joeross.me https://joeross.me/ en Tue, 26 Mar 2024 20:57:04 -0400 https://joeross.me/2024/03/26/quicklink-opener-flohgro.html Tue, 26 Mar 2024 20:57:04 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/03/26/quicklink-opener-flohgro.html <p>🔗 <a href="https://flohgro.com/drafts-actions/quicklink-opener/">QuickLink Opener – FlohGro</a></p> <p>I do something similar (even in name), with <a href="https://quicklinks.lol/">quicklinks.lol</a>, but Floh Gro&rsquo;s solution using an action in Drafts for iOS is faster, and private.</p> https://joeross.me/2024/03/25/manton-reece-recommendations.html Mon, 25 Mar 2024 17:28:08 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/03/25/manton-reece-recommendations.html <p>🔗 <a href="https://www.manton.org/2024/03/11/recommendations-and-blogrolls.html">Manton Reece - Recommendations and blogrolls on Micro.blog</a></p> <p>I&rsquo;ve long meant to get a blogroll up on this site, and it&rsquo;s another testament to the fact that I&rsquo;ve chosen the right community that it was recently integrated into Micro.blog, including auto-updating, public OPML and JSON exports.</p> https://joeross.me/2024/03/22/bilbo-is-ever.html Fri, 22 Mar 2024 20:39:04 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/03/22/bilbo-is-ever.html <p>Bilbo is, ever was, and ever shall be, my people.</p> <blockquote> <p>“Back now to the Mountain!” cried Thorin. “We have little time to lose.” “And little food to use!” cried Bilbo, always practical on such points. &ndash; <em>The Hobbit</em>, Chapter 15, The Gathering of the Clouds, by J.R.R. Tolkien</p> </blockquote> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5757/2024/88b9f8f4f9.jpg" width="600" height="600" alt="A quote image from chapter 15 of The Hobbit: Back now to the Mountain! cried Thorin. We have little time to lose. And little food to use! cried Bilbo, always practical on such points."> https://joeross.me/2024/03/21/no-title.html Thu, 21 Mar 2024 18:03:19 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/03/21/no-title.html <p>🔗 <a href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/03/u-s-versus-apple-a-first-reaction/">U.S. versus Apple: A first reaction – Six Colors</a></p> <p>I haven&rsquo;t read the <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.njd.544402/gov.uscourts.njd.544402.1.0_3.pdf">complaint</a> yet, but this was&hellip; not what I expected Attorney General Merrick Garland to have his people focused on&hellip;</p> https://joeross.me/2024/03/21/scholarfy-google-scholar.html Thu, 21 Mar 2024 14:15:12 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/03/21/scholarfy-google-scholar.html <p>🔗 <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/~jugander/bookmarklets/scholarfy.html">Scholarfy | Google Scholar bookmarklet by Johan Ugander</a></p> <p>This is a useful bookmarklet to move a standard Google search to Google Scholar. I use it with modified version I made with ChatGPT to search an exact phrase, for use in searching for legal opinions.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s &ldquo;my&rdquo; code:</p> <blockquote> <p>javascript:location = &lsquo;<a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=">scholar.google.com/scholar</a>&quot;&rsquo; escape(document.forms[0].elements[&lsquo;q&rsquo;].value) &lsquo;&quot;';</p> </blockquote> https://joeross.me/2024/03/14/bit-cafe.html Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:34:36 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/03/14/bit-cafe.html <p>🔗 <a href="https://32bit.cafe/mission/">32-Bit Cafe</a></p> <blockquote> <p>The best part about the 32-Bit Cafe is that we&rsquo;re trying to move the internet forward productively in the ways we can make an impact, participating in the creation of web services, websites, and weird, wacky web projects. We want to bring back the idea of personal websites to the many of us who have been stuck in social media cycles since the emergence of Web 2.0. Not to mention, we&rsquo;re not just helping people build their first websites; we&rsquo;re also making our own hosted services for anyone to use and participate in to help with decentralizing hosted services.</p> </blockquote> <p>This is exactly the kind of thing I love to see.</p> The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, 2013 https://joeross.me/2024/03/12/the-hobbit-the.html Tue, 12 Mar 2024 19:41:13 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/03/12/the-hobbit-the.html <p><img src="https://a.ltrbxd.com/resized/sm/upload/e0/ek/na/yb/gQCiuxGsfiXH1su6lp9n0nd0UeH-0-600-0-900-crop.jpg?v=00310e521d"/></p> <p>Watched on Tuesday March 12, 2024.</p> The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, 2012 https://joeross.me/2024/03/12/the-hobbit-an.html Tue, 12 Mar 2024 19:40:28 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/03/12/the-hobbit-an.html <p><img src="https://a.ltrbxd.com/resized/sm/upload/s7/p6/sy/6v/mfSAahVkAIYFkx1GVFSlCEdn0mt-0-600-0-900-crop.jpg?v=282e4f2260"/></p> <p>Watched on Friday March 8, 2024.</p> https://joeross.me/2024/03/06/it-is-an.html Wed, 06 Mar 2024 17:37:42 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/03/06/it-is-an.html <p>⚖️ It is an uncharacteristic misstep, in terms of both litigation strategy and public relations, for Apple to poke the EU bear by <a href="https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/nexws/apple-terminated-epic-s-developer-account">terminating Epic’s developer account</a>. Whether Apple is right about Epic's intentions is irrelevant. This move looks petty and, worse, calculated to avoid exactly the kind of competition from exactly the kind of competitor the Digital Markets Act intends to encourage.</p> https://joeross.me/2024/02/23/yahoo-is-accelerating.html Fri, 23 Feb 2024 15:20:42 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/02/23/yahoo-is-accelerating.html <p>😔 Yahoo is <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080215/engadget-layoffs-tech-news-blogs-editorial-restructuring">accelerating its enshittification of Engadget</a>, in a move that really surprises absolutely no one because, well, it's Yahoo:</p> <blockquote> <p>"Engadget, which is operated by Yahoo, will lay off 10 employees, according to people with knowledge of the situation who say staff were “blindsided” by the decision. In addition to cutting staff, the editorial team will split into two sections: 'news and features' and 'reviews and buying advice.' The news teams will focus on traffic growth, while the reviews teams will report to commerce leaders."</p> </blockquote> <p>This is sad. I have been an Engadget reader since the beginning, and while its glory days have been gone for a while, the writers keeping it alive have done great work. </p> https://joeross.me/2024/02/17/chris-geidner-at.html Sun, 18 Feb 2024 00:03:47 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/02/17/chris-geidner-at.html <p>Chris Geidner at Law Dork has <a href="https://www.lawdork.com/p/fifth-circuit-mad-vibes-judges">the best explanation</a> of why the 5th Circuit’s jurisprudence has become so, to use a legal term of art, whacky:</p> <blockquote> <p>At the end of the day, there are essentially three groups of active judges on the Fifth Circuit: There are “mad vibes” judges, legally conservative judges, and legally moderate (or more left) judges.</p> </blockquote> <p>Geidner is so insightful and prolific that, and I mean this as a high compliment, it irritates me a little.</p> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5757/2024/98be885a3b.jpg" width="600" height="600" alt="A quote screenshot from an article by Chris Geidner in his Law Dork newsletter, which says:&10;&10;At the end of the day, there are essentially three groups of active judges on the Fifth Circuit: There are “mad vibes” judges, legally conservative judges, and legally moderate (or more left) judges."> https://joeross.me/2024/01/30/the-top-seven.html Tue, 30 Jan 2024 22:32:59 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/01/30/the-top-seven.html <p>The top seven free apps in the news category of the iOS App Store are a mix of proudly user-hostile mismanagement, fear mongering, hyperlocal hate, and Nazi monetization.</p> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5757/2024/65e3024697.png" width="276" height="600" alt="The image shows a screenshot from an iPhone of the iOS App Store displaying the 'Top Charts' section for free apps. The top seven apps are listed: 1. Reddit - Social Forum & Community Chats, 2. X - Formerly Twitter, 3. Nextdoor: Neighborhood Net..., 4. NewsBreak: Local News & Alerts, 5. Citizen: Local Safety Alerts, 6. Substack - A home for readers, and 7. Police Scanner. Icons for 'Today', 'Games', 'Apps', 'Arcade', and 'Search' are at the bottom of the screen. The device's status bar indicates it's 9:15 with Wi-Fi and battery level at 86%, and a 'News' widget is visible in the top right corner."> https://joeross.me/2024/01/18/haier-hits-home.html Thu, 18 Jan 2024 22:12:43 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/01/18/haier-hits-home.html <p>🔗 <a href="https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/haier-hits-home-assistant-plugin-dev-with-takedown-notice/">Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice</a></p> <p>Bill Toulas, writing at <em>Bleeping Computer</em>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Targeting open-source software developers tends to backfire for companies, as others fork or clone the code repositories to prevent the projects from disappearing.</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>At this time, the Haier home assistant plugins have been forked 228 times, many occurring since the news of the legal threats.</p> </blockquote> <p>Now?</p> <p><em>1,462</em> forks.</p> <p>These were niche plugins for niche software for a niche audience before Haier let the lawyers loose.</p> <p>Hey Haier, Ms. Streisand called… she wants <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">her effect</a> back.</p> https://joeross.me/2024/01/14/im-watching-this.html Sun, 14 Jan 2024 05:31:35 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/01/14/im-watching-this.html <p>☄️ I’m watching this Yaccarino interview very long after it occurred, but time has not dulled the stings of how uninformed and naive she was about Twitter and Musk. </p> <p>It’s hard to believe a seasoned executive fell so far so fast, but there’s no denying the descent when you’re standing in the crater…</p> <p><a href="https://youtu.be/hYymRU-bfpQ">https://youtu.be/hYymRU-bfpQ</a></p> Stop turning awesome apps into internet noise machines https://joeross.me/2024/01/13/stop-turning-awesome.html Sat, 13 Jan 2024 13:19:09 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2024/01/13/stop-turning-awesome.html <p>The news aggregating app <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/artifact-feed-your-curiosity/id1572927568">Artifact</a> is <a href="https://medium.com/artifact-news/shutting-down-artifact-1e70de46d419">shutting down</a>.</p> <p>Jarrod Blundy wrote <a href="https://heydingus.net/blog/2024/1/artifact-shuts-down-just-as-i-was-getting-into-it">at his blog HeyDingus</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>I do wonder if it would have had a brighter future <em>without</em> the ability to add comments. I never engaged with that social aspect of the service, and I expect it contributed massively to its complexity and moderation costs.</p> </blockquote> <p>I think about this every time a good news or link aggregation app goes away. These apps are, fundamentally, trying to help you sort the signal from the noise in an overwhelming &ldquo;media ecosystem&rdquo; or whatever we&rsquo;re supposed to call it these days.</p> <p>As soon as they add their own social layer on top of the news and the links, they have betrayed their best use case and their most loyal users. It&rsquo;s like buying a pair of earplugs, only to have them turn into in-ear headphones or hearing aides you don&rsquo;t need and never asked for.</p> <p>Engagement, which they thought would spike after going social, craters. Resources, which were optimized and sufficient and scalable with increasing revenue over time, are siphoned off, as Jarrod wrote, into moderation and increasingly complex development cycles.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s a kind of death spiral that most founders notice too late, so kudos, of a sort, to Artifact&rsquo;s founders for knowing the telltale signs of a terminally ill app, and letting it die with some dignity.</p> <p>There are already plenty of places to share links and half-baked hot takes. The real challenge, for Artifact&rsquo;s founders and anyone else with the leadership, technical and fundraising skills to tackle it, is to build something extremely useful to individuals <em>without draining all of its lifeblood into a push for &ldquo;social&rdquo;</em> that ultimately just turns it into another internet noise machine.</p> https://joeross.me/2023/10/30/finished-reading-charlottes.html Mon, 30 Oct 2023 21:05:21 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2023/10/30/finished-reading-charlottes.html <p>Finished reading: <a href="https://micro.blog/books/9780062406781">Charlotte&rsquo;s Web</a> by E. B. White 📚 — ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️</p> <blockquote> <p>Skip and dance, jump and prance! Go down through the orchard and stroll in the woods! The world is a wonderful place when you’re young.</p> </blockquote> <p>It sure is.</p> <p>What a hell of an amazing book to relegate to the unjustly dismissed &ldquo;children&rsquo;s&rdquo; shelves. This book gets five stars, no question about it.</p> <p>White manages to address, in my opinion, so many of The Important Things We All Should Learn About Rather Young If Possible, including misogyny/clueless men, bullies, transactional acquaintances, competition, the joy and sorrow of freedom, the dilemma of the naive but intelligent, parenting (well, let&rsquo;s be honest, mostly motherhood), the distinction between pathology and an innocent&rsquo;s rational-from-their-perspective perceptions, the rarity and value of adults who are aware of the immediately preceding concept (like the inimitable Dr. Dorian), evolution, religion, birth and death, and, of course, the intergenerational power of real, no-but-seriously-really-real friendship that reaches out beyond its originators and enriches those who come after, in ways known and unknown, for years or decades to come.</p> <p>Like I said, just a hell of a book.</p> https://joeross.me/2023/10/24/someone-please-tell.html Tue, 24 Oct 2023 04:57:03 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2023/10/24/someone-please-tell.html <p>📱 Someone please tell me which non-leather bifold wallet case to get for an #iPhone 14 Pro, preferably in pink. Extra points for MagSafe compatibility but it's not required.</p> https://joeross.me/2023/10/21/dont-bother-giving.html Sat, 21 Oct 2023 16:07:54 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2023/10/21/dont-bother-giving.html <p>🤖 Don’t bother giving your three-year-old a comprehensive 10-minute explanation of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s early career up to The Terminator, featuring one of the absolute BEST accent performances of your LIFE, because, honestly, they aren’t going to appreciate it at all.</p> https://joeross.me/2023/10/13/thanks-to-casey.html Fri, 13 Oct 2023 23:22:26 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2023/10/13/thanks-to-casey.html <p>😕 Thanks to Casey Newton mentioning it on the #HardFork podcast and my having no judgment regarding the apps I try, I downloaded an app called bonk. Join the whatever this is and find me at <a href="https://bonkbonkbonk.app/friend/joeross">https://bonkbonkbonk.app/friend/joeross</a> …</p> iPhone as geek guardrails https://joeross.me/2023/10/12/iphone-as-geek.html Thu, 12 Oct 2023 05:12:24 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2023/10/12/iphone-as-geek.html <p>Here’s a reply I posted to someone I follow on Mastodon who, on being issued an iPhone by their employer for work calls, was wondering why anyone chooses it over other options when, for example, it’s hard to sideload something as simple as a custom ringtone:</p> <p>Look I need guardrails and I’ve known that ever since I was bopping around the command line on my HTC Evo 4G.</p> <p>Some of us stopped headbanging not because the music left our hearts, but because if you feel something too deeply for too long it can destroy you.</p> <p>That’s what was happening to me in the bowels of my root-and-rom addiction.</p> <p>Now I pay 0.99 for a ringtone to Tim Apple and say thank you sir may I have another because I’m safe from sudo-ing on my phone.</p> https://joeross.me/2023/10/01/is-it-true.html Sun, 01 Oct 2023 12:02:06 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2023/10/01/is-it-true.html <p>🤨 Is it true that despite paying for the special upgrade I can't set the #ChatGPT iOS app to default to 4 instead of 3.5?i</p> https://joeross.me/2023/09/30/princeton-public-library.html Sat, 30 Sep 2023 11:33:28 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2023/09/30/princeton-public-library.html <p>Princeton Public Library.</p> https://joeross.me/2023/09/20/dear-lawyers-still.html Wed, 20 Sep 2023 12:46:06 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2023/09/20/dear-lawyers-still.html <p>Dear Lawyers Still Manually Numbering Paragraphs:</p> <p>Stop it.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s a tutorial:</p> <ol> <li>Place your cursor where you intend to begin the numbered section of your pleading.</li> <li>Click the numbered list button in your word processor.</li> <li>Repent, and feel your soul become lighter.</li> </ol> <p>Yours, scoldingly,</p> <p>Joe</p> https://joeross.me/2023/09/19/bluey-the-videogame.html Tue, 19 Sep 2023 11:58:18 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2023/09/19/bluey-the-videogame.html <p>🎮 Bluey: The Videogame, for real life?!</p> <p>Yup.</p> <p><a href="https://youtu.be/S-PYqMxXKKk">https://youtu.be/S-PYqMxXKKk</a></p> https://joeross.me/2023/09/16/audio-recordings-are.html Sat, 16 Sep 2023 08:32:49 -0400 http://joeross.micro.blog/2023/09/16/audio-recordings-are.html <p>⌚ Audio recordings are an overlooked way of keeping memories with your kids. Mine are both under 4 and, while pointing a phone camera at them often changes their behavior, a surreptitious audio recording is easy to do. I've got some great stuff that I'm almost certain an attempt at photos or video would've prevented. Aside from sleep tracking, this is the most common way I used my Apple Watch.</p>