Ricardo J. Méndez @ricardojmendez@mastodon.social

Funny that we seem to be going in circles.

The web started as a bunch of individuals running their own servers. Then things got professionalized, and we got the mostly benevolent, for-pay corporate services. Now that your data is more valuable than whatever meager subscription fee you're not going to pay for anyway, we're back to trusting the randos.

The plummeting server/software costs help, but it would be impossible without volunteer labor.

It behooves us to support the randos.

#mastodon

Here's the video for "The Arrival of a Train":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyvYL-gaD7U

(In case you're more into viewing than reading)

Here's "It's all about the curry", my Monkigras 2018 talk on software craft:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EB6F-nhT-c

Delivered a lot of talks over the years, but I gotta say this has been one of my favorites so far.

#softwaredevelopment #craft @redmonk

Supporting the Randos: a talk on #opensource sustainability.

https://numergent.com/2019-08/Supporting-the-randos.html

Kind of coming full circle, posting this here, since it's an extension of something I wrote on Mastodon a couple of years ago.

First encounter with Amazon Prime Video. It should be studied in UX classes, to demonstrate what happens when a product doesn't need to live or die based only on its own merits.

@write_as There are also some not-so-trivial suggestions, but those above would make daily use much better. 4/4

@write_as

- Ability to schedule posts. One can currently schedule a post by first publishing it, then setting a future date for it, which will cause the post to disappear until that time. However, this means that if you have it configured to share in social media, it will be posted there before you have a time to alter the date to the future.

3/

@write_as

- Retaining your settings as defaults. It looks like I always have to configure if a post should go to the blog or be posted as anonymous, and if it should share it to social media.

2/

I'm trying out @write_as's casual subscription. Nice tool, but I'm a single writer, and the analytics and support features of the Pro tier aren't relevant.

Here are some easy features and fixes that would definitely be worth it as a regular user:

- Support for un-published draft posts. Unless I'm missing something, we can only have one draft at a time.

- Supporting dashes on hashtags. Remember experts-exchange?

1/

Hah! Neat new spam attempt: the entirety of the text is on the subject, and the body is only "cordial response".

It still ended up on the spam folder, but nice try.

One of the disadvantages of keeping my social media usage focused and minimal is I miss out on things.

For instance, I had no idea that the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets had released their "Dukes of Alhazred" a full two years ago. 🤦‍♂️

https://thedarkestofthehillsidethickets.bandcamp.com/album/the-dukes-of-alhazred

It's a collection of independent songs without an overarching story, unlike their last few albums. I didn't know how well it was going to work, but it allowed them to experiment - there are some great pieces in there.

#music #mythos

Connected Bluetooth headphones to my mac. Flat-out couldn't hear bits of a song I know well but hadn't listened to in a while. Thought I had lost my hearing.

Turns out #macOS prioritizes potato quality for #bluetooth #audio and there's no way to change it in the OS itself. Also, this isn't working:

https://www.howtogeek.com/425605/how-to-force-macos-to-use-the-aptx-or-aac-codecs-for-bluetooth-headphones/

"It just works".

I like you, #Firefox. I like what you stand for.

But this random spiking of "FirefoxCP Web Content" to 105% CPU usage, for no good reason, with no new tabs and only some basic websites open, needs to stop.