ryansingel

ryansingel, 28 days ago to random

East Bay Bike Party is a local treasure.

Thousands on bikes of all kinds, just being joyful.

This month even had a DJ being towed

2nd Friday of every month, starts and ends at a BART station, ride starts 8pm, lights and costumes optional but appreciated

ryansingel, 28 days ago to random

i’d pay good money for a browser that refuses to let any site block copy-and-pasting

I’d pay even more money for a service that hunts down whatever web designer or project manager or VP that decides their site should do this, then names and shames them on a website

ryansingel, 1 month ago to random

VMWare is one of those companies that is too big to be competent.

They bought Pivotal Tracker, a tool for managing software projects, and then recently decided to boot off all the paying customers that weren’t enterprise.

I just found an email in my spam folder. DKIM and SPF is apparently being too difficult for them to figure out. The email said I had cancelled my paid plan.

No, VMWare you decided you no longer wanted me to pay you.

ryansingel, 1 month ago to random

The FCC just voted to restore its authority over broadband providers and restore #netneutrality.

States largely get to enforce their laws as well.

It's a good win, with the caveat that the devil is in details and final order not released until next week. ISPs fought hard to aerate the order with loopholes.

I'm really looking forward to the FCC forcing mobile ISPs to stop their video throttling of everyone not on the most expensive plan.

ryansingel, 2 months ago to random

The latest news site dark pattern is hijacking the back button or left swipe to show you chumbox ads

Here's @arstechnica doing it

The amount of damage Outbrain/Taboola (and other scuzzy tactics) did to the news industry hasn't ever been reckoned with.

News sites turned themselves into adversaries you have to fight to get a nugget of info. Worst video games ever.

ryansingel, 2 months ago to random

Chatted with @docpop on his fancy podcast about the future of journalism and open-source CMSes like WordPress and Ghost

https://overcast.fm/+2e5_5EvkI

You can listen to the podcast on whatever podcast player, platform or RSS tool you use

ryansingel, 2 months ago to random

Housing so bad in the Bay Area that a Caltrain exec and a contractor built secret apartments for themselves in two stations.

Apparently Caltrain stations aren't zoned for ADUs and they got arrested

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/caltrain-exec-charged-secret-station-apartments-19376188.php

ryansingel, 2 months ago to random

I still think the most under-reported, most holy shit tech story of the last 5+ years is how good e-bikes have gotten and how much more affordable a decent e-bike has become.

E-cars and trucks are a nice change but mostly meh. E-bikes, tho? They are magic.

They deserve subsidies and way more press attention.

ryansingel, 2 months ago to random

Dems seem dead set on losing the young vote, refusing to stop the genocide in Gaza and now threatening to ban TikTok

Going after TikTok doesn't make you look tough. It makes you look out of touch.

Go out and hammer Fox News over and over. It has brainwashed most of the boomer population.

ryansingel, 2 months ago to random

Just got a notice in the mail that my Philips CPAP machine had a data breach thanks to its “cloud service” connected to the secret wireless modem in the CPAP that spies on users.

I have no idea why Philips has patient’s dates of birth, email addresses and phone numbers just so it could send CPAP breathing data to a healthcare provider.

A simple unique ID generated by the healthcare provider would be enough

ryansingel, 2 months ago to random

News sites have gotten so crappy that now ads pretend to be the website's dark pattern.

Lots of terrible sites like the AP truncate stories and put a continue button that you have to press to read the rest of the story. The site does this to show more ads.

So the shit company Endless Sports built an ad that is a continue button. It scrolls into view on mobile and unsuspecting readers click it, thinking that's how you get the rest of the story.

But nope, you have clicked an ad.

#DarkPattern

ryansingel, 3 months ago to random

Today could be your lucky day.

There’s a non-zero chance that if you buy an annual subscription to a great indie publication or newsletter on today Feb 29, the leap year day, that their tech won’t charge you again for four years.

Go subscribe today and see if you hit the date and time jackpot.

ryansingel, 3 months ago to random

Automattic and Reddit selling training data to LLMs.

Biden banning data sales to China.

Your mobile ISP? Hold my beer, we got data on everything our customers do and we gonna be BARONS!

"AI applications can only be as successful as the completeness, longevity and accuracy of their underlying data. For the mobile industry, this includes the full and complete profile of the wireless subscriber. That history consists of communications, location, and device activity"

https://www.lightreading.com/ai-machine-learning/will-telcos-be-the-railroad-tycoons-of-the-ai-age-

ryansingel, 3 months ago to random

Airplane the movie is best understood as a Ralph Naderish take on how dangerous in-flight meal service is.

To its credit, the airline industry reacted by ending the potentially fatal habit of feeding passengers

ryansingel, 3 months ago to random

Hunter Biden hiring Abbe Lowell as his defense attorney may have just saved the country from Trump being re-elected.

Lowell blew up the Special Counsel David Weiss’s prosecution of Hunter by forcing Weiss to indict his lead witness, blew up the Comer impeachment, and may well just unravel all the Bill Barr and DoJ/IRS shenanigans around Hunter’s “laptop”, Guliani’s Russian dirt backchannels and illegal leaks of Hunter’s tax returns.

Follow along at @emptywheel

ryansingel, 3 months ago to random

Once you back out of your driveway, you can safely take off your seatbelt

#cdcsays #cdc

ryansingel, 3 months ago to random

I spent a good 30 minutes today trying to figure out why no videos would play for longer than 2 seconds on the Android. Closed apps, restarted phone, cleared caches, made sacrifices to tech deities both major and minor.

Finally disconnected Google Buds Pro from Bluetooth and that was it. The "transparency" setting on those headphones is so sensitive the tiniest noise was stopping video playback

I feel both dumb and angry. Which is about right for Gen X

Thank you for coming to my anti-TED Talk

ryansingel, 4 months ago to random

Flaming Hydra Issue #1 dropped TODAY.

https://flaminghydra.com/issue-1/

60 great writers;
one co-op from the Brickhouse folks;
a daily email newsletter with 2 pieces in each

only $36 bucks a year, revenue shared between writers.

https://flaminghydra.com/about/

You signed up before you got to this line, right?

Right?

@flaminghydra

ryansingel, 4 months ago to random

This is always what #Substack has been.

Marc Andreesen pouring $85M in funding to Substack was the original Musk buying Twitter. It was an extension of his idea to build his own publication because he hated tech media.

It’s always been a grievance play, funded by white guy VC grievers, and run by a white guy griever.

ryansingel, 4 months ago to random

@caseynewton is moving Platformer to the open-source Ghost membership CMS from Substack over its awful moderation

Glad to see more folks moving to an indie platform.

I founded Outpost.pub 2.5 years on the belief Ghost (open source, non-profit) is the future for membership-driven publishing, and that our co-op model for power services for Ghost publishers would succeed where VC $ floundered.

Still a long way to go but sticking with this bet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/11/substack-platformer-nazis/

ryansingel, 4 months ago to random

Almost every day, I think about this story about Brown University throwing out dorm air filters en masse into a dumpster

Wanting a pandemic to be over so hard that you throw out clean air machines and paper towels. Could not even bother to donate them

#covid #AirQuality

Want to reduce household illness? Get a decent air filter.

Having people over to your house? Use a decent air filter.

Have a classroom full of kids? Use an air filter.

They work and are cheap.

https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2023/10/inconvenient-wasteful-frustrating-students-react-to-removal-of-paper-towels-air-purifiers-from-on-campus-housing

ryansingel, 4 months ago to random

A Walking Dead spinoff where characters realize that bikes actually work post-apocalypse

ryansingel, 5 months ago to random

Indie creators ditching one VC-funded company for another one thinking it'll be different this time. It won't be. The incentives remain the same.

LiveJournal was a trap
Medium was a trap
Patreon is a trap
Substack is a trap
Etsy became a trap
Beehiiv...

The difference this time is that there are real indie alternatives

Ghost
WordPress
Transistor.fm
Fediverse
Outpost.pub (self plug)
Buttondown
And more

The hacienda must be built

#SubstackMigration #Substack

ryansingel, 5 months ago to random

If you publish via #Substack and are looking to move to an indie platform, our publishers cooperative Outpost.pub can help.

We help power sites like 404 Media, Tangle, and The Lever.

We support sites using Ghost, an open source CMS.

Drop a note at support@outpost.pub for details

ryansingel, 5 months ago to random

Friends don't let friends publish via Substack, which defends hosts Nazis and hate dealers

Lots of options:

Ghost (open source): self hosted or via Ghost(Pro) is the gold standard. The WordPress of membership-driven publishing. The co-op I founded, Outpost, adds power features for serious pubs.

Buttondown - Indie and great for smaller newsletters

Beehiiv - VC-funded, all-in-one. Beware VC incentives.

Patreon - don't do it. It's a trap

WordPress - Not a good idea. Spaghetti of plugins