Notes for September 1-7

Summer break is now completely over, so I did my usual Summer “cleansing”—disabling notifications from annoying apps, unsubscribing from a few more online services, ditching a half dozen YouTube channels, and (surprisingly) keeping my Twitter/X account afloat. I also poked at BlueSky with a metaphorical stick, only to find it very much alive.

All in all, things were pretty nice. I read around 7–8 books (depending on whether you consider skipping a boring one as counting), got a few personal software projects done, watched a few movies, and spent a lot of time practicing my best impression of an amorphous blob on the couch. I mostly regret that, because I very much enjoyed all the exercise I got at the beach.

But I found other ways to burn calories back at home.

As usual, everything started with something breaking down. The Raspberry Pi powering my desktop dashboard decided to die sometime during our absence (it is the only Pi where I have had SD card failures), and I decided to permanently replace it with the Lenovo ThinkSmart View. This quickly escalated into completely clearing out my main desk and removing everything I didn’t use on a daily basis (like my ambilight setup, which I suspect I’ll miss in the dead of winter, but which happened to be in the way of cleaning).

The day after that, I started pondering shuffling my office layout. Although I’m happy with my main desk, my electronics desk is still awkward to use in practice (it is small, but the main issue is keeping it clear and having tools accessible). Right now, I would love to replace it with a treadmill desk or a reading nook, but I have so much stuff stored in the office that I can’t find a solution.

So most of the cleaning up I did was about rationalizing storage, power, and desk layouts based on how I use them now, and taking a “less is more” stance in general.

As part of the cleanups, I spent a lot of time clearing out old hardware (among other things, my old iMac found a new home, along with a bunch of my old network gear), and, of course, printing even more gridfinity for myself and the kids.

I spent a couple of hours (again) drilling out my SK1’s hotend by heating it on the stove, which probably means it’s time to look at 3D printers again. The Snapmaker U1 would be perfect, but I suspect there will be a few similar printers (and discounts) in the next few months, and I am slowly switching lanes to the “I need it to just print” side. Regardless of the market turmoil, I think it’s time.

Looping back to the initial topic of getting rid of spam and distractions, I do have a few thoughts about where we are regarding social networks a couple of years after the Twitter apocalypse and on the verge of another Apple event.

I bet on Mastodon and, despite my actually paying for Ivory and quite enjoying it, Mastodon itself hasn’t been very interesting. I don’t care about follower counts and I mostly stay out of any “current” arguments, so the few interactions I’ve had are generally high quality and good feedback. But what I really miss are some of the people I followed on Twitter, and (guess what), most are on BlueSky these days.

BlueSky doesn’t have an iPad app, though, which reminds me that Instagram finally updated their app to support the iPad. I have feelings about it, most of them starting with “meh”.

As someone who has significantly cut back on social media over the past few years, I detest Instagram’s emphasis on reels and how hard it is to get to actual people (posts or stories). Above all, I have to wonder why it’s such a bad single-column view of your feed when the photo browsing experience (which was why I joined) could be so much better.