There are too many social and other media sites

D

drhowarddrfine

Over the weekend, I was linked to three media sites I had never heard of before. I can't keep track of them all (as if I cared about social media at all). I started using Twitter years ago cause there were tech people I was interested in but I'm not interested in their day-to-day. Facebook I was dragged into by relatives who no longer go there now. All the liberals left X for Bluesky. And then Instagram and Pinterest and LinkedIn. There was YouTube but now there's Odyssey. FreeBSD people are on mastadon and so many different platforms that I gave up. It's often too much mindless chit-chat anyway and I'm tired of clicking around trying to look at them all.

I admit I've not done much more than mindless chit-chat lately since I shutdown my business. I had an idea for something to start up and two of the guys who worked for me got a fire lit under them but they've gotten too distracted lately and I don't know where that's going to go.

So I wind up here like a bump on a log starting to notice I'm forgetting how to do things. Over the weekend I started baking bread from scratch again and cooking our daily meals after five years of setting that aside.

But now I'm drifting off topic. There are too many social and other media sites. And that's just the technical ones.
 
The demise of usable twitter is unfortunate. The explosion left the pieces in too many places. I don't even know where all the C++ gurus ended up.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
So I wind up here like a bump on a log starting to notice I'm forgetting how to do things. Over the weekend I started baking bread from scratch again and cooking our daily meals after five years of setting that aside.
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^^ this is the way. IMHO your time spent on baking and cooking is the best thing you can do ... I fully agree to your rant, and scrolling through advertisements, proposed or pushed messages, messages and content of questionable value (for me, on various social platforms) is really just stealing my time. I do not spend a lot of time there anyway, but even my monthly visit to facebook feels like I have wasted 15 minutes. I much prefer this forum, various mailing lists, and some nice blog posts (thanks vermaden for your great series!)
 
Sounds like TV: millions of choices but still nothing worth watching.

Besides this place I've got maybe 2 others that I use, most of the time it's too much hassle
 
1 problem is that everything that supports direct communication is considered underground. Only commercial centralised web-based profile servers are acceptable.
 
Maturin said:
If not in gaming industry probably retrained to Rust.
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Generally "fintech". So much money to be earned there for fairly basic code.

And because its not hip and trendy (writing finance code is not going to make an engaging youtube video), this is exactly the reason why they are quite illusive.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Over the weekend I started baking bread from scratch again and cooking our daily meals after five years of setting that aside.
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Except on vacations I cook daily. I simply can't feed constantly in restaurants, take away, or this cheap, overpriced industrial "convient food" garbage. And I also bake my own bread for many years.
This one just recently got from my oven not five minutes ago (cut it open hot, just to show you):
Self cultivated natural sourdough leaven, 40% ray, 60% wheat, 50% wholemeal, plus grounded flexseed. All organic, of course.

b1.jpg

b2.jpg


As I said in my post #12 (AI in cell phones thread), if unsatisfied with what is offered, look for alternatives.
So I also did, when the last bakery in our region selling good bread closed, and I got tired of this tasteless industry cardboard stuff from supermarkets: started baking my own bread.
No big deal, really. Also cost not much time. All you need is a bit experience, for which you find many good sites on the web (the web consist mostly of crap, but not only). Once you have that it's mostly organization to fit the four working steps of few minutes each into your daily routine. Voilá: Self baked, (very) tasty bread. 🤓

But back to topic:
Of course it's too much. Gathering and selling personal data is the big business today. Since Zuckerberg became a billionaire, now everybody believes he also can make millions by copying the same business idea. All it needs is to draw the crowd to that platform: first the grass is greener over there, then also the milking starts.

So, now I need to eat - my home smells of fresh baked bread. 😋
 
Maturin said:
Except on vacations I cook daily. I simply can't feed constantly in restaurants, take away, or this cheap, overpriced industrial "convient food" garbage. And I also bake my own bread for many years.
This one just recently got from my oven not five minutes ago (cut it open hot, just to show you):
Self cultivated natural sourdough leaven, 40% ray, 60% wheat, 50% wholemeal, plus grounded flexseed. All organic, of course.

View attachment 25948
View attachment 25949

As I said in my post #12 (AI in cell phones thread), if unsatisfied with what is offered, look for alternatives.
So I also did, when the last bakery in our region selling good bread closed, and I got tired of this tasteless industry cardboard stuff from supermarkets: started baking my own bread.
No big deal, really. Also cost not much time. All you need is a bit experience, for which you find many good sites on the web (the web consist mostly of crap, but not only). Once you have that it's mostly organization to fit the four working steps of few minutes each into your daily routine. Voilá: Self baked, (very) tasty bread. 🤓

But back to topic:
Of course it's too much. Gathering and selling personal data is the big business today. Since Zuckerberg became a billionaire, now everybody believes he also can make millions by copying the same business idea. All it needs is to draw the crowd to that platform: first the grass is greener over there, then also the milking starts.

So, now I need to eat - my home smells of fresh baked bread. 😋
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use some barley flour and it will stay fresh longer :)
 
bakul said:
As Melania’s Jacket declared, “I really don’t care. Do U?”
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Been doing a lot of driving lately. I used to listen to the radio but no more. Too many commercials on one. Too much whining and complaining on two. Too much "we're the downtrodden" on the third. Made me tense. Then I remembered that I don't care. I'm fine. I switched it off, just like all the social sites, and I'm now at peace and I don't miss it at all.
 
Maturin I found my list of favorite breads I used to make. I'm rebuilding my sourdough culture. I did make one bread which had great flavor but was too dense. Another one of those areas where I've forgotten all the little tricks.
 
AlfredoLlaquet said:
That's what my grandpa used to say
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Your grandpa was right in two things:
There are too many TV channels - good example that quality is not raised, when a certain number of channels is exceeded, but even lowered.
On a modern TV set you can save way over 1k channels, while only app. 50 to 150 are commonly available (while 3 or 5 at the most are actually watchable [this did not change in the last 50 years.]) Anyway nobody takes the effort to program and sort them all manually, so everybody rely on auto set up today.
Result: Those 60 channels you may receive are spreaded over 500 storage places, while at least two thirds - mostly those carpet seller channels, are five of even mores times stored, and there are several gaps between channel groups nobody knows by which criteria they are grouped; and every TV set does it otherwise. Total Chaos.

And he was right about remote controls.
Those are very exemplary to learn about UI.
If you have a chance in an electronics market, don't compare the specifications of cheap TV sets with some from the better classes, but compare the remotes!
You will see something like this (While the one on the left is by far not the worst I've seen, but somehow lower medium class, and for the right I've seen better, but I didn't find an even better one quickly.):
b1.jpg
b2.jpg


The number of buttons on cheap TV sets' remotes are not only actually more, they also seem more as they really are, because they all have similar sizes, look equally, and are sorted in almost metronomics lines and rows, so it's even to me confusing to find the buttons I need. (Apart from all those BS menus you have today - you simply cannot switch on a TV today, anymore; it needs to start up first, like those old tube devices needed to warm up, then you get to some BS menu, not knowing how to get out of this shit, because all you want is "just start with channel 1 - France 1, RAI 1, ARD, BBC 1, ORF 1, SRF 1, ....whatever here is one!" Everytime I switch on an unkown TV in a hotel room it again feels like I started my very first vi session ever, never used it before.)
While on better remotes the buttons are clearly distinguished: separated clearly in groups, different sizes, forms etc.
Some come even with a cover, to hide buttons not being used often, like e.g. the ones for video player, or the numbers, so to reduce the amount of buttons for default usage even more.

My parents in law are in their mid 80s and becoming demented. They have real problems to control their TV, because all they need is what most viewers need: On/Off, Volume +/-, Channel +/-
They don't have any netflix, prime, disney or so. Those colorful, sticking out but completely useless buttons only add confusion.
While in fact when watching TV, like we watched TV in the 1980s to the early 2000s - "watching TV", not surfing the internet - in 99.9% all you need is just this:
b3.jpg

Even this could be done better, if each ON/OFF, mute, vol and ch comes with its own and clearly to distinguish color.
UI doesn't need to look "cool". They need to be used efficiently: easy, intuitively, clearly and logically.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
had great flavor but was too dense. Another one of those areas where I've forgotten all the little tricks.
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Maybe too few water, too short fermentation time, or add some yeast additionally. Self cultivated sourdough seldom has the power like pure culture yeast.
Anyway, self cultured sourdough cultures need some "experience", some breads baked with, to become more powerful, more stable, more reliable. Most of the instructions how to start your own culture start baking the first bread too early. Give it a couple more days to stabilize, and you will receive better results with your first breads.
 
Maturin that wasn't sourdough but yes I'm sure it needed more water. I did add some but was afraid to add too much. I used to be able to figure these things out by touch and feel but I was just too cautious.
 
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