Technology

21.11.2024 EU Politics / Technology

Ursula von der Leyen – now officially on Bluesky (and some lessons so you can trust what you read on that network)

Back in October 2023, when Bluesky was a fledgling invite-only network, I set up the account @vonderleyen.bsky.social for a few reasons (and I wrote about the experiment then). First, it seemed like a reasonable bet that Bluesky would grow into

25.10.2024 Technology

Bluesky, we don’t get fooled again, the sequel

Just over a year ago I wrote this post, drawing on lyrics from The Who and the Rolling Stones to explain my lingering scepticism about Bluesky. After being fooled by Elon Musk, should we trust Bluesky? I wasn’t fully convinced

05.09.2024 Technology

Repairing a Gaggia Classic switch – using generic parts, and a 3D-printed mount

A Gaggia Classic coffee machine – the second I have owned – has sat in my kitchen since 2013, reliably making espresso coffee every day since. It is however one of the original pre-2009 Classics (see the different generations in

07.08.2024 Technology

So you really want to quit Twitter/X now? Your super quick guide to get started on Mastodon or Bluesky

OK, so you’re really, really sick of Musk’s antics now and finally want to make the leap to something else. Here’s your super quick guide how to do so. Do you need to close your Twitter account? Your choice, but

16.02.2024 Technology

Where do we do digital EU politics now?

When Donald Tusk, then President of the European Council, wanted to send a public message to set the tone of the Brexit negotiations in 2018 – he took to Twitter, and quoted Freddie Mercury. It was clever, it was culturally

27.01.2024 Technology

Building an efficient and low cost photo workflow with Photos for Mac

I have long struggled to design a smooth and efficient workflow for the photos and videos I take on an everyday basis. I had combinations of photos stored in the cloud and stored locally, was spending too much on cloud

08.12.2023 Technology

Should I join Threads?

No. Is that it? Pretty much. If you have done even basic thinking about the issue, that ought to be the answer. Can you explain this in graphical form? Sort of – there’s a flow diagram here in the post.

27.11.2023 Technology

Twitter tipping points

Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo has today announced she is leaving Twitter/X (her announcement in Le Monde here, news story from Politico here). I think she rather overdoes the rhetoric, but that’s not the central point – she is an

16.11.2023 Technology

We’ve got a broken social web (or at least the bits of it I liked are broken) – and I don’t know what to do

I somehow stumbled across this 2016 piece by Giles Wilkes last week. The economic blogosphere, he writes, is like “eavesdropping on clever people arguing”. Those words are perfect, and if you can get past the paywall, the whole piece is

11.10.2023 Technology

Ursula von der Leyen on Bluesky – and how institutions need to think about verification on new social networks

NOTE: this post has been superseded by this one. However the post below has been left unedited – it is as it was on 11 October 2023! Yesterday a post popped up on my timeline on Twitter alternative Bluesky purporting

25.09.2023 Technology

From The Who to The Rolling Stones – or why I will not trust Bluesky just yet

Change, it had to come We knew it all along We were liberated from the fold, that’s all And the world looks just the same And history ain’t changed […] We don’t get fooled again So the classic lines by