January updates

I don’t know about you, but I feel like the first two weeks of 2024 have rolled off at such a pace that I don’t seem to have seen the time pass 😱

I’ve spent the week tweaking the new site and adding a few things here and there. One is a mini consulting CV to give people a clearer idea of what I do and what types of projects I can work on. The list isn’t exhaustive and leaves out a few confidential projects I cannot discuss. I’ll take the time to keep this as up-to-date as possible when relevant. Hopefully, it can be a resource people can use to see if I could be a good fit for a project.

Speaking of projects, the proposal is advancing, and we should have something fully drafted by the end of this week if all goes well. I wanted to respond to a call for proposals from Stanford Internet Observatory as this was an opportunity to research the relationship between education and Internet safety in the Caribbean. We have such poor access to data, and in some cases straight up poor data, so for me, this was a potential to continue something that could have ongoing value, particularly given that we would use this as a starting point for another project that I have been trying to get off the ground for a couple of years that has not seen the light simply because funding is required to kick-start it.

Reading

My reading list is growing, and I’m taking the time to read as much as possible when possible.

Doppelgänger is a really good read, and I’m progressing through it, but it requires a little thought and a little reflection, as it is a book that challenges ideas and assumptions and provokes introspection on one’s own life. It is very interesting and very well written. I wish I could write like that.

Of note

I feel that every week there is so much going on, such horrible things, that I have actively started to ensure I don’t get sucked into the downward spiral of Internet shite. I did come across an article from Teen Vogue about the KKK. I thought about the juxtaposition of a teen magazine writing the type of story we would expect the leading papers and magazines to write, but clearly, they are unable to, for whatever reason. There’s something not quite working in a lot of the traditional media. There is hope and many bright spots, but the institution is so fractured you have to follow and pay for dozens of sites, whereas previously, you could get pretty much everything you wanted from a couple. I don’t know if it is better that way, but I do notice a drop in quality from the leading titles, who seem to be chasing eyeballs rather than writing thoughtful and nuanced pieces. It will be fascinating to see where this goes over the year, and I think that 2024 is going to be a crucial year for a lot of tech and products that rely on tech.

I spent a little time during the week presenting to Lycée students at a local establishment. I presented on the topic of AI and the use of AI in the world—nothing too technical, but more of a this-is-what-it-is and its flaws and limitations. My idea is to discuss the things that don’t often get discussed and provoke thoughtful inquiry into these products. The feedback I got was very positive, and I’d love to go into greater detail in the future. Local television stopped by and filmed a lot of my talk and the Q&A section. I was also interviewed for the news, so there’s that. 😀

A busy week ahead; for now, have a great week.

We can argue whether it is fifty, one hundred and fifty or a thousand. But we can’t argue that modern wall-gardened social media is overwhelming and gets overwhelmed as it gets bigger. Facebook is a nest of anti-vax, QAnon, and other senseless conspiracies (amongst the decent stuff). Twitter is… er Twitter. Instagram was a nice swimming pool but now has too many turds floating in it to be attractive, and the new lovechild of Mark Zuckerberg, Threads, is a train wreck waiting to happen, as it already has with Bluesky.

Overwhelming. Overwhelmed.

Human-scale, federated, non-wall-gardened social media is where the puck is going. Zuckerberg and others know this. That’s why they’re trying to federate, and this is why they’re trying their hardest to say, ”This time, we’ll be nice and play fair”. And they might be genuine at this point, but it will not stay that way. It never does. Once the “monetise at all costs” DNA kicks in, it will be the end of the lovely pool with friendly guests. It’ll get dumped in like a frat boy party. I’d urge all Fediverse instances to update or write policies that ensure no directly or indirectly posted advertising will be allowed. I would also encourage you to enforce them and kick out any violators. Mark my words; they are coming for ad dollars. Maybe not today or next year, but eventually, they’re coming. They can’t help themselves.

Dunbar’s number talks about human-scale interactions that are manageable, and it is precisely this that makes our offline experiences more pleasant. These interactions are imperfect but better than swimming in that turd-laden pool. And that’s why online human-scale Fediverse experiences are much better than the centralised content sweatshop slave drivers we have seen up until now.

Kicking off the new year with a new site and a renewed profile

The first week after the new year is always an odd one. Only a little going on, but a lot of preparation and thinking about what to do this year. That’s not quite how it turned out for me.

Following the debacle at Substack, I needed to migrate my newsletter (link) to a new platform. I spent far too much time researching options and tried out WordPress. To cut a long story short, that was a mistake as it quickly dawned on me that their idea of a newsletter differed slightly from mine. I didn’t choose it mindlessly, and I’d even exchanged it with support to try to understand the system. But despite this, it didn’t work out for me. I found that I fought more with the interface during the design than I was prepared to do. It’s not for me.

It is a great platform and one that I recommend to others, but not for newsletters. I’ve lost a little money on buying a subscription, although I will see if I can claw some of that back. But mostly, I lost a lot of time as I had to re-migrate everything to the new platform a second time. This was not an easy task.

So, this led me to find another solution for the newsletter. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many options out there, and the ones that are are pretty expensive, certainly more costly than the freemium model of Substack. If I were charging for the newsletter, I’d have a much bigger dilemma on my hands, but by virtue of the fact that mine is free, it gave me a lot more freedom to choose.

I’ve had a lot of writing I’d been doing in different places and had several websites scattered around the internet, with which I felt it was time to clean that up and consolidate as much as possible. So, I thought I’d use the opportunity to do just that, ultimately settling on micro.blog (where you’re reading this from) as the central platform for hosting a blog and a newsletter, allowing some crossposting to Mastodon, etc.

It took a little while and some reading to understand the product’s philosophy, but once I got the basic idea, it was pretty simple to migrate everything here. There are still bits that are not as I would like yet, but that can wait, and it can be an iterative process. But I’m pretty happy with how it has turned out for now.

I’ll post both this blog and the newsletter here from now on. I’ve decided on a format to help distinguish the type of posts (three). 📅 this emoji (in the title) will show it as a blog post (this type of weekly note and other thoughts), and the 🗞️ depicts the newsletter. These posts will be much longer and will go out to the email list you (can subscribe here). The third type of post will have no emoji and will typically be a short-form Twitter-type post. I don’t do that often, so we’ll see how it goes.

Lastly, I’ve been co-writing a proposal to conduct some research into online safety and digital education in the Caribbean. The proposal is due on the 31st of January, so with a bit of luck that’ll be a nice project over the coming months. I’m also going to try to put together a more detailed project for a European funding programme to try to get the Caribbean Digital Compass off the ground. It’s a project I’m passionate about, and I believe it can make a difference in the region. I’ll update here as and when.

Reading

One of the nice features of micro.blog is the Bookshelves system. I’ve set up a page on my site that lists all the books I’m currently reading, and it does it in a really attractive fashion. You see the title, the author and the cover. If you click on a book, you can see it on several platforms for purchase or library loan.

Hidden from the public view (although this is a setting) is a Want to Read list. I could make it public, but I’ve decided to keep it private for the moment.

When I finish a book, the system can help me make a post about the book I’ve just read. I’ll see if I do that or not in the future. It’s not something I have the habit of doing, but why not document my thoughts, even if it is just for me in the future?

Of note

The ongoing saga on Substack hasn’t resolved itself as yet, and I suspect the owners are playing for time. I expect them to have a fairly difficult 2024, and I wonder about the platform’s long-term viability, given that many writers with a conscience will not stay there.

As I said, there are a few good alternatives, and I’ve taken the micro.blog route to accomplish several things at the same time. It is not just a migration of the newsletter but also a consolidation of all the writing I do and a development of my profile to be a little clearer than it was. I hope I have done that.

Have a great week.

2023 came to a close, and I’m pretty glad to see the back of it

I’m pretty happy that the year ended, if I’m honest. I went through a bit of a rough time with a couple of health-related things that, although expected, hit me harder than I thought they would.

I’ve been busy thinking about the following stages of my online presence and how I can consolidate a bunch of things into one more coherent structure. If you come here, you’ll notice things are quite different, as I’ve migrated from a clunky WordPress site to a small independent site called micro.blog. I was on the site’s beta many years ago and never took advantage of it as I should have. Despite being pretty connected, in internet terms, I’ve always been a little reticent and late to the blogging game. This is another attempt to change that and develop my professional image online.

I’ve decided to merge the personal and professional things I’ve been doing online to make it easier to understand who I am and what I do. I’ve had a lot of discussions and feedback from people who are unsure about what I do. In fact, if you ask my wife what I do, she cannot tell you. That’s an image problem that I’m starting to solve now. This is just the first part of that. Other changes are afoot, and I’m actively working on the domains, migrations, designing, etc. It is not a simple task, and I don’t expect it to be fully ready in the next few days, but I’ll be putting out an MVP soon.

Reading

Oh, how I hate end-of-year sales…

One online store offered readers an 80% discount until the end of the year. I had to be careful not to buy too many books. Still, I did instal-buy one, The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence by Matteo Pasquinelli. I got it for a ridiculous price, but the regular price is only £8.00. You should buy it.

I also bought Number Go Up by Zeke Faux, given that it was on sale, again, for a stupid price.

I’m about halfway through Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein (not to be confused with…), and it is a really good read. I think this is a must-read if you’re interested in the Internet, politics, and the very worrying shift to the right in politics.

Of note

Substack has a Nazi problem. That’s not just a catchy headline from a respected journalist, it is actually true and worse than that, totally okay for the owners of Substack. As a result, many, including myself, are moving away from the platform as we see a difficulty in supporting a platform that actively encourages and monetises extreme right-wing bigots and plain-old Nazis.

I have a newsletter on the platform, and I was one of the early adopters of Substack. It is a great platform, and if you use it well, it can really help build an audience and, in some cases, provide the tools to earn a living wage. You need to have built a reputation or be at the right place at the right time, but to be fair, that’s the Internet game anyway! But for me, the Nazi bar dilemma is enough for me to move away. I cannot bring myself to be associated with that, and I will not monetise or fund that directly or indirectly. So I’ve moved off Substack.

It’s a testament to the product because the choice is somewhat limited, and they have achieved an excellent product-market fit, with just the right combination of ease of use and complexity to provide a really good experience. So I’m sad to leave.

Anyway, I hope you had a good holiday season and celebrated as you saw fit. Have a great week.

I had a busy week finishing the teaching hours for the three institutions I work for. That took up a lot of time during the week and didn’t leave me much time for anything else.

I did participate in an early-stage meeting with a group of people around the Caribbean, but I can’t talk about that here now.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the strategy I would like to implement to develop my thoughts, work and ideas over the coming year. I’m not into resolutions, and I don’t think they are particularly useful, but a couple of structured thoughts can help develop a pathway to something different.

I’m thinking of changing the name of the company I have built, or at least the name under which I offer my services. I’d like to represent the work I do a little more clearly in that name. I’ve registered a domain, and I’m slowly moving to a consolidation of sites and tools to bring this all together into one coherent representation. That’s work for early 2024.

For now, it’s family dinners and a little rest.

Reading

I’ve added a couple of books to the reading list, too. Hopefully, I’ll get around to reading those one day.

Of note

I think that is a little harsh, but I do fall on the side of the debate that says that the correct number of Nazis one should have on a platform is zero or as close to zero as is feasible. I’m not going to go over the debate here; suffice it to say that Karl Popper’s Paradox should explain it sufficiently for you to understand.

Have a great week.