GTalk

Years ago, I used Google Talk with almost everyone I talked to. Nowadays, I talk with almost no one on Hangouts. Google Talk has changed from “so good I can recommend to everyone” to a nightmare called Hangouts. So how did we get to this point? You don’t know how the fuck to reliably have a conversation with someone. On the new Hangouts, you really have no idea when, where, and whom it delivers your messages to. [Read More]

Email, Algorithms and RSS

It’s simple: blogs aren’t promotions. Blogs subscribed to shouldn’t be messed with. The flow of information by email is an extraordinary opportunity, and when a choke point messes with that to make a profit, things break. Apparently, even as prominent a blogger as Seth Godin feels the pain of algorithms when it comes to content. In this case, algorithms used for categorizing email. Visit the Link 🔗 I was planning to write a post about how to stay updated with my posts here as I have consciously chosen not to share them on social media ever since I started this new blog. [Read More]

Twitter, Facebook and Algorithmic Feeds

Joel Spolsky writes: My new year’s resolution was to give up on reading Twitter and Facebook. I gave up on the feeds because they were making me angry. A lot of times I was angry because of politics, but even on non-political things, the feeds seemed like they were full of conflict and stress. I can’t tell you how much happier I am without them. Am I the only one that hated reading feeds? [Read More]

WiFi Issues with Pixel 2 Update

Good technical detail about the issue I mentioned my home network was facing with my Pixel 2 earlier: Following initial research and investigation, our Engineering Team is confident that they’ve determined one of the key origins of the issue. From what we have gathered so far, the issue appears to be related to some recent releases of Android OS and Google Apps. This issue stems from these devices’ “Cast” feature, which sends MDNS multicast discovery packets in order to keep a live connection with Google products such as Google Home. [Read More]

Degrees/Diplomas

John D. Cook: When I was in college, a friend of mine gave me a math book that I found hard to get through. When I complained about it, he told me “You’re going to finish a PhD someday. When you do, do you think there’s going to be fairy dust on the diploma that’s going to enable you to do anything you can’t do now?” That conversation stuck with me. [Read More]

Software is So Broken

Wifi Disconnect Issues on Pixel 2 by Orrin - Community Manager Oct 30 Hey all, We’ve been seeing a few reports (reddit, etc) of WiFi randomly disconnecting on the Pixel 2. Looks like the majority of the reports are from users that have mentioned they have a mesh network set up. If you are experiencing this, can you post more information here? If possible, please include what access points you are using, how many mesh nodes you have, and any other info about the disconnects (how frequently, after certain activities, etc). [Read More]