15/3/2024
In A quiet place, horrible and hypersensitive monsters kill human beings who make any noise. May my peers forgive me, but I think the monsters in the movie have some reason.
I can’t be the only person who is bothered by the artificial noise that has become part of the landscape, a (not so) small discomfort we endure for the progress.
Cities are noisy by nature. Music is only “felt” when it hurts the eardrums, which is creating a generation of deaf people. We have to speak louder and louder to be heard in increasingly noisy environments, a sonic escalation that does not result in winners or losers, only in repeated phrases in increasing volume.
Even occasional loud noises are harmful. In 2023, the New York Times used a professional sound meter to analyze everyday noises and what they cause to our organism. Planes, traffic, alarms, horns. It’s horrible.
I lost count of how many times I went to a noisy place and had to appeal to the “smile and nod” technique (and hope for no questions) for not being able to hear what people on my side were saying.
The ideal would be to redo the civilizing pact to agree with a voluntary ban on boom boxes on the beaches, limiting the maximum volume in headphones and other measures that would reduce the noise of life to the recommended ~70 decibels, the average volume that does not hurt the ears.
In other words, it won’t happen.
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14/3/2024
I’ve made a few changes/improvements here: added a “continue reading” breaking point in long posts, created an “aside” post format (this one you’re reading!) without visible titles, and added a kudos/like button (❤️) for each post (courtesy of Tinylytics).
11/3/2024
Remember when the App Store was a universe of genius and cheap apps? Then, circa 2015, came the subscription era. Now, I’ve noticed a kind of return to the origins, only with prices… not so cheap.
Let’s take the newly released Simple Scan for iOS, which exposes a very cool native iOS feature — document scanning — which, by default, is slightly hidden in Files and Notes apps.
Simple Scan is sold via subscription (USD 4.99/year) or in a single purchase of USD 19.99. The only difference from the past is that, now, perpetual licenses are called “lifetime”.
Some apps that I rely on and that have adhered to this business model:
- Daylio costs USD 4.99/month or a single purchase of USD 59.99.
- 1Blocker costs USD 2.00/month or USD 38.99 as a single purchase.
- KeepPassium costs USD 1.99/month or USD 49.99 as a single purchase (alternative app, KeePassium Pro).
And there are many other examples out there.
15/1/2024
Am I too comfortable using Apple Mail? After all, it’s almost a decade using it daily. After going through several other email apps this weekend, I got the impression that there is no other good email app on the market.
I had this revelation while setting up Fedora 39 on one of these “mini PCs”. I wasn’t looking for something fancy, certainly nothing that involves “AI” or that processes my emails on other people’s servers. (And, definitely, not one that costs me US$ 30/month, lol.) All I’m asking is an app with a good UX and sane defaults and keyboard shortcuts compatible with IMAP and SMTP. Is that too much to ask?
Before going through Linux, I started the pre-installed Windows 11 to take a look at the “new” Outlook, Microsoft’s surrender to the elephant in the room, the webmail.
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5/1/2024
In November 2023, The Atlantic denounced the existence of explicitly Nazi newsletters on Substack, some of them offering paid subscriptions.
This means that Substack hosts, promotes and makes money from Nazi newsletters.
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4/12/2023
Simple Mobile Tools (SMT), a suite of small, focused, pro-privacy, and open source Android apps, was a breeze for people looking for simple apps that do one job well without asking weird phone permissions or showing intrusive ads.
However, without prior notice, SMT was sold to ZipoApps. On its website, the company says they “acquire the best apps and take them to the next level”, which is only true if by “next level” they mean “charge expensive subscriptions for no reason”.
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