Bill Bennett
Ben Werdmuller and Manton Reece prefer the term social web to Fediverse.
This makes perfect sense to me. Social web does a far better job telling you what to expect, Fediverse is far more abstract.
Will be spending the next couple of days covering the Building Nations conference for the NZ Herald. e
If I get irritating unsolicited email I don’t bother unsubscribing, I just send it straight to the spam folder. Many of the swine ignore unsubscribe anyway. Others use it to verify the address then trade it with other spammers. Sending it to spam trains my mail sorting algorithm and can train your mail provider so you’re doing everyone a favour.
What is the inverse of nominative determinism?
Cognitive dissonance:
On one hand my inner music snob is appalled by the idea of tribute bands.
On the other hand, if you listen closely, a lot of excellent, well known acts are stealth tribute bands. For instance there’s a lot of Beatles tunes and ideas hidden in Oasis' best albums.
My homemade Chicken Mulligatawny soup is a favourite in our house. I worried that my recipe was too inauthentic to even be considered Mulligatawny, but apparently the concept is quite loose, so there’s plenty of leeway.
Pinging social media
When I post a new story on my main website: [billbennett.co.nz ](billbennett.co.nz ), it pings Micro.blog which, in turn, works Fediverse magic to ping Mastodon and BlueSky.
What’s interesting is that Micro.blog picks up the ping immediately. Even when at its slowest we are talking about a few seconds.
On the other hand there are always delays going from Micro.blog to Mastodon and BlueSky. Usually a few minutes… but they can be much longer. The worst I’ve noticed is around 100 minutes.
I’d be interested if you have any insight into why this can be so variable.
When people say “things are turning to custard” they mean that’s a bad thing, but I love custard. I’d be quite happy - and probably full - if everything really did turn to custard,
Looking at the diary on my laptop, I can see I have written “save this date” on the Wednesday two weeks from now. Which is good… or it would be if only I could remember what it was that I’m saving the date for.
It’s coming up to 2 years since I left Twitter and I still can’t decide whether Mastodon or Bluesky is the better alternative. Bluesky has more activity, more of my colleagues and readers. Mastodon has a different vibe and subject focus. Neither is as good as Twitter was for story leads. Looks like I need to stick with both for now.
Have an “AI-powered” HP Omnibook for a short-term loan. The hardware looks and feels great.
This is the first time in a couple of years that I’ve attempted to get work done with Windows 11 after moving back to MacOS about 10 years ago and I’m feeling overwhelmed by Windows' built-in distractions.
Here’s a question for the sad folk who defend Morris Dancing.
Ask yourself why the English Rugby Team doesn’t do a Morris Dance before a Test Match.
A correction
There’s a small correction in this week’s newsletter.
I was looking at last year’s Commerce Commission Telecommunications Monitoring Report while writing about this year’s report and inadvertently used last year’s Starlink numbers in the original text of this week’s newsletter.
You may wonder why I was looking at last year’s report. Well… there may be a interesting story there, but it needs more fact checking a research before I go into print.
“She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy She sat like Patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.” — Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 4
I notice SkyTV has finally decided to inflict its banal advertising on its Premier League channel. The degradation of streaming video continues.
I made about 1.5 litres of over-baked rice pudding this afternoon. We’ve already eaten about a third of it.
Do you remember when “Sensitive New Age Guy” was a thing?
I bet they’re now all making anitvax YouTube videos, wearing MAGA caps and collecting weapons for the next assault on democracy.
I’m back on the New Zealand Tech Podcast:
This week we talk a lot about surveillance and a little bit about what happened when Huawei was pushed out of the local phone network equipment market.
There is more on the Huawei story at my site:
I suspect the reason tech billionaires don’t invest in developing time machines is because they worry will someone will use them to go back in time and make sure their parents never meet.
I’ve just realised it is halfway through winter and I still haven’t needed to wear my toasty winter jacket so far this year.
Nine-to-Noon
Was on RNZ Nine-to-Noon this morning talking about the tax that hurts New Zealand’s technology sector, the AI bubble burst and Google illegally abusing its monopoly.
I can find great Chinese style egg custard tarts all over Auckland, and many bakeries do the English style ones with crumbly pastry, but the Portuguese ones seem to have gone out of fashion. Any recent sightings?
Feeling sad. I’m clearing out old iPhone messages stored in iCloud, they go back over a decade. And I’ve noticed just how many of my friends, colleagues and work contacts are no longer with us. It feels somehow wrong deleting their messages even if they just say “meet you by the lifts at 11:00”.
