Mitch's Blog

I’m thinking about trying Firefox or one of its forks for the Mac, iPhone and iPad. Does anyone have experience to share and suggestions? I was looking at Floorp.

A friend told me yesterday that I should take up painting. Later, I was reviewing my to-do list and saw, in the someday/maybe area: “Learn to draw? Take a class?” I have no memory of adding that task, but my to-do software says I added it three weeks ago.

I have not tried to draw anything since I was a pre-teen in art class. I expect if I tried now, the result would be so bad that you would not even be able to figure out what I am trying to draw.

And yet….

I have discovered Skymoth, which automatically crossposts Mastodon posts to Bluesky. My inexorable plan for global domination progresses!

I searched on my own name in an AI chatbot, which I have not done for a while. The chatbot universe has now learned that I am not the San Diego trial lawyer named “Mitch Wagner,” but it still thinks I’m a crossfit athlete with strong rankings in national and regional competitions over several years. (Which, no — I would say I am extremely healthy and fit for a middle-class American my age, but no, I am not a competitive athlete. I have seen photos of that Mitch Wagner with his shirt off, and it is very different from the shirtless me I see in the mirror.)

I was told tonight that I look like the composer Igor Stravinsky.

I’ve heard from two people in the past 24 hours who have dropped Mastodon, citing negativity. One said it’s “pretty fucking toxic.”

Meanwhile, I’m focusing more of my blogging and social media on Mastodon (and Tumblr too, but I’m talking about Mastodon today).

I’m taking a break from posting to Bluesky because I don’t get enough activity there to be worth posting to.

And I am taking a break from posting to Facebook — hopefully permanently — because I don’t like Meta and I don’t like the way Facebook operates.

Different people have different experiences, and my social media profile is so low nowadays that if Masto is toxic, I may simply be too small to target.

One of the reasons I chose Masto over Bluesky is that I was able to migrate my account to a server, hachyderm.io that permits posts of up to 2,263 characters. I hate short character limits — 140 characters, 280, 300, 500. I have more than that to say.

Here’s my link page, where you can find my links to Mastodon, Tumblr, etc.

I use Grammarly to check grammar and usage in my writing. I find it valuable, but also excessively intrusive. The recent update is more aggressive and annoying about making arbitrary and unnecessary changes.

I decided to read through the documentation and lo! there is a preference page.. I’ve switched off some types of suggestions — for example: “Sound more personable,” “Use word variety,” “Use descriptive, vivid words,” “Rewrite text for improved effect,” etc. This makes Grammarly far less pushy and annoying and more useful,

I am an extremely good writer, but a mediocre proofreader at best. Also, Grammarly is great at cutting out extraneous words. I want Grammarly to focus on those things, not look over my shoulder and make obnoxious suggestions.

I still think Google Glass had the right idea. I mean, augmented reality sounds nice, but I’d be happy with a discreet, unobtrusive little screen in the corner of my vision that shows me turn-by-turn directions and notifications and stuff. Like an Apple Watch for your face. Just that would be great.

This post is based on conversations I had on Tumblr and Mastodon yesterday.

Kyla Scanlon is an insightful writer about societal issues from a fresh perspective — Generation Z. She recently appeared on the Ezra Klein Show podcast, in an episode titled, “How the Attention Economy Is Devouring Gen Z — and the Rest of Us. She expands on that theme in her newsletter, in a post entitled: From Dollar Dominance to the Slop Machine

One of the themes Scanlon raises stays with me. It appeals to me a great deal as a Grand Unified Theory of a lot of what’s wrong with the U.S. economy, and perhaps the whole West.

The U.S. is focused on extracting wealth – tearing down – and China is focused on building.

The U.S.’s focus on wealth extraction rather than value creation means all activity is measured as a revenue opportunity. We can’t build affordable housing because families' wealth is tied up in their homes. Initiatives in healthcare, education and the food chain are all measured against their ability to generate revenue. Artificial intelligence extracts the works of millions of creative people and sends the revenue to a few Silicon Valley billionaires. Short-term financial thinking locks us into fossil fuels – though wind and solar are generating wealth and jobs, much of that financial value doesn’t exist yet. And that’s not the point of wind and solar anyway – the point is to avoid burning down the planet.

People are desperate to keep from falling behind economically, and therefore don’t think about long-term threats like Long Covid and climate change.

As a friend pointed out a few years ago: If James Bond went up against a supervillain in real life, the local community would rally around the supervillian. He’s a job creator! Look at how many henchman and crony positions he’s created!

We can’t even enjoy our hobbies anymore without pressure to make money off of them. Why have a hobby when you can have a side-hustle!

Meanwhile, China is building cities, electric cars, solar power and educating engineers and scientists.

This ties in with writing by two bloggers I follow closely, particularly Ian Welsh and also Chris Arnade.

China’s leadership has done terrible things. But they’re pulling ahead of the U.S. because they are investing in the future. They serve the future of China and all its people for the long term. Meanwhile, our leaders are dismantling American greatness and selling it, like the gangsters in “Goodfellas” or “The Sopranos” busting out a business.

The U.S. is becoming a nation of TikTok celebrities, grifters and crypto scammers. Our leaders serve the superrich and have no plans for the future.

But the U.S. slide is not inevitable. We have plenty of smart people here who are working and building, and plenty more eager to join them.

We need elected officials who think about the long term for their communities, the state, U.S. and world. Who think beyond the nexxt election and who work for all the people, not just the super-rich and white people whose ancestors fought in the Civil War.

We’ve probably lost a generation of time. But (paraphrasing a popular saying): When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, the thing to do is stop digging and start climbing.

Links and ephemera (memes, vintage photos, illustrations and ads) go on Mastodon, Tumblr and (sigh) Facebook. I’m saving this blog for meatier updates.

It just seems more appropriate and easier to post the links and ephemera in those other places. Unfortunately, that means my newsletter subscribers won’t see those things, at least for now.

Also: I’m taking a break from Bluesky. I feel like I don’t get enough activity there to be worth the expenditure of attention and time.

This is all likely to change again. I am constantly fiddling with my blogging and social setup. In late May, I paused Mastodon entirely and just used this blog, which is hosted on Micro.blog, as my outpost on the Fediverse. This current change reverses that one. I think Mastodon is better for linkblogging and ephemera than Micro.blog is, though Micro.blog is a great blogging platform.

More ideas I’m noodling:

• Possibly switching from mastodon.social to hachyderm, because hachyderm permits longer posts.
• Can I figure out a way to keep the links and ephemera in my newsletter without doing significantly more work? Because this isn’t supposed to be work for me — it’s a hobby!