Consuming anything other than a tiny percentage of it, is impossible. There’s so much material being produced.

The colossal sewer pipe of breaking news, live podcasts, group messaging, notifications and social media updates is running far beyond its designed capacity.

It’s an ultra high pressure torrent of raging information that explodes endlessly into our lives, like a thousand out of control firehoses and it’s battering our ability focus on anything.

How does anyone know what to pay attention to? How do we cope?

We try to ignore most of it. It’s the only way to survive, but this lack of focus, means it’s possible to get away with saying almost anything at all.

Like this.

Here’s an announcement from the US President from sometime around February this year, 2025:

I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to “go get” the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration. They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!

and here’s a reply from Elon Musk:

The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.

These statements stuck in my mind and I’ve thought about them easily a dozen times over the last six or so months. I was shocked to hear that a country had ditched its astronauts in space, so I looked into it a little.

The statements it turns out, are propaganda. That was my conclusion in February and it remains the same today. There were times I wondered whether they were just political spin but no matter how they are analysed, they are not.

Spin, is when you frame an event in the most favourable light possible. There’s a careful choice of language, you use positive words and phrases. You’re selective with the facts you present. Spin is gloss, it’s selective storytelling.

Something becomes propaganda when it’s designed to manipulate. You appeal to emotions rather than reason and you can exaggerate and even misinform.

There is overlap as you can see, but the key feature of propaganda is that it tends to promote a different reality - mostly a false one.

Let’s look at the facts about this subject

5th June 2024 - Two astronauts set off in a Boeing Starliner capsule to the ISS. They are meant to be staying for 8 days.

5/6th June 2024 - There are technical problems. The Boeing Starliner still docks with ISS on second attempt. NASA and Boeing begin work on the problems. Neither know when the Starliner will be safe enough to allow the astronauts to return to earth.

September 2024 - No crew-safe solution can be found. Boeings Starliner capsule is sent back to earth without crew. Those astronauts have no immediate ride home and begin a longer term deployment, alongside colleagues already on the ISS. The sort of thing they prepare and are all trained for.

28th September - A planned SpaceX missioned called ‘Crew 9’ sends two new astronauts rather than four to the ISS onboard its “Freedom” capsule. It docks with two spare seats, ready for the next crew-swap “Crew 10” due in February 25.

January 2025 - Donald Trump becomes president

February 2025 - “Crew 10” mission delayed due to a Space X problem on the ground. Donald Trump and Elon Musk post their messages.

14th March 2025 - “Crew 10” mission sends 4 new astronauts to the ISS onboard its “endurance” capsule.

18th March 2025 - The “Crew 9” mission returns onboard “freedom”. They use the two spare seats to bring back the two astronauts that came up on the faulty Boeing in June 24.

That’s it. The astronauts were never abandoned. The solution to bring them home was planned before Trump got into office.

It was always being done by SpaceX. Elon isn’t going to the ISS. The astronauts and NASA are completely prepared and are dealing with the situation. It is not ‘terrible’ by any definition.

Propaganda presents narratives that contain only one simple truth. Usually something tangentially related, difficult to disagree with and posed in a way that discourages any questioning.

We know already, there are no simple answers to complex problems and that we should be very wary of people who say otherwise on almost any topic.

The subject matter in this case isn’t the important thing. This example I’ve chosen to highlight from the US president could be from a number of politicians or leaders.

What is important is that we recognise when someone is peddling not just propaganda, but pure bullshit. These are careless people.

We have leaders, wannabe leaders and high profile people that know you’re drowning in news and events. They take advantage of that distraction to say whatever they want and to avoid being held accountable for anything.

The only people who benefit from those two February statements are the people that made them.

We need higher quality people managing our countries. More inclusive, eyes on the longer term, better qualified, more appropriate experience. Greater maturity. Smart people, with an appreciation that they might not be the smartest in a particular room.

We know that our democracies are capable of more and of doing better, we know there is waste and that there are things we must change.

Please don’t let the desire for change overrule what you already know in your gut; bullshitters are only ever in it for themselves.

Don’t lend them anything, especially not your vote.

There’s a simple solution to allocating tickets to in-demand events:

1. Allow anyone to book and pay for the tickets they want.

2. Close booking and pull names out of a hat.

3. Refund everyone who missed out.

Why isn’t that a thing?

Why have Ticketmaster created a demand-management process that mimics the physical world?

Oh I’m in The Lobby! What does that mean? I sat watching a progress bar for three hours for access to The Lobby? What can I do in the Ticketmaster lobby? What does one do in a real lobby? So many questions.

And look! Revealed! Three more stages of wait till I get to look at tickets. Waiting Room! Queue! then I can Shop for Tickets?! Mon Dieu!

Let’s not forget this is really the second round of ticketing. The application to be in a ballot for access to pre-sale tickets already happened earlier in the week.

Yes that’s right.. a ballot for tickets… I told you it could be done.

It’s almost as if they want it to be chaotic, frustrating, challenging, spoken about, in the press.. oh.. ok.

I selected my packages on the website; “Sky Stream” “Sports” for the F1 and then even opting for a ludicrous “UHD” upgrade to receive a higher quality stream that surely in 2024 should be a given.

I create an account as a first time subscriber, fill in my address, pay for the service and then receive four emails.

The first explained how excited I should be to receive my streaming box and how to watch Sky straight away before it arrives. The next three confirmed that my subscription had ended and told me quite sternly to return my streaming box or face a penalty charge. What on earth?

I download some apps anyway as the first email had prompted, and I log in. They fail to stream any services. I’m told that Sky Go is offline and given an error code.

I go to the website to try to find support and here in all its glory, is Skys Virtual Assistant. I mean just look this.

I ditched this line of enquiry, found a support number and phoned them up.

My advisor was here to help me today. I had expected that. Thanks so much for getting in touch. It was great to hear from me. My needs would be met. He was called Adam and he was in Hull. Could he call me by my name? Yes Adam, you can. It’s my name. This is obviously a safe space.

I had to grit my teeth. I realised I had become involved in one of those very modern conversations you only get in situations like this. A fake politeness and a bewilderingly strong belief in a plight I hadn’t even explained to them yet.

It is all so fake and it’s the opposite of customer service.

When someone you’ve never met talks to you like this, it is utterly impersonal. It’s worse than someone being rude or in this case being left with the entirely useless Sky Virtual Assistant, whom I was now wishing I had never left.

These conversations are a social trap. If they were awful to you or rude, you could call them out on it but because their process is covered with a veneer of faux dedication and care, it’s really hard to break out of.

Adam looked on the account.

“Oh.. yeah.. I see. There has been a fraudulent warning on the account”

Fraud?! What fraudulent thing has happened?

“It’s a trigger and the order has been cancelled. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

Hold on, what? So that’s it?

“Yes”

What (chuckling). Really?

“Thank you for calling Sky”

Oh, erm, bye then.

It was like something from Black Mirror or The Day Today. The computer said something was wrong and.. that was just it. No way out of the system for Adam and no Formula 1 for me.

Maybe the Virtual Assistant really is running the show. Jaysus help us all.

When things go wrong we need human beings, they’re the best computers on the planet. Can we all just be careful to keep that please because I fear we’re throwing away our advantage.

Instead, on the evening of the 23rd June 2016 I could be found drinking pints of Guinness in Harrow on The Hill.

A large cascading failure of the London Underground had marooned me in that hinterland, half way between the City and my polling station.

Brexit had been the only topic of conversation for months. TV, Radio, Internet. All outlets and all sides had fed us a diet of argument and conflict and blame. Truth? I knew only one thing; that leaving the EU was going to mean a lost decade.

A change as large as Britain leaving the EU would very clearly take up all our time. I felt like the build up had already consumed far too many resources as it was.

I never understood the idea that we could address our serious domestic issues by creating another one many times larger than any of them. It seemed like an act of self sabotage.

Regardless, the vote was on.

Brexit stood out clearly to me as a minefield of unintended consequences. So many details to be across and so much investment required. Probably we would not be worse off in the very long term, but there was no evidence that we’d be better off either.

The Conservative Cameron government of the time did not seem to be of a good enough calibre to deliver a Brexit. I always felt that DC was someone who wanted to Prime Minister rather that someone who wanted to help.

It surely had to be avoided.

I felt far more strongly about the impact of the change, than I did about either principle of leaving or remaining. I intended to vote remain in order to avoid the change.

We ended up leaving of course. 52% of the vote went that way. I often wonder if such a monumental change should have required a much larger majority.

Eight years later, it turns out I was wrong about that lost decade. It looks much more likely to be closer to two decades.

Personally I have yet to experience any benefit of the move. Only inconvenience and expense have come my way. The complex domestic issues we had in 2016 still exist, that should be no surprise.

If anything, time and inaction and perhaps Brexit itself has made many of them worse.

Only simple problems have simple solutions. People who try to present otherwise should be held at arms length.

Populism. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

I call it Dead Till Updated, in this case it’s happening in one of my least favourite pieces of software, the SONOS Mac App, though the SONOS iOS App is also pretty awful.

I’ll write a bug report to explain it.

How to repeat: Open the SONOS Mac app to turn the volume down on your TV Playbar

What happens: The app is unusable and demands I update the software. My TV remains on a cripplingly loud volume waking my children and annoying my spouse because I can’t turn it down.

What I expect to happen: To be able to turn my TV down without performing the update.

I mean, what’s happening here? Who makes a decision to cripple a physical device in your house in this manner? It’s offensive.

I refuse to believe anyone who tells me there is a technical reason why the core functionality could not still be presented here without doing a software update. That is total bullshit.

More frustratingly when I actually attempt the update, it fails! I’m sure this is something I will work around but there are plenty people for whom this would be a dead-end.

I know, it’s SONOS, what should we expect. I know, it’s not a life support machine. I know, I could get off my arse and walk over to the TV and turn it down physically (I did do that) but come on man.

Whoever decided this was a good path to send people down needs to have a fortnight off work and come back with a clear head. Or maybe choose a different career.