Weekly Thing 292 / Signal, Checkboxes, Hope
Weekly Thing 292 with eleven links and twelve journal entries between Aug 30, 2024 and Sep 6, 2024. Sent from Minneapolis, MN.
Hello there! š
Summer is winding down. Kids are back to school. The weather is starting to turn. And here I am back in your mailbox with the Weekly Thing!
I hope your summer was fun and filled with everything you hoped it would be. Summer tends to go so fast and become a blur of activity. Summer is also filled with adventure and new experiences to pepper on top of many celebrated traditions! I hope to capture enough of it to remember and cherish the extra time with friends and family well into the future.
I always feel like I get out of practice over the summer when Iām not sharing these emails each week. So best to just get onto the links and say thanks for reading along with me!
Cheers! š»
Featured
Judges Rule Big Tech's Free Ride on Section 230 Is Over
Interesting movement and a decent background on Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act and the role it plays in social media. Let me first get a gripe out of the way. I strongly dislike the authors use of "Big Tech" here. More appropriate would be "Social Media". I don't equate those things ā Apple, Amazon, and Google have no social media offerings of note. With that out of the way, Iām generally in strong support that Section 230 needs a massive revamp and I think where this is going makes sense.
Because TikTokās āalgorithm curates and recommends a tailored compilation of videos for a userās FYP based on a variety of factors, including the userās age and other demographics, online interactions, and other metadata,ā it becomes TikTokās own speech. And now TikTok has to answer for it in court. Basically, the court ruled that when a company is choosing what to show kids and elderly parents, and seeks to keep them addicted to sell more ads, they canāt pretend itās everyone elseās fault when the inevitable horrible thing happens.
There are many discussions where speech and amplification are being intertwined in ways that make the conversation confusing, and Section 230 is one of them. First, remember that Section 230 was ratified in 1996. Back then we were thinking about Internet message boards and forums, or email. Should an online service provider be held liable for stuff that you write in your email? No, and in fact they shouldn't even be able to know what I write in my email. And message boards are largely if not all time based presentation. The newest thing here, and so on.
This all goes completely haywire with algorithmic feeds. I shared this in the intro to Weekly Thing 152:
Anytime that you are looking at content in something other than time order, ask yourself what the goal of the system behind it is.
There is no neutral way to present content using an algorithm. The algorithm must have a goal.
And folks, Iām my opinion, that goal removes Section 230 protection.
To have a goal is a form of opinion, and you are now exerting an opinion on other content (that content itself may be protected), but the culmination of the sorting is itself not protected.
Giant Wheel at the Minnesota State Fair.
Aug 28, 2024
State Fair, Minnesota
Notable
Daring Fireball: What to Do With Unwanted Political Spam Texts
I share Gruber's disdain for all of these automated text messages. Iām happy to report though that for years I've been doing the simple "STOP" reply to these and in my experience it works very well. I reply STOP to all of them and they don't come back. I also actively unsubscribe from email lists. It feels tedious but it also works.
A little bit of effort on a regular basis can have a big impact on the amount of junk that comes in via text and email.
Signal Is More Than Encrypted Messaging. Under Meredith Whittaker, Itās Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong | WIRED
Interview is more about Whittaker than Signal, but I appreciated reading it as she has been outspoken about Signal and I've generally liked the direction she is taking the conversation on privacy. Iām a casual user of Signal, but happy to pay a monthly donation for such a critical service. We need services like Signal and leaders like Whittaker out there fighting for privacy.
The secret inside One Million Checkboxes | eieio.games
I spent a few minutes looking at One Million Checkboxes when it launched and thought it was a nifty piece of "social art" for the web. I dig this kind of oddball stuff. Keep the web weird and all that. But I didnāt give it much more thought.
This article then dives down what some very fun hackers, and Iām using that term in the positive sense of folks that love playing with stuff, did with it. It is a delightful read and the kind of thing that warms my heart on the web.
Founder Mode
This recent essay from Graham has gotten a ton of attention. There are good parts, and in general I prefer Tobi LĆ¼tke perspective on this focusing on "legitimacy". I shared this in Weekly Thing 236. Founders have "legitimacy" that allows them to operate differently. Graham's take is too reductive in my view. This is good, that is bad. It isn't as simple as that in my experience.
Hope for the web | James' Coffee Blog
I love the spirit of this and a more people-focused web is something I will always strive for.
I think having a personal website is a vote for a different future: one where you can craft a little place online thatās yours, made in the way that you want.
Love it.
How to write "About the Author" - Josh Bernoff
Most people aren't authors, but I do think most people find it very difficult to write an introduction for themselves. I think the "About" page of most websites, or the "Bio" block on a profile, stops many people in their tracks. Some of what Bernoff has here could be useful for thinking about those writing tasks.
Matthew Dicks: How to Tell a Story so That Everyone Listens [The Knowledge Project Ep. #202]
I loved this podcast with Matthew Dicks about telling stories. Honestly you should just add Episode 202 of The Knowledge Project into your podcast playlist and give it a listen.
Stories are powerful. Stories are what people latch onto and learn from more than anything else. Computers run programs, and in a way people run stories. The ability to craft stories is something that I truly admire and seek to learn about.
In this podcast Dicks talks through what a story even is, what the keys to telling a great story are, and demonstrates it in realtime during the podcast itself. This is one I'll listen to a couple of times. šÆ
Journal
First challenge for my lake camera was getting it off the ground to keep the raccoons from playing with it.
Second was protecting the cable from water and making sure that the cords were waterproof.
Now the third issue is keeping the lawn guys from shredding the USB cable with the weed whipper. š¬
I currently have 326 different Masked Email addresses set in Fastmail. It takes effort but is a powerful way to limit tracking and increase security. šš„ø
The Singing Sakatah Hills State Trail is closed right by Highway 60 and Dalton Ave near Cannon Lake. They have a section fenced off where the trail edge has collapsed. The record rains must have been too much for this area. Couple of trees down too.
We watched The Fall Guy tonight! Tons of action and a fun movie overall.
Good morning! September is starting with a chill in the air.
Was feeling motivated this morning and published a robust iteration of my blogroll that has more sites and context on why I follow it.
Big week for my Famous Foxes mission chests!
My GTD Structure
Sep 2, 2024 at 7:45āÆAM
I suppose I'm a ālist personā. Although I would say I'm a GTD practitioner. I like the sound of that better. And my lists, or GTD system, is managed with OmniFocus. Since my Omni Show appearance Iāve had several email exchanges with fellow ālist peopleā about how I structure my lists. I thought I would share a more complete view.
Before getting to the lists themselves a comment. The structure that I have in my system, āthe stuffā as it were, the things to do and how I organize them, is fluid. I donāt change tools often but the content and structure I refactor when it suits me. With that said though, these top level folders for my lists have endured in largely this structure for a decade.
They have endured because they are specifically aligned around dimensions of my life. If the dimensions of my life change then these would change. But really this big picture stuff doesnāt change frequently. Also note that these folders may at times have only a couple projects, which may be a signal to me that I should be doing more there.
In OmniFocus these dimensions or groups are stored as folders, and these folders contain projects. You could use this structure in most any list manager.
- Tasks: Contrary to the sentence directly above, this is a project and not a folder. It is the only project I have at the top level. This is my generic bucket of action items that are specifically not a project and should move through my system quickly. Examples could include āGet groceriesā, āCall about electric billā, or āSchedule coffee with Jimā.
- Self: Projects that are specifically about me. Two notable projects in here are āPersonal Routinesā and āTechnology Routinesā. I use projects like this for repeating tasks like āSchedule a haircutā or āDo blog gardeningā. In OmniFocus these are single-action projects that never complete.
- Family: Projects regarding our family. These can be things like āLabor Day Weekend at the Cabinā, āCelebrate Tammyās Birthdayā, or āSend Christmas Cardsā.
- SPS: Here is everything about me being CTO at SPS Commerce. There are a lot of projects here and subfolders for different aspects of that dimension.
- Professional: This is for projects about me being a CTO but not about SPS. For example, I'm a board member at Air T. If I'm speaking at a community event that would go in here. It is āeverything elseā about me as a CTO.
- Home: Projects about our home. The anchor project here is āMaintain Homeā which contains recurring tasks about, you guessed it, maintaining the home. And then there are various projects for things we do. A project that will show up in here soon via a template is āPrepare home for winterā.
- Cabin: Same as above, but for our cabin. Notably, if we are entertaining a group at our cabin on a weekend I create that as a project in Family, not in Cabin. This is about the Cabin.
- Travel: This is the newest folder I have and it has projects for trips that we take. I have templates that I'm regularly improving to populate these since I tend to forget things, or worry I did. I may have a project in here a year before we go and is a fun way to group things for those upcoming travel events. I'm still completing a couple of tasks for āVacation to Irelandā that we did in June.
- Financial: Projects related to managing finances. Every year this is going to get a āPrepare taxesā project, again built off of a template. I have a āTeach kids about the marketsā project in there now.
- Social: Projects that are about giving back. I'm on the MnTech board and I put that activity here. We also hold our annual Things 4 Good candle sale supporting non-profits and that project goes in here.
- Hobbies: Projects for my hobbies. This one does have three notable subfolders: Reading, Weekly Thing, Websites. I currently am wrapping up a project here for āHelp Josh with websiteā that I used to get Rambling Josh setup for my cousin.
Those are my āworkingā folders and projects. I do have three more folders that are a little different.
- Ticklers: Used for lists to remind me about things, or nudge me. One example I have in here is a project for āUse Gift Certificates, Creditsā that gets an entry for any of those Iāve received so I donāt forget. Iāve got a task in there now with a due date to use a credit I got from a store. I also have a very special āRepeating Projectsā project here that has single actions on a repeating schedule to create projects. Examples include āCreate project for Pi Dayā, āCreate project to winterize houseā, and āCreate project to adjust clocks for DSTā. These usually have links in the notes to go to Drafts and open that template, or to a Shortcut that creates the project itself.
- Someday, Maybe: Someday lists are powerful, especially for folks that have more ideas than time which is probably more common than not. I wasnāt sure how to structure these though so that the reviews made sense. I finally came upon the idea of having a separate Someday, Maybe list for each folder above. So this folder contains 10 single-action projects, all paused, for each of those.
- Lists: This folder contains my general reference lists. Nothing in this folder is actionable and never has tags. Things donāt get completed in these projects, they instead would get moved or copied somewhere else. This includes projects like āBooks to considerā, āShows to watchā, āRestaurants to go toā, and āQuestions for Doctorā.
That is all of it! This structure has served me well for a while now and maybe youāll get some value out of it as well.
My Grandpa Ardell was a āJohn Deere manā, so whenever I see these green tractors at the Minnesota State Fair I take a moment to look them over. Iām pretty sure he had one very similar to this one.
We made three trips to the Minnesota State Fair this year and the third visit really happened just because of Peacheyās Donuts. We wanted to go back and try them fresh. The line was crazy long and it indeed took an hour, but these warm and tasty donuts are incredible.
Seeing the āButterheadsā in the Dairy Building at the State Fair is a must for me. As a bonus for going on the last day, I got to see all of them finished!
We went to the Minnesota State Fair three times this year, a record for all of us. Are we becoming āfair peopleā? Maybe. People complain about the crowds, but that is just part of it. The sea of people every way you look is what makes it the fair. Weāll be back again next year! š”
Weekly Thing Forum š
Join Tom Mungavan, Patrick Hambek, Justin Porter, Aleksei Drokin, Andre Burgaud, and many other Weekly Thing readers in the Weekly Thing Forum. Recent topics include:
- Rambling Josh
- Racoons?
- Email Distribution Lists
- Ireland Trip
- Omni Show 136: How Jamie Thingelstad Uses OmniFocus
Briefly
This is a fun little test to see what you define as blue. My family likes to give me a hard time about not seeing colors "right". Iām not color blind, but I have a touch of it. It turns out my blue is much more blue than the average, and much more than the others in my family. ā Is My Blue Your Blue?
It is fun to see innovation in search from Kagi. Well worth $5 a month for me to use this. ā Announcing The Assistant | Kagi Blog
Why isn't this graph front page news and driving a solution. Yes it makes me sad, but even more it makes me angry that school shootings have become so common. ā Graphic Truth: The rise of US school shootings - GZERO Media
Fortune
Here is your fortuneā¦
Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in?
Thank you for subscribing to the Weekly Thing!
Want to support the Weekly Thing?
First ā thank you for subscribing and reading. Here are some things you can do that would be greatā¦
- Share with others you know!
- Post about the Weekly Thing and let others know about it.
- Join the Weekly Thing Forum and connect with others.
- Email me comments, feedback, or just to say Hi!
Recent Issues
- Weekly Thing 291 / Ireland š®šŖ
- Weekly Thing 290 / Kino, Krebs, Kagi
- Weekly Thing 289 / Queueing, Counting, Mapping
- Weekly Thing 288 / Hackerverse, Symbolica, Curators
- Weekly Thing 287 / Plinky, Piccolo, Privacy
This work by Jamie Thingelstad is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
My opinions are my own and not those of any affiliates. The content is non-malicious and ad-free, posted at my discretion. Source attribution is omitted due to potential errors. Your privacy is respected; no tracking is in place.