I really enjoy using Whereby for video conferences. It’s completely browser based, so no installs necessary. Just share a URL and start chatting. The recent brand refresh makes it even more enjoyable.

A very simple idea: write down any thoughts that you want your future self to reflect on. FutureMe then sends it to you at a specific date in the future.

Another entry to the password manager category: Padloc is a transparently developed, secure vault for all your passwords. Available on all major OSes and devices.

Eye-roll recommend: “Look Busy fills your work calendar with realistic-looking (but secretly fake) work events. Your co-workers won’t schedule conference calls and meetings, so you can get actual work done.”

Sandworm →

A new era of cyberwar

“A chilling, globe-spanning detective story, Sandworm considers the danger [cyberwar] poses to our national security and stability. As the Kremlin’s role in foreign government manipulation comes into greater focus, Sandworm exposes the realities not just of Russia’s global digital offensive, but of an era where warfare ceases to be waged on the battlefield. It reveals how the lines between digital and physical conflict, between wartime and peacetime, have begun to blur – with world-shaking implications.”

Schon DSGN pen →

Classic machined pen

Offered in a range of weights and materials, and “designed to be a compact, dependable pen that you can easily carry with you every day, The Classic Collection pen provides you that little bit of analog back to an increasingly digital lifestyle.” I like this idea of a pen for a lifetime, maybe even as an item to pass on to another generation.

Digital security legend Bruce Schneier with a succinct overview of how bots have and will (with increased intelligence) shape our political discourse online: “Our future will consist of boisterous political debate, mostly bots arguing with other bots. This is not what we think of when we laud the marketplace of ideas, or any democratic political process. Democracy requires two things to function properly: information and agency. Artificial personas can starve people of both.”

“Some scientists are trying to name our current geologic epoch after us – calling it the Anthropocene. That’s no brag, because most of the changes we’re making to our planet are embarrassing. We’ve caused huge shifts in the plants and animals sharing the planet with us, driven many species to extinction, left a layer of radioactive fallout from exploding nuclear bombs, accidentally changed the composition of our atmosphere, and left a layer of plastic that will in all likelihood still be around in a million years.”

This political scientist proposes a pretty radical and fascinating solution to many of the maladies of Western democracy: “My research shows that another approach – randomly selecting citizens to take turns governing – offers the promise of reinvigorating struggling democracies. That could make them more responsive to citizen needs and preferences, and less vulnerable to outside manipulation.”