Archives

Blogging to the Fediverse via WordPress without Tags

I noticed a drop in traffic to the blog which I would attribute to three things. The main reason is that I went from main-vision.com/richard/blog to blog.main-vision.com. This screwed up all the search engine results, despite adding the redirection order in the htaccess file. As if that wasn’t silly enough I then redirected my blog back to its original place to see if that would revive traffic and of course I can’t tell.

Riding a Foot Scooter Along My Ordinary Walk

The Old Scooter and Winter Winter is coming, and with the arrival of winter comes the need to swap the tyres from summer to winter. In the process of getting the snow tyres out of the cave I pulled out my old scooter. The one that I used when I had a one month driving ban for speeding. I would not have been driving above the speed limit if I was not stuck behind someone driving below the speed limit.

Thoughts on Masto.host

For up to three months I was running my own instance via Masto.host and the experience was good. Setting up an instance is easy. Within a few minutes you can set up your own instance, post and perform administrative tasks such as accept trending hashtags and more. No DevOps and No Code Required Masto.host is great for non-technical people because it doesn’t require any specialist knowledge. You create a Masto.host account, and then you choose the cheapest server option.

The iPhone Keynote - Apple Being Cheap

Recently Apple shot its entire keynote on their most expensive mobile phone. Whilst this sounds fantastic and empowering, it isn’t. In my eyes this is a marketing gimmick and a sad commentary on the state of video production today. Video as Art Video is an art. Video is a creative pursuit. If you use an iphone to film a keynote then you do show that the cameras are high quality. This is available at a cost of 1750 CHF for the 1 terabyte iphone 15 Pro Max.

Walking In Heavy Rain

A few days ago I saw that heavy rain was announced for that afternoon so I thought that I would not go for a walk. In the end I did go for a walk in the heavy rain. I was wearing a reasonable rain coat so I could have stayed dry if I had also worn rain trousers. I didn’t wear rain trousers so for at least half the walk I was okay.

Being European and Paying for Facebook and Instagram

For those of us living in Europe we now have the option of paying for Facebook and Instagram, not to see ads. In theory this is fantastic and we should be jumping on the opportunity. I don’t feel that way. I had plenty of conversations, with uni friends, colleagues and more, until Zynga brought Farmville. When Farmville spammed our timelines and killed all conversations the value of Facebook as social network was destroyed because instead of conversing and networking we were taking care of virtual farms.

Books I Am Reading

According to Goodreads I am currently reading 97 books but in reality I am reading between three to five books consistently at the moment. I read several books at once because it gives me time to absorb ideas from one book whilst reading a second book, and then a third, and so on. I, Robot Although the book was written in 1950 it is still worth reading today. It shows the way people thought about computers back then.

The Apple Watch As an Ipod Nano

Four or five years ago I tried to download an audiobook to the Apple Watch and I gave up. I saw that it would take hours so I gave up. At the time we would download podcasts to our laptops or phones, and play them once we had them stored locally. The same is true of audiobooks, especially since audiobooks can be hundreds of megabytes. A Different Age That failure, half a decade ago resulted in me never trying to play audio books or podcasts from my watch, and yet it is the most rational thing to do.

Stepping Through Life

According to Apple Health I take an average of 14,553 steps per day, over the last year. It doesn’t stop there. Not only do I take fourteen and a half thousands steps per day on average but I run up, up to fourty five floors per day and I walk at six kilometres per hour, rather than the four kilometres per hour that normal people walk. Articles like this speak about walking pace, number of steps per day, as well as steps climbed in some cases.

Replaceable Batteries and Wearable Tech

With a user like me it takes a year or two for a mobile phone to become depleted. After this period of time I am stuck with the weight of an external battery that I have to plug in half way through the day to recharge the device. This is, in part, due to how many apps are installed and running, on my phone, but also due to how I use my phone for audio books, and news reading.