Musings
- Security
- This is important, both for the people inside and outside the car!
- … but it’s not the only factor, of course.
- Features
- Size, range, etc. — things you can do with it.
- Comfort, and sense of quality
- This isn’t about what you can do with it, but how it feels to do them. In a car, this could be sound (or lack thereof), looks, driving experience, how it feels to open and close the doors, and other small, and large, things.
- Price
- Maybe this shouldn’t be here — but when picking a car, it’s often about getting the most features, comfort, and security for the price.
- (“Quality” can also be interpreted as how fast it breaks, which could also be included in the cost of owning the vehicle.)
- Sometimes Apple will make something more private because they hope it will be a selling point. I don’t mind that at all! That’s “just as nefarious” as them making something good because it will sell.
- Other times, Apple will make something more private that just so happens to benefit Apple and harm their competitors. A good example here, is them locking down the NFC chip on iPhones. (Here’s a good post discussing this.)
- And sometimes they’ll do something that benefits them even though it’s bad for their users' privacy. For instance, they don’t mind tracking us to serve us ads, as long as they’re the ones doing it.
- For reasons, I’ll touch on later, this is mostly about desktop browsers.
- In terms of privacy and security, I’m approaching this from a reality where 65% of people use Chrome. So in this context, vastly improving the privacy from that, is more interesting than saying someone is a gullible idiot if they don’t use a Tor browser. 😛 So while I’m not saying those things shouldn’t be part of the discussion at all, I’d like to talk more about user experience and features than hardening if you catch my drift. 1
- If you get an idea while writing a post, you should always finish this new idea before finishing the original one. This, of course, cascades to new ideas you get while working on the second one, etc.
- This also applies to expansions within an idea. You can always increase the scope of a project!
- Let every piece of work be your Magnum Opus.
- However, if as much as a single piece of your idea doesn’t materialise quite like how you wanted it to, scrap the entire thing. No matter how much work you’ve put into it, and no matter how much value there’s still left.
- Don’t post anything, unless you’ve covered every nuance, use case and possible objection. Don’t post ideas or thoughts — post rigorous conclusions.
- You can’t mention a concept/item without also explaining everything about it, in case someone isn’t familiar.
- I don’t love that Arc is built on Chromium — as I think Google has more than enough power over the web as it is.
- I’m not against supporting any VC funded company — but in combination with an unclear business model, I become more skeptical and worried if our incentives align. 2
Please Don't Kill The "Today View"
The boys over at the Connected podcast have discussed the Today View (specifically on iPhone) the last few episodes. And late to the party, here’s my short take.
The Today View is the screen of widgets you get to when you scroll left on your Lock Screen or first Home Screen. And they were speculating that it might get removed in time, as it doesn’t get much love from Apple. They didn’t say that they wanted it to go away — but it was also clear that they wouldn’t really mind.
I would.
Because I think it serves a very specific purpose, and fits very well with my use of Home Screens.
Because I’m a One Home Screen Kinda Guy, which I change with Focus Modes. This also makes me a heavy user of the App Library and Spotlight for launching apps and shortcuts. But to me, the Today View is a perfect spot for something I have no other place for: Widgets I always want quick access to, but that I still don’t use so often that it gets a spot on my one Home Screen.
When Was the Last Time You Heard Someone Discuss the "Quality" of a Chat App?
Chat apps: Part 1
What constitutes a “good” car? (Yes, “car” — I’ll get to chat apps, I promise!) If I were to answer for myself, I’d split it up into three factors (with one added as a bonus):
Luckily, the car market is pretty competitive — so there are plenty of options. And you don’t have to buy the same brand as your friends and family! But I want to compare it a bit to chat apps, and both the market and discussions surrounding them. Because even though most of us use chat apps numerous times every day, I’d argue both the market and discussions are lacking.
To me, it seems like most apps only have one of two value propositions —
even though I’d say all the factors from above applies to chat apps as well: Security (and, the connected, but separate, Privacy), Features, Comfort and sense of Quality, and Price. (The way we pay for chat apps is often with “personal data” and “viewing adds”.)
The first proposition is good ol' “Lock-in”
Does Apple "Care" About Our Privacy?
This post was originally a Mac Power Users thread.
One of the questions that started a discussion, was (paraphrased) whether Apple “cares about the privacy of its users”.
I think these are some important nuances to Apple’s decisions surrounding privacy:
And the billions they accept from Google, to make their search the default in Safari, is another example of the latter.
If Apple really cared about our privacy, they would, of course, choose a default that doesn’t track us — like DuckDuckGo. And it feels a bit hollow when they’re like “Yeah, we care about your privacy — but not like not-accept-$20-billion-for-free-care, you know!"
So, while I do think “privacy” is an argument for choosing Apple products, I think they’ve proven that they don’t care about our privacy. Whether that matters, is a different question! ☺️
(This discussion also spurred me to write about my search engine of choice, Kagi.)
🌱 Lead Paint Is Amazing
On “Usefulness” and “Harmfulness”
Why are people so down on putting lead in paint? I mean, as Wikipedia puts it:
Lead is added to paint to accelerate drying, increase durability, maintain a fresh appearance, and resist moisture that causes corrosion. (…)
(…) very popular with artists because of its density and opacity; a small amount could cover a large surface.
And about the alternatives:
Titanium white has far greater opacity and tinting strength than lead white, and it can easily overpower most other pigments if not mixed carefully. Titanium white has been criticised for leading to “chalkiness” in mixtures.
Zinc white dries slowly and creates a relatively inflexible paint film. Critics of the pigment argue that its use leads to excessive cracking and delimitation, even when used sparingly.
Why the hate for the great technology that is lead paint!?
Well, the answer is pretty simple: “Usefulness” and “harmfulness” are completely independent spectres.
I see this conflated a lot in discussions surrounding AI: People who are wary of the harm transformer models can cause, often also call them “useless hallucination machines”. And others, will respond to the claims of harm by pointing to the usefulness.
Yes, the iPad Pros Needed to Be Thinner
I won’t be buying the new iPads, as I’ll keep rocking my 11-inch 2018 (with Magic Keyboard). But one thing has been bugging me about the early coverage of the new models, that I wanted to address. 1
Because, when I watched the Keynote and saw that the new iPad Pro models were thinner and lighter, I immediately went “Nice!”. But I kept seeing (and hearing) comments like this, here exemplified by David Pierce (whom I really like!) on The Verge: 2
Basically, the point is, “Who asked for this? Why not make it thicker and increase the battery life?” Nilay (Patel) agrees with this — but then, six(!) minutes later, answers the question: 3
So yeah, not a long time between them not understanding why they made it thinner and lighter, and complaining about it being too thick and heavy…
Anyone Else Feel Like They Should Use Firefox
… but Still Struggle With It?
This post was originally (and still is) a forum post on the MPU forums. I have two concrete question blocks I’d love feedback on, which I will present during the post. I would love to hear from you, either over at MPU, as a comment to this post on Micro.blog, via Mastodon, or email. 🙂
I’d like to talk about browsers! And people are of course welcome to comment whatever they want — but some notes on what my intentions for this discussion are:
OK, let’s go!
Ethics are always difficult to discuss. Because while I think everyone should be mindful of the small things we should do to improve things, people have different priorities and possibilities. And where should we draw the line while consumers in a problematic system? Like, I should probably use a Fairphone over an iPhone even though it’s worse, right? How much worse should I accept? How hard should I pull away from things like Facebook or X?
Still, I’m at least trying to try — and as the browser is perhaps the most used app, the choice of it is among the things I’m thinking about.
And here’s why I feel like I should use Firefox:
🌱 Advice for How To Make Sure You Never Create Anything
Are you sometimes at risk of creating? Personally I, from time to time, come very close to writing something, so my advice here is geared towards that. However, it can hopefully be extrapolated to help you if you’re tempted by other creative endeavours as well.
Why I Don’t Love Web Apps
And a call for help
I absolutely get why companies make web apps instead of native apps. Why juggle tons of platforms and languages if you don’t have to? Furthermore, being on the web makes you free from platform gatekeepers!
It can also benefit users, by giving the same experience everywhere, making more software cross-platform and accessible on more niche platforms, and more.
And if a developer has 100 hours to develop a client for their service, the user experience very well might be better if they spent all of it on a web app, instead of spending 25 hours on four different native clients.
There’s also a bunch of terrible native (or “native”) apps. One example is phone apps that simply are terrible web wrappers that just want to be able to track and notify you more than they can in a web browser. 1
When I say that I prefer native apps, I don’t mean that there are no great web apps (like Figma) or bad native apps. My point is that the ceiling of the latter is higher, and that all the best apps I’ve tried are native.
✉️ 🌱 To SigmaOS’ CEO: This Is What I Don’t Like About Arc’s Direction
I really, really like the Arc browser. But as I alluded to in this post, I have some reservations regarding it, and don’t feel like it’s going in a direction that I like. In the post, I said that I might try SigmaOS again — and I am. 1
I mentioned this in their community Slack, and their CEO, Mahyad, asked me what about Arc’s direction I don’t like. I must say, the dev team seems very active, nice, and open to input! So this post is my reply to his question.
(And here’s a link straight to the TL;DR at the bottom.)
Hi, Mahyad — and thanks for asking! I wrote a blog post called «I Just Want A Nice Browser!», which might give you a hint, heh.
And let me also say that I’m a bit worried about your direction as well — but I’ll come back to that. 😉
Two fundamentals I don’t love, but that I don’t need to go too much into
My main issue, though, is regarding AI
I Just Want a Nice Browser!
Two sad browser stories
I’ve followed the Spicy Takes™️ surrounding the Arc Browser recently, that started in the Ruminate podcast and went on to the MacStories Weekly Issue 408.
And I agree with most of what John Voorhees is saying, and also Matt Birchler, who said: «The Browser Company feels gross to me right now».
Much of it is about ethics and AI. In general I agree with them, but this subject won’t be the focus of this post. (I’ve written more about AI here and here.)
Instead I’ll tell my browser story, and explain why both Arc and Firefox makes me sad.
🌱 AI Is Just Different
The discussion around the ethics and legality surrounding AI has been a constant the last year — and it’s culminating in some important trials that’s coming up.
I won’t go into the entire thing here — I just want to focus on a specific argument that I often hear when it comes to the way these large models are trained. It oftes goes something like: «But how is this different from how humans have always been learning and iterating on previous knowledge?» or «The information was available on the open web, so it can be used for anything!».
I think these are terrible arguments.
Humans are allowed into shopping malls.
However, that’s simply not an argument for that cars should be allowed there as well — whether they’re driven by a human or autonomous.
I’ve been thinking way too much about music streaming the past month - so now I’ve gathered my thoughts in a blog post!
I have an idea and dream, that I’m sadly woefully unequipped to actually build. 🙃
It’s a cross between podcasts, Mastodon, PeerTube and the MusicKit API!
🌱 An Idea For Better Music Streaming
I sadly don’t have the abilities to live out this idea — at least not alone. So everyone who finds this, is welcome to steal it or riff with me!
I’m currently trying to transfer from Spotify to Tidal. The main reason is that I want to use a service that pays artists better — and it’s a nice bonus that the sound quality is better. However, I prefer Spotify’s app and features. 1 And this inspired me to write out an idea I’ve been thinking about for a while.
Inspired by Mastodon, Apple’s MusicKit API, Podcasts and PeerTube
Third-party first
Why I Think Apple’s Fine is Fine
Today, Apple got hit with a €1.84 billion fine — for anticompetitive behaviour in the music streaming market.
I’ve seen people saying this doesn’t make sense, as Spotify has a larger market share than Apple Music — but that’s not what the complaint is about. The thing is, that Apple has used their size, ecosystem and general market position to give Apple Music a larger market share than they would’ve gotten if they had to compete fairly. Apple is about 80 times the size of Spotify. To put that into perspective, that’s about the same ratio as a rhino compared to a golden retriever. 1
Here are some of the smaller things Apple are doing:
🌱 The Ethics and Principles Behind My Blog
My Ergonomics Voyage: Part 1
Prologue, and the first steps
I’ve been a nerd my entire 34-year-long life. So naturally, much of it has been spent in front of computers using keyboards, and I’ve never experienced any discomfort related to this.1
I don’t know if it’s due to my age, or just the fact that I’ve worked even more than usual on keyboards, but lately, I’ve started to notice discomfort. Especially in my left hand, but a bit in my right as well. Luckily, there’s nothing anywhere else, and it’s not that bad. But I want to take action to try to stay ahead of it.
A bit about my current situation
The last couple of years, I’ve been working mostly in my small home office, which was OK, but not great. Just a couple of weeks ago, I finally got my own (external) office, so the situation has improved. However, I’ve been stupid, and also worked quite a bit on my laptop on our kitchen table lately.
Here’s my current office setup:
Good things about my setup
Machines, AI, and the Most Important Question in the World
Message from 2024: I wrote this post in the spring of 2023, as AI tools were pretty new. I’ve since landed on the principle of not using AI generated images on my blog. This post has two images like this, but as it’s critical of the models (and explains a bit of why I currently don’t want to use them), I’ve let them be.
First, a very simplified history lesson:
For a large portion of the human existence, technology (often in the shape of machines or tools) has replaced manual labour, and led to increased productivity. The printing press replaced monks writing books by hand, looms evolved to include less and less manual laber per unit of fabric, the telegraph reduced the need for mail carriers, and photography really hurt Big Portrait Painting. Usually, the technology doesn’t completely replace the professions it affects. For instance, you can still get a tailored suit – but it’s a minor part of the clothing industry, and mostly reserved for the wealthy. The old turns into niches, hobbies, crafts and/or art.
Here are some of the positives from this:
The problem with teachers being tired of change
I’m going to try something that I know is impossible – talking about a profession as one entity. In Norway, there are 77,000 teachers, and of course, all of us are individuals. Still, there are some things I’m pretty sure many teachers agree on: We are tired of people with little expertise telling us how to do our jobs. The pendulum swings from one side to another, so what was in vogue 30 years ago is now considered the newest hotness. Be it politicians, parents, or others – many teachers want to be left alone, and be free to do a job they’ve many years of education and experience in.
But many have written about this before.
I would like to point at a problem this has led to. It has, in my view, created a sort of hardness in the profession that’s made us impervious to change.