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mashby

The personal blog of Michael Ashby

Category / internet

Everything Old Is New Again

Went down a little rabbit hole over the past couple of weeks and thought I’d share.

I’ve been sitting back watching Twitter slowly fall apart as a spectator and rather enjoying it becasue it didn’t affect me directly. All the outrage seemed to be focused on those that used the default client app or web site. Not me. As soon as there were 3rd party clients available back-in-the-day (has it been 16 YEARS?!?), I’ve used them. First with Twitterrific and then I migrated to Tweetbot, which I’ve been using since around 2011. I’ve never had ads, promoted Tweets or timeline shenanigans, so I was immune to all the fuss. That all changed last week.

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Speaking Of RSS

One of the blogs that I follow, MacSparky.com, had a post today about RSS entitled The Case For RSS. Of course it’s not a direct answer to my post, Does Anyone Use RSS Anymore, but it does answer the question nicely. In his article, David Sparks says that he’s still a big fan of RSS […]

RSS

Does Anyone Use RSS Anymore?

Back-in-the-day, RSS or News Feeds were all the rage. I, for one, have been using them since the early 2000’s and it’s my daily source of news via Fever. It’s the app I I switched to it back in 20131 when Google killed it Reeder service. With the #1 feed reader dead, it seems like […]

Logo of the Jolly Roger Telephone Co.

Jolly Roger Telephone Co.

Oh man, I wish I had thought of this. Jolly Roger Telephone Co. is a service that allows you to forward telemarketers to their AI bots which attempt to keep them on the line for as long as possible. Brilliant. At $2 per month, I’m actually tempted to try this service out. Especially after listening […]

One Month Facebook Free

It’s now been over a month since I deleted my Facebook account and I thought I’d take a moment to share a few thoughts and experiences that I’ve had over the past 30+ days and take a moment to reflect.

I Don’t Miss It

I had a routine where I would go to Facebook at least once-a-day just to catch up what my friends and family were up to. After deleting my account, I thought that I might miss that part of my routine but surprisingly have not. If anything, I’ve reached out via text messages or other formats to keep in touch and I think I like it better. It’s more direct and more focused. I’ve even gotten on the phone a few times. 😯

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Calendar with the 7th circled with a pencil

So Far, So Good

It’s been over two-weeks since I deleted my Facebook account. This means that it is truly deleted with no chance of coming back. Over these past two weeks, I’ve been monitoring how much friction I’ve had not having an account and I’m happy to say — not that much.

  • I lost a recommendation for a graphic designer that was in a Facebook chat
  • I’ve lost contact with a couple of clubs I belong to
  • I’ve lost contact with customers that post information exclusively to Facebook. In other words, not on their web site, or Twitter as well.

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The words delete written in graffiti in East London

I Deleted My Facebook Account

I have been in a love-hate relationship with Facebook for a while now and as of almost two-weeks ago, I decided to delete my account. I took it a step further and instead of doing the default by suspending my account, I actually requested that my account be deleted.

Facebook has felt like a necessary evil in order to stay in touch with friends and family, but I found that my usage habits had changed as well and I didn’t like the result. I think, like most people, Facebook has become a welcome distraction during the day. Work/life/whatever sucks, so let’s see what other people are doing, that sort of thing.

After all the focus on how Facebook and bots contributed to the 2016 US presidential election and listening to podcast episodes like Sam Harris: What is Technology Doing to Us?, I became more aware of my habits and began questioning why I continued to use the service. Was it really to stay-in-touch, or was it more a Pavlovian response to stress?

Ultimately I think it was the latter, which is why I opted to delete my account.

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PalmTipSheet mug after it was broken

My PalmTipSheet Mug

I received the mug you see at the top of this post many, many moons ago from my dear friend Mike Rohde. It’s been a permanent feature in every office that I’ve had and I’ve had quite a few over the years. Unfortunately, while moving some equipment yesterday, this little treasure was knocked off its shelf and it broke quite epically. I was very sorry to see it go because it was a fond memory from a “previous life”.

The PalmTipSheet was an e-mail newsletter created by Mike Rohde in 1999 as a way to share information about the then new, Palm Pilot PDA. His newsletter ended in March of 2003 when he handed it off to Brian Beeler, founder and director of BargainPDA.com in Issue #40.
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The Multiple Personalities Of My Gmail Account

I signed up for Gmail on June 14, 2004, two months after the service launched and thus was able to secure my favorite username. It’s but one of the many, many e-mail addresses that I’ve used over the years but it’s still my go to for sites that I’m not 100% comfortable sharing personal information with. Which is to say that this isn’t a primary address that I value extremely highly, or even check every day. However, I do use it and plan to do so for many years to come, that is until something weird started happening that’s made me reconsider it’s value.

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