Companies have been leaving Twitter in droves this week. Here’s a listing of some of the companies that left the platform since the U.S. Election last week.
3M
Balenciaga
Berlin Film Festival
Best Buy
Devon County Council
Eli Lilly
The Guardian
Magers & Quinn Booksellers
North Wales Police
NPR
Playbill
Royal National orthopaedic hospital
UnitedHealth Group
Victoria’s Department of Families, Fairness and Housing
Austrian Airlines announced today that they have also left the platform, and they did it in style.
I thoroughly enjoy Phil Edwards’ YouTube channel. His videos feature interesting looks at a myriad of topics. His presentational style inspires me to learn more.
Here he takes a look at The Blue Ridge Tunnel. When completed in 1858, it was the longest tunnel in the United States at 4,237 feet.
I often can’t decide if I want to focus on “digital minimalism” or “avoiding all capitalism” when it comes to my computing habits.
When I’m in a Digitally Minimalistic mindset, it’s all about the MacBook Air, my iPhone, and occasionally my iPad. I reduce the number of applications I’m using to the bare minimum and I focus on what works without a lot of tinkering. It’s during these moods that I usually step aside from all forms of social media.
But then the pendulum swings the other way and I get all “avoiding all capitalism”, where I decide that even though I believe Apple still provides the best consumer grade computing experience out there, they’re too expensive and they want me to buy too many apps, so then I resurrect an old laptop with the latest flavor of Hip-Linux and focus on that. I get rid of all the apps, move my data somewhere else (again!) and start chatting with folks online about the benefits of using a home grown operating system and the like. Then I apply an update, the computer goes completely sideways, forcing me to punch out an email via telegram and/or Ye Old Scroll, and then I give the pendulum a shove back in the original direction.
Such a quandry.
I look at all sides of a problem or a puzzle or an opportunity and then I look at all sides again. I see all the goods, all the bads, and all the maybes, so then I look at all sides again. Then I start spinning around and try as I might, there’s no bright flash of light with a thunderclap and, to the relief of memory, I do not find myself in star spangled shorts with matching cape.
I am really enjoying YouTube these days. The mix of engaging and entertaining content is far more interesting than streaming and network offerings these days. Since I have a YouTube Premium subscription, I don’t see ads outside of sponsorship mentions embedded in videos.
My subscription list is relatively short, as I am constantly tweaking who I am following based on their content, but more importantly, my state of mind at any given moment. I find a large subscription list to be overwhelming and as mentioned in a previous video, occasionally I find tech oriented channels to be “triggering”.
A few of the channels I follow are focused on better ways to make video content. I have a few aviation stalwarts, and of course, I have my storm chasing interests as well.
Here’s a few of my top mentions (in no particular order).
SAMTIME I recently discovered SAMTIME, but from what I can tell from his content list, he’s been around for quite a while. I love the way he presents his spin on what’s happening in the tech world, and there’s more truth in his videos than most would probably like to admit.
TORNADO TITANS I have been following Tornado Titans for a number of years, and in 2023 I had the opportunity to meet Raychel Sanner in person. She is super knowledgeable and more importantly, her videos are educational when it comes to storm chasing. Highly recommended for those interested in learning about the weather when Mother Nature is in a feisty mood.
OUTSIDE BEYOND THE LENS If there was ever a channel that inspires my hiking videos, it’s Jeff Aiello and Outside Beyond The Lens. The cinematography is gorgeous and really pushes me in a creative mood.
FLIGHT CHOPS I have been following Flight Chops since he first started making videos a decade ago. We’ve chatted online a few times and I look forward to our paths crossing in person in the future. (Hello, Airventure in Oshkosh next year)? His videos are informative and the production value is top notch.
BECCA FARSACE I just started following Becca when she started her channel a few months ago. I don’t know a lot about her but her content is fantastic. I think she may have worked for The Verge or something. Like other videography channels I follow, I find her inspiring.
PHIL EDWARDS Like Becca, I didn’t start following Phil Edwards until he had his own channel. I think he came from an online magazine. His personal content is outstanding and informative, and he tackles subjects I wouldn’t think of. Another YouTube creator that inspires.
This is the first time I’ve been in a vehicle that has a camera and display instead of an actual rear view mirror. We are in a Lyft en route to SFO. The resolution is impressive and I enjoy the traditional form factor being maintained.
These iPhone 16 Pro ads were all over Denver and they’re all over San Francisco. As mentioned in an earlier blog entry, I have the new iPhone 16 Pro. The Camera Control has not impressed me at all; I find the UI (User Interface) very confusing. Light press, hard press, press once, slide, press twice, what do I do to take a photo. It’s easier to just use the Volume Up button like I’ve done since the iPhone 3G or so.
I’m surprised that Apple is advertising Apple Intelligence so much since it hasn’t been released. There’s now rumors that the first pieces of Apple Intelligence, but not the complete package, will be available to consumers by the end of October. I refuse to install the beta version of iOS 18.1 on my brand new iPhone because beta software is used for testing, not pre-releasing new features to the public. Traditionally, beta software has meant “it’s not ready for production yet, it’s buggy, and we need some folks to test it so we can continue to move it towards production”. Releasing beta software to millions of users just seems like typical gross (as in ‘yuck’) marketing.
I’m hoping that Apple Intelligence steers this whole “A.I.” trend in a different direction that what we have to do. A.I. is not smart. In fact, all A.I. does is predict the next word that you’ll want to see based on what it’s presented in response to your request. It’s a word salad maker. In fact, it’s like throwing words into a salad spinner and getting the words out in the expected order. That’s it. A.I. does not know fact from fiction, it just knows what the next word in the paragraph should be.
I’ve gotten into the unfortunate habit of disregarding work emails that were obviously written by the company’s in-house A.I. by the way. If you can’t take the time to write an email to me I can’t take the time to respond.
I’m getting off track.
I’m hoping “Apple Intelligence” steers A.I. into a direction akin to what was described as a new approach to operating systems about a decade ago with the “MercuryOS” project. The desktop paradigm that we use on our desktop and laptop computers has become woefully outdated, as it’s based on actual office desktops from the mid 20th century. You shouldn’t have to organize all your stuff into files and folders. You shouldn’t care about file names and the like. Anything touting “Artificial Intelligence” should handle that stuff for you, so you can find your words and images and the like in your personal word salad.
I don’t want “A.I.” to find facts, I want A.I. to find my stuff and perhaps guide me into a natural workflow for responding to emails and scheduling meetings and the like. Sure, it can summarize those meeting notes, just don’t actually write my notes. It’s not that smart.
Just for fun, I had ChatGPT summarize everything you’ve read in this blog entry thus far.
In this blog entry, JP discusses his experience with the iPhone 16 Pro, expressing disappointment with its Camera Control interface, finding it confusing and preferring the old method of using the Volume Up button to take photos. He is surprised that Apple is heavily advertising its upcoming “Apple Intelligence” feature despite it not being released yet, and he avoids beta software, viewing it as an unpolished product for testing.
JP is skeptical about the broader trend of AI, criticizing its limitations as a tool that merely predicts the next word without understanding fact from fiction. He shares his frustration with work emails generated by AI, seeing them as impersonal, and hopes that Apple Intelligence will take AI in a more practical direction, such as helping users manage files and workflows instead of generating content. Ultimately, he advocates for AI to assist in organizing and navigating tasks rather than replacing human thought processes.
See? ChatGPT and the like are great at spinning the word salad.
I’m hopeful that Apple Intelligence is going to spin the words in the right direction and focus on productivity and the like, instead of content creation. We shall see.
Read this. You can also download it here (right-click and save on those underlined words) and read it in a better PDF browser than apparently what I have on my blog.
I don’t know what the technology is behind these menu boards at the local McDonald’s, but the holes in the display thing has been going on since we moved to Tucson nearly four years ago.
I am writing this blog entry on the newest addition to my geek space. Today’s addition is a brand new Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB RAM.
This little computer is amazing.
In the background of the window I’m using to write this entry, I have an instance of Firefox showing my local weather radar. I have access to all my files through Dropbox and the household NAS (Network Attached Storage) unit. I can get to my Macs. I can get to my other Linux machines.
All using a computer the size of a deck of a cards.
The software I’m using, as pictured in the screen shot above, is called WordGrinder. It’s an old school word processor; the type of which was found back in my young geek days when I worked for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the late 1980s. I opt to use a font that mimics the font on my old 12-inch CRT monitor from back in the day. WordGrinder is free and is perfect for those looking for an old school word processing experience. Better yet, it is the perfect way to force focus while writing, as there’s no other distractions going on. I’m using an application dedicated for writing and it throws my geeky brain chemistry into warp speed.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
