Notes
Week note #1 : W44
I haven’t been posting much here for reasons I can’t quite explain. But as it’s not a commercial adventure and really only a personal space to put down ideas, reflections and other thoughts, I don’t think it matters too much.
Looking through the archives, there’s a lot of stuff here, and I didn’t realise just how much I had written over the years. Some of it is good, and I’d still stand by it, and other posts… perhaps not so much.
But I think that’s what blogging is about. It’s not publishing. It’s not static media like newspapers and magazines, even if the articles don’t generally change (at least mine, as I don’t go back to edit them). Blogging is more of a stream of consciousness than deeply researched and thought-out articles.
So, to get me writing more here, I wanted to try something different, even if it is not that different from what we see on the Internet, or at least the indie web. I’m thinking of writing this more regularly and loosely in the “week note” format.
I haven’t quite found the format yet, so it’ll take time to settle down, I guess. Plus, I might blog the odd post now and again that is outside that format. I’ll see.
My idea is to go over a couple of things that affected me in the previous week and a couple of other links to articles or other things I’ve been doing.
A note on PII. Despite writing here for the entire connected world to see (if they so choose), I’m pretty private, so I’ll unlikely leave too much PII in the articles. Names will be changed, as will places, times, and dates. Particularly where they directly concern me. If I do publish something personal, it’ll most likely be delayed, as I don’t think it is wise to publish live feeds of where you are to the world. Also, while I’m on the topic, you should understand that this site uses no tracking, so I have no idea who, when, or how many times this site has been read. I’m more than OK with this. It was one of the reasons I decided to use the micro.blog platform in the first place.
I’m not sure when I’ll post them either. I write a regular —and longer— article on Sundays, editing and tweaking them on Monday, ready for the email system to post them as a newsletter on Tuesday mornings. So, writing twice the amount on the same day is out of the question. Given my schedule, it leaves my Thursdays a little freer than other days in the week, so I think I will try to post them on Thursday evenings.
This is the first (although not quite the format I will use yet).
I hope I get something out of it, and I hope you do too, so reach out and say hi or reply (⬇). I’d be happy to hear from you.
31 October 2024 — French West Indies
I finally bought a decent coffee grinder after months of unsuccessfully trying to find one on the island.
People will hype them as “game-changing,” and while they make a noticeable difference, “game-changing” is more hyperbole than reality.
28 September 2024 — French West Indies
BBC: Met Police launch plans to be “truly anti-racist and inclusive”.
Yeah sure. We believe you this time.
28 September 2024 — French West Indies
I’m trying to figure out where I was when the memo was passed around asking everyone to use the word “obligated” rather than the existing, perfectly fit-for-purpose word “obliged.”
While I’m on the topic, WTF does the word “colorway” add over and above the word colour/color?
16 September 2024 — French West Indies
Facebook continues insisting on being an awful Internet citizen.
Surreptitiously scraping data to train its AI models since 2017unless legislation existed to prevent this.
This company’s moral compass is not even misaligned; it isn’t working at all.
11 September 2024 — French West Indies
What a wonderful sunset we had tonight.
I was tempted to get the camera out and take a picture postcard photo.
But something told me to sit, relax, and just enjoy it.
Not everything needs to be photographed and shared.
5 September 2024 — French West Indies
Please stop using the word content, as in “content creator”, “creative content”, or “content”.
You are commoditising your work, your time, and your skill. You are being exploited by devaluing its worth.
You don’t make “content”. You make art. You make music. You make films. You make blogs, articles, reports, and other beautiful things that enhance this existence.
You make value. Don’t let anyone steal it.
6 August 2024 — French West Indies
I’m currently reading Number Go Up by Zeke Faux.
Anyone who is deep into, holds, uses or otherwise is connected to the running of this “industry” is complicit in murder, slavery, torture, and organised crime, not to mention the destruction of the climate.
You rotten people.
5 August 2024 — French West Indies
Despite the discussion about LLM training data and the rights to train this data, a fundamental question about consent is often ignored. Much of the tech industry has flipped over into a non-consensual model: Take, then defend/contest later.
They are coming up against resistance in the form of regulation, particularly in the EU. But they have no idea just how bad it will get for them if the general public gets on board with resistance.
It is going to be, at the very least, interesting to see how this plays out. I don’t give much of a chance to the tech firms in the long term.
15 July 2024 — French West Indies
With news that Threads has reached 175 MAUs, this is an interesting waypoint in its life worth keeping an eye on.
Currently, Thread is an ad-free and watered-down attempt at building a Twitter replacement, but that is about change when Meta decides to turn on ads, as they have alluded to in recent interviews with the tech press.
This will only incentivise the worst behaviour from both Meta and its real customers, the advertisers. The enshitiffication cycle has started.
Watch carefully and you will see it unfold in clarity.