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#76 May 2025 | Monthly Digital Breadcrumbs

Creativity Matters Issue 3 2025 - front page - justadandak.com
Read and download this months issue here / subscribe here.

A bunch of things I’ve found on my digital strolls (which I added to my Tumblr) for your eyes and ears plus brain to spend time on (as no longer on Twitter).

READ

“If we deliberately change the way that we breathe, for example, using exhales that are twice the length of the inhale, we consciously send different signals to the medulla oblongata (the brain’s control center), just as we might change the input channel on a television remote. This part of our brain responds with instructions to the endocrine system to produce a neurotransmitter that slows down our heart rate, regulates blood pressure, and returns our body to homeostasis.”
The Operating Manual for Your Nervous System

“Under an interpretation of one of the category 1 duties, the foundation said, if it chose not to verify Wikipedia users and editors, it would have to allow anonymous users to block other posters from fixing or removing any content, under the act’s measures to tackle online trolls. As a consequence, thousands of volunteer editors on the site would need to undergo identity verification, which breaches the foundation’s commitment to collecting minimal data about readers and contributors. Punishments for breaching the act include fines of either £18m or 10% of a company’s global turnover and, in extreme cases, access to a service being blocked in the UK.”
Wikipedia challenging UK law it says exposes it to ‘manipulation and vandalism’ | Wikipedia | The Guardian

“Lately, it feels like some of you aren’t the techno-optimists I took you to be. You’ve been heard uttering slurs like “I’m worried about my job stability” and “I just don’t think it’s positive for humankind,” neither of which sounds remotely optimistic or techno. I’ve even heard shocking reports of teams failing to incorporate plagiarism into their processes, because—I can’t believe I have to repeat this—“it’s not helpful.” Team, hear me when I say that this is harassment, and it must end. Put yourself in your coworker’s shoes—say, a coworker with really nice, designer footwear, who has invested their personal fortune into the Giant Plagiarism Machine™, along with other intellectual-property-theft futures. Imagine how that coworker (could be anyone!) might feel working alongside such Negative Nancies.”
A Company Reminder for Everyone to Talk Nicely About the Giant Plagiarism Machine – McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

“Various uses of copyrighted works in AI training are likely to be transformative. The extent to which they are fair, however, will depend on what works were used, from what source, for what purpose, and with what controls on the outputs—all of which can affect the market. When a model is deployed for purposes such as analysis or research—the types of uses that are critical to international competitiveness—the outputs are unlikely to substitute for expressive works used in training. But making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries.”
Via US Copyright Office: Copyright and Artificial Intelligence – Part 3: Generative AI Training pre-publication version – A report of the register of copyrights May 2025 (pdf)

“Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, admitted as much during more than ten hours of testimony, over three days last week, in the opening phase of the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust trial against Facebook’s parent company, Meta. The company, Zuckerberg said, has lately been involved in “the general idea of entertainment and learning about the world and discovering what’s going on.” This under-recognized shift away from interpersonal communication has been measured by the company itself. During the defense’s opening statement, Meta displayed a chart showing that the “percent of time spent viewing content posted by ‘friends’ ” has declined in the past two years, from twenty-two per cent to seventeen per cent on Facebook, and from eleven per cent to seven per cent on Instagram.”
Mark Zuckerberg Says Social Media Is Over | The New Yorker

WATCH

EXPLORE

Check out and play this no stress Tetris game / in-browser.

Open Alternative is a growing list of open-source alternatives to everyday SaaS products.

Check out this lovely little online Gradient Wallpaper / Colour Blend Generator via quismi.

Spawning AI is trying to provide ‘opt-out’ services for creators regarding Generative AI platforms.

PairPods is an an app to easily share Bluetooth audio on macOS between two devices at a time for free.

Check out The Brilliance Summit if you’re in the UK at the end of June this year (founded by the wife of a pal).

Apply now for It’s Nice That’s Ones to Watch – championing the next generation of creatives, deadline is 22 June at 23:59.

Live TV Wall displays international news channels in two grid layout options which you can go full screen with for backdrop creations.

All monthly digital breadcrumbs posts.
Published

16 Years Of LinkedIn | Divesting From A Broken Platform

Rolodex™_67236_Rotary_Business_Card_File with LinkedIn logo added - justadandak.com
By Poolcode – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link + my mod.

It’s taken me months to individually contact the majority my 3,100+ connections in my LinkedIn network via the direct messaging option.

After a personal opening paragraph saying hello and looking at what they are currently up to, I mention their work and / or how long it’s been and / or reminder of where we met plus ask of how I can support their endeavours. I then continue with the following reason for the message:

“Am reaching out to let you know I don’t know how long I’ll be actively using LinkedIn going forward, so if you’re not already please subscribe to my site / blog to ensure you get all the important updates from me: https://justadandak.com/blog/ -> there’s a box on the right hand side to pop your preferred email into or there’s the RSS feed to snag and add to your reader. It’s never more than a handful of posts a month plus you can unsubscribe at anytime, your data is never shared on ;-)”

I then standardise mentions of a few things of what I’m up to and after that share details for those more inclined to go deeper: how after 30 years online I’ve seen in the past decade the erosion of ethics and trust on social media platforms regarding engagement, then how specifically the LinkedIn algorithms hide anything useful even though I have tried to ‘train’ it (plus in turn how my stuff doesn’t get through to those I’m connected to), and finally I ask about their site / blog / newsletter / YouTube channel in which I can subscribe to / grab the RSS from plus hope we get to speak / meet again soon.

Out of the folks contacted I’d say 10%, maybe 15% responded. A third of those shared support / understanding with the issues of the platform (whether it be direct experience of lack of utility / reach / use). Got about 100 new subscribers to my blog via email (no way of telling who snagged the RSS feed) and had three direct speaker coaching clients which was a nice unintended outcome.


I joined LinkedIn during 2009.

I had 15 years online under my belt by that time and that year marked 3 years into MediaSnackers, where we were championing the astonishing creativity and collaborative force social media offers through training courses / talks delivered across several continents and for / to an impressive group of clients.

I still truly believe in the magnificent power of connecting humans / ideas through online mediums plus the incredible ways it enables others to have voice. However, as exemplified by Facebook and Twitter, the corrosive strategy to hollow out of any kind of human-first approach and replace that with everything run by algorithms / data-sucking-bots illustrates the aim of commodifying attention to the degradation of it’s own usefulness (see ‘enshittification’)

For what its worth, LinkedIn has an opportunity to differentiate with the following:

  • remove the alorithmic or at least allow an opt-out version of the main feed, serving content only from 1st connections (they could even go further and introduce private groups where you can curate humans into topic areas which only you can see)
  • remove or label or have an opt-out to any AI text / image in someones feed (although being owned by Microsoft can imagine it’s a sales funnel play for Co-pilot LLM plus all of the content on the platform has already been sucked up into the database)
  • allow a block feature on certain words or phrases to again cut through the trend-aligned posts and content

Until then and for the time being, I’ll log in every now and again to see if anyone has left me a message or tagged me in something of interest. For the reasons shared above, LinkedIn has now been relegated to an amazingly useful modern-day-Rolodex for when I travel and need to find folks in a particular place (within my network) until such time they remove that feature also.

Published

Presenting Academic Work | Victoria University of Wellington, Te Kura Waihanga / School of Architecture

One of my early MidJourney experiments: Solarpunk high-rise parametric building with Zaha Hadid style, black and white

Coupling storytelling styles with academic substance.

Last week I was lucky enough to deliver a couple of sessions at Victoria University of Wellington, Te Kura Waihanga / School of Architecture.

The first was a ‘purposeful storytelling’ presentation and Q&A with the whole third year student body of about 100 souls. After which, a self-selected group attended a two hour masterclass experience in which students presented. During the latter, we explored different critiquing and feedback techniques so they could continue to aid other peers in this arena, whilst also seeing how they can apply some of the lessons from the initial presentation in their future presentations.

DK gave a brilliant presentation to 3rd year architecture and interior design students at the School of Architecture, Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington in May 2025. Following the presentation, DK gave a masterclass in public speaking/presenting to a smaller group of the students. The students got personal feedback and coaching.
DK was very engaging, entertaining, and informative. He demonstrated some aspects of presenting that can’t be unseen afterwards! The students loved it and gave very positive feedback. They learned valuable techniques to bring grace, credibility, and emotional resonance to their presentations.
As an experienced public speaker myself, I also got excellent value from organising and attending DK’s presentation. I will certainly be reshaping my future presentations based on what I took away from it. And I will be looking for future opportunities to bring DK back again to work with our students.”

Elrond Burrell, Program Director for Building Science, Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation, Victoria University of Wellington

It’s a delicate balance creating presentations for an audience versus finding your own voice and expressiveness—especially if you’re early in your career—although, if one can absorb tried and tested approaches which hold attention whilst also allowing room to explore you’re own way of sharing story, then it sets one on a path of confidence and effectiveness.

As way of an example, this could simply mean unburdening slides with so much data and allowing more of a conversational tone to the work being shown—and with more space the most impactful elements such as the graphics can take center stage).

Lots of gratitude to the students for their time, attention plus to those who were brave enough to stand and speak in the masterclass.

Thanks also to Elrond and the rest of the staff for the opportunity to collaborate.

Published

Redefining Wisdom Podcast With Daniel Cianci | This Is Why You’re Still Afraid of Public Speaking

How to be impressive at public speaking by exploring the intersecting disciplines of storytelling and oratory (they are two different things).

What a wonderful experience to participate in this podcast and have such a curious human steer the conversation with superb questions, provocations and personal insights—Daniel described the episode in the following way via this LinkedIn post:

“You’re not weak.
You’re not broken.
You’re just wired to survive, and standing in front of people feels like a threat to that.
But what if you could rewire that fear into confidence?
What if your voice became your superpower, not your source of anxiety?”

A brilliant summary and invitation to watch.

Here are the show notes if you want to jump to certain topics:

  • 0:00 The Power of Storytelling and Public Speaking
  • 2:20 Storytelling vs. Public Speaking: Which Is More Impactful?
  • 6:46 How to Capture and Hold Audience Attention
  • 12:50 Avoiding Overwhelming Audiences with Data
  • 15:12 Designing a Presentation From the Audience Perspective
  • 17:50 Breaking Self-Imposed Limitations in Public Speaking
  • 20:55 The Lizard Brain: Why We Fear Public Speaking
  • 24:10 Reframing Fear as Excitement
  • 26:26 Adapting to Different Speaking Styles
  • 29:04 Shifting Focus from Validation to Giving Value
  • 33:08 Grace, Credibility, and Resonance: The 3 Pillars of Great Presentations
  • 41:28 Mastering Grace in Virtual Presentations
  • 43:40 Tools for Engaging Online Audiences
  • 48:20 Humanizing Data for Impactful Storytelling
  • 50:01 Navigating Speech Creation: Scripts vs. Bullet Points
  • 57:55 What Makes a Talk Truly Unforgettable?
  • 1:03:36 Closing Question (The Courage to Speak)
  • 1:09:33 Where to Find DK

Watch more / subscribe via the Redefining Wisdom YouTube channel and / or listen / subscribe via these audio options:

Thank you again Daniel for the opportunity to share my voice, to be part of your offering to the world and to simply spend time with you (looking forward to part two)—pure honour!

Published

#75 April 2025 | Monthly Digital Breadcrumbs

fold a fitted sheet performance - Seen in Wellington, April 2025
Seen in Wellington, April 2025

A bunch of things (which I added to my Tumblr) for your eyes and ears plus brain to spend time on (as no longer on Twitter).

READ

“We are the only ones ever to have invoked article 5, the mutual defence obligation of the Nato treaty, after 9/11; and our European allies did respond. Per capita, almost as many Danish soldiers were killed in the Afghan war as were American soldiers. Do we remember them? Thank them?”
Vance’s posturing in Greenland was not just morally wrong. It was strategically disastrous | Timothy Snyder | The Guardian

“Amateur is a word that’s kind of a pejorative, but the original meaning of the word ‘amateur’ is ‘lover of,’” he explained. “So being an amateur at something just means that you’re more interested in doing it for the love of the thing rather than the making money of the thing.” The last point is key, he says, because we live in a culture that’s become obsessed with monetizing every hobby. That results in the belief that if we aren’t doing something that can somehow be turned into a side hustle, or we aren’t supremely talented at a particular activity, there’s no point in doing it. And in the end, many people wind up with no hobbies at all.”
Artist Austin Kleon Offers Tips on Finding Creative Freedom

“Our nervous system consists of 80% of afferent neurons, which move from the body to the brain—in contrast to roughly 20% of efferent neurons, which run in the opposite direction, from the brain to the body. As a result, so-called bottom-up interventions—or practices that leverage our physiology by consciously shifting our respiratory or visual systems—are 4x more effective at altering our blood chemistry and, therefore, shifting our state.”
The Operating Manual for Your Nervous System

“When we detect unauthorized crawling, rather than blocking the request, we will link to a series of AI-generated pages that are convincing enough to entice a crawler to traverse them. But while real looking, this content is not actually the content of the site we are protecting, so the crawler wastes time and resources. As an added benefit, AI Labyrinth also acts as a next-generation honeypot. No real human would go four links deep into a maze of AI-generated nonsense. Any visitor that does is very likely to be a bot, so this gives us a brand-new tool to identify and fingerprint bad bots, which we add to our list of known bad actors.”
Trapping misbehaving bots in an AI Labyrinth

“Although Earth might seem like a stable, flat surface where we live our lives, seismologists have discovered that it’s far from passive. In fact, Earth has a ‘heartbeat’ that pulses every 26 seconds, according to Discover Magazine. Known as “microseisms,” these faint seismic tremors resemble tiny earthquakes, though they aren’t exactly the same. For decades, scientists have been baffled by these mysterious tremors, and despite many theories, no definitive explanation has been found.”
Scientists puzzled by Earth’s ‘heartbeat’ that causes slight tremors every 26 seconds – GOOD

“The implications of this research extend far beyond the world of cryptocurrency. The methods developed by Dr. Clegg and his team could be applied to a wide range of complex systems, from financial markets to social networks. For regulatory agencies, this work offers a new way to monitor and safeguard against systemic risks, protecting both individual investors and the broader economy.”
Mathematicians uncover the hidden patterns behind a $3.5 billion cryptocurrency collapse

WATCH

EXPLORE

A free online Anagram Generator for all your anagramming needs.

A recreation of the classic TR-808 Drum Machine online so you can play with.

I missed this: BBC Maestro is basically the BBC trying to be masterclass.com.

✱ dori the giant ✱: 13 Animals Made From 13 Circles – delightful and super-imaginative.

Check out this Curved Text Generator – Completely Free, No Signup which is pretty neat.

MLA Labs is a free online interface to slow or speed up sound and detune as well to then export.

tv.garden is an online gateway to free live TV streaming from anywhere (just click the dice in the top corner for random selection).

The Kelmscott Chaucer Online Colouring Book features all 87 illustrations that Edward Burne-Jones designed for the Kelmscott Chaucer.

Cities and Memory – global sound map, field recording and sound art covering 130 countries and territories with more than 7,000 sounds and more than 2,000 contributing artists.

mobygratis – Free Moby music to empower your creative projects, all for free (apart from this pop-up: “there are only 2 things you can’t do with the music here; use it to advertise right wing politics or causes, or use it to promote meat, dairy, or other animal products.”)!

All monthly digital breadcrumbs posts.
Published

Beyond The Surface Podcast | Getting Personal, Origin Stories & Coaching Insights

Exploring my own public speaking journey and how that has evolved into my coaching practice.

Honoured to be invited to participate in the Beyond The Surface podcast by Noa Woolloff.

Along with my personal / professional history, am sharing here direct lived-experience strategies of how I work with others when it comes to their own oratory practice—making the case for not using scripts and how to manage nerves as well as analysing the impact of the success of my recent TEDx talk with a nice little social media rant at the end.

Thank you again Noa (and Ash from the tech side) for the opportunity to participate and for what you’re doing by creating this platform / space for others to share their stories along with your wonderful curiosity which drives the conversation in all the episodes.

Check out some other podcasts I’ve been on.
Published

For Those Who Want To Tell Better Stories #15 | Bass Breakdowns, Revealing Complex Choreography, Mmm x4

Amazing Stories v26 n10 [1952-10] - William P Mcgiven

A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.

Loving the conversational manner of this video deconstructing and showing / applying / exploring the bass playing of Steve Harris from Iron Maiden (one of my favourite bands from youth). The two camera set-up and post production narrative editing to creates a distinct format flow which keeps your attention (even if you’re not a bass player or into the music).

Revealed through a static view of a fixed cam, here’s a visual feast showing all the camera operators and angles, dancers and tech people, backdrops and lighting, in-sync and aligned to create this one-shot music video by Jungle. This literal and layered choreography makes my brain tingle in all the right ways as a producer!

A nostalgic look behind one of the most popular songs of 1993, watch and learn from the song writer and uncover both the stories behind a song and also the wonderful insight in how the place-holder of the “mmm’s” becomes the hook to the whole tune.

Check out all the ‘For Those Who Want To Tell Better Stories’ posts.

Image credit.
Published

#74 March 2025 | Monthly Digital Breadcrumbs

Merlin as a harpist at the court of Arthur, Suite Vulgate du Merlin, BnF, fr. 749 f. 319 (c.1285)
Merlin as a harpist at the court of Arthur, Suite Vulgate du Merlin, BnF, fr. 749 f. 319 (c.1285) via Uni of Cambridge

A bunch of things (which I added to my Tumblr) for your eyes and ears plus brain to spend time on (as no longer on Twitter).

READ

“Amazon has previously mismanaged Alexa voice recordings. In 2023, Amazon agreed to pay $25 million in civil penalties over the revelation that it stored recordings of children’s interactions with Alexa forever. Adults also didn’t feel properly informed of Amazon’s inclination toward keeping Alexa recordings unless prompted not to until 2019—five years after the first Echo came out. If that’s not enough to deter you from sharing voice recordings with Amazon, note that the company allowed employees to listen to Alexa voice recordings. In 2019, Bloomberg reported that Amazon employees listened to as many as 1,000 audio samples during their nine-hour shifts. Amazon says it allows employees to listen to Alexa voice recordings to train its speech recognition and natural language understanding systems.”
Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28 – Ars Technica

“When the company first announced it was considering a sale, we highlighted many of the potential issues, including selling that data to companies with poor security practices or direct links to law enforcement. With this bankruptcy, the concerns we expressed last year remain the same. It is unclear what will happen with your genetic data if 23andMe finds a buyer, and that uncertainty is a clear indication that you should consider deleting your data.”
How to Delete Your 23andMe Data | Electronic Frontier Foundation

“To prevent the threatened setbacks to US innovation and risks to national security, OpenAI urged Trump to enact a federal law that preempts state laws attempting to regulate AI threats to things like consumer privacy or election integrity, like deepfakes or facial recognition. That federal law, OpenAI suggested, should set up a “voluntary partnership between the federal government and the private sector,” where AI companies trade industry knowledge and model access for federal “relief” and “liability protections” from state laws. Additionally, OpenAI wants protections from international laws that it claims risk slowing down America’s AI development.”
OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use – Ars Technica

“Perhaps the closest we’ve seen to a justification has come from “Crypto Czar” David Sacks, who reiterated that the US would not sell any of the bitcoin and wrote on Twitter that “It will be kept as a store of value. The Reserve is like a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency often called ‘digital gold’”. But this argument doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, even setting aside the already questionable nature of bitcoin’s usefulness as a “store of value”. If an asset will indeed never be sold, how would the US draw upon its stored value in order to, say, backstop the dollar or pay outstanding debts? What’s the point of a store of value if that value can never be accessed?”
Crypto reserves: no public good, no principles

“The group cited several of the administration’s actions such as the mass termination of federal employees, the appointment of Trump loyalists in key government positions, the withdrawal from international efforts such as the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council, the freezing of federal and foreign aid and the attempted dismantling of USAid. The organization warned that these decisions “will likely impact civic freedoms and reverse hard-won human rights gains around the world”. The group also pointed to the administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters, and the Trump administration’s unprecedented decision to control media access to presidential briefings, among others.”
US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms | US news | The Guardian

“Professor Mark Bateman, from the University of Sheffield’s School of Geography and Planning, used a dating technique called Optically Stimulated Luminescence, to discover the burial age of individual grains of sand from eight samples throughout the site. His work showed that the archaeological site extended back from 12,000 years ago right through to around 150,000 years ago. These results were then corroborated by Electron Spin Resonance dating. “It is incredibly interesting to take a grain of ancient sand and be the first to know when it was deposited. It is even more so when the age of the sand changes what we know of how, and where, our ancient ancestors lived.””
Scientists find earliest evidence that our ancestors lived in rainforests 150,000 years ago | News | The University of Sheffield

“A more effective model charges for the full engagement, encompassing four key phases:
Discovery – Understanding the client’s needs, challenges, and objectives. This phase involves research, conversations, and assessing the right approach.
Defining Scope – Establishing the framework for delivery, including the intended outcomes, process, and deliverables. This ensures clarity for both parties.
Delivery – The actual execution, whether that’s a keynote speech, coaching session, advisory engagement, or facilitation. By this stage, the foundation has been laid for maximum impact.
Debriefing & Follow-Up – Evaluating outcomes, providing reflections, and offering ongoing insights to support long-term success.”
The Folly of Hourly Charging — David McQueen | Executive Leadership Coach

WATCH

EXPLORE

Searchable collection of retro 88×31 buttons from the GeoCities era.

Love this free Revenge font, a typeface made from some graf on the Bow Arts Cente in London.

This will keep you busy for a while, the largest collection of Free stuff on the Internet via FreeMediaHeckYeah.

Have a giggle, get confused, be moved / triggered / wowed by these 100 Best Artworks of the 21st Century (fwiw).

3D Earthquake Map is a real-time interactive global earthquake map showing the depth of the shakes as well as where.

Attend the Design for Exponential Impact at Camp Earnest, California, Jun 23-27 2025 (tickets available now and range from $1,282.33USD).

Seen a few of these pop up which basically run the subtitles through an AI and then summarises the YouTube video back to you (currently free).

goeuropean.org is a community-driven directory bringing you recommendations and insights from across Europe (if you’re looking to use move your purchase power away from certain places).

The Creativity Pioneers Fund is a global unrestricted grant of 5,000 euros for non-profit organizations around the world, that are addressing social and environmental issues through creativity and culture, established in 2021 by the Moleskine Foundation (apply before April 7th 2025).

All monthly digital breadcrumbs posts.
Published

Rewriting The Artist’s Way Basic Principles | Remixing Towards Clarity

Distilling the core tenets to align more to my own personal values.

Been exploring Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” twelve week course for the past few weeks and took the time to turn my attention to the ‘basic principles’ as one of my ‘morning pages’ activities:

“CREATIVITY IS NATURAL AND GIVES ENERGY TO LIFE.
UNLEASH AND EMBODY AND CELEBRATE YOUR OWN CREATION TO GIFT BACK TO THE WORLD YOUR NATURAL AND CREATIVE SELF.
MOVE IN THE DIRECTION OF ABUNDANCE AND POSITIVENESS.
IT IS SAFE TO OPEN YOURSELF UP TO GREATER AND GREATER CREATIVITY.”

Maybe it will aid someone else out there.

Published