I recently noticed that I had Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur book as an audiobook on Apple Books. I have had the book for at least a decade but have only got around to reading it recently. Over the last week I have listened to him speak about the closing of Tower Records and it encouraged me to write more about the scarcity of choice, that comes with online browsing and shopping.
I went for a walk with the barefoot shoes for a second day in a row. I didn’t regret it. I need to pay more attention to how I walk, specifically I need to make sure not to slam my heel into the ground with each step and this takes focus, muscle use, and discipline.
This time I wore socks with the barefoot shoes and the sensation is different. I prefer feeling that my feet are protected by the shoe, and by the socks.
I walk around in socks when I’m at home, so not quite barefoot, but almost. The idea of barefoot shoes is to get the human body, and especially the lower half to get back in touch with walking barefoot.
Yesterday I went for an 8.55km walk in barefoot shoes. I didn’t regret it. I took some spare shoes with me in case I found myself in such agony that I felt the need to switch.
Mastodon is a federated social network where people can join a server, based on their interests in tech and more. Most people join the servers that are open and easy to join but in doing so we have communities that grow, without becoming communal. I am on at least three different Mastodon servers.
Instances I am on Mastodon.social, Techhub.social and Calckey.social and so far my favourite is Calckey.social because that’s where I got the strongest sense of community.
For a few years now I have noticed a worrying trend, one that sees content become so sparse on a web page that you see one tweet or facebook post per screen height. Before mobile first design, and the proliferation of React websites you would find pages that had twenty to thirty tweets per page. The same is true of Facebook. Now it’s barely one post per screen height. This means that you see one tweet, facebook post, instagram image and more.
Usually when we hear of people hiking with cats we think of them walking with the cat, or cats, on a leash. In a Pass Moi Les Jumelles (PAJU for short), we follow two guys who go for a walk with four cats. The report is funny because the cats, or some might even say kittens, are allowed to roam and explore with the human companions. They can leap across streams over and over.
Yesterday I went for a bike ride and I was head towards Gland via Genolier but changed the route due to a dog walker when I wanted to turn East. I turned West instead and noticed some people and flags by Crassier. I thought “Was there an accident” as I also saw a police car. Eventually, as I saw more and more people standing by the side of the road I understood that it was for the Tour De Romandie.
I love the medium of video and I have love having a choice of thousands, or even millions of videos to choose from. In effect my love of the medium of video should mean that I love YouTube. I don’t, because of sensationalism and clickbait. I have paid for YouTube prime twice now, to cut out all the adverts, and I love that. In theory plugins do the same thing, for free, and I did use plugins for years before finally deciding to spend money on YouTube Prime.
Most websites are simple. They have five to ten pages at most but usually a single page is enough. Most pages are about one specific thing, whether it’s a CV inspired page to find new clients or a simple page with a few products. Most are usually about a single topic.
This makes website maintenance and design simple, because one theme fits every page. My website is different. It has articles about the Romans, Geography, Environmental Studies, old student newspaper articles, Media studies pages and more.
Recently I watched a 1930s film about how photographs were transmitted by phone. What makes this feature so interesting is that it is explained in a simple to understand manner, using, string that has an image, of all things. This is a clear explanation of how image sending works, but also how television and other technologies would work in year to come. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLUD_NGE370
This is about the analogue sending of an analogue image.