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Another small adjustments to my habits that will hopefully result in a much happier me is to use the menu to open YouTube directly to my subscriptions, rather than to the algorithmic feed. It’s a hard habit to make, but I’m trying my best.
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and tagged it with Content instagram Instapaper Small habits Over the last month or so I’ve started to read more on micro.blog, follow links to articles, slowly trying to get me out of the habit of doomscrolling YouTube or always numbing my mind with a podcast. I’ve been away from regular RSS based reading for quite a while and I desperately need to look over my subscription list in NetNewsWire to get more reading material that way, but I’ve at least started checking the inbox there every now and then. I’ve also spent more time reading the columns posted by Seconds Wind on Patreon. Finally, I read my local paper every morning. All in all, I’m trying to get away from ”consuming content” and get more into actually reading (or for that matter watching) things that I can then think about and that gives me anything other than a simple distraction. It’s a bumpy ride, and particularly my habit of always having something playing in my ears are a hard one to break. It’s also really easy to fall back into the YouTube hole. Due to this, a few days ago I reinstalled Instapaper on my devices.
I used to love Instapaper and I can find posts on my blog as old as June 2010 praising it but some years ago I just fell out the habit of using it. There was never a ”f* this app, I’m out” moment with Instapaper. I just started putting fewer and fewer articles into it, and started using it less and less. Eventually I started uninstalling it because is was never every used. Now, I feel a strong need for it again. If I get back into the habit of putting things I don’t have the time to properly read right now into Instapaper, and then get back into reading rather than consuming when I have the time I’m pretty sure I’ll be a happier person. There is no joy in the consumption, though sometimes it has been a necessity to hide from the lack of joy in the bigger picture of life. Iv’e not had the time to use it much yes, but it appears to be exactly the same app that it used to be. It’s easy to save articles to it, the reading experience is nice and free of distractions. Sure, it hasn’t evolved at all but why would it need to do that?
Yesterday I also reinstalled Instagram. This was for a quick one-off thing, but once it was on my devices I figured I should try it a bit. I was quite an early adopter of Instagram and I really enjoyed it for a few years. It its case there was a clearer feeling of ”all right, I’m out” some years ago. I realized that I didn’t get any joy from browsing either my timeline or recommendations. At best, I saw interesting things that I wasn’t part of and got strong FOMO, at worst I just got irritated by the stupid things I saw. So I intentionally uninstalled it and refused any impulse to reinstall. Occasionally I’ve followed a link on the web to a profile or post on instagram but as the years have gone by the web experience of it has gone from terrible to horrible. Instagram has always hated the open web and these days I don’t even understand why it pretends to be accessible that way when all it does is try to coerce me into getting the app.
So how was the experience of using Instagram the app again? Well, it was terrible. Not in the way that the web interface is, but in what it showed me. There where som posts by the people I followed but it was also riddled with ads, payed for posts and ”recommended posts”. Once I had scrolled through what my friends had posted for the past three days it was only promoted posts and ads. I then tried to look at the discover posts (or whatever it’s called) and was met with more or less nothing but AI slop and half-naked butts by ”genetically gifted” people. Thanks but no thanks. Uninstalled.
In the end, here we have two apps, both being ”Insta” something. Both appealed to me a great deal when they were new. One of them is largely still the same, one has changed a whole lot. Sure, progress is nice when it comes to the big things in the world, but being the same old, boring thing is probably a good thing when it comes to apps and services that is already good.
Henrik Carlsson posted this
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and tagged it with AI “[T]he internet wasn’t built to be a factory for engagement metrics and AI-generated content farms. It was built to connect us, not silo us to pad a wealth-extremist’s bank account.”
The Fediverse Isn’t the Future. It’s the Present We’ve Been Denied.
Henrik Carlsson posted this
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and tagged it with Kindle For no reason what so ever, this DRM stripper for Calibre seems like quite a useful tool. You’ll need the serial number from your Kindle for it to work. If, hypothetically, I were to do this, I would look in the settings for this information. I would also take a look at this guide.
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and tagged it with David Lynch I am not the most well-versed person when it comes to David Lynch, but based on the things that I have seen, one thing that I love is that he seemed to be very sincere, and despite the weirdness of a lot of his works he seemed to be able to see the beauty in the world. There is no cynicism and very little nihilism in his works, and that is something that I really love. Rest in peace, mister Lynch.
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Henrik Carlsson posted this
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and tagged it with Gear Music Many years ago now, I set ”The Year of Music” as a Yearly Theme. Though one of the ideas behind a theme is that it shouldn’t really be something that you can fail at I would say that The Year of Music was a huge failure. No new music made, very little music listening. Now, however, the latter part of that is changing.
After many years of indecisiveness I took the plunge and bought into the Sonos ecosystem and I am so glad I did. The idea of being able to fill the house with music, or to have different music playing in different rooms, have been something I’ve wanted for so long. However, even though I’ve considered Sonos – and the Sonos/Ikea products – I’ve always resisted, thinking that there’s got to be a better, less expensive solution that doesn’t lock me into a single company’s line of products. So I’ve kept thinking about it, going more or less deep into various Raspberry Pi-based rabbit holes, never sticking to one idea. In recent years I’ve even considered buying a turntable and getting into vinyl records. I’ve got a MacMini server at home, several speakers – both Bluetooth and wired – and I have some basic programming skills. Surely, I should be able to create the perfect solution. Surely…
Obviously that didn’t happen. Now, in hindsight, I think that is part of why the listening part of Year of Music failed. Friction, even light friction, greatly reduces the chance of something happening. When music listening requires me to connect my phone physically to a speaker, or make an AirPlay connection, and having playback be instantly disrupted whenever a call comes to my phone, making it almost impossible to have a communal experience with my family about selecting the music, and so on, there is great friction making it very unlikely to happen.
So a month or two ago I started seriously looking at Sonos gear. Yes, it cost a lot of money1 but honestly speaking I am in that part of life where I have more money than time so I should at least consider it. Fortunately I spoke to Linn about it. I have a tendency to overthink everything. She is much more spontaneous so she encouraged me to go ahead and buy a speaker or two, or why not even three. Thank you, Linn! :)
Finally, I talked to my old friend Johan who’s been using Sonos for a long time and he’s recommendation was the last push I needed so I bought two (yes, two) Era 100 and one Roam 2. I’m using the Era 100s as a stereo pair in the kitchen/living room and the Roam as a portable speaker, wherever I might need it.
It has worked great, both as an interconnected system with the same music playing in the kitchen as on the backyard patio – or when I’m writing this among the flowers next to the green house of the front side of the house – as well as a system for the kitchen and a separate speaker for separate music somewhere else, for instance when my daughter brings it out to the trampoline in the back garden. The fact that each speaker is ”smart” enough to act as a music player, that no phone or other device is required during playback is such an important feature and makes it miles better then any Bluetooth or AirPlay speaker.
In the end, the friction of listening to music is minimal and the result is that I indeed listen a whole lot more. Sometimes it’s to music that I really like, sometimes to music that someone else in my household really likes, but there is always music in the air.
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A lot of people seems to be upset about Apple (or other companies) scraping the internet for their generative ai. I sincerely hope those aren’t the same people who in the past have argued that ”information wants to be free”.
@MrHenko well…
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Replies and comments
johnjohnston
28 juni, 2024 10:26@MrHenko that is really lovely.