🔗 WWW
There are a lot of links out to different parts of the web on this site. I try to mark them all so they get listed here.
A few days after the conversation started, someone (1) wrote;
“all I need now is a technical person that is interested in writing the plugin.”
Voila.
Project started.
P U M P E D
(1) Was it @sod? Can’t find the comment that is in my head anywhere!
Into Coops? Fed up with Zoom, Teams, Blue Jeans et al … maybe 🔗 The Online Meeting Cooperative is what you are looking for. Anyone using them?
🔗 Uber settles UK VAT tax bill with HMRC
… Tracking the organizational antichrist - AKA Uber - as I do, I was surprised that I hadn’t hear about this little scam. Glad to see the loop is closed and the noose tightened.
Just been looking at the various options to backing up my MicroBlog. Nice to see that the WayBack machine has been 🔗 quietly doing its job in the background. Not so nice to see how much of a problem there was in 2020 and 2021. ONWARDS.
🔗 If you subscribe to Calm and are into Stoicism.
Discovered this by accident. Calm has a lot of stuff - but they are really bad at offering ways to find it.
The Streamlining continues.
🔗 A new page indexing all of my pages on MicroBlog to reduce menu clutter.
If you know how to
-
remove ‘categories’ (the archive / category page)
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move ‘bookshelf’ from the end of the menu
I sure would appreciate the help. Thankyou.
An 'Unknown' Podcaster - He Sounds Boring - He Is Fascinating
🎵 Despite my initial resistance to the 500 song podcast narrated by 🔗 Andrew Hickey .. I am now moving into my third … first ‘The Monkees’, then ‘Love’, now ‘The Move’. The depth of information flying through the speakers is really quite incredible - thoroughly researched, packed with information - some of which I know - a lot I don’t.
A particular speciality of his is identifying groups that todays’ mega stars played with in the very early days. Examples like when Albert Lee played with Hendrix and Jim Morrison wishing he and The Doors were as good as Love. Or how Graeme Edge and John Bonham both played in the same band - sorry, cant recall who replaced who … and and and … fascinating - and NOT information that is on ‘the wiki’.
So - I did some prodding around to work out who Hickey is - assuming he must have been a music journalist at some point - but no. At least not that I could find. He seems to be a relatively ‘unknown’ creator who writes books and does podcasts.
Interesting that in the search, I came across this review of his podcast : Pismotality: A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs that has one comment - from Andrew Hickey. He spends a little time talking about his accent and deadpan delivery … something I referenced in my first post on him, and it turns out there is a reason.
Anyway - suffice to say - if you love rock and related music genre and want to learn more - particularly about the genesis of the ‘names’ - highly recommend.
🔗 How to Add Chapters to Your Highlights in Readwise with Headings …. it is amazing how much stuff there is under the hood over at #Readwise.
During their two weeks in New Zealand, they caused so much outrage in the media that the New Zealand Parliament addressed the issue of granting entry permits to musicians such as the Pretty Things.
Who knew they were so ‘badass’?
🔗 Podsearch Reborn … from David Smith.
Interesting - and powerful.
This ‘little’ service is a welcome extension to my tool set.
“Don’t expect a TikTok style UI or the ability to subscribe to specific sites like you can in an RSS reader.
💬 Matt Birchler
Artifact didn’t make it to my ‘must try’ list. The implication of 100% AI crosses it off my list completely.
Cringely On ChatGPT
“Cole needed a letter of recommendation recently so he turned to an old family friend who, in turn, used ChatGPT to generate the letter, which he thought was remarkably good.”
🔗 … which in turn prompted Bob Cringely to write this article.. It has all the usual caveats we see in article after article, although this time talking about how ChatGPT was used to generate that letter of recommendation. In Bob’s opinion it lacked the important personal touch. All good, not wrong.
He then writes .. without irony that I can see
“Even if ChatGPT was allowed access to my old friend’s email boxes, it would only learn about his style and almost nothing about Cole, with whom he’s communicated, I think, twice.”
He doesn’t explain how someone without AI help could write a food personal recommendation for someone they have communicated with twice.
If you are following along, you know this is my ‘year of stoicism’ … so of course Existential Comics burst my bubble!
🔗 Getty Images Sues AI Art Generator Stable Diffusion in the U.S. for Copyright Infringement via @gruber
Well this isn’t good, particularly in light of
“Stable Diffusion occasionally produces output with Getty Image’s watermark.”
YIKES
Russell Brand Sucks
I was never a fan of Russell Brand, so hard to say my opinion of him has ‘fallen’.
That was from the start, but his very misplaced prank with Ross on Andrew Sachs sealed it for me.
I also don’t spend much time thinking about Jonathan Ross - but at least he has a tiny spec of talent.
Which is why I enjoyed this short video of 🔗📼 Helen Lewis talking Russell Brand decent into conspiracies and a good analysis of how he - and others of his ilk - ‘do it’.
[April 6: 2025 - sadly - this video has been take private - BUT there is this one …
🔗📼 How Russell Brand became a conspiracy theorist Guru | Helen Lewis
🔗 Canada is coming undone - a report from Al Jazeera. I think this change is happening in a few other countries - but it might not be as obvious. Yet. We need to be vigilant. We need to act.
I always had 🎵 BrandX as ‘Jazz/Fusion’ - but they are sometimes classified as ‘Progressive’. That’s why 🔗 ’genres’ are so hard - if not to say meaningless. Whichever they are - a great listen - delivered courtesy of The Old Grey Whistle Test.