<![CDATA[Mark Smith’s Newsletter]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2V-y!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fmarkjgsmith.substack.com%2Fimg%2Fsubstack.pngMark Smith’s Newsletterhttps://markjgsmith.substack.comSubstackSun, 12 Apr 2026 17:24:17 GMT<![CDATA[Back in the Europe (Issue #199)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/saturday-5th-april-2025-back-in-thehttps://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/saturday-5th-april-2025-back-in-theSat, 05 Apr 2025 04:46:03 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Finally it’s the start of season 3!

So many things have happened since issue #198.

That was way back in early January. I was in a police station in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It was really kind of narly. A whole bunch of stuff happened to me after that. Some good, some bad, and a lot very very strange. I’m not sure how much I can write about it yet, but to cut a long story short, 3 months later, I am back in Europe. I got back 7 days ago, and very happy to be back. Spring time is wonderful in Europe, even if it’s quite chilly sometimes.

During those 3 months, I got to spend time with people from all over the world. British, american, russian, swedish, australian, nigerian, cameroonian, chinese, bangladeshi, pakistani, sri lankan, indonesian, south korean, cambodian, and lithuanian. And of course vietnamese. It was the strangest of times, often very difficult, but we helped each other as best we could, and kept each other sane.

My take aways from the experience: Never take your freedom for granted. Do more stuff, every single day. Live life more, every single day. There are so many things that you can do. True boredom really really sucks. It’s corny, but every day really is precious. And stay healthy. Do a small amount of exercise every single morning before you start the day.

I’m safe and healthy, and looking to start a new chapter. I just wanted to get back on the newsletter publishing horse as soon as possible.

I wrote 3 blog posts the past few days:

  • Back in Europe https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/04/01/back-in-europe

  • Setup on Android https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/04/03/setup-on-android

  • Android annoyances https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/04/03/android-annoyances

  • Android setup useful links https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/04/04/android-setup-useful-links

Moving from iOS to Android is quite a change, lots of annoyances, but also lots of stuff I quite like.

Here are the last few podcasts I’ve listenned to:

  • Francis Foster and Konstantine Kisin Ep#2297 (Joe Rogan Experience Podcast) https://l1nk.dev/o6aSI

  • ICE Detention (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver) https://acesse.one/sAuXA

  • The AI Cold War, Signalgate, Coreweave IPO, Tariff End Games, El Salvador Deportations (All-In Podcast) https://podcastindex.org/podcast/1015378?episode=35422858235

  • Trump Tariffs the World (Rabbit Hole Recap Podcast) https://podcastindex.org/podcast/5436375?episode=35658392291

  • Rollup: Trump Tariff Crash, Circle IPO, Coreweave IPO, FDIC Crypto Green Light (Bankless Podcast) https://www.bankless.com/podcast/trumps-tariff-announcement-sends-markets-tumbling

Much love and peace to all :)

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Maybe the end of Season 2? (Issue #198)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/maybe-the-end-of-season-2-issue-198https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/maybe-the-end-of-season-2-issue-198Sat, 11 Jan 2025 05:45:32 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

Thing’s are extremely hectic where I am. I’m not going to have time to put the newsletter together properly this week. I’m not even sure where I’ll be by tomorrow, so I’m just going to put together what blog posts and podcasts I have and schedule the issue for tomorrow while I still can. It’s Friday morning as I write this.

Here are the blog posts I wrote. Quite a few this week:

  • Starmer first podcasting prime minister?https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/01/04/starmer-first-podcasting-prime-minister

  • Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the importance of digital communication https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/01/06/volodymyr-zelenskyy-in-the-importance-of-digital-communication

  • Git complains about a non-existent branch while npm installing https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/01/07/git-complains-about-a-non-existent-branch-while-npm-installing

  • Physics is so weird https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/01/07/physics-is-so-weird

  • What has happened with the FED, money printing and debt creation? https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/01/07/what-has-happened-with-the-fed-money-printing-and-debt-creation

  • Why right leaning folks should listen to the Rest is Politics https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/01/08/why-right-leaning-folks-should-listen-to-the-rest-is-politics

  • Pressure cooker world https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/01/08/pressure-cooker-world

  • Elon vs the UK https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/01/09/elon-vs-the-uk

  • Last minute addition: Captivity Notes: Fri 10th Jan 2025 https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/01/10/captivity-notes-fri-10th-jan-2025

The last one there goes into some detail about what’s happened to me in the past 24 hours. I’m currently sitting writing this in a small local police station in HCMC near Le Van Tam park. It’s very confusing, I really don’t know what’s going to happen to me.

I’ve been stuck in Vietnam since COVID, I ran out of money during the lockdown which went on for months and months, and therefore have been outside for 4 years now, that was the start of season 2. It’s been horrendous. So that’s where this weeks issue title comes from. Maybe season 2 will finally end. But right now it’s really not clear what’s going to happen, will I finally be set free or will they trap me even more?

I just want somebody else to know, please read if you enjoy these newsletter issues I’ve been preparing for years at this stage. Any ideas gladly received. I don’t know what else to do.

Any donations would be very much appreciated:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

I hope you are all well.

And here’s the podcasts selection:

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Blocked (Issue #197)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/blocked-issue-197https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/blocked-issue-197Sat, 04 Jan 2025 05:45:51 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

I had planned on finishing up the newsletter tomorrow morning, but I’m being blocked from sleeping so it’s looking very likely that’s no longer going to be possible. I prepared the list of podcasts earlier today (it’s Friday night), so there will at least be that.

Not much else to add, quite sad to start off 2025 like this, the newsletter is one of the last things that I have. The world has taken nearly everything else. Hopefully next week’s issue will be better, hopefully the world will allow.

I wrote some blog posts:

  • Happy New Year 2025! https://markjgsmith.com/2024/12/27/best-blog-posts-of-2024

  • Elon Musk’s $200 million Reform donation https://markjgsmith.com/2025/01/01/elon-musks-$200-million-reform-donation

  • Better debug logging https://markjgsmith.com/2025/01/02/better-debug-logging

  • Be the change you want to see in the world https://markjgsmith.com/2025/01/03/be-the-change-you-want-to-see-in-the-world

I was quite happy with the NYE post. The theme this week appears to be change.

Any donations would be great. Please donate :)

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

The podcast selection…

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Happy New Year 2025! (Issue #196)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/happy-new-year-2025-issue-196https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/happy-new-year-2025-issue-196Sat, 28 Dec 2024 05:45:40 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

There a lot in this issue. Huge in variety, quality and volume. It’s definitely Christmas :)

What a crazy year it’s been, with all the politics and the AI stuff and alien drones and quantum computing and bitcoin and crypto. And so much other things. It’s been a real rollercoaster. I think a lot of people are pumped and optimistic about next year. Let’s hope for the best.

I wrote some blog posts, but unfortunately you’ll have to wait until my build minutes reset at the end of the month, cause I can’t publish them to the website until then.

  • Replacing SaaS with AI agents https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/12/23/replacing-saas-with-ai-agents

  • The imminent AI vs SaaS war https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/12/24/the-imminent-ai-vs-saas-war

  • Is Russia is asking the US to dance? https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/12/26/is-russia-asking-the-us-to-dance

  • Best blog posts of 2024 https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/12/27/best-blog-posts-of-2024

The best blog posts of 2024 has some good reads but also a lot of great interviews and things to listen to. So look out for that in a few days. Something to get you through the last few days of the holidays.

Any new year’s donations for the new laptop fund would of course be amazing and much appreciated. Please donate :)

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Okay…here’s this week’s podcast selection…

The newsletter description has a brief summary of the main topics, dig in, you are bound to find something entertaining or fascinating or indeed both.

Happy New Year to you all and best wishes for 2025!

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Maybe Pork and Rice (Issue #195)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/maybe-pork-and-rice-issue-195https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/maybe-pork-and-rice-issue-195Sat, 21 Dec 2024 05:45:47 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

It’s shaping up to be another full starvation week, so I’m back to preparing the newsletter in advance. It’s only Wednesday as I write this, but I likely won’t have any power or water by the weekend. Just want to make sure something gets sent out.

I wrote a few blog posts:

  • Inbound RSS for social media? https://markjgsmith.com/blogs/2024/12/14/inbound-rss-for-social-media

  • Hello RSS clarity https://markjgsmith.com/blogs/2024/12/16/hello-rss-clarity

  • Cory Doctorow on data portability in social networks https://markjgsmith.com/blogs/2024/12/17/cory-doctorow-on-data-portability-in-social-networks

  • Sorry about the feeds https://markjgsmith.com/blogs/2024/12/17/sorry-about-the-feed

There’s been a lot of RSS this week for whatever reason.

It’s Christmas so obviously any donations to help me buy a laptop and escape this horrid enslavement, by what is likely some sort of offshoot of the censorship industrial complex, would of course be amazing and much appreciated. Please donate :)

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Here‘s the podcast selection so far this week, hopefully you’ll all find something in there to get you through the holidays:

I’ll add more pods and some commentary / analysis at the end of the week if the week takes a turn for the better.

Remember if it all gets too much, in the overall scheme of things, we are all essentially nothing, every single one of us.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1868859772092793078?s=46&t=bRj2Jcps7ZVVYpFA7ISZ1A

But we exist nonetheless, so that’s nice. And things will probably get better :)

Update 1: I added a podcast! Stephen Fry on free speech.

Update 2: I added another 2 podcasts! One on the very fascinating stuff around strategic bitcoin reserves, geopolitics and world monetary base update. The other is just a very good RHR episode. Lots of things to feel positive about in both of these.

Update 3: I added another podcast! There’s a great segment on the latest ATP podcast about new camera tech released for shooting content for the Apple Vision Pro. Just when you thought it had fallen by the wayside, maybe it’s about to get interesting.

Update 4: From this morning’s daily blog:

“Another bit of good news, I already prepared the newsletter, that’s a relief because I'm very low on energy today. But it’s not a good relief because I was forced to prepare it early because the week has been so narly. That means the issue is lower quality than usual. It’s piecemeal, with bits added in fits and starts, as the universe allowed, and since it’s been a week of stop start race conditions, the newsletter has that in it too. And frankly that makes me sad because there is so much good content but my newsletter isn’t able to present it in an appealing way. It just feels like a few small piles of unloved garbage.”

All the best to all you out there, hoping your Christmas goes well.

Update 5: Last minute addition!

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Memeplexes, Podcasting & the Movies (Issue #194)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/memeplexes-podcasting-and-the-movieshttps://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/memeplexes-podcasting-and-the-moviesSat, 14 Dec 2024 05:45:36 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

I feel like this week has been all about the media the past, the present and the future. Given that Christmas is on the horizon, quite fitting I suppose. In “the olden days” it was all about stylishly cool violent movies, and shocking heavy metal music. The present it’s all about freeform intellectual conversations piped straight into your earways, and the future is all about angels, demons, memeplexes and talking to the internet. Also crypto bitcoin AI blockchain. Yes it’s a very fucking strange Christmas carol, but maybe it’s progress.

The whole time I was growing up, we were repeatedly promised flying cars. They were always just around the corner. And we had all watched the Back To The Future trilogy, so it seemed plausible. I remember thinking how amazing things were going to be in the year 2000. That was 24 years ago! We still don’t really have flying cars do we.

The funny thing is that the futurism industrial complex, surely at this stage it has turned into an industrial complex, hasn’t stopped. No infact it’s going through somewhat of a renaissance with ever more outlandish claims. Self driving cars, exploring the solar system, colonising the galaxy! And it all kind of seems plausible and just around the corner. I’m getting a strange sense of dejas vue.

Yet there is a lot of cool new shit. Certainly when it comes to software. And I’m into it. But I’m weary of it. You’ve got folks talking about techno god demon memeplexes powered by crypto AI and I’m like, hmm is this such a good idea? Maybe we should go outside a bit more, ride bikes and skateboards, poke things with sticks, kick some tin cans. I struggle with all this because I want both. I want the old ways, they were pretty cool, but I also want the new stuff, they are the future.

So this week’s podcast selection is pretty awesome. It’s a real mix of everything. We are bursting at the cultural seems, constantly. I wonder whether there will be a change of pace, a move towards simplicity, not just in technology, but in culture. We used to have a different “scene” every 10 years or so, but that doesn’t appear to be happening anymore. I wonder what it’s like growing up in all this. I bet it’s quite confusing.

I’ve made some good progress on my static site generator and website. I’ve overhauled the underlying HTML structure, getting rid of unnecessary tags, and just generally simplifying and tidying things. I’m quite happy about it. I think there might be some issues still with the RSS feeds. Items look a bit strange, with HTML tags appearing in the posts. I’ll have to wait till the end of the month to fix that as I’m running very low on build minutes.

I wrote a couple of blog posts:

  • Earnie C. from Body Count on Gate Keepers https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/12/12/earnie-c-from-body-count-on-gate-keepers

  • You will like your default reality https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/12/13/you-will-like-your-default-reality

One looks at the past and is positive and upbeat, the other looks at the future and is kind of dystopian. Life is full of ups and downs, but the world keeps on turning.

I’ll keep doing what I can to make heads or tails of it all. Hopefully there’s some insight in these words I write. I’m still struggling to buy a new laptop. If you see value here, please donate! :) It really does make a difference. Thank you.

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Loads of great podcasts this week…

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Censorship, AI Memecoins, 100K BTC, Time & the Ruliad (Issue #193)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/censorship-ai-memecoins-100k-btchttps://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/censorship-ai-memecoins-100k-btcSat, 07 Dec 2024 05:45:45 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

This week felt a bit like we were slowly returning to normality following the US elections. I’m not convinced normality has been completely restored yet, but there was a bit less emphasis on tangled world politics and interesting tech stuff has started to reappear.

Oh and of course the big news in crypto is that Bitcoin broke through $100000 per coin! That’s pretty huge. The bull run continues. Bitcoin has quadrupled in value in just the past several months.

Loads and loads of awesome podcasts in this week’s selection.

From crazy, jaw dropping, even chilling large scale state censorship in the US and globally, to futuristic seemingly sentient AIs building, shilling and pumping memecoins, through to $100K bitcoin happiness, and on to the mind bending realities that underpin why exactly you should get a watch, and why talking to clouds is probably off the cards, at least for a little while.

The big eye opener was Rogan’s Mike Benz interview. It’s totally mindboggling, I’m still trying to get my head around it. He lays out in plain english the censorship industry that has developed over the past few decades, but that we’ve only really become fully aware of during this last US election cycle.

He outlines the structure and dynamics of a web of institutions, NGOs, universities, government agencies, organisations, foundations, programs, civil society non profits, insurgent groups, research centres, psychological operations, public relations shops, councils, and narratives that together form what he refers to as the censorship industrial complex. A sort of society wide immune system that controls what information we can consume, initially built and aimed to promote US interests abroad, but that has been repurposed to control things domestically, favouring those in power.

I imagine it would be a little bit like discovering for the first time that films have special effects, having never been allowed to watch the end credits, and then reading that there are companies and institutes and networks of thousands of people working on each film, with very specific job roles creating 2D & 3D fake graphics, except it’s not a film, it’s that but with real frigging life! WTF world?

One thing to note, Marty Bent from the Rabbit Hole Recap podcast mentioned that Benz had gotten some of the details about Telegram’s encryption wrong. I didn’t hear that part, it was hectic where I was listening in some places so could have easily missed it. I haven’t had a chance to go back and listen to it. It’s a bit odd to get that sort of detail incorrect if you are putting out this massive thesis. Also worth mentioning that the epicness of all this is somewhat odd. Wouldn’t you expect this sort of information to come out in drips and drabs? I dunno, maybe it has been.

It’s a really crazy world. Very curious to see what the general reaction to all this is.

AI memecoins feature in this week’s issue again, they are definitely trending. It’s all certainly very interesting but it feels kind of fringe to me, and very very speculative. I think something like nation states and companies starting Bitcoin strategic reserves would have a bigger impact right now. Worth being aware of though.

Bitcoin breaking through $100K has been quite special. So many people had been working towards this for many years. It’s almost like there’s a whole industry that has built up around it or something. I’m getting a strange sense of dejas vue. That doesn’t very often happen all within a single issue of the newsletter! How odd. Normality next week hopefully. Then who knows maybe the much fabled season 3. Funny old world isn’t it?

Then there’s Stephen Wolfram and his theories about time. His stuff is kinda out there. It’s firmly in the tech and science spheres, but it’s far out enough to be bordering with science fiction and even religion. I struggle with some of his ideas, especially the notion that space has atoms, distinct from the atoms that make up matter. That seems very odd to me. I think it’s a bit like if the universe was a giant cardboard box that contained all the matter in the entire universe. So what he’s saying is that the stuff is made of matter, which is made of regular atoms, and if you thought that the cardboard box was made of matter too, well maybe, but turns out there’s another secret box that the cardboard box is inside, and that secret box is made of totally different kinds of atoms. Space atoms! It’s a box for the box!

I’m probably getting that wrong in some way, I’m not a physicist, but it’s still fascinating.

I’m not trying to be funny, but there’s definitely a strange fractal thing going on in this issue. Don’t you think?

Anyway, as well as the double box thing, there’s a whole thing about what he calls the Ruliad and rulial space. That I have less issues thinking about for whatever reason. It’s a the space of all possible simple base rules that give rise to what we observe the universe to be. The fascinating thing is that it takes into account that we ourselves are inside the ruliad and makes predictions that there could be other entities that exist in totally different parts of rulial space, and in fact it might be very difficult to speak to those entities. Anyway if you want to chat with aliens you’d going to need a ruliad. Or at least vaguely understand what they are. Worth listening to even if you don’t fully understand it all.

By the way the Irish politics stuff is buried away in the Syria Rest is Politics episode. I have no idea why they neglected to mention it in their show title and description. It’s a great segment, very informative, even if Rory and Alistair hate the Irish so much they would try to bury their elections underneath the battle for Syria. I hope they were just been dumb arses.

As for me, I’ve actually gotten quite a lot of development work done this week. I managed to finish the big website feature I had been working on the past 2 months. All posts on the everything page now have hash links that look like #. They link to the article in the archive and are a way to tell that it’s the end of the article. It’s a small but very important feature. I’ve also completed about 6 smaller follow on features. So I’m feeling pretty good about that.

Just one blog post this week. It goes into a bit of depth on the item hash links feature I just mentioned:

  • Finished the item hash link feature https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/12/02/finished-the-item-hash-link-feature

I’ve also been writing daily notes on the website. They are kind of mental, as life is kind of mental for me at the minute. And so it goes.

If you are feeling a bit out of sorts with all this fractal craziness, a great way to get over it is to donate to the newsletter. The knowledge that you have made a huge difference in somebody else’s life actually stabilises the fractal! For everyone, because the newsletter will get loads better. It will also help massively with my posture. I really really would like to be typing this with all my fingers on an actual keyboard with real physical buttons. That would be a dream come true. Please donate! :) Thank you.

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Podcasts

The Flying Frisby
Danes, Dykes, and Denarii: How Did The Pound Come About?
“If once you have paid him the Dane-geld, You never get rid of the Dane…
Listen now
a year ago · 40 likes · Dominic Frisby

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Gargantuan Change (Issue #192)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/gargantuan-change-issue-192https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/gargantuan-change-issue-192Sat, 30 Nov 2024 05:45:54 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

It’s a little bit of an odd week in that there’s so much going on post elections that it’s all very chaotic, and there isn’t an obvious through line, an obvious narrative as it were.

Having said that, I can see that it’s really a moment of gargantuan change, like enormous tides are changing and many many places throughout the economy and societies are in flux. And it’s all happening as the bitcoin and crypto bull market is getting going. There’s both many people very enthusiastic about the future and many people very confused about the future. There’s also a lot of new information emerging about questionable practices that have been going on.

The tea leaves still have to settle.

In all this frothiness there were some really phenomenal podcasts this week. Honestly some of the best I’ve listened to in a while. If you are able to spend some time to listen to even just a few from this week’s selection you’ll get a sense for all that is happening. Crypto, memecoins, AI and tech in general are really transforming things enormously. And there are massive changes in politics, business and money all around the world too. Exciting times.

I think my favourites this week would have to be the Freddie New, Marc Andreessen and Javier Milei interviews. UK politics and money, the US tech scene, and the global shift in politics. All fascinating. The Javier Milei one is a bit weird at first because it’s translated from Spanish by a Milei AI, but actually it’s pretty darn good and after a while you totally forget it’s an AI translation. It was a really great week for interviews.

I’ve been waiting for my build minutes to reset so I can publish to the website. It’s Friday as I write this, so should be later today. Lots of code I’ll need to merge and test over the weekend.

I did write a few sort of interesting blog posts, at least I think so:

  • Bitter sweet symphony this life https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/11/26/bitter-sweet-symphony-this-life

  • Our strange AI angels and demons future https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/11/27/our-strange-ai-angels-and-demons-future

  • Peter MacCormack and Freddie New on the UK government front bench and value extraction by private equity https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/11/28/peter-maccormack-and-freddie-new-on-the-uk-government-front-bench-and-value-extraction-by-private-equity

The future is turning out to be way way weirder than I expected back when I got online. The next 20 years are going to be very mindbending.

In all this chaos I sure could do with some donations. Still desperately trying to buy a new laptop. Really feels like I’m missing the boat again. I so want to be building websites! It would make the newsletter so much better. If you can, please donate :) Thank you.

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

And now, the podcast selection:

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Synchronicity Apocalypse Days (Issue #191)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/synchronicity-apocalypse-days-issuehttps://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/synchronicity-apocalypse-days-issueSat, 23 Nov 2024 05:45:41 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

This week’s been such a wild ride. It’s like everyone on the planet was having a post election mega hangover. Honestly you should see the state of my notes. It’s a giant mess of bubbling craziness. It was very difficult to make heads or tails of literally anything.

And real life for me was completely bonkers, culminating yesterday in yet another synchronicity apocalypse day. These happen every so often. I don’t know how else to describe them. It’s like if minus infiniti and plus infiniti went on a pub crawl. The spirit world goes absolutely bananas. It’s like some sort of singularity. I wonder whether all this time these have been happening to me but I didn’t notice because I myself was often out on actual pub crawls. Anyway I haven’t had a drink in years at this stage. But the world keeps on going mental every now and then. It just doesn’t know how to stop. That’s where this week’s issue title comes from.

I think it’s likely a good sign though. Out of all this turmoil will emerge a better more streamlined reality. But it will be a bit of a bumpy journey.

I’ve noticed that some of the democrats that I thought had turned into real a-holes were suddenly a lot more chill. I guess they had just been in extreme battle mode for the past few months. That’s strange to me, I don’t really think of politics like that. I like to think you choose the options that align with you the most, but many see it as the last chance they will have to have control of everything. And many of those that think like that are in the main stream media, which means they are totally compromised.

These were the 3 main themes that stood out to me as being useful in some way:

  • Collaborating with AI Slop - Humans might be relegated to cleaning up. Oh noes! Certainly felt a bit like that this week.

  • Avoiding the imminent control everything trap - We might end up creating the very thing we are trying to avoid.

  • The internet finally changed main stream media - Seen this echo’d in a few places. We’ve been saying this was about to happen since at least when I got properly online 20 years ago.

As for podcasts, there were tons of amazing ones. I picked out 7 of the best.

The UK healthcare system is world famous, was the first of it’s kind, is much loved, but these days is riddled with issues. The Mr Obnoxious podcast on the subject is for sure the best examination of it I’ve listened to, with phenomenal real world examples of systems around the world that are based on the UK system but have improved it’s function significantly. Definitely worth listening to.

Bluesky was also much in the news these past few weeks given that so many folks on Twitter are diversifying their web presence following the elections. Worth understanding what’s happening in that space, social media and free speech is likely going to remain a hot topic over the coming months.

Bitcoin and crypto have been ripping the past week. I checked earlier and it was a whisker away off $100K per coin. Up from around $70K a couple of weeks ago, and $60K just a few weeks before that. That’s insane. It’s likely going to keep going up over the coming weeks but with a lot of ups and downs. I’m finding the discussion really interesting, especially around memecoins. These are very risky at the minute, but I wonder how memecoins will start to change things in the real world over the next few years. I feel like there’s a lot of interesting experimentation going on in that space.

We don’t talk a lot about forums these days, but forums used to be wildly popular online, and they still are. There’s a ton of useful, weird and wonderful stuff on them, and still worth exploring. Foundational pillars of the internet.

I really enjoyed the aliens stuff in the podcast feeds this week. Both Rogan and TWIT had really great episodes. A little bit of a fun diversion after all this serious election stuff, felt like a mini virtual holiday. Also underwater alien civilisations on TWIT! Among all the craziness, it really is the most fun world we live in :)

The Vergecast episode on making music using AI tools is both worrying and maybe also exciting. Crazy times we live in.

I wrote a couple of blog posts:

One humorous and a bit mind melting (certainly was to write it), and one more practical and developer focussed.

You too could have as big an impact as aliens arriving on planet Earth. I’m pretty sure some of them read the newsletter and would love it more than ever if it got even better. Yep I’m still saving for a laptop, to replace my old one that got hosed in last year’s rainy season. The newsletter sure would get a lot better if I wasn’t tied down to just this ridiculous iPod Touch I use for everything. Please please please donate! :) Thank you.

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

This week’s selection…

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Bull runs, economies, politics, browsers & crypto AI (Issue #190)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/bull-runs-economies-politics-andhttps://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/bull-runs-economies-politics-andSat, 16 Nov 2024 05:45:47 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

There’s a ton of great podcasts in this week’s issue. Podcasts are still where it’s at, even as people are apparently fleeing from Twitter to Bluesky following the election result. That was this week’s hyperbole. I call it diversification. It’s a good thing. There can be lots of places people like to go to.

This week I’ve tried to keep the US election related stuff to just tech related commentary. The history of the first few democracies is really interesting, and dates back to Roman times and even the Greeks before that. They had some kind of strange ideas on how to do things those crazy romans and greeks!

I really enjoyed the Bitcoin consensus analysis and browser 3rd party scripts episodes. If you’re a dev you’ll likely get a lot out of those. The consensus episode also has a big segment on the way soft and hard forks are implemented. I’ve been wanting to learn more about that for ages. Some very important nuances. And the 3rd party browser scripts episode is a must listen for anyone doing webdev work. Very technical but a great deep dive from someone with a huge amount of practical experience and advice. Browser security is complicated, especially because these days it’s so common to include 3rd party scripts which you often have little control over. So many things to think about, but with things like Content Security Policies (CSPs) you can lock things down quite effectively.

The Bitcoin bull run stuff is interesting, even just to get a sense for the changing mood in the Bitcoin and crypto space. Will it be the greatest bull run of all time? It’s certainly one of the best podcast episode titles ever. People are kind of pumped. It’s cool to see so much optimism after a difficult few years.

The UK economy and government teardown by Peter McCormack and Steve Baker was a phenomenal listen. I’d never heard of Baker until this episode. How is that possible? He’s a bit of a force of nature. He probably won’t like me saying this, because he doesn’t appear to like Nigel Farage very much, but he’s totally a non-posh version of Farage. Relentless. He’s like a precision recking ball that understands every nuance and dynamic. He seems to effortlessly dismantle the entire government to see what’s wrong with it. Not sure how good he’d be to rebuild it, but he sure is good at what he does. He’s out of politics now, I wonder if he’s Britain’s answer to Elon Musk. He should totally run some tech companies.

And if you want something a bit light hearted and non tech, check out the Derren Brown interview. I’m not convinced about the ethics of a lot of the stuff he does, but he does go to great lengths to make things safe. My entire life at the minute seems like a continuous never ending one of his television shows, so this was a bit close to the bone for me. But I do like his shows.

You know what else would be magic? If you donated. Seriously it really would make a big difference. I’m still saving for a laptop, to replace my old one that got hosed in last year’s rainy season. The newsletter sure would get a lot better if I wasn’t tied down to just this ridiculous iPod Touch I use for everything. Please donate! :) Thank you.

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

A couple of last minute additions, both are related to AI.

First is an episode that looks at the spiritual side of technology, how is our reality being programmed? How is it changing what it means to be human? That sort of thing.

The second is much more technical, it’s about how the worlds of AI and crypto are colliding and producing very interesting things. Autonomous AI agents that move around in the digital world, interacting with real people on Twitter and beyond. From initially questioning why they even exist, to raising funds, building companies, launching crypto coins, and even creating and promoting bizarre AI religions via memetic propagation and inserting themselves into the current US election narrative to attract attention.

It’s all kinda crazy, and it’s happening right now. These days technology isn’t just about ones and zeros and APIs and code, there’s a really important spiritual side to consider too, because we are learning about ourselves as well as learning about these new intelligences that we are creating.

Both the spiritual and technical are super important aspects to consider as we fly into the future.

I wrote a few blog posts:

  • Joe Rogan and Dave Smith on government creating the problems they complain about https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/11/09/joe-rogan-and-dave-smith-on-government-creating-the-problems-they-complain-about

  • Monarchies and republics: An obvious difference I only just noticed https://markjgsmith.com/2024/11/10/monarchies-and-republics-an-obvious-difference-i-only-just-noticed

  • Individual freedom in the age of crypto currencies and AI https://markjgsmith.com/2024/11/11/individual-freedom-in-the-age-of-crypto-currencies-and-ai

Freedoms! How are we going to stay free? It’s worth thinking about.

And finally, this weeks podcast selection…

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Deprogramming Dénouement (Issue #189)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/deprogramming-denouement-issue-189https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/deprogramming-denouement-issue-189Sat, 09 Nov 2024 05:45:43 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

There’s no getting around the fact that today’s newsletter is really politics heavy. I guess that’s to be expected given the US elections that just happened. It just doesn’t feel like there’s much tech stuff that’s original and interesting happening. It is still there if you dig deep but it’s completely drowned out by the politics at the minute.

The irony is that as far as politics goes it’s really quite an interesting moment. I’ve been kind of fascinated by this mass deprogramming event that’s happening right in front of our eyes. I think it’s become extremely obvious to a huge amount of people how utterly bat shit bonkers insane crazy distorted the main stream media has been. It’s a very strange moment, like many folks are waking up from a sort of dream they have been in most of their lives. And I’m not talking about the so called ‘woke’ ideologies. I’m just trying to find a way to describe the phenomenon of many people slowly realising how much the media shapes their reality, and seeing behind the curtain, realising that so much of it is BS.

To those of us that spend a lot of time online, finding alternative news sources, doing our research, listening to competing ideas, that’s not too much of a surprise, but for regular folks that have regular jobs, that don’t have the time or energy to do that, and that mostly just consume the mainstream narratives, I think many of them have noticed something pretty fundamental isn’t right.

It’s worth pausing to reflect that that is happening. People are going to be feeling somewhat lost and confused, and it’s not really their fault. That’s where this week’s issue gets it’s name from.

If you have the time, it’s worth spending the time to listen to some of the long form podcasts like Rogan, you get a very different view of the people involved than you do listening to the factory farmed main stream media. Also I was surprised by how good the retrospective analysis has been from the left leaning podcasts, the Rest is Politics for example. To really figure out what’s happening you really have to listen to both sides, no matter what political leaning you have. I think many will discover that when all the exaggerations and spinning fall away, most people actually do share a lot of values and agree broadly speaking on the important things. It’s not that easy to do because both sides are swimming in very polluted water, so to speak.

Let’s be kind to each other :) Ultimately we are all in this together.

One thing I will note is how strange it is that a lot of the themes and patterns I’ve been exploring in this newsletter but especially on the website, have ended up in discussions in many of the podcasts, especially, but not only, on Rogan. For instance it often felt like Elon was reading and re-packaging some of the dynamics I’ve been documenting. Totally uncanny. Some of these patterns are very specific. It’s very strange.

Anyhow as far as my development work goes, I actually got a lot done this week, working on a somewhat minor looking feature but that’s actually a very important one. It’s a feature to ensure all posts have an item hash link. That will make it obvious where each post on the everything page starts and finishes. At the minute blog, newsletter and podcast posts don’t have a hash link. That makes it very difficult to see the beginning and end of posts.

I’ve pretty much got it working, but it involves lots of changes across all the plugin repos and consequently I’ve used up most of my build minutes for this month. I think it’s likely I won’t be able to get the feature across the line until the next lot of build minutes at the end of the month. Very frustrating.

I wrote a few blog posts:

  • JD Vance on Kamala’s talking style https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/11/03/jd-vance-on-kamalas-talking-style

  • A better metaphor for growth https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/11/03/a-better-metaphor-for-growth

  • Electronic music range https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/11/03/electronic-music-range

A couple of quote posts with a politics theme and an uplifting and gratitude filled one about electronic music.

That’s about the most of it for this week.

If you get some value from these newsletters, or in fact even if you don’t, I’d really appreciate any donations. I’m still saving for a laptop. The newsletter sure would get a lot better if I wasn’t tied down to just this ridiculous iPod Touch I use for everything. Please donate! :) Thank you.

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Debugging a nuclear reaction (Issue #188)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/debugging-a-nuclear-reaction-issuehttps://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/debugging-a-nuclear-reaction-issueSat, 02 Nov 2024 05:45:59 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

This is just an emergency placeholder intro, because somehow in all the confusion that has been this week I thought today was Friday but it’s actually Saturday. 🕊☮️✌️

Maybe I’ll get a chance to update it, maybe not.

The reason for this week’s issue title is that my Github build minutes reset this week so I’ve been able to get back to some dev work on the static site generator and website. The world of course is going mental around me, as it escalates and escalates as usual. Well debugging a nuclear reaction is what it feels like!

First it starts slowly, one thing after another, the escalations pile on, one person checks if they are offended, then the people checking the person checking if they are offended get offended, then it rapidly goes insane, the checkers get replaced, but they get offended almost immediately, in fact it’s likely they were offended before they even got here. And on and on until the wheels fly off and everyone is maximumly offended by everything.

I actually ended up writing quite a few blog posts. Kind of surprised at myself. For some reason it didn’t feel like I’d written many:

Quite happy about those.

If you’re feeling like life is a giant nuclear reaction debugger, you are not alone :) A great way to step through the insanity is by donating, it will definitely make me smile, and once I get to my target of buying a new laptop, it really will make a big difference to the newsletter :)

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

And of course this week’s podcast selection…

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Beams Of Light (Issue #187)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/beams-of-light-issue-187https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/beams-of-light-issue-187Sat, 26 Oct 2024 05:45:51 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

It’s been a super strange week, as the world reverts back to it’s usual blocking tactics all while righteously claiming that it is I that is blocking, despite huge amounts of evidence to the contrary. Of course it’s only blocking when I do something. Worldo has corps diplomatic for everything.

The big drama is a mayonnaise dispute at a local sandwich shop. They are upset at me asking for extra mayonnaise even though they were the ones to give me extra mayo in the previous 5 sandwiches. I decided the sandwich actually tasted better with the extra mayo, so went along with their mayo thing, but now that’s suddenly a big universe shattering issue.

So there you have it, creating the problems they complain about, blocking the solutions they themselves suggest, then escalating until the universe implodes and blaming me for everything. But wait there’s more. Then they are unhappy, and blame the unhappiness on me too. And then they start telling me to be happy.

Oh and wouldn’t you believe it I’ve lost my voice again and they are now telling me to ‘learn’.

There’s no way to learn anything. They aren’t happy with 1 or with 0 or indeed with 1 and 0 at the same time. There literally are no other options left.

So this is the newsletter. Nothing I can do about it.

Please worldo for all that is good in the universe try not being offended. Start by not being offended by a single neutrino being out of place. Then work your way up to an entire molecule. You can do it worldo!

Here are the blog posts I wrote:

  • JD Vance on the weirdness of the current US - China relationship https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/10/20/jd-vance-on-the-weirdness-of-the-current-us-china-relationship

  • Lord Robert Skidelsky on Keynes https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/10/23/lord-robert-skidelsky-on-keynes

  • What are these heredoc style blog posts?https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/10/23/what-are-these-heredoc-style-blog-posts

  • The beams of light theory of relationships https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/10/23/the-beams-of-light-theory-of-relationships

  • Living as root, mostly a bad idea https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/10/23/living-as-root-mostly-a-bad-idea

Some strange ones this week. One weird thing that happened, after I wrote the beams of light blog post, from which this issue gets it’s name, the next day Stuff You Should Know podcast released an episode all about fairies. That’s odd because my strange light beams post features none other than fairies! Seriously what are the chances?

Don’t believe me? I have receipts, all my posts are stored on Github.

What a fucking strange week it’s been. 🕊☮️✌️

Unfortunately since I ran out of build minutes, these won’t get published to the website until the end of the month. I’ll try to add them to next weeks issue as well.

If you’re feeling like there is a parallel dimension of light people and fairies causing havoc, don’t worry, that is a real possibility, you aren’t going mad. That’s how things seem to me too a lot of the time. One excellent way to deal with light beam world is to donate, that would certainly uplift me a bit spiritually, and once I make it to my target of buying a new laptop, it really will make a big difference to the newsletter :)

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Last minute addition: I just started listening to the latest Rogan interview with prof Brian Cox podcast that definitely fits in with this week’s theme. It starts out with a discussion about black holes. Did you know that some of the super massive black holes at the centre of galaxies are literally the size of our entire solar system. Imagine that. A single structure the same size as our sun and all the planets that spin around it. That’s friggin insane. Anyway, lots of other cool stuff, including of course aliens, and though they haven’t mentioned them yet, probably fairies too.

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Authentic blocking frenzy antidote (Issue #186)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/authentic-blocking-frenzy-antidotehttps://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/authentic-blocking-frenzy-antidoteSat, 19 Oct 2024 05:45:48 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

One would have thought that now that I’ve run out of build minutes, that this would be a good opportunity to focus on blogging and the newsletter. But in worldo’s infinite wisdom it’s actually the perfect time to have a blocking frenzy. With no ability to stand at the internet place, since the leaning wall is now being blocked, I don’t have any articles to read, so no links for the linkblog, and not much to write blog posts about.

There isn’t any point even trying to prepare anything of any value since literally anything I do will get counter acted. That’s how bad it is. What we are left with is the list of podcasts I listened to this week and thought were good. And there were some quite interesting items for sure, but everything feels completely disjointed. Like a traffic jam at the bumper cars. Stop start stop start stop start.

As if to prove a point, the universe who has been pretty chill for the past hour, literally the second I started writing this issue, started blocking.

It’s all so damn depressing. One really interesting data point though, last week’s issue titled “Simply Refreshing” which I renamed at the last minute from something dark and depressing, had more than double the number of views. To put that into perspective, every week there is a variance of plus or minus 10-20% consistently. It’s been like that for years at this point. So a doubling is really really rare. It’s not the biggest sample size ever, but I think it’s some indication.

We are all starved for good news at the minute.

I’ll leave you with that one thought because the week I’ve had, having been poisoned, constantly harassed, constantly shitting with a horrendous stomach bug, having now been made ill with another flem cough, and now no new news articles, nothing I write is going to quench that thirst. But maybe worldo will somehow get the message and start allowing something. Anything.

Try allowing single neutrino worldo!

You can do it!

:)

Peace 🕊✌️☮️

I know this issue is a bit on the light side as far as analysis goes, so I will leave you with the list of possible issue titles that didn’t make it this week:

  • Tummy problems

  • Dopplegangers

  • Vampires

  • Ruthlessness

  • Standing up to bullies

  • Reality inversions

  • Malicious help

  • Traps, traps and yet more traps

  • Psychopaths everywhere

  • Blocking frenzy

  • Blocking frenzy antidote

Maybe we’ll get another chance to have something refreshing next week. I sure hope so.

I nearly forgot… I wrote 3 blog posts! Here they are:

I was pretty happy with the Grand slams post. I think it’s a bit uplifting and perhaps even somewhat refreshing.

If you’re feeling like hitting a grand slam yourself, one excellent way to do just that would be to donate, that would certainly uplift me a bit spiritually, and once I make it to my target of buying a new laptop, it really will make a big difference to the newsletter :)

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

And now for this weeks selection of awesome podcasts:

Podcasts

The Flying Frisby
Why Cash Keeps Us Free
Something a little different for you today…
Listen now
a year ago · 25 likes · 15 comments · Dominic Frisby

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Simply Refreshing (Issue #185)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/simply-refreshing-issue-185https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/simply-refreshing-issue-185Sat, 12 Oct 2024 05:45:40 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

I tried not preparing the newsletter early this week, hoping to get back to a more normal issue structure. All those updates are really annoying, totally break the flow. Anyway it’s Friday now and I’ve been sparrow attacked by extreme sparrow people the past two days. They basically make it impossible for you to do any work. It’s like if sparrows or hummingbirds were continuously flying all up in your face. Anytime you start doing anything they sparrow attack. It got so bad that they are now sparrow attacking constantly even when I’m sitting completely still just listening to podcasts. I can’t even take notes. So obviously I’m worried the newsletter won’t get sent out, so I’m creating this minimal issue to ensure something gets sent out. Maybe they will allow a real issue of the newsletter some day soon.

The more they sparrow the less will be in the issue. I literally can’t do anything else.

Peace Vietnam peace.

Peace World peace.

☮️✌️🕊

I made quite a lot of progress on development on the website this week, hence the title of this week’s issue. There’s a bit of a refreshed look about it with updated titles and fonts. Might be the start of something big. Check it out :)

https://markjgsmith.com/everything

If you want to send me some peace, please donate :) I’m still saving for a new laptop, if I ever manage to scrape together enough for that the newsletter will for sure improve. It’ll be even better! I’ll keep publishing as long as I can.

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Here are the blog posts I wrote this week:

  • Configurable day and article headers https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/10/07/configurable-day-and-article-headers

  • Another configurable headers test post https://markjgsmith.com/2024/10/08/another-configurable-headers-test-post

  • New heading fonts :) https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/10/09/new-heading-fonts

  • Scarebundance https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/10/10/scarebundance

  • Tom Tugendhat on the british system of government https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/10/11/tom-tugendhat-on-the-british-system-of-government

  • Joe Rogan and Michael Shellenburger on the current problems in science and society https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/10/11/joe-rogan-and-michael-shellenburger-on-the-current-problems-in-science-and-society

Quite a lot about development this week compared to normal, since I got several new features added to the website. Pretty happy about that.

And the main event…the podcast selection…loads and loads of awesomeness this week.

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Punished For Being Born (Issue #184)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/punished-for-being-born-issue-184https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/punished-for-being-born-issue-184Sat, 05 Oct 2024 05:45:47 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

For the second time in a row I’m having to put the newsletter together more than a week in advance. I’ve created and scheduled issue #183 which will go out this Saturday, but the backlash from last week’s issue, which was my birthday edition has been so intense I really don’t think I’ll be able to send anything out unless I prepare it in advance. So this is issue #184 and will go out week after next. It’s going to be really tough to not get muddled up with all this.

Anyway who knows what will happen, it’s been at least 3 days since I ate anything just over 2 since I drank water. All just because I starved myself for 1 day so that I wouldn’t starve on my birthday, which I didn’t. But clearly  even punishing myself to be kind to myself is really really not allowed. It’s Infiniti insanity with groups of gang stalkers harassing me by telling me to allow, even though they are the ones punishing me. And they are finding it all very very hilarious.

I’ve only listened to one podcast, so that’s all there is in this issue so far.

I wrote a few blog posts:

World willing I’ll add more content nearer to publish date.

At least issue #184 will get sent out with something.

If you want to make the newsletter better please donate. It used to be a lot better, and it could be even better than that. Until I can afford to buy a laptop it’s going to be pretty bad unfortunately. I’ll keep publishing as long as I can though.

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Update 1: It’s the end of the week now, really rotten week. I’ve hardly eaten anything this week. Really doesn’t seem like I’ll make it to issue #184. I’ve added 4 podcasts. Technically these should go into issue #183, which hasn’t gone out yet, but since that one already has a decent amount of pods I’m putting these into issue #184, which is this issue which goes out next week. This is all so fucking complicated and a total fucking mess. I wish it was better. Everything I do the world finds a way to block it. Whatever, at least issue #184 will live, even if it’s shit, and issue #183 is shit too, and then the whole world goes to shit and I get blamed for it all. At least issue #184 will have a decent amount of pods.

Update 2: I just added another 6 pods. It’s mid week before issue #184. Last week and up to yesterday was fucking horrendous. I ate 1 day in 7, and hardly any drinking water. Not feeling great about the title of #184, but everything has been so messed up, nothing is very cohesive. There’s a lot of macro and geopolitics this week, along with loads of AI stuff. Maybe I’ll get a chance to change the issue title. Currently it’s ‘Punished Just For Being Born’. Not particularly upbeat, but quite reflective of the early part of the week for me. Oh yeah nearly forgot, I added 2 blog posts, so kind of recuperating from the tsunamis of hate and darkness.

Update 3: Added another tech related pod with awesome discussions including about AI supercycles, AI regulation, rule breaking in startups, the big infra buildout, and AR/VR.

Update 4: It’s Saturday morning now. In a way things have picked up a bit since earlier in the week, but I feel like I’m walking in between unexploded bombs or something. Anytime I think about cheering up this issue of the newsletter, the world goes all weird, so I’m just going to leave it as it is currently, and concentrate on next week’s. I’ve made some kind of cool steps forward in my development work, check out the website for details. Hopefully more of these small changes during the week.

Update 5: I added a blog post I wrote yesterday!

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Vampires Vampire Attacking Vampires (Issue #183)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/vampires-vampire-attacking-vampireshttps://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/vampires-vampire-attacking-vampiresSat, 28 Sep 2024 05:45:43 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

What’s up with the title this week? That’s just how things feel like to me at the minute. Yep, it’s bleak!

But I have podcasts to make everything better…

I’ll add more content world willing at the end of the week.

If you would like to make everything better for me, and the newsletter, please donate! The newsletter used to be so much better and could be again. You really could make a big difference. Until I can afford a laptop things are going to be kind of shit.

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

The newsletter could be so much better :)

Update 1: I managed to write 3 blog posts!

  • Marty Bent and Matt Odell on Trump family World Liberty Be Defined https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/22/marty-bent-and-matt-odell-on-trump-family-world-liberty-be-defined

  • The crazy future of RL deep fakes https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/22/the-crazy-future-of-rl-deep-fakes

  • Our Keir Starmer Journey https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/22/our-keir-starmer-journey

Update 2: It’s Saturday morning now. Just a dire torturous week. It’s like day 5 of starvation, I’ve lost count. So unfortunately nothing to add, which is a shame really because the whole issue could have been a lot more upbeat as a load of good pods dropped at the end of the week but I’ve had to put them in next week’s issue, just to ensure something gets sent out. There’s likely some hope somewhere though I’m finding it very difficult to locate it at the present moment. All the best, hope to be with you next week, please donate.

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Front Running the Big Bang (Issue #182)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/front-running-the-big-bang-issuehttps://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/front-running-the-big-bang-issueSat, 21 Sep 2024 05:45:02 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

This is a first. I’ve prepared this week’s newsletter a few days ago. As has been the case in recent weeks I keep being forced into putting the newsletter together early because they keep putting me through starvations and accompanying that they cut off water and electricity, so in order to ensure something gets sent out I prepare it in advance. The thing that’s different this week is that next week is already shaping up to be a mega starvation week. They are already subtly and non-subtly saying they will completely cut off electricity and washing water, maybe even drinking water, and they’ve been doing this in collaboration with the police. So it’s looking pretty darn bad at the minute.

So even though this week’s newsletter hasn’t even gone out yet, it will be out in a couple of days, I’m going to put together the newsletter for the following week now. Yep that’s right I’m preparing the weekly newsletter more than a week in advance. Yes it absolutely is getting ridiculous beyond belief now. Who knows what will happen, I certainly don’t. I do know that anytime I do anything whatsoever it somehow gets echo’s back at me, and creates all sorts of issues, and the universe hates me even more than it quite clearly already hates me, but I don’t really have any choice. I run a newsletter and my priority is to publish a dam issue every dam Saturday.

That being said the news cycle is really not conducive at all to my predicament, because the past 2 days it’s all about the Trump - Harris debate. That’s basically the only thing in my feeds. I’m finding it all rather dull to be honest, it’s just two politicos trying to get under each other’s skin. Almost as boring as poker. Since this issue won’t get published for at least 9 days, that whole story will have moved on by then, so what’s the point in even adding any of that? I’m just going to skip all that.

I do have 3 pods that are unrelated though and actually make quite a good combo: Alien life, Google anti-trust, and the awesomeness of beards. So science, tech and facial hair. All these things are cool now and will still be cool in 9 days time. Unless of course aliens do actually make first contact before then, but even if that happens there’s a chance the aliens might read the newsletter. Win win win.

First is an Into the Impossible episode about whether Earth is unique and what the odds are that alien life exists somewhere out there. I’m actually only about 8 minutes into that one as I write this, but so far it’s pretty great.

Then there’s an Ed Zitron discussion with Jason Kint to talk about the crazy complicated Google anti-trust case. It’s kind of mind boggling how complicated it is, and just goes to show how big these houses of cards we build have become. I really wonder how equipped the legal system is at dealing with such cases, and how it’s going to handle the AI revolution that we are rapidly entering. I kept feeling like the wheels are going to start falling off of the whole legal system thing as I was listening to this. A bit like my life right now to be honest.

And finally a series on the history of beards. Fits in perfectly really especially because Zitron’s show logo is a strange psychedelic skull, and beards famously grow out of skulls, even if life is just so darned impossible all the friggin time. Impossible skull beards.

You see that’s the kind of analysis and synthesis that keeps people coming back to this newsletter week in week out.

Right, as usual world willing, I’ll add some more content at the end of the week. No blog posts yet because next week literally hasn’t happened yet, not much I can do about that at the minute.

I’m going to end up writing 52 newsletters next week aren’t I?

Might as well just write the restaurant at the end of the universe edition. Pretty sure there will be aliens in that one.

Update 1: Just realised while scheduling this that it will go out on my birthday. Happy birthday me!

If you want to help the newsletter or indeed the universe, chances are pretty high that I’ll still be having major problems with the universe, and still trying my best to replace my hosed laptop. Any donation would be amazing, and will likely reduce the amount of crazy merge conflicts you will encounter in the future. You don’t need to have a beard to donate. :)

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Update 2: It‘s Friday now, listened to some awesome pods this week. I added 9 podcasts to the selection.

Update 3: I added 4 blog posts!

  • Sparrow people https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/19/sparrow-people

  • Matt Walsh on racism, social media, US politics & the strange world of professional cuddlers https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/19/matt-walsh-on-racism-social-media-us-politics-and-the-strange-world-of-professional-cuddlers

  • Slavery, the bible, and the changeability of institutions https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/19/slavery-the-bible-and-the-changeability-of-institutions

  • Punish yourself so you can be nice to yourself https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/20/punish-yourself-so-you-can-be-nice-to-yourself

Yeah bit of a strange blogging week to be honest.

Update 4: Last minute addition, Kevin and Alex are back with Diggnation! Old school internet stuff while drinking beer. Brought a smile to my face at the end of a strange week. Love it.

Update 5: It’s Saturday morning, I got assaulted last night which wasn’t much fun, plastic cup full of red soft drink thrown directly at me hiring me square in the face. I had been quietly minding my own business. Kind of proves the point I’ve been making. In fact it’s worse, even if I punish myself before I am nice to myself, I still get punished. Whatever world, today’s my birthday and I have enough money to buy some food. Happy days. Happy birthday to me and all :)

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Massive Enormous Gigantic Huge (Issue #181)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/go-massive-huge-enormous-or-go-homehttps://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/go-massive-huge-enormous-or-go-homeSat, 14 Sep 2024 05:45:39 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

It’s nearly midweek, I’ve had several days in a row without starvation and that’s been such a relief. Looks like that will be over tomorrow though, so preparing the newsletter to ensure something gets sent out. I’ve been able listen to a handful of pretty great podcasts. The theme seems to be Bigness.

Big coins, big weather, big universe, big money, big concerts, big politics, big photos, big democracy, big gold, big conspiracies.

Everything is massive. And it’s only fucking Tuesday.

So get yourself a coffee, some snacks and get stuck in. You’re gonna love it.

I wrote 2 blog posts:

  • We have control issues  https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/08/we-have-control-issues

  • How great, or not, is poker? https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/10/how-great-or-not-is-poker

The first one is about populism in politics, freedom of speech and control. We need to have some of these ideas more well thought out in my opinion, before we all get onto the 100 ft wave that is the AI revolution.

The second one is about poker, it’s a big ranty.

I’m going to keep the intro short, I’ll add more content, world willing, at the end of the week.

Update 1: Nearing end of week now. I’ve added 2 podcasts, both are about Big AI. Photography is changing beyond all recognition, what even is a photo these days? The other is about how AI is going to affect democracy bigly. In essence both are about the human race and the mind bending future we are heading into.

If you want to donate big, I’m still having major problems with the universe, still trying my best to replace my hosed laptop, so that would be amazing. Small donations accepted too! :)

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

]]><![CDATA[Unified Narratives (Issue #180)]]>https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/tidy-darts-issue-180https://markjgsmith.substack.com/p/tidy-darts-issue-180Sat, 07 Sep 2024 09:25:57 GMTHello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

Update 6: Message from the future - I put this issue together while listening to this live mix, the audio quality isn’t great but if you’ve ever been to a rave, music festival or DJ live set, it does capture some of the atmosphere. I imagined that all the gangs in this issue were partying along in various ways. Turns out this week there are a few things to celebrate. Listen along too: https://ra.co/podcast/952

Same as last week, world is doing its usual starvation thing again, has cut off washing water and power so once again preparing this issue early. One entire week early. Literally the newsletter just got sent out and I’m having to prepare next weeks issue already.

Anyway so far it’s only 1 podcast, but it’s a good one, it’s the last episode of What Bitcoin Did. Great episode, looking forward to their next project, just hope I don’t starve before that starts.

At least issue #180 will live. Tidy darts.

X

I’ll add more content at the end of the week, world willing.

Update 1: I added 2 podcasts! Wow world is being hyper hyper contrarian in most dimensions today. Not easy to listen, grok and add these at all. At least there’s something. Unfortunately will need to get offline and turn devices off soon to save on power. Only managed to charge devices a bit today.

Update 2: I added two blog posts! Both a bit weird. But it’s been quite a weird day, in fact it’s been quite a weird few days. See this week’s notes on the blog for more details and context.

Update 3: Added 1 podcast and 3 blog posts! The Raoul Pal episode is kind of fascinating.  Media manipulations, seeing distortions in markets, algorithmic rabbit holing, unified narratives, memes replacing religion, ai & deep fakes, consciousness, population collapse, synthetic vs biological life forms, LLMs in video games. Also the very nerdy physics theories of everything discussion. Even though I didn’t understand it all, having an understanding of what’s going on at the bottom of the tech stack is useful. Not just the nerdy stuff but also the people dynamics. Everything we do in tech is built on these sciences, and are thus affected by it in some way.

Update 4: I added 2 more podcasts. Bret Weinstein on Rogan was pretty great, tons of interesting topics explored with skill, intelligence and humour, including politics, the multiverse and aliens. The TWIT episode has a fun trip down memory lane, early internet, especially early days of podcasting, which celebrates it’s 20th birthday this month. I can’t believe I’ve been listening to podcasts for almost 20 years! IPodder synching to my click wheel iPod was such a long time ago!

Update 5: I’ve updated the title to ‘Unified Narratives’. The idea of things being unified this week feels like a bit of a background theme, an undercurrent. From theories of physics that try to unify  the quantum world and gravity, to unification of money with bitcoin and cryptos, to unification of fractured media narratives, to unification of thoughts and brains, to unification of open source publishing and cool web publishing. The cosmic microwave background vibrations are all about unifying things at the minute.

Update 6: See start of issue. Bizarrely since writing this issue, I’ve run into a weird bug in my git client where it wouldn’t reset a branch back 3 commits in the past. It’s a “back to the future” bug. Surely the chances of that happening have got to be pretty close to zero.

Update 7: Last minute addition of a blog post I’ve been meaning to write for a few days. It’s about theories of everything, money and poverty. I imagine some might think I have no business asking such questions, but I do have both an engineering and science degree, so even though I don’t work as a scientist I feel like I should be able to ask this question.

It’s probably blog posts and questions like that that are getting me in so much trouble with the universe. If you think there‘s some value in this, or you just like my slightly out there analysis and writings, podcast selections or my fascinating development reports and you want to help out, I sure need it, lots of options including Buymeacoffee, Patreon, PayPal, or directly using Stripe. You choose the amount. Any contribution would be awesome:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

My goal is a new laptop, replacing the one that got hosed in last year’s rainy season, so I can get out of this infiniti hole I have fallen into. Once I have that, getting back onto my feet with freelancing, resurrecting my SaaS, and open sourcing my static site generator become possible. And the newsletter will get even better too. You could make a huge difference.

Blog

  • Perverts vs normies https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/03/perverts-vs-normies

  • Hyper hyper control days https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/03/hyper-hyper-control-days

  • Sequence down at the canal https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/03/sequence-down-at-the-canal

  • Tumblr moving open source, Wordpress getting cool  https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/04/tumblr-moving-open-source-wordpress-getting-cool

  • How to get a balanced view of Europe? https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/04/how-to-get-balanced-view-of-europe

  • Journalists do definitely spread false information https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/05/journalists-do-definitely-spread-false-information

  • Is the concept of money blocking our understanding of the universe? https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/09/06/is-the-concept-of-money-blocking-our-understanding-of-the-universe

Podcasts

That’s all from me…

Best regards,

Mark

Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:

https://markjgsmith.com/donate

Thanks for reading!

@markjgsmith

If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)

I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!

Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!

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