Not a lot on my mind today – other than the need to finalize our travel plans. The Amtrak discount runs through this week so we need to get things finalized and decided within the next few days. In the past, I have had concerns about the security of my unoccupied home, but not so much these days. We live a few miles off the paved road, and I’ve had armed neighbors show up to check on strange vehicles so I’m not as concerned about that like before.
I did finally finish getting my phone migrated over the weekend and am glad that’s over with. During the process I did catch myself popping open Twatter briefly but man was that a mistake. The longer I manage to stay away from social media, the more I see how harmful it truly is. The concept in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, but the way it has evolved and how you’re spoon-fed content is what’s wrong with it. All in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
When Google launched Google+ I immediately jumped ship from FaceSpace and fully embraced it. To this day, I still miss Google+, it was less about pushing content and more about making connections – probably why it wasn’t profitable and was ultimately discontinued. I had great conversations with people there I never would have talked with otherwise, and really enjoyed the networking aspect, rather than chasing “likes” or follows. Frankly, I think this was the example of what a good social media network should be like.
But alas, it was not to be – if it can’t be monetized easily, then it obviously isn’t a good product, right? One would have hoped that after creating a near perfect product they would have stuck with it, but instead they were not trying to create a good product, they were trying to compete with a shitty one, FaceSpace, and when they weren’t seeing the same numbers, they killed it. It’s too bad, really, right out of the gate, there were plenty of tools to curate the content you saw and shared – you could restrict your content to specific “circles” or easily view the content from one. It was a great way to have one account to share with friends across the spectrum of interests and not overwhelm people with crap they didn’t care to see.
And that is probably a big reason they killed it – if people can curate what they see so easily, squeezing ads and promoted content would be that much more obtrusive. On Twatter, I had sorta found a workaround to avoid the bullshit that the algorithm kept trying to push, but even then, it wasn’t 100%. I stopped using my main feed and turned on alerts for content I specifically wanted to see, then would just go through that feed. It worked pretty well but even then I was still getting crap I had no interest in. I started whittling that list down, but it finally got to the point where I just walked away.
So often I’d see people complaining that they were being censored because they weren’t seeing the numbers and reach they had previously. Sure, it could be changes in the algorithm, but did they ever consider that people were just over their garbage? Frankly, I think that the whole monetization and paid verification aspects ruined Twatter.
But hey, it ended up pushing me away from social media altogether, so I guess it wasn’t so bad after all.
Interesting Tidbits
Song of the day: I Am I by Queensrÿche
Trump ends Canada access at shared border library – “Canadian access to the library has been restricted before, including when tighter controls were imposed following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and again during the Covid-19 pandemic. But the Trump administration’s announcement marks the first definitive end to an arrangement that signaled enduring US-Canada unity for many in Stanstead, a town dotted with large Victorian houses about a 90-minute drive from Montreal.”
NASA takes major steps to protect Earth from mysterious ‘Manhattan-size’ comet – “NASA has just launched a new mission to keep tabs on a Manhattan-sized interstellar comet that’s acting unlike anything scientists have ever seen before.”
Shiitake-powered computer demonstrated by researchers — mushroom-infused chips a surprising alternative to using rare earths in memristors – “Shiitake mycelium is being repurposed into memristors with pleasing dehydration and radiation resistance.”
Cameron Crowe Says Shooting This Almost Famous Scene Was a ‘Live or Die’ Moment – “Based on the writer and director’s own tenure as a teen reporter for Rolling Stone, the film earned Crowe the 2001 Academy Award for best original screenplay — but is, above all else, a love letter to music, the director says.”
A religious upbringing in childhood is linked to poorer mental and cognitive health in later life – “A new large-scale study of European adults suggests that, on average, being religiously educated as a child is associated with slightly poorer self-rated health after the age of 50. The research, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, also indicates that this association is not uniform, varying significantly across different aspects of health and among different segments of the population.”
Fallout: New Vegas Announcement Leaves Gamers Outraged – “This isn’t just a far cry from the remaster they yearned for, there’s not even a scrap of new game content here.”
Neopets Is Officially Back, Here’s Everything You Need To Know – I loved the shit out of this site in the early ’00s. “It is time to experience the nostalgia as one hit early 2000s games is back and fans are both shocked and incredibly delighted.”
The Ancient History of Cats as Sacred Animals – “Throughout human history, certain animals have been elevated beyond their biological existence to become symbols of divinity, power, and mystery. Among these creatures, few have maintained such a consistent sacred status across diverse civilizations as the domestic cat.”