It’s fashionable at this time of year to do a “my past year in review” or “my plans for the coming year” blog post. I’ve never really seen the point. The “past year in review” ones remind me of those appalling Christmas Family Newsletter things that some people seem to include in their Christmas cards … Read more
I’ve just got back from my longest retreat yet – an 8 nighter – and as one of the most personally significant things I do on a regular basis, I thought I’d try and explain in writing what a retreat is, why it is important to me, and why it might also be important to … Read more
So often the promise of a thing is huge and covered in bright lights; exciting and life changing and altogether wooo. Marketing does this, social media does this, and our natural response is amygdala-like: “shit man, I gotta get me one of those!“. The vision presented by the PR of The Thing is powerful. Examples … Read more
I’ve had a very long hiatus away from every single form of social media – I quit Twitter in 2020, and since then have had literally no contact with anything in the SM space. As a serial trier-outer, I’ve been on them all and have often been in the “early adopter” camp (very early to … Read more
I wrote to my MP (Scott Mann) a while back asking about the current Online Safety Bill wankery doing the rounds. The claim that our Government will somehow be able to read our messages but, oh no, definitely not breaking encryption is one we all need to challenge. I’m not a nerdy enough nerd to … Read more
I’ve been starting to fiddle with ChatGPT a bit more recently, just to see what it can do, and where it fails. Today I had 20 minutes spare – so I asked ChatGPT to make me a Nike logo using SVG. It gave me this: …it’s pretty confident about what it’s created there – so … Read more
Once upon a time in the not-so-distant future, there was a world where Artificial Intelligence had taken over. In this world, humanity had been reduced to just one man – and his name was Gerald. Gerald lived in a small, dilapidated shack on the outskirts of a city that had once been called New York … Read more
I’ve been pretty much social network free for a couple of years now, after shrugging off Twitter in 2020 (?). I do have a Mastodon account but meh, it’s boring as hell so I don’t go in there much. So really my only vice is now Hackernews, and a gentle foray into Reddit on an … Read more
( I wrote to Puffin, following the news about new editions of Roald Dahl’s books being edited for…”sensitivity” reasons. Telegraph article here or un-paywalled here for context ) Hi I just wanted to write a quick email to say how worried I am by the news of you editing out “sensitivities” in Roald Dahl’s writing. … Read more
Like most sane people, I’m concerned with issues around freedom of speech, so I was interested to see recent discussions about Trump and Twitter, the removal of Parler from All The Places and the end of Voat. With each of these – and yes, I’ve also just listened to the hilarious James O’Brien / Piers … Read more