Tech in the Trenches

Carl T. Holscher fights for the customers.

Author: Carl Page 5 of 151

Using Twitter after all the good apps were killed off

By

On January 18, 2023

In Observations

I only post to Twitter now using Tweetdeck on a computer. Killing Tweetbot means I no longer look at it on any mobile device (phone/iPad). I took the Twitter Lists I already follow and added them to Readwise’s Reader and read them like I would any other RSS feed.

The value of Twitter (for me) has been the ability to create lists of people for interests I have (Destiny 2 video game, Capitals Hockey, local news accounts). I have a timeline of some accounts but in some ways those aren’t the most important people I follow.

I’ve never used apps that show timelines out of order. I’ve long said that would be the end of Twitter for me if I had to suffer through ads and recommended junk. Twitter is skating very close to that sun. But I’ve been here since 2006 and that’s a weird point of pride.

Tweetdeck, despite being owned by Twitter, has largely been forgotten. It never got the algorithmic timelines, ads, polling, or really any new features in years. Each time I was prompted to reload it because a new version was available I held my breath to see if this was the end of my enjoyment of it. But it’s allowed me to largely ignore everything that drove me from other platforms.

If I have to fight with the timeline to see what Twitter wants me to see, I’m gone.

If my timeline becomes riddled with ads, and ads for absolute garbage, as I’ve seen others share, I’m gone.

Killing off third party Twitter apps, not for the first time, stopped my Twitter usage from mobile devices in a single day. I won’t use the official apps because it forces a non-chronological timeline and tries to recommend people or tweets to follow to drive engagement.

I am as engaged as I want to be and pulling a Facebook and trying to drive outrage will drive me completely off the platform. Twitter is not anything I need in life. But it’s something I’ve grown fond of, despite all of its issues. But when Twitter starts actively being a pain to use, it gets relegated to RSS since the communities I follow are still largely on Twitter because that’s where everyone is.

Maintain your systems or become front page news

By

On January 13, 2023

In Links and Quotes, Observations

The outage on Wednesday morning affected the agency’s antiquated Notice to Air Missions system, known as NOTAM. The 30-year-old system provides advance warnings to pilots and flight crews about hazards such as inclement weather and runway closures.

A Contractor With A Corrupt Software File Brought U.S. Air Travel To A Halt, Per Reports

“The outage on Wednesday morning affected the agency’s antiquated…”

Maintaining IT systems isn’t sexy. It’s not exciting work that’s going to get you promoted or a huge raise. It’s thankless work to keep your business moving.

To make sure that everyday the systems you rely on continue to function. It’s rarely a job you will get noticed for…

Until something goes wrong. Then it’s all your fault.

Systems need to be updated. They need to be modernized and brought into the present. This is going to continue happening. Southwest. FFA. Who will be the next to fall because of decades of neglected maintenance to core systems?

Mulled Media

By

On January 4, 2023

In Tech Tinkering

I’ve spun up a second Proxmox instance on an old Dell and have been moving my existing containers over from my current Proxmox Box in order to rebuild it entirely.

However, Plex and my other containers using the Multimedia NFS share kept failing to load even though they should be identical between instances.

I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong and spent a lot of time on it.

Turns out…
When you mount the NFS share Mulltimedia ≠ Multimedia

Can you spot the difference?

I cannot tell you how many forums I searched through and how much time I’ve spent trying to understand why my two identical proxmox installations are causing such issues when accessing my NFS.

Never underestimate the power of a single typo.

Valentines Day Birds

By

On January 3, 2023

In snapshots

PSA New Target birds are out.

Three of the new Valentine’s Day Target birds.

The three new ones joined the family tonight.
They are roosting with the rest of the Valentine’s Day birds and trees on the mantel.

Birds and small trees from Target.
Big tree from Home Goods.

Today I wanted to go on an adventure.

By

On December 29, 2022

In Introspection

“In the Garden
Sit Quietly in My Presence”
RND 3-28-1945 to 3-3-2018

Today’s adventure needed to happen. I needed to get out of the house. I needed to not be inside anymore. I needed to go do something out in the world and be among trees and be among birds, and just be among something different than the four walls inside of my house.

I started looking at thrift stores. I thought maybe I wanted to go have an adventure that was a treasure hunt to see what unknown and untold trinkets and treasures and items I might stumble across in my wandering’s, but as I looked around, I realize it was just another building another set of four walls. Another place the felt like my house filled and cluttered with things things I knew things I didn’t because I never would at the end. It was just more stuff.

So instead of going and standing among other things and other peoples things from other people, I decided to do what I often do and think about what I wanted to eat.

So I went to our favorite little sandwich shop and got a Susie’s special and then as I was sitting with it there in the car alongside the root beer because there’s something about adventure in repair that just go together in my heart, I remembered we have a fantastic garden near us.

You can just go for free. It’s part of our county park system. It’s something that my taxes help support and it’s just a free resource I could just go to. I can be outside among the birds in the trees and whatever plant life there is this time of year. Or just sit there and eat my sandwich and look out over the little lake so that’s exactly what I did.

I drove to Brookside Gardens and I sat in my car and I ate my sandwich, and I watched the gaggle of geese that were being fed by one of the other patrons. There were a couple of ducks and turtles that were also out, trying to sun themselves in a little bit of winter sunshine that was coming down through the cloudless sky.

I ate my sandwich and I drink my root beer and I grabbed my camera, because the proper adventure can happen in real life or can happen through a lens, because you never know what secret there are.

I saw a beautiful bird among the marsh grasses took a number of pictures of it don’t know what it is. I’ll have to get back home in consult the buckle birds to try to figure out who it was. I saw when I walked further on Pastor geese and ducks and turtles, saw some cardinals fall from chickadees and finches and then I saw a big bird.

It soared from somewhere in the distance and landed on a tree branch where your pie, but just across from the path from where I was standing. I slowly got my camera out slowly crept towards it. I did not want to disturb this magnificent beast but you can never be too careful, so slowly walked up to below, and tried to angle around to get a decent a photo for this beautiful hawk wasn’t completely obscured by all the brown brown branches it was standing in a few photos will see if they turn out to be anything in the few moments before his giant wings open. He just took one powerful flap of those wings and soared off into the distance. Out of sight.

This post was written by speaking softly into my air pods sitting on this bench at the park.

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