D2 Diagrams Lives On

D2 Diagrams Lives On

One of my favorite open source tools, D2: Declarative Diagramming, is now under Hack Club! This makes D2 a fully open source and non-profit project. Thank you Alex for making this awesome tool available for everyone in the long run.

I’m really thrilled because there was some concern about whether or not this amazing project is still alive over at GitHub discussions (similarly on Discord). Sometime last month(?), I remember seeing Alex respond on Discord that he’s in the final stages of getting D2 into Hack Club… and it’s finally complete! I appreciate Alex’s take on AI in relation to D2 too that he mentions in the announcement (link below). Hope the codebase stays a “healthy dose of human”.

Personally, I was a tad bit concerned about the future of this project that I have become dependent on. I would have hated if I had to change tools because I’ve invested time to learning how D2 works and got my workflow all set up. That’s the underlying risk I guess for relying too heavily on any single tool…

In case you didn’t know, there is a VSCodium / VSCode extension and also an Obsidian plugin that is handy when testing different styles and working on .D2 files as it generates the image in real-time. Coming from Mermaid JS which is perhaps the more popular diagramming language, I was grateful that both apps I use daily (Obsidian and VSCodium) both have official D2 plugins.

All my Open Graph images on this site are created with D2 and I’ve started using it instead of Mermaid for flow chart diagrams in posts that benefit from a visual representation (⁂ will convert existing diagrams when I have time). I think it is a better tool than Mermaid (especially when Mermaid is pushing AI straight in your face). Not to mention the syntax is easier to grasp! Highly recommend playing around with it if you’re looking for a diagramming language.

Related Links

• Official D2 Announcement
• Another project, Ghostty, which also got fiscally sponsored by Hack Club
• Open Source at Hack Club
• Comparing diagramming languages
• D2 in action: Building professional architecture diagrams step-by-step | Gijs Reijn

Blaugust 2026: Final Word

Blaugust 2026: Final Word

James, a fellow blogger and friend, kindly offered me a chance to guest post on his blog: with words, wonder, so that I could tick off one more task in the Community Builder award list. This means I achieved the goal! I will try to contribute more to the Blaugust community next year for sure. Thank you, James for the opportunity!

If you want to read my guest post, it’s on James’s site now: Chinese Idioms (Guest post by Naty). Do check out all the great writing on his blog while you’re there!

This note is definitely the last post of Blaugust2026! Good night y’all.

Some Thoughts on Advice

Some Thoughts on Advice

This post is in response to Blaugust2026 Week 5’s Group Project:

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? What is the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?

Best Advice Received

It’s hard to think of a single piece of advice that overrules all the rest, but here are some that I follow:

• “This too shall pass.”
  • Try to zoom out and look at the big picture once in a while.
• “You can’t rush life; everyone is running on their own individual timeline.”
  • Also, try not to compare yourself to others.
• “The most trustworthy and reliable friend is yourself.”
  • If you need to vent about someone or something; try writing it down in a journal and reviewing it once you’ve calmed down. You never know if one day your “best friend” might no longer be a friend and now they know all your “secrets”.
• “Don’t be dependent on others.”
  • Learn to be happy being alone, stay independent, and try to solve your own problems (but ask for guidance when you genuinely need it).
• “Great achievements come in tiny steps.”
  • Break down big tasks into bite-sized ones and make completing tasks a habit to achieve your goals.

Best Advice Given

I wouldn’t call my advice the “best” by any means, but I’ve given it to more than one person, so I’ll share it here:

• “Instead of putting things you want to do in a bucket list, time block them into your calendar.”
  • Seeing the task in your calendar can help motivate you to complete the task.
• “Make everything important a habit.”
  • Humans are creatures of habit. If you want to accomplish something long term, make it a routine. Use a habit tracker to help you get started with reminders; after about a month, it should become ingrained in your daily routine.
• “Listen and think before you speak.”
  • Personally, I am more of a listener and I believe the act of listening and thinking is more important than the actual expression.
• “Step out of your comfort zone often.”
  • It gives us a chance to grow, toughen up, challenges us to problem-solve, and improve as a person.
• “Remember to love yourself.”
  • Some people (especially carers) forget to look after themselves after giving all their energy loving others.
• “Check what free resources are available at your local library.”
  • In HK, the public library is free for all citizens and I find the e-resources to be super useful. It is perfect for self-improvement and learning, or even just casual reading. Taking all those short moments in the day, where nothing too productive can be done like queuing or commuting, to read is a great use of time in my opinion! Never stop learning. 📚

Thoughts on Advice in General

Both giving and taking advice is an art in itself. A giver of advice needs to be mindful of the situation of the receiver, not being forceful, ensuring the advice isn’t bad which might make matters worse. A receiver of advice needs to know how to adapt it to their own circumstances, understand that not every piece of advice applies to them, and not to follow advice blindly.

Sometimes though, when a friend comes to you for “advice”; they might just need a safe space for you to listen empathetically and can work it out themselves. At the end of the day, advice is a very subjective thing, and the quality can be extremely variable based on the amount of life experiences one has had—which is why I tend to err on the conservative side of giving advice: give it only when explicitly asked.

Starting Over With the Pi

Starting Over With the Pi

Since Oct of last year, I haven’t had time to reinstate my self-hosted apps like Calibre, Miniflux, Navidrome, etc on my little Pi homelab. During this time, I missed using Navidrome the most (I resorted to listening only on my Mac); with the only thing running on it being Indiekit with Docker.

Neater Installs

But that changed yesterday! After chatting with a new sysadmin friend online, I got a huge surge of motivation to fix my home server to at least what I had before. My previous setup was pretty horrendous to be honest, I didn’t know any better, and the whole Pi was in a disarray of software installed either by:

• direct / bare metal
• via dietpi-software
• via Docker (using Portainer)

Docker Management

This time, I am setting up everything in containers with compose files. I am also dropping Portainer for just Lazydocker in the meantime. Portainer felt too heavy for me. TBH, I want to try using Dokploy but not sure if it’s an overkill doing beginner homelab things on my 8GB Pi (it only requires 2GB RAM and 30GB storage which my Pi meets). Arcane is also on my radar.

I can’t find much on people using Dokploy with Raspberry Pis except for this post by Mariano (but they didn’t specify what spec Pi they have). They also run DietPi so that’s nice to know!

Homelab Start Page

My choice of dashboard will remain with Homer as I already had the config set and don’t want to waste time customizing. I still have about four more services I have to restore—but everything is going well so far. I now know how to use Caddy to manage the services with ports mapping to the individual containers and everything will be available within my Tailnet.

When I tried working on this headless Pi project the first time, I didn’t know how to access the server outside from home. With Tailscale and Caddy this time round, I’m very happy to get access when I’m not home!

Restoring Files on the Pi

Back in the day, when I first started messing with the Pi 4B, I was hoping to transfer files directly via USB onto the USB SATA SSD boot drive from my Mac (my primary computer). But super newbie me didn’t realize that ext4 is not compatible on Macs. Rsync saves the day! With my much better Internet connection now (LAN directly from my Mac Mini to the Pi), I can very easily copy directories over with no hassle. For example, my top-level music folder was copied over from my Mac to the Pi using: rsync -avz --progress -e "ssh -p <custom_port_num>" "/mac/path/to/music/" username@<pi_IP_address>:/mnt/dietpi_userdata/music/.

Remember to always add an -n (dry run) flag to double-check before running such tasks. Last night, I let it run overnight, and it copied around 200GB of music over—no problem! I was too excited and forgot to check when it finish / how long it took in total though. :P

Other than using rsync I also like using Syncthing. So I got the Pi and folders setup again so that I have a “dropbox” folder on my Mac that can quickly share files to the Pi and vice versa.

Closing

Self-hosting is a great way to learn and I personally find it extremely rewarding. Being able to run things on hardware you own (or a subscription to a VPS) and having full access and control of where your data lives is incredible. That’s the reason I got into it in the first place.

Nowadays, with the RAMpocalypse, it doesn’t really make sense though to buy a Pi to tinker with since everything is so expensive now. But if you have existing hardware though, I highly recommend you playing with some Docker containers, or even Kubernetes / Ansible if you like that kinda stack more (I don’t know much about those, but one day I want to try!) My favourite place to discover services to self-host is this awesome-list.

If you want to read about my beginnings with homelabbing, see my first post in the Homelab Beginner series: Booting a Pi with SSD.

That’s all the updates I have on my homelab situation. I will finish setting up the rest of the services soon and the next thing will probably to try either Arcane or Dokploy to see if the Pi can cope with the extra burden. A nice monitoring app would be nice too, but there are so many to choose from (Grafana, Prometheus, Uptime Kuma)? What is your favourite monitoring dashboard?

Mac Mini 2018 i7 Hand-me-down

Mac Mini 2018 i7 Hand-me-down

I’m really excited because a mutual friend said they’re willing to give me their retired 2018 Mac Mini (which was originally used for music production). What’s extremely exciting is the fact it’s a maxed out model with 64GB DDR4 RAM (I’ve never owned a computer with over 16GB of RAM!) with 2TB SSD. Feeling extremely grateful for his generosity. 🥰

Did a quick search to see some issues about the T2 security chip maybe affecting the installation of Linux though so I need to research a lot more. It won’t be in my hands until October, so I have some time. I installed Linux Mint on my old 2012 Macbook Air 13" (maxed out spec) with no issues but that one doesn’t have the T2 chip.

Running Linux on Mac hardware has been a wonderful experience on the MBA; although the battery is dead (need to use it plugged in at all times), there’s no bulging physically and the system runs super smoothly. Sure there’s some fan noise and it gets a bit warm, but if I’m just doing some basic web dev stuff like IDE + browser + hugo server, I don’t feel any throttling whatsoever with the 8GB RAM.

The Mac Mini M1 2020 I’m using for the last few years with 16GB RAM is often hitting yellow memory limits. Perhaps it is the way Apple Silicon works, but I feel 16GB is not enough for me to do photo editing and sometimes my many tabs (hundreds) causes it to hit memory swap. This “new” 2018 Mac Mini should feel extra powerful with 64GB RAM!

This gift is a dream come true for a person interested in self-hosting; I can’t wait to learn and do much more than the little Raspberry Pi 4B 8GB since the journey started (TBH it’s been very good for me and I’ve never hit limits). I really like reviving and using old tech hardware because it makes me feel like I’m pushing the boundaries of what it is designed to do and reducing e-waste is always a good thing!

Of course, when it arrives, I’ll be blogging about it! I’m thinking what distro to install/dual-boot… I am most familiar with Linux Mint (Ubuntu-based) and DietPi OS (Debian-based). Is it worth trying a new distro like Arch/CachyOS or completely different like NixOS?

Just a few weeks ago I was tempted to subscribe to my first VPS (again), but I think with this little powerhouse coming; I will refrain. Do you use any of these or have a preference of distros for running a home server? If you had such hardware, what would you want to self host? I’m all ears! 🙏

Resources

• Linux for T2 | GitHub
• Installing and Using Fedora on Apple MacBooks with T2 Security Chips
• T2Linux: Linux on 2017~2020 Intel Macs with T2 Security Chip
• Switching My 2019 MacBook Pro to Linux: The T2-Ubuntu Journey
• Arch Linux on MacBook Pro with T2
• How to install Linux Mint on a T2 Mac Mini 2018 | Youtube

About the Revamp

About the Revamp

If you’ve been to my site before—you may have noticed a bit of a change since yesterday.

Last night, I pushed a lot of features and stylistic changes to my site (over 100 commits?!) It was long overdue and I’m feeling happy I got it done (but not too happy it was done in the month of August when I should have been focused more on writing for Blaugust). The style choices takes from some of the decisions made at the beginning of the year. I want to remain true to the current theme because I’ve grown to love it.

Even though I didn’t get to work the 100% CSS rewrite I keep meaning to do (it’s horribly messy & override hell due to previously not forking the Hugo theme), I did manage to cut out a lot of wrong use of selectors, simplify rules, and also worked on repeating myself less in the HTML partials used around the site.

I think everything should be working but if anything is broken, I’ll be super thankful if you’d let me know!

Features and Style Changes

The changelog will be updated soon with before / after screenshots. In the mean time, here are most of the changes, in no particular order:

• Completely revamp the top section of pages: link to return to previous section, H1, and metadata. Date, tags, word count and read time is now hidden in a details element (with the table of content also in there if the page has TOC turned on)
• New arrow icons with pixelated design by Pinhead
• Remove JS dependency for light/dark mode! This was a big change. Now using prefers-color-theme
• Remove drop down menu on top navigation; use an anchor link instead, that opens a details element on the home page which acts like a quick menu
• Improve look of sparklines on the stats page
• New 404 page
• New layout (2x2 grid) for latest weeknotes and blog section on homepage
• New ‘Cite this page’ link popover instead of distracting share buttons inside the page metadata details element or at the start of the footer (if the page doesn’t have have a metadata section)
• New simplified admonition styles (reduced a lot of redundant CSS!)
• Improve a11y by reducing the colour contrast overall on the site (both themes), from 12 to ~7 contrast ratio
• Simplify ‘Responses’ and ‘Support’ sections
• Use page template for single notes (example)

Bug Fixes

• Bullet point now shows at the first row of multi-line list items
• ‘Phantom’ hover styles on mobile fixed with @media (hover: hover) and (pointer: fine)
• Content layout shift (CLS) reduced for iine upvote button partial by setting height explicitly

Pending

• After removing the JS light/dark mode, I noticed a bit of FOUC; which will take me some time to figure out the cause

Closing

What triggered me do do this much change? I gather it was mainly because 1) the drop down menu getting overly long and 2) the great eye opening page Chris created about HTML. I think the 404 page is my favourite change and the second being the minimal metadata + table of contents. What do you like or dislike? Let me know! 😉

Now that this is done and dusted, I better get back to Blaugust and catch up before the end of the month!

Re: The Loss of Links Continues

Came across Trevor’s post about link rot last week. The topic of fixing broken links on our websites is pops up occasionally at Homebrew Website Club meetings. I never really investigated how I could check every link efficiently on my Hugo site locally (not relying on third-party services). Since I have a Python script that checks for orphan pages (internal site pages that are unlinked, which I have written about before), I had an idea.

Since the orphan page checker Python script is doing something similar (scraping all links and analyzing them), I decided to tweak it to check if any pages lead to a 404 (or in fact, anything other than 200). Happy to report that I’ve got a local workflow now to check for link validity on my site!

The script visits all external links on my site, outputs a .txt file with all the problematic links; for example here, Pablo updated his URL slug pattern which caused the 404:

I went through each 404 error (about 40 or so), searching for the new permalink, and updated all of them. If a page wasn’t live any more, I tried going to the Internet Archive for a snapshot, and use a link to that instead (with a footnote about making the change and on what date). There were also a lot of 403 errors which were Cloudflare’s CAPTCHA solver / “confirm you’re not a bot” pages. I don’t think is necessary for me to know this, so I might just focus on 404 and 301 (permanent redirect) and update the script for a cleaner output.

Quite happy with this relatively easy way to keep links alive on my site! If I do it routinely (once every month), it should be a low effort task. Perhaps I should do what Trevor did and do some data collection over the years… How do you keep your links from rotting?

Resources

• Broken Link Checker | Ahrefs
• The Internet Is Rotting | The Atlantic
• Fixing Broken Links on the Internet | Internet Archive
• Longevity | Indieweb
• Using the Wayback Machine | Internet Archive
• List of HTTP status codes | Wikipedia
• What is Link Rot, and How Does It Threaten the Web? | HowToGeek

Hot Weather Effects

Hot Weather Effects

The temperatures are stifling, with an ongoing record-breaking heatwave due to the effect of nearby typhoons with temperatures reaching 38°C in some areas of HK. Indoor temperature when the AC is off reached 39°C in my room despite cross airflow from fans and opened windows.

Air Conditioning

I’ve always been a person who tries to reduce air-con use when I can, inspired by the infamous HK meteorologist and environmentalist, the ex-Hong Kong Observatory Director Lam Chiu Ying, who uses only fans to keep his home cool.

Because I tend to get cold easily, being in an air conditioned place for long periods doesn’t exactly feel good to me. Fans, windows, and the dehumidifier are my friends. If only lüften would bring in some cooler fresh air in the mornings… because it doesn’t in this kind of weather; the temperatures overnight remain high.

There are huge, undeniable consequences of global warming and climate change. Persistent, unrelenting high temperatures cause damage to the wel-being and health of everyone—both physically and mentally. I hope everyone stays cool, hydrated, and aware of the dangers of the scorching heat!

General Tips

• Make use of evaporation to cool down by misting
• Try to get some crosswind air flow going
• If possible, use a dehumidifier to dry the environment as it helps with evaporation of sweat, cooling the body
• Get some reusable ice packs to help the body cool down initially when going to sleep, around the neck, forehead, or under armpits
• A fan near the end of the bed that oscillates can help cool the feet/lower extremities
• Consider getting some window films that help block heat from entering the home and close the blinds/curtains
• Turn off unused electrical appliances as they generate heat
• Have a few more cold water showers during the day
• Get some isotonic sport drinks or oral rehydration salts for when sweating becomes excessive to replenish salts lost
• If you start to have symptoms of heat stroke, please get help immediately—it can be life threatening.

Further Reading

• Summer Heat and Its Effect on the Brain
• How Climate Change Affects Our Mental Health, and What We Can Do About It | Commonwealth Fund
• What are El Niño and La Niña? | National Ocean Service
• Heatwaves | WHO
• Heatstroke and Heat Exhaustion | NHS

Last Minute Decision: Blaugust 2026

Last Minute Decision: Blaugust 2026

Less than 30 minutes before August 1st ends (I better write this note quickly!) I have decided to participate in this rather infamous annual blogging event called Blaugust, created by, sadly the late, @belghast (Mark Temple).

I’m aiming to get at least the Bronze and Community Builder award (see below for a list of awards).

What?

During Blaugust, in August, try to write on your blog, every day for all 31 days, or with some sort of regularity, or randomly! This event is about creation and writing, so any post is better than none!

Don’t feel too stressed about it; the rules have become more lenient over the years so more people can participate without needing to churn out 1000+ words every day. There’s no word limit per se, but for me personally, I’ll be aiming for a minimum of 300 words before I count a piece of writing to be part of Blaugust 2026.

If you have no clue where to start, there is actually an official schedule you could use (optionally!) as a guide:

And if that isn’t enough, there are also themes/group projects and prompts (again optional) provided by Krikket if you’re feeling stuck.

Why?

If you want to build up some motivation to start writing on your blog, this is definitely a fun way to get started and to meet fellow bloggers! I am in another year-long challenge called 100DaysToOffload, and that has really given me the excitement and encouragement to just write and forget about the insecurities I have. I think Blaugust will have similar effects and it is a nice way to keep Mark’s creation living on despite his absence (RIP @belghast).

How?

Sign up with this form and I’ll see you in the Blaugust-sphere! Check out social media tags like #blaugust2026 or #blaugust on Mastodon (or Bluesky).

To learn more about the details about this event, check out Krikket’s official post about Blaugust 2026.

Who?

Everyone who blogs or writes is invited! Wilhelm / @tagn has a list of all the participants this year at the bottom of their Welcome to Blaugust entry if you want to check out what others are writing this month. Giving likes, leaving a comment or sharing posts you enjoy is appreciated! Everyone can participate; readers and writers alike.

Note About AI

This blogging event is about writing, creating, and sharing. Using AI for purely content generation is not allowed. Please see Krikket’s “Use of AI as a Blaugust Participant” section.

Resources

Some extra links if you want to learn more:

• Media kit for Blaugust 2026
• Another informational / welcome post by MagiWasTaken
• If you use Discord, there’s a Blaugust Discord
• One of the OG prompt list by the creator of Blaugust
• Blaugust Mastodon account

Checklist for Awards

This is mainly for myself, but feel free to check out what you can achieve and set a goal for yourself! 💪

Core Challenge Awards

• Newbie Blogger Award: Join Blaugust for the very first time by signing up.
• Bronze Award: Publish > 5 blog entries during August 2026.
• Silver Award: Publish > 15 blog entries during August 2026.
• Gold Award: Publish > 25 blog entries during August 2026.
• Rainbow Diamond Award: Beat the original challenge (publishing 31 blog entries daily during August 2026) or more!

Community Builder Award

Complete at least 3 to get the Community Build Award:

• Make a post on your blog on or before August 1st, 2026 inviting other bloggers to participate in Blaugust. Make sure you link the signup form.
• Make at least 5 posts directly inspired by a post by another Blaugust participant. Each of these posts should link back to the post in question.
• Engage with other Blaugust participants at least once per week. Read posts, leave comments, join discussions in the Blaugust Discord and share posts written by others on social media.
• Be a guest blogger on another Blaugust participant’s blog – or have someone else guest post on yours! (James invited me to write about Chinese idioms on his blog on the last day of Blaugust2026—allowing me to complete the Community Builder Award! 🥰)
• At least once in the month of August, join an existing “Group Project”. Or you can create your own by choosing a topic, find other bloggers, and each post your own take on that topic on the same day. (Note: The Community Builder’s group projects are the questions in the weekly hero image/graphic, of which I have transcribed below.)

Group Projects

• Week 1: Tell us all about your very first blog! (Not written in week 1, but the AuguStory post has a similar theme.)
• Week 2: If you could have one magical or superpower, what would you choose and use it for?
• Week 3: What creative endeavour have you always wanted to try, and who do you admire in that field?
• Week 4: What non-blog related achievement are you particularly proud of, and how did you stay motivated to complete it?
• Week 5: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? What is the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else? (Read the entry.)

Log

I will manually update this chronological list of all the posts I’ve written during Blaugust 2026 (list may not be up to date). For the latest Blaugust content, visit the automated #blaugust2026 tag page or see how Blaugust will affect my calendar heatmap!

1. Aug 1: Last Minute Decision: Blaugust 2026
2. Aug 2: A Dating Matter: Hugo, Indiekit, and Node
3. Aug 3: Weeknote 2026-W31: Blaugust 2026, 32-Bit Café & New Bloggers
4. Aug 4: Costs: Price of a Personal Site on the Smallweb
5. Aug 6: HTML Day: How to Join the Annual HTML Energy Event
6. Aug 8: Two Poems From Yonder
7. Aug 11: Hot Weather Effects
8. Aug 15: Re: The Loss of Links Continues
9. Aug 16: RSVP to HWC Asia Pacific: Round 2
10. Aug 18: IndieWeb Homebrew Website Club Asia Pacific: Reflections
11. Aug 22: About the Revamp
12. Aug 24: Mac Mini 2018 i7 Hand-me-down
13. Aug 25: AuguStory: The Story About BurgeonLab
14. Aug 27: HWC Asia Pacific: Round 3
15. Aug 28: Starting Over With the Pi
16. Aug 31: Some Thoughts on Advice
17. Aug 31: Blaugust 2026 Recap
18. Aug 31: Blaugust 2026: Final Word

Re: It’s not about physical vs digital games, it’s about ownership

Reading Kali’s post about ownership triggered me to write this post about my memories of owning games and other types of media in my lifetime. The future is bleak.

Games

Growing up, I was a video game addict. Browsing the aisles lined with game cartridges and discs at GameSpot and Toys “R” Us will always be in my memory. I still have a lot of the games (albeit in storage and some of the less played were sold), sitting in their cases with their little booklets, ready to be enjoyed as long as the console works. The games can be played at any time and any where because you bought it and it’s in your hands—all you need is the controller, console + screen, game—no Internet required. Sadly that is all going away as Sony announces end of PlayStation discs.

Nintendo Was A Step Ahead

I also just found out some Nintendo Switch 2 cartridges, called “Game Key cartridges” doesn’t actually contain the game files.

Once inserted into your console, these will still require you to download a game in its entirety from the internet, essentially acting as licensed permission for you to play instead of actually storing it.

The biggest fear with Game Key carts is how they could be the final nail in the coffin when it comes to physical preservation on Nintendo platforms. While you will still possess a physical copy of something, it is functionally useless unless the servers are online and can provide us with the means to trigger a download of missing data. Without that, they’re nothing more than terrible lightweight paperweights.

Jade King, Nintendo Switch 2 Cartridges Are Already Too Confusing For Their Own Good

Owning Your Media

I am someone who has always been into owning physical media; books (can’t beat the smell of a book!), music (CDs), movies (VCD/DVDs), and software in boxes (yep I’m kinda old). I never got on the streaming bandwagon when that started becoming the norm, and absolutely despised the fact software all started becoming subscriptions.

You are still paying for things, but you merely hold a flaky licence to use the content, at the mercy of the company. They can revoke your access at any time, for any reason they deem fit. They can delete all the songs/apps/games/etc you bought rent on their platform; or worse yet, outright delete your account. What are you left with? I guess just the credit card statements.

All Will Be Lost?

All in all, this is sad news. I guess there is no stopping the world from becoming fully digitized, where everything can just disappear in a blink of an eye. Sony’s step is just one of many in this trend of replacing ownership with licences. Even our phones (Android specifically since iOS is already pretty locked down) and computing devices are starting to come under threat; as we start to lose the choice of what can or can’t be installed. If you’re unaware of the dire situation Android is in, please visit Keep Android Open to learn more.

To end in an even more depressing note, books are being cut open physically for scanning by AI companies, and then destroyed (landfill). See Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models | Ars Technica. I’m lost for words and upset—I love libraries and books. Can’t even imagine what authors are going through…

This post is part of JulyReply, an annual blogging initiative in the month of July, created by Robert Birming.