Jack Allnutt @jack@allnutt.net

Quite a few of you are a bit too young to have been on this merry-go-round before. This is a bit that VCs and the punditry do: hype up a new startup, drive its valuation up, "it's the revolutionary next thing"—as opposed to being a second tier feature on existing platforms

The mistake Clubhouse did was not to sell at the peak of the hype curve.

(This is what's called 'hubris'. The other link I just posted is already relevant).

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/13/clubhouse-social-audio-app-leave-membership

"So the Hyperloop, for example, [Musk] admitted to his biographer that the reason [it] was announced—even though he had no intention of pursuing it—was to try to disrupt the California high-speed rail project and to get in the way of that actually succeeding."

source https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valleys-transportation-failures-tesla-waymo-bir-1849382788

Your regular reminder that @ProspectUnion is an excellent Trade Union for people working in tech.

https://prospect.org.uk/join/

Covers private and public sector workers. Has professional & friendly advisors.

Join today!

With much of Europe facing record levels of heat right now it feels like a good time to remind all my trans, nonbinary, and GNC friends:

If you take estrogen you are more sensitive to heat and more prone to heatstroke.

If you also take an SSRI like Citalopram or Sertraline you are even *more * sensitive.

Stay cool and safe, but do NOT stop taking your meds!

The crypto space in a giant cargo cult for geeks.

They mimick the real world, hoping it will finally work.

Crypto currencies is cargo cult of money, NFT is a cargo cult of art market. Web3 is a cargo cult of the web.

None of this work.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

This can only be welcomed.

The #OnlineSafetyBill is a mess, it threatens to implement pervasive monitoring and limit legal speech.

Time for a rethink.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62158287

Also, way too many people in tech (devs, designers, managers, etc.) seem to firmly believe that affordances === clutter, which means that the UX of the apps they work on can never rise above "abysmal".

On the "blockchain isn't decentralized" thing, technically a #blockchain system is distributed redundant storage of a single database. It's not a decentralized database system. But this kind of subtlety in distinction gets lost easily within hype-laden tech journalism.

By sheer volume of hype, blockchain systems were able to appropriate the word "decentralized".

This comes off more as a threat than anything else.

"We have moved on from our nonprofit roots..."

horiffic.

Electricity used to mine bitcoin plummets as crypto crisis widens

> Consumption down by third since 11 June, with even sharper falls among other cryptocurrency networks

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/24/electricity-consumption-mine-bitcoin-plummets-crypto-crisis-widens-cryptocurrency

I am very okay with this. More of this please.

Japanese man loses USB stick with entire city's personal details

The headline positions it as the failing of one person.

What controls, systems, safeguards, and oversight did the company have in place, to ensure this was neither necessary nor possible?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-61921222

The idea that throwing trans people under the bus would mollify the right instead of emboldening the right is delusional

Let's tell a story, hm? This one's from English history. It's the story of that celebrated King of England, King Louis.

What's that? You've never heard of a King Louis of England? Well, that's not surprising. You won't find him on any official list of English monarchs. He's been written out of history.

So let's talk a little about Louis, the king who never was. ( 🧵​ )

IPv6 (please boost when you vote)