. But I certainly could redo it into something better, now I know the tunes more.
The whole video (17.5 mins) is available on Peertube and now legacy media (Youtube). Small enough for a TED talk even…
