Grief
Grief is not as it appears in movies. It's confusion and disbelief, it's dull and numb, with periods of intense, breathless sadness when one is least expecting it.
Thoughts from John Karahalis
Grief is not as it appears in movies. It's confusion and disbelief, it's dull and numb, with periods of intense, breathless sadness when one is least expecting it.
I started using Signal years and years ago, back when it was called TextSecure. I've always appreciated its commitment to privacy, including its use of end-to-end encryption, and its focus on usability. Precursors like Enigmail were great, but few people used them. Glenn Greenwald famously couldn't be bothered to set up a secure communication channel when Edward Snowden implored him to do so. When he finally got around to it, Snowden sent him the documents that changed his career forever.
Now, I'm finally replacing some Google services with equivalents from Proton, another company that aims to make privacy easy. I'm impressed with their growing product line, and I don't want to fuel the attention economy any more than I have to. Consider checking them out! A healthier internet awaits.
#Business #Communication #Technology #Usability #UserExperience #Wellbeing
In recent weeks, I've spotted one Etsy retailer and one physical retailer selling art under their own names that I'm almost certain were wholly generated by AI. (For now at least, it's sometimes not hard to spot when you know what you're looking for.)
We live in strange times.
My phone is perpetually in Do Not Disturb mode, with few exceptions. It only just occurred to me how strange that name is. If the unobtrusive mode is called Do Not Disturb, what is the ordinary mode called?
#Business #Communication #SocialMedia #Technology #UserExperience #Wellbeing
If it’s important, do it first.
For years, I’ve tried to remind myself of this. Work expands to fill the time allotted, and with so many distractions vying for our attention every minute of every day, it’s easy to see how the things we care most about sometimes go undone.
If it’s important, do it first.
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
According to Quote Investigator, this was not spoken by Carl Sagan, as some claim, but rather written by reporter Sharon Begle.
In any case, I'd like to offer a corollary:
Somewhere, a song you'll love is waiting for you to hear it.
Let's hope you never leave, old friend Like all good things, on you we depend So stick around 'cause we might miss you When we grow tired of all this visual You had your time, you had the power You've yet to have your finest hour Radio!
—Radio Ga Ga by Queen
I've loved this song since hearing it in the film Bohemian Rhapsody. The music is great, but I'm even more attracted to the message. There really is something special about audio as a medium. Podcasts are huge for a reason. Interviews, drama, news, comedy, true crime. Freddie was right.
I wonder if people will lose interest in podcasts when truly hands-free, self-driving cars become more widely available. I myself will certainly have fewer reasons to listen and more opportunities to be distracted by my phone. How strange is that? As a result of having more free time, I may spend less time doing something I enjoy. The attention economy at work?
Many years ago, my dad discovered a manual ad-blocking technique for TVs: when commercials start playing, mute the device. It's surprisingly effective. The otherwise captivating ads immediately become uninteresting.
To my surprise, my dad wasn't the first to come up with the idea. In The Attention Merchants, Tim Wu explains that the Zenith Flash-Matic, the first wireless remote control, was partly designed to “shoot out” the sounds of commercials. Clever!
Multitasking almost never works. I want to show respect to the people around me. I want to fully engage with them. That means not looking at screens that they aren’t looking at. It's easier said than done.
#Communication #PersonalDevelopment #SocialMedia #Technology