ryansingel

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, 6 months ago to random

Okay handy people. How do I replace this lightbulb?

Both correct and wildly dangerous suggestions welcome.

ryansingel, 7 months ago to random

The Dutch are using AI to street shame the rest of the world

https://dutchcyclinglifestyle.com/

Here's a stretch of Telegraph in Oakland that's perfect for getting that treatment

Try it yourself

ryansingel, 10 months ago to random

Do people still use business cards in the States? Is that still a thing?

Going to a conference and wondering if I should have some?

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, 5 months ago to random

My non tech savvy neighbor has his dell get fried and it was too old to be worth repairing. He replaced it with some new HP computer and printer.

He thought would make setup easy.

Friends, it was not. Pretty sure I turned down at least 10 SaaS offers and had to create a new email address just to get past the Microsoft registration screen.

I couldn't quite make him understand too that he's going to have to pay 70 bucks a year to use Microsoft word.

I feel like throwing some rocks right now

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, 10 months ago to random

Seems a good time to introduce/remind folks of the Barbie Liberation Organization from early 1980s that hacked the media by switching out the computer chips between Barbie and GI Joe dolls, so that Barbie got to say Vengeance is Mine, while GI Joe dolls said stuff like Math is Hard

https://youtu.be/eMHMf9y-27w

#barbie

ryansingel, 9 months ago to random

Indie media news! Joseph Cox, Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg and Samantha Cole, all formerly of Motherboard at Vice, where they did stellar tech coverage, have struck out on their own at 404 Media. Indie, no VC $$.

https://www.404media.co/

Give them a paid subscribe or just sign up for their newsletter!

Covered by the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/22/business/media/404-media-vice-motherboard.html

ryansingel, 8 months ago to Oakland

Oakland's soccer teams, Roots (mens) and Soul (women) are selling community shares through crowdfunding.

Opened yesterday and up to $1.3M

https://wefunder.com/oakland/

Not quite the Green Bay Packers model where community fully owns the team, and there's no profit motive in ownership, but close enough for my taste. I want to support, not profit.

This city deserves and clearly wants a team that's actually loyal. Looking at you Warriors, Raiders and A's.

#oakland

ryansingel, 7 months ago to Oakland

Did anyone else in Bay Area just get a severe earthquake alert on their phone? #oakland

ryansingel, 10 months ago to random

One of my favorite Google News searches is TKTK.

A good reminder that shit happens.

image/jpeg

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, 9 months ago to random

Meanwhile the rest of us can't afford to test because the COVID Emergency was declared over, so no more free tests covered by insurance and Medicare, no free testing centers, no more post office delivering tests.

Tests cost $10+ each.

But people wanted it over so Biden declared it so

https://apnews.com/article/covid-home-test-78960c4c36422907a2eab3eb0dcdfadd

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

ryansingel, 10 months ago to random

How's it going in COVID land?

"Despite the uptick, several epidemiologists expressed doubt that there would be a major wave of cases in the coming weeks" says the NYT relying on a CUNY epidemiologist just recovering from his THIRD bout of COVID. I shit you not.

Wear a mask indoors. Stop pretending it's over, just cause you are over it. Demand real ventilation. Protect at-risk people.

In New York, Covid Cases Are Rising, Slightly, Officials Warn https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/nyregion/covid-cases-hospitalizations-new-york.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

#covid

ryansingel, 6 months ago to BayArea

Anyone in the Bay Area have a good recommendation for an accountant for a small business and possibly personal as well? Remote might work too

Tired of doing taxes myself

#BayArea #oakland #accountant

ryansingel, 10 months ago to random

Google put an LLM in a robot arm

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/28/technology/google-robots-ai.html

ryansingel, 8 months ago to random

In re the FDA announcement that the crappy cold medicine on the shelves doesn’t actually work (hopefully most everyone already knew).

https://apnews.com/article/sudafed-decongestants-phenylephrine-pseudoephedrine-fda-0f140bafae9a500c5fba05fe764ecb66

We only had the crappy ones on the shelves because Sen. Dianne Feinstein wanted a law putting the stuff that actually works (pseudoephedrine + ibuprofen/acetaminophen) behind a counter, available by only by showing ID and getting put in a fed database to limit how often you buy it.

Because the war on drugs

2006: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=7929ff4f-7e9c-9af9-770b-68728b8208b9

ryansingel, 9 months ago to random

Manbaby fascist Elon Musk’s Twitter is throttling traffic to news and websites he dislikes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/

ryansingel, 9 months ago to random

In the late aughts, Wired.com (the online news side NOT the magazine side) experimented by launching multiple standalone blogs with a lot of editorial independence: Danger Room, Threat Level, Gadget Lab, Wired Science and more

When the mag staff got final site control, they dumped all of the blogs, despite their success and reader loyalty

Katie Drummond wrote for Danger Room

Today she got named worldwide Wired EIC

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/business/media/wired-katie-drummond.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

Hoping she brings that model back

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, 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, 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

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