I’ve been meaning to add her to my blogroll because of how cool she is, and I have wanted to comment on some of the posts, such as the one on the human houch, or another one about how social media is dead. So yeah, go read those! Can’t help but appreciate how raw her writing is and how unapologetic her opinions are.
To continue contributing to July Reply, I thought that this latest post would make for a nice reply from me. I’ll be trying to speak my mind about things as well in something that I love: Reading books, ereaders, and analog things!
First, it is absolutely true that the feeling of a book is a wonderful pleasure. A book that is well loved, or a book that is brand new, each has its charms and traits, and no piece of technology will ever equate to the analog sensation it provides.
After all, there’s a reason why I have a growing interest on writing by hand or listening to music offline, and I often still buy at least one physical book every couple of months.
The one thing that kind of irked me about the post, is not that books aren’t great, but that the screens of an e-reader and the screen of any other device are extremely different, and much less damaging than your average IPS/LED screen.
I felt like there were a few misconceptions, and I wanted to gently correct them, if I may do so in this little corner of the web I call my blog, I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself, I had to share some good news!
First, e-ink screens do not need a backlight to function! I am unable to explain how the technology actually works, but it’s pretty much just a panel that prints information on itself and displays it in the same way a sheet of paper would. Think of it like an improved version of a calculator or a cheap digital watch display, they don’t really have a light—other than an LED in the corner that you can turn on for a second to see the time—that’s why the battery lasts so long!
Most ereaders do come with a backlight of course, but it’s just a useful bonus feature, and only really needed at night, otherwise, an e-ink screen can be lit up by any external light source just like a sheet of paper in a book needs light to be seen.
Also, when you do use the backlight, most have a blue light filter setting to avoid eye strain. Another funny thing is that you don’t need power to keep e-ink screens working, it can display the same thing indefinitely, you just need energy to change its state.
Of course, there’s other points and negatives to Kindles. Such as a false sense of ownership, with Amazon messing up and even modifying purchased ebooks from people without consent, altering personal libraries or even banning users, unable to access books they paid for!
However, it is also true that you can acquire digital books without any DRM, books which you can put in a hard drive or USB or any medium you personally own, and transfer to your device without a problem!
Physical books should always have a place, and it’s a shame to see some publishers cheapening out as they prefer to earn more selling on digital form, with proprietary platforms more often than not.
I guess I just wanted to say that e-ink screens and book pages have a lot more in common than one may think. As do digital and physical copies, as long as they can be owned by the individuals, or why not, through libraries thanks to services like Libby or Overdrive!
The real enemy is being unable to access the books you own, just because of the greed of some companies who don’t respect what should be our rights as a costumer. I think digital and physical ownership are of equal value, and books (or any media) you buy should belong to the person who paid for it!
In the end, screens aren’t equal to books, but e-ink isn’t too bad I’d say :3
This is day 92 of #100DaysToOffload.
]]>In a way, what the premise boils down to is what properties should an object have in order to be used with intent and not ignored?
The way we can afford to spend time intentionally, playing videogames, reading a book or listening to music, is heavily dependant in the context of our lives.
Right now the most time I get to spend doing such activities is on my commutes to work, but going to the gym, arriving early to work, or simply being home, come with their own set of situations.
During my commute, I have plenty of advantages. I have free time, I have nothing else to do, and I can carry a backpack with fun trinkets inside.
This means that I can bring my Nintendo Switch and play it the whole trip without any problem. Or any other device for that matter.
However, not all commutes are the same, bringing the Switch is only worth it if my commutes are long and if I really just go from home to work and viceversa.
Sometimes, my commute takes an hour—perfect for some Switch gaming!—but other times, it only takes about 25 minutes, and that makes things a bit more tight. Those shorter sessions are excellent and they were plenty of time for me to complete something like Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker or Fire Emblem Awakening. However, I was lucky enough to have longer commutes when I played Metroid Prime Remastered.
Ocassionaly, I will get off the work bus on my way back home, and take the public transport, this happens when I’m heading to the gym, or to pick-up a delivery. In such a situation, I don’t dare to bring out my Nintendo Switch in public—I don’t want it stolen—and I won’t take out my PSP either, because the buses here are wild and if I drop it, the battery and its cover popping out who knows where.
Something like my Anbernic RG35XX SP is often ideal, much cheaper and smaller, and while not sturdier than the PSP overall, the battery doesn’t pop out—although the cheap plastic will definitely chip.
Of course, this is assuming I can sit. There are seasons where buses will be full of people all the time, and it’s in those moments where my Miyoo Mini Flip comes to the rescue! I actually haven’t used it that much, but when I know I’ll probably have to stand up among lots of people, using it to play one-handed-friendly games is awesome.
However, in that case, I may prefer to read some pages on my XTEINK X4. And yes, I am one of those weirdos that can actually read while on the move, even on a bus where I keep swaying in every direction at every stop.
Another reason I wouldn’t carry my Switch is because of the added space taken by it. A huge deterrent for me to go to the gym is carrying my extra clothing. I also don’t feel comfortable leaving such a device alone, even when there are locker rooms.
I don’t use gaming handhelds at the gym. I probably shouldn’t care of what others may think if I did, but I do. Besides, it’s much easier for me to get distracted from the excercise by it, or slowing down my walking pace because of the game. Even if I feel justified when others spend that time on their phones resting for five whole minutes.
I simply stick to a podcast when at the gym, put my earphones and ignore everything else. My body focuses on the excercise and my mind is entertained by an episode of Wolf 359.
However, every once in a while I’ve been bold enough to take out my Kobo reader and read a whole chapter of The Expanse while using the threadmill. I have done the same thing with my XTEINK without much issues.
This is only really useful while on a walk or stationary bike, as most machinery lacks a decent place for me to place the ereader in a good position for me to read. Plus, getting stuck staring at a page I already completed because of an excercise would probably drive me mad.
Indeed, music and podcasts are best here, though the XTEINK’s form factor is nice to carry without feeling uncomfortable on my pocket for the rest of my routine. If it’s my Kobo, I’d have to bring it on hand, leave it on the floor or some other random surfaces, or store it in the locker after the warm-up.
To be clear I do not play with my handheld consoles during work hours.
Fine, fine… maybe a casual session of Slice & Dice on my phone every once in a while.
Still, for the longest time the fact that the Kobo looks like paper allowed me to just have it by my side and read a few pages here and there. The form factor was ideal to pass off as a notebook—or maybe people knew sometimes but nobody cared.
Eventually, when the XTEINK came about, things got a lot easier! Although I still use both interchangeably, as it seems not many people mind about telling me to not read books at work…
Oh, right, outside of work hours, I do play with my handhelds sometimes, whenever my commute is short and I arrive early at my workplace! I only do this with smaller form factors, latest of which is my New Nintendo 3DS XL, that has been the largest of the bunch, but still slim enough for me to use before more people start showing up. The Nintendo Switch is way too big and I don’t need to bring attention to it, honestly.
Tthe only thing that stops me from gaming, reading, or doing whatever I want, is the fact that I don’t live by myself!
Now, it’s not that I can’t do something I want, I am simply reminded of my responsibilities and aware of the fact that everyone in the house has to fulfill them for the sake of peace, harmony and love!
Because of this, I mostly stick to devices that allow me to have quick sessions, or some leisure time on the TV with my Nintendo Switch, when every duty of mine is taken care of—or when there’s nobody at home to stop me.
I rarely read at home using my Kobo or my XTEINK, if I’m honest, as I would rather spend my time doing things like playing longer games with a narrative that may end up too disjointed when split into short bursts.
This is also the one moment where I actually don’t mind reading a physical book as well, something different from my sci-fi novels or Manga. It’s where I get to read or study the bible, rather than entertainment.
Podcasts also win a lot of ground especially during chores here, great background noise when doing dishes or mopping the floor.
All in all, the form factor matters less when there’s no real limit to what I can do, I guess.
Josh’s final paragraphs focused on the intentionality of choosing a specific device for a specific moment, for a specific use. Every gadget having a certain meaning, a form factor that makes it ideal for a time, a place, or a state of mind.
Especially so when so much out there is trying to convinced of how encompassing everything into a single point—the smartphone—is the ideal. In the end, it’s all too overwhelming, and overdependence on it only ends up hurting us, being a distraction to what matters in the moment.
That was some pretty good stuff, and I feel I sort of wandered off into what use every device of mine has in many situations. There’s a couple of other things I could have talked about, such as going out shopping or similar, but it’s clear that the tiniest devices are often great when they are meant to fill up empty spaces rather than being the focus.
At last, this is enough for a post, I’d say! I am also going to continue playing some Fire Emblem Awakening on my 3DS after I’m done with this.
This is day 92 of #100DaysToOffload.
]]>Apple and affordability
A €700 laptop is not cheap, a €700 phone is not cheap. My iPhone SE from 2022 cost €500 and it wasn't cheap either given what it had to offer. The price may be lower in comparison with other products from the brand and the prices of modern technology—which are madness. They may offer a good value for the money. That seems to be the case for this laptop. But it is not cheap.
I saw this post (originally in Spanish, title and quote translated by me) which dealt with something that I used to think a lot more, and even if I sort of accepted it as a part of life, I still hate it.
Back in the day, I used to watch phone reviews that recommended budget friendly devices. Stuff like the Redmi 4A and 5A were the kings of low-budget gadgets, at a price around $100 bucks. That was the first phone I ever paid for, and 18-year-old me only had half of that money, my dad paid the rest, and even that was too much for him. He wasn’t being greedy, but my previous phone still worked, so it was not a necessary purchase.
The flagship smartphones at the time? $500 bucks or so, the base iPhone 7? $650 USD, the one with 256 GB of storage? $969 USD. We all know storage wasn’t worth that much—even then the Apple markup was acting up. The high tier was expensive, and it still is. Like Adrian, I am extremely surprised when I see people saying the Macbook Neo is “budget-friendly.”
I’ve said before how I am often disconnected from my own culture, as a Latino who mostly interacts with American/English-speaking communities online and watches video reviews from people in those regions.
The people in my country who buy a Macbook Neo seem to me like part of the upper class—or in debt. After all, owning an Apple device is a status symbol for some reason, and even those who can’t afford it want those bragging rights.
The average person where I live has a two or three year old device that they got used from Facebook Marketplace, a chinese device from Oppo, Poco, Honor, Xiaomi or maybe Motorola. People will buy the flagship devices from these brands and think they are expensive and great quality. And yeah, they often have much better feature than Apple or Samsung products, even if riddled with tracking and advertising.
Alas, such brands are at a price people are actually willing to pay, as much as I don’t like it.
I have purchased devices and things from China and chinese online shops before. Let’s talk the Miyoo Mini Plus, the Anbernic RG35XX SP, The Miyoo Mini Flip and the XTEINK X4, and all of them have been at under $70 USD. All of them are extremely affordable and found for even cheaper during sales. That’s the kinda tech that still is actually budget-friendly.
Some of that price may be lowered because Chinese companies overwork people or do shady business practices, but reality is that the markup of most modern tech sold from more popular brands on this side of the globe are simply off the charts. A clear middle ground with a sensible approach can’t be that hard, right? But no, just look at the “minimalist” devices out there, all above 300, 400, 600 bucks and they are hardly worth that much, the marketing is more expensive than the hardware itself, I suspect.
I guess most big tech review channels seem to just take this for granted, 700 bucks for an Apple laptop? Very cheap, sure, you’ll finally have a Mac, yay!
The worst is that they barely mention actually cheap stuff. I think they realized that people who watch phone reviews for a living like to see expensive stuff—that they won’t buy—more than cheap stuff—that they won’t buy anyway, so they go and make that kind of content to appease the algorithm and get more revenue. Also cheap stuff has compromises which are often negative, so brands don’t like those to be brought up, even if at the price they are justified.
The people who genuinely look for reviews for actually affordable devices are usually confined to videos from smaller channels or from creators from India where those devices are more popular. Nothing wrong with that, of course, it’s a similar situation to Latin America, the concept of “budget friendly” is more akin to reality, and those reviews tend to be more honest anyway.
Right now I’m thankful for my current situation, which is rather privileged—single and without any debts—allowing me the purchasing power to consider expensive tech (as long as it isn’t Apple) among my options (although I would still probably go for whatever is cheaper or has better design). Still, I’d love if we recalibrated what “value for money” actually means, and what sort of hardware is actually enough, so we can stop allowing these companies to raise prices for no reason.
This is day 56 of #100DaysToOffload
]]>The e-ink display—the technology itself—actually represents something different: Focus, simplicity, and going back to our roots.
There’s just something about the slow nature of the display that just feels out of place in a world where everything is just speeding up. And yet, it fits perfectly.
Over time, more and more people actually turn to this technology because of the really cool features like the incredibly good battery life; and the one thing that I personally love the most about the e-ink technology is the fact that when you introduce more light, the more viewable the display becomes.
As you know from your phone, when you go outside, the display actually becomes, you know, worse. When it’s sunny outside, you basically cannot see anything on the display. That’s not the case with e- ink. The more light you introduce, the better it looks.
And this is sort of what I mean by going back to our roots. It feels very human.
When you increase the light around you, you can see more with your eyes. You will see less on your phone, but the e-ink display will become clearer and easier to read.
– David Pavlicek on This E-Reader Changed My Life: Xteink X4 Review
This is, on hindsight, a rather obvious statement, but it really resonated with me and—even though the video itself is “just a review”—I thought this statement was worth sharing in written form.
This, among other videos were the last straw that got me to order this device even though I already own my Kobo. I want to see if the reduced friction of this form factor will help me read even more.
Besides, maybe it’s weird, but I think I actually read multiple books much better when it’s done in multiple formats? I can read something on a paperback while keeping up with my reading on Kobo, as well as the manga I check on my phone. So, maybe an extra eink device means I could easily switch between more reads at a time, the difference in presentation helps me compartmentalize it better, perhaps.
It could all just be excuses of course, there’s always others who will fly through books regardless of the format or friction.
So, anyway, E-ink devices are great technology, and I am looking forward to check the Xteink X4 soon.
This is day 34 of #100DaysToOffload
]]>The Surprisingly Powerful One-Page Notebook That’s Always With Me
There’s a sweet little niche in the stationery world for everyday-carry (EDC) notebooks. Field Notes, Moleskine, Rite in the Rain, Leuchtturm1917, Rhodia, good ol’ Spirax, and so many more. [...] I’ve used (and loved) many of those little cuties, but there’s a new contender for paper notes that’s free of the pressure a proper notebook can imply, and it doesn’t cost a thing...
Last year I came across this super interesting article and for some reason I didn’t even bring it on my weeknotes of that week. In any case, the idea floated around in my mind since then, but I didn’t get around to it back then. It was just one of many things that seemed cool and productive, and I can’t help but be a procrastinator for those.
A few days ago I saw Alexandra share the same post on Mastodon and it sparked the idea once again. It wasn’t until today that things kind of clicked and I thought it would be fun to try it out!
I grabbed a piece of paper, folded it in 8 sections, cut in the middle to turn it into a little book, and started to write on it!
Some of the sections I added to mine this time around were:
A nice thing about this is that it’s completely reversible! So you can have both sides of the sheet at your disposal.
This is how it looks when it’s completely folded up. it’s super compact and fits on any pocket, no big deal, and yet quite useful to have.
And here is how it looks once unfolded and flat, as I mentioned, part of it is upside down, completely fine when folded, although I Ellane reminds in her article that the direction doesn’t matter at all anyway, especially on the original concept where it’s just the folded sheet without any cuts.
As most of it is on cursive and a part of it is upside down, it’s probably better to download the image and rotate it on your image viewer of choice. EDIT: you can click/tap the image to rotate it!
Of course, here’s a text version of the contents if you want to just read what it says!
ONE PAGE NOTE BOOK
March 7, 2026
written by Joel
inspired by Ellane
TO-DO LIST
MEDIA I LIKED
FOOD I ATE TODAY
Random Thought
Even though I still make mistakes, I feel much more comfortable writing in cursive by now.
Feels much more fluid and I even forgot how some block letters are written, LOL
More Random Things
How to Make
This is the last page
(A rough draft of Lea from the videogame CrossCode, making a smug face, completely ruined by the shading done with a pen)
So, how do you feel about this kind of analog productivity stuff? I keep jumping on and off, but this one seemed rather fun to me, and I may make use of it on a more regular basis, I just need to not forget about it…
If you decide to make your own, I would love to see it as well! Any advice or ideas to implement for it are welcome too, but maybe keeping it simple is the point of it all…
This is day 30 of #100DaysToOffload
]]>Reassess time spent enjoying luxury
Every time my wife is away for business travel, I take the opportunity to do things I don't have time for when we're together: video games, movies and TV shows my wife won't watch, that sort of thing. Inevitably I wind up spending too much time with these luxuries. Just last night (Monday), when I had all day to play with a vacation day, I didn't go to sleep until 12:50 AM.
I recently saw this post by Steve and found it kinda relatable.
Every once in a while, I get to have the house for myself too, and the options for me are similar. While hobbies like books, manga or certain games I can do at any time—even during my commute to work—or when others are present. Some activities are simply more enjoyable when there’s nobody around that may require my attention, or that may send me to clean up my bedroom instead. Living with parents has its perks, but it’s a double-edged sword.
Even if staying up late is not ideal when I have to wake up early to work, I personally have no issues with my sleep schedule. I wake up on the first beep of my alarm and continue the morning like nothing happened. I am not sure this power will last forever, but I’ll take advantage of it when I can. Obviously, this is not a daily thing, but a few times a year aren’t too bad.
Because of this, my reassessment is not because I stay up late or watch too much anime at once. It comes from the number one reason I end up actually wasting my time: YouTube, YouTube Shorts.
I find value in videogames, anime, movies or other media, I enjoy my time with them. However, every once in a while, I’ll just do nothing but watch random stuff from the YouTube algorithm. I know I just said a few posts ago that I don’t have an issue with algorithms, and that is the case most of the time, but when I literally have nothing else to do, and I can choose between a gaming session, bingewatching a show or a movie marathon, for some reason, my brain will default to sitting on my laptop (I don’t use the YouTube app at least) and scrolling through random videos.
All that time to be spent on things that I can only do at moments like this, like solving some dungeon on CrossCode or defeating a boss on Silksong, you know? finish a book or at least try a new anime. But no, endless scrolling.
Like, it could be great. It has been great before, I have managed to accomplish a lot of stuff some times after all.
Like that time I binged all the 70+ episodes of Hajime No Ippo, or when I watched almost all of the Alien movies, or played through The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy for the first time. All of that was rather awesome, stuff that I can’t afford to do at such a pace on a regular basis.
I think I just need to set my priorities properly, I am consciously making the wrong choice, which means I can consciously not do it. Right?
I really envy the people who can actually get things done using time-blocking or to-do lists, calendars and all that mumbo jumbo sometimes, I mostly go by feel, and unfortunately I feel like being lazy and consuming “content” way more often than putting some effort on enjoying the creative output of artists who pour so much passion into their work.
One of the details that struck me when I read the original post, was the choice for the word “luxury”. Sometimes I don’t appreciate it that much, and take things for granted, but yeah, a couple of evenings after work just to relax by yourself and not worry until tomorrow’s workday comes is a luxury, so I shouldn’t let it go to waste.
And of course, it’s at moment like this when I not only get to digest all of that media, I also get to work on my own stuff!
From writing longer blog posts (I always write my reviews at home where I can quickly access screenshots and the like), to spending time on a different project (like the Rockbox theme for the Innioasis Y1 which I just published).
However, those things are something I can do when others are around the house, I just gotta work on my desk. So I’m going off-topic.
In the end, the main thing is that I get to use the big TV in the living room for whatever I want.
Freedom!
So, how do you spend time when you get to be by yourself for a bit?
]]>Escaping my phone
I've recently become disgusted by how much I use my phone. Probably has to do with the YouTube algorithm having decided to serve me a lot of these "switching to a dumb phone", "I went x days without my phone" type of videos. Though I hate to be trendy, it made me think...
I’ve seen many posts recently dealing with this theme lately, which tends to show up over and over again. I literally wrote about my phone usage earlier this year.
Thomas had a very interesting take, not blaming smartphones—since they are really good tool in the right hands—but the attention-seeking design behind apps fueled by greed and algorithms, and Ava says she doesn’t care about screentime at all, since she simply uses it for practical purposes—which just happen to require the screen to be on.
However, the conclusion I’ve reached is closest to Jana’s.
I am not addicted to doom-scrolling, I am not addicted to algorithms, I am not addicted to AI slop, I am not addicted to posting random stuff online—other than this blog, but not microblogging-style posts.
I simply enjoy chatting with people a lot, I guess.
Signal, XMPP, Discord and Tusky remain at the top for me, even Matrix shows up sometimes. Jana says:
Whether it’s family, friends, or people from the other side of the world, that I have sparked a conversation with purely online. These are conversations that make it possible to really get to know a person better and they are quintessentially what I love about the internet. So this, if anything, is what I want to have more of.
And well, that is pretty much it.
I hope you don’t analyze every single stat I share on this blog too much, but to give you an idea, the month I posted about how I use my phone too much (July 2025), I used Signal alone for almost 48 hours.
Obviously not every single chat I’ve had is the most thought-provoking thing ever, but it’s still something I get joy out of, there is real people on the other side of the screen, after all. I have reached out to many people in the past, and continue to try and do so today, and it has been a pretty fun and engaging experience.
The thing is, I can’t do what Jana does, I can’t just use my computer instead, because most of my phone usage happens at work! I already have a bunch of screens in front of me with work stuff—I simply keep on chatting alongside doing other tasks at hand.
Of course, talking with people and staying focused on real life is still a goal of mine, and I try to leave my phone aside during those moments. There’s a part of me that tells me I should focus more during work hours too—guess I feel a bit guilty—but honestly, work is not something I do out of love but necessity, and if I can get away with doing non-work stuff at work while still fulfilling all of my tasks and getting paid, I’m going to do it.
In the end, even if it’s not “productive” or whatever, I think I’ll just accept I’m the kind of person with 7 hours of screentime a day, and as long as I’m not missing out on the good parts of life (a.k.a. not work), then it’s all fine by me.
]]>For a while my music listening mostly consisted of putting all my music on shuffle, or creating huge playlists of a music genre or artist, and put that on shuffle.
This wasn’t always the case. When I was a child my parents would just play music from CDs and cassette tapes on the car’s music player, or one of those portable ones with a handle to carry it around. Music would play in the order it came and that was it.
I grew up, and I finally got to have my own phone, which had the epic feature of playing music! I don’t even remember how I got it on there. I didn’t have enough local music of any specific genre and I didn’t download full albums either, I would only get MP3 songs I liked from random places. Streaming was not an option growing up.
When I finally got access to things like Spotify, I was able to look up pretty much every song ever and add it all to playlists, depending on the genre. I started to treat music as separate things to be enjoyed individually.
I remember playlists with every Coldplay album at the time, one with my favorites from Daft Punk or one for relaxing music from videogames and such.
This stayed more or less the same when I got into City Pop. I was not familiar at all with artists or albums of the genre—yeah I only knew Plastic Love and Stay With Me—so I just searched for playlists from Spotify, took the songs I liked from those and made my own.
Eventually, I stopped using Spotify and streaming for the most part, and now that I have local music again. And that I am not limited by storage like on my first phones, I just started to get the full albums downloaded to my phone, I am kind of iffy about not having everything in full I guess.
As an aside, a caveat of no longer using music streaming is that I don’t have any sort of “Yearly Recap” with cool graphics, but I guess ListenBrainz’ stats suffice.
Back on topic. I am not fully sure when I actually went back to listening to full albums again, but there are two occasions that come to mind.
First would have to be Love Trip by Takako Mamiya. I was amused by this album and I listened to it all on a YouTube upload. It was the only album she ever released. Once I got it locally, it didn’t make sense to shuffle a single album, so I just always listen to it in full, and it has been a joy every single time.
Another case has to be Daft Punk’s Alive 2007. Since it was a live concert recording, the cheering of the audience is heard throughout all the tracks. Listening to a single track of that makes no sense, there would be noise and cheers fading in and out without any context at all. But once you play the entire album in one go, it’s an experience like nothing else.
Eventually, those moments made me realize the value of going through the order intended by the artist, and I did that with more and more albums. I listened to Discovery and Random Access Memories from start to finish, I even re-discovered some songs that I somehow forgot existed, like Within in RAM which never got much attention from me, I was too busy playing Instant Crush on repeat during high school I guess.
I still use playlists in some cases like the “music to relax and study to” kind of stuff. And again, sometimes I still just like one song more than the others, so I’ll have that on a separate playlist for my favorites. In a sense, they are just custom albums. You can piece together songs that fit a theme or some other criteria. However, I’ll admit I haven’t tried to create a playlist with intent other than Select Album > Add to Playlist—maybe some other day.
These past few weeks, I’ve purchased the videogame soundtracks for Hollow Knight and Silksong, as well as Celeste, Hyper Light Drifter, Jet Lancer, not to mention the music of 1000xRESIST I got earlier in the year. All of them are great, and listening to those albums in one fell swoop has been very fun, so that’s what I’ve been doing for a while.
And now after watching the fantastic TRON Legacy—and the not so fantastic TRON Ares—listening to those soundtracks has been awesome too.
My podcast listening has lowered a bit compared to last year too, so I guess playing full albums instead of shuffled playlists has made me listen to more music overall.
And how can it not? I say.
Listening to the full album provides a different experience, each song connected to the next, even those that aren’t that great on their own are heightened by the way they fit like a puzzle piece among the others, and when you get to the ones that are really good by themselves, they’re improved by the whole journey further more.
I guess that feeling is not universal for some people, but well, it’s how it is for me and the music I listen to.
So, in short, I like listening to full albums now, it’s pretty cool I think ;)
And now I’ll read Ariadne’s original post, you should too! I’m sure it’s good, she never dissapoints :P
]]>Blogging Balance
When advising someone to just blog whatever they want and not worry about "people who aren’t interested in that stuff", Robert ends up realizing he has the same issue!
Robert says:
In my case, I think it’s a constant journey of trying to find that “perfect” blogging balance. Trying to figure out the right ingredients based on some made-up recipe in my head of what’s too much or too little.
For me, I think that if “I could write this” comes across my mind even for a second, I generally just do it.
That’s how the past two blog posts have been, actually. If you read them carefully, you will probably notice that almost every paragraph is its own little idea that only barely threads with the title of the post.
Actually, many of my posts during the past year or so were are made of paragaphs written at different times throughout the day, or even multiple days. When I run out of steam, I just let it simmer for a bit, do something else, come back to it after a while, and I’ll usually figure out how to continue.
In the end, I approach the same general concept from multiple perspectives. It isn’t too pretty, but it works out most of the time.
I am not always satisfied with the initial output, my last post about a future without work was quite a ramble, with no clear real connection between paragraphs, I kind of didn’t like it at first, but after leaving it a few days and returning to it, I managed to add that little extra that turned it into a bit of a favorite now.
Some days I write about less abstract stuff and things just flow naturally on a single sitting, without losing threads and sticking to a topic. That’s the case for most of my posts, honestly. From time to time, I will truly get into the zone, and output something really inspired, but that’s pretty uncommon for me.
Of course, sometimes I decide to not share a post, but I usually stop really early on when I realize it isn’t worth it. That bar, for me, is quite low, as long as I can say enough about it.
You see, lately, my brain just doesn’t like to see short blog posts that much—I mean posts that are only 3 or 4 paragraphs long!—I think “Hey, I could add an extra paragraph or two”, so I try to do it. This results in perfectly serviceable posts getting stuck as a draft because my brain doesn’t realize they are fine already.
I used to share posts around 200 words, but now I barely post things below 600. Even my weeknotes now go beyond 1000K words somehow, when I added a links section to them!
Sidenote: I should find out my average word count per year.
This year my blogging has been extremely consistent, I haven’t missed a week! Which is something that hasn’t really happened before for multiple months in a row, I may even do 150 articles by the end, which would be awesome. I guess I’ve just been on a roll, I hope it keeps going!
So, yeah, even if not all posts have the most incredible quality or have any coherence whatsoever, your blog is your blog, and you can do whatever you want with it, don’t worry too much!
This is day 89 of #100DaysToOffload
]]>Retro Tech Confession
I know many wonderful people who love retro tech and I love to watch those people be passionate about it. However, I discovered recently it is just not for me.
This was an interesting post to discover! It was the first one I found on my FreshRSS instance once I got home from work. In short, Dom talks about his experience not having fun while setting up an old laptop.
Honestly, I can relate! Although in a bit of a different way. I don’t really care that much about old computers, their speed or features, I already had a Windows XP desktop with 512MB of RAM in 2014 for some reason. I don’t particularly want to go even more backwards when that was already a pretty mediocre experience.
I definitely respect just enjoying the idea or the aesthetics of something, without necessarily wanting to get even deeper into the rabbit hole, or other aspects of the hobby. Like going from liking Warhammer 40K books, to buying figurines, or from collecting music vinyls to getting into high quality music players and audio equipment.
I think it is perfectly fine to stay in the surface, avoid going deeper, and enjoy what you do, because even if you don’t go down, you can still go sideways!
Dom mentioned retro-gaming briefly, for example. Readers know I am a complete fanboy of retro handhelds and with devices like the Anbernic RG35XX SP and stuff like its even more retro looking younger brother, the RG34XX, I think that’s a lot of retro for the money, and of course, this is not ancient hardware that takes a minute to boot, it is light, quick to boot, and tiny.
You can play around with it, games all the way up to the PSP and Dreamcast, Ports of light PC games with stuff like PortMaster, install custom firmware for it, run a Linux desktop on it or plenty of other stuff, and it will look as retro as it gets!
YES! This is secretly yet another post of mine trying ot coerce my readers into buying a retro gaming console, just do it already! DO IT.
Ok, sorry for that. Trying to go into a more serious tone again.
Going sideways, right. There is a lot of surface area, a lot of “beginner” stuff that you can do and be happy with, avoiding hiccups and feeling that you “don’t belong.”
It’s not even about things being “for beginners” or that you’re not a “true enthusiast” until you do X or Y, you just got to pick your battles and choose what you really want to get invested in.
Like, I have never even touched a sheet of double-sided tissue foil origami paper in my life, and I’ve enjoyed doing origami for half the time I’ve been alive already! and look at me! perfectly fine and dandy.
I pretty much already covered this topic about how being a “fake fan” isn’t really a thing, so feel free to check that post as well!
Just enjoy what you want to enjoy I guess, you can like retro tech without actually wanting to use it, or set it up, or buy it, if you are into it just because of the looks, so be it!
This is day 55 of #100DaysToOffload
]]>It’s almost like I keep finding question challenges to answer day after day!
I do actually! I think Joel is a pretty cool name, it is kind of popular but not super popular, somewhere in the top 150 in Mexico, from what I found online. It means “Yahweh is God”, which makes sense to me :P
It was fairly common to be called “Jose” from time to time, by people glancing at my name in a list or something. Whenever I introduced myself, they would sometimes hear names like “Noe”—Noah in Spanish—or even just the last syllable “El”—“He” in Spanish.
I’ve even gotten mail directed to “Jose” at least once, nothing too bad though.
No idea, I’d like to keep the letter J to be honest, maybe James or Jack but like, I’m fine as is.
Yep, Joel is my first name.
Yes I do, won’t tell~
It depends, at work… nah, sometimes I’m called Junior for reasons you can assume. Sometimes I’ve been called Jo, which is not great in Spanish but makes sense in English I think. I’m also called Jojoy by family, in Spanish, don’t ever call me that in English.
Michael also added a couple of extra sections to this challenge, which are the following!
I wish my name pronounced in English was the same as in Spanish (kinda like “Ho-ell”) instead of “Joule/Yoel” or whatever.
I said I won’t tell my middle name, but if you are curious, it ends with “el” too.
This is day 50 of #100DaysToOffload
]]>When Texting Destroyed Social Investment
...Nowadays, none of that remains. Who still drags a Walkman with him when he can enjoy endless albums streamed via 5G? That’s sad too but currently not my biggest concern. No, my concern is that smartphones and their entrance to unlimited and continuous texting completely destroyed social interest and investment...
I have to admit, I switch back and forth on my thoughts about long distance communication and its impact on social interactions. And for me, it is something that depends on context, like people that I interact with in real life and via texting, online only friends, or people I barely talk to at all unless it’s in person.
I do not text with my family very consistently, not uncles, not cousins, not my siblings or my parents. Only during some emergency or extraordinary event do I call them, or if they text me first asking me to do something, I will reply. Maybe I will share some random meme or ask for a ride home in the family group sometimes.
I tend to leave family on read very often, I receive their notifications and if its something I have to do, I’ll do it without even replying. Sometimes they expected me to let them know when something’s done, or to at least know I read it, but other than that, my chat history with them is kinda empty.
Sometimes I will share a status on WhatsApp or a story for family and friends to see, and sometimes people will ask me how it is going and we have some chat about it. But if it is someone I interact with often in person, we will usually just do that instead of chatting, or do nothing at all.
I haven’t had family trips lately due to work, but when we were on our way to visit relatives, my dad usually asked me or my mom to call them about 15 minutes before we arrive, just to give them a heads up, but other than that, its not like I texted anyone to update them on my adventures.
When it comes to online friends and groups, many things change. I exchange constant communication with some people here on Fedi or from other social media.
Nowadays, most of the time we chat on Signal, XMPP or Discord—I am sorry Matrix, but you’re not good enough for me—and it is something that happens daily. We chat about many things and my usual reply is “evil.”
Vacations, traveling and similar events in person aren’t really something I share with online friends, or even this blog, at least not in the moment, but I have shared a few stories after the fact, and maybe even more now that I do week notes.
I will keep my book club updated on my book progress, while no real life friends even know what I read, I will text someone about the games I’ve purchased, reviewed or completed, while not really bringing them up friends I meet up with1. I am here, writing to an English-speaking audience about whatever is going through my head, while virtually zero real life friends or family are aware that I even have a website.
I have conversations with people I’ve never seen, many times constantly, sometimes just an email every couple months, and I’ll chat about completely different topics that I would if we were having a coffee downtown.
I guess it all comes down to the fact that I don’t really chat with people I know in person, and I don’t really do phone calls, I just receive them. Texting is pretty comfortable, and I don’t even mind voice messages either.
However, I do agree that the social investment I get out of chatting can be very diminished in one on one conversations. Sometimes coming up to what to talk about is difficult, simply because we already chatted a lot and there’s not many surprises to be had.
I believe even the boring parts of life can be seen through a warmer light later on, and simple moments should be cherised just as much. But well, it is true that if things become repetitive they could lose their value faster.
Maybe I should just go back to sending emails to people.
This is day 93 of #100DaysToOffload.
I have shared most of my hobbies including videogames with my real life friends, and some of them know about Zelda or Chrono Trigger, but it is not as prevalent as it is here. ↩
Making Writing a Natural Part of Our Day
Although I write every day and have a certain routine for it, I don't think it's the most important thing (I'll come back to that). As my life situation looks right now, with a full-time job, I write after work. Usually after a yoga or strength training session. On weekends, when I'm free, I prefer to sit down at a cafe and write...
I have done quite a lot of blog posts at this point, most of the time I write them on my laptop, but honestly, it can be quite varied from day to day.
I do not write on a daily basis, I believe I am perfectly capable of
doing it if I wanted to, but with so many hobbies I could do instead,
I would rather strike a balance between them all and laze around a
bit too.
Previously I’ve been able to write daily for a whole month with no issues, even twice a day. Even now, despite having a job, I always have some time to write short blog posts like this one.
Early in the year I tried to write more consistently, which despite my best efforts, is something I haven’t quite achieved, but at least I’ve written 4 or more blog posts per month, which is a win in my book—compared to how it went last year.
I could write in the morning, sometimes as soon as I wake up, I have like 20 or so minutes to write something, and then get ready to work. Most of the times, I prefer to stay in bed or do other things, but I’ve done it before.
During my commute to work, I always have 20 or 30 minutes I can use to listen to a podcast and even draft a blog post. It used to be a whole hour before but even half is enough to make some progress. Again, I prefer to just close my eyes for a bit or read some pages on my Kobo, but I could write if I wanted.
Once I am at work, I usually get there early, and I have some dead times where I can just open Notepad++ and write for a bit—like I’m doing while writing this post. Then I email myself the text and do a final edit at home.
On my way back home, the bus takes another hour which I could be using to write, but I prefer to read on my Kobo some more, check my RSS feeds or Mastodon, or game for a bit on my Anbernic handheld.
Once I am finally home, it’s a free for all, I can do whatever one can do at home. Yeah, house chores, gaming, watching some movie or anime, and of course, write. This is the time I dedicate the most to writing something brand new, or complete a draft. Then I commit my work to my repo and it gets published for the world wide web to see!
I think one of the things that has helped me remain consistent is not to worry about being consistent. Maybe I can write daily, but I don’t need to write daily, it isn’t really necessary for me.
Yeah brushing your teeth is something you do everyday—I hope you do it everyday—but I think of writing more like shaving. Such a task has many reasons to do it, sometimes daily, sometimes it can wait, sometimes I want to do it, sometimes I have to do it. Some people have to do it more or less than others, some make a ritual out of it with three passes and shaving cream and traditional safety razors, while others try to just get it done with some soap, a disposable razor, and move on.
It’s not the best analogy ever but I think it gets the point across. I personally enjoy the writing process, but I don’t feel the need to turn it into a daily thing at least right now, but of course, some people like to have a baby-smooth shave every day, and that’s totally awesome!
Just keep writing at your own pace, and while you’re at it, send me your RSS feed and I will do my best to read you!
This is day 82 of #100DaysToOffload
]]>Bullies
I've been reading several posts as of recently about awful experiences with bullies during school years, or even earlier. Once again, I'm confronted with the baffling fact that I have never had this in my life, even though I should have. Everything was perfectly aligned for me to be a perfect target...
Read the Full Post by Simone Silvestroni on Minutes To Midnight
A couple days ago I read the article linked above, where Simone recounts his experiences with bullying at school. I think I resonated with him a bit, since I ended up pretty much unscathed as well, never experiencing any real problems first hand. However, a ton of core memories got unlocked after reading it, so I decided to write them down here!
My experiences going into middle school—or la secu as we called it—started with a bit of a letdown, after I was told I would not be going to the same one as everyone else in my classroom. Apparently that middle school didn’t have good fame, even though it was the closest to my primary school, and I even went to a school trip there, and got to see some cool lab equipment; it was actually pretty outdated for the time—I had nothing to compare it to anyway. This decision by my parents would turn out just fine, I think I was upset about it, but I can’t really remember the feeling.
I got enrolled in a school quite far from the neighborhood I was used to, turns out that a family friend and member of our church was an art teacher there, he was truly was a great example for me, a real artist, who left his mark in my life and that of many others, who sadly passed away during the COVID pandemic. Thanks to him I eventually learned the guitar and keyboard, quite a bit of drawing techniques, and many origami figures, but most importantly, to be respectful, to be kind, and to use my gifts to help others.
He gave me a ride to school every morning. Her daughter was going to be my classmate too, I kind of avoided her at first, I felt like she didn’t like me or something, making the initial commutes a bit weird. Thankfully this changed over time and while never the best of friends—I kinda didn’t interact much with girls, which is still true today lol—we were cool.
Back in primary school I was pretty much at the top of the class, the one kid who did everything as it should be done, and I was part of la escolta escolar, a group of students who carried the Mexican flag around school on Mondays and during special events and ceremonies.
Now those days are in the past, I found myself in a classroom where no kid knew me—except for the teacher’s daughter I already mentioned .
I think movies like Spider-Man, shows like Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide or Malcom in the Middle and similar media made me believe I would end up inside a trash can or something. I thought for sure I would get harassed into doing someone’s homework or get ridiculed in one way or another as the random kid that didn’t even live in the neighborhood.
To try and avoid all this, I pretty much decided from the start that I would do just enough to pass with good grades, but not that good, I would be kinda smart, but not the smartest. You know, be like an NPC in a game or something.
Let’s just say those expectations were greatly exaggerated.
In fact, I ended up being on good terms with pretty much everyone.
I was a fairly shy kid with strangers, but alright with my circle of friends. I was well behaved and polite, I never cursed at people, and always tried to stay out of trouble. I wasn’t popular or anything, but recognizable by both teachers and classmates.
Turns out that if you behave well with people they usually reciprocate. People even changed around me—or that’s how it seemed to my younger self—if I was present people went from swearing every three words to doing so every few sentences! Be it respect, or just feeling uncomfortable with my presence, it was a win for me.
I think that my way of thinking—or lack there of—quite helped me in any case. I’ve never really struggled with my sense of self-worth, I was a pretty naive kid. Even today, I’m painfully unaware of what the people around me say. Even if they tell me some horrible stuff, I just laugh it off, it doesn’t affect me if it isn’t the truth, I forget most of it, and forgive it all away. I tend to value most the words of those closest to me, which is how it should be in my opinion.
I do recall a variety of nicknames I was given, many of them might be pretty inappropriate, although I can still see kids in middle school giving them today, it is something very much ingrained in Mexican culture, we will always have a nickname for you, whether you want it or not.
I didn’t particularly like referring to people by a nickname, unless it is a short for their name, or if it has stuck for so long that I don’t know what their name is, and they usually prefer it. Let’s say that whenever I get around having kids, I will not encourage such behavior from them, but they’ll have to get used to it.
I was nicknamed “Sheldon” from The Big Bang Theory, because of my awkwardness, sarcasm and being geeky I guess, “Casparin”, which is a wordplay of Casper the Friendly Ghost and “caspa” being the word for dandruff in Spanish, since I used to have a problem with that. I didn’t mind the first one at all to be honest, but the latter annoyed me sometimes, mostly because it usually came accompanied by headpats while chanting “copos de nieve!”
Despite this, I can’t help but smile writing this today. It is totally understandable to hate nicknames given to you by bad actors and bullies, and I am not here to invalidate the pain a nickname can cause to many, but in my case, those nicknames were given among friends and schoolmates, they might be offensive and out of line nowadays, but pretty much everyone in my circle was given something similar: big nose? Squidward, spiky hair? Pineapple head, big forehead? Jimmy Neutron, blonde hair and white skin? el Guero, a weird last name? you know the drill, it was part of life back then, but again, I usually avoided them myself.
Soccer really helped strengthen the bond among us boys. I was always either goalkeeper or defense, and we used to play with disposable plastic bottles, half-filled with water. This was quite common, because nobody had a soccer ball, or nobody wanted theirs to get lost after kicking it over the fence and having it roll downhill—which is exactly what happened to mine the one time I decided to bring it to school.
I like to think I earned my classmates’ respect because I didn’t mind putting my body in danger for the sake of stopping a rather dangerous projectile from scoring a goal.
That’s the most danger I remember going through honestly, some shots flying directly to my head or my chest and the like. I am still amused that I never got any serious injuries doing that, thank God.
I recall a couple of fights among classmates. My school was big, and those sorts of things happened sometimes, most of the time because of the soccer field.
Here in Mexico most sports fields at schools are the size of a basketball one, usually the soccer goal also has a basket higher up, and the field has two small holes on opposite sides to insert the volleyball net posts easily—nobody ever did that because those posts were super heavy. Of course, having to share was a problem sometimes, but I stayed away from those conflicts.
There is only one time I can remember where I almost got into a fight, and it wasn’t even against some bad person, just a conflict between friends, and I can’t even remember the reason for it, all I can remember is that he tried to kick me and I grabbed his leg, he lost his balance and fell, and then a teacher saw us. Not much else happened, I apologized and we were good later on. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel like I had Spider-Man reflexes when I managed to parry his attack though.
Right when I was finishing this, I finally remembered something that might be the closest I got to being “ridiculed” or “mistreated,” from a certain point of view.
As I said before, the school was big, and my group of friends liked having lunch all the way to the opposite side of the tiendita, I was the one who became the errands boy, going to buy “lunch” for the others. I say lunch between quotations, because most of the time I just bought super unhealthy—but extremely tasty—snacks, like Tostitos, Crujitos, Doritos and the like, usually with a ton of crema y salsa to make them even spicier—the essential element of Mexican gastronomy. Of course accompanied by drinks, most of the time Pau Paus or Sprite.
In reality, this was actually something I did willingly. Most of the time someone was like “If anyone wants a peso go buy this for me.” As soon as one guy asked, I offered myself to do it, and most of the time, a couple others piled up, offering their pesos too. Every couple days, I had enough money to get my own Tostitos con crema y salsa. Besides, while carrying all the snacks I bought, I could always grab one or two chips out of each before I arrived with them, quite the sneaky thief I was, it was a win-win situation!—or maybe I had Stockholm syndrome.
My mind sometimes has wondered: “maybe they gossiped about me”, “maybe they thought I was cheap”, “maybe they just felt bad for me.” But time and time again, I just can’t really come to terms with that? Again maybe it is me choosing to see the best of the people around me, but I have many more great memories with those old friends of mine. Honestly, I am writing this more for me than for my readers out there. A day will come when these moments will blur even more than now, so I better write some of it down before it’s too late. It is good to reminisce on those good old middle school days.
This is day 73 of #100DaysToOffload
]]>Apple vs Android: Why Apple is the Clear Winner in Security and Features
Smartphones have become an indispensable part of our lives. When it comes to the two major players in the market, Apple and Android, there’s no denying that Apple stands out as the clear winner in terms of security and overall features...
Yes I just stole that upper embbeded post thingy from Kev’s site.
Recently Kyle did an editorial piece on Apple, which is, in my opinion, quite interesting to say the least. After reading it a while ago and once again when writing this, I still think that Apple is NOT the clear winner in security and features.
This is going to be a bit of a rant, I ain’t gonna lie, but sometimes, you have to correct things you know are wrong. But hey, maybe I am not correct in many things either so, feel free to respond to this too.
Kyle, I am very grateful for everything you as a developer, and also co-administrating a pretty cozy instance on Mastodon, but this article didn’t really have that many good points—in the opinion of an Android fanboy such as me, lol.
So, since this is my blog, I’ll just write the reasons I consider many of the arguments brought up in this case are wrong—from a certain point of view.
I have to admit, that in a way, Security is the one factor where Apple has a certain advantage, but does it really?
Apple is a closed ecosystem, so, once its compromised, we have to rely on them to fix it. With Android, we can switch, we can upgrade, we can build from source, we can remove system apps and do whatever. Of course it is not always easy and its a burden on the regular user—one does have to get to work and get dirty with some things.
Also, in Android we can usually get apps (at least the FOSS ones) directly from developers and whatever distribution methods they provide (GitHub, F-Droid, Websites), without having to rely on the app store itself. This argument could be used against a Distro Repository, or F-Droid itself. But I would rather trust people and systems I can even contribute to, instead of a corporation.
Apple has a single point of failure and we have to put all our trust in them, simple as that.
I mean, Android has more features—and it is much more flexible. There is simply no comparison. When it comes to interface and design, it is just a matter of taste. Both old and young people can struggle using an Apple device just as much as they struggle with Android. And you can get Android phones with physical keyboards, different screen sizes and features according to your needs.
Apple likes to refine things to a level that sometimes makes no sense, and then they also like to pretend it never existed. Just look at the dynamic island, have you ever heard of any new uses for it since it came out? And look at widgets, they maybe more fancy, but they are nowhere near as useful as on Android, and their potential is very limited, they end up unnoticed and underused, unless they can make money out of it, I guess, like getting rid of the headphone jack, or having a bunch of MagSafe add-ons.
Privacy is a matter of scope nowadays, you can’t be fully private if you have a connection to the internet, but you can choose who you want to be private from.
I don’t trust Apple with my data, and I don’t trust Google with my data. Or maybe I do, I have YouTube, I can use YouTube, but I can also use a frontend for it if I want, which can also serve as a proxy and anonymize me.
But wait! Apple won’t let you install those app frontends like Newpipe or so. At least you can use the brower you want to check websites frontends right? NO, gotta stick to Safari. Or you can use a skin that is just frontend of Safari to watch a frontend of YouTube of course, very fun!—alright enough getting off topic.
Similarly, Android can be used in its AOSP form thanks to a good amount of custom ROMs, maintained by the community. Of course, you have to trust those random developers. But again, I’d rather trust them than Apple or any corporation.
Yes Apple has a bunch of privay claims and they somewhat fulfill them, but it really feels like a marketing strategy rather than something they do just because it is the right thing to do.
Android apps can support multiple Android versions, you can still install modern versions of many apps on Phones running versions like Android 8 (Oreo) or even older.
I may be wrong, but I think that as soon as an iOS version stops getting support, there are really no more app updates for it. Of course they give you a lot of updates for a long time, but Android is catching up on that regard too! At least with some vendors. Not to mention custom ROMs.
While interactions between devices is not as smooth as what Apple can do. Android has a lot of apps that help achieve similar functionality. Kyle mentions the seamlessness of Google products and services, but I don’t use either of them. I can do wit DAVx5 (Calendar and contact sync), Nextcloud (Cloud file storage, also interacts with DAVx5), KDE Connect (Computer and phone sync, share clipboard, and a lot more), Syncthing (Cloudless file sync) and similar tools that get the job done in many regards. And a bunch of these 3rd party apps can’t even work on iOS, so you are stuck with what Apple offers you and not much more.
App Store is controlled by Apple and they are evil.
Play Store is controlled by Google and they are evil.
Apple is barely following EU regulations in the worst possible way regarding their walled garden practices, and I don’t think any upcoming new changes they may have to do will still make it worth it.
Android let’s you install apps from 3rd party sources. You can use F-Droid (FOSS app store, I recommend the Droid-ify client), Obtainium (Fetch app updates from multiple sources, usually the developers themselves), Aurora Store (Get apps from Google servers, without a Google account), and many other options, some more trusted than others, of course.
There’s a lot not to like about Android as it is offered by Google and OEMs, but the community behind it offers a bunch of ways to stray away from the surveillance and data mining that goes on. Apple says they do things, and we have to trust them, but when they don’t, who can hold them accountable anyway? I just don’t trust Apple, and Google sucks too.
Give up on Google, give up on Apple, give up on an easy life and just install a Custom ROM on some random Xiaomi phone while you can, or get a used Pixel that works just as well if not better.
Just kidding, I have Google on my phone, I have to use banking apps now and I gave up on my privacy and freedom and we are all doomed.
This is day 19 of #100DaysToOffload
]]>The Expert vs the Impostor
I’m about to start a new job. It’s a promotion, but my imposter syndrome is running wild. Let’s talk about the expert versus the impostors. So tomorrow...
More than a month ago, Kev Quirk, one of the admins of Fosstodon, wrote about how he doesn’t think he is an expert at anything. I read it and replied with:
I have a kinda similar problem, in a much smaller scale, I feel like writing a blog so I might do that sometime this week.
– Me
I did, in fact, not write a reply that week.
However, during the following days other people of the Fediverse started answering in their own blogs, so I did not feel the same rush to go ahead and do it at the time.
However, the thought was still floating around in my head, so I sat on my desk and started to just write it down already.
Personally, after reading those responses and stumbling over other older posts on the topic, I have to say I don’t actually have this problem at all; with due respect, I believe a lot of people claiming to have this, simply don’t.
I am not going flat out say Impostor Syndrome is not a thing, although some people do, and I kinda lean towards that opinion. I think a lot of people just doubt of themselves, or fear failing to someone, and since nobody goes to a psychologist just to check if they actually suffer from this, they just assume those emotions mean that they have this syndrome.
Kev started by defining what an expert is, and yeah, according to the definition, he is not. However, if we go and check for the definition of impostor, which is defined as:
“its one that assumes false identity or title for the purpose of deception.”
I really doubt Kev, or any of the people who also wrote about this, are trying to be deceptive, if anything Impostor Syndrome should be used to refer to those compulsive liars who claim to be better at doing things when they really aren’t, which is something I’ve actually been guilty of sometimes, but that’s another topic.
Also, while its true that the first definition of expert refers to a single topic or subject, it can also be defined as:
“having, involving, or displaying special skill or knowledge derived from training or experience.”
More simply said, being experienced.
I think that accepting you are not the best at everything and deciding to just assist where you can be helpful, is not acting as an impostor, but as someone with who knows when to move aside and let others do their jobs. After all, wouldn’t an impostor waste everyone’s time trying to be the smartest person in the room (and utterly failing)?
Maybe some feel like they are pretending to be smart and failing, but that’s not an impostor, that’s just self-doubt.
I don’t want this to feel like I am attacking anyone in particular so, I will now talk about what I meant when I replied “I had a similar feeling”.
I think that a lot of these feelings of self-doubt and lack of confidence in one’s ability comes from what happened during the pandemic, and in my case it really showed during the first semester that got into online classes only half-way.
That semester we were supposed to learn about Fourier Analysis, Complex Variables, Discrete Math and other complex subjects that are pretty much the core of my career as an aspiring Mechatronics Engineer. However, the terrible planning and lack of experience showcased by most of our teachers meant that what we were taught was just lacking. For example, with Fourier Analysis We only had one hour per week, and our homework was incredibly basic.
This was pretty common among all of the subjects, and getting high grades was also surprisingly easy. This means my scores don’t actually reflect my acquired knowledge. I mean, they already don’t really do that, but now its an even less reliable way to measure it.
So when we returned to the classrooms, I was worried that we would be expected to know a lot more than what we actually learned, and that the next subjects would be a lot harder to comprehend. But, it turned out that I was just fine. I stopped getting perfect grades, but I realized that I could handle most of the topics and learn things on my own when they peaked my interest, I am not an expert at things, but I am clever enough to understand what I am being taught, at least when classes are not online.
Other instances where I felt like I wasn’t up to the task was when I got into game development. I started just fine and was proud of my work, but there was a point where I started reusing code for a couple projects and just that made me feel like I could not do this from scratch, and I just felt like I was playing dirty.
But, I mean, why rewrite what already works fine? Something as simple as that kinda threw me off, but after some thought I realized its simply not a big deal. I could actually code a player controller or a state machine from scratch, I just don’t really need to.
There is one hobby where I truly think the “Impostor Syndrome” actually applies, and I have not talked about it too much here. Card Magic, and magic in general, with coins or everyday items, its an art form where you have to be deceiving to people, you have to act confident in order to avoid awkwardness while approaching random people, while at the same time being somewhat clueless as to what’s happening with whatever trick is being done (if you actually claim to have some sort of power or mystical abilities, please stop).
I have a hard time approaching people, and nowadays it kinda became even more difficult because of the pandemic. I have been meaning to try this again, but it can be a bit cringe too, so its difficult to go back to actually performing to something other than the mirror. Regardless, I know that after all I am actually pretty good, I have good technique and I just got to gain some more confidence and overcome the fear.
I actually had never heard of Impostor Syndrome until a couple months after the pandemic started, around two years ago, when one of my favorite Gamedev Youtubers at the time claimed to be suffering from it and started to slow down on his projects and be less active.
I don’t want to comment to much on that, but I can see how its pretty difficult for a lot of people. I don’t think my mental health is perfect in any way, but I think that sometimes we just put too much thought into what we want to believe of ourselves, and its just not realistic to fulfill every single one of our expectations, not to talk of what we think others expect from us.
I don’t even know if this is well structured or worth it. I write this mostly for myself. But its out now, and I hope it helps someone somewhere, who is not sure of what to think of themselves.
Keep it up, you are good enough, its good to want to improve, but don’t rush it.
Me, speaking as if I am some sort of wise old man, I guess I am kinda sus after all…
But no! Youngsters like me can teach lessons too!
Stop thinking less of yourself! You all must resist the temptation!
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