I bought L.A. Noire on the Switch when it was on sale a long time ago. Never played it, but I did play it on my old PS3, which is in a closet somewhere. I forgot how much I love the aesthetic of that game. 🎮
It’s been a couple of days and I still can’t stop thinking about Clerks III. I think part of it has to do with me turning 40 next April. Never thought a Kevin Smith film would impact me this much.
Testing out the Drafts action.
Video games need a recap mode that takes you through what you last did on a game if you haven’t played it in more than a week. It should be standard on all games.
Interesting to no one but me: I noticed Carrot Weather started offering Apple Weather as a data source. Going to try it out for a bit to see how accurate it is.
Looking forward to Blues hockey tonight. Seems like last season was a decade ago. LGB!
I really enjoyed Clerks III. Kevin Smith made a movie that is so full of heart and plenty of laughs and nostalgia.
Clerks III time. 🍿
There are some really neat features in Arc. I think I may have to live with it as my default browser for a while.
Even with the redesign, the Prime video iOS app is garbage. I don’t know if it has one redeeming feature. X-Ray maybe? But even that gets triggered on accident too much.
Am I the only one that accidentally reports legit texts as junk when deleting them on iOS 16? I’ve done it multiple times on accident. There’s got to be a better interaction for this. Have no idea how to undo. Hope those numbers weren’t important.
These Meta stories get weirder and weirder and I’m loving it. I really do wish nothing but the worst for that company.
I don’t know if I like the new video controls on iOS 16. I seem to accidentally drag the video forwards or backwards a few seconds every time I touch the iPad screen to pause. Not at the bottom of the video. In the middle of the screen.
A Day in the Life
1:20pm in St. Charles. This guy gets me through the day.
💤: Christmas light shows. 🔥: Halloween light and drone shows.
The latest update to Bitwarden has added DuckDuckGo browser integration. Can’t figure out how to use it though. Maybe DuckDuckGo needs to be updated as well?
With Eero forcing users to upgrade to their $99 a year service (from between $15-30 a year), I’m out. Firewalla purchased. Whatever my next wifi router will be, it won’t be Eero.
Rethinking Social Media
Recently I’ve been trying to rethink how I use social media, specifically Twitter. This all started when the news broke that Musk was trying to buy Twitter. I did not want to be a part of that platform if he takes over. Then I started asking myself, do I want to be part of it at all? Don’t get me wrong, I love Twitter, but I also realize that Twitter is also bad for me.
Just like a lot of people, I fell victim to the constant retweets, likes, shares, and outrage that Twitter has become. I know Twitter is what you make of it, so I tried to unfollow some people and organizations, did less retweeting, and tried to stay off it more, but Twitter is now built for that constant churn of hate and anger. Even when I unfollowed political news, the tweets would still show up from people I follow, trending topics, or suggested Tweets (I’ve yet to find a way to hide those completely). It also became the primary avenue for getting customer support from brands, which sounds great until all you do or see is complaints about every company. That’s when I decided to return to Micro.blog.
The way I’m using Micro.blog is essentially how I started with Twitter. I find interesting people to follow and I post random thoughts I have throughout the day. Since this is more of a blog than a social network, I try to limit what I post. Not everything needs to be said. That’s something I forgot on Twitter. The community on Micro.blog has been great. I do wish there was an easier way to find people located near me though. One of the best features of Twitter was finding other users in the St. Louis area. They are good people and I’ll miss interacting with them on Twitter.
Currently, my posts on Micro.blog do get crossposted to Twitter, but I imagine that will stop as Musk takes over and I no longer want my content going there. I do respond on Twitter if someone responds to content that was crossposted there, but it’s mainly read-only mode for me right now (with the exception of some likes and retweets still). With updates to the ActivityPub API on Micro.blog, if you use Mastodon, you can also follow my blog using any of the Mastodon Networks (just search @shep@shep.online to follow).
I’ve noticed I’ve been much happier as I’ve curtailed my Twitter use and increased my Micro.blog engagement. I’m no longer being bombarded with constant bad news, hot takes, and drama. I think we all need to take time and touch grass every once in a while. Moving away from Twitter has helped me do just that. I just need to stay away.
Yes, I did just connect to a VPN so I could read a NYT article about why pickleball is so popular. Spoiler, they don’t give a solid reason for the explosion in popularity.