Status:

Hot again. Not heatwave-hot but still a bit sweaty. Resigned to taking it easy this week with just one little thing happening on Thursday afternoon.

Had both great-nephs over briefly this afternoon. Younger G wanted to see all the things and stroke the rabbits. Older M was a bit burned out but still chatty. We’ve agreed to do some uncle/aunting over the next few weeks so looking forward to seeing them.

Have taken the first step towards a special Sunday edition of this newsletter. Will be monitoring how much work it takes.

Reading:

• Your Ring camera isn’t stopping crime. But it might be making you paranoid. — US based research but the tech is the same so it’s mostly applicable to the UK, I feel. I have a theory that the main participants on neighbourhood group chats are people who don’t go out much, mostly because I’ve seen my engagement on ours grow since I’ve been homebound, and I’m sure that context filter affects how we perceive our neighbourhood. I also think I’ve seen a correlation between those neighbours who exhibit a more paranoid and defensive attitude with those who post clips from their doorbell spy cameras. But due to my inability at the moment to engage outside of the house I wouldn’t want to draw too much inference on the effect this tech is having. I might share this link to the group chat though…
• Man’s legal e-bike seized and destroyed by police — The test the police used is bizarre in how it totally misunderstands what it’s trying to test. If this is a targeted crackdown on what is definitely an actual problem (unlicensed electric motorbikes masquerading as assisted pedal bikes), and not just a random stop, the training is clearly pitiful. Also, features one of my mates from the Bike Foundry.
• The lost joy of music piracy — The rise and fall of music piracy and how it changed the music industry while also not really changing the music industry is a long and complicated story with many villains across the board, but I think it’s worth remembering, in this era of fetishising vinyl and record shops, that the pre-internet music industry was corrupt as fuck and hardly any artists made a living from it. “Artists are the ones being mistreated, while the middlemen are making a ton of money. There’s this whole world where people exist just to show up in the middle and take a big chunk of the money from something they had no part in creating." True since the advent of recorded music.
• Miliband has been relentlessly attacked for net zero; what will happen now? — I was a bit dispirited to see Miliband moved away from his energy role since he’s been remarkably effective at kickstarting the decarbonisation of the UK despite determined lobbying by Sauron’s forces. On the plus side, as foreign secretary he can take this effectiveness to the international stage and his replacement has been promoted from inside the department ensuring some continuity. Plus the renewables ball is rolling now and will be hard to stop. Fingers crossed.