I’m intrigued by Project Tapestry, an app in development from Iconfactory that creates a single feed for social networks, blogs, weather alerts, RSS feeds and more. But it sounds like a feed reader, similar to Newsblur (my current favorite), Feedly, Feedbin, Inoreader, etc. Am I missing something?
Forbes: Google’s AI will read all your private messages—and Apple might do the same.
This is a flagrant violation of privacy.
Via Violet Blue’s Cybersecurity Roundup—thanks!
The National Security Agency (NSA) has admitted to buying records from data brokers detailing which websites and apps Americans use, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed….
… the senator is calling on all intelligence agencies to “stop buying personal data from Americans that has been obtained illegally by data brokers.”
”The US government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant violations of Americans' privacy are not just unethical but illegal”….
Via Violet Blue’s Cybersecurity Roundup–thanks!.
An 18-year-old British man was acquitted of charges of public disorder after he joked with friends in a private Snapchat conversation about blowing up a flight he was a passenger on. (Via Violet Blue’s Cybersecurity Roundup—thanks!).
Currently reading: The Life of the World to Come by Kage Baker 📚
Finished reading: A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers 📚
Coronado residents are protesting the Hotel Del agreeing to host a service by the Awaken Church, a toxic MAGA organization whose leaders espouse vile LGBTQ-phobic beliefs. The head pastor “shares violent messaging and images, argues for the ‘public hanging’ and ‘torture’ of people he disagrees with and encourages the violent overthrow of the government.”
What’s behind the tech industry’s mass layoffs in 2024?.
There is a herding effect in tech…. The layoffs seem to be helping their stock prices, so these companies see no reason to stop.
Layoffs “are contagious…. when one major tech company downsizes staff, the board of a competing company may start to question why their executives are not doing the same.”
Israeli officials presented details to back up their claims that UN relief workers helped Hamas in the October raid. “One is accused of kidnapping a woman. Another is said to have handed out ammunition. A third was described as taking part in the massacre at a kibbutz where 97 people died.”
German-born photographer Evelyn Hofer captured beautiful photos of Dublin in 1965-66. “Hofer took her time composing each shot, whether it captured a pair of housekeepers in brief repose or James Joyce’s death mask.”
I had a Zoom meeting yesterday and I put it on my calendar but instead of “Zoom” I mistakenly wrote “Zoomies” and so instead of my meeting I went out in the backyard and ran around in circles as hard as I could for a while and then I collapsed and had a nap.
Only 90s Web Developers Remember This. The halfway point of this essay is where my Web development skills end.
How Cory Doctorow uses browser tabs for productivity superpowers
Cory defends lifehacking, which “is in pretty bad odor these days, and with good reason: a once-useful catch-all for describing how to make things easier has become a pit of productivity porn, grifter hustling, and anodyne advice wreathed in superlatives and transformed into SEO-compliant listicles.” But at its core, lifehacking is just a collection of little tricks that help people be more productive.
Your Local Epidemiologist: How to (and not to) boost your immune system
Works: “A balanced, nutrient-dense diet,” sleep and hydration.
Doesn’t work: Getting re-infected; dietary supplements (for most people) including Vitamin C, Vitamin D and probiotics; cold plunges; nasal breathing; saunas.
How Cory Doctorow cured his writer’s block:
… the key turned out to be the realization that while there were days when (in retrospect) I wrote well and days when I wrote poorly, and days when I _felt _like I was writing well and days when I felt like I was writing poorly, they weren’t the same days. I could write great material even when I felt like I was writing shit. I could write shit when I felt like I was doing the best writing of my life.
Helpful for any kind of skilled work.
On the futility of blocking spammers on social media
People who spend a lot of time posting to social media often spend time going through their follower list and getting rid of the spammers and bots. I’ve never seen the point of that. As long as the bots aren’t interacting with my account, or otherwise getting in my face, I say let ‘em be. I have other things to do with my time.
No doubt many or perhaps most of my social media followers are bots. Doesn’t bother me. As long as I know real people are following my posts and enjoying them, that’s sufficient to keep me going.
I also distribute these posts via a newsletter. One day I checked the stats there and saw the newsletter had thousands of subscribers, and was growing fast. I was quite pleased.
Then a while after that I looked at the subscriber list and saw that many of those subscribers were bots. So I figured out how to prune the bots, and found that the actual number of human subscribers I had was 24.
Twenty four. Not 24,000 or 2,400. Two dozen.
Sad-face emoji.
The newsletter is up to about 26 subscribers now. But at least a few of those 26 subscribers seem to enjoy the newsletter, and it’s set-and-forget for me—runs automatically—so I’m happy to keep it going.
By the way, if you want to subscribe to the newsletter, you can do that here. Just think—your action alone can increase the subscriber base by nearly 4% and that’s quite an accomplishment!
“Brand New Key” is actually a song about sex! Holy shit!