I read about a third of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet a while back, then got into reading non-fiction at night. But now I’m back on fiction at night again (seems to correlate with being back at work?)

I’ve gotten back in to this pretty quickly – I really like it. It’s quite different to a lot of sci-fi – it’s much more relationship based, less action heavy. It’s quite gentle and gently-paced, so far at least, but by no means twee, and quite reflective on some of the oddities and indeed darker aspects of human nature. You get to know the characters and their feelings but the plot keeps you ticking along at the same time.

(This is another book I came across via Ton’s bookshelf – very handy and simple, to find book suggestions from friends’ reading lists!)

The World Wide Web was all about you create knowledge and how you create hyperlinks to different pieces of knowledge. So over time we kind of create this tapestry of humanity and what we know, which at another level of abstraction is kind of creating this meta-map of humanity. This meta-map of humanity is now controlled by these companies that are the ones who have access to the backend.

The Global South Holds a Better Future of Tech w/ Juan Ortiz Freuler

I love the phrase tapestry of humanity here. I like the and as a way of being part of the warp and weft of that tapestry.

I really enjoyed the latest episode of Tech Won’t Save Us, on a successful community action in Melbourne to stop Apple plonking an Apple store in their public square. It’s less about digital transgressions, more about the use of public space in the physical world, an interesting change and a reminder that the big tech firms have global physical presence too.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1004689/4872008-how-to-defeat-an-apple-store-w-tania-davidge

Reposted: https://twitter.com/martinkl/status/1288836873482379266 by Martin Kleppman (twitter.com)

Martin does research into CRDTs, which actively try to shift power from cloud services and back towards end users.

Just listened to the Tech Won’t Save Us interview with Dan Hind, where he discusses his ideas around a socialist agenda for digital technology. Included in that is a British Digital Cooperative. I’m a bit skeptical of a state-run platform, which at first blush sounds like it could be a bit of a , but I think Dan’s proposition is much more nuanced than that. I’d like to dig into it more (e.g. here).

I also like the idea of localised digital tech that he discussed – working in a locality with members of the local community to really work out what is needed in that area. Felt a bit like for digital.