This is a thought experiment inspired by the sort of rambling and speculative conversations my wife and I have been having in lockdown. Most countries in the world place legal limits on alcohol production at home. There are, usually, several good reasons for this: Improperly brewed alcohol can cause severe health problems - including death.…
Continue reading →Messaging app Signal is launching a payment service in the UK. This will allow users to send each other money cryptocurrency. Many people have written about why this is a daft idea. But they've mostly talked about why cryptocoins corrupt everything they touch. I want to talk about why this is a shitty idea from…
Continue reading →If you have a bank account, you probably have an IBAN - an International Bank Account Number. It is a well-structured text string which unambiguously identifies your account. A typical UK IBAN looks like GB33BUKB20201555555555 - with it, you can send money to that account from any bank in the world. OK, some banks make…
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After writing about how to use MoneyDashboard's unofficial API, the good folk at Moneyed told me about their officially supported API! So here's a quick review & howto guide. Moneyed is a slightly strange service. I think it is designed for companies to give as a benefit to their employees. But you can sign up…
Continue reading →Yesterday, I wrote up how to use the MoneyDashboard Classic API. Read that blog post first before reading this one. MoneyDashboard have launched a new "Neon" service. The API is a bit more simple, but authentication is harder. Here's a quick guide to the bits of the API that I found useful. I've lightly redacted…
Continue reading →The OpenBanking specification is brilliant. It allows you to aggregate all of your financial accounts in one place. You can give read or write access to apps and services. Magic! API access is restricted to registered financial institutions. That's good, because it puts up a barrier to entry preventing dodgy companies slurping up your data…
Continue reading →Recently, my blog was featured on Coil's list of monetised content. I'd like to take a little time to explain what Web Monetisation is, how to get set up with it, and what my thoughts are. Quickstart Stick this line in the <head> of your HTML page. <meta name="monetization" content="$ilp.uphold.com/ieELEKD7epqw"> That's it. You should replace…
Continue reading →I'm an ambivalent convert to FIRE - Financial Independence Retire Early. The basic gist is: Minimise your expenditure, Save 20x your annual expenditure, Retire early while maintaining the same lifestyle. That's it. There are a lot of crappy books about FIRE, but the concept is simple. So I try to spend a little less, and…
Continue reading →I have a weakness. I love listening in to other people's conversations on the bus! I was sat behind a gaggle pride squad of teenage girls on the bus. They were variously complaining about their schoolwork, parents, and love-lives. I'm not going to attempt to recreate their vernacular, but the conversation went something like this:…
Continue reading →Look - I get why your app or service wants me to pay a subscription. Recurring revenue is useful for a business. Your ARPU KPI is OMG to your VC. And, no doubt, there's research showing how people are more likely to eat a kitten than cancel a subscription. But I hate it. I resent…
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