Author: Paul

  • Interview with Mastodon creator, Eugen Rochko

    Interview with Mastodon creator, Eugen Rochko

    Nilay Patel interviewed Mastodon’s creator, Eugen Rochko recently. Listening to Rochko reinforces Mastodon’s importance to me, and why a distributed and open social network like this is so important both today and in the foreseeable future. I recommend listening to the interview and/or reading the transcript.

  • Interview with Stephan Ango, Obsidian CEO

    Interview with Stephan Ango, Obsidian CEO

    I really enjoyed Nicole can der Hoeven’s and Andy Polaine’s interview with Stephan Ango (aka kepano), Obsidian’s CEO, recently.

  • Imagine if Israel’s government was sincere about democracy

    Imagine if Israel’s government was sincere about democracy

    Imagine for a moment an alternate reality where the current Israel government under Benjamin Netanyahu is sincere in its stated desire to bolster democracy in Israel? What could they do with the pretty substantial majority they received in our recent elections?

  • The People’s Directive – An Alternative To The Anti-Democratic Judicial Overhaul Program

    The People’s Directive – An Alternative To The Anti-Democratic Judicial Overhaul Program

    Isaac Herzog, Israel’s President, announced an alternative to the current government’s anti-democratic judicial overhaul program, called the People’s Directive. This is the culmination of weeks of discussions between the President and various stakeholders in Israeli society in response to the current government’s judicial overhaul program that is almost certainly going to cripple the Israeli judiciary…

  • How to respond to batsh*t crazy political environments

    How to respond to batsh*t crazy political environments

    I have been struggling with how to respond to/handle/cope with the current batsh*t crazy political environment in Israel. Particularly the so-called “Judicial Reform” legislation that our current government is pushing forward at a rapid pace. I asked ChatGPT how it suggests a Stoic would respond to this. It seemed to offer pretty sensible advice.

  • Learning from others with RSS

    Learning from others with RSS

    I placed more emphasis on RSS feeds when Twitter started its Musk-infused decent into madness, as an healthier way to keep up to date with the news sources and people I follow. Rather than heading to Twitter to scroll through my curated Twitter lists, I started spending even more time in my RSS feeds in…

  • A real Democracy has checks and balances

    A real Democracy has checks and balances

    Democracy has been on my mind a lot lately with the current Israeli government’s moves to “reform” our Judiciary, and essentially cripple it in the process. The consequences of this for our democracy will be devastating.

  • I’m feeling anti-social today so I had a chat with ChatGPT about this

    I’m feeling anti-social today so I had a chat with ChatGPT about this

    Today feels like one of those days when I don’t really feel like much social interaction. I thought I’d see what ChatGPT had to say. It actually helped chatting to the bot, even though I know it is a generative AI.