Part of an ongoing series exploring my digital life, starting with “Designing my digital life (again)” Thinking about privacy and surveillance as I did here began as an emotional reaction to Inbox being shut down, but the approach I took with the privacy topic could also be viewed as a somewhat academic exercise to explore an idea. As a more practical exercise to understand what “let Google see less of me” looks like, I figured I would try to make changes to ensure that Google sees less of me. ... Read more

Part of an ongoing series exploring my digital life, starting with “Designing my digital life (again)” Part of understanding my gut feeling for wanting to move away from Google, why I think HTTPS is good, or why I dislike targeted adverts, is understanding and unpacking the feelings I have when I hear about Google and data in the news, when I hear about three letter agencies dragnetting the internet and when I see targeted advertising going wrong. ... Read more

Nearly a decade ago I discovered the power of controlling my environment by being deliberate in how I wanted to operate. This consisted of reflecting on what “systems” I wanted to use and what mental models served me. This ranged from the delightfully banal (“how do I want to hang my washing?”) to the rather more esoteric (“I desire my wallet to function exactly like this”), which often brought an associated step of having to build that thing. ... Read more