Canion dot Blog

Facebook is a terrible company and I’ve felt much better about myself since deleting their products: notably Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. When ditching use of the apps, there is a withdrawal period of 5-8 days, then after that, it’s fine. Life goes on. Time is returned to your life. You miss nothing of import. I’m still waiting for my “Facebook friends” to check in and see how I’m doing and note they miss my absence…

At what point do we acknowledge that a company is a net negative, and facilitate its end?

Corey Doctorow has written a great article about the latest horrible news arising from Facebook. It’s hard to pull a single quote, but this stood out:

Pluralistic: 22 Sep 2021:

Everybody hates Facebook, especially FB users. The point of high switching costs, after all, is to increase the pain of leaving so that FB can dole out more abuse to its users without fearing that they’ll quit the whole enterprise.

FB’s mission is to increase the size of the shit-sandwich they can force you to eat before you walk away. But they’re not mere sadists: shit-sandwiches have a business model: the more hostages they take, the more they can extract from advertisers – their true customers.

Thanks to @fahrni for bringing the Doctorow post to my attention.

It seems there are an explosion of book tracking platforms all of a sudden, after years of it being a Goodreads monoculture.

This is good, because competition.

This is bad, because now I’m having to update my reading stats on a bunch of sites as I try to figure out which is the ‘good’ one.

By my account, there is:

• Goodreads - nice because it automatically syncs with Kindle, but bad because the website is an early 2000’s horror show.
• Literal - the newest kid on the block with a clean look and nice shelf management.
• The StoryGraph - has an interesting recommendation engine.
• Micro.blog - has a rudimentary bookshelf system but can conveniently create micro blog posts from them.

Some weeks ago I bought a wireless CarPlay adaptor for my new 2021 Toyota Camry. The Camry support CarPlay but only when connected with a lightning cable.

My experience with it to date has been mostly positive, with some caveats. The largest issue I have is its “Chinese knock-off” software interface. I don’t quite know how they are making this whole thing work, and not having had CarPlay before I don’t know what earlier generations of the software were like. However, the version that is installed on the CarPlay device has a “bootleg” feel. For example, native CarPlay has iconography for buttons. The CPlay device has icons within button borders and some of these seem slightly misaligned. I also notice on my podcast app that not all the interface elements seem quite the same, such as the speed of playback.

The other weird thing I notice is when playing back voice messages and other interactions with Siri. The volume is much lower than any other audio making it hard to hear. However, I’m reticent to blame this solely on the CPlay device. I think it may have something to do with the configuration of the audio in my car system? I don’t know, and I’m still trying to figure it out.

All that being said, the thing works. I keep waiting for it not to work and partly expecting it to fail, or drop the connection, but it works everytime. It supports multiple devices as well, with both my phone and my wife’s connected to it. It auto-switches based on last use and whichever device is available.

For short trips, I think this thing is great. If I’m travelling a longer distance, I’m still going to use the lightning cable. Would I buy it again? Yes, I would.

I also bought a custom-fit Chi charging pad. It’s not that great, but is necessary if you want to use the CPlay for a length of time and not kill your phone battery. I have found my phone slips off it too easily unless I put the phone in a case. As these things are designed differently to fit each kind of car, your mileage may vary.