Bill Bennett
Put my AI-generated Studio Ghibli “working and studying from home” artwork as the main splash image on my work technology-related website.
I write most of my news stories, features and blog posts using Markdown. If it is a paid job, I convert to .docx or Google Docs format depending on the client. In the past most expected, even demanded, .docx and would struggle with anything else. Nowadays most prefer Docs.
My great grandmother, who was around until I was a teenager, believed sending rockets into space messed up the weather.
What if she was right?
(if I didn’t put this disclaimer here, people might think I’m being serious).
My great grandmother, who was around until I was a teenager, believed sending rockets into space messed up the weather.
What if she was right?
(If I didn’t put this disclaimer here, people might think I’m being serious).
Absolutely love it that Safari offers Yahoo as a search engine option. Surely Apple is having a joke here. Does anybody pick it?
I left the UK 35 years ago to live in New Zealand and still get the occasional urge to have mushy peas with my fish and chips.
The cyclone forming north of New Zealand is starting to look chewy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f79wkAiQ3n0&feature=youtu.be
The new Micro Blog Mastodon hook up is welcome and I’m definitely going to use it but I think I’ll keep it seperate from my other Mastodon account, I don’t want my clean Micro Blog feed swamped.
Read a post online where someone talks about “your favourite programming languages”.
Made me wonder. Do people actually have favourite programming languages? I guess they do, but I always thought they were just neutral tools, where people use one for this job and another for that job.
I’m not a programmer, but would welcome insight from someone who is.
My brain has been so conditioned by years of watching sport that when I see or hear the name Chelsea, I think of the club. The word “Arsenal” is also, automatically the football club.
Love how when I write a news story on my one-person site, Bing sees it as news. Dislike Google’s approach which rules out a one person site ever being newsworthy, although some favoured folk get past that doorkeeper.
Published the full text of my latest newsletter on Linkedin and Medium to test whether they can replace the traffic lost since Twitter came under new management.
SInce October the Twitter traffic to my site is down more than 50 per cent.
Also interested to see how these links fare in Google search compared with the original link. Duck Duck Go search is especially poor with results for my site so I’ll watch that too. Anyone interested in a report back?
Original post is at billbennett.co.nz/spark-joi…
Dislike free apps that tell you there are in-app purchases, but don ’t reveal what the purchases are until after you’ve downloaded and installed. In some cases the app can’t function without the purchase. It’s a form of bait and switch.
Found a few more entries for my New Zealand media on Mastodon directory. It still looks light. Know of any other NZ media folk with Mastodon accounts? Please get in touch.
It never fails to get me that in some cultures a chicken omelette is known as “mother and child reunion”.
Last night I watched the Tom Hanks movie Greyhound on Apple TV. It was about a WW2 destroyer protecting merchant ships from U-boats on the North Atlantic run.
As the high winds and rain lashed the on screen ship, I was thinking at least in the Auckland storm we didn’t have to deal with ice on the windows and torpedoes.
Five headlines in my morning newsfeed about “game changers” please dream up some new cliches, this one was already hackneyed a decade ago
Auckland has potential problems with drinking water at exactly the same time brewers are struggling with beer production because of a lack of CO2.
#Auckland
For me Mastodon failed its first big test
As anyone in New Zealand knows, Auckland had a serious rain storm yesterday. Two people died, two are missing, the main roads and many suburbs flooded.
There’s damage everywhere. My house dodged a bullet. Another 10mm in my storm drain and the downstairs would have been innundated.
More rain fell in ten hours than the city normally gets in an entire summer.
It’s the kind of event where, despite everything, Twitter continues to shine.
I found constant updates and weather information there. Lots of first hand reports, photos and video footage. There were questions and answers. Fast-evolving coverage dominated my Twitter feed. It was what the social media site does best.
Mastodon not so much. In fact not much at all on the accounts I follow. That’s not say there was zero coverage, but it was far from comprehensive. At best it was sporadic. None of the important civil agencies or news media organisations have a Mastodon presence.
Otherwise, there was less material because I’ve carefully honed my Twitter feed over the years and use lists extensively to zoom in on different groups of accounts. I’ve done this with Mastodon, but there are far fewer Aucklanders in my feed. And some that I know are on both sites spent the day, like me, mainly on Twitter.
Mastodon may improve. Twitter may worsen. Yet for now, when there’s a local civil emergency Twitter is the more important channel.
Every single phone notification is turned off, although messages from familiy members (and two important clients) are enabled.
When I switched mobile provider, I deliberately didn’t activate voicemail.
If I’m called from a no-identity number, I rarely answer. It’s different if I’m expecting a call.
There are no social media apps on my phone.
It might not be convenient for other people, but these are my best productivity hacks. I can get so much more done by not being at every bot’s beck and call.
I’m back on the NZ Tech Podcast with Paul Spain discussing technology news with a New Zealand perspective.
#podcast
Tapbots' unpalatable Ivory
Much as I like the idea of the new Tapbots Ivory app for Mastoden, selling it as a subscription, not a one-off purchase is indefensible.
That’s not to say I’ll never pay for a subscription (never is too absolute) but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I’m probably in a minority on this and yes, I acknowledge the annual fee isn’t huge… that’s not the point.