You know I think just the freedom of people is enough. People will naturally share and talk about what is important and interesting if they can go where they want and say what they want. They move the information as well as filter it for relevance.

The internet as we know it today is coercive; most of it is designed and run with opaque, narrow and self-interested goals. It has penetrated our thoughts, feelings, behaviour and culture, with very limited accountability or critical evaluation. And even just the sheer bandwidth of it on a user level is paralysing.

The internet interacts with the human appetite for information in the same way as processed foods do with our impulse to eat. We’ve freed ourselves from the limitation of supply but do not moderate our demand.

My own imagining of a better and different internet would be based on people and places rather than screens or other abstractions. We would have plenty of comfortable and non-exclusive public places to meet, excellent train services to get between those places and each others homes (trains are pro-social and have unbeatable efficency) and a system and philosophy of education that is based on critical thinking rather than arbitrary tasks.

Information technology would be peripheral to our relationships and experience and would be used as a tool to serve our own free interests rather than being an end in itself.

But then how will they become famous?

They do all sound stupid.

As it’s a complete statement just say “I’m wondering if the monkey can see my ears.”

Because it is ‘the’ monkey, rather than ‘a’ monkey, it is implied that the monkey has already been referred to.

Give the encrypted file to one person, the key to another and do not keep either yourself. They exchange them if you die.

RFF was the best thing I’d discovered on the internet for as long as I can remember. I was gutted to hear about it stopping.

Bandwagon is in development, which is/will be a federated music platform which can integrate with internet radio. You can check out the first instance at bandwagon.fm

In the meantime I’ve been really enjoying the music on Mother Earth Radio, particularly their instrumental channel.

I have no problems with lemm.ee. Mastodon on the other hand…

I got booted from my first instance for going against prevailing opinion even though I was perfectly polite about it.

My girlfriend would be very unhappy with me I spontaneously left for a couple of days in this way.

Pretty much any video of Mick Lynch.

It’s hard to articulate but probably the only thing for me right now is the sheer weirdness of everything. It feels like everyone’s perceptions of reality have been shaken loose and unusual things are more likely to happen.

So nothing concrete; just vibes. And uncomfortable vibes at that.

Also, chaos and upheaval lead to change and the most optimistic part of me hopes that whatever emerges from it will be defined by people who have had the courage to resist all of the fear, hate and greed.

Links to download the app are halfway down the article

Good news :)

I use free software. Is this for me or for the people who make free software and receive donations from people like me?

OK. Did I imagine it?

Arts and Humanities research.

Wetherspoons ‘Beyond’ veggie burger used to be the absolute shiznit. They stopped being cheap though, so there’s no real reason to go there any more.

Man after my own heart.

Never heard of him.

Lots of non-vegans make the assumption that vegans are looking down on them as morally inferior and don’t like it.

The best you can do for them is to tell them that it isn’t about them; it’s your choice for yourself.

Of course you might actually see them as morally inferior, in which case you can just say “Hey I am vegan and while I do see you as morally inferior, it wasn’t me who brought up the subject.”

Not much Greek but I can make a good guess at Latin words having learnt quite a bit of French.

I don’t think it’s very likely. Even if it was even remotely affordable or feasible he actually needs opposition to define himself and his base ‘ruggedly independent’ and as ‘freedom fighters’.

If he’s going to go after anyone at all I think it will be high profile people for maximum media impact.