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The Definitive Guide to Mastodon
Paul Stamatiou: Mastodon
I no doubt expect Elon to reverse some of his decisions from the regular backlash from users and press, but there’s no trust anymore. Even if a new CEO or a new owner is announced, I don’t know if Twitter can ever be truly trusted again. Fool me once, shame
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Bold (and sometimes boring) Predictions for Apple in 2023
Just for fun, here's a bunch of what I think will happen with most of Apple's product lines in 2023. None of these are crazy, except my HomePod one which I just couldn't stop adding onto 😂
iPhone 15
A relatively minor upgrade once again, but USB-C will make
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Maybe We Need more Bubbles
Unexpectedly, I'm already linking to something about bubbles again! Here's Noah Smith in The Internet Wants to Be Fragmented:
When I first got access to the internet as a kid, the very first thing I did was to find people who liked the same things I liked — science fiction novels and
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You're Not in a Bubble, That's Whay You're So Mad
Greg Morris: Can We Try to Remember How to Disagree Please?
There is also a real issue of the bubbles we all live in now. Social media algorithms creates a space where we see posts and updates that we agree with. YouTube and Netflix force content on us that we will like, and issues arise
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If Blogging Surges in 2023, Then That's One Thing I Can Thank Elon For
Monique Judge: Bring Back Personal Blogging
Watching the demise of Twitter under the helm of Elon Musk has made me nostalgic for the personal blogging days. The decline of Twitter with the current erosion of legacy media has left me thinking we need to bring personal blogging back with a vengeance.
And:
The biggest reason
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Going from Three Codebases to One
Standard Notes: No, React Native Is Not the Future
When we first launched in late 2016, we started with three codebases: our web app (which our Electron desktop app contained), a native Swift iOS app, and a native Kotlin Android app. This was immediately untenable. Coordinating bug fixes across three platforms was hard enough, but
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Dark Sky was Always a Bit of a Weirdo
Russell Jacobs: The World’s Best Terrible Weather App
Indeed, Dark Sky’s big innovation wasn’t simply that its map was gorgeous and user-friendly: The radar map was the forecast. Instead of pulling information about air pressure and humidity and temperature and calculating all of the messy variables that contribute to the weather—
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The Unlikely Rise of Barnes & Noble
Ted Gioia: What Can We Learn From Barnes & Noble's Surprising Turnaround?
“Staff are now in control of their own shops,” he explained. “Hopefully they’re enjoying their work more. They’re creating something very different in each store.”
And:
Then it started to happen—book sales at Barnes & Noble began rising
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The Unnamed Baddies
Joshua Rivera: 2022 Was Pop Culture’s Year of Violent Denial
In the final season of The Good Fight, unrest is always present. On one side, there is a crowd protesting. On the other, there is police. Across all 10 episodes, it’s never said what the assembled crowd is angry about. The only thing
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Social Media Companies are Economically Motivated to Make Us Hate Strangers
Sarah Frier: Why Your Friends Are Disappearing From Your Social Feeds
When I accidentally tap on any one of the alerts, I enter apps desperate to guide me to content from people I don’t know — posts that I might be momentarily mesmerized by and never remember, touting gardening hacks or unique pastry designs.
I&
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Benchmarks Need to Represent Actual Usage
DXOMARK: Always-on Display: How Does It Affect Battery Life?
The results of our battery tests revealed that autonomy was largely impacted by this always-on screen feature, draining the battery about 4 times faster! The battery will last roughly 100 hours in idle when activating the feature, instead of 400 if the feature is
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Twitter is Allowed to Make Terrible Decisions
Ben Thompson: Twitter’s Link Ban, Network Portability, China and the Trailing Edge
Twitter can, of course, do what it wants: it is a private company. I recognize that is an unsatisfactory answer, but perhaps the degree to which it has always been unsatisfactory will now resonate more broadly. An extension of this argument is
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Valve Seems to Understand the Steam Deck's Biggest Opportunities
Sean Hollister: Valve Answers Our Burning Steam Deck Questions:
Valve has repeatedly confirmed that the Steam Deck is a “multi-generational product” and new versions are on the way. What will they include? When I asked Yang and Griffais for the pain points they wanted to address in a sequel, they had nearly identical answers:
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Elon is a Garbage Person, Part I-Can't-Even-Keep-Count
Paul Sawers: Twitter Pulls Its Spaces Group Audio Feature After Musk Run-in With Banned Journalists
After being pressed by journalists over some of his inconsistencies, Musk abruptly left the conversation, and shortly after the entire Spaces feature itself started playing up. At the time of writing, it’s not possible to start a new
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Nobody Cares Apple Missed Their Apple Silicon Timeline
Chance Miller: Apple Missed Its Two-Year Goal for the Apple Silicon Transition, but Does It Matter?
Apple missed its two-year target for completing the Apple Silicon, but does it really matter? No, it doesn’t. What we’ve seen for the Apple Silicon transition so far has been nothing short of impressive, and
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Hacker News Shockingly Has the Best Take
User electrondood commenting in this thread about Musk banning a number of accounts he didn't like yesterday:
Basically, his entire tenure so far has been "free speech for me and the accounts that were rightfully banned for violating the TOS!" in public, and then "we'll deboost anyone who
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When the Popular App Just Doesn't Click for You
Om Malik: Goodbye Spotify:
After being a Spotify member from its very genesis, I have quit using the service. I got tired of the dealing with an app (and a platform) that shoved podcasts and audio books in my face, despite having no interest in them. Spotify to me was about music, and ability to
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Elon's Trump-like Management of Twitter is a Disaster
Matt Tait hits it out of the park with his piece,Twitter Was Special. But It's Time to Leave. First off, on one of the biggest draws of the service: learning more about the thoughts and interests of people you'd normally know for one thing.
The sticking power of the bird