Latest Five Posts
Notes 11.7.2024
![Still from the film The Shining. Wendy, played by Shelley Duvall, sits at the table with Danny](/blog/links/2024/07/11/46645-1532336916_hu02aa61ae1d9de35cbe238d2676170cb9_210010_1200x0_resize_q75_h2_box.webp)
Today’s notes
- Shelley Duvall dies on her birthday aged 75: Thoughts on Duvall, Kubrick and sexism in the film industry.
- Eurorack Pitch Quantizer Module Comparison: Accessible, niche web information for the win.
- Musical connection of the day: Le bassiste sur la chanson thème Last of the Summer Wine.
Notes 8.7.2024
![Black and white photos of a wind turbine, viewed from below.](/blog/links/2024/07/08/26878553260_e9d6667f6f_k_hu4d3dc69b6c33dd8b677c1fe1f5904824_243600_1200x0_resize_q75_h2_box.webp)
Today’s notes
Some reaction to Rachel Reeves’ first speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
- Labour lifts Tories’ ‘absurd’ ban on onshore windfarms: In terms of the change we need it’s a drop in the warming ocean, but this is good.
- Labour’s housing plans will use green belt land twice size of Milton Keynes, expert says: This one’s a bit more divisive.
- On this day, from the archive: What I was listening to in 2005, toxic ships, and Spielberg’s film adaption of Minority Report.
Sayonara Social Media
I deleted my Twitter account in November 2022, after Elon Musk hilariously carried a sink into Twitter HQ, having sensibly purchased Twitter for forty quintillion dollars. Let that sink in.
I just couldn’t bear being a member of a platform owned by Prime Tech Doofus Musk, despite having lots of Twitter friends, the glue of those virtual friendships being mainly the politics of cycling infrastructure.
Instead I found Mastodon offered a more pleasant experience free of algorithms and full of interesting people posting interesting things.
Although I did something that was classic me; instead of finding and joining an existing instance (or to use an analogy, an island) of like-minded folk, i created my own island with just me as its sole inhabitant. A castaway shouting out to sea with the hope that the tech on which island ran would allow me to be discovered by other islands of like-minded folk.
But that didn’t really happen, and as a clone of Twitter, I had the same problem with it; that I found myself posting stuff just to seek that dopamine hit, the attention, the validation. When that didn’t come, my feelings were negative and my mental health took a small inverse hit.
ActivityPub is an important open protocol because it allows social media platforms to be created that are decentralised and not owned by anyone. But I’m not convinced that social media isn’t fundamentally - whether it uses an open protocol or not - a corrosive model of online engagement.
So now, I’ve decided to make these pages, again, my one online home. Just like it was when I started writing this blog 24 years ago. And with that I’m going to work on my relationships ‘in real life’, and be more reliant on those dopamine hits from offline human interactions.
Notes 4.8.2023
![Photo of a rusting see-saw in an overgrown playground. Image converted to monochrome from the original.](/blog/links/2023/08/04/27437841887_68b825ce4b_c_hu6efd41a1b1bfa20c2ccd71efe3fac6fa_168826_1200x0_resize_q75_h2_box.webp)
Today’s note
Thoughts on how we’re denying children the natural right to play outside.
Notes 14.7.2023
![35mm film photo of Stone Henge](/blog/links/2023/07/14/stone-henge_hu8894cb51d0df7e3d57bac0584d025e33_269292_1200x0_resize_q75_h2_box.webp)
Today’s notes
- Stonehenge tunnel is approved by government: Moar roads!
- Wealth taxes will cause the rich to flee’: 12 wealth tax myths debunked The injustice of not taxing the rich
Notes 13.7.2023
![Photo of a white VanMoof bicycle leaning against a blue garage door](/blog/links/2023/07/13/vanmoof_hue1237a83b8683974e559ab7a63f31b2b_881207_1200x0_resize_q75_h2_box.webp)
Today’s notes
- VanMoof is in trouble: Dutch bicycle company is in financial trouble for lots of complex reasons
- Akka Arrh: The relaunch of a ’lost’ Atari arcade game
- Hollywood actors announce strike in first joint action with writers in 60 years: Hollywood stars strike for better pay and concern about AI
Link Notes 10 March 2023
![1840s illustration of Herne the Hunter riding a horse](/blog/links/2023/03/10/herne_huf02f6754e9c70b763b1e1c33a3d1db5c_325598_1200x0_resize_q75_h2_box.webp)
Today’s links
What I’m thinking about today. Interested in the power of music and memory, or how the former can trigger the latter. Also, crisis at the BBC.
- Herne the Hunter: Pagan myths, social justice and 80s TV
- Gary Lineker, Andrew Neil and the BBC’s Real Impartiality Crisis: The right-wing free-speech hyprocrites
- On this day, from the archive: Nautilus Goes Spatial
Link Notes 8 March 2023
Today’s links
- Rishi Sunak ‘extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in UK’: Stop the Tories
- Ox-Hugo: My somewhat esoteric blogging system of choice
- On this day, from the archive: The Internet Book List
Andor
A post about Andor, with no spoilers.
I don’t tend to consume a lot of tv or films these days. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s a just a lack-of-time thing really.
I will occassionally seek out new Star Trek series (see what I did there) and watch the various Star Wars series when they come out.
I enjoyed the Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi, but couldn’t stick with The Book of Boba Fett. So when I saw yet another Star Wars series available on Disney Plus I sort of thought ‘not another series shoe-horned into the Star Wars saga’ and wasn’t particularly compelled to check it out.
Then I read up on it and saw that it was produced by the same team as Rogue One, which is widely considered to be the best of the post-prequel Star Wars films, to which I agree. You know when a film sticks in your mind for a bit after you’ve seen it? Well Rogue One is the only Star Wars film since Return of the Jedi that did that to me.
So on that basis, I decided to watch Andor, and having watched it, I’d say it’s up there with the best of the entire Star Wars franchise. It covers completely new ground with plotting and character development, it’s about fundamental themes of oppression and resistance, it’s visually stunning, it’s surprising, it’s tonally perfect with touches of humour in the right places, and it’s obviously written and directed by people with a singular vision who can write a good plot.
I’m just going to leave it there and say watch it.
Link Notes 1 December 2022
![Needlepoint tapestry representation of The Sentinel by Marine Beaufils.](/blog/links/2022/12/01/sentinel-lvl0154-marinebeaufils_hu86f771e9638f42429bf21b026ebc6e04_404139_1400x1400_fit_q75_box.jpeg)
Today’s links
- Needlepoint tapestry representations of The Sentinel: Physical manifestations of Geoff Crammond’s 8-bit classic
- kottke.org: Fine Hypertext Products
- Orion, Earth and the Moon: In lunar orbit.
- On this day, from the archive: 2001
Previous posts
- The Active Travel Realisation Gap
- The National Health
- Link Notes 31 March 2021
- A note about simplicity, privacy and this website
- Link Notes 22 March 2021
- Playing music
- Link Notes 1 May 2020
- Link Notes 30 April 2020
- Link Notes 29 April 2020
- Link Notes 28 April 2020
- Link Notes 27 April 2020
- Link Notes 26 April 2020
- Link Notes 25 April 2020
- Link Notes 24 April 2020
- Link Notes 23 April 2020
- Link Notes 22 April 2020
- Link Notes 21 Apr 2020
- What matters
- Modified Social Benches
- Modified Social Benches
- Frequency
- Fictional spacecraft on the ground and real spacecraft in space
- Celestial mechanics and the new political landscape
- Bowie and the 90s Internet
- 2013: The Year the BBC Looked Like a Bogus Signer
- We Are All Netizens Now
- The Science of Doctor Who
- Is cycling getting more or less dangerous?
- Greasemonkey script to remove promoted tweets from Twitter
- How short-term thinking about road safety has failed to make liveable towns and cities