Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
Some of you know I record a podcast with a few friends once a month called #Techgrumps. Due to the awful things which have/are happening with the Internet Archive, we made the decision to mirror it to RSS.com.
You can now subscribe/resubscribe to the feed here. or listen online here. I’m slowly adding the new feed to the long list of podcast sites/services.
If you are interested in being part of the podcast, just add #techgrumps to a social media network and someone will find it.
Recently I was interviewed on the Plutopia News Network. Podcasters talking on other podcasts, indeed. But good to discuss with people I have never met before.
Its an interesting interview, with a bunch of twists and turns, big thanks to the 2 hosts and regular Techgrumper and writer at Netwars Wendy Grossman.
I just watched the McLuhan Lecture 2024 with Cory Doctorow and Frederike Kaltheuner, after we talked about it on the upcoming Feb 2024 Techgrumps podcast.
Also been thinking about dating, as I edit my book. Its clear to me my thoughts of the dating industry’s endemic corruption is still valid but if I apply enshittification it fits perfectly and is very descriptive of the problem.
New platforms offer useful products and services at a loss, as a way to gain new users.
Its clear the social dating apps changed everything for many people. People can’t even imagine signing up to a site without the app now.
Once users are locked in, the platform then offers access to the userbase to suppliers at a loss, and once suppliers are locked-in, the platform shifts surpluses to shareholders.
Indeed, you can see this in the type of adverts you see in and outside the apps. Interestingly don’t forget they are collecting even more date everytime its used or to be fair is learning more about your use of the phone if you gave it the permissions its requested.
Once the platform is fundamentally focused on the shareholders, and the users and vendors are locked in, the platform no longer has any incentive to maintain quality.
Bingo, so many people tell me how Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, etc, etc… quality has gone down.
We all know its not going to get any better… Welcome to enshittification
A long time ago, I was part of a podcast called Techgrumps. It ran for 69 episodes and even started a spin off called lovegrumps.
In 2015 we kinda let it slip, and as others have pointed out a lot happened in between (Brexit, Trump, Boris, the Covid pandemic, etc, etc…)
Back in the saddle, in 2023 (8 years later), myself, David and Alan get together to discuss Twitter crazyness, The fediverse, AI, Lastpass and so much more.
The format hasn’t changed, its still unscripted and just us talking into our microphones on a Sunday night. This time we are going for a monthly format so make sure you are subscribed to the RSS feed – https://techgrumps.wordpress.com/feed/
Beware there is a lot of adult language on all the podcasts.
Want to be on the show? There are details here.
The Lovegrumps is finally back, with a critical eye on dating apps. Ideal 2 weeks before I stand on stage at TedXManchester and talk about online dating and much more.
We’re back after almost a year of silence, this time to talk about those new fangled dating apps… with Ian, Hwayoung, Tom and David..
Mpeg3 and Ogg on Archive.org
Myself and Chris were walking back from Sunday roast dinner, and we got talking about Podcasting. The current media darling is a thing called Serial.
I have always maintained that podcasting is different from radio and part of the confusion (as such) is radio shows using podcast distribution to deliver content. Most of the professional stuff is radio shows using podcasting distribution, which is a real shame. I remember my cry out for more British podcasts even.
…there were not enough amateur British Podcasts. I know theres the BBC podcasts and the Guardian podcasts which both have got a lot of success in this area but theres nothing like TwiT or Revision3’s series of video podcasts
Now of course that was 4 years ago and things have shifted. Chris pointed out the raff of amateur to professional media on youtube. But the big question remained… what is the difference between a podcast and radio show?
Well I struggled to remember the arguments about podcasting when the BBC first did its podcast trial, to replay back at Chris. The verge video reminded me exactly what the point I should have made more clearly.
Its not about production, its about depth! I eluded to it but never actually said depth. With Radio you need to be broad, with podcasts you can be so niche it hurts.
Talking of niche audiences and podcasting, we launched the Lovegrumps podcast this weekend. Lovegrumps is like Techgrumps but about love, sex and relationships. Audio only and wondering if audioboo, mixcloud or soundcloud might be better places to put the podcast?
If this is the 3rd era of podcasting, then its certainly time to evolve… Expect intro music and other production stuff next time.
Oh by the way, the verge are wrong. Perceptive Radio is clearly the future of radio… Just imagine what could be done with Perceptive Podcasts!
You may have heard or subscribed to Techgrumps in the past, and we are thinking about bringing that back. However there’s an appetite to do a version of techgrumps for love, sex and relationships.
Think geeks talk sexy crossed with Techgrumps with discussion and ranting. I think the pick up artist will be the main theme of this first podcast.
To kick it off, we are recording this Sunday evening/night maybe on Hangouts. If you are interested in taking part, get in touch with me or tommorris on twitter.
Its also a Manchester only affair, as you’d expect with it being LIVE… Ian,Josh and guest Nathan eat breakfast while waxing lyrical… about exploring Sci-Fi elitism and a concept to replace the Royal Mail with UAVs all live on Sunday 20th November…
You can download it in Mpeg3 or Ogg Vorbis
After all the comments and blog posts about secure book, rob best added real steganography to Securebook.
I paid the money for the full version and will be posting some secret messages to my flickr and twitter friends in the near future.
Its clearly amazing how this project has progressed and I’m really happy to have had a tiny helping hand in making this what it has become. Now I need to run this pass some to the guys at work to see what they think. But in the mean time Rob really needs to get this in front of Schneier and Steve Gibson on the security end and Danah Boyd and Stowe Boyd on the social tip.
I’m wondering if there is a interesting tie up with Google plus’s automatic uploading of photos and securebook’s social steganography? On #Techgrumps it was already mentioned that this would be great for those taking and sharing sensitive photos if there camera was later seized. Not only would your photos be online straight away, but they would also include hidden and secret information which you could only see if your a friend.
Everytime we’ve tried to accommodate woman at previous BarCamp, we’ve been told “don’t treat us any different.”
It wasn’t till BarCampManchester2 when Lucy really made her feelings known about woman staying over night at a BarCamp. Up till that point it hasn’t really been a problem, but the idea of staying over seemed so shocking that even I was surprised. Fast forward to this month and Samantha convinces me that having a contact for woman to get in touch to ask questions about staying over makes sense to me. To be fair I didn’t take much convincing, it made sense to me for capturing a new groups of woman who might be put off
However in Techgrumps 39 last night, Iris seems pretty upset about the idea of woman staying over night at a event with men. It might have been her lack of experience ever going to a barcamp or the bad description we explained the concept of barcamp with… But then Samantha send me the recent blog post of Tim Oreilly.
We’ve been contacted recently about issues of sexual harassment at technical conferences, including at Oscon, which starts tomorrow in Portland. At O’Reilly we take those issues very seriously. While we’re still trying to understand exactly what might have happened at Oscon or other O’Reilly conferences in the past, it’s become clear that this is a real, long-standing issue in the technical community. And we do know this: we don’t condone harassment or offensive behavior, at our conferences or anywhere. It’s counter to our company values. More importantly, it’s counter to our values as human beings.
I’m starting to wonder if I was too easy going about this all, and actually I’ve just been lucky that nothing like this has ever happened while I’ve arranged things.
BarCampMediaCity has some fantastic facilities including multiple toilets, changing rooms and even showers. It would be a real shame if people didn’t take full advantage.
For a long time now…
I’ve been thinking about the problem of digital artifacts in a physical world. I remember clearly, a fantastic conversation I had with the amazing Jas Dhaliwal about this exact subject when he was up in Manchester recently.
He was looking through my book collection and DVD collection and we got talking about how most of the books on my shelf I’ve never actual read through. Not because I don’t read but because of my dyslexia and I far prefer to read digital books. Which begs the question, what am I doing with a ton of interesting books? Why don’t I just get rid of them and buy the digital equivalents?
Well two reasons…
One of the things I’m hoping to do a lot more of in the future is working with the hackers of our generation and understand how what there doing now to scratch there own itches will expand to the mainstream. Anyway interestingly I was having a discussion with a guy from my circus workshop class (yeah another day I’ll explain) and he was saying why he liked Apple. One of his reasons was that Apple created the Mouse and that Apple create the best Keyboards and Mice.
I was totally shocked!
Now to be fair he was only 19 but still… one look at the Xerox Parc page on wikipedia page.
Most of these developments were included in the Alto, which added the now familiar SRI-developed mouse unifying into a single model most aspects of now-standard personal computer use.
Shock horror, apple did not develop the mouse. They may have borrowed/stolen the idea once Steve Jobs saw it but it wasn’t developed by them.
Anyway the point is theres a lot of this going around. We cover this on the latest Techgrumps, people ignoring or dismissing the rich history which sits behind most of the things we take for granted.
My good friend Miles use to talk a lot about the fact most blogs would only go surface deep however the blog does make a great place to dispense information. Don’t get me wrong there are some really great blogs with well thought out posts but maybe there isn’t enough?
I’ve been taking part in a new podcast for a while now. Its called Techgrumps and is basiclly a couple of us (@tommorris, @nicferrier and myself) ranting on about the bad side of technology and the internet.
@Abizer was kind enough to write the first review on the itunes music store.
Three guys who rant about computer technology. Pro Open Web, pro Open Source; Java, Scala, Ruby, Python. Not too hot on Apple and certainly not fans of “New Media”. They don’t sound like fans of non-technical computer users either. I see them as vertex on a triangle formed with the Angry Mac B******s and Leo Laporte’s podcasts. They’ll cling on to their command lines like a hipster hugs his iPhone.
If you’re an Apple fanboy, or someone who does little more than use their computer for FaceBook and Twitter then this podcast isn’t for you.
If you have opinions, and like listening to or talking with people who have different opinions – and you aren’t embarrassed to be caught swearing to yourself on public transport while listening to podcasts on public transport – then this is worth a subscription.
They aren’t always right (well, in not my opinion anyway) but they at least try to come to their conclusions with reasoned (and expletive seasoned) arguments. And it helps that they are technically proficient so these aren’t baseless discussions. But they are always entertaining. If you can get past the parts where you want to scream, there is plenty to be learned from them as well.
I see it more as the ruder and British version of Crankygeeks and Leo Laporte’s Twit podcast. I’m not so sure about us hanging to our command lines but you get the general idea. Its very rude with lots of swearing or explicit language. No one and no topics are taboo for us on techgrumps.
Our podcast isn’t very professional, in actual fact its not meant to be, we deliberately choose the low-tech approach to podcasting, hopefully encouraging others to either join us or setup there own.
I said a while ago at a barcamp and a social media cafe manchester, that there were not enough amateur British Podcasts. I know theres the BBC podcasts and the Guardian podcasts which both have got a lot of success in this area but theres nothing like TwiT or Revision3’s series of video podcasts. We need more podcasts like Techgrumps and I’m glad to say that we have in our own unique way convinced @cbetta and @thehodge to setup there own podcast called Padaddicts (not pdaaddicts as I first saw and called it).
If we can get more british podcasts then thats a good thing! Why not setup your own?!
Louis Grey, A large fan of Apple just turned his back on Apple, why? Well thats best explained by him. But there’s some real good points which I also made in a recent episode of TechGrumps.
For me, more than the over-used phrase of "open", the promise of true multitasking, and the platform’s integration with Google Apps, was one word – "Choice". Choice of handsets. Choice of carriers. Choice of manufacturers. Second behind the word choice has to be "Momentum". I can see that Android has momentum in terms of improved quality, in terms of the number of devices sold and users, and yes, applications, which are growing in quantity, soon to be followed by quality. I really do believe that if Android does not already have a market share lead over Apple yet in this discussion, they soon will. It is inevitable. The growth in the number of handsets, carriers and users will drive more developers to the platform, and the holdouts who are not there will eventually make the move. And yes, third is "Cloud" – the idea that I don’t need to be tied to my desktop computer to manage data on the phone, but instead, the phone is built to tap into data stored on the Web. Fourth is "Capability". The Android platform, as the Droid commercials offer, simply does more. The power of the mobile hotspot cannot be understated, and the iPhone is a zero there.
Agreed.