I tend to go through phases where I get obsessed with certain things, getting really into them and wanting to learn all I can about them. For my latest obsession of the past couple weeks, I blame Pluto TV.
Pluto TV is a free online video streaming service that works like traditional over-the-air TV in that it has channels and each channel is just a continuous broadcast of content with commercial breaks. You just “tune in” to a Pluto TV channel and watch whatever is on at the time.
When my favorite Star Trek series (TNG, DS9, and VOY) disappeared from Amazon Prime and Hulu, my brother told me there was a Star Trek channel on Pluto TV. I started checking out their other channels and bookmarking a few.
Then I found their Dog the Bounty Hunter channel. I remembered watching and enjoying that show back in the day. So I watched a few episodes and I was hooked (again). It's entertaining. But I also find it uplifting.
The device I currently keep on or near my person, both at home and on the go, is a first gen iPhone SE smartphone. First released in March 2016, it's a nearly 6-year-old phone. At the time of this writing, it runs the latest version of iOS and still receives updates from Apple. It does everything I need a smartphone to do, and almost everything I want one to do. While I have tinkered with different smartphones here and there, I keep coming back to my little iPhone. I know it's not going to be usable forever, so I've been thinking for a long while about what will take its place.
I've been using Mastodon – a free and open source, decentralized social media platform and a compelling alternative to corporate-controlled platforms like Facebook and Twitter – regularly since June of 2019. Mastodon is part of the Fediverse – a collection of inter-connected apps developed around ActivityPub, an open, decentralized social networking protocol.
This evening my family had delicious homemade tacos for dinner, so naturally the topic of the taco subscription came up. I remembered seeing a headline about it somewhere, but none of us had looked into the details. So we started speculating what the taco subscription might be like based on what we know about streaming subscription services.
As of today, BlackBerry has shut down services for their phones running the BBOS and BB10 operating systems, which means they lose most of the core functionality that has allowed them to be usable phones long past their prime.
There are lots of news articles, blog posts, and social media posts about it, so I will try not to get too wordy here. Suffice it to say that I am and always will be a BlackBerry fan, and I dearly miss my beloved physical phone keyboards.
I go through these phases where I try to acquire things that I once had – or always wanted to have – in the past. Even if I got rid of those things for a good reason, even if I felt like parting with them was the right thing to do, I sometimes regret having let those things go. This is probably why – although I will always aspire to be one – I will probably never truly be a so-called minimalist.
I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in the US. I currently serve on my Stake High Council (a lay leadership role).
Here's how I use technology to help fulfill my calling (responsibilities) as a High Councilor on an average Sunday, and other ways I use technology for church-related things outside of my calling.
