Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
It was Tom Morris who first pointed me towards this kickstarter project for a visual history of UK club culture.
The shots look so good and its a great thing to have captured, I wish there was one for the early UK rave culture too but I’ve pledged as I’d love to have this in my book collection.
Interesting blog from the Estonia E-residents team.
Its been 3 years since the scheme launched and nearly 30,000 people from 139 countries signed up. I only signed up earlier this year but still love the idea and keeping an eye on what else I can do with a EU state backed identity.
Estonia launched it’s e-Residency programme three years ago tomorrow so that anyone on Earth could apply for a secure government-backed digital identity and gain access to our e-services.
Understandably, no one was entirely sure back then who would actually sign up and why. Many of the first e-residents were simply excited to join our borderless digital nation and had no plans to use their digital ID cards.
What interests me is the classification of the people who signed up.
I’m more a Digital nomad facing Brexit I guess.
Due to rapid advances in digital technology and more flexible working cultures, a rapidly increasing number of people are choosing to live as ‘digital nomads’ because they can work anywhere there’s an internet connection.
There’s been a sharp rise in applications from the UK since the country voted to leave the European Union. Many British entrepreneurs discover e-Residency while searching for a way to ‘stay in the EU’, but soon discover that the benefits of e-Residency are bigger than Brexit as it can often enable them to more easily conduct business globally.
Bill Mahar’s piece about City, Country and Trump is spot on (it doesn’t seem to be geo-blocked in the UK for me). Funny, insightful and sadly true. You can apply a similar idea to the Brexit vote.
if you want to understand why America is so divided don’t talk about Republicans and Democrats or red states and blue states read the story the city mouse and the country mouse currently being sold under the new titled what happened but the original was about two mice who learn that you’re either one of the other city or country and the same really could be said for America when you fly over it you don’t see red states and blue states you see vast stretches of land where there’s nothing and then every once in a while a city.
The Bill will mean the police and intelligence agencies have unprecedented powers to surveil our private communications and Internet activity, whether or not we are suspected of a crime. Theresa May has finally got her snoopers’ charter and democracy in the UK is the worse for it.
Manchester is running Afrofutures next weekend…
Afro Futures UK, a collective of researchers, artists, programmers and activists exploring new ways of examining blackness and futurism. We are hosting an FREE all day Afrofuturist Conference and Exhibition on 10th October 2015 at MADLAB with a special rosta of speakers and workshops from the USA, Europe Africa and the UK.
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I love dimsum, but I always worry whats inside… luckily this is going to change… real soon
Sarah sent me a link to the new Food Standards Agency’s changes. From December 2014, all food businesses will need to provide information about the allergenic ingredients used in food sold or provided by them.
There are 14 major allergens which need to be declared:
Cereals containing gluten namely wheat (such as spelt and Khorasan wheat), barley, rye and oats
Crustaceans like prawns, crabs, lobster and crayfish etc.
Eggs
Fish
Peanuts
Soybeans
Milk
Nuts namely almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecan nuts, Brazil nuts, pistachio, cashew,
Macadamia or Queensland nut.
Celery
Mustard
Sesame
Sulphur dioxide or sulphites (where added and is >10mg/kg in the finished product. Often found in dried fruit and wine)
Lupin
Molluscs like clams, scallops, squid, mussels, oysters and snails etc.
How great will this be… another nice solution to add to the allergy cards.
I have been looking into the health care data sharing thing in the UK a while ago but to be honest got distracted by the mass surveillance uncovering from Edward Snowden’s leaks. Luckily the Open Rights Group is keeping their watchful eyes on this issue along with many others.
I’m still making up my mind and reading about the positives and negatives, to see if I should opt out. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a public person for many things but certain things I like to keep private. I’m still learning more but I had planned to join one of the Open Right Group’s mass opt out meetups to understand a little more.
However Stefan Magdalinsk just launched #FaxYourGP.
We’re a very small group of volunteers who think it should be very easy for people to opt out of the new NHS care.data centralised database of medical records. Unless you opt out now, care.data will soon store the medical records of everyone in England, yours included, in one giant database. Our confidential health information will then be shared with companies and other public bodies.
Some people we respect think care.data is, on balance, a good thing.
Some people we respect think care.data is, on balance, a bad thing.
What we know for certain is that the NHS hasn’t made it easy for you to exercise your right to opt out. We think this really isn’t wise. The NHS leaflet explaining care.data says you should ‘let your GP know’ if you want to opt out. But GP surgeries are busy. If you ring up wanting to opt out they’ll ask you to write to them instead. That’s fair enough – their priority is treating the sick. It’s 2014. The NHS really should have made it easy to opt out via the web.
And thats the point really… Choice! It should be a educated choice not forced upon us.
As I weigh everything up, you can opt out really quickly using Stefan’s service and the envelope below. As Tim would say, Amazeballs…
If there is something I would like to see regulated in some way, it would be online dating…
Panorama exposes the tricks of the UK’s online dating industry, worth millions of pounds a year. Reporter Fiona Walker investigates how some unscrupulous dating websites are preying on those looking for love and searching for their perfect partner. She reveals a world where millions of photos and private details are taken from social media sites without people’s consent and reused to set up fake profiles of imaginary potential partners to tempt the lovelorn. Celebrities, politicians and even children are among those whose personal information has been targeted. Whistleblowers reveal how they create fake profiles and adopt multiple personas to reel in those looking for love – all to boost profits.
And its about time….! Tainted Love: Secrets of the Dating Game (on BBC iplayer for 1 year)
BBC News and Panaroma did good but you’ve only just scratched the surface…
How about the bogus matching claims, The Major private data sharing including HIV and STD Statuses of Customers, The crazy amount of trolling on dating sites, The nasty online scams which come around all the time, Warning users that some members might actually be murders, the catfishers and finally something which is too wrong I can’t even bring myself to describe how and what it is… 🙁
Once again… I say NEVER pay for online dating because these techniques are too common in the murky dark world of paid online dating…
I’m proud to say Single Black Male took my application and said yeah they would like to me to write for them.
My first piece just went up live on the site…Technology Assisted Dating
Today’s guest post is from a writer from across the pond. I’m sure he thinks Americans are <redacted>, so be sure to prove him wrong by showing him some love in the comment section below. LOL! Welcome today’s post from Ian Forrester. Enjoy!
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I live in Manchester, no not Manchester Alabama, Georgia or anywhere in the states. Manchester in the United Kingdom or England. Yes, SBM has gone slightly international but fear not the reason why I talk about Manchester is to give some context.
Manchester is famous for many things but two lesser known facts are:
- It contains the second biggest group of singles in the UK outside London; and
- It’s extremely gay friendly.
Now I’m not gay or even bi-sexual but dare I say it, some of my friends are gay (which isn’t saying much living in Manchester). A trip to the coffee shop or a bar is full of surprises. Who has not heard of the likes of Grindr? Grindr is/was extremely popular with the urban single gay males and it seems highly effective in meeting other people.
You could see this as a digital wingman of sorts or a step on the way towards a technology assisted dating/hookup depending on what you’re actually after. Before you get on your high horse, suck in your gut and say, “So sad some people need this…” Just two things to remember:
- My gay friends have lots of fun with it (maybe the way dating should be – sort of fun); and
- Is this much different than the data and algorithms of online dating?
A little bit of help can go a long way and fellas there is nothing wrong with a little assistance once in a while (now breath out and say it with me).
If you’re anything like me, you’re wondering where’s the heterosexual version?
…I then go on to discuss if proximity based dating is a real thing and has anyone got stories which they can share in the comments.
SBM nicely clean up my grammar and spelling, but generally the words are my own and there will be more guest posts to come.
I saw this while waiting in line at Booths today… and thought
The cord cutting group think is starting to take root… Of course i’d advise against it 🙂
Interesting to see the whole cord cutting thing is starting to come out into the mainstream.
As an early adopter this isn’t really news and many years ago I was doing this but of course paying the TV Licence. Because of the TV licence covers more than just the TV. Regardless, at least 90% of the media I watch on my TV screen is on demand. Live content is rare and if it is, its the backchannel of twitter which encourages me to even think about going for live media.
