Shellsharks Blogroll - BlogFlock

Published on Citation Needed: "Mapping Trump’s crypto empire on Last Week Tonight" - Molly White's activity feed

2026-07-27T14:22:04.000Z

Published an issue of Citation Needed:

Mapping Trump’s crypto empire on Last Week Tonight

A new Citation Needed data project maps the Trump family’s web of cryptocurrency ventures, which have been generating billions in income for the president.

Mapping Trump’s crypto empire on Last Week Tonight - Molly White's activity feed

2026-07-27T14:01:32.000Z

Mapping Trump’s crypto empire on Last Week Tonight

My newest Citation Needed project made an appearance on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver! It’s a work in progress, but you can see the new interactive version of my map of the Trump family’s crypto ventures at map.citationneeded.news.

The map contains hundreds of business entities and links to the Trump family (with more being added!), augmented with data from the president’s most recent financial filings to estimate how much money is flowing in. It will be queryable by other researchers and journalists.

Click any node or connection in the Trump crypto empire map to open its panel and view explanatory annotations and citations. Toggle the income overlay to see financial-disclosure figures from the most recent filings. Search for entities, or filter by category.

Subscriber support is what makes data projects like the Trump empire map and Tech Influence Watch possible — work that goes beyond the newsletter itself. You can join them!

Don't bring sensitive data to a border crossing - Werd I/O

2026-07-27T14:00:14.000Z

Link: US government targets Cop City protester over phone operating system, by Timothy Pratt in The Guardian

This is worth knowing about and is concerning — but not necessarily for the main reason that’s being reported.

The Department of Justice is trying to prosecute Sam Tunick, an Atlanta-based activist, for allegedly using a duress password on his GrapheneOS phone when he crossed the border in January 2025.

“Agent Findley and several others repeatedly asked Tunick to open his phone during the interrogation, telling him they would seize it if he did not. When he finally provided a passcode, “the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart”, according to the motion.”

The phone was wiped. According to the Department of Justice, rather than the usual unlock password, the one Tunick had provided was a signal that GrapheneOS should reset the device to factory settings. That’s the core issue: it’s not that he was using GrapheneOS or had set up a duress password, but he was accused of using it to reset his device rather than give his data to law enforcement when asked.

At the point where law enforcement or border protection are asking you for data, it’s your right to refuse a search, but you typically can’t actively destroy it. I’ve always understood that the police can’t compel you to unlock your phone without a warrant, although, unfortunately, Customs and Border Protection has an exemption around the border. If there is a warrant, or if CBP asks you in a border zone, you may still refuse to unlock it, but the device may be seized and held. The trick here, which Tunick’s lawyers are arguing, is that the request was unlawful to begin with.

Because Tunick was a part of Atlanta’s Stop Cop City protests, he had been put on a terrorist watchlist; that fact was circulated just three hours prior. That flagged him for the secondary inspection that led to him being asked to unlock his phone. Protest is protected by the first amendment and a core component of democratic speech; putting protesters on a watchlist designed to protect the public against violent extremism is undemocratic. That’s even more affronting when you consider that the protest was against a police training center: the message it sends is nakedly authoritarian. Finally, and most egregiously, the questioning was about child exploitation imagery, which they had no reason to suspect him of holding. As a result, the search may not have been legal.

While a duress password is a deliberate act of destruction, the better path when crossing the border is to not have data to seize to begin with. Anyone who deals with sensitive information should consider that their phone might be taken at the border. Customs and Border Protection policy even allows agents to clone it, giving them permanent access to your data even after they hand your device back to you. They’re only supposed to do this when there’s a national security concern or reasonable suspicion of a crime — but if activists are being targeted as terrorists, that policy threshold doesn’t feel like a solid protection.

So: log out of your email, calendar, and file sharing before you embark upon your travels. Delete Signal entirely (but back it up). Consider which photos you want to travel with. Don’t travel with a stock phone — that can lead to more questions — but intentionally cut down your information footprint. That way, even if you are stopped, you won’t compromise sources (if you’re a journalist) or your compatriots (if you’re an activist). And you’re not forced to delete data in the moment in a way that could leave you vulnerable.

RFC W0192: Use of +, ~, @; clarifying extend-the-end - Johnny.Decimal

2026-07-27T06:12:45.000Z

This post is a request for comments. I am actively seeking your feedback. This feedback will influence the development of Johnny.Decimal. Feedback closes at the end of 2026-07-30. Details are at the end.

I put this post together quickly as a result of this time constraint. (Its decisions are holding up the recording of additional Task & Project Management (T&PM) episodes.) So it's a bit rough around the edges: I'll write up something more formal when feedback is in.

One of my goals has always been for the Johnny.Decimal system to be semi-formal. By which I mean that there are clear – almost mathematical – rules that define it.

This has many benefits. Clarity, obviously. Consistency. It also enables the creation of software tools to support the system: you can't write a script to validate your system if you don't have a list of rules against which to validate.

These rules need to survive the real world. Let's be honest: they need to survive Obsidian. Obsidian is just a nice way to view Markdown files, so really what we're saying is that these rules need to survive arbitrary text files on disk. We need to imagine those text files as a database, even though they're not one.

Defining an ID

One such rule seems simple enough: an ID – which I'll refer to generically as an 'entry' in your system – is defined as AC.ID Title,¹ e.g. 11.11 I am ID eleven-eleven.²

From here, we already know that we need 2 more definitions:

The definition of category 11, which we store as 11.00 Title of category 11.
The definition of area 10-19, which we store as 10.00 Title of area 10-19.³

Folder structure

You might optionally choose to store these text files in a nested folder structure.⁴

10-19 Area ten through nineteen/
   └── 11 Category eleven/
      └── 11.11 I am ID eleven-eleven.md

In which case, ID 11.11 must be a child of folder 11, which must in turn be a child of 10-19.

But if you want to leave all your files flat in a folder, that's a style choice. It breaks no rules.

So far, nothing new. Just setting the scene.

What about additional notes?

If you've used your system for any amount of time you know that notes can get full. It can be nice to create a new file so the main file doesn't get unmanageable.

Let's start using a real example, Life Admin's 11.11 Birth certificate & proof of name (which I'll shorten for convenience).

We just said that 11.11 Birth certificate defines the ID. So I can't just create another note called 11.11 Notes from applying for copy of UK birth certificate, because now I have 2 notes with ID 11.11. Which one defines the ID, and which is just a note? There's no way to tell.

Proposal 1: `~` is used to indicate a freeform sub-note

Any file containing notes, that is not the definition of the ID, and is not an EtE note (see below), must be named:

AC.ID~ Arbitrary title of sub-note

AC.ID Title must exist, in order to define the ID.

Freeform sub-notes MAY NOT contain Johnny.Decimal system metadata.⁵ All metadata is inherited from the parent ID. (You may do as you please with your own metadata/frontmatter.)

You may think of a sub-note as functionally identical to text inside a heading of the main note.

Valid: notes inside the ID note

# 11.11 Birth certificate

## Notes from applying for UK copy

I called the service centre and spoke to Dave and he said…

Equivalent: sub-note extracted to its own file

# 11.11 Birth certificate

// is now an empty note

# 11.11~ Notes from applying for UK copy

I called the service centre and spoke to Dave and he said…

Proposal 2: `+` means 'extend-the-end'; defining 'extend-the-end'

The system has had the concept of extend-the-end (EtE) for a few years. It's useful, but I've never been totally comfortable with its definition until now.

The canonical EtE example has always been your kids, in the context of the Life Admin System (LAS). There we have 11.11 Birth certificate. You have a kid, and at 6 months it's a touch young to be managing its own Johnny.Decimal system – one day! – so you do it. How do you store the kid's birth certificate?

The answer is 11.11+ Belinda.⁶ Because she'll also need her jabs, which you'll store at 11.25+ Belinda. Maybe you open her a savings account and you track it at 13.42+ Belinda.

You can think of these extended IDs as sitting on top of your primary system; like a shadow system. You've got your system, and overlaid with these + entries you have Belinda's system. And this is why it's called extend-the-end. You're just giving yourself a little more room.

Now, to find all entries in your system that relate to Belinda, just search for + Belinda.

Formalising how you extend-the-end

So when should you EtE with +, and when should you create a sub-note with ~? The answer is: when you'll have multiple instances of the thing through your system, use +, and always name them identically. Otherwise, use ~ and you are free to name them arbitrarily.

Our examples already demonstrate this. Will any other IDs require a note whose title is, or is even remotely like, Notes from appling for UK copy of birth certificate? Obviously not: use ~.

Will we use + Belinda over and over? We will.

You should be able to list all of your extend-the-ends

Your system must necessarily contain a finite number of EtEs, and you should be able to list them all. This is what makes them useful: you're defining a type of sub-note that you can easily filter on.

At home:

+ Belinda, + Marie, + Wendy for each of the kids.

At work:

+ Work log is a note where we record the fact that we did some work on a thing; typically with a date/timestamp.
- E.g. 21.35 JDHQ has 21.35+ Work log
+ P5 ideas is a note where we record ideas that aren't solid enough to make it into our task system.⁷
- E.g. 21.35 JDHQ has 21.35+ P5 ideas
+ Meeting minutes is a note where we record minutes of meetings that relate to the ID.
- E.g. if we have a meeting specifically about JDHQ we might store the minutes at 21.35+ Meeting minutes.

Standards-in-waiting

Note that these work EtEs are likely to become recommendations of the system, i.e. if you have a need for a work-log-like note, don't call yours + My work-log. Call it + Work log and now we're all talking the same language.

In this way they become a bit template-like. We'll develop this into the Small Business System (SBS) over time.

Be consistent

Don't use + Belinda sometimes and + Bel elsewhere. Pick one.

A counter-example

As a counter-example, the SBS has ID 11.31 Internal policies. Our business has a sub-note 11.31~ Purpose, mission, values: this is the only ID that will require a note with that title, so it doesn't earn a +.

Below it our 11.32 External policies has 11.32~ Code of conduct, 11.32~ Privacy policy for the same reason.

Whereas if we had a meeting about these policies, we would store its minutes at 11.32+ Meeting minutes.

You own everything after the `+`

Parsing software will detect the + and consider it and anything that follows until the end-of-line to be the EtE pattern.

This means you are free to use a space, or to omit one. I have found that it feels natural to use a space when what follows is a sentence/word, and to omit one when what follows is a code. But this is guidance, not a rule.

An example of a code

The EtE concept was born at a job where I was dealing with 13 physical facilities. Each of those facilities had a well established shortcode e.g. E32, K07.

The Johnny.Decimal system as designed contained IDs like 53.07 Hardware delivery and 72.02 Cabling. To handle these things at each location, I extended the end:

53.07+E32 was hardware delivery to E32.
72.02+K07 was cabling at K07.

This worked beautifully. I used the IDs everywhere, across my notes, filesystem, email, and the project schedule. I could filter this schedule for +K07 to reveal all line items related to that facility.

In this case it feels natural to omit the space after the +. But if you prefer to include it, do so.

Keeping notes

Regarding notes, this works in the same way as the ~ sub-note.

Difference between `~` and `+`

To recap:

Both symbols provide a way to expand an ID that already exists.
~ is for arbitrary, unpatterned expansion.
+ is for systematic, patterned expansion.

In your filesystem

If you name your filesystem folders with the +, they sort in a group above any unstructured folders. This will probably be optional. I prefer it.

Proposal 3: `@` links Work Packages to their ID

The updates to T&PM that we're recording include the concept of 'work packages' (WPs) as introduced in this video.

What's important here is a new nomenclature. Each WP has a number like W0000 but MUST also belong to a parent ID, 12.34. You MUST indicate this in the title, which ends up looking like:

W0011@12.34 Name of work package

Previously, we had used ~ as this divider. It works really nicely – it reads like 'work package 11 relates to ID 12.34' – but this is confusing if we also use it as the arbitrary sub-note symbol.

Instead, I propose using @ for this purpose. It also reads well: 'work package 11 at ID 12.34'.

In this context it will ALWAYS be nested between the range of characters defined by the regular expression /^W[0-9]{4}@[0-9]{2}\.[0-9]{2} \S.*$/, so you're still free to use it in your own titles, including EtEs.

How to feedback

Much appreciated. ✌🏼

See AC.ID notation. ↩
You can imagine these as .md files, but I won't write out the file extension. ↩
If we want to name category 10 we need to use frontmatter inside this note. Unless specified, A0 categories are named Management of area $number. ↩
System-management zeros not shown. 11.00 is a child of 11/; 10.00 is a child of 10/. ↩
For example, a YAML block at the top of a Markdown file. ↩
You're also free to duplicate area 10-19 Life admin for Belinda, giving her her own system. The reason many prefer EtE is that this new system of hers is going to be mostly empty. EtE is simpler and requires less management. ↩
A P5 being one priority level below a P4, the lowest priority task. Ref. T&PM episode 'The P1-P4 system'. ↩

Blogs, websites, and identity - James' Coffee Blog

2026-07-27T00:00:00.000Z

In Camera, one of the songs on her latest album, CharliXCX sings:

When the camera's on
I can be anything that I wanna be
And I can feel the things I don't normally feel

When I heard these words, I couldn’t help but think about them from an art history perspective. Portraits create an image. Portraits can and have been used to express power, identity, occasion, the significance of a moment. So too can we create images with cameras: we get to decide how we pose for a selfie, how we frame the image of the flower we see that we want to capture in our minds.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

One of the biggest transformations in my thinking with regard to images this year is that when I see someone take a photo I increasingly ask “why?” I was in the National Gallery of Scotland on Saturday looking at a Monet painting, Poplars on the Epte. I sat down and spent several minutes studying the painting. In that time, a few people came to have their photo taken with the painting. I exchanged a smile with one person posing for their friend in front of the camera and the Monet.

Lying here a day later, I still wonder what that smile meant. Was it an acknowledgement of the awkwardness of posing for a photo in front of art? Was it a smile of politeness because I was so entranced by the painting, and the lady was standing in front of part of it? Or was it because I looked so interested? A mix of all of the above? Something else? I’ll never know, but I am curious.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

I love that I can go to a gallery to spend time with a landscape. The meditative state that comes from enjoying art and watching others enjoy art — Poplars on the Epte.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

All of this leads up to a broader question: why do we take photos? CharliXCX advances an interesting proposition: that cameras can, in some way, invite us to be anything we want to be.

Doing as I do, I want to cross modalities from film to words and ask two different questions: Can blogs help us be who we want to be? Do blogs help us become who we want to be?

I am writing this explicitly with the intent to publish what I write on my blog, in order to participate in a collaborative writing challenge. The challenge, however, is secondary to my main goal of exploring the ideas that followed me after listening to CharliXCX’s Camera which, on my most recent listen, with consultation to annotations on the Genius lyrics website, likely has many more layers for me to look at (so too, by extension, does my thought process on why we take photos merit much more exploration). I am also writing this to explore a related interest of my own: the intersection of blogs and identity.

Here, I am connecting the dots I see.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

I have a million questions but today I can only scratch the surface of one: Can blogs help us be who we want to be? I can do this through my own experience. My blog has been a place for me to explore my identity as a writer. I share ideas here which, by extension, I share with friends, and a wider audience, too. I sometimes – and increasingly, as I try to build my skills in new types of writing – write privately. But often I write publicly. Why? (Ah, another question!) I think it’s because when I write publicly I can share little stories from my world. I like doing that. In this way, this website helps me be who I want to be: the kind of person who shares stories.

I want to be the kind of person that brings positivity into people’s lives, or, at least, shines a light on the big impact of a little moment of joy. I also want to be the kind of person who acknowledges that there are weightier moments. I want to be the kind of person who experiments with words and shares some of those experiments. I want to be a writer. In essence, then, a blog is a manifestation of who I want to be: a person who writes and shares words with the world. Perhaps all along this has been with me, for the mantra of this website is “with words, wonder.”

On this website I have the pleasure of sharing the impression of bagpipes being played in the heart of Edinburgh (can writing be Impressionist? What would that mean?), stories of my times spent in bookshops, and the myriad ways in which I feel space (as I link, I know there are likely many more ways to explore the theme of space; therein, the joy of blogging: every post can be a new beginning). Would I write these stories even if I didn’t have a website? That is an impossible question to answer, for I would be a different person. But I do know I enjoy writing on the web (and I also like writing things just for me).

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

I don’t necessarily consider myself to be a “blogger,” for I feel that word carries a certain connotation that doesn’t fit me. But I have a place I call a blog. I write on my blog. I call my writing “Recent essays” on my home page. Even though that doesn’t feel like the most appropriate descriptor, it conveys something about how I feel: that my writing lies outwith being a blog. I also link to a page called “Writing” that lists all of my blog posts.

Amid all the confusion, some clarity: I write; this website is where I share stories with the world. Should “Recent essays” read “My stories”? But this blog contains only my capture of a story. I observe the world and write. “My writings” would be closer, for here I share the world through my own lenses – my own rose-tinted, fearful, excited, optimistic, lenses.

Lately, I have had one question come back again and again: Am I growing out of the name “James’ Coffee Blog”? What if I elevated the phrase that already sits with all of my writings here – “with words, wonder” – to be the title? I am not yet convinced, but I feel I am getting closer – herein, the messiness – and the joy – of exploring identity as it relates to this space, my website.

Like CharliXCX, I can be anything I want to be here: I can be my self who asks questions under the cover of near-midnight about identity, just as I can be my self who writes about the newspaper clipping that helped me get through the morning. Although, now I think about it, I was already being myself when I lived the moments that became stories. Indeed, my blog posts grow from my everyday thoughts. Are my writings snapshots? Or are they the story? Both? How would I know?

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

I am writing this blog post in bed where the loudest thing I can hear is my keyboard; the brightest thing in the room is my computer. Yet from here I see where I was yesterday when I heard those bagpipes being played. I see the piper repositioning themselves. I see the people recording the music. I feel my mind asking why it was important to them. Who will see the song the piper played after they played it? Am I part of sharing that story?

This post is me through and through – every word, a dip in the stream of my ever-changing and ever-growing thoughts. But I can’t help but wonder whether there are moments when writing creates a little bit of distance. I feel those moments: in how much of my inspiration comes from observing the world. Where, however, is the boundary between observation and being part of the story? An observer is still part of the story.

CharliXCX’s feeling of being “inspired and alive (Yeah, I'm ready)” when the camera is on is intriguing. I don’t write because there is a camera – a blog. But I can’t shake my question: what does it mean to write on the web? Here, I am doing more than writing: I am writing knowing that someone may read it. I am writing knowing that several people may read what I write. I am writing knowing that my words will live on a space called the World Wide Web. What does that mean?

But then again, on most days, I don’t think about who will read my writing: I think “I want to write,” and publishing comes second. I don't find energy in audience, but I do find joy in knowing a story I write might make someone smile. The web exists somewhere in the background of my mind, until it is in the foreground: until I see the white canvas of the publishing software and I know, soon, these words will sit with all of my stories here.

Just as experiences take me time to process, so, too, do I think my thoughts on CharlXCXi’s song will evolve. In particular, there is one part I cannot quite decipher yet, the last line: “'Cause it's the only way to feel like I'm not actually me”. I think I deviate here, for writing does help me feel like myself. But certainly, there are limits: some days, I just want to live in the stream of life with the only record of details being my memory.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

I see a little bit of myself in [portrait] — of looking out into the distance to think; of needing the space that you can only get from looking at nothing in particular. But I see our differences too. – how art makes us connect; how art makes us look and look again, and want to go back to look again – to see what is new to us in old paintings.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

I found my lost self at near-midnight, writing until my eyes grew heavy, and with the knowledge that my thoughts will carry forward into a new day. With fresh eyes, I wonder what I might see.

This is my contribution to the IndieWeb Carnival on the topic of “Masks, Identity & Cosplay” hosted by Joe.

Masks, Identity & Cosplay blogger things just for me there are weightier moments myriad ways in which I feel space stories of my times spent in bookshops impression of bagpipes being played in the heart of Edinburgh shines a light on the big impact of a little moment of joy

Every Day Carry 2026 - Joel's Log Files

2026-07-26T21:50:00.000Z

Had it been just a couple of months ago, this every day carry would have been very different! But things change, and I decided it was finally time to write an update on my Every Day Carry!

This post was originally inspired by Bojidar’s EDC post, but I remembered I had this draft pending completion after Rubenerd’s did one too. So, kudos to them for making me want to catch up at last.

In case you are wondering, I already did a post like this a while back. Check it out if you want! it’s very bare bones though.

Wallet and keys. There’s nothing special about either of these. I do carry cash very often compared to my European friends.
The Casio AQ-S820W has took a hold of my wrist lately, replacing my Casio Royale since the moment I bought it. It is a little big, kind of like my CasiOak, but I don’t mind at all, I love wearing it and it’s been niced to get used to the analog style again. No complaints.
My Kobo Clara 2E continues to reign as my main reading device. Since I am currently reading the last book of The Expanse, I simply bring this everywhere. I still bring my XTEINK X4, I always leave it in my backpack, though neither is seeing a lot of use because of the next thing.
A gaming handheld. Right now it’s the New Nintendo 3DS XL, which truly earned a place in pocket, due to my ongoing playthrough of both Fire Emblem Awakening and Ocarina of Time. Any handheld could easily be swapped here. It would have been the PSP, the Anbernic RG35XX SP, the smaller Miyoo Mini Flip, or even the Nintendo Switch, depending on what I feel like.
A pair of nameless wired earphones. They are the ones that came with my Innioasis Y1—though I haven’t used that music player a lot lately—since they are perfectly serviceable with whatever handheld console I’m using at the moment. The Switch does work with Bluetooth but it’s just more practical to go wird.
The Nothing Ear (a) are incredible wireless earphones though. I’ve had them for almost two years and they work great! However, my constant use of the left earphone at night has made battery life uneven, and unusable with ANC, they still work very well without it though. My Nothing Ear (open) have worked wonders in quiet environments, but they are not as ideal when I’m in crowded places. Excellent during cycling though.
A Nothing (3a) is my phone of choice! There’s not a lot to say about a phone these days, it has a great back design and the cleanest non-Pixel firmware there is in the form of NothingOS. A very serviceable device I’m happy to have despite it’s annoying AI button.
An iPhone SE 3 which was given to me by my workplace, I get phone calls from work so it happens. Hate it, but it’s alright.
A Tupperware Eco Twist has been my water bottle since my high school days. I know that everyone recommends stainless steel nowadays, and I do have an Owala, but after I left it at the gym, I’d rather not risk it. Not a good idea to get expensive stuff if you are as forgetful as me…

I guess I could mention a few more things, such as my 3DS case, or a bunch of loose coins. Keep in mind these are things I carry with me during my work days, I rarely go out during a weekend but when that happens I only bring my phone, wallet, and possibly a handheld.

To end this post, here’s an of out of date Knolling I made inspired by Bojidar’s. I should have made a new one with my 3DS but the dark/gray/white color aesthetic seemed better anyway, so I couldn’t be bothered. Besides, I do continue to use my PSP to play some titles like Black Rock Shooter and Ys Chronicles I.

An organized set of devices, notable difference from the list is the PSP 3000, Anbernic RG35XX SP, and the Pilot Metropolitan, a fountain pen

This is day 3 of #100DaysToOffload

Reply to this post via email | Reply on Fediverse

Book Review: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman ★★⯪☆☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-07-26T11:34:33.000Z

To call this derivative is an understatement. But that's what this genre demands; rehash all your favourite media properties into something new. It's the literary equivalent of having your Transformers™ fight your He-Man© toys.

The plot, such as it is, features the Vogon Constructor Fleet destroying Earth due to a late beurecratic appeal, forcing people to play The Hunger Games, while a Twitch streamer narrates the action.

The protagonists in Andy Weir's books are boys who know enough science to save the day. The ones in Scalzi's books have enough pop-culture knowledge to save the day. Dinniman's has played enough loot-box gatcha RPGs to save the day.

It is mostly pretty good fun. The tropes are goofy, the gore is splattertastic and only rarely ventures into torture porn, the villains are suitably campy, and the wisecracking sidekick doesn't become too annoying.

But the prose…

Here's a classic scene from Red Dwarf which exemplifies the major problem I had with this book.

There's only so many times you can read "Then I severed a +3 damage with poison debuff while he raised a +1 shield and used his armour of holding to neutralise the attack". I find opening endless lootboxen a chore when I'm playing a game - reading 150 instances of "I got a bronze box with a cauldron of Mafeking, then a gold box with an enchanted ring, then…" just becomes tiresome.

I tried listening to the audiobook of the sequel and I just couldn't get past the endless recitation of lists about +5 to elbows and -6 to arseholes. Just unbearably tedious.

Look, I've never written a novel and doubt I could do any better. This has obviously found its fanbase but, regrettably, I'm not one. It was a fun enough read, but I'm not sure I can be bothered with a dozen more sequels of recycled plots and repetitive squishing of cackling enemies.

📝 2026-07-26 10:44: Taking the dogs for a walk with our oldest and we came across this beautiful... - Kev Quirk

2026-07-26T09:44:00.000Z

Taking the dogs for a walk with our oldest and we came across this beautiful buzzard just sat there. Wasn't bothered by us really. I just hope it doesn't have a bust wing or anything.

Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is ace, and so are you. ❤️

You can reply to this post by email, or leave a comment.

I Came Second in the Hemispheric Views June-Boree and Got This Neat Trophy - Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed

2026-07-26T09:13:44.000Z

I posted about my June-Boree entries a couple of weeks ago and the winners were announced on episode 167. Turns out I came second, beaten narrowly by Arcadia king Eric, which means I get one of Jason's famous trophies.

After some shenanigans with trying to send it to a pickup location which UPS couldn't do three days in a row, I finally got my hands on it and it's glorious.

Streams - James' Coffee Blog

2026-07-26T00:00:00.000Z

I wrote this post on Thursday, July 23rd, and reviewed and slightly refined it today. I have left the post as a stream of consciousness – a snippet of my mind as it was on the morning I walked around and saw the world.

Walking among the stream of people; of stories of life — moving forward and watching other people move forward, of the pace being set by those around you, of feeling comfort being surrounded by others; of living in the contrast of silence and activity — of the journey being the moment between those points; when more stories enter the fore and I realise how much energy I get from watching the world, both at a distance and up close. Can you be distant and present at the same time?

The barista wears a golden badge that reads Director of Happiness, written in a decorative font. Yes, I am now the sort of person who recognises the typography and notes it down — how learning helps us notice what is in front of us; how we learn to recognise; how seeing and recognising are discrete. The barista wore colourful sparkly glasses, and asked how I was to which I shared my perspective on the weather — not too warm. Sometimes we need neutral moments in our conversations; when we can take a moment to think and breathe without needing to go further. I feel the energy of all the people walking in and queuing up, like I did. There is a cycle to the coffee shop — of people, patrons and staff, coming and going, on horizons from the daily to the weekly to the eventual day when new horizons happen.

Someone carries a bouquet of the largest sunflowers I have ever seen. Sir Walter Scott holds an upside down traffic cone between his writers’ arms. People sit on the park benches; one woman takes a corner and reads a book under the shade afforded by a row of trees. Friends ready blankets.

I look down and see an engraving in the pavement. I think immediately back to a deeper engraving on a pavement in a city I love far away — the engraving in my memory and the street is so deep it must have been moulded when the stone was being paved. The moments when we see the passage of time — in the traffic lights and the built up traffic, in the stonework and the glass, in the height and girth of the trees; in the grain of the world.

The moment I walked into the bookshop I smelled the books — stacks of stories waiting for everyone who wants to spend a moment in a new world. I carry dried tears on my right hand from the dust in the air from outside. The tears nonetheless show that I can cry.

I see a book cover showing a building in Central Park, New York, a building that has fascinated me as I have walked around on past trips. Standing taller than the other buildings in its avenue, in the centre of the left side of the garden, the building is a landmark that, when seen, helps you see where you are and how far you have come.

Behind me, a person in the bookstore sings “Do you want a house tour? I’ll take you to the second third floor” to a friend – both are perusing books at the entranceway to the fiction floor. Today I learned I am not the only person who makes music in bookshops — the woman who was singing had a much more melodic voice than I, however. I like humming tunes rather than singing, though: bringing music where there is little. (I wish I could sing well.)

As I walk around I notice that even though I stick to the same track there is always a degree of serendipity — of a particular table standing out that I want to peruse, of a book that mentions the concept of the Anti-Hero in its title that makes me think of Taylor Swift. One day I will understand what a friend was trying to communicate by saying things familiar to us stand out more. Which leads me to wonder: how, in a sea of words, do some things stand out to our minds more than others?

I hear the clinks of cups in the distance. A bookmark reads “be kind to your mind” in a bold pink font with a pink flower and golden sparkles.

Bookshelves - James' Coffee Blog

2026-07-26T00:00:00.000Z

I woke early — it has been warm lately. It is strange how you can find a burst of energy at 5am, but today it came, for I decided to organise my bookshelves, sorting what books I am ready to donate to the local charity shop.

I picked up books — stories — and thought about the good memories I had with them. I also thought honestly about some books that have been on my shelf for a while. Did I read this? Will I read this? Do I still want to hold onto this? In some cases the answer is yes. There are books I have that I know I am going to be ready to read one day. In other cases the answer is no — to let the dream go means to make room for new dreams.

Having sorted out my books, a dozen or so ready to be donated, I went to the magazines and clippings — the miscellanea. I found the newspaper extracts I have saved: stories I read that were so meaningful I knew I wanted to keep them.

I don’t know whether I found the story that helped me think about something that means a lot to me this morning or it found me. The piece spoke to me and said “it’s okay” in just the way I needed. That must have been why I saved it. Was past James doing future James a favour? Did he know there was more to read in the article — more to see?

Here, now, I am sitting on an uncomfortable metal chair in a bus stop, waiting for my journey of the day — one to which I have been looking forward all week. I hold a warm coffee — with caffeine, for I am tired — between my legs, there being no other place to hold it for I need my two hands to type. Maybe one day I’ll find this clipping from my stream of idle thoughts on the first rainy Sunday in weeks on my bookshelf, ready for me when I need it.

Can data collectives help strengthen vulnerable cultures in the face of AI? - Werd I/O

2026-07-25T14:23:05.000Z

Link: Fed up with Big Tech, communities turn to data collectives for control, by Rina Chandran at Rest of World

It’s interesting to contrast the current moment to the “information wants to be free” era of Web 2.0, twenty or so years ago. Back then, everyone was talking about open APIs and open data. Now, it’s become clearer that communities need to control the terms of their data if they’re going to avoid being strip-mined for somebody else’s profit.

“Workers, producers, consumers, and others have been establishing cooperatives and other community-led associations to pool resources, share benefits, and address socioeconomic challenges for centuries. The United Nations marked 2025 as the year of cooperatives, positioning them as “essential solutions to today’s global problems,” kindling renewed interest in data collectives and cooperatives.”

While there’s certainly an argument to be made that communities tend to over-estimate the value of their own data (looking at you, news), some of these datasets may be truly unique in ways that would add value to an AI service or model. As this article points out, collectively-owned data includes creative works in more than 20 African languages that aren’t recognized in mainstream linguistic frameworks.

The danger, of course, is that putting these kinds of gates in front of underrepresented cultures just works to further marginalize them: in that potential future, if everyone’s using a model where those languages are missing, they become irrelevant. But there’s another one where data collectives can pull the levers they have to bring about the world they want to see. That’s exactly what the Nwulite Obodo Open Data License aims to do: data rights holders can negotiate to share their work and cultural heritage without losing their right to benefit from it. (Nwulite Obodo is Igbo for raising, reviving, and building the community.)

In one model, vendors building non-extractive and responsibly trained models for public interest purposes get to use their data for free, but the closed-model big tech vendors have to pay. That’s what Meesum Alam did with voice data for 39 at-risk languages in Pakistan: the communities he worked with determined that the data was free for research and non-commercial purposes, but for-profit tech companies would need to negotiate terms (which Meta did).

That potentially becomes more interesting: either OpenAI et al negotiate to license the data, or they lose functionality to their public interest competitors. There’s also a world where some communities proactively document their cultures and make them available specifically so that models, whoever they’re built by, won’t omit them. Either the world has more equitable AI or the communities financially benefit from their cultural heritage.

Whatever happens, these communities certainly have the right to control their data however they see fit. What vendors do about it is the open question. But initiatives like Mozilla Data Collective make it more possible to have more substantive conversations about how data is provided and used, and that can only be a good thing.

Some Quick Thoughts on EMF Camp 2026 - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-07-25T11:34:01.000Z

I've performed a talk at the last three EMFs - so this time I decided to go purely as a tourist. It made things much more relaxing. No waking up from a stress dream that my laptop didn't work. No casually dropping my talk into every conversation to build up an audience. No queueing for the loos five minutes before going on. No adrenaline spikes or come downs. It was bliss!

After several volunteer shifts over the years, I also decided to be utterly selfish and do none this year. Again, rather nice being on the customer side of the bar without worrying that I'd cocked up someone's order.

Similarly, I had thought about doing an art "thing" or building something for the badge. In the end all I did was ask my friend Skylar to set up a shortcode so people could ring 26262 (BNANA) for an audio surprise.

To be clear - you should absolutely propose a talk, pitch an installation, and volunteer. It's a great way of experiencing the festival and giving back. But I was exhausted after a 6,379 Km Interrail journey and, frankly, wanted a change of pace.

Everyone has a different EMF. I mostly went to talks and looked at cool art. Some people were focussed on playing all the games. Some gorgeous people were just there to strut about in their amazing costumes. A few people delighted in showing off all their cool toys. It really is about seven festivals in one. I'm still bemused by some of the things - I've no idea what a challenge coin is, I'm hazy about how the various puzzles work, I didn't know about the cool musicians until it was too late.

Still, I came away physically exhausted and mentally refreshed - so a success!

What Worked

We took our Walkie Talkies. So much easier to use Push-To-Talk rather than hoping a text was seen. Worked all the way across the field.
I took lots of Thermal Images - and people seemed to like them!
Handed out a million stickers for OpenBenches - and met several people who'd used and enjoyed the site.
I hired an electric van to lug our stuff. It was quick and easy to charge on the way up and back. Much more relaxing to drive than our enormous camper from last time.

What Almost Worked

We got an inflatable tent so we didn't have to faff too much putting it up. In the end we needed a bit of help (thanks Lucy and Parker). The tent was an excellent size. The blackout stuff kept us reasonably cool and there was good airflow. But, fuck me, sleeping on an airbed in a tent in a heatwave just isn't my scene!
Similarly, dragging our stuff from the car park to our village was a slog. Damien from Hacky Racers gave our kit a lift using his Ghost Rider go-kart which saved my aching back.
The queue for the showers was a bit long - our village members sent back regular queue updates. Once I got in, it was pretty decent. Obviously I felt time pressure to clean up quickly, but the water pressure was decent and there was enough space to hang my pants without getting them soaked. Of course, I dropped my t-shirt into a puddle because I'm incompetent!
It was hard to meet everyone I said I'd see there. I kept getting distracted - sorry if we were due to chat!

What Didn't Work

Some of these are no-one's fault, just circumstances. Others are just not the way I'd have done things.

One of the food stalls served the worst veggie burger I've ever had. No sauce, no veg, no condiments or pickles. Just a bun tasting of sadness. Bleh. Rest of the food was decent for a festival.
Given the heat it was unfortunate that the water pressure was so iffy. There was plenty to drink, but it trickled out slowly at times. Other festivals regularly water the paths to prevent so much dust from being kicked up. That might have helped here.
I'm terrible at remembering people's names - especially if I only met them once a few years ago, or they're dressed as a Furry. As much as I love the EMF badge, I wish it were smaller, lighter, and mandatory for people to wear it in a prominent position. Ideally their forehead.
There's a general lack of signage at EMF. The webmap was useful - but a few wayfinding posts would have helped me and others.
It is loud. Some of the music overwhelmed the people who were speaking on stage. I guess it is hard to put soundproofing in a tent 😆

2028?

I'm still on the fence about going next time. Not because of anything the organisers did or didn't do. I just can't stand camping in an actual tent. Small camper vans are frustrating to live out of - even for a long weekend. A big mobile home is a pain in the arse to drive. Perhaps I need a glamping yurt? Or someone to chauffeur me in a tour bus?

In short, wandering in the dark and tripping over guy ropes when I'm desperate for a piss isn't the way I like to spend my time!

I'm also conscious that events like these rely on a steady stream of new blood. Having attended three in person and one remotely, I'm aware that I'm taking up space which could go to someone who would have their mind blown by the delightful madness contained in that field.

Previous years have allowed people to get a guaranteed ticket in exchange for one volunteer shift. This year you needed two shifts. I think that's a great way to diversify the festival and stop it just becoming the same faces over-and-over again.

I know that if I don't go I'll suffer from intense FOMO and will vicariously follow all the social media posts. But I don't know if that will outweigh smelling like a rancid turnip and getting stressed that the queue for the loo will be unbearable.

Let's see what the next two years brings, eh?

Photos

Anyway, here are a few of my favourite photos. Click through to see some more on Mastodon.

The Royal Mile - James' Coffee Blog

2026-07-25T00:00:00.000Z

I wrote the following while standing on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, listening to music and watching the world.

The joy of closing your eyes and being able to listen to the bagpipes. I look into the distance and see a traffic cone on the head of a statue. I notice how much busier it is than in previous weeks — how a place comes alive at different times, and in different months and seasons. The joy of standing in the busy city and watching the world move around you — people sauntering and thinking and looking and catching and eating and speaking and jumping and being, of the crowds gathering to watch and hear the piper. Of letting the wind blow through my hair while the sun shines and the music plays; standing next to raised beds of flowers // the colours of green and pink and purple and white are soothing.

An Apparent Air of Grievances - Hey, it's Jason!

2026-07-25T00:00:00.000Z

Let's chat about the iPhone Air.

Note published on July 24, 2026 at 10:18 PM UTC - Molly White's activity feed

2026-07-24T22:18:33.000Z

the garden is really picking up steam

Notable links: July 24, 2026 - Werd I/O

2026-07-24T13:30:49.000Z

Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.

Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe for free.

China delivers a one-two punch to America’s AI dominance

AI models, as a product in themselves, have very little moat beyond what amounts to brand loyalty and superficial switching costs. Instead, the moat is in the enterprise services that sit around them: the deals and contracts, connectivity with enterprise systems, and quality of life features in an enterprise context.

If we consider the models themselves, it’s easy to switch between them: someone could be using ChatGPT today and Claude tomorrow, with very little impact on their workflows. This is particularly true in the engineering world, where models are accessed via API: you can swap out the API and use the same prompt.

Those companies can make deals to lock their customers in, but in practice there’s very little long-term technical incentive to use one vendor over another. You pick the best model for your needs and change models and vendors if another one becomes better.

The US government has placed export controls on GPUs. There are also strong regulations that (reasonably) prevent sharing certain kinds of data with Chinese servers. The result is that while Chinese companies have enough compute to train models, they can’t really provide the kinds of global-scale centralized services that we see from OpenAI and Anthropic — at least, not in the same way.

And open almost always wins when it comes to infrastructure adoption. Open technologies can be used permissionlessly and therefore can be at the center of more innovation. You can host them where you want, experiment with them, alter them, and tweak to fit your use case. Open weights models are not open source, but they are portable and permissionless.

With all this in mind, it makes sense for China to release its AI models openly. It turns a US-created compute disadvantage into a distribution advantage; it commoditizes the layer where American companies make money; and it creates a far more effective global ecosystem than could be established through locked-in, centralized services. It’s obvious to me that there are ecosystem benefits throughout China, from manufacturing to scientific research; every sector can just plug in these models.

The saving grace for American companies has been that US frontier models have outperformed open ones. That gap is now closing:

“Moonshot and Alibaba unveiled models they claim can go toe-to-toe with the best from OpenAI and Anthropic at a fraction of the cost. The rapid-fire releases suggest America’s lead at the AI frontier is increasingly tight, just as the technology is becoming central to national security, economic power, and geopolitical influence.”

Even without these new capabilities, the strategy has already been working. a16z partner Martin Casado noted in the Economist that there’s an 80% chance that any given startup is using Chinese models, and Chinese models are poised to take the lead.

It’s worth taking a step back and considering the surprising underlying dynamics. We think of China as being a locked-down society — and it is in many ways. I have serious concerns about how these models might reflect Chinese government perspectives (try asking them about Tiananmen Square). But it’s American companies that are keeping tight control of their technology rather than releasing it as openly as possible. This is in stark contrast to the strategy behind US government support for the open internet, for example.

Locked-down business practices for a technology with no real moat but significant potential ecosystem benefits is an obviously losing strategy; permissively releasing it with an open, collaborative approach is obviously a winning one. But the incentives in the US aren’t there: instead, these companies are forced to chase first-order profits rather than ecosystem benefits, and the government tries to put its finger on the scale through forcible measures like tight export controls. We should consider what would need to change to make those incentives more aligned. That’s particularly important given how much of the US economy is currently driven by AI spending. If the bottom falls out of that spending — and I think it clearly will, given the dynamics — the outcome could be severe.

I care about having open technology that can be run in the public interest, aligned with the public’s values. Threads like public AI, federated services, and open research have traction but need backing. Getting there in the US needs more nuanced strategy and support than we’re seeing today.

This Conversation Is Being Recorded. They All Are.

I’ve been thinking about this story for days.

“A Zoom call isn’t complete without an artificial-intelligence note taker. Phones are out at meetings, capturing every word. During impromptu conversations with co-workers, someone might turn on the Granola transcription app, which can turn the interactions into one-page summaries or a list of action items. Even at bars and on dates, people are using AI-infused listening apps to analyze conversations later on.”

The story goes on to talk to a woman who uses Granola to record her dates, then pours the transcripts into Claude to give her feedback about how she could have done better. And there’s account after account of people using it in meetings without asking for consent or revealing that they’re recording.

Certainly in Silicon Valley, a societal shift seems to be underway. It’s likely much more widespread than that. I’ve been present in meetings outside the tech industry where Granola’s watermarking was visible but I wasn’t asked to consent. The watermarking is optional; I have to assume I’ve been in meetings where I’ve been recorded without my knowledge.

Pair this trend with the story that the Trump Administration actively sought the phone records of journalists — and their families — who reported on the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One. Subpoenas were issued to the phone carriers, and the Department of Justice notified the newsroom a week later. In some cases, subpoenas can be issued to carriers and service providers privately, allowing the data to be retrieved without the newsroom’s knowledge; in this case, the DoJ did try to gag the phone company from alerting the newsroom.

A world in which every conversation is recorded and transcribed is one where every conversation can be subpoenaed or surveilled. Here, the surveillance is decentralized through people who actively want to conduct it for their own benefit, but the data is still stored centrally and available for authorities to subpoena or someone else to mine. Granola’s security page makes clear that the data is accessible to them — and therefore to a third party that compels them to hand it over — and notes that:

“Granola trains on your anonymized data so we can keep making Granola better. You can opt out of this in your Settings.”

Granola makes a point of saying that audio is not stored, but given that transcriptions are, this seems moot: the words in a conversation carry its meaning. Subpoenas for your conversations go to it, not to you, and you may never know they were served. If you record someone’s conversation without letting them know, you’re putting them at risk.

Don’t get me wrong: I would love to have an automatic summary of meetings I’ve taken part in. I have also run meetings on non-sensitive topics where I’ve asked for consent before starting transcription. It’s the ubiquity and covert nature of the transcription that bothers me, paired with its central storage in what amounts to a honeypot for subpoenas and hackers.

Recording a conversation with someone without their consent is illegal in many states and countries, so this behavior may be forced to change. California is one of them, and Granola appears to be thriving there, so there is a world where the law changes to meet the new ubiquitous surveillance norm. Until the dust settles one way or the other, anyone who wants to talk about a sensitive topic, particularly in Silicon Valley, will need to be more wary than usual.

How OpenAI’s human mistake led to the AI-powered hack on Hugging Face

The biggest technology story this week was how a combination of OpenAI models hacked into third-party AI provider Hugging Face and breached its production database. The incident was initially spun as a sort of partnership between the two companies, but it seems like that’s not what went down at all.

“OpenAI failed to properly configure what it called a ‘highly isolated environment,’ allowing a testing sandbox that should have been completely secluded from the internet to actually connect to the internet.”

That’s actually one of at least two lapses here: not only did OpenAI fail to properly isolate its models, but Hugging Face’s production database was in a state where those models could hack into it. The whole thing does not speak well of security practices at AI vendors overall.

We’re being asked to share more and more private information with model vendors. The standard protection they offer — at least, to their paying customers — is that your data will not be used for model training purposes. That’s all well and good, but your data is still hitting their servers, potentially being logged for an extended period in such a way that it could, in theory, be accessed by their employees. Even before we bring in the possibility of hackers, that leaves your private data open to being accessed via subpoena, an unscrupulous employee, or, indeed, an unscrupulous vendor. (Consider that Uber breached at least one journalist’s privacy and considered hiring an opposition research firm. Do we really think AI vendors are more ethical? Why?)

Leaving a production database in a state where it could be breached is the icing on the cake. In this case, the models weren’t even harnessed to hack Hugging Face — they did so autonomously to cheat a test. Imagine what they might do if they were intentionally pointed that way. Hacking is becoming cheaper and easier: once the preserve of talented technologists, this story proves that the latest frontier models can effectively find and exploit vulnerabilities in systems. And apparently, AI vendors can’t be trusted to secure their own infrastructure. The combination of us being encouraged to share more and more data, the inherent risks of centralizing that data, the dubious security of the places we’re being asked to share it, and the obvious shadiness of some of the companies involved should give us all pause.

For newsrooms and anyone dealing with sensitive or private data, particularly relating to source materials or journalism in progress, this weak security environment is not enough. We need zero data retention contracts at minimum, but the only real way to be sure nobody can access our information is to use confidential computing environments and, ultimately, local models. Anything less leaves our work open to cowboys, hackers, and, apparently, misconfigured robots.

Staying in a job for the health insurance? About 1 in 4 Americans do, a survey says

This is a striking, but not necessarily surprising, figure from a new survey by the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America:

“A new report finds that nearly a quarter of workers who get health insurance through their jobs report staying in unwanted jobs for health insurance — a figure that's risen dramatically in the last five years.”

The figure rises to 41% of people with three or more chronic health conditions. The figure has risen wildly in part because Affordable Care Act subsidies were allowed to expire.

I’ll get the soapbox out of the way first: having spent around thirty years of my life in the UK before moving to the US, the thing I miss most is the NHS. It’s been treated like a political football since I left and is apparently a shell of its former self — not because the idea is bad and can’t work but because conservative politicians, some of whom have received funding from private healthcare companies, have deliberately sabotaged it. But it’s hard to explain the lack of fear of walking into a doctor’s office or a hospital. You know for a fact that there won’t be an onerous bill. You can just get seen. That security allowed me to found my first startup, which in turn has set the stage for my entire career.

If you’re in the US, you may have heard some less pleasant things about socialized healthcare: it turns out much of it was a deliberate disinformation campaign by private health insurers, which I think says a lot about how the whole American healthcare system actually works.

That soapbox out of the way, I also want to highlight how the private healthcare system creates perverse incentives for employers and dampens innovation.

If employees have freedom of movement between companies, the incentive for employers is to create the best working conditions possible: higher wages, great benefits, a nurturing working environment. If, on the other hand, some employees are effectively chained to their desks by their need to have healthcare, employers have less of a need to provide those things. As long as they provide a reasonable health plan, wages and working conditions are secondary. As the West Health-Gallup Center themselves assert, the effect is lower wages and worse work.

In turn, fewer innovators are empowered, which is a disaster for industries like news that desperately need innovation. Often, innovators will find themselves constrained by their existing employers for various reasons and want to leave to explore a new idea that has the potential to change their industry. (That was my experience leaving the university sector to build a social platform for learning, which was ultimately used by Ivy Leagues, non-profits, and governments around the world.) If they can’t because they’re tethered to employers who won’t greenlight their ideas, those innovations will never see the light of day.

So not only does socialized healthcare allow people to be healthier by removing the fear of going to the doctor in the first place, it improves wages, creates more competitive working conditions, and promotes innovation.

Even a representative for the Cato Institute — a libertarian think tank — has this to say in the piece:

“Favoring employer-sponsored health insurance creates coverage gaps, reduces income mobility, and is crying out for reform.”

When even the libertarians want reform, you know it’s a bad deal. We need a different healthcare system. While the libertarians would likely disagree, my vote — having experienced and enjoyed it for much of my life — is for universal healthcare. The only real downside to it is that a bunch of companies that have entrenched their positions taking advantage of ordinary people will be denied a little profit. Which, you know. Pardon me while I find my tiny violin.

And more:

Here are some of the stories I didn't get a chance to go into in depth this week.

Protecting our FLOSS commons from LLMs

The source code repository hosting service Codeberg has banned LLM-generated code. Time will tell whether that's a move that solidifies a niche as a place for hand-crafted software, or whether it just turns people back to GitHub.

Google search traffic to leading UK publishers set to halve by Q3 2027

The march towards Google Zero continues apace. I believe the most effective way to build resilience against this trend is by building stronger relationships – not just one-way audience strategies, but real community.

The Fourth Circuit Says Border Agents Can Search Your Phone By Hand, No Suspicion Required

A court upheld that border agents have the right to search your phone. Newsrooms should build strong, repeatable guidance for journalists who might want to cross borders with source information.

Kaiser Permanente nurses say technology is making their jobs — and patient care — worse

Despite what vendors and management say, the people who are actually on the ground providing healthcare report that AI is having a detrimental effect on the care they can provide. That will eventually come to a head – particularly if it starts to reveal itself in patient outcome statistics.

Book Review: Foreign Fruit - A Personal History of the Orange by Katie Goh ★⯪☆☆☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-07-24T11:34:07.000Z

I didn't care for this book. It attempts to interweave botanical and cultural history with an autobiography and ends up doing neither particularly well.

For every dose of poetry about the far-flung and exotic journey of the fruit, there's a dull recitation of facts from Wikipedia. Occasionally various origin myths of citrus varieties are presented - there's no attempt to engage with them, seek out the truth, or comment on what they might mean.

Instead, the author seems more interested in inserting herself into the narrative. It's all rather uneasy. She spends a lots of times talking about hard it is for immigrants and their children. But her dad was a doctor who chose to stay in his new country, she's a fairly prominent journalist, and they spend a lot of time jetting across the world.

I know we're all fighting a battle no one else can see, but this isn't the story of someone's struggle against insurmountable odds.

There's an excruciating passage where she tries to rail against the evils of colonialism and expects her family, who grew up under colonial rule, to support her:

She set down her cup with a steady hand. ‘The British did some good things and they did some bad things,’ she said. ‘But what they did is in the past lah.’ She shrugged and picked her cup back up. ‘In Malaysia we need to think about the future.’

The author is utterly dismissive of other people's lived experience. She and I probably both agree that colonialism was a blunt and savage crime against people. But she can't let go of the fact that some people seem rather nonchalant about it.

I once asked my aunt about her colonial education, and she called it a gift.

It sort of feels like a privileged kid seething that no-one understands how hard it is to be her. I found the solipsism rather distasteful, and the lack of rigour in the botanic history left a bitter taste in my mouth.

📝 2026-07-24 11:20: I think if I had my time again, I would have become a software developer.... - Kev Quirk

2026-07-24T10:20:00.000Z

I think if I had my time again, I would have become a software developer. I just so much fun - coming up with ways to solve a problem in an elegant way is very satisfying.

Then people emailing saying they enjoy the tools I'm creating. Very rewarding!

Mind you, would it still be as fun if it was my job? I don't know. 🤔

Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is ace, and so are you. ❤️

You can reply to this post by email, or leave a comment.

Gaming Updates (Summer 2026) - Joel's Log Files

2026-07-23T21:40:00.000Z

Decided to write an update regarding everything gaming related in my life, as of now in Summer of 2026! What games have I played? What games have I purchased? What games have I beaten? Everything you may want to know about my gaming habits as of now!

Remember back in May when I chose to participate in the Summer Game Challenge? the point of that was to select ten games and commit to completing at least four of them before September 7 (Labour Day for the US) or in my case, September 16 (Independence Day for México). It’s not an official challenge and there’s no website for it or whatever, just a personal commitment with the goal to play more videogames in a certain amount of time.

So, my original list contained the following games (you can just check the linked post for more details about each of them):

From there, I’ve completed Hades and Metroid Prime Remastered, and the original goal was to complete at least four of the games in the list!

However, as you may have noticed, I ended up playing other titles instead, completing the following so far:

Transistor
Monument Valley: Forgotten Shores (DLC)
Monument Valley 2 (+ The Lost Forest DLC)
Monument Valley 3 (+ The Garden of Life (DLC)

That is an amount beyond what the challenge asked for, even if they were not part of my original selection.

So, while a side of me feels guilty the titles I’ve beaten are shorter games (Transistor is about 6 hours, and the Monument Valley games bundled up take about the same time), there’s other games in progress that have been quite longer. They are story-based titles, so it is to be expected. The list of these is as follows:

Fire Emblem Awakening (35+ hours)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (5 hours)
Black Rock Shooter (2 hours)
Ys I & II Chronicles (1 hour)

Even better, that’s on top of the already pretty great list of completed titles so far, which would be:

Monument Valley
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 1
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

If you follow my weeknotes or monthly summaries, this is not news to you, but I I wanted to write on my overall gaming schedule at the moment.

The point of it all is to actually play and get rid of games from my backlog. That’s technically something that’s still happening, although the fact I didn’t have a 3DS back in May, does mean the backlog is simply growing as much as it is being trimmed down…

Speaking of backlog, my Low/No Buy Challenge is technically ongoing so, for the sake of transparency, here’s a list of every videogame I’ve bought this year so far…

Animal Well (Switch)
Crow Country (Switch)
Gris (Switch)
He Is Coming (Steam)
Into The Breach (Steam)
Metroid Prime 4 Beyond (Switch)
PEAK (Steam)
Pokémon Legends Z-A (Switch)
Strange Jigsaws (Steam)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3DS)
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (Switch)
Vampire Crawlers (Switch)

Umm, that’s less than two games per month! So… win?

Moving on…

My New Nintendo 3DS XL has proven to be an excellent device for my needs. I use it during my commutes to and from work, when I’m early to the office, and even at home! My Anbernic handheld remains charged, and I have dabbled on setting up game art on it again—they got lost during an update—and getting offline RetroAchievements setup on it, I’ll write about that at some point.

Here and there, the PSP has seen some use too, with my Nintendo Switch being the most abandoned of the bunch lately. I’ll probably have to start one of the titles in my original list if I want to return to that console soon. I know for sure that my parents will go on vacation, which will leave my house free for me to enjoy some solo gaming time at the TV at last!

I should go back to reading too, one of these days…

Can you tell how messy this post is? I should have done sections for every little thing I talked about, but I’m lazy and this is good enough… Maybe I’ll format it a bit more later on.

This is day 2 of #100DaysToOffload.

Reply to this post via email | Reply on Fediverse

Shellsharks Blogroll - BlogFlock

Published on Citation Needed: "Mapping Trump’s crypto empire on Last Week Tonight" - Molly White's activity feed

Mapping Trump’s crypto empire on Last Week Tonight - Molly White's activity feed

Don't bring sensitive data to a border crossing - Werd I/O

RFC W0192: Use of +, ~, @; clarifying extend-the-end - Johnny.Decimal

Defining an ID

Folder structure

What about additional notes?

Proposal 1: ~ is used to indicate a freeform sub-note

Valid: notes inside the ID note

Equivalent: sub-note extracted to its own file

Proposal 2: + means 'extend-the-end'; defining 'extend-the-end'

Formalising how you extend-the-end

You should be able to list all of your extend-the-ends

Standards-in-waiting

Be consistent

A counter-example

You own everything after the +

An example of a code

Keeping notes

Difference between ~ and +

In your filesystem

Proposal 3: @ links Work Packages to their ID

How to feedback

Footnotes

Blogs, websites, and identity - James' Coffee Blog

Every Day Carry 2026 - Joel's Log Files

Book Review: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman ★★⯪☆☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

📝 2026-07-26 10:44: Taking the dogs for a walk with our oldest and we came across this beautiful... - Kev Quirk

I Came Second in the Hemispheric Views June-Boree and Got This Neat Trophy - Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed

Streams - James' Coffee Blog

Bookshelves - James' Coffee Blog

Can data collectives help strengthen vulnerable cultures in the face of AI? - Werd I/O

Some Quick Thoughts on EMF Camp 2026 - Terence Eden’s Blog

The Royal Mile - James' Coffee Blog

An Apparent Air of Grievances - Hey, it's Jason!

Note published on July 24, 2026 at 10:18 PM UTC - Molly White's activity feed

Notable links: July 24, 2026 - Werd I/O

And more:

Book Review: Foreign Fruit - A Personal History of the Orange by Katie Goh ★⯪☆☆☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

📝 2026-07-24 11:20: I think if I had my time again, I would have become a software developer.... - Kev Quirk

Gaming Updates (Summer 2026) - Joel's Log Files

Proposal 1: `~` is used to indicate a freeform sub-note

Proposal 2: `+` means 'extend-the-end'; defining 'extend-the-end'

You own everything after the `+`

Difference between `~` and `+`

Proposal 3: `@` links Work Packages to their ID