Luke Carbis

Inputs 2022

Each year I round up the various forms of media that I’ve engaged with. Here’s what I’ve watched and read this year.

I use a ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 star rating system – you could think of it as a “recommendation” rating system:

⭐️

⭐️⭐️

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I don’t recommend this.

It’s good. I might recommend it to some people.

It’s great! You should definitely see this.

Books

I had a goal to read 52 books this year – one for every week. I reached it with a couple of weeks to go! I’m very proud of this achievement.

Early in the year I finished reading the Foundation and Robots series by Asimov, and after that started reading Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series. With over 20 titles in this series, I expect it will take a few years to get through them all, but so far I’m really enjoying the character development.

I also read through the “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” series by Liu Cixin. I didn’t rate this a full three stars, as it could be a little dry at some points – but it’s really lasted in my memory. I would recommend it as required reading for anyone who particularly enjoys science-fiction.

Another title that I can’t forget is Earthlings. I’ve found that most Japanese fiction I’ve read is straight-up strange… and this is no exception. Not a title for the faint of heart, but if you don’t mind a disturbed mind… give this one a go.

Another highlight was the Interactive Fiction title “Violet“. I had a great time reading and uncovering all the endings and easter eggs. It’s free to read, and short – took me about three hours to get through.

Title	Author	Rating	Format
Second Foundation	Isaac Asimov	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
The Midnight Library	Matt Haig	⭐️⭐️	Ebook
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians	Brandon Sanderson	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Foundation’s Edge	Isaac Asimov	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars	Christopher Paolini	⭐️	Audiobook
Sapiens	Yuval Noah Harari	⭐️	Paperback
Recursion	Blake Crouch	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Ebook
The Three-Body Problem	Liu Cixin	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Robots and Empire	Isaac Asimov	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Foundation and Earth	Isaac Asimov	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
The Dark Forest	Liu Cixin	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Dark One	Brandon Sanderson	⭐️⭐️	Graphic Novel
Earthlings	Sayaka Murata	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Death’s End	Liu Cixin	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Elon Musk	Ashlee Vance	⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Sharpe’s Tiger	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Ebook
Sharpe’s Triumph	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️	Paperback
The Alchemist	Paul Coelho	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
The History of the Future	Blake J. Harris	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
The Untethered Soul	Michael A. Singer	⭐️	Audiobook
Sharpe’s Fortress	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Snow Crash	Neal Stephenson	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Ebook
Sharpe’s Trafalgar	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Sharpe’s Prey	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Violet	Jeremy Freese	⭐️⭐️⭐️	IF
Sharpe’s Rifles	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
The Silmarillion	J.R.R. Tolkien	⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Sharpe’s Havoc	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Forget Me Not	Ellie Terry	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Sharpe’s Eagle	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Red at the Bone	Jacqueline Woodson	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Song of Solomon	Toni Morrison	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
The Scrivener’s Bones	Brandon Sanderson	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Paperback
The Knights of Crystallia	Brandon Sanderson	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Sharpe’s Gold	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Sharpe’s Escape	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Free to Learn	Peter O. Gray	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Red	John Logan	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Other Houses	Paddy O’Reilly	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Lemon	Kwon Yeo-Sun	⭐️	Audiobook
Scattered Minds	Gabor Matè	⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Severance – The Lexington Letter	Ben Stiller, et. al.	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Ebook
The Lost Metal	Brandon Sanderson	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Meditation & Kabbalah	Aryeh Kaplan	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Tefillin	Aryeh Kaplan	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Nomadland	Jessica Bruder	⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Tzitzith: A Thread of Light	Aryeh Kaplan	⭐️⭐️	Paperback
Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower	Tamsyn Muir	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Final Spin	Jocko Willink	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
The Stranger in the Lifeboat	Mitch Albom	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Legion	Brandon Sanderson	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Skin Deep	Brandon Sanderson	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook
Sharpe’s Fury	Bernard Cornwell	⭐️⭐️	Audiobook

Trends

52 Books
Formats Read
- 11 audiobooks (62%)
- 14 paperbacks (27%)
- 6 other digital formats (11%)
Authors Read
- 11 by Bernard Cornwell (21%)
- 7 by Brandon Sanderson (13%)
Average Rating
- 26 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (50%)
- 22 ⭐️⭐️ (42%)
- 4 ⭐️(8%)
- Average rating of 2.42 stars
Fiction vs Non-Fiction
- 42 Fiction (81%)
- 10 Non-Fiction (19%)
Compared to last year…
- 216% more books read! (52 this year, 24 last year)
- Many more paperbacks (I don’t think I read any hard copies last year)

Book of the Year

Unlike film and television, I don’t tend to read books the year they were released. In fact, the only book I’ve read this year that was also released this year is The Lost Metal. Because of this, I give the book of the year award to whichever book I recommend the most.

This year’s Book of the Year is Recursion by Black Crouch.

Film

This year I intentionally took a step away from the cinema. Although I really enjoyed diving into the world of film last year, I didn’t think I’d be able to maintain my film diet while also pursuing my audacious one-per-week reading goal.

Like last year, Talia and I decided on a date-night movie director theme. I’ve done Noah Baumbach, Ridley Scott, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, as well as series like the MCU and Bond. This year we watched the filmography of Guy Ritchie.

Title	Year	Rating	Format
House of Gucci	2021	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Cinema
The Comeback	2021	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Phone
Moonfall	2022	⭐️	Cinema
The Sky is Everywhere	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Last Night in Soho	2021	⭐️⭐️	TV
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels	1998	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Snatch	2000	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
The Batman	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Cinema
Swept Away	2002	⭐️	TV
Turning Red	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Encanto	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Uncharted	2022	⭐️⭐️	Cinema
Revolver	2005	⭐️⭐️	TV
RocknRolla	2008	⭐️	TV
Sherlock Holmes	2009	⭐️⭐️	TV
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	2011	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Cinema
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.	2005	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Avatar	2009	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword	2017	⭐️⭐️	TV
The Gentlemen	2019	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Operation Mincemeat	2022	⭐️⭐️	Cinema
Wrath of Man	2021	⭐️⭐️	TV
Top Gun	1986	⭐️⭐️	iPad
Spiderhead	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Laptop
The French Dispatch	2021	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Thor: Love and Thunder	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Cinema
Everything Everywhere All at Once	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Lightyear	2022	⭐️⭐️	TV
Men	2022	⭐️⭐️	TV
Bullet Train	2022	⭐️	Cinema
Luck	2022	⭐️	TV
C’mon C’mon	2021	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Plane
Belfast	2021	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Plane
Werewolf by Night	2022	⭐️⭐️	Phone
Black Adam	2021	⭐️	TV
Wakanda Forever	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Cinema
The Menu	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Cinema
Cha Cha Real Smooth	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story	2022	⭐️⭐️	TV
Avatar: The Way of Water	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	Cinema
Cool Runnings	1993	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
The Fabelmans	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV
Emancipation	2022	⭐️⭐️⭐️	TV

Trends

44 Films
Formats Watched
- 11 in the Cinema (25%)
- 27 at home on the TV (61%)
- 6 others (14%)
Average Rating
- 26 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (59%)
- 12 ⭐️⭐️ (27%)
- 6 ⭐️ (14%)
- Average rating of 2.45 stars
Release Years
- 25 released in 2022 (57%)
- 7 released in 2021 (16%)
- 12 released in other years (27%)
Compared to last year…
- Total films only 58% of last year, down from 76 to 44

Film of the Year

My favourite film that was released in 2022 was The Fabelmans. I think this film will go down in history as an all time classic. It reminded a lot of Cinema Paradiso, which is another favourite classic of mine.

I have to mention a close runner-up, though: The Menu. Loved the tension, humour, and social commentary here.

Television

My goal at the start of the year was to limit my TV to only Marvel series, Lord of the Rings series, and Star Trek series. This might seem limiting, but actually I knew there would be a lot of Marvel and Star Trek shows.

In the end, I didn’t achieve this goal. I couldn’t help myself – I just had to see the final season of the Peaky Blinders (and I’m glad I did), plus it was nice to share a few evenings watching the new Only Murders in the Building season with Talia. Once I failed that, I decided to take up a couple of other recommendations from friends.

Title	Season	Episodes	Rating
Morning Wars	Season 2	10 Episodes	⭐️⭐️
Star Trek: Prodigy	Season 1	10 Episodes	⭐️⭐️
Hawkeye	Season 1	6 Episodes	⭐️⭐️
Star Trek: Discovery	Season 4	13 Episodes	⭐️⭐️
Moon Knight	Season 1	6 Episodes	⭐️⭐️
Picard	Season 2	8 Episodes	⭐️
Peaky Blinders	Season 6	6 Episodes	⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ms Marvel	Season 1	6 Episodes	⭐️⭐️
I Am Groot	Season 1	5 Episodes	⭐️⭐️
Only Murders in the Building	Season 2	10 Episodes	⭐️⭐️
The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power	Season 1	8 Episodes	⭐️⭐️
Severance	Season 1	9 Episodes	⭐️⭐️⭐️
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law	Season 1	9 Episodes	⭐️
The Peripheral	Season 1	8 Episodes	⭐️⭐️

Trends

14 Seasons
114 Episodes
- If you allow for an average 40 minute episode, that’s 76 hours of television.
Average Rating
- 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (14%)
- 10 ⭐️⭐️ (72%)
- 2 ⭐️ (14%)
- Average rating of exactly 2 stars
Compared to last year…
- Much less TV this year
- Down from 33 seasons to 14
- Down from 387 episodes to 114
- Down from ~258 hours to ~76 hours

Television Season of the Year

This one is no contest – Severance is by far the most engaging and excited series I’ve seen this year. I had it recommended to me from a few different folks who also liked Lost and Mr. Robot – and Severance is very much in the same vein. This is my kind of television.

That’s my year of input! The short version is a lot more books, and a lot less screen time. I’m not sure I’ll target such an aggressive reading goal in the year to come… and I think I’ll try to enjoy a few more movies. As for TV, I’m actually pretty pleased with how little I saw in 2022. I might try to cut it back a fraction in 2023 – maybe one per month? Something like that.

December 30, 2022

How I Fell in Love with the Block Editor
I used to be a diehard fan of the Classic Editor plugin

I would never have thought that I would one day LOVE the Block Editor. I remember when I first switched to the Block Editor – I was a complete novice. I had no idea how to use it and found it really confusing. But I decided to give it a go, and I’m so glad I did!

The Block Editor is now my absolute favourite way to edit my blog posts. I love how intuitive it is and how easy it is to use. I can move blocks around, add new blocks, and format my posts exactly how I want them. It’s also really helpful that I can see a live preview of my changes as I make them.

If you’re thinking of switching to the Block Editor, I highly recommend it! You won’t regret it.

It was tough getting used to working with blocks at first. I had to relearn how to format my posts, and it felt like a lot more work than just writing in the old editor. But then, I started to see the potential of the block editor. I could rearrange my content easily, and adding media was a breeze. Plus, there were so many more options for customization. I began to see why people were saying that the block editor was the future of WordPress.

Now, I can’t imagine going back to the old editor. I’m a convert! The block editor is my new best friend.

And I fell in love!

It wasn’t love at first sight. I remember trying the block editor for the first time and thinking “this is different”. I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. But I kept using it, and slowly but surely I started to really enjoy it. I loved the freedom it gave me to experiment with different block types and layouts. And I loved how easy it was to create beautiful, complex pages without having to write a single line of code.

Over time, I came to appreciate the power of the block editor. It’s so much more than just a page builder. It’s a whole new way of creating content for the web. And I firmly believe it’s the future of WordPress.

So if you’re not using the block editor yet, I urge you to give it a try. I think you’ll be surprised at how much you enjoy it.

The Block Editor is so much more user-friendly and intuitive

Since I switched to the block editor, writing posts has become a breeze. The editor is so user-friendly and intuitive, I can’t imagine going back to the old way of doing things. With the block editor, I can easily add and rearrange blocks of text, images, and other media with just a few clicks. Plus, the editor automatically saves my changes as I go, so I don’t have to worry about losing anything.

It’s helped me to create better, more engaging content

Since I started using the Block Editor, I’ve found that my content is noticeably more engaging. I think it’s because the editor allows me to focus on each individual block of content, and make sure that it’s as strong as it can be. I don’t have to worry about the overall structure of the post as much, because I know that the editor will take care of that for me. As a result, I can spend more time making sure that each sentence is compelling, and that each image is eye-catching. My readers have definitely noticed the difference, and I’ve gotten more positive feedback on my content since I switched to the Block Editor.

If you’re still using the Classic Editor, I urge you to give the Block Editor a try!

If you’re still using the Classic Editor on your WordPress site, I urge you to give the new Block Editor a try. I remember when I first switched to the Block Editor – I was skeptical. But after using it for a while, I quickly fell in love with it. Here are a few reasons why I think you’ll love it too:
1. The Block Editor is more user-friendly and intuitive than the Classic Editor.
2. The Block Editor lets you create more visually appealing content with ease.
3. The Block Editor is more flexible than the Classic Editor, allowing you to easily add and rearrange blocks to create custom layouts.
Give the Block Editor a try – I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

You’ve made it this far? Did you guess that I didn’t write any of this?

I’ve been messing with GPT-3 a lot lately. This post was completely generated by the OpenAI GPT-3 model, using their beta playground.

I started by seeding it with 15 titles of recent posts that I actually did write, and asked it to generate some more. Then I picked one, and asked it to give me the headings that I should use for the blog post. Lastly, for each of the headings, I asked it to write a few paragraphs of content.

I find the whole thing very fascinating. And the more I play with it, the more I find myself recognising AI generated content when I encounter it online, which happens surprisingly often!
May 18, 2022

Inputs 2021

This year I’ve been keeping track of the books, films, and television I’ve been consuming. There’s a surprising amount!

My goal for next year is to have a lot more output – so starting in January I’ll start tallying, somehow, the creative work I put out into the world, in addition to the art I’m inspired by.

I use a ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 star rating system – you could think of it as a “recommendation” rating system:

⭐️

⭐️⭐️

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I don’t recommend this.

It’s good. I might recommend it.

It’s great! You should definitely see this.

Best of the Year

My personal award for best new film and TV show for 2021 are:

🏆 Best Television: Only Murders in the Building

Quirky, funny, mysterious, and unique. Steve Martin and Martin Short make a great duo, but the real brilliance happens when you team them up with Selena Gomez! Put this down on your list as a much watch, especially if you’re a podcast lover like me.

🥈Television Runner Up: Calls

A strange, suspenseful, and sometimes scary sci-fi. The thing that makes Calls unique is that visually, each episode looks like a music visualiser. The visuals match the story, but the story is told primarily with audio. The short episodes make it easily bingable in a night or two. Calls pairs very nicely with the Spatial Audio feature on your AirPods.

🏆 Best Film: Pig

Nicholas Cage at his best. This film has been compared to John Wick, but Pig is in another league. It’s a gritty, unnerving, and heartfelt love story, not a cookie-cutter action flick. Definitely worth a watch – this movie stays with you.

🥈Film Runner Up: Don’t Look Up

The very last movie I saw this year was fantastic – at least I thought so. Apparently it’s doing very poorly with critics. Maybe I’m particularly partial to political satire and meta narratives. The film has a unique visual style, interjecting stock footage into the story in a way that, surprisingly, really works!

Television

There’s been a lot of TV this year – not just my personal viewing, but a whole lot of quality television shows released. It’s impossible to keep up with prime viewing. We’re certainly in a golden age of television, and peak “streaming wars”. It’s easy to predict a rise in content piracy as more and more streaming services continue to release amazing content.

Despite this, I’ve pledged a television diet in 2022:

Finish the shows I’m still mid-way through
- Morning Wars (Season 2)
- See (Season 2)
- Dickinson (Season 3)
Watch any new MCU television
Watch any new Star Trek television

That’s it. Nothing else. I’ll miss out on The Expanse, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and other favourites – but that’s a sacrifice I’ll happily make to make time for creative output.

But that’s all in the year ahead. Let’s take a look back at the television I watched in 2021.

⭐️	⭐️⭐️	⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mythic Quest (Season 2)	Wandavision (Season 1)	The Office (Season 1—9)
	Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Season 1)	The Expanse (Season 5)
	Loki (Season 1)	Morning Wars (Season 1)
	Black Space (Season 1)	Calls (Season 1)
	Mr. Corman (Season 1)	For All Mankind (Season 2)
	Ted Lasso (Season 2)	Mare of Easttown (Season 1)
	Star Trek: Lower Decks (Season 2)	Marvel’s What If… (Season 1)
	Dickinson (Season 1—2)	Only Murders in the Building (Season 1)
	The Premise (Season 1)
	Invasion (Season 1)
	Foundation (Season 1)
	Dr. Brain (Season 1)

33 total seasons of television
387 total episodes
That’s slightly more than one episode for every day of the year!
If you allow for an average 40 minute episode, that’s 258 hours of television.
Most of that was binging The Office (the American version)

Film

I discovered a love for cinemas last year. “Me time”, for me, looks like sneaking out to a movie during the day, when the theatre is mostly empty, and seeing something on the big screen by myself.

Unlike television, the amount of film I’ve seen this year really feels like time well spent. It fills me up, somehow, and gives me ideas. TV feels more braindead, more couch-stoned.

One thing I did this year was to revisited the MCU (for the second time), but this time with my kids and Talia! They’ve loved it – it’s nice to have that shared context of a whole complicated fictional universe.

That said, there’s a lot of rubbish film in the MCU. I expect that my list of films for 2022 will contain a lot less in the one star column.

Talia and I also watched through all the Daniel Craig Bond films in the lead up to No Time to Die. I hope that, whoever the next Bond is, the “series” is imagined as a longer story from the beginning – it’s that shared world building that I love the best.

⭐️	⭐️⭐️	⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Incredible Hulk (2008)	The Courier (2020)	Mortal Kombat (2021)
Captain America The First Avenger (2011)	Godzilla vs Kong (2021)	Soul (2020)
Thor (2011)	Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)	Promising Young Woman (2020)
Thor: The Dark World (2013)	Cherry (2021)	The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021)
Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)	Synchronic (2019)	Nobody (2021)
Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)	Wrath of Man (2021)	The Father (2020)
Eternals (2021)	A Quiet Place (2018)	The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017)
Undergods (2021)	Iron Man (2008)	Luca (2021)
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)	Moxie (2021)	Black Widow (2021)
	Iron Man 2 (2010)	Pig (2021)
	A Quiet Place Part II (2020)	Death of a Ladies’ Man (2020)
	Cruella (2021)	The Suicide Squad (2021)
	The Avengers (2012)	Annette (2021)
	Escape Room (2019)	Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
	Iron Man 3 (2013)	Black Panther (2018)
	The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard (2021)	Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
	Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)	Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
	Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)	CODA (2021)
	Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)	Army of the Dead (2021)
	F9 (2021)	The Green Knight (2021)
	Captain America: Civil War (2006)	Free Guy (2021)
	Cleaner (2007)	Army of Thieves (2021)
	Doctor Strange (2016)	Venom (2018)
	In the Heights (2021)	Avengers: Endgame (2019)
	Guardian of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)	Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
	Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)	Finch (2021)
	Slither (2006)	Skyfall (2012)
	Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)	Spectre (2015)
	Casino Royale (2006)	Home Alone (1990)
	Quantum of Solace (2008)	Dune (2021)
	Captain Marvel (2019)	Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
	The Harder They Fall (2021)	The Matrix: Resurrections (2021)
	Red Notice (2021)	Don’t Look Up (2021)
	No Time to Die (2021)

76 total films
That’s around 1.5 movies each week
If you allow for an average 120 minute movie, that’s 152 hours
One-third of the films I saw this year were set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
37 of the movies I saw (about half) were released this year (2021)

Books

I didn’t award any book of the year, since I didn’t actually read any books that were released this year. So, instead, I’ll give an award to the best book I read this year.

🏅Book of the Year: The Final Empire (Brandon Sanderson)

The first of the excellent Mistborn series, by Brandon Sanderson. Whether the first or the third in the series is the better title could be referred to the DRS. Sanderson is a master of the fantasy genre, and his Mistborn series is masterclass on how to write, and evolve, magic systems. Most fantasy readers will have already read this, I imagine, but if you’re a fantasy fan and you haven’t – this absolutely belongs on your list.

Speaking of Sanderson, the start of 2021 was spent finishing the reading list I started in 2020: all the books that take place in his “Cosmere” universe.

I was a bit fantasied out after that – so I switched to my preferred genre of Science Fiction. Of course, no science fiction fan can truly call themselves that without having read the godfather of the genre – Asimov. So I put down the second Dune novel (it was a struggle anyway), and picked up everything in Asimov’s Robot, Foundation, and Empire series. I’m not quite through yet (only a couple of Foundation novels left), but I expect to finish with Asimov in early 2022.

Asimov has been great to read. Truly an all-time literary master. He can spin together sentences that drop your jaw with their simple complexity, and has created a “future history” that spans literally millions of years. Unfortunately, almost all his work is sullied by a distasteful misogyny that makes Asimov hard to recommend to a modern audience.

I must be a sucker for this shared universe business – between the MCU, Sanderson, and Asimov that’s the vast majority of my input this year.

⭐️	⭐️⭐️	⭐️⭐️⭐️
Elantris (Sanderson)	The Well of Ascension (Sanderson)	The Final Empire (Sanderson)
White Sand Volumes 1—3 (Sanderson)	Warbreaker (Sanderson)	The Hero of Ages (Sanderson)
The Complete Robot (Asimov)	The Alloy of Law (Sanderson)	Prelude to Foundation (Asimov)
The Stars, Like Dust (Asimov)	Shadows of Self (Sanderson)	Forward the Foundation (Asimov)
	The Bands of Mourning (Sanderson)	The Midnight Library (Haig)
	The Way Back (Shavit)
	Nine Tomorrows (Asimov)
	Caves of Steel (Asimov)
	Dawnshard (Sanderson)
	The Naked Sun (Asimov)
	Foundation (Asimov)
	I, Robot (Asimov)
	Pebble in the Sky (Asimov)
	The Currents of Space (Asimov)
	Foundation and Empire (Asimov)

24 total books
That 2 per month!
20 were audiobooks
If you allow for an average 15 hour read / listen per book, that’s 360 hours

Total Titles

Total Stars

Total Hours

I’ve been asked how I possibly have time for such a long list. The answer is simple: I don’t have any social media habits. No Twitter, no Reddit, and definitely no Facebook or Instagram.

Looking forward, I’d like 2022 to include less TV, about the same amount of Film, and more Books (with a higher percentage of reading vs listening). I’d also like to use some of the extra time I’ve saved by cutting out a lot of television to do more creative work.

December 31, 2021

What the FLoC?

The WordPress community has been discussing a proposal to force disable FLoC on all websites. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it will lead anywhere.

Unlike the WordPress leadership, the EFF have strongly rejected FLoC due its privacy risks, and individualised profiling. The Brave browsers position is that FLoC “materially harms user privacy”, and the Vivaldi browser accuses FLoC of “unwittingly give away [user] privacy for the financial gain of Google”. DuckDuckGo went so far as to create a FLoC blocking browser extension.

Google seems to be having a hard time explaining that FLoC really isn’t as bad as it seems. When asked about the implications of FLoC in a Make WordPress Core chat on Slack, all we heard from Google representatives was political hedging and links to websites that didn’t answer our questions. And here’s a Twitter thread with the Google Chrome Developer Relations Lead that’s a microcosm of that experience.

Please, let’s put away the “FLoC tries to make advertising more private” argument. No. FLoC makes fingerprinting easier than ever, not harder – your cohort ID is just another data point to help pick you out of a crowd.

Worse – FLoC reveals interest data to websites who already have your personally identifiable information (wherever you’ve signed up with your email address, for example). The inevitable outcome is that your interest data will at some point be made public. Imagine a world where dark web markets sell databases of email addresses linked to their interests and the URLs they’ve visited!

The issues with FLoC extend far beyond privacy. You think Twitter bubbles are a problem now? FLoC enables an entire web that’s bubbled specifically for you. News sites could show alternate versions of articles based on your cohort. Community groups might limit new memberships based on your algorithmically defined interests. Ecommerce stores will change their prices based on the websites you’ve visited recently.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past decade, it’s that perverse incentives have a habit of leading to perverse outcomes. Nobody wants to trust Google, or any other company with a business model rooted in manipulating you with personalised advertisements. Nobody is falling for the “Interest-based Targeting” parlance. It’s just a poor attempt at rebranding “Personalised Ads” after years of bad press.

John Gruber puts it perfectly:

Just because there is now a multi-billion-dollar industry based on the abject betrayal of our privacy doesn’t mean the sociopaths who built it have any right whatsoever to continue getting away with it. They talk in circles but their argument boils down to entitlement: they think our privacy is theirs for the taking because they’ve been getting away with taking it without our knowledge, and it is valuable.

Here’s an idea, Google. Stop planning the future of the web on Zoom calls with your advertising tech mates. There’s a simpler solution. Give browser users the ability to choose exactly who they want to share their data with, and for what purposes, rather than going behind our backs to be neatly arrange us into cohort clusters for advertisers to conveniently target.

If Google cared about user data privacy, they’d give users the agency to choose when and where to share it. You’ll never see this mockup implemented in Chrome, because it undermines the real goal: to sell more ads.

Information used for tracking must belong to the users whose behavior and interests are being tracked, not to Google or advertisers, no matter how anonymous the data is made to be. Data ownership means the right to say who gets what data and when, as well as understanding what it’s going to be used for and how long it will be held. That basic right is one which Google, and its ad-tech buddies, aren’t willing to grant.

Algorithmic profiles powering personalised ads might be good for business, but they’re bad for the web.

April 23, 2021
Blue Yeti Shock Mount Ikea Hack
I’ve been shopping around for a microphone arm and shock mount for my Blue Yeti mic. The cheap ones don’t support the weight of the Yeti, and the expensive ones are expensive.

So instead, I hacked an IKEA TERTIAL Work Lamp ($15 AUD), and with a few extra pieces, created my own.
Rather than assembling the lamp, I took to it with scissors, chopping of the bulb fixture and unthreading the power cable. Then I threaded the USB cable for the microphone, ready to plug in.

Next, I got to the 3D printing. This mount from Thingiverse did the trick very nicely. To “float” the microphone in the shock mount, I just clipped in black hair ties!
Unfortunately, the standard springs on the TERTIAL weren’t quite up to the weight. After a little trial and error, I found that replacing just one of the top springs with a C-143 size extension spring (14.3 x 76.2 x 1.372mm) provided the perfect balance.
As a bonus, my mic stand is now the exact same shade of grey as the HEKTAR work lamp on my desk.
November 11, 2020