The other day I found a clip of a VTuber talking about expanding beyond their typical music taste. In this case they had heard a small snippet of a song by Frank Sinatra somewhere, and decided to check it out. The song? It's Nice To Go Trav'ling from the Come Fly With Album. The clip took a turn that I found a bit surprising.

The VTuber stated that they really liked the song… It was basically a silly piece of music, one they even had a thought of covering. Until they heard one verse, a verse that changed everything. Why? Well, as they stated, Frank said a slur word. And he didn't just say it once, he said it three times!

Frank Sinatra uttering a slur? In a song? A song on a record from a major recording label? A recording from 1958? I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and I had to understand what has going on. So I looked up the song lyrics, and what I encountered was quite a bit more complicated than I would have initially thought.

The lyric in question is:

It's quite the life to play gypsy And roam as gypsies will roam It's quite the life to play gypsy But your heart starts singin' when your homeward wingin' 'cross the foam

This wasn't my first time encountering the interpretation of this term for the Romani people as a slur. But, as with many situations there is more to this than one might expect, or at least I expected from the context.

On The Surface

If you search the web for the phrase “is [redacted] word a slur”, you will likely find articles like Why It’s Time to Stop Saying “Gypsy”, which claim:

To answer your question about this frequently Googled term, the short answer is yes, absolutely. The word is as a racial slur against the Roma people, the PC term for gypsy.

Reading this article, I was immediately put on alert. Anytime someone decides to take an absolute position, it seems more likely they will have reached a conclusion that is, at best, dismissive of part of the information that is available.

The Etymology

This was where I took a look at the word from an etymological standpoint. Why? Because our language has history. Contextual use of language based in history is frequently ignored when people take a stand, especially an absolute stand.

Enter Grammarphobia with the article: Is ‘Gypsy’ a slur?. This article very clearly documents that the origins of the word were used in a pejorative manner:

The earliest form of the word in English, which the Oxford English Dictionary dates to the 1530s, was “Gipcyan,” an abbreviated version of “Egyptian.” […] And many early appearances of “Gypsy” in English were highly pejorative because, as OED citations show, these itinerant foreigners were often viewed with contempt and mistrust, suspected of crimes, and driven away.

But, then there are some turns and twists in the story:

In later use, Oxford adds, “gypsy” (by this time lowercased) was used playfully rather than contemptuously for a woman, “and applied esp. to a brunette.” All those uses have died out.

But since then “gypsy” (also spelled “gipsy”) has acquired several more meanings, none of them pejorative. Most date from around the mid-20th century, [...]

And it's these meanings that many of us are more familiar, and are likely the origin of the verse in the Frank Sinatra song:

1) Someone who’s free-spirited or doesn’t live in one place for long.

2) A person with a career or way of life that’s itinerant or unconventional, especially a part-time or temporary college faculty member or a performer in the chorus line of a theatrical production.

So, there it is, the likely reason the song contains (the Sammy Cahn penned) lyric that is interpreted as containing slurs. These definitions are the likely reason Frank Sinatra sang them: they were understood as meaning carefree and free-spirited.

I think it's safe to say the conclusion that Grammarphobia states, was likely the prevailing thought in the 1950s-1960s:

Our conclusions are that that “Gypsy” (with a capital “G”) is offensive to some people, and should be used with caution if at all. It should be avoided entirely if any ethnic connection is implied; instead, the words “Roma” or “Romani” should be used. Meanwhile, the non-ethnic uses of “gypsy” (with a lowercase “g”) should not be condemned.

Final Twist

So, if I were to take Grammarphobia's conclusion that should be the end of the discussion, right? Not exactly, there was still another piece of context to consider. And, it's the context that the VTuber was most likely having the strongest reaction to when they condemned Frank for using a slur.

The VTuber in question is British, and their understanding of the Romani people is likely very different from the majority of people in North America. We have long prided ourselves on being open and welcoming to immigrants and itinerant peoples (despite what our current government would have you believe).

This is not to say that we are in any way perfect. There are plenty of examples of distressing things that have happened to immigrants in this country (no example is louder than the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II). There is no debate on this topic. However, on the whole, we have a better track record compared to many countries.

The Romani in Europe, however, have had to endure what appears to have been a ceaseless stream of racism, and distrust. One of the worst cases was the Romani Holocaust (aka Porajmos) by Germany in World War II. But, there are systemic biases and racism that remain throughout Europe to this day.

While there are efforts underway to try to establish the Romani in Europe, there is a very long path ahead for tensions to be reduced. I would likely say that it is going to take several more generations.

Which is where this VTuber comes back in to the picture. They are part of a generation that is being more sensitive to these issues. And for that they are to be applauded. Seeing that this particular song would likely be seen as being incredibly insensitive to the Romani, they are right to take a pass on it.

Although, maybe there's a way to change the verse to remove the stigma? Perhaps this would work?

It's quite the life to play carefree And roam as nomads will roam It's quite the life to be at ease But your heart starts singin' when your homeward wingin' 'cross the foam

Category: #Essay Tags: #music, #vtuber, #history, #romani, #sinatra,

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Intro: The End of NaNoWriMo

So, I had heard that NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) competition had come to an end. But, I hadn't known the full extent of the situation until I found a write-up about it via the NaNoWriMo2 website. And, I had only found out about this when I was browsing the Writing section of Feddit.Online (a Fediverse alternative to Reddit), and someone asked if anyone was going to participate in the Novel Writing competition as outlined on the NaNoWriMo2 website.

So, after looking at that site, I made a very quick decision: to start a community on Feddit for the NaNoWriMo2 competition. Nothing specifically tied to whoever had started that website, but just putting together a space where Fediverse citizens could talk about the competition throughout the month of November.

The Birth of FediWriMo

I put the community together on Friday night, October 31st, and waited to see if anyone joined the community. And, sure enough, a few people did join. We're currently standing at 17 subscribers, with 9-10 active on a daily basis.

I'd call that a success for a community started at the very last minute, and with nothing more than word-of-mouth spreading its existence through the Fediverse.

But, I started having some immediate reservations. Not about the community, but about the name and the association(s) with NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo2. There were two, in particular:

• The name was too close to the old, controversial organization, while we had literally no association with the previous organization.
• I don't know the people involved with NaNoWriMo2 website.

So, I thought maybe we should rename the community, and asked for suggestions. There were a couple of thoughts, but not too much input... So I made the decision to rename the community FediWriMo. The idea being that we kept the core idea of being a “Writing Month” community, but this one is explicitly based in the Fediverse.

I also think this is a good idea, as we are not linking in the concept that this is a “National” competition. We're not restricting this to one country, but to anyone that is part of the Fediverse.

What's Next?

Honestly, I just want to get through this month first. We're a small enough group that I am the sole Administrator and Moderator for the community.

There are some things that I think I can manage that would be beneficial to the group.

I would like to grow the community as much as possible within the Fediverse. That's something that I think we can do.

I'd like to bring on some moderators: if we grow the group to a reasonable size, then adding more moderators makes sense.

Also, I think there could be more documentation and resources for the community. This is something I think I can do.

There's a lot more that I'd love to FediWriMo become. But, I won't get into those ideas unless there are a lot more people that want to be involved.

Conclusion

So, that's the story of how I started FediWriMo. If you'd like to join us, please do by joining the Feddit FediWriMo Community. Of course, you can follow the community from Mastodon or your favorite platform.

And, if you like what we are doing, consider joining the FediWriMo Leaderboard. See the community for more details about TrackBear.

Categories: #Arts, #Literature Tags: #community, #fediverse, #FediWriMo, #NaNoWriMo, #TrackBear, #WordCount, #WritingMonth

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Introduction

It really wasn't all that long ago that keeping track of the time was not as passive as it is today. Back in the 1980s, a mere 40 years ago, cell phones weren't prevalent. Even desktop and laptop computers were still prone to needing to have their time checked.

This was especially true when the Daylight Savings Time changes happened twice a year. And this is the story of how I, despite having recently undertaken a time-based hobby, nearly missed this event.

The Importance of Daylight Savings Time

Given how technology has made the shift between Standard Time and Daylight Saving Time so automatic and seamless to most of our lives, we have lost the significance of this event. However, it really is still a very specific event that has some fairly major implications.

The easily understood part of Daylight Saving Time (DST) is that it is based on the fact that the earth rotates on a tilted axis, and as we orbit the sun the length of daylight shifts throughout the year. Therefore, we adjust our clocks when there are fewer daylight hours during a day in order to take advantage of that daylight.

But there is quite a bit more to the changing of the clocks than meets the eye. The Romans used a system of changing hour lengths with their water clocks to account for the changing of daylight periods throughout the year. The National Assembly in Spain moved meetings an hour forward from May-September in order to account for the changes in daylight.

However, it wasn't until 1895 when entomologist George Hudson submitted a paper proposing the changing of the clocks to the Wellington Philosophical Society of New Zealand that anyone considered the idea. Hudson had come up with the idea in order to have more post-work daylight available to him for collecting insects. In 1907 William Willet independently proposed the same idea, and would publish a paper with the concept a few years later.

Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada was the first city to actually implement DST in 1908, followed by Orillia, Ontario in 1911. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary were the first states to implement the time change in 1916.

The importance of time keeping, however, had not fully been realized yet. It would become a major thing that was necessary, however, with the invention of the railroad, and the need to time trains accurately. Standard Time / Daylight Saving time also played a part in World War I.

There's a lot more detail regarding the history of Daylight Saving Time, which a brief read on Wikipedia can fill in.

My Time Story

Throughout the years, I have been embracing my role as a “technology curmudgeon”. That is to say, that I don't have an appreciation of the advancement of technology for the sake of the advancement of technology. However, that doesn't mean that I am totally against the advancement of technology, just that I want to see a proof of the value of the advancement before integrating it into my life.

For example, the furor over NFT's a few years ago. There was no way in which I saw them as having any value, or fitting into or improving most lives in any substantive ways. The same goes for Crypto Currency. At one time I was actually more interested in Crypto, as I saw some projects that had potential to add value. In particular Namecoin, which initially proposed to be a censorship-proof method of handling the Domain Name System, which is extremely important to the internet as we know. However, this project has failed to gain recognition by ICANN the controlling entity for domain names, and therefore has only been able to handle .bit domains outside the ICANN registry.

Even cell phones were initially a hard sell for me. I didn't see the use for them initially. That was until there was real development in the Smartphone market, and it started replacing numerous forms of communication, including text messaging, beepers and regular telephones. By the time the iPhone was announced it was clear that cellphone technology was here to stay, and I adopted it.

However, that doesn't mean that I have adopted everything related to cellphones that have happened over the years. Google Glass? Nah, I didn't see where people really wanted or needed Augmented Reality. Then there were the fitness trackers / watches that begat the Apple Watch.

This was a whole area that I didn't go for. Why? The issues surrounding technology, applications, and the amount of information that you are giving up when using them has become a convoluted mess. And something that I generally don't want to deal with.

But, after doing some investigation into smartwatches, I did decide that I wanted to wear a watch again — which I hadn't done for years and years.

How I Realized I Had Forgotten About DST

So, over the past eight or nine months, I've amassed a bit of a wristwatch collection. Unlike most people that get into watches, however, I haven't been interested in the mechanical variety of watches. Instead, I have a preference for several forms of quartz watches.

Now, I briefly talked about quartz watches in my article on the Pebble watch. (The Resurrection of the Pebble) Some of the things that I have pointed out about the advancement of quartz technology include solar charged watches, and radio-controlled watches.

And, I have a few examples of both solar and radio-controlled watches in my collection. In fact, the Casio Lineage watches in my collection are both solar and radio-controlled. They have become some of my more frequently worn watches. They are truly “grab-n-go” watches.

However, I bought them after the last time change, so I set them up and haven't had a time when they should have adjusted automatically... That is until this last Sunday, when without even realizing that the time change occurred, I picked up one of them out of my collection and put it on.

The fun of the whole situation was that I didn't realize there was anything significant. The time on the watch matched my cellphone, my computer, and my eReader...all of which I use before getting my breakfast in the morning (I load a bunch of fresh periodicals on my eReader to take to breakfast with me every morning).

Now, the unusual thing in my house this: there is a digital clock that my parents bought in the early 2000s that isn't connected to the internet, or even the home Wi-Fi in any way. The clock is rather a nuisance, really, but I leave it sitting near the TV in my living room out of the familiarity of it being there for so many years.

So, I was sitting in my living room this last Sunday, reading The Economist on my eReader, when I glanced at the clock and realized that it had the same time as my eReader. But, it shouldn't have — during the winter there was always a one-hour difference between that clock and any of my other devices.

Confused, I looked at my watch, and found that it had the same time as my eReader and the clock sitting next to the television. It was then that two things dawned on me: (1) the time had changed, and (2) the Lineage watch I had picked up had, indeed, used the military radio signal to reset itself when the time had officially changed...without any intervention from me.

Now I just had to deal with the 40+ non-radio controlled watches in my collection.

Categories: #Features #Wildcard Tags: #radiocontrolled #solar #technology #wristwatch

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Introduction

Unfortunately, as you read this you will have a very narrow window to take any action(s) that you might want to in light of Amazon removing the ability for Kindle users to download their legally purchased eBooks. The feature is going away on February 26th, 2025, while this article will be published on the 24th.

Here's a Hackaday article on how to download a copy of your eBooks in case you want to: Auto-Download Your Kindle Books Before February 26th Deadline

This move by Amazon is quite possibly one of the more alarming things they have done over the past fifteen years of the Amazon Kindle being available. But's it's not the only alarming thing that has happened. Let's talk about this in more detail.

The Kindle's Sketchy History

The Kindle has long been seen as the defacto eReader for many people. And that is due to the way in which it was well integrated into the Amazon ecosystem. If you wanted to read and buy books, you could do it all right on the device.

And, let's not downplay the overall functionality and usability of the device. It has a long battery life, is lightweight, and has an excellent screen. Not to mention, due to the aforementioned ecosystem, Amazon was able to undercut most of the eReader market in terms of pricing.

Heck, all of this is why I started using one back in 2019. It was just too convenient, especially once the pandemic hit. But, the Kindle has not been without its share of controversies over the past 20 or so years.

For example, back in 2022 author's protested Amazon's return policy for e-books that lead to some of them actually seeing negative balances on their accounts. (Authors are protesting Amazon's e-book policy that allows users to read and return)

And then there are indie authors who have felt that Amazon has been manipulating the e-book market, or that changes to the platform are affecting them. (Amazon’s war on indie authors?)

And then there is the all-time classic: In 2009 Amazon deleted copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from the Kindle, without any warning to customers. (Amazon Secretly Removes “1984” From the Kindle) And the worst part? It took Amazon over a month to offer to replace or refund the purchases (Amazon Apologizes for Destroying ‘1984’ Copies, Offers New ‘1984’ Copies (or $30)).

And, let's not forget in 2023 Amazon automatically pushed censored copies of Roald Dahl's books to all Kindle users. (Roald Dahl e-books being updated automatically with censored versions)

But all of this is nothing new. Look around Reddit and other forums, and you will eventually find an author of a reader that has complaints about Amazon and the Kindle specifically. So why would Amazon suddenly be making this kind of change? I might have come across some insight into this as I was doing a bit of digging.

Hint: It's Likely Not About Piracy

One of the articles that I saw (The Kindle Swindle) seems to have reasoned that the main reason for this change has to do with piracy. And, to make their point, they point to the UK Government's Online Copyright Infringement Tracker, which estimates eBooks are pirated at a rate of about %24.

However, that %24 is actually listed as being in the “Average Infringement Level”. Digital Magazines, Sports and Software all have much higher infringement levels, and some of those items are actually within Amazon's business model. So it would make more sense for Amazon to go after those areas instead of eBooks. Also, Music, Audiobooks, and Film are also in that middle category, and those are at least equally important to Amazon's business model.

No, I think this change in policy is actually Amazon's effort to get in front of a potentially on-coming train. That train is a pair of lawsuits that will be hitting them next year.

The first is an FTC Antitrust lawsuit on behalf of users of the Amazon Marketplace. This lawsuit could (potentially) cost the company a lot of money, as the FTC has estimated that the companies pricing structure has hurt its customers by up to a $1 Billion dollars. (US judge sets October 2026 trial for FTC antitrust suit against Amazon)

While that lawsuit doesn't directly involve eBooks or the Kindle, the second lawsuit does. In this lawsuit the plaintiffs are alleging that Amazon's contract terms have had a coercive effect that has lead to higher e-book prices. Originally the case also cited several publishers and other e-book stores, but the case was scaled back after the Judge accepted a recommendation that the case be narrowed. (Amazon must face narrowed lawsuit over e-book prices, US judge says)

So why do I think it is both of these lawsuits that are causing this change of policy at Amazon?

Enshittification Justification

When I mentioned Jeremy Wagstaff's The Kindle Swindle article earlier, I stated that I think he got the wrong reason. IE, it's not about Piracy. However, I didn't think his conclusion was incorrect:

So treat this as the first salvo in a new campaign by Amazon to convert the publishing industry to another dreaded subscription model. If we want to read a digital book, we’ll probably have to sign up for a service, just as with Apple we can’t just buy Slow Horses and watch it, we have to subscribe to Apple+.

Yes, Amazon wants to move eBooks to a subscription model. They have been pushing subscription models for years now. Just think about Amazon Prime, Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, and Kindle Unlimited.

These are quite profitable models for the company. And, the fact that many people sign up for these services, and don't cancel them makes them even more profitable. This is also the case with software subscriptions — Adobe has been one of the biggest targets of outrage from customers over the way their subscription model is handled.

Which is a good thing for them. If they believe there is a chance that they will lose the FTC Antitrust lawsuit, that could be very expensive for them. Having the extra income from another subscription service could help offset that cost.

As for the e-book Price Coercion case, my guess is that they could claim that there aren't any further damages that are happening because they have shifted to a subscription model. Under the subscription model the prices of individual books are likely irrelevant. My guess is they will argue that the pricing was really affected more by their Kindle Unlimited program, and that now they have extended that program to include everyone that uses a Kindle or the Kindle App. And this is why they are disabling downloads: if you are getting books under a subscription model it's more likely that people will take advantage of it.

What Does This Mean To You?

That's a question that is difficult for me to answer. Many people seem to be satisfied with subscription services: Apple TV, Netflix, Spotify, etc. So, I think there are quite a few that will just go with whatever Amazon is cooking up for a subscription service.

Personally, I am not a fan of subscription services. Currently, I only have a few subscriptions: Satellite TV, Cell phone, Amazon Prime, and Amazon Music. And honestly, the only reasons for those are (a) until about six months ago there wasn't a decent offering for cable internet (which would allow me to be a cable cutter, which I was in the past), (b) a relative buys Amazon Prime for me every year as a Christmas gift. I added Amazon Music when I went on a very long trip. Later this year all of this is likely to change when I can re-arrange things and cut back the subscriptions. I won't be subscribing to the Amazon Kindle Subscription program if it comes about.

To me there is an issue with these moves by Amazon. The first thing is that they didn't even announce this change, it took The Verge contacting them about it before they even acknowledged that they were making this change (Amazon’s killing a feature that let you download and backup Kindle books).

And then there are the use that Amazon makes of their control over the distribution of eBooks. In some cases it can be good – updated versions of books may correct typographic errors, or correct errors that occurred in the original formatting of the book (there have been several times when I saw reviews complaining about the formatting, only for me to check and find that the formatting had been corrected).

But with this power comes responsibility, and Amazon has shown that they will willingly abuse their power and responsibility. Take the aforementioned cases where the removed 1984, Animal Farm, and pushed censored versions of Roald Dahl's books. I watched a video on YouTube where someone mentioned that Amazon pushed updated covers for Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time novels to advertise their Prime Video series.

None of this happens with printed books. And there is value in that. There are plenty of cases where historians have actually studied how authors have changed and updated their works over time. However, in the e-book age, the ability to take this into consideration may be lost. There is a current situation that, while somewhat hypothetical, is completely possible: publishers may decide to push updated books with maps of North America that change the name of The Gulf of Mexico to the new, stupid politically driven name. (Which I refuse to even mention.)

And there are technical issues here. There are some people that are still using older hardware that can't download books directly (and now they won't be able to get them at all). Granted they are a small minority, but they are worth considering.

Another scenario: customer buys a book, and goes someplace where they don't have a network connection, only to find that the book hadn't downloaded before they left. This has actually happened to me — as someone who uses Wi-Fi only devices.

In light of all of this, Amazon and the Kindle are no longer an option for me. It was convenient, but convenience doesn't outweigh my right to make choices in how I handle my books. And convenience absolutely doesn't outweigh my rights when it comes to knowing that the content of my books won't change without my permission.

Actions I Have Taken

My route in navigating all of this overlaps with many people abandoning the Kindle (or at least archiving their eBooks), and then diverges from them. This isn't about the choices that they are making, it's about my particular needs and specific use case. So far here's what I have done:

• Downloaded all my eBooks from the Amazon Digital Products website.
• Set up Calibre to manage my library.
• Dug a bit more into my Boox Note Air3C and found out that I can get it to automatically sync to personal file share. I have the share set up, but I have to get Calibre to export books to it. (I have a plan – it will be very similar to using Dropbox.)
• While I was digging around, I found that Boox has added the ability for the Note Air3C to sync with Zotero. So now all the attachments in my Bibliography database are available automatically on my eReader.
• I also have a bunch of eBooks in the Google Play Bookstore. I have most of them downloaded and imported into Calibre, which I do sync with my Boox reader manually.
  • I haven't stripped the DRM from about 20 books in my Google Play Bookstore downloads yet. That's going to take a bit of extra work to get ADE set up.
  • There are, weirdly, some books that I uploaded to Play Books that I can't download. They don't have any DRM on them, and should be available for export – but something strange has happened.... So I am trying to contact Google about it now. (This is really annoying as I estimate the books would cost $750-$1000 to replace.)

That's as far as I have gotten. There are several things that are left for me to do.

Replacing Amazon and More

There are several more steps that I would like to accomplish in working towards freedom from the Amazon Kindle ecosystem. Some of these are obvious, a couple of them aren't obvious (or even directly related).

• The first is replacing Amazon. I've looked at other stores, but haven't completely decided yet. Here are a couple of first thoughts:
  • eBooks.com seemed like it might be good. But then I read they use their own home-brewed DRM system that doesn't work with Adobe Digital Editions (ADE).
  • Google Play is out the window too. Between the problems with getting my books back, and the need to actually go in and check each book individually to make certain it can be exported just makes it unnecessarily messy.
  • Kobo seems like it might be an option. I don't know if it's a good option, but it's still on the list.
  • There are a bunch more stores out there to check out.
  • Also, there are publishers that do directly sell books. Might be easiest to set them up with Calibre to directly purchase and manage the books.
• I have a bit of a side-quest that is Zotero related. Currently, I am using Zotero's storage for my reference database. I can (and will) move that to a private location, so I don't have to buy extra space as my reference database has been growing quite a bit lately (as a result of a whole difference side-quest that started before all of this stuff with Amazon).
  • There is also the possibility that I will try to replace Zotero. They still don't have an Android app after many years of using their PC based application.
  • However, the biggest use I have for Zotero, aside from accessing attachments to entries, is for inserting references in notes, articles, etc. There may be a way to get this to work with my note-taking application (Joplin) which would relieve most of the need for a complete application.
• I may replace my Boox Note Air3C with the Note Air4C. I'm still a bit undecided on this one. The Air4C doesn't have any major changes over the Air3C, but the little refinements they have made do have some significant impact on the overall usability of the device. (At least according to some reviewers who started daily driving the Air4C.)

Okay, there are some more things I still have to consider and work on. But all of that will come along with time.

As for what you do? Well, I think you have an idea of what I think at this point.

Categories: #Literature, #Technology, #Features, #Editorial Tags: #amazon, #downloads, #enshittification, #kindle, #lawsuits, #publishing, #reading, #subscription

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Introduction

Shellsharks has a weekly blogging challenge, consisting of a quiz with a list of questions for writer's to answer. This week's writing challenge involves music, and since I have long been very interested in music I thought it worthwhile for me to answer the questions. Here's the list:

1. What are five of your favorite albums?
2. What are five of your favorite songs?
3. Favorite Instrument(s)?
4. What song or album are you current listening to?
5. Do you listen to the radio? If so, how often?
6. How often do you listen to music?
7. How often do you discover music? And how do you discover music?
8. What’s a song or album that you enjoy that you wish had more recognition?
9. What’s your favorite song of all time?
10. Has your taste in music evolved over the years?

I'm going to answer these questions and try to add some context, or a story as needed for these answers. Let's get started

What are five of your favorite albums?

Yikes, I dislike questions like this. There are generally too many albums to select a limited number of “favorites”. As it is, there isn't any space for me to really select any jazz, classical, folk, ambient, experimental/weird, outsider, etc. albums.

So, I am choosing five albums that have persisted in my memories for a long time. Albums that will still find their way into play lists, or on my computer, etc. But, by no means, is this a good representation of my complete musical range. It's a small window into some of the music I like, and it's some of the music that people who know me have likely heard when they are around me.

Yes: Relayer

I discovered Yes when I was in high school. I used to listen to a local radio station that would do blocks of music by artists. Yes were one of the groups that appeared on the station all the time... Especially when the DJ wanted a long break, as many of their songs were 9–10 minutes long, playing two or three of them in a row would allow the DJ to go to the bathroom, grab a smoke or whatever. (At least that's my vision of what's going on, based on watching WKRP In Cincinnati, and stories from a friend who was a DJ.)

Relayer, however, wasn't an album that would get airplay on the radio. It didn't have the popularity of the other Yes albums. I discovered this album when I went digging into their catalog more on my own.

After Hours: Miles Away

This was when I started getting into more producer trip-hop music. It's a compilation (and one that is difficult to find, at that) that features a lot of classic jazz samples that have been transformed into really smooth and bouncy tunes.

It's one of those accidental finds that still just feels amazing to listen to.

Crowded House: Crowded House

I could choose almost any Crowded House album, but their first album holds a special place for me as it was a total surprise. I was browsing the stacks in a record store when I heard a song (Mean To Me) over the in-house audio system. Likewise, I could swear that the vocalist was Neil Finn, but they weren't popular enough to get played in a store like this. (At the time I didn't know Split Enz weren't together.)

I went to the counter to find out what they were playing, and the guy behind the counter showed me the CD case for the first Crowded House album. I looked it over, and found that I was right: it was Neil Finn with a couple of people that were involved with Split Enz. I bought the CD immediately.

Klaus Schulze: Audentity

Probably a more controversial pick from Klaus's five decades of albums (over 150 releases, of which over 100 releases were albums). This was a real turning point in Klaus's work, it was early in his adoption of digital synthesis as part of his keyboard arsenal.

Also, this album includes work from Michael Shrieve, who was mostly known for his drum / percussion work with Santana. Klaus once said of Michael that he was the only person that actually taught him something about percussion and time...which Schulze thought was remarkable as he was a drummer himself.

Rush: Permanent Waves

I've been re-visiting a lot of Rush lately. Permanent Waves really marks the transition point of Rush condensing their progressive style into more accessible song structures. Songs like The Spirit of Radio and Freewill are generally the best known songs on the album, I also really love Entre Nous and Different Strings.

What are five of your favorite songs?

God, this is an almost worse question. Yes, there are songs that I like, however many of the pieces I like are long-form works. Let me list five that don't have any overlap with the five albums above.

Vola: Straight Lines (from Witness)

This is one of the most interesting bands I've heard over the past five years. Mixing progressive, industrial, and straight rock elements they are pushing things in interesting directions. The first time I heard this song my jaw was nearly in my lap, and the whole Witness album is amazing.

How To Disappear Completely: Lucid Void (from Absentia)

This is just one of those deeply mesmerizing and haunting tracks. I only learned of HTDC a few years ago, and they have been one of the best discoveries I've made in the last ten years.

Band Maid: Play (from World Domination)

Band Maid was a complete surprise to me. I wasn't really into much (of any) of the music coming out of Japan until I found some of the live videos that they released just as the Covid Pandemic was shutting down the world.

Discovering Band Maid lead me to discovering tons of other music from Japan, including bands like Gacharic Spin, Polkadot Stingray, Trident, Tricot, Doll$Boxx, Suspended 4th, Super Beaver, LiSA (not the one from Black Pink), and many others.

Cousin Silas: The Sky Road (from The Sky Road)

Just a long, gorgeous piece of ambient music. Cousin Silas has literally tons of albums that he's recorded, and yet he doesn't seek recognition beyond the people that find his works and enjoy them. He's not on a campaign to become some big artist.

Jon & Vangelis: And When The Night Comes (from Private Collection)

Jon Anderson from Yes with Vangelis? Absolute must. This one is possibly one of the most sensual (and dare I say sexy) songs that Jon has ever recorded... Of all the works of his that I have heard (I admit, there is still a lot that I haven't heard from him).

Favorite Instrument(s)?

This is just as bad as the first two questions. There are probably at least fifty instruments that I would say that I like. A lot of what I like depends on the context and use of the instrument in the piece of music.

But, just to condense a few things down:

• Keyboards: piano, organ, harpsichord, synthesizers, etc.
• Guitars of all types: electric, acoustic, bass, six string, twelve string, seven and eight string, etc.
• Percussion: wide range from trap-kits, timpani, congas, vibraphone, etc.
• Strings: bass, cello, viola, violin, and a wide range of variants on these instruments.
• Brass instruments of all sorts
• Woodwind instruments of all sorts
• And things that you don't think are instruments, like drinking glasses, kazoos, random clacks and ticks from an engine, etc.

There's just a wide range of sounds out there, and any of them can be used in a musical context.

What song or album are you current listening to?

Nujabes – Spiritual State. New artist to me... A continuation of my exploration of Japanese music.

Do you listen to the radio? If so, how often?

I haven't really listened to the radio in the last 25 years... Except for a little while ago when I had a trial period of satellite radio in my car, but I didn't sign up for it.

Personally, I found that radio was a bad way to discover music that I liked. There was a lot that I didn't care for, and I spent too much time waiting for the music that I did like. And all the advertising was annoying.

How often do you listen to music?

Daily. I can't imagine going for a day without listening to something.

How often do you discover music? And how do you discover music?

Kinda randomly now. I “follow” some random music channels on YouTube that have introduced me to some new music (like HTDC), I sometimes hear references to music from other people, or I hear things randomly in a store or somewhere.

I also read a lot. Recently I've been reading several books that deal with the history of pop music... That's turned up quite a few interesting artists that have been forgotten that I need to check out.

What’s a song or album that you enjoy that you wish had more recognition?

When you have a collection the size of mine, it's difficult to pick just one. But I'd start with the Cousin Silas release I mentioned above: The Sky Road. It's a gorgeous album. And then there are literally over 200 more albums of music from him to explore.

What’s your favorite song of all time?

The song that had the biggest impact on me is Sound Chaser by Yes. It's from the Relayer album. It was just such a different sound from the band, and it has so much texture and incredibly different performances from the whole band.

Has your taste in music evolved over the years?

Yes, it definitely has. In grade school I was listening to folk and bubble-gum pop music. By high school I'd found rock, jazz, big band, classical and started to discover progressive rock.

In college everything was turned on its ear. I discovered all sorts of experimental and electronic music, as well as fully realizing what progressive rock was about.

After college, I found myself getting disgusted with the music industry, and turning to largely independent, self-produced musicians, which lead me into a lot of ambient music. I also discovered a lot of trip-hop and producer based music. I also started to listen to a little bit of rap.

And, as I mentioned above, the Covid shutdown led me to discover a lot of music from Japan. Not only pop, rock, and tri-hop, but also some of the classical and folk-style music from Japan.

I'm basically down to listen to almost anything. I haven't even talked about being into music from India or other middle-eastern countries that I started to discover during college, and continued to listen to after college.

So, yeah, my tastes have evolved and expanded over the years.

Categories: #Arts, #Music Tags: #albums, #blogchallenge, #electronic, #instruments, #jazz, #music, #progressive, #quiz, #triphop

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Introduction

There has been a bit of buzz in the tech community about the resurrection of the Pebble Smartwatch. Eric Migicovsky's post about bringing the watch back, and his postmortem on his previous experience with bringing the watch to market are quite compelling. I do believe he has accounted for the previous failure of the company, and set reasonable expectations for reviving the brand.

However, a few points in Eric's post gave me a bit of pause. For example, the statement “You’d imagine that smartwatches have evolved considerably since 2012.” Well, yes, in the 12 years since the original Pebble quite a few things have changed.

As I read further, I got the feeling that maybe this project hadn't really been thought out all that well. Maybe it was just an immediate reaction to Google making the PebbleOS code Open Source. That is a good place to start, but I think this project needs to be thought about in a different light.

The Smartwatch market is now largely a duopoly between Samsung and Apple, with everyone else (Garmin, Fitbit, Amazfit and a host of Chinese brands) sweeping up the crumbs behind them. So, what is it going to take for the new Pebble to not be sweeping alongside all the others, and instead find itself a solid place in the market?

I do not claim to be an expert in the field of smartwatches, watches or horology. However, over the past year I have learned quite a bit as I stumbled my way into collecting watches. So, I'd like to provide some opinions on what would really set the new Pebble apart from the competition.

My Journey Into Watch Collecting

As I stated in the introduction, I started collecting watches about a year ago. Most of my collection has focuses on Japanese watches: Casio, Seiko, Citizen, Kuoe, Orient, etc. But why watches? And why Japanese watches? The answer to that lays in the research I did before I started buying watches.

Initially I interested in hybrid watches. A hybrid watch was a typical quartz watch with the face replaced with an LCD panel that could display various information. This allowed the watch to be used for displaying notifications, health tracking, etc. while still having the appearance of a mechanical watch.

I quickly found that the hybrid watch market wasn't surviving the onslaught of Apple's and Samsung's Smartwatches. Most of the watch manufacturers were discontinuing their hybrid watches, and many were narrowing their smartwatch offerings.

So, I started looking at Smartwatches. But as I dug into them, I found most of them were using Google's WearOS. And while WearOS supports encrypting the communication between the watch and phone, I had every reason to believe there were API endpoints going to Google. And, since the device would be tethered to an Android phone, that meant my personal medical information could be used by Google for whatever purposes they see fit.

But still, I thought it might be worth the risk if I could mitigate the potential issue through other means. Then I started looking at the applications these watches supported. Many of them required a subscription to really have full functionality.

At this point, the little enthusiasm I had for smartwatches was quickly waning. Then the final nail in the coffin came when I started looking at the applications. So many of them literally state that they are sending your information to third parties for marketing and other purposes, even (especially?) after the user signs up for a subscription. This is insane in my opinion. It would be one thing if my information was being sent to my health provider, I would be okay with that. But to suggest that it is going to be sent to anyone else for any purpose is a non-starter.

The fact is that medical professionals have a set of laws known as HIPAA which they have to comply with. This limits the exposure of your personal and medical information. However, the companies providing these applications are not bound by these laws, so there is nothing to ensure your privacy when using them.

And, that was it, I mentally snapped a bit. I didn't want to wade any further into a minefield where my most personal information was going to be put at risk, all for the benefit of a bunch of corporations to do God knows what with the information.

Aside: A story from about 10 years ago has been stuck in my mind... A teenager found out she was pregnant and went to Target to buy prenatal vitamins. She used her mother's credit card to buy the vitamins. She didn't tell her parents that she was pregnant. Target used the information from the credit card to generate a list of pregnant women to send marketing to... Target sent a “Congratulations on your Pregnancy” flier addressed to the other to the teenager's house. This was how the parents found out that their teenage daughter was pregnant. A truly disgusting show of the invasion of privacy that companies will do if they think it will generate more revenue for them.

Watch Collecting: A Few Lessons

So, in rejecting the technology of the current smartwatch minefield, I still felt that I wanted something to differentiate myself. I wanted to wear something on my wrist to tell the time, if nothing else, so I didn't have to pull out my phone just to check the time.

I started with a nostalgia pick: the Casio AE1200, aka the Casio Royale after the watch that appeared in the James Bond film “Octopussy”. (The film watch was actually a Seiko G757, which is no longer in production.) But, I didn't want to wear a digital watch all the time — it just felt a bit too nerdy. So, I started buying other watches: other Casios, some Timex's, a Citizen and a Seiko.

I decided (somewhat mistakenly) to focus on collecting Casio watches. Why Casio? Well, I noticed something quirky and challenging about Casio. They tend to only partially release some of their watches in the North American market. For example, the AQ-230: there are four models released in North America, but on Casio's International website there are thirteen variants of this watch.

And that seemed like a fun challenge to me: find Casio watches that either (a) weren't available in the North American market, or (b) had limited releases in North America, and find ways to acquire the whole line. This was going to be the “fun” part of my collection.

But I was also going to have a more serious collection. Initially, I watched a lot of YouTube watch collecting videos. Many of the watches were impressive: the fit, finish and aesthetics of watches from Breguet, Audemars Piguet, Rolex, Cartier, Breitling, IWC, Omega, Patek Philippe, etc. were amazing. But the prices were outrageous. Entry level prices for many of them were $10,000, or something close to it. And, these were watches with automatic mechanical movements... Meaning that they need to be wound, either by wearing them, or using an external device to wind them for you. And because they were mechanical they would need routine servicing (just like a car), and from what I gathered the servicing was expensive.

But that wasn't the biggest issue I had while watching these videos. There was this sense of snobbery from both the video creators, and the viewers (commenters) on the videos. As I pieced things together, there was a whole historical context for this snobbery, and the growth of what I deemed to be an unhealthy community. (Something I will talk about in a separate piece.)

Now, this whole background has gotten a bit long, but bear with me for a couple of more paragraphs to get to a few points...

Photo of a Casio MTP-RS100D with a black face on a man's wrist. Photo by Unattributed. License: Creative Commons 4.0: BY-NC-SA.

One of my Casio MTP-RS100D watches. This is the black face version. There are four other variants.

While I was learning about other watches, my Casio collection started growing, and I came to a couple of fascinating models. The first was the MTP-RS100D. These are simple three hand watches, but they have a few interesting features. The first is watch face. It's completely unique, not imitating any other watches that I had (or have) seen. Second, it's a solar watch, with the ability to store enough energy to operate for four months between charges. (Typical automatic watches can only store enough energy for 40–70 hours of operation without winding.) And the price was under $100. Admittedly there are some not-so-positive aspects to the watch. For example the bracelet isn't all that high quality, and replacing it is difficult due to the way it integrates into the case. Also, I wish it had a date complication (or even more a day and date complication), but some see the lack of this kind of complication to be a positive. The clasp isn't all that good either. And it has a mineral glass crystal instead of sapphire. But, for under $100 it is above and beyond the value of many $500 and even $1000 watches.

Casio Lineage LCW-M100TS. The watch the stunned me.

Then came the absolute bombshell watch for me: the Casio Lineage LCW-M100TS. This is a hybrid “Ana-Digi” watch, meaning that it's face is that of an analog watch, but it incorporates a digital display. Honestly, I initially didn't like a lot of the “Ana-Digi” watches until I saw this one. This watch has a similar look to the MTP-RS100D, but the dial features a simple sunburst pattern, and the integrated LCD panel. But, that's not the impressive part of this watch...it's all the features that it has: world time, timer, full auto-calendar (up to 2099), backlight, solar (with an energy saving feature that allows it to operate for up to 22 months on a single charge), stopwatch, alarm(s), atomic clock synchronizing, automatic timezone adjustment. And then there is the case and bracelet: all titanium, with a sapphire crystal. The price? Depending on the variant $150-$200 USD. Lineage watches are a “JDM” (Japanese Domestic Market) line of watches. So, getting them imported and still being a fraction of the price of similar watches from Seiko, Citizen, and others is quite remarkable. Not to mention that they are fraction of the price of many Swiss and European watches, and are just generally a more solid value. (There are some other things that I will discuss in another article that put them above literally any other mechanical watch.)

Of course, these are not smartwatches. They don't have health tracking sensors, and they don't integrate with your phone for notifications, or media control, or anything like that. However, from my perspective it's important to actually place smartwatches in the context to the broader watch market, as will become clear throughout the remainder of this article.

Now, there is a Casio-shaped elephant that I am not covering here: the G-Shock line. They are really forerunner to the smartwatch, having many of the features that the Pebble is focused on bringing out. And, in fact, they also have models that incorporate some of the important features of the above watches. But, their Ana-Digi watches don't look as nice as the Lineage to me, and I personally didn't want to wear a digital watch all the time...so I haven't gone too far into them yet (although I do have an GBD-200).

Next we have to talk about the Apple-shaped elephant of the smartwatch world: the Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch Is More Impressive Than You Know

Deutsches-uhrenmuseum, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The disruption to watchmaking caused by the Apple Watch was not a completely new event in the annals of watchmaking. The first such event was the Christmas Surprise of 1969 when Seiko released the Astron: the first mass market quartz watch. The Astron achieved a greater accuracy than the majority of mechanical watches, and was able to run for up to a year on a single battery. Something no mechanical watch could achieve.

This event sent shock waves through the Swiss and European watchmaking industries, but many watchmakers seemingly ignored the importance of the watch. Within a few years the mechanical watches had lost a large portion of their market share as quartz watches became easier to manufacture, were more readily available to the public, and were much less expensive than mechanical watches.

This caused a large scale reorganization, consolidation and refocusing of the mechanical watchmaking industry. Instead of being the ubiquitous objects that many people needed, they became niche objects and luxury items.

Apple Watch photo by Terminator216, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Then just 45 years after the release of the Astron, Apple released the first Apple Watch. In a few short years, the Apple Watch's market share grew to an astonishing level, taking the majority share of quartz watch market (both analog and digital watches), as well as many of the health tracking devices, and further eroding a portion of the luxury mechanical watchmaking industry. (Apple managed to out-sell all Swiss watchmakers combined in 2020.)

Many watchmakers and watch collectors and aficionados dismissed the Apple Watch as not being a real or serious watch. There are several reasons for this: (a) the device doesn't “feel” like a watch, (b) they don't see its primary use is as a timekeeping device, instead focusing on other functions like health monitoring, media control, and notification display, as well as a myriad of other applications the watches can run, and © the fact that it is tethered to a cell phone to provide much of this functionality.

And while certainly all of this is true, it is a way to dodge the fact that Apple went to great lengths to make the Apple Watch a timekeeping piece that exceeds COSC certification standards, and most of the quartz watches on the market. In an article in Mashable from 2015 (Here's how Apple synchronized all your Apple Watches), Apple's VP of Technology, Kevin Lynch, outlined a number of the features of the Apple Watch that are fairly impressive.

First, the Apple Watch does actually have a self-contained quartz movement. Next, in order to maintain that accuracy they curated their own global network of Stratum One NTP (Network Time Protocol) servers (these servers are only a single step away from an atomic clock). Third they implemented a temperature control crystal oscillator to compensate for changes in temperature. The end result is the Apple Watch is accurate within 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) of Universal Standard Time. While this might not sound impressive consider that typical quartz watches from Casio are accurate to approximately +/– 20 seconds per month (which is around 0.5 seconds a day), and COSC Certified mechanical watches average −4/+6 seconds per day. (Ed. Note: the article doesn't mention the quartz movement. However, the crystal oscillator temperature control is only necessary if there is a quartz movement.)

Certainly, there are quartz watches that rival the Apple Watch in terms of accuracy. In fact, there are some watches that actually have their own miniaturized atomic clocks built into them, which are considered to be the most accurate in the world, but they are also exceptionally expensive (the Hoptrof No. 16 was $24,000 in 2015).

Now with all this context, lets talk about the Pebble and some of the issues that it faces.

Reviving The Pebble Smartwatch

The Pebble smartwatch was definitely ahead of it's time in 2013 when it came to market (after doing a Kickstarter fundraising campaign in 2012). It actually hit the market two years before the Apple Watch, so it's only real competition were some of the wearable devices from the likes of IBM, Sony Ericson, and Fossil (amongst other early attempts at bringing smartwatches to market in the 1990s and 2000s).

Today, however, I think it is best to take a long look at both the Smartwatch and Wristwatch markets to identify the key items that a revived Pebble should try to achieve. Here is the list of things that I would want rePebble to consider as they work on reviving their Smartwatch:

• Power usage / recharging
• Privacy & App Issues
• Standalone usage Vs. Tethering
• Timekeeping Accuracy
• There is still a Pebble

Let's take a look at each of these topics.

There Is Still a Pebble Smartwatch

I hadn't mentioned this so far, but while researching and gathering materials for writing this piece, I came across a website for a company that still is selling watches under the Pebble brand. This doesn't appear to some fly-by-night operation either. My guess would be that through the long process of properties being split up and sold off this company somehow ended up with the right to use the Pebble name.

The company appears to be in Bengaluru, India. I don't personally know the status of India when it comes to copyright, trademarks, or other so-called “intellectual property” issues, it would seem to me that it would likely be best to avoid a situation where there could be a conflict. Don't really want to see lawyers having to get involved in some form of international trademark legal fight before you've even gotten your product to market.

Power Usage

The current state of cellphone and smartwatch power usage is absolute insanity to me. The fact that most of these devices need to be charged via a cable or “wireless” connection is utterly ridiculous. Solar wristwatches have existed since 1972 (The History of Solar Powered Watches). Over the past 50 years, the advancements in solar technology by Seiko, Casio and especially Citizen have made it to the point where there's no need to make adjustments to many of these watches for months at a time.

Now, I know you might be thinking “but the power requirements of a smartwatch are different from a wristwatch”, and I would partially agree with that. However, when we look at hybrid watches they have a fairly intense power usage to actually run a motor to move a second hand, which could deplete the battery. So, look at watches like the Casio Lineage watch mentioned above: it will sleep at night in order to preserve the power it would use to run the motor... But it still keeps the other internal functions operational so it is always in sync.

The advancements in microprocessor manufacturing (getting down to 4nm process nodes) along with the advancements SoC technology should enable the Pebble to go a lot further than it has in the past.

The lowered power consumption of embedded processors and SoC's, along with improvements in solar technology and energy storage should allow creating a device that can recharge itself from available light on a daily basis. And, given that most customers will likely wear these watches daily, there shouldn't be an issue.

I do understand that there will be technical challenges to this decision. But even those challenges likely have solutions. We have sleep modes, connections can be closed when not in use, etc. I don't think those challenges should prevent creating a smartwatch that is solar-powered.

Privacy Issues

As I noted above, one of the biggest issues I had with many of the Smartwatches on the market today were the fitness tracking applications. The amount of information that the user is having to give up in order to track their health information is insane.

If there is going to be a specific app for the new Pebble, please make it open source. Also, please contribute to the existing open source applications that are available (one of the best seems to be Gadgetbridge, which I'm guessing you are aware of since it has Pebble support).

I think the biggest thing to do in this area is: develop the new Pebble as a privacy respecting application. Do not place your customers in the position of having a recommended application that will sell their information. This is something that is worth emphasizing in announcements regarding the device. And, reaching out to privacy respecting open source applications as you work through the development process will help generate more good will.

Standalone Usage

While one of the more appealing aspects to smartwatch customers is the ability to tether their watch to their phone to enable some extended functionality, the new Pebble should make it a priority to be a “watch” at it's core before being “smart”.

Let me explain my thought process here. The wristwatch market has created devices that have stood the test of time, quite literally. There are watches from the 1500s that are still in existence today (although whether they are functional, or accurate is another matter). We regularly see watches that are 50–100 years old that are still functioning.

Today many smartwatches (and cellphones) are seen as disposable devices. Every few years people run out to buy the latest Samsung Galaxy watch or Apple Watch because of “cool new feature X”. And many of the old devices end up in landfills.

But, this doesn't need to be the case. Yes, adding new features and releasing new devices is part of the business cycle. But committing to a longer lifespan is something to aspire to.

There are two ways to do this: (1) develop the firmware and software in a manner that allows for older devices to be updated, and (2) design the hardware and software in a manner that it can have minimal functionality past it's EOL as a smart device.

In other words: focus on the watch functionality. Even when the device cannot support being tethered to a phone anymore, let it exist as a top-quality wristwatch. Have it use GPS and Atomic Clock radio signals to keep time in sync. Have built in timers, alarms, stop watch, perpetual calendar, etc. features.

I have this extreme scenario in the back of my head when it comes to wristwatches: how useful is a watch going to be if the national infrastructure were to disappear? What if I can't get batteries for my watches? What if there is no one to service a mechanical movement? How long could my watch last and be useful?

This is where I think design choices are important. Solar charging allows the use of a watch for probably a good ten to twenty years without batteries. Making a digital quartz movement removes the need for maintenance of the movement. Being able to sync to an atomic clock via radio signal (not over the internet) means I should have accuracy for a while (the military radios aren't likely to go offline immediately).

Even if that kind of scenario doesn't happen, a smartwatch that can function without a phone is still useful. It can be passed down to family members, especially children who don't need to have all the smartwatch functionality.

This is the kind of thought and design that will make for a device that will be able to last for a long time.

Timekeeping Accuracy

I mentioned this above, and these two points are actually interconnected. A smartwatch should be able to keep more accurate time than a cellphone. This should be somewhat obvious: runners and joggers will want to have accurate times for their activities. Anyone that needs to use a stopwatch will want it to be as accurate as possible.

It takes more than just a simple quartz movement to enable this functionality. Syncing the time to an atomic clock, accounting for drift and skew, using temperature, altitude, air pressure and other sensors to compensate for external environmental issues that can affect the accuracy of the movement / calibre is important.

As I mentioned above, Apple spent a lot of time developing a number of these items for their Watch. While it may (or may not) be as impressive ten years after the first Apple Watch hit the shelves, the fact is that timekeeping was a core focus when developing their watch. The new Pebble should take the same approach, leveraging as much watchmaking knowledge and technology as possible.

Conclusion

Thank you if you have read this far. I know that it was a lot to take in, and there were a lot of thoughts that I have put on the page in the hopes that it will help to guide the developers of the new Pebble. But, I think this article can go a lot further with how we think about both watches and connected devices.

The fact is that a lot of watches have a very long life cycle. Yes, they do need maintenance – whether it's the changing of a battery in a quartz watch, or re-calibration / maintenance of a mechanical movement.

It's my hope, however, that this article shows anyone who is interested in watches that there is a different way to go. There is a way to have modern features and longevity, instead of treating smartwatches as disposable tech. The concept that a watch should be treated in the same manner as a piece of a fast-fashion clothing is disturbing. We can do better. We need to do better.

The new Pebble offers that opportunity.

Categories: #Technology, #Features, #Opinion, #Editorial Tags: #atomic, #atomicclock, #business, #calendar, #calibre, #device, #devices, #digital, #movement, #pebble, #quartz, #repebble, #smartwatch, #smartwatches, #solar, #stopwatch, #time, #wristwatch

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Introduction: The Story So Far…

NOTE: This article was started before NPR and PBS decided that it was time to leave Twitter.

I recently emailed NPR regarding the situation with their Twitter account being labeled as “state sponsored”. In said letter, I did bother going through and summarizing all the things that the media has put up with on Twitter in just the five months since Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform. So, here is a summary:

Since the original labeling of NPR as “state sponsored”, Twitter (really Elon Musk) has relented (somewhat) and changed the label to read “Government Funded”. This label has also been applied to PBS. (The Hill: Twitter drops ‘state-affiliated’ label from NPR after backlash) During this whole kerfuffle, one of the better known NPR stations, KCRW, decided to leave Twitter as they felt the platform was no longer a trustworthy.

At the same time, Twitter also started blocking replies, likes, and retweets to posts that contain links to Substack articles (Ars Technica: The dumb reason Twitter won’t allow retweeting tweets linking to Substack). The reason for this is a perceived challenge by a new Substack feature called “Notes” that is similar to Twitter in appearance, but is tied to Substack’s subscription model (The Verge: Substack is getting tweets — err, ‘Notes’).

Meanwhile, it is being reported that Twitter is no longer restricting the reach of Chinese and Russian state sponsored media outlets (Semafore: Twitter is no longer policing Russian and Chinese state-backed media).

And, of course, there is the pettiness of removing The New York Times’s verified check-mark, after the news organization stated they would not be paying Musk’s exorbitant extortion to keep the mark.

But, while the assault on media outlets that has occurred over the past few days should be seen as quite alarming to the media at large, it isn’t even the beginning. All the way back in November, Playbill left Twitter citing an expanded tolerance of hate and misinformation (The Hollywood Reporter: Playbill Leaves Twitter, Says Platform Now Blurs “Actual News and Insidious Rhetoric”). CBS News halted Tweeting for a day because of the “uncertainty” about the platform.

And, in mid-December, Elon banned the accounts of reporters from the New York Times, Washington Post, Voice of America, CNN, Mashable, The Intercept and several freelance journalists over their reporting on his banning of the ElonJet account a few days earlier (The Verge: Elon Musk starts banning critical journalists from Twitter).

And, just a few weeks ago, Twitter permanently banned the 165-year-old Globe Gazette newspaper from Mason City, Iowa without giving any reason. The account was restored a day later, but they lost all of their 6K followers, and were never given a reason as to why they were banned in the first place (Des Moines Register: 165-year-old Iowa newspaper’s Twitter account restored. Why it was banned remains a mystery).

And, even more recently, Twitter blocked 122 accounts at the request of the Indian government. Those accounts included several journalists: Pieter Friedrich, Sandeep Singh, Kamaldeep Singh Brar, and Gagandeep Singh. (rest of world: Twitter blocked 122 accounts in India at the government’s request).

And finally, in the most hilarious turn of them all… The Musk-hired “journalists” Matt Taibbi and Barry Weiss have been either fired or shadow-banned on Twitter. (TechDirt: After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files).

Re-Interpreting The Substack Story

While I initially interpreted the Substack story as just another of Elon’s odd little petty tantrums against a company offering a new feature to compete with Twitter, I’ve re-evaluated that perspective. The fact is, his tantrum was about more than just the Notes feature. The new offering from Substack served to directly undermine Elon’s plans for his “Twitter 2.0”.

It has been widely reported that Musk is seeking to turn Twitter into his vision of an “Everything” app. This has been something of an idea that goes back to his early days when developing what later became PayPal. And recently, he has signed an agreement with eToro to expand Twitter’s offerings in financial areas, like stock quotes, crypto market tracking, etc.

But what does this have to do with Substack? While not as apparent at first, Notes cuts deeper than it first appears. Elon wants Twitter to do everything: that includes publishing, and he has been taking steps to make this a reality.

First, sometime back, he announced that there was going to be a system for creators to get payouts. Then he expanded the size of Tweets and Videos for Twitter Blue subscribers. And, just in the last week, he announced large Tweets with a 10,000-character limit, and support for italics and underlining.

When you put all of these things together, it looks more and more like part of the system he was building was going to try to compete with Substack. And that lead him to make retaliatory moves against Substack when they added Notes: he saw that as an attempt to draw potential users of his publishing platform away.

Inflection Point

That was just an introduction to what Twitter has become where news media is concerned, since Elon Musk’s takeover. It’s a long way from the platform that was once described as the “public square” or the “town hall of the internet”. In fact, it appears that in his ideal world the journalists and reporters will turn to him to publish their work, instead of just using the platform to circulate works that are created on other (competing) platforms.

Elon’s Twitter is about controlling communication. Gaining Elon’s favor is the way to give your message a chance to be heard. And the best way to gain his favor is to (a) pay for the privilege, (b) not be critical of his statements and actions, and © make certain there isn’t someone else he favors more than you.

This is the absolute antithesis of the foundations of the free press. Elon is acting in a manner that is completely contrary to the foundation of American values. America was founded on the premise that we could have a self-governing country that wasn’t afraid of critical voices, and rejected dictatorial leadership.

Throughout the world, most countries have news media that are respected. It’s true that censorship laws, hate speech laws, and other legal barriers to completely independent news media do exist. However, for countries where the government does not directly interfere or direct the media, the threat of the current state of Twitter management should be seen as clear and imminent.

It is time for American media companies at a minimum, and global media companies to realize that they cannot and should not rely on the whims of social media companies. We are now at an inflection point. The current social media industry is turning it’s back on the forms of content and communication that the people want and need.

There have already been battles with Alphabet (Google) and Meta (Facebook) over the syndication of their content. YouTube is widely known for taking down content without reason. Instagram, TikTok, and other media companies have numerous issues that make them unreliable sources for independent news media.

Instead of focusing on communication, these companies are becoming obsessed with Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality (aka the Metaverse). Neither of these are technologies that are wanted or needed by the public at large. In fact, the utility of these technologies remains dubious at best. About the only real interest in them that the media should have is in reporting on them.

So, with this inflection point what should media companies be doing?

Leaving Twitter Is The First Step

As I sit here writing this, NPR and PBS have left Twitter. Several NPR member stations have also left Twitter. This is a start, and the best first step to take. It is time to start showing the social media companies that they aren’t needed.

But, just leaving Twitter isn’t enough. It’s time to think in a way that will allow you to be more independent and will allow you to build a presence beyond what you currently have.

What if you could have your own Twitter? Your own Instagram? Your own YouTube? And, how about the ability to have people that are on a Twitter-like platform be able to see the content posted on your website? Or what if these “Twitter-like” users could see your YouTube content?

In other words: what if there were little or no barriers between the platforms? You could publish to as many platforms as you wanted, and your audience could choose how they wanted to consume and interact with your content?

That’s where the next step comes in.

The Fediverse Is The Next Step

You have probably already heard of Mastodon and the Fediverse. You know that Mastodon is a Twitter-like platform that millions of former Twitter users fled to after Elon Musk’s takeover. But Mastodon is only one piece of the Fediverse.

The Fediverse is actually made up of many different platforms… In fact, more platforms than the current commercial social media websites offer. There are currently over thirty platforms available as part of the Fediverse.

And, the Fediverse has been steadily growing over the past 4–5 years. Here’s a graph of the growth in the user base of the Fediverse since 2019:

Fediverse User Growth from 2019 to 2023

As you can see, just since Nov. 2022 the number of users has nearly doubled in size. And it does not show signs of stopping, with literally thousands of new accounts created every hour.

And, these users are active too, as witnessed by the growth in posts since 2019, and especially since November 2022:

Fediverse Posts growth from 2019 to 2023

Now, this is not the biggest growth that any social network has experienced. However, it is very consistent growth. This consistent growth is what should make it an appealing proposition for news organizations to get in on. This is a place where you can start finding your audience now, build and define your presence on your terms.

Defining Your Presence

As mentioned, the Fediverse has many platforms available for any news / media organization to adopt in defining their presence. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of platforms:

• Microblogging (Twitter-like): Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey, GotoSocial.
• Macro blogging (Facebook-like): Firendica, Hubzilla
• Video Hosting (YouTube-Like): PeerTube
• Image Sharing (Instagram/TikTok-like): Pixelfed
• Audio / Podcasting (SoundCloud-like): FunkWhale
• Video Streaming (Twitch/YouTube-Like): OwnCast
• News Aggregation (Reddit-like): Lemmy
• Books/Reading: Bookwyrm

And more. Note that the comparisons to other social media platforms are just for reference. Each platform has its own unique flavor and objectives, they aren’t attempts at cloning the commercial products.

There are more options available as well. For example, websites that are built on WordPress or Drupal have plugins available that allow content to be published directly to the Fediverse, and can (optionally) allow responses to that content to be imported as comments on your website.

The really nice thing about all of these platforms: there are existing instances (servers) available that you can use to test out the services. You don’t have to go into Fediverse blind, you can take some time and develop a plan to bring your presence to this much more open, transparent platform.

Developing A Fediverse Adoption Plan

My recent email to NPR contained a brief overview of a plan that could be taken for building a presence on the Fediverse. The point of the plan was to make it a no-pressure situation. Small steps can be taken, and the platforms evaluated in order to make informed decisions that will make for a more successful transition and adoption of the Fediverse.

Let’s take a look at a plan that should help with a successful adoption. Note, however, there is one caveat to any planned migration: don’t compare Fediverse platforms to their commercial brethren. The reason that comparison aren’t useful is they tend to either (a) be skin-deep, and (b) they miss the real depth and usefulness of the Fediverse.

So, with that being said, here are four steps that will help make for a successful transition.

One: Join Some Existing Platforms

Your organization can start making itself known on the Fediverse by using the platforms that are already available. In particular, there are two that are dedicated to journalists and reporters:

• Journa.Host
• Newsie Social

These two platforms offer a nice starting environment for Journalists to start interacting with the Fediverse. It might seem to be slow-going at first, but with a nice introduction post, and a few posts about articles they are writing or researching, they are sure to start building a following. Many reporters / journalists from ProPublica are members of Newsie, and they have built followings in the thousands already – even the ones that haven’t posted more than one or two posts.

But, that’s an important point: they need to be active and interact on the Fediverse. There is no algorithm to recommend their accounts to anyone. Making certain they have hashtags relevant to their work in the profile and introduction post will help people find them. But, interaction is the key: being a genuine person and talking to people is the way to get a lot of value from spending time here.

Now, I mentioned Journa.host and Newsie Social for reporters and journalists. But your organization will likely want to have non-journalists join the Fediverse as well. In the “Defining Your Presence” section, I listed off over half a dozen other platforms that some will want to consider joining. I’d recommend sticking to the Microblogging and Macro blogging platforms, although something like PixelFed might be of interest too.

And, a key point to remember: you can always follow people on platforms that aren’t the one you are on. So, if you create an account on GotoSocial, you can still follow people on Journa.Host and Newsie Social, or any other instance.

There will definitely be some learning curve. But, post frequently, read through some posts under various hashtags, and interact with people, and there will be a tipping point where it all becomes a lot easier, and rewarding.

Two: Distribute Content

There are many ways to go about distributing the content you create on the Fediverse. The easy, less permanent way is to use a bot to read content from RSS feeds and post them to the Fediverse.

There are instances available specifically for this purpose, one such instance is Bots In Space. You can create accounts on this instance for each of your feeds, and set up a key to allow your RSS feeder script to publish new articles to the account. (Setting up these feeds is not something that I can explain easily in this article. However, Mastodon has excellent documentation, and there are numerous articles and examples of publishing from RSS feeds to Mastodon.)

Another way to handle this without having to set up anything is to have someone do it manually. In many cases, this is likely to not be a viable option. However, it could be a viable experiment. Say you chose to have someone post a few articles a day to an “official” account to see what kind of following and feedback they receive.

The final option is to add ActivityPub into your publishing system. Two of the more popular content management systems (WordPress and Drupal) have support for ActivityPub via plugins that are readily available. Automattic, the company behind WordPress, has hired the developer of the ActivityPub plugin and is working to implement direct support into their products.

Three: Setting Up A Fediverse Native Presence

While the first step of having some of an organization's staff use the current instances offered on the Fediverse is good, extending your organization to the Fediverse itself will have a number of long-term benefits.

For example, starting your own instance of Mastodon or another microblogging platform will allow people from your organization to have a presence that identifies them immediately with your organization. And, that instance allows you to set the standards for communication in the social world (something that is very likely already in place for your organization).

There are more benefits: you will be able to get feedback from your audience. If you choose to, you can have a customer service department as part of your presence. There are a nearly infinite number of options in this area.

But it doesn’t end there. You can add more platforms for other types of content. For example, if you have podcasts, you might want to add a FunkWhale instance. If you have video content, you might want to set up an instance of PeerTube (which would also allow you to import videos that you have already made available on YouTube). If you have a lot of photographic content, you might want to set up a Pixelfed instance.

The options are wide open. You can set up as many platforms as you want, or just have a single platform for social interaction, and use your preferred content management platform to publish your media to the Fediverse.

Conclusion

This has been a roller-coaster of an article. From taking a brief look at all the media related events that have occurred since Elon Musk took over Twitter just six months ago, to diving deeper into the Substack story and understanding where Twitter is going under Elon Musk.

The most logical conclusion is somewhat challenging. Elon is trying to make his “everything” platform, which includes trying to attract amateur writers to publish alongside well respected news and media organizations. And, in the event that a media company isn’t willing to pay the fees that Elon wants for Twitter Blue verification, then those posts are deprioritized

(As an aside, something that we didn’t cover in this story is the changes to the API’s. They affect the media too, as many of the tools that are being used likely rely on those APIs for publishing stories. So, in the case of most media organizations, this is an additional cost beyond Twitter Blue.)

This kind of “pay for play” combined with the elevation of many writers that are anywhere from amateur to potentially incompetent is something that news media organizations should not continue to endorse. And sticking with Twitter is endorsing this new “pay for play” model.

What is even worse about this model is that it allows for the elevation of messages that are reflective of the worst parts of society. And, in fact, Elon has shown himself to be perfectly willing to align himself with people that support these kinds of messages. Bringing well respected news media outlets in line with many racists, antisemitic, sexist, and other types of speech.

So, this is the inflection point for Twitter 2.0. Elon's changes are making it more obvious that there is going to be a very different structure to Twitter – it's no longer going to be a platform where all voices are equal. It's no longer where the voices that are elevated are those that the masses deem should be elevated. It's a place where you can pay to have your voice elevated.

If this is the kind of environment that well respected news and media outlets want to be a part of, so be it. For those that don't, the Fediverse is waiting. The Fediverse offers the opportunity to engage with an audience that is open and receptive to respectful reporting. It's also self-moderating, keeping the worst messaging from being on equal footing with the worst messaging out there. And, it's a place where you can choose how your organization is represented. There are plenty of opportunities in the continuously growing Fediverse.

Categories: #Technology, #Opinion #Editorial Tags: #fediverse, #mastodon, #media, #news, #socialmedia, #twitter

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Introduction

I don't think I've really spent any time in the past writing personal “year in review” articles on my sites. Yes, I might have done year-end looks at things like the best or most popular reviews I had written, or written about things that I felt were overlooked. But, those were on sites that had specific themes so it was appropriate, at least to the way I felt at the time.

However, a generalized look back is not something that I tend to do. But I think given the nature of Unattributed, it seems more important now. However, I don't want it to just be a listing of a bunch of news stories, or a list of things that happened during the year. I am choosing instead to write about things that felt more personal to me, for whatever reason.

Remembrances

I think the place to start is with those who are no longer with us. In particle a couple of musicians I don't feel were honored as much in life or death as they should have been.

The first was the passing of Klaus Schulze, the electronic musician who was one of the founders of what would become known as the Berlin School of electronic music. He was a pioneer, starting before synthesizers and electronic instruments were even widely available to musicians, and even if they had been, they were the subject of much ridicule amongst “serious” musicians. He got his start as the drummer in one of the early lineups of Tangerine Dream, but parted ways with them when Edgar Froese rejected the idea of introducing tape loops into their sound (which Schulze had advocated). While the two parted ways, they remained friends, and Schulze would even joke about their friendship at times. For example, Schulze once said in an interview that he and Froese had conspired to divide their world conquests by Froese touring in the West, while Schulze toured mostly in the East.

Some of the recordings that have meant the most to over the years are Audentity, Beyond Recall, Timewind and Trancefer. These were all recordings that I found at just the right times in my life where I needed the calming, minimalist effect of Klaus's compositions. In addition to these recordings I've loved The Dresden Performance, and The Dome Event since I first heard them. In reviewing his releases to write a larger piece that remains incomplete (and will likely be completely re-written before it is released) I found two more that have taken on a special place in my listening, those are In Blue and Eternal – The 70th Birthday Edition.

Anyone who loves electronic music should really listen to Klaus Schulze if they aren't already familiar with his work. A career that spanned over six decades, and has been the inspired many contemporary electronic artists deserves to be elevated by all listeners.

Another musician, and an electronic musician to boot, that passed in 2022 was Vangelis. He was probably most known for the soundtracks to Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire. However, I knew of his works since my college days, especially Albedo 0.39, China, and Opera Sauvage. But, that was just the beginning for me with his works, because I later found that he had collaborated with Jon Anderson of Yes, and had produced several albums under the name Jon and Vangelis, a partnership which saw the unlikely duo produce a hit song: “I'll Find My Way Home”, and would take a rather amusing turn as Vangelis attempted to become a member of Yes.

In picking up some of his later releases, I have found an album called The City to be absolutely spellbinding. It is such a cinematic work that I initially mistook it for a movie soundtrack. And, I really wanted to see that movie, so much so that I went looking for it on IMDB, only to later find out that The City was actually a standalone work by Vangelis.

And the final one that I wanted to mention, mostly because it wouldn't get a notice in the United States, was the passing of English actor and comedian Peter Bowles. For those who watched a lot of British TV in the 80s and 90s Bowles would be known for his roles in shows like To The Manner Born, I, Claudius, Rumpole of The Bailey, and Executive Stress. Surprisingly (to me at least) the only reason I found out of this actors passing is because of an appearance he made on The Sarah Jane Adventures, which brought him into the Doctor Who universe.

While there were many others who passed in 2022 (like Barbara Walters, Pele, Irene Cara, Christine McVie, Taylor Hawkins and Kirstie Alley, just to name a few), I feel that the above are ones that will not get nearly the attention that they should, and are worth memorializing.

My Personal Goals

So, how did I do on my goals for this past year? Honestly, not all that well. Even the smaller things that I should have been able to accomplish, like reading a reasonable number of books, or writing a lot in a journal. It just didn't happen. Then there are the bigger things: like overhauling and re-modelling this house, or getting back to the gym and working on my health in general.

Now, I won't say that all of this was an absolute failure. For example, I did actually write more in my journal last year than I had in the previous four years combined. And I can say, that there were other things that I managed to accomplish — things that I won't really talk about here. However, they were things that were related to the estates of my parents, and now that they are settled all of that can be placed in my past.

And, I realized that there is something else going on with me. There is something keeping me from getting to the bigger projects that I want, and even need, to tackle. So, this is something that I am seeking help with in the new year (I actually started a couple of months back — but I'll keep that as a goal for this year).

One of the things that I think I have recently realized is that I abandoned something that I need. I need something to keep my life in a sense of structure. I need to have something that will keep me going from day to day, keep me motivated and focused. That's what I have lost, and something that I need to find again.

Okay, enough of the personal dribble from me.

What Did I Do?

So, what things did I accomplish? Well, I managed to get most of these websites reorganized — except for a couple of them. This means that I was able to launch this site and I wrote some articles on it. Not as much as I want to write, but I did manage to publish a few pieces.

And, I got lost in messing with mechanical keyboards, and launched a site for that as well. However, I drifted away from mechanical keyboards as another of my older hobbies / interests took over: music and stereo equipment. I started writing a bit about that on here, and it's a topic that I will be returning to this year.

And, keep in mind, that most of this happened while I had other things going on in the background — so I don't blame myself for getting too distracted. :)

News Stories That Capture My Attention

So this is the last thing that I wanted to write about in here: a few of the new stories / issues that have managed to grab my attention.

The most obvious only is Elon Musk's Acquisition of Twitter, and the Ensuing Disaster. I don't know why, but there is something about a train wreck that just can grab your attention. In this case, it was the combination of not only the hilarity of some of Elon's truly disastrous decisions, but the positive effect that it has had for Mastodon specifically, and the Fediverse in general.

The January 6th Committee Hearings. I watched all of them as they were broadcast. And it was a roller-coaster. The Committee managed to pull together things that were surprising and even shocking. For example, getting documentary footage of one of the militant groups actively canvassing the capitol before the rally had even started. Seeing Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony live on camera for citizens of this country to have a real inside look at how the White House and the staff were reacting to the events as they unfolded. Having several poll workers who had been threatened for no legitimate reason to testify. Getting several State representatives to testify to the pressure campaign that Donald Trump and his agents put on them to over-turn the election results in his favor. And so much more information.

I haven't read the final report yet. That's on my list for reading soon (Like probably just after I finish the current book I started.)

Oh, and we can't forget about the further Absurdities of Donald Trump this year. First for getting raided because he took classified documents from the White House when he left. Then he started a court battle to slow down the investigation into those documents. Then, when things started heating up with the January 6th Committee, he decided it was time to announce that he was running for office again — seemingly betting that would get the Justice Department and Federal Investigators to back off. And, if all of that were absurd enough he announced his own line of NFTs...which leads us into....

The Collapse of Cryptocurrency including FTX. Boy this wasn't the year for Cryptocurrency. There have been a number of scammers and grifters all over those markets. And, one and another, they kept blowing up and failing over and over. And all of this during one of the biggest down turns in the market. Not to mention the Instability of the Stock Market which has had major effects on the whole economy, not just the United States, but all over the world.

The Resignation of Boris Johnson who was then replaced by Liz Truss as Prime Minister, who then resigned after 45 days in office. And all of this happening during the period of the Death of Queen Elizabeth II. To say that it was a politically tumultuous summer / fall in England would be the understatement of the year.

Oh, and all of this taking place while Russia invaded Ukraine and started a War. Which, despite the loss of life and the sheer tragedy the Ukrainian people are going through, might also be seen as one of the most inspiring stories of the year. At the outset of the conflict no one believed that Ukraine could sustain a fight with Russia. But, Ukraine has proven time and time again how resilient they are. Not just holding back Russian troops, but actually getting them to withdraw from several positions. And, even providing a bit of humor at times, like when a small coastal island off the Ukraine mainland told a Russian Warship to “Go fuck yourself” over an open radio broadcast.

The End...of 2022

And that's where I am going to leave it for now. Overall it seems like 2022 wasn't all that great of a year. But there are things, like the resilience of Ukraine that should give us all hope for 2023. For me personally, I hope that I have hit a turning point with the realization that I needed to start doing something different. That I needed to get some kind of help. And, hopefully, now that all the things that kept popping up and disrupting my life are out of the way I can move forward.

Categories: #Features, #Opinion, #Editorial Tags: #2022, #mastodon, #news, #remmbrance #inmemoriam

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Introduction

[NOTE: Quite a few things in this article have changed since it was originally published. This article is being left in its original form mostly for the history it represents.]

In Part One of this series we looked at the criticism that the signup process is cumbersome. It's a fair criticism, so we looked at the process, and I provided a shortcut for signing up. In this article we turn to the other major criticisms of Mastodon.

Since the beginning of the Twitter Exodus / Migration there have been several sites that attracted attention. Mastodon has possibly been the most impacted by this migration because of its similarity in appearance to Twitter. Of course, with this attention there will be people who are not happy about the differences that exist, and find it appropriate to criticize the platform.

Some of these criticisms are fair, however many of them actually underscore the difference between Twitter and Mastodon. And those differences, are what make Mastodon special, and in many people's opinion special. So, let's talk about these criticisms.

Too Many Instances Makes Mastodon Complicated

No, it really doesn't. Actually, having as many instances as possible is a strength of Mastodon. There are, in fact, several specific strengths that having so many instances brings.

The first strength is that individual instances can focus on building a community around a specific topic, interest, or need. For instance there are instances for writers, artists, members of the LGBTQA+ community, activists, and journalists. By having these instances it makes it easier for people who having things in common to find each other.

And, for some of those communities, it makes it easier for the moderation policies to be adjusted to handle the specific needs of those communities. For example, creating safe-spaces for members of the LGBTQA+ community.

But, there is another strength in this, with multiple instances there is a guarantee that there is no one person calling all the shots. The shape of the network is the work of multiple people who are highly motivated to make the network into something special.

The final benefit is that if you aren't happy with one instance, you aren't tied to it. You can migrate to another instance that has policies that fit you better. And, you can take your followers with you – just download them from your current instance, and upload them to your new instance.

No Single Administrator for The Network

This is something that should be seen as a major benefit given the current state of Twitter. Since there is no single person responsible for the whole network there is a better chance of actually being able to communicate with the person responsible for your instance.

When I was on traditional social media sites, there were many times when it would have been normal to actually have direct contact with someone to address an issue. But the way most of these social media companies are operated, it's only the people with the largest impact on the site that have any ability to work with a representative from the company.

However, Mastodon is different. The administrator for your instance is known to you. You can send them direct messages. They can investigate issues on your behalf. And, many times, if it is warranted the administrator will take action. Why? Because it is in their interest to do so. The Admins of Mastodon want to create the best environment they can for their users.

If the issue involves another instance, the Admin can work with the admin of that other instance. If the issue is much bigger in scope (such as an instance that is posting illegal materials, or whatever) that can be addressed at the network level — the administrators have tools for handling these things.

The fact is, by having multiple administrators, it's more likely that issues get addressed and resolved, instead of festering is some support queue for months on end.

There Are No Quote Posts / Toots

[Note: This has changed. Most platforms, including Mastodon, now offer Quote Posts.]

That is correct. There aren't quote posts. Why? Because this feature on Twitter is widely abused, and is the antithesis of what Mastodon has built for a social environment.

Quote Tweets have frequently been used to offer snarky or negative commentary on a person's post without contributing to the conversation. Instead, this often leads to dog piling, brigading and ratio'ing of the original post. This is the kind of negative behavior that is not being encouraged on Mastodon.

Instead, if you have a counter-point or argument, reply to the original post. Do it respectfully. Through directly exchanging opinions and perspectives all parties involved in the post can learn things.

Honestly, you won't miss quote-posts after a little bit.

Content Warnings Are Stupid

Admittedly, Content Warnings are controversial. There are some people that feel you should never have to use them, and others that feel they should be used more frequently than they are. Personally, I find there are times to use them, and times that they probably don't need to be used.

So, how do I approach this? There are two times that I will use them:

1. When talking about more sensitive topics, like SA, Self harm, politics, religion, etc. This one is a little bit tricky to know when to use them – but when you participate in these kinds of topics you get a feel for when it is appropriate. Rule of thumb: if something could be a trigger, it's a good idea to use a content warning...

2. When a post might cause problems for people using assistive technology. One that was pointed out to me recently was posting Wordle results. For people using screen readers it's horrible to hit one of those posts... They have to listen to “colon <emote name> colon” repeated thirty times. It gets worse if you post other similar games along with Wordle (like SquareWord or QuadWord).

So, while Content Warnings aren't the most obvious feature to use – there are times / contexts in which it makes sense to use them.

There's No Verification

There is no formalized verification. However, there is a way to link to other presences you have on the Internet. For example, my Mastodon profile shows the following:

The green highlight is the verification that I have control of this website. This was done by inserting a link into this website's code that links back to my Mastodon profile. How this is done is found in the Settings->Profile for your Mastodon account:

We are starting to see other services pop that offer verification of this type. For example, tonight I found PressCheck, which provides credentials for journalists that have moved to Mastodon, and provides this same back-link to their profiles.

Inconsistent Moderation Policies

Now let's be clear about something. All the Mastodon instances that are listed on the official Join Mastodon website have agreed to the Mastodon Server Covenant. This is a requirement to be allowed to have an entry in the database.

Beyond the Mastodon Server Covenant, the administrators of each instance are at liberty to implement moderation policies / rules that are the best fit for the community that they want to build. This flexibility is actually powerful and important in the Mastodon network. This allows Administrators to do things like create safe spaces for members of the LGBTQA+ community. It allows administrators to choose whether NSFW content is allowed or disallowed on their instance. More importantly, it allows them to set the policy for how these rules are enforced.

When you go to sign up for an account you are shown the rules for the instance. It's typically a fairly short list that doesn't take long to read. If you don't agree with something in the rules, find a different instance with rules you don't have an issue with.

If you create an account on an instance, only to find you don't like the way it is being run, you are free to migrate to another instance. The Mastodon documentation as a whole section on Moving or Leaving Accounts.

Finding people isn't as easy as other social sites

Is finding someone on Twitter easy when you don't know anyone? Not really. But with Mastodon it really isn't more difficult. There are a few things you can do:

1. You can use tools like Debirdify or Movetodon to find others who have migrated from Twitter to Mastodon.
2. Adding “Featured Hashtags” to your profile will help in curating you home timeline to include content that is likely to be of interest to you.
3. You can follow a hashtag, just like you follow other users. Just search for the hashtag, and above the results will be a little button to follow the hashtag (it looks like the follow user button).

So, there are ways to find people on Mastodon, by actually looking for the content that interests you.

Direct Messages aren’t really direct messages

They are direct messages, but it might not be quite the way you think of direct messages. On Mastodon a direct message is one that is sent between you and the people you list / mention in the message.

Think of it this way... Email allows you to have direct one-on-one communication. But, if you CC or BCC someone, then that person is able to take part in the conversation as well. Mastodon's direct messages work in this same manner.

Direct Messages aren’t private / encrypted

As explained above, Direct Messages are (mostly) as private as you make them. Yes, an administrator could potentially see your private messages, but they generally would not be likely to look at them unless there is a specific need to.

As for messages not being encrypted.... Guess who else doesn't have encrypted DM's? Try Twitter. Encryption of DM's has been a feature they have tried to add several times. However, they have found that the need to have some kind of personal information for generating the keys to encrypt the messages to be a stumbling block.

In general, outside of messaging applications that specifically offer encryption (like Matrix and Telegram), don't expect your Direct Messages are encrypted.

Conclusion

If you have read this far into the article, congratulations! Hopefully you have a better understanding that many of the criticisms of Mastodon aren't really bad things. They are just differences between Mastodon and Social Platform X.

In many cases, the choices that have been made for Mastodon actually make it a more powerful and flexible network. For example, having so many instances and different rules / moderation policies make the communities of that instance stronger and/or safer for the users of that instance. And, having so many Administrators means that you have more access to the person(s) running your instance.

In some cases things are just different, like the way Direct Messages work, the use of Content Warnings, or how you find people to follow and talk with.

None of this is to say that there isn't room for improvement, or other features that can be added to the system. For example, adding encrypted direct messages is a desired feature that is likely to be addressed by the developers in the future.

One of the exciting things about being part of the Mastodon network is that you can have some influence in its direction. The developers are aware of things that are talked about / requested. And they look for ways to add features that satisfy the needs of as many users as possible.

In the next part of this series we'll try to get you up to speed on using Mastodon. We'll offer a series of etiquette examples for Mastodon (such as the one I touch on here regarding the use of Content Warnings), and then move into some of the power-user tips (such as following hashtags).

Categories: #Technology #Features Tags: #mastodon #socialmedia #socialnetwork #twitter #twitterexodus #twittermigration

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Introduction

With the recent upheaval at Twitter many people have decided that it's time to find a new community. While numerous sites have grabbed people's attention including Post News, Hive, Tumblr, etc. My choice is: Mastodon. However, as is always the case with something that is new, there are questions and concerns that people have with a new community.

And, that is expected. Not all social networks are designed the same way, they each have their own flavor. While Mastodon bears a similar look to Twitter in some respects, there are quite a few things that are very different about it. These differences range from how you sign up, to how you find and interact with others, to how you (and the moderators) deal with bad behavior.

So, what are the best ways to get on to Mastodon, and how can you make it into a meaningful experience for you? That's one of the topics we'll explore in this series of articles. The other topic is: dispelling some of the myths that have arisen with the rise in popularity of Mastodon.

Migrating To Mastodon Issues

The most common criticism of Mastodon is that it is difficult to get started. This stems from the fact that some people find the sign-up process to be difficult. The irony is that the current sign-up process was intended to accomplish a couple of goals:

1. It was designed to make it easier for new users to find groups of people that share common interests.
2. It was designed to make the distribution of users, and therefore the load / usage of the instances more even.

However, the criticism of this system is not without merit. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok have a simple signup process because they are a single, monolithic service run by a single entity (typically a business). Mastodon isn't a single entity, it is a collective of entities spread throughout the world that chose to interoperate in the Mastodon Federation.

So, let's take a look at starting a Mastodon account and getting started.

And, if you find that the process is getting a bit too involved for you, scroll down to the section A Faster Way.

Signing Up For Mastodon

There are two ways to sign up for Mastodon: (1) via the official Mastodon App on Android or iPhone, or (2) via the Join Mastodon website. The second method will apply to people using third party apps (like Tusky, Tooot, Fedilab on Android, and Tootle, Metatext, Tooot on iPhone).

Using the Official Mastodon App

Signing up using the Official Mastodon App is less complicated than it has been portrayed as. The biggest confusion tends to come from the need to select an instance.

The start screen (see image 1) for the application offers two options for you at the bottom of it's screen: “Get Started” and “Log In”.

Log in is for users that have already created an account on Mastodon. (It is also used if you decide to change the server that you are logging into... More about that later in the article.)

The Get Started option is the one that you will want to select as a new user to Mastodon. Once you have selected the Get Started button, you will be presented with a new screen (see Image 2). This is the instance selection screen:

The easiest way to navigate this screen is to select “General” from the options, and then select any server that sounds good to you based on the description. The one consideration that might be a determining factor for you is language. The majority of servers are English, however, there are some for languages like Gaelic, Japanese and that rarest and strangest language: Australian. (I'm just kidding...)

Once you selected an instance, select the Next button. This will bring you to the following screen (see Image 3):

Take a moment to review the rules of the instance you have selected. If you agree with them, Great! Click the I Agree button to move forward. On the other hand, if there is something in the rules that you don't agree with, click the Back button to select a different instance.

Once of you have agreed to the rules for an instance, you are presented with the following screen (see Image 4):

This screen presents you with the opportunity to read the Privacy Policies for both Mastodon App and the instance you have selected. I would recommend reading these, although I know many people don't since they are typically full of all sorts of legalese and jargon. When you are ready, click the I Agree button.

And, you are taken to the final screen (see Image 5) – the account creation screen:

This will hopefully look a little more familiar. You fill in the form, select an avatar, and click the Next button to complete the signup on the instance you have selected. From this point on you will be on Mastodon and can start looking around, finding people to follow, etc.

Using The Join Mastodon Website

Using the Join Mastodon website is a similar experience to using the official Mastodon App. When you go to the website you will see the following page (see Image 6):

To get started click the Create Account button, and you will be taken to the following screen (see Image 7):

This is the page where you will select your instance. First we want to scroll down to the Topic section of the page (see Image 8):

In this section select the General topic. This will cut the number of servers to less than half of the original list. Note: there are a few categories for special needs you might want to consider, like LGBTQ+ and Activism. These will provide fewer options, but possibly more supportive communities.

After making your Topic selection, scroll down to pick an instance (see Image 9):

When you find an instance that sounds appropriate for you, click on the Create account or Apply for an Account button. There is a difference between these two buttons, which do need some explanation:

• Create Account allows you sign up and log in automatically. Most of the instances in the General category offer instant access.
• Apply for an Account is used on instances that do a brief screening before granting you access. This is mostly used for special interest servers to make certain that the person is applying for the best reason. For example, the Activism and LGBTQ+ want to be certain that new members won't log in just to attack other members. In some cases the Apply for... button is just used to control the rate at which new users are added to the instance.

So, once you select Create account or Apply for an Account you will be taken to the instance you have selected (see Image 10):

On this page you can look through some of the posts that have been made on the instance recently. When you are ready you can select the Create account button to proceed. You will be shown the rules of the site on the next page (see Image 11):

Once you have accepted the rules, you have reached the for creating your account (see Image 12):

And from this point, it's basically the same process as signing up for most other Social Media type websites. You supply a display name, username, email address, and password. Review the privacy policy, and click the Sign-Up button. From this point on you'll follow the instructions to get started with your new Mastodon account.

A Faster Way

So, as I stated before diving into the signup walk through: there is merit to the point that the signup process is complicated / cumbersome. However, there is a workaround for this: skip the part that makes you go through the Join Mastodon interface, and just jump to an instance and create an account. But how can you do that? Well, here's a quick list of some instances that are good general chat instances that you can get started on:

• Mindly.Social
• The Blower AU
• Mastodon Party
• Mastodon Plus
• Universeodon
• Vivaldi Social
• Ohai Social
• Mstdn Social

Yes, there are lots more instances to choose from, however these instances are good starting points. Once you get comfortable with Mastodon you can migrate to another instance if you wish (there are instructions in Mastodon's settings for how to migrate).

Once you have signed up for your account, you can use your address to sign in to any app that you have installed on your phone without going through the long process of using the Join Mastodon website.

Conclusion

In this first in a series of articles we've looked at how to sign up for Mastodon. It is admittedly a cumbersome process, but one what was designed to be more flexible and allow new users to select an instance that is the most appropriate for them.

Having considered the signup process, I've included a shortcut list of a half dozen instances that are good places for signing up and investigating what Mastodon has to offer.

In the next article in this series, I'll address some of the other criticisms that I've seen in the press. Having considered those criticisms, we'll move on to discussing what makes Mastodon different from other social media websites.

Categories: #Technology #Features Tags: #elon #elonmusk #mastodon #migration #riptwitter #socialmedia #socialnetwork #twitter #twitterexodus #twittermigration

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