Andy's discoveries and musings - Issue #2
Well, if the “new” world of newsletters is going to be any, for me, it’s likely to be a slow burner.
I remember Roo’s Letter was a fun weekly distraction, and Benedict Evans has had one for the longest time… Going even further back, Delicious used to post a weekly summary of links on my Twitter feed for me. These days, I bookmark / curate links into several Flipboard publications of my own, and otherwise, I Tweet (a LOT). For the last several years I’ve wished I never lost the habit of blogging / longer-form writing, and although I’m kicking off 2021 in a better mindset, I still often find it hard to get back to. Also, when I do choose to write something longer now, I’m faced with a (self-inflicted) choice of trying to decide between my WordPress site, Medium, or DEV.
All of this is to reflect on the fact that my first issue 10 days ago, was probably less engaging than I could have made it - for example, I could at least have added some context as to why what I was sharing, was interesting to me at the time. I’ll try to do a little better at that, if I keep this thing going, it is still just a personal experiment.
I would genuinely be curious to know whether a) you took a look, either via a web link or through subscribing, and b) whether you find a format like this in any way useful. Is this all too “Back to the Future”? Tweet at me.
One more thing - my first issue came out late on a Friday, this one is going on a Monday, largely because I didn’t get around to finishing it on Friday, and then put my laptop away. I’ll try to be a bit more consistent over time, but I’m thinking a Monday delivery might work best (not least because it means I’ll have a podcast link to share, see below).
Longer-form content from me, this week
I’ve been podcasting with my friends Michael Martine and Michael Rowe since back when I worked with them together at IBM and we were 3D internet / Second Life / gamification / social business pioneers. Our original podcast, Dogear Nation, ran 200 episodes, and the current show is over 300 episodes now - I’m an occasional guest host at the moment, since calendars do not always align. Fun show on Friday, just myself and Michael Martine.
Links I found interesting
I’m always curious to know what the rest of the world thinks about Twitter, and the EFF and Cory Doctorow in particular are heroes of mine. I’m interested in where Project Blue Sky goes. I love Twitter, and I also love the open web. I can see the challenges in a federated system, but there are also so many exciting opportunities.
Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious, Twitter and Revue are a thing now, and Daniele had an idea…
I was a long-term Acorn/RISC OS, and then, Linux and Open Source and free software zealot; these days I use a Mac, a Windows laptop, and a Raspberry Pi 400. They are all excellent, and Microsoft is a very, very, very different company than it was when I left university in 1997. Very good and very reasonable piece here from my mate Alan, on last week’s drama around the Pi adding a Microsoft repo to the default setup.
(I switched to VS Code as my default code editor a couple of years ago, fight me about it)
Some quick hits
Let’s do some politics…
And now for some music…
I started following Alex Cornish as a result of listening to a podcast called Song, by Toad, and hearing one of his songs, back in ~2008. And then I found him on MySpace. And then I discovered he was playing a gig in west London, not too far from me, and I went along, and he recognised me and said “I know you from MySpace!”… ah, those crazy early social days. He’s now many albums in, and he’s a friend of mine. Big fan of Alex’s stuff. Check him out.
Silly and fun things :-)
(ICYMI) a little further back...
That’s it for this week, let me know if you found it useful!