It appears that the EU are quietly trying to sneak in a law that would cripple the internet within Europe by forcing content filtering, particularly around the problems of copyright infringement. I knew nothing about the law until today, but already 15 MEPs have voted for the article to go before the European Parliament.

You can find out more about what’s going on from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and saveyourinternet.eu (where you can also take action).

After the fold is a copy of the email I have sent the MEPs in the UK through the saveyourinternet.eu site.

I wrote this post about the long weekend at the end of May 2018. For some reason I never quite finished or published it. Despite it’s age, it’s a nice memory and one I’d like to record, so I’m publishing it anyway.

Every couple of months we try to get down to see my parents in Cornwall. Somewhat by accident we planned this visit to coincide with the long weekend, so we were able to spend an extra day with them and the Cornish countryside. Sometimes we just enjoy the break from routine, but this time we managed to cram so much in. I just wanted to share an overview of a lovely weekend.

I have always enjoyed reading the Bible, and I’ve always enjoyed trying to read it in more depth and breadth, moving beyond the oft quoted verses or phrases (which are usually taken out of context). Whilst I’ve managed in the past to read whole books, or to read some part of the Bible every day (a habit I’ve not always been good at maintaining) I have never, in my 33 years, read the entire Bible cover-to-cover, despite trying a couple of times.

Right back at the start of the year a friend of mine started one of those “read the Bible in a year” plans on the YouVersion app and decided to invite some friends to read along, using the Plans with friends feature. I’m glad he did, and I’d like to tell you a little bit about why I think it’s so good.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty fed up with money. It seems like our entire lives are filled with the endless (and somewhat hopeless) pursuit for enough money to survive only for what we have to be taken from us in our old age, and as the saying goes “you can’t take it with you”.

I’m not a fan of capitalism, but it seems like we’re stuck with it for the foreseeable future. So how can we live contrary to the prevailing culture when it is so deeply embedded in the way our nation (and most of the world) work?

I came up with an idea, though. It involves wrapping the more “socialist” community in a capitalist bubble.

I’ve been making some updates to the template on the site. If you’ve visited recently you may have spotted them, but you’ll be forgiven if you have missed them.

First of all, I’ve added a new link to my social icons (they’re on the right on large screens and at the bottom on small screens). It’s a rainbow circle representing a new service I recently discovered called NEXTFREE.

It’s a very simple service to help freelancers and recruiters keep up to date, without all the need for emailing back and forth. All I need to do is keep it up to date with my availability and anyone who visits https://www.nextfree.co.uk/for/david-lumm can see whether I’m free or not.

The other thing I’ve added is a link for a new service called “Buy me a coffee”. Basically anyone that reads any of my stuff and thinks “cool, that’s some good writing there, let me buy this chap a coffee to say thanks” can do that easily. It looks like a really nice service. I believe you can tip using PayPal or a card. I’m not expecting to make my fortune off of it (or even to get any money at all) but it’s a nice addition and it’s nice to spread the word about a new startup.

If you’re doing something that you offer for free but that people might like to “tip” you for, this looks like a great way to add this to your site. Check it out at buymeacoffee.com.

I’ve got some other more interesting updates on the way, but as always Don’t Hold Your Breath™ (note, this is not a real trademark, at least not mine).