I’d like to offer up two very personal musings inspired by the process which led me to my new role.
Musings
Because everyone is entitled to my opinion.
The world’s most dangerous tech project
It might be yours.
How to create a world as age appropriate as apple pie
One of the many problems I have with the UK government’s determination to build an “age appropriate” internet that will be the “safest place in the world to be online” is that this goal is entirely subjective and inachievable. It attempts to create internet regulation through undefined emotive rhetoric.
A tweet conversation this morning has spurred me to pour a cup of tea and share this story about what happens when “age appropriate” is allowed to become a subjective and politicised decision, nodded through by authority, about how information should be delivered – and filtered – to the young people who need it the most.
One perfect shot
Only a fellow Glaswegian, being Clicky Steve, could have composed this photo. It’s me nailing my conference talk in Paris three years ago today.
Tech policy reading suggestions for bored wonks
As long as you’re going to be out of the game for a while, here are some tech/policy/tech policy reading suggestions off my shelves.
Conference talk: WordPress’s role in a changing web
I delivered the following talk this morning at WordCamp Vienna 2020. Entitled “WordPress’s role in a changing web”, I wanted to explain how fragile the open web is becoming, share a case study in how to keep it open, and spell out why the time for the WordPress project to act is now.
About that WordPress autoupdates thing.
There was a call for comments ahead of this weekend’s scheduled panel discussion at WCUS on the autoupdates plan. I’ve been asked to respond to it from my perspective, so I will.
Castles and unicorns: my legacy to the WordPress community
One of my proudest professional achievements was selecting and wrangling speakers for three years of WordCamp Edinburgh. Over the past week, videos of 2017’s talks and most of 2018’s talks have been posted at wordpress.tv.
What I’ll be working on in 2019
Better late than never – I blame the Scottish winter darkness – I would like to share what I will be working on this year, who I will be working with, and what I would like to focus on.
Talking about the future of the open web and open source
Yesterday I had the absolute privilege of joining Dries Buytaert (Drupal), DB Hurley (Joomla! and Mautic), Barb Palser (Google), and Tim Lehnen (Drupal Association) for a panel discussion on the future of the open web and open source at Drupal Europe in Darmstadt, Germany.
On speaker travel expenses, or, why enough is enough
A couple of months ago my life fell apart in a morning. Being self-employed, I had two figures in the bank, which wasn’t enough to be able to afford a … Read more
HeroPress: Going back to my roots
And that’s how I got here. https://heropress.com/essays/going-back-roots/