Essays

13 March 2026 ∞

The Silicon Valley types, along with the tech bros, are showing us that they are actively trying to re-instate slavery, through robotics and Agentic AI. It is a demonstration of their disdain of anything that isn’t of their class and their need to be “served” anything and everything, at anytime. It exposes their belief in an imaginary hierarchy of society and the logical conclusion of the Ayn Rand philosophy of individualism put in practice. It is a violent assault on humanity. Welcome to the Digital Plantation.

In Martinique in the 19th Century, a statue was erected to celebrate the life of Napoleon Bonaparte’s wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. She was born on the island into a rich slave-owning family. Slavery was not her fault. Of course, she had no choice into which family she was born. But she decided to do the unthinkable. She lobbied for, and obtained, the re-instatement of slavery on the island in 1802, when slavery was about to be castigated in the dark annals of history of the island. She, and her cohorts, couldn’t imagine a world without slaves doing anything and everything for her, at anytime. Of course, the fruits of that forced labour were purely for her and her families’ profit. At great pain and expense of the forcibly expatriated and enslaved Africans.

A crime against humanity warranted a statue in her name, apparently.

It was beheaded one day in 1991, and was left in this state for over a decade. Then, on another day, red paint, symbolising the blood of the people she personally enslaved, was smeared on it. Until its ultimate fate was decided, as it was toppled and damaged beyond repair, in what any decent human can only describe as a fitting final act for a symbol of entitlement, inhumanity, and violence.¹

Like the old slave masters, the broligarchy will end at some point, possibly even violently. Statues or symbols of their power may be erected both physically and digitally in this time, that symbolise their power and privilege, and boast of their prowess. But they too will be toppled and destroyed.

Those who committed the act were charged with vandalism, but ultimately the trial collapsed as it was, rightly, deemed as an act of political expression. ↩︎

11 March 2026 ∞

Growing up around a museum

When I was very young, I have a couple of distinct memories that have since faded somewhat, but they are still there and appear when something triggers them. The trigger in this instance was my stumbling on the IndieWeb Carnival March 2026 : Museum Memories. It was going to about one of those memories recanting my chance relationship to one of the most interesting museums in the UK, the Science Museum in London. My elder brother was school friends with the son of the director of the Science Museum at that time, and a memory of our two families strawberry picking and then eating lunch at their house. It was where I first tasted Spaghetti Bolognaise. The memories came flooding back to me when I read the subject.¹ But I think a more interesting story about my memories of a museum is to be told.

I grew up in the 70s on a modest housing estate in the West Midlands that was located not too far from what has been called the Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Throughout my early years, it was common to have it drilled into us that Ironbridge and the surrounding area was the most important site of industrialisation in the entire world.² There are several sites, museums, and artefacts that testament to the history of the area that we could avoid nor miss. However, like most kids of a young age, I grew up with a complex mixture of pride, interest, and total ambivalence to the evidence that was within my field of view permanently. Sure, some of it was interesting, and it got us out of school on a number of occasions to benefit for some fresh air, but historical acts of smelting iron ore were not the kind of thing this young lad was interested in.

But from a very early age, I got to experience the entire museum complex, not as a visitor or patron, but as a result of other circumstances. Allow me to explain.

Before I entered infants school, my mother had struck up a friendly relationship with the potter at Blists Hill, part of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum, some time before its opening in 1973. She was a creative soul, with much place in her life for the enjoyment of expressing that creativity. We would often walk down to the museum, following the back roads, through woodland pathways built on old mining slag heaps, round the back of the posh people’s houses and down the hill to spend a few hours in the pottery. Probably a good fifteen-twenty minute walk. Once onsite, I was given a lot of freedom to roam around and look at the various shops and interests of the site, and then we’d go home for lunch. The site, it is a reproduction victorian village, with shops, banks, and other artefacts that faithfully recreate the era. It was fairly rudimentary in those days, having not long opened, but quickly developed into one of those rare but popular destinations where you get to not only see, but touch, smell and really feel the past.

Roy, the potter, was a very kind man. He’d known me before I could walk, and later as I was a little older, he let me run around the pottery as long as I didn’t go near the ovens! He took time to show me how everything worked, giving me lessons on spinning, glazing, and firing. It was fascinating because it was real. Physical. Tangible. It was the job, of course. Something he’d do for paying visitors, but I could tell he did it for the pure joy of being able to transfer his skill and knowledge. He is a skilled potter and had no trouble selling his creations. He still works as a potter to this day.

A few years later, I’d grown a little, and was now struggling in secondary education (for reasons), but had one thing that I could do well without constantly fighting against myself. Music became a central part of me and, most probably, a life-saver. That love for music started as a youngster, my mother would take me and my siblings to the “big school” on Saturday mornings to make bamboo recorders. Spending weeks cutting, filing, drilling and carefully placing a piece of gently cut cork to make a sound that was all of your doing was enchanting. Several weeks would then be spent attempting to tune the recorder, all while learning to play basic music. I learned about music at this stage, and it affected me profoundly. From a failed attempt to learn the violin, through the bamboo pipes, I eventually fell in love with an unassuming brass instrument, the B♭Cornet. I became a very good player for my age, and had a very good maitrise of three variations of the instrument. The Cornet, an E♭Soprano Cornet —which is much harder to play—, and a B♭Trumpet. I became one of the key players in the school band, sharing “principal” responsibilities for a number of years. The school band gained a notoriety, and we were often playing around the country on weekends, in a sponsorship with British Rail (back when it was a company for public good) in various towns and cities, including the local museum sites in Ironbridge. I got to see the museum once again for free, but in very different circumstances. The various sites of the museum hold a special place in my memories of a time that things were not always plain sailing.

I now live many millions of metres from the museum, but I do think about how much the museum has been present at various stages of my life.

I didn’t even know what Spaghetti was before this encounter. ↩︎
I suspect that is mostly colonial hubris, but it is nonetheless a very important site of the birth of modern industry. ↩︎

02 March 2026 ∞

You built the absolute best app in its field.¹ The most useful and helpful to use with a genuinely delightful interface, all for a reasonable price that fitted so perfectly into the category that you practically single-handedly owned the space.

True, it was a relatively small market, but you were making a healthy profit and were highly respected by the large group of users you served.² So much so, users would volunteer help and advice, knowing that their contributions would be taken seriously and possibly even further developed and integrated into the app for the benefit of all.

Given that your app is a security app, this invaluable feedback helped ensure your app didn’t falter badly like others in the same category, the category you essentially created.

But you couldn’t leave it there, could you?

The lure of MOAR just kept eating away in your mind. Eating like a cancer, growing unseen and undetected until it made itself inextricably embedded.

But unlike the classical treatment of a cancer, and contrary to all knowledge on treating cancers, you decided to embrace it. And embrace it you did. You went off and got that big fat cheque of VC money to expand into “new markets” and into new profits.

For a while, it looked like you had managed the change, and that the mission was the same. The expansion into that new market felt very much like the first foray into bringing the goodness to those on the other platform. I even recommended it to numerous people using the dark side’s platform. But now we know, it was only the cancer directing you to give it more food for growth. And it didn’t take long for the cancer to start attacking the more sane and reasonable parts of the organisation. It always does. That’s what a cancer is. You can’t embrace it, for it will embrace you. It will consume you. It always does. And there is nothing you can do about it once you have left it embed itself so deeply. I know what I’m talking about. I have lived through what a cancer is and what it does. That is why I recognise it, in all its forms.

Then you sent us all an email, explaining that you were “upgrading” your prices (our costs) by 25%. Justifying the move with the fact that you hadn’t increased prices in a long time. Adding that, you were adding functionalities that no one asked for. Functionalities that could potentially result in substantial in cost increases for you.

Firstly, who wrote and signed off on using the word “upgrade” in this context? I would suggest that you purchase a dictionary for them to use, and then systematically double-check any public communications they may make in the near future. It smells (badly) of a press release copiloted by a stochastic parrot. Should that be the case, something we’ll probably never know, the fact that you treated the most important part of your business; hint: your customers with this disdain, suggests that going forward, you will treat us at least as badly, but more likely worse. Let alone the disregard for our data you may have in the future.

Secondly, this was your strategy. Not ours. You decided to use the injection of VC money to stabilise prices, not us. Instead of incrementally pricing as functionality was introduced, or as inflation required. Now it’s our fault? You didn’t even offer an option for those that only need basic functionality to stay on a plan similar to the current one. It would have been less than ideal, but not as egregious as this agressive threat expressed in that rueful email. No. You went for the nuclear option and told us all that you had us by the balls and that the ransom starts now.

So let me be clear, and I want to make this as unambiguous as possible. Go fuck yourselves!

I will be “upgrading” my use of your application, rendering it superflus to my needs.

For the record, my short interaction with the support team, has clarified that you simply do not seem to understand the problem.

So long. And thanks for all the fish.

I am purposefully not naming the application in this instance, as I don’t think it is helpful. But it also affords me the opportunity to highlight this case in broad terms and show that it is equally valable for a multitude of applications, developers and companies selling us things. It also shows that we don’t have to take it lying down and that it is we that, ultimately, have the power and that we should not be afraid to exercise it. ↩︎
```
Yes. You *serve* your customers.
```
↩︎

04 January 2026 ∞

Last year, I tried to be a bit more intentional with reading. In some respects, I was trying to get back to a time when I would always have a book on me and would read it throughout the day, on public transport, in the office, or whilst waiting for something. It is an activity that I have lost and missed, and, I think, to many other people since the attention capture of Social Media.

I largely achieved that goal, and it has been good for the soul, but I’m sure that I could have done better. I’m largely off anything social, although I read a few posts on —non-nazi bar— forums and Mastodon. But it got me thinking about the types of reading I do and how I can fine tune the intentionality for (hopefully) better outcomes.

If I had to categorise the types of reading I do, it tends to fall into one or more of the following bins:

Skimming / Getting up to speed
Learning / Education
Novels and Entertainment

For the first type, I am starting to limit myself to a maximum of an hour over a full twenty-four, to catch up on posts on Mastodon and news-related sites with NetNewsWire’s fine RSS reader. This is high sugar content that satiates a need in the instant, but quickly dissipates from my brain, leaving room for other things. It used to be MOAR of the same, but this is a habit that I am slowly kicking. But damn, the world going to hell in a handbasket is really not helping!

For learning, this is highly intentional reading, where I will need to set aside time to read, re-read and digest the information. Within this category, there are probably a couple of other subtypes. For example, for training materials, I tend to read quickly, take a couple of notes to get the gist, re-read then take the test / exam. This serves me well, and I generally get high grades. For other writing that is ostensibly something I’d like to “learn” something from, I have a tendency to read it, think I’ll remember it, and of course don’t. Typically, this is on personal blogs of writers, or others sharing on a topic that interests me. It’s not formal training, or journalism, but it is nonetheless interesting and helpful to developing one’s particular interests. The change this year —if I can achieve it— is to treat it more like education and take notes. Even if these notes are not extensive, structured and written with poor handwriting skills. They might never be seen again, but that doesn’t matter because the exercise of effort to write them in the first place is likely to have a positive effect on retention and learning capacity.

For novels, I want to get back to the wonder I felt when reading books when I was younger. I’ve never been one to take reading notes and write my personal summaries. Whilst I aspire to that, I don’t think I’m wired that way, so I’ve decided not to fight against it. I’m going to read them. Enjoy them. Finish them. And then move on to the next book. This doesn’t preclude me from taking an interesting note at some point in the future, but I’m not going to ‘intentionally’ start reading a book with the purpose of producing reams of notes. And, to be honest, I have a fairly unique relationship to novels, in that I cannot re-read them in the future, as I already know the story and what is about to happen that it kills all the joy for me. I can count on one hand the number of novels I’ve re-read over my life. I just can’t do it.

I’ll see how I get on this year and in trying to keep myself on track, I’ll return to this post every now and again.

17 March 2025 ∞

In defence of Stage Manager

Judging by public reactions, this is not a popular perspective, but I, for one, am grateful that Stage Manager exists, and I use it almost exclusively. To be clear, I only use it on macOS and don’t go near it on an iPad as it is not fit for purpose on that platform, sadly.

On the Mac, it is a tool that I use to help me with distractions, helping me concentrate on the task at hand and avoiding the distractions of the constantly updating timelines, documents open that require edits, or the myriad of other distractions presented by modern computer interfaces.

With ADHD, it is a constant battle to stay on track and to keep enough focus on the current task alone, that any assistance is helpful. For me at least.

It is not without its problems, however. Some applications don’t behave well. Excel is a good example. If you have two workbooks open in two different Stages, operations like undo jarringly flip you to the other stage and the undo is ignored completely. I’m sure that Microsoft are totally on top of this, and it’ll get fixed in about ten to twenty… years!

For now, I’m sticking with it and I turn it off now and again when I don’t have the need to focus as much.

While I think of it, one good example of this is when I present. Presentations don’t sit well with Stage Manager and simply and quickly turning it off makes the presentation work fine.

There are other improvements that could be made, like remembering groups of apps between sessions and reboots. I’d like to be able to designate what goes with what in which Stage to always open the apps concerned like that.

As I said, in defence of Stage Manager.

17 March 2025 — French West Indies

02 May 2024 ∞

Au revoir Apple Watch

I’ve bought three Apple Watches since its introduction, spending a total of around 1000 € not including a few bands that I bought to change things when wearing it for sleep, sport or out for dinner.

I may be a little slow in realising this, but I’ve just purchased a mid-range Swiss movement automatic watch for quite a bit less than I spent on Apple Watches over the last 9 years. My current Apple Watch doesn’t a whole day any more as the battery is hosed. Although I could replace the battery —in theory— it requires even more money thrown at a watch that will be declared obsolete shortly, and then become a contribution to the world’s ever-growing pile of eWaste because a corporate manager has ordained it so. I’m not that comfortable with that prospect.

My new watch will last decades and will be something I can pass down to my son in years to come, unlike an obsolete wrist computer with a swollen fire hazard battery. And it’ll still tell the time as wells it did when I bought all those years ago.

I don’t think I’ll buy a new Apple Watch anytime soon.

However, it is an “au revoir” because I’m still going to use the Apple Watch for exercise and sleep tracking, or if I know I’m going to have a particularly active day. But I don’t see myself re-spending the kinds of sums required just ot have the time on my wrist and a couple of notifications.

I’ll be looking into other options for sports and sleep.

27 April 2024 — French West Indies

05 August 2023 ∞

Facebook/Meta and highly personalised ads in the EU

Highly personalised ads imply highly personalised data about you. Despite what Facebook/Meta and the intrusive advertising apologists say, collecting, storing and profile-building that information is a huge security risk to each and every individual on the internet. And yes, I know there have not been any “known” breaches reported, but known is doing a lot of lifting in that statement.

After more than five years of extensive litigation by noyb, the German Kartellamt and decisions by the EDPB and CJEU, it seems that Meta finally complies with EU privacy laws:

5 years of litigation: Meta apparently switches to consent for behavioral ads

Many think that policy advisors in the EU Commission develop policy ideas like they’re given in Christmas crackers. That couldn’t be further from the truth, as policy is shaped mainly by research and findings. And whether you agree or disagree with eventual legislation, the foundations of it are not some verbal fart of a career policy wonk with incentives to climb the greasy pole of EU politics.

Firstly, I’d like to point you to a document from the European Commission, the Study on the impact of recent developments in digital advertising on privacy, publishers and advertisers.

The Executive Summary lists many conclusions and observations, with one that is particularly interesting and not widely understood:

There is limited evidence to suggest that the efficiency and efficacy gains of advertising products that rely on personal data and profiling outweigh the interference with individuals’ fundamental rights and consumer rights in addition to the reported negative societal impacts. A large amount of academic research has focused on demonstrating that the way that digital advertising works today has significant impacts on privacy, data protection, democracy, society and the environment. However, there is a lack of independent analysis to assess the costs and benefits of using personal data and profiling in advertising.

And this:

Lack of transparency in digital advertising limits evidence-based decision-making because advertisers lack independent data to assess the performance of digital advertising. This strengthens the position of players with strong market power and deters advertisers from switching to emerging alternatives that are less intrusive, even though there is evidence that some advertisers would prefer to rely on models that minimise the processing of unnecessary personal data. More independent data about the performance of alternative models compared to the status quo is needed to encourage widespread adoption among advertisers and publishers.

The efficacy of online advertising has always been bullshit and a mechanism of wealth extraction from advertisers and targeted individuals alike. It is time to expose it for what it is —essentially a scam.

5 August 2023 — French West Indies

03 May 2023 ∞

Rumours of a new journaling app in iOS

According to the WSJ, Apple is planning on releasing a journaling app that competes with existing apps:

The software will compete in a category of so-called journaling apps, such as Day One, which lets users track and record their activities and thoughts. The new Apple product underscores the company's growing interest in mental health.

The Apple journaling app, code-named Jurassic, is designed to help users keep track of their daily lives, according to the documents describing the software. The app will analyze the users' behavior to determine what a typical day is like, including how much time is spent at home compared with elsewhere, and whether a certain day included something outside the norm, according to the documents.

I’m genuinely interested to discover what this will look and work like.

I’ve used the excellent journaling app called Day One for several years. I like and use it because of its simplicity, syncing, and availability on iPhone, Mac and iPad. However, because of the poor support for the specificities of the iPad, I think Apple has an opportunity to provide the basics and go beyond what Day One delivers. The iPad is a pencil-supporting device; in this respect, I think Day One has consistently missed something. It offers basic Scribble and drawing support but leaves you wanting more.¹

When you look at journaling as a practice, there is much worth in writing by hand. Studies that look at learning show that people tend to remember more and for longer when they have written their notes using pen and paper.² There is just something connecting the brain and the information through the writing process.³

Apple should Implement something akin to current functionality in Notes or Freeform, although less clunky, please. What is needed is an unencumbered combination of digital text, handwriting, drawings, and scribbles, all free from constraint and really easy to use. Some of the most personal journals include handwriting, doodles and other markings that can signify something to the writer and possibly the posthumous reader of the future. Limiting a journal to markdown or rich text is too reductive for journaling.

I’d love the Apple app to have the ability to do either, or more precisely, both. There are days I’d like to handwrite and days I’m happy sitting at my desk writing through the keyboard. With this setup, it would be easier to journal when not at the office or possessing only an iPad —the typing experience of the on-screen keyboard on an iPad is less than optimal, and I’m being very charitable.

Microsoft produced a demo of something similar to this idea over ten years ago called Courier.⁴ Microsoft’s concept goes way beyond what is needed and wanted. But it gives you an idea of an entirely open-ended journal, just like paper, only digital, replicated, backed up and encrypted for privacy.

3 May 2023 — French West Indies

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/apple-pencil-and-scribble ↩
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210319080820.htm ↩
Incidentally, handwriting on a tablet, whilst better than typing, performed slightly worse than pen and paper. ↩
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier ↩

20 January 2023 ∞

Apple AirTag tracks a big detour of luggage

In an article on Apple Insider, a couple of Air Canada passengers followed their luggage after it was lost for several days.

To their surprise, the luggage took quite a detour, proving all the communications from Air Canada were either wilfully incorrect or ineptly incorrect. Either way, it shows how frail baggage systems can be. As one might imagine, those systems are not 100% robotised and computer-controlled. They rely on several steps operated entirely by humans.

And what can humans be, if not stupid? Corrupt. Just look hereand here.

I write about this personally, having had a similar incident while travelling with Air Canada. Flying out of the French West Indies to get to Toronto, we have to fly to Montreal, then hop over to Toronto. Arriving at Montreal, given that it is the entry point, we must collect the bag and then go through customs and immigration. Unfortunately, my bag wasn’t there, and I was told to go to Toronto anyway, as they’d find my bag and deliver it to me at my hotel. So off I went after filling in the requisite lost luggage forms.

To cut a long story short, I got my bag with, as far as I can tell, everything in it, but given that I flew in on Sunday night and my bag was delivered on Wednesday evening, I had to purchase some new clothes to tie me over, not knowing if or when the bag would arrive.

I have a theory about what happened, as the bag went to Paris before winding its way across the Atlantic several days later. Drugs.

I’m pretty convinced that there are baggage handlers or others in the chain of operations that select bags and then divert them to other airports for them to be recovered and sent to the actual destination days later, thus providing a decent cover for the transport of drugs and arms to and fro.

It’s pretty easy to open a suitcase or a bag, even with a lock, thanks to security legislation after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Every lock has a back door —a TSA-compatible key. Finding one for each lock type is trivial. And it grants unimpeded access to every piece of luggage passing through the basement of an airport. A basement that offers plenty of opportunity to conduct this kind of illicit business.

Technology offers us a view into the depths when we use it for good. Who knows, It might make it harder for illicit activity to proliferate.

I, for one, am investigating picking up a couple of AirTags for when I next travel, checking in luggage. I try to fly light, ensuring I only have cabin luggage, but that is not always feasible.

20 January 2023 — French West Indies

10 January 2023 ∞

A turning point for Social Media?

I’m wondering if this is a turning point for Social Media. There’s a confluence of factors that are starting to bite. And it doesn’t look like it will ease up anytime soon.

Firstly, regulation and accountability. Governments and Civil Society are interested in making platforms more accountable for the outputs of the various algorithms used by the latter. It’s no longer enough to wave their hands and say, “look over there” people want real analysis and accountability.

For example, look at this lawsuit as reported by Ars Technica.

"Research tells us that excessive and problematic use of social media is harmful to the mental, behavioural, and emotional health of youth and is associated with increased rates of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, eating disorders, and suicide."

Secondly, the ownership and centralisation of Social Media have come to the fore through the abject stupidity of how Elmo handled the Twitter takeover and subsequent (mis)management.

It was firing many people that provided, albeit limited, accountability and balance had nearly disastrous consequences, echoing much of the popular delusion that sparked the January 6 storming of the Capitol. There is much scrutiny around what role Social Media played in this.

This has provoked a mass exodus of technology journalists, enthusiasts, experts and academics to invest more time and effort in Mastodon. It remains to be seen if it reaches critical mass to ensure its survival in this new form. For the record, Mastodon will continue regardless, but it may return to being a modern-day equivalent of the BBS of yore.

Thirdly, the polarised populations are now becoming poorer through global economic mismanagement and exploitation by populism that has ripened the world for autocrats and extremists to seize their opportunity to amass decisive power. See above.

Recent reports suggest Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential Election and likely others, but the analysis is too little too late. It does, however, suggest deeper scrutiny is on the horizon. I would guess that newer tools will make this quicker and simpler to use, to the point where near real-time analysis of the effects of Social Media is possible. Those best placed for this are the Social Media companies themselves. Not in any “police the police” sense. More being compelled and scrutinised by an independent body. Facebook’s Oversight Board is a start but pathetically reductive and free from real scrutiny.

But most importantly, and possibly one of the only easy-to-implement chances we have to correct this path, cutting off the oxygen to these platforms. Ad money. Unregulated and uncontrolled advertising poisons everything.

Advertisers are starting to wake up to this and are wincing at the things they and their products are being associated with algorithmically and uncontrollably. And they’re not happy.

Source: https://www.ft.com/content/126219c4-5ac0-4c8b-996c-307c24a4cd61 (Paywalled)

I think we can look forward to greater scrutiny and a wholesale effort to reign in these platforms.

10 January 2023 — French West Indies

05 January 2023 ∞

The more social, social network

There’s a number which is called Dunbar’s Number. It’s around 150 or so.

It’s a significant number in that it seems to indicate that, as humans, we are incapable of having a meaningful discussion and keeping personal links with other humans if we have to do that for a group larger than this number.

Think about how many friends you have, no not Instagram acquaintances, real friends? Now think about how many of them you can keep in touch with in a meaningful way. It’s probably much less than Robin Dunbar’s suggestion.

I’ve started to see discussions about having a much more sociable social network, prompted by not just Elmo’s destruction of Twitter but the abject fatigue surrounding the use of social media that sucks you dry and intentionally disconnects you emotionally from a human being on another smartphone. Connecting more people was supposed to bring us together. Instead, it has succeeded in doing the exact opposite. For example, suggestions discuss limiting follows and followers to around 300 people or so and making them mutually agreed upon.

I don’t know the solution, and I don’t think it is Mastodon in its current guise. Still, I think it is a good starting point for people, organisations, institutions and even governments to see how they can build more community rather than more division.

Community centres and youth clubs were everywhere before. They weren’t perfect, nor do I expect Social Media to be. But I think there’s an opportunity to build something more localised and connected simultaneously. And that is what I think the value of something like Mastodon may inspire.

5 January 2023 — French West Indies

15 April 2021 ∞

Internet fanboy

I’ve been an internet fanboy for as long as I can remember —at least, as long as I learnt there was a big network of computers that we could all use, connecting us closer together.

It was fun in the 90s. I had to connect from the university network, JANET, to NIST (National Institue of Standards and Technology), then out to the big bad world of what was still essentially ARPANET.

The World Wide Web was still in an experimental state in CERN. I hadn’t even heard of it at that point. We used the Internet like animals; terminal commands, long waits, FTP, Gopher, WAIS, and Usenet, none of the graphically oriented interfaces that we see today.

As I fell in love with the Internet and I stumbled upon an early copy of Wired Magazine in 1993, imported into my native UK. I fully bought into the idea that the Internet was nothing but good for the world.

It would connect us, it would open our eyes to other things, would educate us, and it would even feed us. It would completely revolutionise the way the world works, for the better.

I had no idea at the time that the very fact that the world became more and more connected, it actually drives us more and more apart.

We, as humans, can comfortably ingest, process, and analyse only a few cognitively demanding elements simultaneously. At school, you would have only a handful of friends, and only one or two you could call best friend. If, like me, you were in a large secondary school of around a thousand pupils, it was overwhelming to be in general assembly (with the whole school in one room). The morning going to school, with its never-ending procession of pupils arriving, break time with the crowd pilling out of the building to run around on the playground. All these people surrounding us are too much for one human to get to know, either intimately or on a cursory level.

The Internet completely explodes that model, and we are confronted with tens of thousands, if not millions on possible interactions constantly whilst connected. Twitter, Facebook, Clubhouse, and their indifference to their capacity to overwhelm us is creating a different type of human culture that is, in my view, detrimental to the world. Polarisation, populism, immediacy of need. These are all consequences that are not propice for the sain development of the world.

I wish I had understood this when I was first becoming charmed with the Internet. Perhaps I could have contributed to doing something to protect us from its inevitable negative consequences.

Funnily enough, it was all there then for us to see. Re-read Neuromancer, and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

15 April 2021 — French West Indies

30 March 2021 ∞

Thoughts on Clubhouse

I got on to Clubhouse, so you don’t have to. It is actually a fascinating idea but one I can’t quite adhere to fully for numerous reasons, some of which I’ll dive into here.

But first, whenever I jump into a room on Clubhouse, there is literally nothing that couldn’t be better served in podcast format. The ability to stop/start when you like, the offline capability and the accompanying show notes that often point you to supporting materials, are all clearly missing from Clubhouse. This has been confirmed by the fact that many presenters are actually recording and publishing their “talks” through podcasts and YouTube post-room.

In fact, that’s the primary reason I got on the platform, to try to understand its relation to podcasts and to see if it would disrupt them as so many have been predicting. I’m happy to say that no, Clubhouse will not put a nail in the coffin of podcasts any time soon. If anything it is more like to become the model on which conference panel discussions get digitalised (and subsequently marginalised in value). There’s scope for the democratisation and digitalisation of many of the panels that are hosted around the world. COVID-19 has accelerated the acceptance of that reality. As a panel host/guest speaker invested in that market, i.e., if it’s your main job, I’d be worried about where well-paid work will come from in the next couple of years.

In fact, I’d go as far to say that if the platform becomes very popular, it could decouple live panel discussions from conferences and even kill off local discussion in-person forums. And like any platform on the internet at internet scale, the problem quickly becomes discovery. How do you find out about those interesting and informative conversations? How do you stop from getting placed in a social bubble (remember you’re linked to your contacts)? What part does moderation play in this?

But what is Clubhouse? I think a good way think about it is a cross between a phone-in radio show from a small town, populated by procrastinators, narcissists, and grifters. Its sudden popularity has meant that it is the latest target for dollar store wisdom mongers, snake oil merchants and outright fraudsters. That is not to say that there aren’t any interesting and enlightening discussions taking place on the platform, of course there are, just like we’ve seen on TED. But boy, there’s a lot of absolute crap out there too! If you do join, just beware of the VCBS and the pathetic rich-splaining like ‘Ooh look at me, I’m a millionaire’ or “Get More Clients in 2021”. I think I’ve said enough.

From an analytical point of view, I can see it as an ancillary service in digital conferencing —something that despite trying, we still haven’t cracked meaningfully, particularly the conference-goer interaction space. You’ve all been there, when the filthy mic gets passed around the hall in the Q&A session. You’ve probably all spent time in a Zoom-like conference wanting to get to talk to the panel/presenter and couldn’t because the tools don’t allow for that yet. Using Clubhouse as a digital alternative might possibly be very compelling.

The big question, of course, is how is Clubhouse going to monetise. I’ll put that to bed immediately because there is only one proven solution to qualitative tools on the Internet. Ads. Only businesses pay for quality (ahem) software. Consumers wilfully (or ignorantly) allow spying to be performed on their footsteps in cyberspace for that to be monetised later using some flaky and downright fraudulent claims on accuracy and ROI. And so it will pass. Clubhouse will become Clubhouse + ads. The funding round mostly from A16z practically guarantees this. They have bet big and will want big returns or nothing.

There is also a technical and practical dilemma for Clubhouse too. How it can interject adverts without the speakers announcing “This room is sponsored by …” —something I’m not even sure is possible in the T&Cs. (Note to self: Check the terms for advertising clauses). If it is audio, i.e., the primary reason you get on the platform, then having your favourite show interrupted by an advert about a website builder or better yet, the next “hot” Clubhouse room is so user hostile that I can only imagine adverts inserted as you enter or leave a room. Interstitial adds are super agressive and frictional to the point that many of us might reduce the use of the app. The other option is visual ads either static of video-based. Again, this is a tricky prospect as many people open the app, join a room and turn the screen off listening on headphones, the phone’s speaker or AirPlay-ing it to the voice in the box. I mean, where’s the moat? How is this different from live-feed podcast?

As it stands today, Clubhouse is just a feature waiting to be copied by the big boys in the classroom. Twitter and Facebook have started doing just that. They’re unlikely to stop until they can kill off the disruptor before it gets a foothold or be told to stop by legislation. It’ll most likely be achieved through two strategies; using their already hard-won networks and graphs, and out-featuring the features of the product for nothing more than is little more personal data.

I wrote this passage a few weeks ago as I was taking notes using Clubhouse:

Just as an aside, a note about building the network. Clubhouse requires, yes requires, you to upload your entire contacts list if you want to invite someone to the party. You get two invites when you’re successfully integrated. If you store contact details on any European citizen (regardless of where you like), you are defect breaking GDPR laws unless you’ve got permission from the person being invited. I make no judgement, I inform. Think about that for a minute. I currently have 1346 contact cards on my Mac (some are old or defunct), but Clubhouse wants 1300+ just to send two invites. I suspect around 800 or more of those contacts are EU citizens; therefore I’d be breaking the law over 800 times.

That paragraph is meaningless today, as the app has been updated to allow an invitation to be sent to individual phone numbers thus avoiding the wrath of the EU for now. Who knows if they’ll go after those who have already broken the law. 🤷‍♂️ For them, Clubhouse has provided means by which you can delete the contacts you uploaded. Looks a bit like shredding the papers before the inspectors to me. As far as I’m aware, French authorities have opened an investigation to determine if there was indeed a breach of law by Clubhouse.

I doubt much will come of it, though. But it is a sign of the very different times in which startups in the tech industry are trying to get off the ground, of which they will be no doubt acutely aware.

30 March 2021 — French West Indies

20 November 2020 ∞

The origins of Rosetta(2) probably lie in a little-known technology from 1996 called FX!32

Unless you’re a hermit or not in any way linked to the tech industry, you’ll be aware that Apple has released its in-house designed processors to replace the current Intel-supplied ones used in the low-end line of Apple’s computers; the MacBook Air, the MacBook Pro 13” and the Mac Mini.

Upon reception, people have been benchmarking these processors with nothing short of absolutely stunning results. They are that good it seems. Everything from switching resolutions —which is, by the way, instantaneous with no blanking or delay— to running Apple M1 optimised tasks at over three times the speed for some functions, as compared to even the fastest of the Intel family.

But I’ve been most interested in this transition to RISC¹ from CISC², or to put it differently, from Intel to Apple arm-based processors, for one reason. Rosetta.³ A Apple officially calls it Rosetta, but we all know it as Rosetta 2 because its original outing was in 2006. Back then Apple was embarking on its first major transition from the PowerPC line of processors to Intel’s x86 line. Rosetta, at that time, provided the bridge between the older PowerPC applications and the newer operating system that was running entirely on the Intel instruction set.⁴ Rosetta was an emulation software that took PowerPC-based commands and turned them into equivalent Intel-based commands, allowing the application to run, albeit slowly. There is an overhead that is not negligible to run as an emulation. At the elementary level, the processor has to do at least twice the work than an application running natively.

Rosetta 2 does things a little differently, and as a result, substantially reduces the time required to run the translated applications. The word ‘translate’ is the key to understanding Rosetta 2.

Back in 1996 during the precipitous misfortune of digital, a major computer company from Maynard, Massachusetts, digital had designed, built and implemented a RISC-based architecture processor called Alpha. The move to RISC was seen as the way forward and was —rightly so, if what we’re seeing today from Apple— projected to be the future of processor design.

At the time, there was a belief that RISC-based microprocessors were likely to replace x86-based microprocessors, due to a more efficient and simplified implementation that could reach higher clock frequencies.

(FX!32 - Wikipedia. [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FX!3...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FX!32))

There was, however, one snag, and that was application compatibility with the growing x86 application base that had taken hold at the time, through PCs running various flavours of Windows. One interesting version had been commercialised for a few years, NT or New Technology, and was quickly outdoing the established Unix workstation operating systems, like digital’s own AXP.

To remove this sticking point, Raymond J. Hookway and Mark A. Herdeg led a team of engineers in developing a much better solution to the CISC ➔ RISC problem than simple emulation. Released in 1996 and discussed in detail in this 1997 Digital Technical Journal article, DIGITAL FX!32 provided the means for the binaries to be “translated” from x86 to Alpha. FX!32 took native x86 binaries and created alpha DLLs, or Dynamic Linked Libraries, and ensured that these ran in the place of the original x86 binaries.

FX!32 allowed two things to happen. One, FX!32 let non-native x86 code run on the Alpha processors with a much smaller speed penalty than emulation. Version 1.0 reportedly ran at 40-50% of the speed of native Alpha code. It was way faster than emulator software that typically ran at a tenth (or slower) of native speed. Subsequent versions and other optimisations allowed the code to run at over 70% of the native Alpha processors speed. Being that the alpha processor was the fastest processor on the market at the time, this allowed complex applications like Microsoft Office, to run at very useable speeds on Alpha workstations running NT 3.51.

Secondly, the work done to translate the binary was not lost and re-expended every time the required application was run, as it was in emulation. FX!32 optimised the binaries in the background and stored the translated libraries on-disk which enabled the second-run experience to be virtually unnoticeable. The background translation ran without user interaction and allowed the processor to choose the best possible optimisations in terms of computational resources enabling the user to start the application and get to work after a short delay. Modules not yet used in the application were optimised in the background and on the first run, were fast and responsive.

The primary goals of the project were to provide 1) transparent execution of x86 applications and 2) to achieve approximately the same performance as a high-end x86 platform. FX!32 achieved both these goals.

That brings us to Apple’s Rosetta 2 technology. Wikipedia’s entry for Rosetta 2 is two sentences:

Rosetta 2 is included starting with macOS Big Sur to aid in the Mac transition to Apple Silicon from Intel processors. In addition to the just-in-time (JIT) translation support available in Rosetta, Rosetta 2 includes support for translating an application at installation time.

Technical information is scarce, as Apple typically shields these types of technical documents. The page dedicated to Rosetta on developer.apple.com is scant in technical detail too. But I suspect the origins of the technology lie in FX!32, updated to run x86 64bit instructions. The difference between now and then, is that Apple’s M1 is so fast that even the 20-30% speed hit allows these computers to run Intel code faster than Intel itself can (on the line of processors Apple is replacing).

Just. Stunning.

20 November 2020 — French West Indies

Reduced Instruction Set Computer ↩
Complex Instruction Set Computer ↩
Taken from the Rosetta Stone that enabled historians and scientists to understand 3 languages, as the stone contained translations of Green, Demotic and Hieroglyphic ↩
The instruction set determines how the processors calculates the code it is fed. Both RISC and CISC have their advantages and disadvantages ↩

04 November 2020 ∞

Time for all Internet comments to be switched off?

This article from John Dario resonates with me when I read it this morning. It's not that comments are unwanted by or in itself. Internet assumptions in hand, we can understand that Internet comments are just too frequent, too prevalent and too divisive to be of any use to anyone wishing to cling on to what is left of their sanity.

I’ve never got into that situation for several reasons. Perhaps if comments were active, you’d tell me why; useless articles, unknown, loser etc.

The day to day cognitive workload for us in this interconnected world is big enough without having to deal with everyone else’s idiosyncrasies. I’ve not, and will not activate comments on this blog, and I will not make it easier for anyone to hurtfully spew garbage in the face of others.

The rage-economics of the social networks are showing their limits and fragility. It is only a matter of time before they will change their business models. To what, I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be even worse. But the fact that, according to a recent study, Facebook now only commands 51% of surveyed users feeling it is a net positive, speaks volumes to the direction we are heading.

Read, watch, slag off and whinge as much as you like. Just keep it to yourself and the yes-people around you. When you’ve gone through the process of distilling and formulating a cognitive and interesting point of view, then by all means, share it. On your blog.

4 November 2020 — French West Indies

04 July 2020 ∞

My timeline of doom and gloom. Here’s hoping I’m wrong!

I wrote in one of my recent newsletters that I had started to form a bigger picture of the events that are happening around the world currently. I thought I’d have a crack at trying to articulate this feeling. It’s not very positive as I don’t feel the future is that positive in the short-to-medium term. Long-term, I think things will right themselves after a wave of unrest and a reset as we all collectively wake up. Then the cycle will start over again.

Here’s a timeline of the events that started me down this track. For the record, I know other events happened earlier than this timeline, which I why I say the events that started me down this.

Brexit: The collective undoing of a stable —although not by any means perfect— relationship with Europe is, in my mind, a short-sighted and ultimately destructive path for the UK. Both sides will lose out, but I think my native UK will come out worse. But to be honest, that doesn’t really matter, as the UK will find a way to be OK. What really worries me is how this plays into the next step on this timeline?

Political and social division: If anything, this is one of the core parts to creating the necessary climate to feed and grow Brexit. Europe is the big monster to blame for all ills, while in front of our faces political and social groups are profiting from the division in society. Take the US as an example of extremes. There seems to be no middle ground any more. It wasn’t like this before, and it doesn’t have to be this way, but society is walking blindly into the guet-apens.

Social media: I'll not blame anyone social media firm in particular because, in reality, they are all willing participants in a destabilising social experiment. They just haven’t admitted it yet. The cognitive dissonance for me and others is that these platforms do lots of good and being digital hence agnostic, they simultaneously do lots of harm. Does the good outweigh the harm? I don’t think so currently.

Covid-19: It couldn’t have come at a better time to anchor and entrench people in their bubbles. Not only did lockdown give many people a lot more time to go down their own rabbit holes even further, but the fact that the virus exists gave some the power to develop or extend existing conspiracies to an extent never seen before. We’ve seen burins of cell towers, potentially putting people’s lives at risk, large protests against mask-wearing and the whole situation was just manna for QAnon.

Civil war: I think the next logical step in this increasingly divided state of affairs is nothing short of civil war. After Brexit, I was convinced that Europe would be first to spill into civil war, and I’m not fully convinced yet it won’t. Legitimising nationalism (which is what essentially Brexit is) I felt, was to legitimise nationalism in Europe, ergo civil war in Europe. However, the recent instability in the US has got me thinking that there is a real risk of the US tipping into civil war before Europe. The US is on a collision course with itself like it has not been since 1861.

World war: If either Europe or the US bascule into civil war, it is only a matter of time for the other to do the same. We’re too intrinsically linked on a social level not to follow suit. We know that will only lead to world war, and we know this to be so, just look at the central purpose of the European Union:

The precursor to the European Union was established after World War II in the late 1940s in an effort to unite the countries of Europe and end the period of wars between neighboring countries.

This extract is from this article at ThoughtCo.

There is a ray of hope, however. The #BlackLivesMatter movement offers us a glimpse into a better future. One where we are conscient and empathic to one and other. According to some figures, 62% of the US population agrees with the movement, with 76% of those surveyed in a Monmouth University poll stating that racism and discrimination is a “big problem”.

I fear for the future, as I’m predisposed to do so, but I’m hopeful that I’m wrong. Thank you for reading. Please get in touch through Twitter @virek.

4 July 2020 — French West Indies

08 June 2020 ∞

A few thoughts

I don’t know about you, but it has been a particularly difficult couple of months to think clearly about things.

First, the pandemic was “over there” and not a risk for us. We quickly found out that that was complete rubbish and were thrust into a strict lockdown with little to no preparation. The governments were clearly caught off guard despite repeated warnings for years, despite the early warning signs in January and despite a hot of countries that had earned experience offering their help that was, in what I can only describe as a biased denial. No, I’ll call it for what it is. Racism.

The West was collectively laughing at those folks over in China and Asia at the time. They soon had a rude awakening. Despite 400K deaths worldwide later —of which eastern countries have only limited casualties— there still seems to be a collective denial of reality.

Then on top of it all, in a violent land, with a violent police force, built from violent white supremacist origins, went and did exactly what the system was designed to do. Kill another black man in cold blood for no justifiable reason. It sparked ongoing worldwide protests and is having global consequences. Consequences that, this time, seem to be different.

Because of ubiquitous technology, the veil of lies, denial and gaslighting has been pulled down, revealing to the masses what was previously local and isolated, and therefore easily controlled.

The tide has turned, and you should learn (quickly) to ride with the wave, or you might suddenly find yourself stranded or drowned. Get onboard, be anti-racist, it’s not enough only to be all “equal rights ’n shit”. You have to actively participate in bringing this system down and help to build a new one, intelligently.

Start by learning about the history of others. If you’re into tech, read the plenty of books on technology and racism. If you’re into politics, countless works cater to that subject. Do it! Pretty please, with sugar on top - clean your fucking house.

8 June 2020 — French West Indies

05 May 2020 ∞

Wish list for a new Magic Keyboard

Just to be precise, I’m talking about the separately sold Bluetooth Magic Keyboard that comes bundled with an iMac. It’s slight, light and very reliable as a keyboard, with the keys being almost perfect for long-form writing.

I use one regularly in my iPad Pro/Canopy setup. With added mouse/trackpad support, the experience is even better now. But the keyboard lacks two things that I think would be relatively trivial for Apple to add.

One change that just about everybody in the Mac-verse is requesting is the inverted-T configuration for the arrow keys. Even after several years of use, I frequently fumble around trying to hit the right key only finding myself having to look at the keyboard to accomplish the task. It’s not a big deal, and frankly, I’ve lived with it for many years now — especially since my MBP 13-inch has the same arrangement — but it is such a flow-breaker, that it feels like a punishment and not an encouragement to type.

The keyboard exists, as evidenced on the new 13” MBP released yesterday and on the previously released 16” MBP a short time back. It should be a simple re-tooling of the production line to incorporate the changes and ramp up production. To be fair, there may be a fair bit of inventory that needs to go before a full ramp-up is ordered, but that shouldn’t take long as this old design is included in all iMacs, and they’re selling quite well at the moment according to the latest financial results and subsequent investors call. Tim Cook made comments on the health of Mac sales due to increased WFH and that Apple is bullish on Mac sales going forward.

The second change, a backlight keyboard, is a modification that would be the icing on the cake. I don’t know if it’s feasible or if it would be too much of a battery drain or not. Having it would materially improve life with one of these keyboards in low light working conditions.

Current keyboards are charged via the lightning port and have really long battery life. I’m writing on my iPad with one at the moment, and I can’t even remember when I last charged it. I’d probably better check. The question then is, would a bigger battery be necessary to have acceptable battery life and backlighting.

I think I’d be prepared to accept that kind of trade-off towards slightly heavier to have backlighting. In doing so, it might require charging the keyboard more frequently as a result too. Again, I’m willing to accept that on the face of it. To be fair, I’m charging pretty much all the devices like the iPad nightly as it is. The other side of the argument is manifest in the way AirPods are just so much more enjoyable to use because you don’t have to think about charging nearly as much. But I’d argue that this is incomparable.

When you think about Apple’s products in their entirety, you tend to see that AirPods (and to some extent the Apple Pencil) have accessory devices that keep their charge topped up when stowed away. The AirPods have their case that can be charged separately and independently, and the Apple Pencil charges directly on the iPad. The beauty of that design being that those devices are always ready for use.

Keyboards and Mice are not in that category. They are standalone devices with no accessories to suck power from. And yes, while writing this, a thought popped into my mind about the now-infamous AirPower. A mouse may have been in development to be able to charge wirelessly overnight on the pad. I’m guessing a keyboard too. It’s not a power question, it’s more of a design and usefulness trade-off.

For now, I would just like to see those two ameliorations and dream of a future with fewer wires. Tomorrow I guess.

5 May 2020 — French West Indies

22 April 2020 ∞

The versatility of the iPad

I’ve been thinking about the new iPad Magic Keyboard (iPad MK) and have a couple of thoughts I’d like to share. I get it, I really do. I’m someone who instinctively wants the newest and best, as ADD tends to do. But this time, I just can’t quite see the use for me based on the setup I’m currently using. Oh, of course, I can clearly see why others would want it and find it the dog bollocks to use—more power to you.

There seems to be a couple of required compromises to get the best out of it. Compromises I don’t need to make with my favoured solution; a Magic Keyboard (MKB) and Canopy from Studio Neat. On the face of it, it does all the things that the iPad MK can, minus the different viewing angles. But I feel it goes much further, let me explain.

I can use the iPad in or out of a case, detach it easily. It features a full-sized keyboard, with Function keys, Multimedia keys and a real Esc key. It folds away neatly and is lighter than the iPad MK with the KB in it. If the KB dies, buy a new one and plop it in, 100$ tops.

As I said, it lacks different viewing angles, but it also requires what might be the real issue for some, the trackpad—solved by having a Magic Trackpad along for the ride for an, admittedly, extra 130$. That’s a total of 270$ (the Canopy is 40$), with each part easily replaceable, without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If you’re a mouse user, like me, it’s even cheaper than that. Oh, BTW, it’s lighter too, at only 393g as opposed to around 1/2 a kilo for the 11” version, if I’ve understood John Gruber’s article. What is also of note, is that transitioning from iPad to iMac requires zero readjustment. It’s the same KB, size of keys, feel, angle, etc.

One thing that is less than optimal is that it requires sliding three items in a bag instead of one, I guess increasing the risk of loss. But the MKB in the Canopy is so slim, just like the Mouse/Trackpad, that I don’t notice it. Often, I’m in a meeting and only need to take handwritten notes with the pencil, so the KB and Mouse stay in the bag until I need them. Getting them out when needed is little bother.

One last point that, for me, is important. And it is perhaps, the elephant in the room for the iPad MK. It doesn’t allow use in portrait mode. With the Canopy there’s no such restriction, even putting the iPad in “upside-down-portrait” to gain access to the USB-C connector.

Lastly, and not unimportantly for some, if you want to move to or from a different sized iPad, no problem with the Canopy + MKB. It still works.

And that’s the point. We all have differing needs and wants. The iPad is there for them all.

I do hope you don’t see this as crapping on the new kid on the block, as I think it is just about perfect for most people. To be fair, I probably wrote this to stop me from buying one 😜.

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