Tiny update

Wait, it's been a month since I posted here? Well, there is a simple reason for that: life.

It has been a busy month for me. My 33rd birthday was on July 5th. Work has kept me very busy, and frankly, there hasn't been much to blog about. Sure, the former president was almost assassinated, and Crowdstrike caused the world to erupt in chaos, but I don't have much to say about those events, personally.

I did write a piece for AppleInsider about the would-be assassin's locked smartphone, which we now know was an Android device. I postulated that if the FBI didn't find a way in, they would knock on the government's door to ask for regulations demanding "good guy" back doors. Of course, they unlocked the device very quickly, possibly before I even hit publish (it takes time to write and publish stuff, people), but I think my conversation around encryption is still valid.

Of course, we finally published my iOS 18 review, which was, yes, a review of a beta. It's something AppleInsider has been doing for years now. The software doesn't change enough between July and September to warrant waiting for the public release, so we review the features we have on hand to provide some insight into what's available in the now public beta and what will launch in the fall. After that, we will do another review a little while after the public launch, hopefully with some Apple Intelligence features.

I still haven't quite figured out what I want this blog to be. I can't just write 1,000-word commentaries on technology that would otherwise perform well on AppleInsider. This blog isn't meant to compete with anyone, and if anything, it is supposed to let me offer opinions on topics that are otherwise covered as strict news on AppleInsider. We're allowed to have opinions and write opinion pieces, but there are only so many hours in the day.

It is a conundrum.

I actually don't have any metrics tracking how many people read this blog. Heck, it could be zero, which I'm totally ok with. This isn't meant to turn into Daring Fireball or something. I just want a place on the internet outside of work where people can find me.

Choosing social media

That brings me to the latest in personal news: Twitter. After Elon Musk went full GOP, offering $25 million of his own money per month to a super PAC, not to mention custom hashtags of Trump's face and such, I knew that was the breaking point. There have been other points before where I thought about deleting my account, like declaring cisgender hate speech, the Nazi takeover, or just Musk becoming CEO in the first place.

I should have deleted the account a long time ago. However, AppleInsider does keep an account for sharing articles. I thought I needed to keep an account, even inactive, to help manage that AppleInsider one. There was also some hope Musk would get bored and just sell Twitter to someone else.

These beliefs had me holding onto an account that was well past needing to be deleted. And this final push for the destruction of America and its citizens was too much to justify. So, I finally deactivated my account.

I also deactivated my Threads/Instagram account too, for good measure. Those Meta platforms are just awful and useless. Not to mention Threads is outright hostile towards the LGBTQ+ community.

Yes, if you go looking, you might find that I still have a locked personal Facebook account. Believe me, I'd love to delete it. But the way Facebook works for business, I have to have an account in my name to log into a managed account like AppleInsider.

At the end of the day, social media is what you make of it. Use the platform that works for you. However, don't bury your head in the sand if that platform is actively participating in erasing people and ideologies from Earth.

At least with Mastodon, there isn't a single entity in control. You don't have to worry about the CEO of Mastodon becoming a Nazi because there is no controlling entity over the fediverse. That, plus the excellent community there, is why I choose Mastodon as my only active social media. I also have a Pixelfed account, but it's small and I still need to remember to post there from time to time.

I know this was a bit of a rambling piece. There isn't much going on in the world of tech, but there soon will be with iPhone 16 and Apple Intelligence. I'll be writing about it on AppleInsider, but I expect I'll be able to color that commentary a bit more here. If there is anything specific you'd like to see on this blog, don't be afraid to reach out. I'm still trying to figure out what this space is for.

Perhaps it is simply for posts like this one.

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