I was listening to the latest @atpfm podcast, about the dust up between Apple / Creators / Patreon and I’m in agreement with the hosts: it’s just yuck. I love their hardware but with the focus on squeezing more revenue out small devs / creators, it’s getting harder to justify giving Apple money.

Someone once said “hell is other people." I would like to modify that: hell is Costco on a Saturday afternoon.

I was in a bit of a “mood” yesterday, just not in a happy place. I finally went for a three-ish mile walk late last night came to the conclusion, for my own mental health, I need to take a tiny break from the news (not tech of course) for a while. 😔

I rarely talk about politics online but I saw this today and I haven’t been able to put it out of my head. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

🔗 US drug shortages reach record high with 323 meds now in short supply | Ars Technica

 In some cases, generic manufacturers lose money on the drugs, disincentivizing other players in the pharmaceutical industry from stepping in to bolster fragile supply chains. Several generic manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy recently.

I know a lot of folks will scream “commie” or “freedom” at this question but…why doesn’t the government just make generic drugs? If the goal is to save lives and businesses “have” to make money, just let the government do it. 🤔

I was listening to Pivot (one of my favorite podcasts) over my lunch and there was an exchange between the two hosts that’s stuck with me, enough that I’m actually posting about it. 😅 I think they’re both right, we need new words for masculine / feminine. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Totally worth a listen. 🎤🎙️🔈

🔗 So You Just Found Out Amazon Is Greedy

There won’t be mass cancellations of Prime over ads in Prime Video because it is too integral to your life.

I guess I’m one of the rare people who doesn’t have a Prime membership…? They try to hook me in with free trials from time to time but I always cancel it just before renewal. 🤷🏼‍♂️ We just don’t like the waste that is Amazon’s shipping practices… 😮‍💨

Random Thought: Does anyone know how fast new books will show up in Bookshelves feature of Micro.Blog after they’re added into Open Library? 📚

Random Thought: Yea, this sounds about right, once the price is outside of what most “normal” people would consider reasonable, piracy increases… 🏴‍☠️

Random Thought: I try to steer clear of politics online, as I really don’t want to deal with hateful comments but that said, if the US Government shuts down, I really don’t think members of Congress should get their paychecks, especially if the vast majority of regular workers aren’t paid.

Random Thought: Always fascinated by companies who take the “if you want to change your email, create a new account” approach. 😅 Who on earth decided that was a great user experience…and what software architect designed it? 🤣

Random Thought: With Twitter (aka “X”) talking about collecting even more data (link to Ars Technica), now seems like a good time to export my old Tweets, remove the Twitter apps from my devices, and import said data into Micro Blog.

Somebody paid for my order at Starbucks, first time that’s ever happened to me. 😀 I returned the favor for the person behind me in the line. #PayItForward

It’s been a hot minute since I last said anything here but goodness, it’s been a hot mess on the interwebs, right? Since I last committed anything to pen (or something, you get the idea) here, Twitter was purchased and…well…it’s been an epic disaster ever since (the Verge has been great at covering the drama around Twitter, both before and after the sale). While I’m sure you, dear reader, will likely guess where my political affiliations can be found, I do my best not to talk about that online…so just looking at the epic mess that site has become (not to mention the truly awful way staff was cut from Twitter), it isn’t a surprise Twitter seems to be fragmenting; some users are flocking to Mastodon, some to Instagram (though, with Facebook / Meta controlling and locking that down more and more, is it a viable alternative…?), others to Hive…or some other newfangled social apps / sites…

Even though I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon early (my user ID, back when Twitter showed user IDs, was well within the standard Integer range) back when I was a junior developer at an advertising agency, I’ve always been a bit squeamish about letting some company / organization have sole control over my voice. Granted, I don’t use it that often but it is mine, so I should have ultimate control.

Thus, this fragmentation isn’t new to me, I’ve already done it to myself! I created a more public Twitter account and locked my original one. I created a blog (and then let it lapse…and then started it again), set up a Micro.blog instance (though I rarely used it), and am now on Mastodon (though it’s just a reflection of my micro.blog account). I’m not sure which “social” app / site / service will win out but I think I’m covered for now…at least until the next big thing comes along.

This is where I admit I’m using my Micro.blog account to cross-post to Twitter and Mastodon, it’s one of the lovely features Manton Reece added to his platform.

So, if you’d like a way to find my various profiles, locations, writings, and ramblings online, feel free to take a look at my about page, it will be as up to date as anything…except perhaps the home page. 🤣

Note: This post is from my old site and was ported over into Micro.Blog when I consolidated from two sites into one. All of the migrated posts can be found here.

Random Thought: Rather amazed at how fast things are falling apart on Twitter…it’s rather sad. My first account on there, I created it back when I was a junior dev at an ad agency, fresh out of college and the closet. Kinda crazy to think how I’ve changed, how the world has changed since then.