I’m not the only one bummed about the end of Pocket. Here’s Sam Cole for 404 Media writing Pocket, One of the Only Apps I Ever Liked, Is Shutting Down.
Not knowing that pocket was getting the axe, I bookmarked the open source alternative wallabag (never used it, don’t know if it’s any good). Because it sure feels like self-hosting your own software is the only way to have any kind of guarantee about these things.
There’s a tipping point where having rough edges, expecting no customer support, and eating the maintenance – all hallmarks of managing open source applications – is better than the mainstream options.
And for someone like me, I can go and install things on my Raspberry Pi home server easily enough. But normal people?
I feel like we spent the last 15 years telling normal people Don’t use spreadsheets like a nerd! and Don’t use Word docs like an old business man! Even though you could run your life perfectly well off of those things. No! Instead we have all these apps and websites that are cheaper, faster, and better than anything before.
If you’re a non-techie that is looking for something to hang your hat on, I don’t know what to tell you.
Maybe go back to doing things the old cruddy way. Your computer desktop is an absolute Goddamn mess, but it doesn’t have a fiduciary responsibility to any shareholders.
That’s the reluctant conclusion of Cole’s article:
404 Media contributing writer Matthew Gault suggests copy-pasting links to articles into a giant document to read later. Now that Pocket is no longer with us, I might have to start doing that.
Pocket is shutting down - https://getpocket.com/farewell
Well this sucks. I bought into the Firefox ecosystem when I switched to Linux. I figured, these folks are the ones driving a major independent browser so I should use whatever they have.
Maybe it’s “enshittification”, but I know I’m nobody’s prime customer. If I like it, it’s probably doomed or bound to change dramatically.
My first and best example of this was being at Google I/O 2011. I had my T-Mobile G1 and everyone there had either a Nexus One or the new Nexus S. It felt like everybody was aligned about what Android was and what it should be. But in the real world, everyone bought Samsung Galaxy phones and the Nexus line eventually died.
Even though I’m not the target market for hardly anything, it’s still sad when something I use and like goes away.
Points to the BBC for the Paul Simon headline.
I’ve gotten into buying movies on Blu-ray. And look, I know that that’s not where the world is going, but it would be awesome if Blu-ray movies included the soundtrack CD as well. I’m sure it would be a hassle and blah blah licensing. My thinking is that when I’m buying physical media, I want all the things. At least it makes more sense to me than giving me a digital code for some weird website.
Now the cognitive tendrils of a phone-based psychosis frequently seem more descriptive of contemporary reality—“Houthi PC small group,” etc.—than the daffodils I see springing up in the park.
Nobody is better at describing the dizzying feeling of modern life with the internet than Jia Tolentino. Her book Trick Mirror is required reading for internet cultural analysis. It’s not all doom and gloom. It’s also funny as hell.
Back To A Website - Homestar Runner - https://homestarrunner.com/toons/backtoawebsite
“Not just the same four websites!”
It looks like homestarrunner.com has been resurrected! And they do with a song that skewers the state of the web today. They still got it!
It makes me happy to have something of my own on the internet. Even if it’s a piece of crap, it’s my piece of crap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d8Hj0SEFR0
My pre-order of the PicoCalc is coming soon and I’m very excited! This video showed me a lot of community software that’s available for PicoCalc and it looks really cool. I ordered this thing because I suck at electronics and I wanted a kit of peripherals for my Raspberry Pi Pico microntrollers, but it seems like I’m getting a whole lot more than that.
This is a test of the non-emergency broadcast system.
This website is a static website hosted on GitHub, so posting is a little clunkier than on your traditional social media/Wordpress/CMS.
To solve this problem, I’ve created a script that should make the publishing go easier. This is the first test!
It might break the website, or at least the RSS feed. Here goes!