People are freaking out over Ring cameras being used by ICE. But privacy advocates have been warning that this exact scenario was possible – even inevitable – ever since Ring cameras were first released. And now there are rumors of Apple working on an AirTag-sized AI pin you can wear that has multiple cameras and a microphone. What could go wrong?
Back in mid-November I decided to try using a Linux laptop as my daily driver for at least the rest of the year. Things were going pretty well until the laptop stopped booting into Pop!_OS.
I'm a few days late to the party, but I just heard about the new product announcements from Clicks – the company that makes physical keyboard cases for smartphones – and I haven't been this excited about mobile device announcements since the BlackBerry KEY2 (2018).
To help encourage and facilitate intentional use of technology, I've declared my bedroom a technology-free space. None of my devices with screens will “live” in that room anymore.
I just finished bingeing both seasons of the TV series Andor again before my Disney+ subscription lapses. Along with Rogue One – the film it was based on – it remains my favorite Star Wars story to date. They've made that universe more relatable and real to me than any other movie or TV series.
I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner, but I am now blocking ads and trackers system-wide on my iPhone via AdGuard's public DNS. And anyone can set this up for free on their phones, PCs, or even their home routers.
A friend reached out with a dilemma. He lives far away from the meeting place of his religious community. They use Zoom to broadcast their meetings for those who can't attend in-person. For many reasons, he avoids using proprietary software (software that is not free as in freedom), but he was seriously thinking about installing Zoom in this case. I can empathize with his dilemma. All of us have to make choices like this every day.
I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus calling for a decentralized internet infrastructure. Within the span of a few weeks we have seen web outages on a global scale caused by problems with AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, and now Cloudflare.
I was blessed to be able to get a used HP laptop in practically new condition with decent specs for free, so I installed Linux on it and I'm going to try using it as my primary personal computer for at least the rest of 2025 – about six weeks.
I have many concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) and LLMs in their present state. I'll elaborate on these concerns in future posts, but I wanted to make it clear that until my concerns are resolved, this is an AI-free blog.