Living in the gray.
I’m still surprised in 2023 that Nintendo is still releasing amiibo for some of the biggest games, and that every Super Smash Bros. character will have an amiibo as well. They may not have much functionality these days (never forget Mario Maker for the Wii U), but they sure are neat.
How a Social Network Fails – The Atlantic
“Many core social-platform functions, such as the hashtag, reblog, and retweet, were not invented by Silicon Valley tech geniuses. Instead, they were pioneered by enthusiastic users who loved the products they were using, and they were only later formalized into the apps themselves.”
“Elon has these really strongly held personal views on what the internet should look like, which aren’t really shared by most internet users,” Rocky Cole, a former online-harm researcher at Google in New York City, told me. “He forces his worldview on the Twitter community, and I think the result is why you’re seeing people leaving.”
It’s been a while since I posted about the weather apps I use but it’s time to update with the times. Some apps have disappeared, some were bastardized while others have become personally indispensable.
I’ve broken out my list between websites that are open for everyone and apps (some of which may require subscriptions).
Windy: Wind map & weather forecast
Ventusky – Wind, Rain and Temperature Maps
SunsetWx, LLC – Innovation Beyond the Horizon
Let me know if you know of any other resources you use in the comments.
My blog now supports the protocol that supports the Fediverse. Which means you can now follow this blog on your favorite Fediverse platform such as Mastodon.
I recently bought a Tetris Chicken McNugget that I imported from China. You can read more about it here.
Should have I bought this? Probably not. But it’s a just a weird piece of memorabilia.
An outline of its best features:
Next up on my most desired Tetris versions, Tetris 642 for the Nintendo 64 only produced in Japan. It used a bio sensor to measure the players heart rate.
I just wanted to post real quick about what’s going on with Reddit. You can catchup here: API pricing protests caused Reddit to crash for 3 hours | Ars Technica
For all the faults of Reddit and there are quite a few1, Reddit was one of the first places I discovered where my weird brain wasn’t unique. It would go on to be a place I would read about weird encounters, stories behind the news, and where some app developers would use to cultivate a community.
One example that I will always remember is the subreddit “misreadsprites” (I’m not going to link you in support of the protest). It is a subreddit about pixel art in older games and how it basically was up to some level of interpretation by the viewer2 and could be misinterpreted. And there was one post in particular that I was like, wait… I’m not the only one out there. It’s was reassuring in the weirdest way I don’t think I can express.
Beyond this, I think Reddit is one of the places where anonymity worked for the most part depending on the community/subreddit.
I am disappointed that Reddit seems to be going the route of Twitter. Oddly enough I’ve paid for Reddit and I will be discontinuing my subscription if they disable third party apps. Apollo in particular made using that site much more palatable than any native app or website. I understand they need to be profitable, but I suppose the exodus of Twitter has prepared me for the inevitable. Interoperability and the open web are ideals to be sought after now because in a decade or so, they will probably be no longer a concept.