A living collection of notes, ideas, and reflections from Doug Belshaw.
I've decided that I want to go to more in-person events, so I got my Little Robot Friend to come up with some options.
English-language, European (or noted otherwise), aligned with digital sovereignty, decentralised and federated systems, open education, digital credentials, systems thinking, co-ops and the commons. Wildcards and strong fits are labelled.
…I am in agreement with Manoel Horta Ribeiro here: "AI slop" is an unproductively ambiguous term and we should be more specific in our critiques. There's a lot wrong with AI, and there's also a lot wrong with the mechanisms underpinning the ways in which we have constructed society and our relationships with one another.
…This is an interesting idea: “co/core is a place where people share the compute they already own to run AI for each other, instead of renting from a handful of giant providers.” Mac only for the moment, but the main innovation is building a standard for being able to share compute power.
…I love it when people share the accumulated wisdom of their life so far. Yes, it’s often very similar in content, but the way that it’s expressed matters. And also, the fact that these kinds of things are often similar shows that there’s truth at the centre.
…Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
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The way in which Bo Burnham (who I’ve already declared a genius) speaks in this clip is not only intense and refreshing, but insightful.
In a discussion regarding the film, "Eighth Grade"" written and directed by Bo Burnham, Bo discusses phones, technology, the internet, social media, and their effects on kids and society. Corporations are trying to colonize our mind, capitalizing on every free second you have. Self-Esteem in the Age of Social Media.
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You have to get everything correct before it goes off to get printed. My usual publishing flow involves an "oh shit" moment soon after hitting 'publish' but, because I usually publish on the web, I can fix it. Not so with printed matter.
…I received an email from Flickr this morning notifying me that someone had favourites one of my images. It was a photo of an adult member of my family, but I was still a bit shocked.
Which is weird, because had that happened 10, 15, or 20 years ago I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. It's been quite a while since I marked all of the photos of my kids as private on Flickr, but I spent time this morning ensuring that photos including other family members are now private.
…Ironically enough, I'm sitting in a public space with my earbuds in while I write this post. I live in a small town where what's described in this article is less pronounced, but it's still A Thing.
As someone who listens to a lot of music – I even use brain.fm to help me sleep – I'm very aware of the ability for headphones to create a 'bubble'. It can be comforting, but also isolating. My solution is to always take at least one earbud out when approaching someone I know, and to not have them in the entire time I'm working in public.
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