Eventually I’ll probably crash File Explorer by just opening it. It seems to crash a lot now, regardless of circumstance.
And I don’t troubleshoot it anymore, because there are so many possible reasons it might be crashing. I just live with it. Or spend more time in Linux Mint, whose file manager does not constantly crash (yet).
Has it really come to this, feeling fondness and nostalgia for Windows 95? I’m sure it was horrible in its own way, and I’ve just blocked the details, but still.
It feels like more, but the total amount of culling this year has been relatively small, though a few major sites/services are included:
Dumping Substack and The Verge have saved me the most time, purging LinkedIn also provided some relief for my inbox.
What will get culled in 2025? We’ll know soon!
UPDATE, December 22, 2024: Corrected a few things based on a reply from the person who hosts Magic.Pages!
MagicPages.co is a Ghost hosting site, and they offer both reasonable pricing, plus a 14-day free trial. Today, I signed up for the trial and created a mock version of this very blog. I tweaked the default theme a bit, made a post, then duplicated an existing post from here to see how easy it was or wasn’t, and how it looked vs. WP.
Here are my initial takes.
Pro:
Con:
Overall, I think the pros outweigh the cons, but I am fussy and unsure. I have about two weeks to make up my mind about this specific host, though.
Why? Because so much linked content (on social media, particularly, but not exclusively) is now paywalled, instantly pops-up SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER RIGHT NOW, has a cascading series of cookie warnings/options, and basically just a lot of clutter and nonsense to sift through before, possibly, getting to what you were actually interested in.
And you know what? I’m actually ok with that! By not clicking, and maybe by other people not clicking, we silently send a message, however vague, to maybe change things on the web to make them less awful, invasive, intrusive and annoying.
One can always hope.
I’ll never play this apparently addictive game!
The post, on Mastodon:
I realize the image of the game is rather small, but all you need to know is:
All of which to say this is one of my social media pet peeves, though to be fair, the same would apply in a non-social media setting, such as an online forum. And that pet peeve is talking about something neat/shiny/addictive/whatever, but without providing any context, so people don’t know what you’re actually talking about. I mean, sure, if you’re going to post a shot from the latest Mario game, with Mario in it and doing Mario things, people will probably be able to suss out what game it is, but something like the above? I can’t decide if people are being lazy, forgetful, or think everyone else just plays or enjoys the exact same things they do.
But, you know, it’s not like having my hair on fire (if such a thing were possible, given what currently remains), so it’s a minor complaint in the overall scheme of things.
As of tonight, my Instagram account has been “deleted”. I put that in quotes for a few reasons:
Regardless of all that, I have purged the account and do not intend to go back.
I will never deliberately use another Meta product again. There are only a few companies I deem vile enough to warrant a total boycott, and Meta is probably #1 on the list. I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg will be crying himself to sleep tonight. In his bed made entirely of money, in his giant money house.
This, of course, came into my inbox moments later:
In his current newsletter, Tom Scott talks about people playing around with Bluesky’s “fire hose of data” then ultimately comes to this conclusion:
The world’s communication seems to have moved on to group chats and Discords and other private groups; the days of “tell everything to everyone, what could go wrong” are past, and perhaps that’s for the best.
And I feel this is pretty much right. A lot of people are comparing Bluesky to early Twitter, but early Twitter was more than a decade ago and online communication has drastically changed since then–in most ways, for the worst. I think it’s great people are having fun and enjoying Bluesky, but we would all be wise to remember what has happened with bot armies, scams and the increased polarization of “open” online communities. Scott further makes the point by linking to Hank Green’s video on bots disagreeing with everything:
I came across this video (linked below) by Jared Henderson (BTW, he totally looks like a Jared and no, I can’t explain why, he just does. He also has a great Jared voice. I wish I had his voice. I still kind of sound like a teenager, which would be handy if I wanted to impersonate a teenager on the phone or something) in which he talks about how we’ve lost our focus. The culprits are exactly what you’d expect–first, TV, and now the internet, smartphones, TikTok and the rest.
The chief consequence of losing focus is that we can no longer engage in activities that require concentrated, sustained thought, like…reading.
A few years ago, when my book reading began to trail off, I thought it was because I’d lost my “reading time”. When I worked at Langara, I had two SkyTrain routes for my route, with the Expo Line portion being about half an hour long–a solid hour every day, five days a week, that I ended up devoting to reading books. One year I read 40 books. It almost seems surreal now. And they weren’t all short books! When I left Langara, I lost this structured reading time, and I filled it with other things–nothing in particular, just stuff. I tried reading at night, but it never stuck. Again, I thought it was just failing to find the right “time” to read. But I think this video nails the real cause: I just can’t focus like I used to. And it’s because of the internet. And I don’t even watch TikTok.
I am making some changes going forward, and one of them is to limit my “brainlessly graze the internet to passively entertain me” time. We’ll see how it goes. I’m not making an actual resolution or anything yet, but it’s an option.
Here’s the video:
UPDATE, later that day: Somehow I managed to set the keyboard backlight to a searing white instead of the usual soothing green, and it is no longer allowing me to change the colour now. Another attempt to update the firmware failed.
I have plugged in my CTRL keyboard while I ponder what to do next. I am now sans knob and a little sad, as one who is suddenly knobless might be.
So much for fixing my U problem! (lol)
The keyboard I’m using currently is generally very nice.
As per the order placed January 9, 2022, it’s a:
Keychron Q1 QMK Custom Mechanical Keyboard Knob Version - Fully Assembled Knob / Navy Blue / Gateron G Pro Blue
The knob is handy for adjusting volume. I am too lazy to program it to do anything else. The keyboard is built like a tank and could legit kill someone as a blunt force weapon (the body is metal and weighs about four pounds). The keys are lubed, so they feel extra silky smooth. But!
There is the U key. Although you never see it in my posts or other writing, the U key often acts as if it’s been double-pressed, like so:
I see what youu did there, youu nauughty U key.
A few other keys sometimes double up, though much more intermittently. Now, in theory, this means the switch below the U key may just be wigging out and needs to be replaced. I could even do a test by swapping out the switch for another key I rarely use, like the tilde (sorry, programmers, I am not one of you! I assume programmers use the tilde key a lot).
In fact, now that I’ve type this out, I should try it…right now!
FAKE EDIT: I have done this. We’ll see if this provides a workaround for my U issue. Also, taking the switches out was harder and more nerve-wracking than anticipated. The idea of doing it for an entire keyboard makes me want to pay a 17-year-old keyboard nerd to do it for me.
Also, my keyboard:
And for future reference, since I had some issues getting the backlight working again afterwards:
Fn + Tab = backlight on/off
Fn + Q = toggle lighting effect
Fn + D = Toggle colour
Fn + F = Change to white (and get keyboard stuck, so white is all you get)
Fn + W = increase brightness
Fn + S = decrease brightness
Posthaven was not bad and was a finalist in my “replace WordPress” quest/fool’s errand. But I just wasn’t using it, so even $5 a month was too much. It turns out if you stop paying before having made 12 monthly payments, they nuke your site, posts and account. But you get a thank-you message for trying them!
I assume they figure you won’t be back.
I guess I probably won’t be, if I have to commit to a full year to avoid starting all over from scratch again. I’m curious how well this model is working for them.
(And yes, this particular culling was inspired by the IG culling. It’s cullings all the way down.)
It turns out the last time I posted to Instagram was July 30, 2023, over 16 months ago. That seems to be a good indication of how much value IG brings to my life currently.
I downloaded my data–786 MB worth–then made a post today, announcing I would be nuking the account (more precisely, I used the metaphor of sending it into a black hole). Yes, I could just leave the account alone, “just in case” but I looked over the last few notifications and it appears that sexy bots with strange names are liking my posts. That makes me feel a bit icky. I’m pretty sure I do not need validation from sexy bots with strange names. I will not miss the site.
In a few days, I’ll go back and delete the account. I’m giving the handful of people I had “friended” there a little notice. Do I miss their posts? I mean, maybe a tiny bit, but not enough to keep me active and willing to post on a platform and through a company that sees genocide as a fair trade for engagement.
If I really want attention for my photos, there’s always Pixelfed or some other site or service. But I am finding a kind of unnameable pleasure in stripping away these sites and platforms that attract billions (of sexy bots). Maybe I’m regressing to my teen rebellion stage, pushing off the man, or the mainstream, or whatever. The mental headspace it clears up is nice, and the bonus is I no longer have that insufferable teen angst to go along with the rebellion. It’s just pure rebellion now, baby!
Here’s a photo of the sun-dappled Brunette River I took yesterday that you won’t find on Instagram:
It’s $7 per month or $50 per year. That’s in US dollars, so add a healthy 35% more for Canadians.
The main site will be “freemium” now, with some stuff behind a paywall and some not. You can read all the details here: Here we go, The Verge now has a subscription
As noted before, I find The Verge wildly inconsistent, so they won’t get my money. But here’s another reason:
I’m also delighted to say that subscribing to The Verge delivers a vastly improved ad experience — we’ll get rid of all the chumboxes and third-party programmatic ads, cut down the overall number of ad units, and only fill what’s left with high-quality ads directly sold by Vox Media. It will make the site faster, lighter, and more beautiful — more like the site we envisioned from the start, and something so many of you have asked us to deliver.
Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief
I mean, on the one hand, I admire that Nilay Patel could seriously write “vastly improved ad experience” and “high-quality ads” without his keyboard exploding, but here’s the thing: If I am paying you, the number of ads I want is zero. None! It’s how Ars Technica does it. They also don’t mention if paying gets you a track-free experience.
We’ll see how it goes.
UPDATE: Nilay Patel has a warning for people using adblock:
