Asides

Florence

I’ve spent the week in Florence, Oregon, a lovely little town on the coast. It’s a bit windy and a little cold, but as I’m fond of saying, I lived in Scotland for a decade. I can take it. Frank Herbert came to the town in 1957

An apology for my comments about the British election

I want to apologize for yesterday’s rant about British politics. That kind of rhetoric isn’t big or clever, and it runs against the tone I usually try for*. Over time, this space has shifted from more personal thoughts towards more directed opinions at the intersection of tech and

Some polite words regarding the British General Election on July 4

On July 4th I’ll be on the beautiful Oregon coast, and I plan to have a bottle of champagne handy. Not so much because of the American Independence Day — although there’s nothing wrong with celebrating that, and I’m sure I will — but because of the British election

Progress on the book

A sound shook Frances fully awake. Her dreams faded quickly into the cold air, her sleeping memories of San Francisco collapsing into the smell of stone and moss and rot. There was someone in the house. And so begins The Source, at least as the draft stands today. What follows

It's time to get real: I'm not 25 anymore

Last week, without warning, my back went “crunch”. I’ve been dealing with what feels like a painful, bruised coccyx ever since. It should heal up within a few weeks, but until then, getting up from a sitting or lying position is really hard, walking has been awkward, and I

Building another big fediverse platform

Purely hypothetically, I wonder what it would take to raise enough money to build another first-class fediverse platform for the mass market. Not because there’s anything wrong with Mastodon (or Threads or Flipboard), but I think the fediverse would be healthier with another big platform in the mix.

A computer can never be held accountable

I love this IBM slide circa 1979, which is more relevant today than ever: Simon Willison asked about the provenance. Jonty Wareing weighed in: It was found by someone going through their father's work documents, and subsequently destroyed in a flood. I spent some time corresponding with the

Asides

A jab back at Brexit (or a kick in the teeth)

I grew up in Britain, but I was able to be there because of my European citizenship. When I moved to the US it was because my mother was terminally ill; I’d always assumed that I would go back. When the Brexit vote happened, I took it extremely personally:

Known fizzled

One of my biggest regrets is how the Known hosted service declined. The paid subscriptions came to an end, and eventually the hosting whimpered out. Behind the scenes, the database cluster was in need of more maintenance than I was able to provide. Known itself has required more maintenance than

Can we at least agree that killing is wrong?

I don’t think it’s possible to morally support the ongoing bombardment of Gaza, but that’s too weak a statement. What’s happening there seems to be — based on what I’ve read through the news, what I’ve seen in video, the stories that have been sent

The AI data goldmine

If I was a nefarious software company, here’s how I might be thinking: AI functionality tends to require that data is sent to a centralized service for processing. This is often data that is not being shared online in any other way that is easily available for analysis: existential

ShareOpenly is now on Tedium

I adore the way ShareOpenly has been added to Tedium: You can see it for yourself on all its posts, including this great one about the decline of the ball mouse. Its founder, Ernie Smith, told me: “figured I had to have fun with it”.