Sam Deane (@[email protected])

Just a reminder that we're not on X and FB these days, due to a certain distaste for their ownership. You can find us on Mastodon and Bluesky. Details on elegantchaos.com.

Just a reminder: I'm not on X or FB these days, due to a certain distaste for their ownership. You can find me on Mastodon and Bluesky. Details on bornsleepy.com.

Hi @british_airways, how do I change a booking made using the air discount scheme? Your website won't let me do it online, and the phone list you give doesn't work.

Credit where due: many thanks to the woman on the @British_Airways help desk at LCY this lunchtime who got me onto an earlier flight, sorted it so my bags would be transferred through to SYY, took them over and checked them in herself, and told me who to talk to at GLA.

@andydotxyz Thanks. Crossing my fingers!

@samdeane Oh gees that sucks sorry! I think that even with completely separate bookings the checkin desk should be able to send bags to final destination… it worked for me once anyhow. Good luck!

Oh joy. @British_Airways just cancelled my flight to Glasgow, which means I’ll miss my connection to Stornoway.

@andydotxyz Nope! They’ve rebooked me on flights today, but I had to sort my own hotel again, and I’m not convinced that I will make my second flight as they’ve done the booking in a way that may mean I have to pick up my bags and check in again in Glasgow - which I won’t have time to do :/

@samdeane The delays got worse but late flights of the day did leave it seems. I hope they sorted you somewhere to stay again:..

@andydotxyz I just got through security when the first flight was cancelled. Up to that point it was quite smooth! I guess I should count my blessings.

@samdeane Oh no this sucks! LCY is a disaster today like I have never seen. Were you held up in the queue downstairs, before the queue upstairs, before the queue to security too?

Now my replacement flight is cancelled. Which means I’ve booked a hotel and onward flight I can’t use.

Person I dealt with at LCY was helpful, and not her fault, but the service from @British_Airways was terrible. They eventually got me onto a later flight to Glasgow. Wouldn’t sort out a hotel for me, or an onward flight to Stornoway, even though all bookings were through them!

Very pleased to be a small part of this excellent team! Exciting times ahead :)

Thrilled to introduce you to @formationgames_, a newly formed studio I helped name & joined the leadership team a few months ago as Executive Producer! 🤓🕹️ Really excited by the lovely & talented team we’re building. 🥰🙏 #gamedev #indiedev

👋 The news is out. Formation Games is here! A Football, AAA & BAFTA Award-winning team has been assembled to create genre disrupting social game experiences. Check out our first title @clubgameapp 📲 👉 venturebeat.com/business/games…

I will leave my account on here for now, but I’m done with Twitter. To the people who don’t think mastodon is the future - I respect your decision but I’ll miss you. If you do find the future, maybe you can pop in there just long enough to let me know?

@chuq That doesn’t have to be an argument for the status quo. The trick is to learn lessons from the past, and apply them to the future.

People who think mastodon and federated systems are the future should go see how USENET scaled as it got popular

This is how BBC opened coverage of World Cup 2022. Stark contrast to Fox Coverage in United States. Please take a minute to watch. This is how this World Cup should be contextualized 🙌

@dimsumthinking Isn’t the point that you can publish it now, and the name will arrive later?

@LBacaj If this was a rational plan, surely the idea of setting up a startup and wiping the floor with Twitter wouldn’t have appealed more to Elon’s ego? Feels more like someone who had their bluff called, tried and failed to back out, and is now thrashing around in a panic!

@LBacaj I think your analysis is solid in many ways, and I totally agree that this has ramifications far beyond Twitter. However, a sane person would have set up a skunkworks team inside Twitter, hand-picked a few engineers to work on it, and locked all word of it down until ready.

9 uncomfortable truths about engineering and tech right now. How Twitter might play out, the ramifications, and what Elon’s calculus might be. Disclaimer: Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m relaying observations through a lens of engineering for over a decade & managing engineers.

@LBacaj Rewrites can have compelling upsides, but they *are* difficult to pull off, and you often only find out the actual spec when someone complains that a feature is missing/broken (been there, done that). There is little upside for doing it in on a live product!

@LBacaj So unless there’s exactly that kind of a team hidden someone in Twitter, with a product ready to ship…