In the real world, I am neither a hoarder nor a collector. If something gets in the way I consider it clutter, and I get rid of it. I don’t save things for “what ifs.” I also don’t feel compelled to collect things I don’t like just because they’re part of a set with things that I do like. That doesn’t always carry over to my digital life. When downloading an album, I often download every track,…
July is disability pride month, and I love that so many free software projects are making efforts to call attention to accessibility and wellness features, as well as highlighting some of the disabled people in the various communities who help make free software possible. At first I hesitated to make this post because on most days, I don’t really think of myself as disabled. I certainly was while…
Until recently, if you had asked my opinion for the best VPN provider, I wouldn’t have hesitated to recommend Mullvad. I have been a customer for several years and have found their service essentially flawless, and their apps well-designed and functional. I also like that the code they produce is open source, and that they have undergone several audits. But then it came to light that one of the…
The irony of this blog post coming out right after the one talking about trying to lose weight is not lost on me, but I can’t help it: I’ve been obsessed with Sausage and Egg McMuffins over the past few months. This represents a maturation of taste in two different ways: for one, I’ve never liked english muffins, and for two, I’ve never really liked eggs prepared any way other than scrambled. In…
I started a GLP-1 drug nearly two months ago, and so far the results have been borderline miraculous. I decided to take the drug for a number of reasons: I have had two instances of my heart going into atrial fibrillation, and losing weight relatively quickly is imperative to avoid further procedures, especially ablation. Anything I can do to prevent yet another surgery, especially one on another…
(This blog post is incredibly USA-centric. If you’re not American you’re welcome to read, but it may be geographically less accessible.) Every time I travel back to North Carolina I feel strangely as if I’m returning home from a long journey. Although I think a lot of people know me as “that guy that lives in Tennessee”, I have just as many roots in North Carolina. I was born in Boone, which is a…
I try to be charitable when it comes to free (libre) software. Most of the tools that I use are made by people who are developing and maintaining them in their free time, with no financial compensation in return. What they do is a gift to the open source community, to the public commons, to the world. But sometimes my rage overcomes my gratitude, and I can’t help but feel frustrated with a tool…
I haven’t been using my Kobo as much as I used to because I’ve been reading everything on my laptop. I used to try and read before bedtime, but reading puts me straight to sleep, so that’s not an effective strategy. On the computer, however, I find it easy just to open an app and read a couple pages here and there, as time allows. I don’t use this as an alternative to anything. I still scroll…
RCS is supposed to be an open standard, but it certainly doesn’t feel like one in any meaningful sense. Before my move back to Android, based on some of the news articles I had read online and conversations I had heard in passing, I naively assumed it was the kind of service that any app could adopt. Much like SMS apps, I thought I could try a few, pick the one I liked most, and then choose a…
I’ve been actively working to move away from proprietary software and big tech as much as possible. I use FOSS every day for all my desktop computing needs, and have done for the better part of two decades, but I never made the same effort when it came to mobile. Why is it that when I walk away from my laptop I stick a computer filled with proprietary software in my pocket without batting an eye?…
One of my favorite hobbies is dunking on Matrix. I mean, hell, they make it so easy. “Unable to decrypt message” is more of a punchline than an unexpected error message. And that’s not to mention the bizarre handling of reported security issues that have cropped up on more than one occasion so far. There is a lot to ridicule, and I enjoy it as much as the next person, but I think it’s also…
I’m not a fan of most of the technologies that have been hyped over the past couple of years. I don’t like generative AI, and I don’t like the overall direction that most technology companies seem to be heading. That may make me sound like someone who doesn’t like technology, but on the contrary, I call myself a technologist and I’ve spent my entire life being fascinated by it. It’s just that the…
A new bill , called the “Parents Decide Act,” has been introduced in the House that would require operating system vendors to verify the age of all its users. Lots of people more qualified than me have already had a ton to say about this topic. I might suggest this blog post from technically-good.ca , which isn’t so much about this bill as its Canadian counterpart, but which makes many great…
It has been almost two years since I wrote a blog post talking about how my dream computing experience has almost come into fruition . Let’s check back in and see how things are going! Thanks to the proliferation of large SSDs, I carry every movie and TV show from my library around with me. A tiny 4TB SSD sits in a pocket, and can be connected any time I want to watch anything. With my next…
A while back I decided to let my childhood Nintendo 64 and SNES consoles go. I have so many happy, wonderful memories playing them, but for the last long while they have sat dormant in my closet, collecting dust. With modern emulation and recompilation projects like Banjo: Recompiled, there’s no reason for me to ever return to the original systems when I can play them in a much better way on…