331 Posts under Mango Paper
∞ The Shit Show
Craig Hockenberry writes:
What bothers me about Twitterrific’s final day is that it was not dignified. There was no advance notice for its creators, customers just got a weird error, and no one is explaining what’s going on. We had no chance to thank customers who have been with us for over a decade. Instead, it’s just another scene in their ongoing shit show.
But I guess that’s what you should expect from a shitty person.
Personally, I’m done. And with a vengeance.
First, arrogant bastards love seeing their names on tweets and other media. I want to starve him of the things that money can’t buy: respect and attention. Do the same by simply ignoring him and his kingdom.
A thousand times yes. Do not give clowns the attention.
2023: Year of Purpose
I was tidying up my home office area the other day, and found a bunch of things I haven't touched for years. The first thing came to my mind was of course Marie Kondo's Spark Joy principle. But a lot of things in the past 3 years no long spark joy, yet they are still used often. This no longer works.
Then I changed the question to, does this thing have a purpose in my life? It worked surprisingly well. I got rid of many things and kept others. I came up future projects that can make some of them more useful. Promising.
2022 is also coming to an end. It means it's time for my 3rd attempt to a yearly theme. As you have already read the title, 2023 is going to be my Year of Purpose. The past 3 years have also worn down our life's purpose. It's time to bring it back. Let's move past this and look forward to a more purposeful year.
What's your yearly theme?
Community Building
- There are now 40+ folks in my Mango Baby discord community. It's mostly people asking support questions and me answering them. Occasionally, users also help with each other, and I love see more of that.
- Increasingly, I don't feel Mastodon is for me. I'll keep checking and posting since there are a lot of activities moved from the bird site I'm interested in. But for now, I won't bother finding a better host.
- My Micro.blog site continues to function, and I'm also back on Tumblr. Maybe t2 can succeed, or it's best to end social media.
Should I Branch Out?
I randomly posted a Reel of a squirrel eating a pine cone and got 431 likes. I don't know maybe I should branch out.
I'm terrible at language arts, maybe text isn't really for me after all.
Today is really a sad day.
I wrote my own blogging engine for mangoumbrella.com/blog. Currently it crossposts to Twitter. I should add Mastodon too.
While researching, I think another, maybe better, option is to add ActivityPub support to my blog. This way, Mastodon instances can directly talk to my blog. Folks on Mastodon can directly follow my blog. This is certainly an intriguing idea.
Posting on your own website doesn't just mean to own your content, it also pushes yourself to think deliberately before any post. They are no longer the raw first thoughts, but words that went through your digestive system.
∞ People Spend Too Much Time On Decisions with Equally Satisfying Outcomes
Rob Henderson writes,
The researchers conclude, “people apparently misallocate their time, spending too much on those choice problems in which the relative reward is low.”
In software engineering, I'm sure a lot of us have spent way too much time on deciding an implementation detail. Rather, we should just pick one and move on. If it's really the wrong decision, it will come back at you later. There are surprisingly more decisions you can reverse at a later time.
∞ Selective Empathy Prevents Us From Making Connections
If we Americans are appalled at the Russian killing of children, why don’t we teach to our own children the words of Gen. Jacob H. Smith, who ordered his soldiers to “kill everyone over 10” in the Philippine-American War? Or the 1864 Sand Creek massacre, when US Army troops massacred about 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, two-thirds of whom were women and children?
Great piece by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
Finally scheduled my long overdue car service appointment, and just realized that I can carry my bike in my car, drop off my car, and bike back home.
Why hasn't this idea occurred to me before? What has US done to me?
I need to change.
∞ Apple Publishes New Webpages Explaining the Benefits of the App Store and the Company’s Developer Program
The more PR effort Apple puts into this, the worse their image is. Wake up.