So I propose (years late, many bucks short) we just toss it all in the bin and go back to the beginning. Blogs, newsletters, IRC, mailing groups, and, sure why not, Usenet, go nuts. (The jury is still out on forums, but I suspect they are actually a stunted malformed sapling sprung from the same seed of evil that created modern social media.) These things are time tested, functional even in the face of overwhelming lack of interest from the general internet, and are, most importantly, utterly unbreakable. A specific blog, irc etc etc might disappear, but that won’t take anything besides that one facet of a larger whole with it.
I don’t think this is just nostalgia, though there is some of that. The “old” internet was robust and vibrant in a way that modern sites aren’t.
Finished reading: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is very well done. Really fleshes out the Achilles myth and brings Greek heros and gods to life 📚
Although I don’t hate Liquid Glass, it is odd enough to motivate exploring approaches by indie developers. To be honest, I’ve really missed using indie apps, so this is a great excuse to make some changes.
Many of Apple’s apps emphasize discovery too much. I like opening Overcast and only seeing a list of unplayed podcasts that I’ve chosen to follow or opening Albums and seeing colourful album art exclusively from artists I like. These apps are designed for me to access content I’ve chosen, not to upsell me on other things.
Like many others, I’m accumulating some vague ickiness with Apple these days. I’m nowhere near switching, but want to reduce some dependencies. Of course, I’m still using lots of Apple devices and services, so this is a very small step.
Applying the Online Harms Act to AI chatbot conversations now risks reopening the very issues policymakers previously sought to avoid. In fact, it is difficult to see the difference between something posted to an AI chatbot or similar content entered into a search query or included in text message or email correspondence. If proactive monitoring of searches, emails or texts is subject to privacy safeguards, so too should be AI chatbot engagement.
I’m all for smart regulation of AI, but agree that this isn’t the way to go.
Noticing your life doesn’t require depth. It requires attention.
Once I stopped trying to use my journal as a memoir and just captured daily thoughts, feelings, and happenings, my journal became useful and enjoyable.
But boredom needn’t be destructive. The discomfort of boredom, even the anguish of it, can spur us into flights of imagination, resourcefulness, and invention. It can prod us to seek more absorbing circumstances: a career more aligned with our interests, a partner more aligned with our needs, a livelier town, better hobbies, new forms of beauty and inspiration.
Boredom is the price we pay for a life rich with meaning. Recognizing this makes the feeling more endurable.
Even though my meditation practice helps with this, boredom is still tough to embrace. My best strategy so far is to generally leave my phone by the door, rather than always carry it around. Then, those moments when I’m tempted to pull out my phone for a distraction, can’t be avoided.
There’s renewed excitement around RSS these days, which is great to see.
Terry Godier received lots of well-deserved attention for the new app Current and its approach to the “river of news”. Manton Reece has also recently released a beta of Inkwell, as his take on a modern RSS reader. Having tried Inkwell out for a few days, there’s a lot to like here too. The emphasis is on what is new today or in the past few days without any unread counts. Then there’s a “fading” tab for older items that includes an AI generated summary for recent posts in each feed, along with an option to receive a weekly email with these summaries. As a companion to Micro.blog, there’s also great integration with blogging that looks compelling.
My approach to news has been different. I’ve tried to minimize the number of feeds, newsletters, podcasts, and other inputs that I’m subscribed to. This is much more of a trickle and I have no issues with keeping up. I augment this with a subscription to The Economist as my main source of general news. Each day they highlight a few different articles from the weekly issue, along with a daily summary of major events. I appreciate that The Economist has a broad, international perspective and many clever writers. They also seem fond of Mark Carney, so Canada has shown up fairly frequently in their reporting.
I’ve been using Reeder as my integrated source for everything: RSS feeds, newsletters, podcasts, YouTube subscriptions, and the Micro.blog timeline. Having just one app for all of this has been satisfying and, I believe, reduces distractions from bouncing around among apps. Reeder is really well designed and has an often used swipe gesture to mark an item for reading later. My usual morning routine is to scroll through the inbox, sending interesting items to Later, and then reading through these later in the day. Opening up the app just a few times a day is plenty for keeping up.
Despite all of this, I’m going to try using Inkwell for a few weeks. I like Manton’s overall approach and the integration with Micro.blog. A good test of success will be if I find myself posting to my blog more frequently, thanks to this integration. I’m also going to experiment with also following the blogs of many people whose social feeds I’m following. This has been an area of friction in my approach. I have a mix of RSS and social feeds from the same people that often overlap. Switching to Inkwell for these might help.
After a few weeks I’ll have a much better sense of if this approach is working. Easy enough to go back to my old ways, if not. I think it helps to experiment with different tools and approaches every once in a while. As long as I don’t forget my general principles: subscribe to just a few, high-quality sources, based on my interests. There are many things I’d rather be doing than refreshing my news feeds.
The BeeStation was very easy to setup. Within about five minutes of plugging it in, it was available on the sidebar of Files.app on my devices. Although it comes with two apps: BeePhotos for photos and BeeFiles for files, I found both rather clunky and unnecessary, given I’m using Parachute.
Parachute is a great app focused on one thing: backing up an iOS device. The only trick with this is that it can’t use the standard Files.app interface to access the BeeStation. Rather, I had to enable local access on the BeeStation to turn on the SMB Service that is then accessible by Parachute. Once you know this, it is an easy toggle of two checkboxes in the Advanced Settings of the BeeStation.
Once Parachute had access, I set up a source and destination for files and one for photos. Both of these backups are then automated via Shortcuts to run late at night (there’s a clear help video in the app on this). Parachute takes care of the incremental backups (that is, only backing up new or modified files). These are my regular backups. I then also make “restore points” manually via dragging and dropping files in Files.app.
I feel much better having a backup solution that is fully independent of Apple. I also appreciate having a physical device on my shelf that has all of our files and photos on it. Good to have some peace of mind.
