Wood is for clocks that sit indoors, stay stationery and in a controlled temperature environment.

Wood expands and contracts in heat, is naturally pourus, is brittle and can’t be sized down accurately to the micro-milimetre.

There’s a reason that wood has been around far longer than metal yet we only started getting wood watches in the last decade or so - it’s because it’s impractical.

Just because you can make watches out of certain materials that doesn’t mean that you should. You could probably make a watch out of cardboard, leather, wool, bread or pasta. Doesn’t mean you should.

I swapped over to https://www.themoviedb.org years ago and have never looked back.

What is it showing on in the UK? (Or is it showing on the ‘VPN’ channels)

So, it’s a the beginning of a 3D printer that constructs things at an atomic level. A quantum printer then. Just stuff it with dirt, tell it what you want it to turn those dirt molecules into, and then it rearranges the atoms into new materials.

A lot of people on Twitter have a “well we were here first, why should we be forced out just because these pricks are now here trying to take over?” attitude. And besides, if the only thing you use it for is to chat with your own mutuals, and keep away from the Trending stuff then it’s still a usable place.

It’s like Reddit used to be - If you curate your feed and stick to that rather than diving into the All view then you can still have a good time.

Why just admit defeat and give it over to the bullies and grifters instead of sticking around and fighting for it?

Trakt is great because there’s loads of apps that use the API for it but your history is stored on Trakt so even if you swap to a different app you can still access that history.

That happens when it mis-hears a trigger word. You can enable and audible ‘ping’ noise to play when you activate Google Assistant. It’s in the accessibility settings. Worth doing so you know when it’s actually been triggered.

Whether anyone is manually connecting to specific phones to listen in live to conversations is a very different topic. I’d say it’s a more important one then whether Google are recording everything so they can advertise things at you.

But yeah, that’s not what this article is about.

I don’t know why people keep thinking that phones are listening in on every conversation just so they can advertise ‘Volvo’ at you.

• they don’t need to - we give them loads of data voluntarily based on location data, what we search for, things we buy, things we ‘like’ on social media…

• they’d be stung for huge fines and reputational damage if caught doing it.

• it’d take enormous storage and processing power to manage all that data.

• Just think about how many things you talk about every day that you’ve never then seen an advert for (confirmation bias)

• my Google Home can’t understand me when I’m actually talking directly at it asking it a question, so the idea it can seripticiously pick out words while listening through my pocket is implausible.

It was invite-only for quite a long time, if memory serves.

Early numbers aren’t everything.

While a tech solution to replace Twitter is possible, the tech is only about 5% of what makes Twitter Twitter - the other 95% is the userbase. Which again counts in Threads favour because they already have a huge Instagram userbase. They could release any old hastily put together system and still get 30m users… Hmm.

It’s more different than people expect it do be, I think. So once people have gotten past the ‘what is an instance/ server, how do I actually join Mastodon…’ stuff that puts people off, they’re then in the infrastructure that kind of looks and acts like Twitter but in different ways that you don’t realise until you’ve delved into things. It’s just more barriers really.

There is Bluesky as an alternative, but that’s not ActivityPub, it’s it’s own protocol. Personally I think that’s the best option - it’s open source and decentralised - but I think some people have reservations because Jack Dorsey is / was involved. Plus it’s still on beta so is invite-only for the time being.

Mastodon is very good for following topics. But it’s a pain trying to find and follow people. And even when you do have a good selection of people, the culture there is very Boost-heavy (because that’s how you discover people, not really via search) so your timeline ends up being full of boosted posts written by people you don’t follow, often about things you aren’t interested in.

Yeah, the privacy, tech, scalability etc is great. But it’s not a direct replacement for Twitter. And that’s what a lot of folks are looking for. Which is sadly why Threads will do so well.

I’ve used 1Password for years. Works well on all my devices (MacBook and Samsung Galaxy phone). I’d absolutely recommend you use one.

Not only are they great for handling complex passwords, but a benefit I’ve not seen mentioned here is that they are a way of just keeping track of just how many sites and accounts you’ve registered with.

For example - You buy one product once from an online store, save a password so you can monitor the order status but never use that site again. Before I used 1Password I’d just have forgotten I’d even used that site. But now I can just look down my 1password account and see a whole list of all these passwords and accounts ive created. And there’s loads. You forget just how many online accounts and passwords you have out there.

Sure, that’s easy to say. But name another free, publicly available, instant mass message delivery system they could also use?

I have a Samsung at the moment and have had Samsung’s for 6 or 7 years. I’ve only had minor issues with a few of them, and I’ve been able to visit a Samsung retailer / service centre to actually get them looked at in person.

So, proven reliability for my experience and ability to get it looked at in person is something that means I’m happy to pay more for the phone than I would be for other brands.

All tech is great when it works all the time. The problem is what happens when it stops working. Can you contact them? Where do you send it for repair? How long does that take? All that sort of thing.

Used to be high spec and a low price. Now they’re average spec and an above-average price.

Nowadays phones are all pretty similar in price and spec, so I’d rather get a slightly more expensive phone from a company with proven, accessible warranty.