I don’t usually frequent /r/conspiracy, but I stray into it sometimes just to see what crazy is going on in the world. Like macabre entertainment that makes me feel a little better about myself. Gone are Bigfoot and aliens, replaced with COVID-19 vaccination fear and politicians being pedophiles, with the occasional randomness thrown in. One such post caught my eye that discussed the need to have modern devices to just view webpages, and it has a point.
In what seems like another life, I spent a few years working for massive corporations. You know the type. Thousands of employees with several layers of bureaucracy yet you only actually speak to a handful of them. Communication was stale and cold, filtered through HR and marketing teams before it hit your inbox. There was no emotion in them, no story telling and very little actual communication.
You learnt to de-cdoe the words in to their actual meanings.
I’ve been having a bit of a bad time currently. A few issues in my professional life coupled with being extremely busy has lead to me not being my usual self. Simmering in my grumpiness last night sat on my own and all I can hear is squeak, squeak, squeak. Looking over at my dog going to town chewing on his favourite toy. Ripping it to shreds and wagging his tail like the crazy dog he is.
I used to be OK with email. Even in my day job I didn’t get much of it, I was one for picking the phone up and talking to people instead. My relationship wasn’t all roses, but it was certainly maintainable. Then something changed. During the pandemic, email shifted. Evolving into something else entirely, and I wonder where it’s going.
When shops were closed, businesses slowed to a crawl and our internal communication not yet ready for the word of Slack channels, my inbox began to explode.
Casey Newton noticing Facebooks plagiarism problem:
Facebook’s report details the top 20 most widely viewed posts on the network over the past three months. One of the posts was deleted before Facebook published it. Of the remaining 19, though, only four appear to have been original. The remaining 15 had been published in at least one other place first, and were then re-uploaded to Facebook, sometimes with small changes.It’s interesting to think about where people post things and in what order.
Undoubtedly, the biggest thing I was looking forward to with the macOS Monterey update was Shortcuts. It promises to be the final piece in automating the Apple universe. Admittedly, it is a bit hit-and-miss, feeling as if it’s still in beta, but most things work well. My favourite part is pinning Shortcuts to the menu bar, and this is my favourite one.
In creating this Shortcut, I took inspiration from Gabrizio Rinaldi’s version that I found via The Birchtree Bark Newsletter.
I know I am not supposed to. Well, I am supposed to, it’s human nature, but I am supposed to hate myself for it. I think that's the way I am supposed to feel about likes on my photos. To be clear, we are talking about Instagram at all times, no other photo service gets the reach that the ‘gram does, and perhaps that's the real travesty here. Yet, I can’t go anywhere else because, according to some, I am an attention seeker.
I’ve been learning photography for around 4 years now. I love looking back, sometimes through hands covering my face, at old photos I have taken and seeing my progression over time. It is one of those skills, like writing consistently, that seems like it should be effortless but in fact is reasonably complicated. I’ve had frustrating times when it’s been a struggle to keep motivated, but I haven’t acquired these new skills by buying something.
Alex Kantrowitz reforming the Share Button :
A simple product tweak, the research indicated, would likely help Facebook constrain its misinformation problem more than an army of content moderators — all without removing a single post. In this scenario, adding some friction after the first share, or blocking sharing altogether after one share, could help mitigate the spread of misinformation on Facebook.Seems like another day, another revelation from the ‘Facebook Files’ and I am sure there are lots more to come.
In July of this year, I quit twitter for the longest I ever have done. It was only about two weeks, but I did it properly this time, deactivated my account and everything. I can see your expression from here, I know this isn't an achievement to be lauded up, but it was pretty good for me. Having started to pull back in March, I had finally had enough. Every time I have tried to do it before, I failed.