Lovely walk and talk in the forest with a friend this afternoon. We talked travel, politics, games, and the joys of back-end infrastructure… all while surrounded by GREEN
#mosstodon #lichensubscribe
I… AM… CANADIAN! 🇨🇦 🦫 🍁
I blazed through the book, and have a lot more thinking to do, but am glad I could spend some more time processing by listening to this excellent conversation:
It me
Coffee time ☕️
Last night I started The Armageddon Protocol by @danmoren.com 📚
This is the final book of his Galactic Cold War series. Congrats to Dan who I have listened to for years on The Incomparable. 👏👏👏
Only a few more letters needed for the Internet Society’s campaign against Bill S-210 which jeopardizes user privacy and encryption. If you are in Canada it only takes a minute to add your voice:
Started The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The first chapter is a breath-taking departure essay for the book on the purpose of writing — in one word: clarity. I can see how this projected started as his “On Writing” or “Why I Write”. 📚
Ghetts is a master craftsman. I have been listening to him non-stop for the last month. I remember him from back in the day, but only recently came back to his newer work which is amazingly intricate. Levels! Who else on the UK Drill scene has this level of wordplay that I should be checking out?
I did the thing! #cdnpoli #bcelxn
Woke up from a dream that I was still at the conference, meeting with all the people that I didn’t get a chance to talk to. 🥰
Look who’s back 🇨🇦
🚈🚄✈️✈️🚝🚝🚌
BER → FRA → YVR
Goodbye Germany! It was fun!
Check out the list of participants in the #OpenSourcePledge #opensource
“Hoi, chummer! Slot your hoop and get ready to dance with the chrome. This sprawl’s got more heat than a dragon’s drekhole, so keep your wits jacked and your nuyen close. Welcome to the Big Smoke - time to run silent, run deep.” 👨🎤
Some shots of the Festival of Light in #Berlin tonight down at Alexanderplatz
Causal Islands Berlin
“What if people could just… do things?”
This was one of the themes of Causal Islands Berlin, the fourth iteration of the “Future of Computing” conference, and the first one to take place in Europe.
I flew out from Vancouver last week to reconnect with some old friends and meet new potential collaborators. I have been involved with CI since the beginning but this was the first one I could attend in person. The Hallway Track is legendary, and I can tell you I made so many great connections here in Berlin!
The talks covered the technical and the artistic, and there was an underlying message of keeping the bar to participate low so that more people can engage with technology on their terms: less power to giant centralized corporations, less siloing of our information, less intrusive surveillance, less disparity. But this is about more than merely the individual, it is about computing with our communities. To paraphrase one of the presenters (an actual poet who said this much better than I can reproduce here):
I want to co-train and co-own an LLM model with my friends. I would love to see me in their work and them in my work, since this is already happening.
💞
More local control, more agency, more flexibility, more room to remix and reform and customize software, more collaborating with friends, more parody and jokes, and many more experiments. More of what we saw on the Causal Islands stage.
The videos of the talks will be released in the next few weeks. I can’t wait to share them!
Thank you to all the attendees and supporters of Causal Islands. I look forward to continued discussion on the Causal Islands Discord, and I look forward to the next event!
(You can see some more snaps on Bluesky)
DJ party at the cafe in Berlin
What’s gud, peasants?
CURRENT STATUS: Baroque
Feeling terribly jet lagged? Some Classic Quebec Poutine will help right? Right?
