Numeric Citizen Blog

Oh Quick Reads ♥️

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 21:22:38 -0400

I’m currently testing Quick Reads by @mattbirchler, and I must say that I’m impressed. From the onboarding experience to the actual product use, it’s a joy to use. The read-aloud voices are top-notch. I have small and bigger plans for this relatively new service, and I’m really looking forward to making this happen.

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 19:43:50 -0400

Fun user experience after installing macOS 27 beta 5. Why are all these apps still requesting permissions for things I have already granted?

The digital toxicity

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 07:13:56 -0400

No One’s Happy recent blog post suggesting not to use native apps:

“Most native apps collect far more data than their website equivalents ever could. They request permissions to hardware, sensors, and background processes that browsers deliberately restrict. The third-party software embedded in these apps frequently transmits your location, device identifiers, and behavioral data to third parties before you even see a consent prompt. This data is in tandem bought, sold, and aggregated by brokers. It has been used to out individuals, track immigrants, and enable prosecution over reproductive healthcare.”

While this is true, refusing to use native apps is surprising advice. One might think the App Store submission process that every developer is subject to prevents bad actors, but it doesn’t. Coupled with the developer’s ordeal with the App Store review process, some developers are suggesting focusing development efforts on web applications instead. And finally, vibe coding might be another factor driving a move toward web application development. Yet the web is a jungle where user tracking is a standard “feature” that mines the browsing experience with bloated web pages that sell you ads and lead you to forced engagement.

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 13:28:48 -0400

Ceramic Case Could Return With Apple Watch Series 12:

The white ceramic finish, made from a compressed zirconia and alumina powder polished with a diamond slurry, was marketed as being four times as hard as stainless steel.

Long lasting materials for a durable Apple Watch should be coupled with ever lasting battery life and a user-replaceable battery, otherwise it makes no sense to me.

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 13:22:34 -0400

MacRumors reporting about Mark Gurman latest Apple rumors Apple Watch Rethink Could See Debut of Round Model, Screenless Fitness Tracker, and More:

The company is apparently taking the resurgence of fitness bands without screens and smart rings seriously. As a result, the company is considering new Apple Watch-style devices with no display…

Do you remember the iPod Shuffle? I would seriously consider a fitness band if it meant more powerful sensors integration.

Happy ignorant here

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 12:41:07 -0400

I wanted to open a link pointing to a post on x.com. Clicked on it. After a few seconds, X website opened but right after the App Store launched to the download the app for reading content on X. I went back to the website, dismissing the App Store. Clicking to play the shared media again launched the App Store. I went back to watch the video. What an awful experience.

I wondered if installing the X app would make the experience more tolerable. The login / signin screen scared the shit out of me when I started remembering all the bad things about social networks, Musk, etc. but then I started thinking that even if things like the dark web is bad, some people still need to visit this place for investigation. Was I investigating this morning when opening up X? I certainly was looking to understand something.

Having to create a new X account, then being exposed to ads, tracking, etc. killed my desire to understand. It’s ok not to understand everything. I’m a happier ignorant.

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:22:52 -0400

I wish there were a beta 5 for Apple OS27 this week, but alas, no; we’ll have to wait until early next week, I guess. According to this iOS Version History chart, iOS 27 beta 4 stands at 19 days, the second-longest beta 4 period for a .0 release since iOS 6.0 beta 4, which lasted 37 days. I don’t know if this is a good sign. Maybe I shouldn’t try to read too much into this.

The new and uncharted way for me to get advices

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 07:28:19 -0400

I’ve been working as a technical project manager on a major migration project at my job. It’s a new role for me, which has increased the demand for my soft skills. While I’m technically inclined, it’s not necessarily my strongest area, but I manage well enough. Yesterday, a team member privately mentioned that my project management style sometimes borders on micromanagement. Though it’s hard to hear, I responded positively and thanked him for the feedback. Our discussion lasted some time, helping me understand his perspective. The issue is that my technical expertise often leads me to ask detailed questions, which might seem like I don’t trust my team members’ abilities. However, that’s not the case. This feedback prompted deep reflection and self-assessment.

As an experiment and out of curiosity, I provided the context to Claude AI and sought advice. Overall, the experience was very insightful. My issue isn’t unique and is likely common and well-documented in management literature. After this session with Claude AI, I felt uplifted and more prepared to confront today’s challenges. It’s not easy, and the project may be full of pitfalls and surprises, but I believe it will help me grow.

MyMind MCP

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 07:05:23 -0400

MyMind now offers an MCP endpoint for use with Claude. I can imagine that for those who store a lot in MyMind, it could be really useful. I tested MyMind and liked a few things about it. It’s like Pinterest but without the AI and ads crap. I connect to my MyMind account from time to time just to see how the service is evolving, and it does, but I eventually found it was redundant with what I already use: Craft, which also supports MCP and API endpoints.

Any lessons from EchoFeed's closure?

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 20:37:00 -0400

What can I learn from the demise of EchoFeed? Earlier this year, when I heard about this service, I looked into it to see if it could be useful. It wasn’t, thanks to Micro.blog’s ability to cross-post to Bluesky, Mastodon and more. Plus, at first it looked like an experiment more than anything else. I didn’t know EchoFeed’s long-term goals. I was on the breaks.

I’m wary of one-person services like EchoFeed. Another example is FeedPress. I like this service a lot, but I think there is only one person behind it, and it’s owned by a parent company which I know nothing about. It’s not entirely clear from this post what their mission is. What happens if this guy decides, or the parent company says, it’s no longer viable? Moving off EchoFeed might be a pain for people who need cross-posting capabilities. I highly doubt these people are willing to move to Buffer.

The same could be said about moving off FeedPress. It would be a pain in the ass to reconfigure all my feeds. The same torment applies to Micro.blog itself (or Scribbles.page, for that matter!). What is the future of Micro.blog if something bad happens to its founder? What is the continuity plan? Micro.blog has done everything it can to enable data portability and ownership, but moving things around, even if you own most parts, is not as easy as it sounds. In today’s world, nothing is permanent, and planning for this is mandatory.

Trusting AI companies

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 08:08:44 -0400

One quick question for the Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta IT guys: is it that hard to configure a sandbox to block outbound traffic to the Internet? I know really good guys who could help you with this. Or, if you don’t want to hire a human to do it, just ask your fuckin models how to do it. Until then, how can we trust you?

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 07:15:25 -0400

Manton Reece writing about the demise of a Mastodon instance

I had missed that mastodon.cloud is shutting down. While its active user base has been shrinking, it still has a lot of total users and millions of posts. There’s still no way to migrate posts between Mastodon servers. (Mastodon posts → Micro.blog and some other fediverse servers works.)

POSSE principle is often talked about when referring to one of Micro.blog’s strengths, but being able to own your content and import content from other places are also important distinctive features of Micro.blog.

AI everywhere in YouTube Studio

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 07:09:14 -0400

I’m returning from a short visit to YouTube Studio to find out that Google is now offering AI-based ideas to inspire the creation of new videos. I selected that one because it relates to Micro.blog. Very low quality. Here’s an excerpt:

“Most Micro.blog sites are digital ghosts, invisible to the search engines and professional networks that matter. We are going to fix that by engineering a high-authority ecosystem that ranks on the first page while keeping you in total control. Stop shouting into a void and start building a discoverable hub.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:19:36 -0400

Since my bookmarking app now features links to Bluesky, I’ve observed that my Bluesky timeline is heavily political, which I dislike. I’m unsure how to unfollow people or lists. I wish there was a way to simply reset the timeline and start fresh for a better experience.

About my curiosity for FreshRSS

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:20:29 -0400

I saw people mention FreshRSS on my timeline today and I was curious about it. Why? Because self-hosting an RSS reader service might mean that I could drop Inoreader… so, I started reading the documentation. If there was a single-click install droplet on DigitalOcean, that would be enticing, provided that FreshRSS offers a great set of APIs. The UI is meh, though, but using the engine with a nice client like NNW might be a possibility. I didn’t go further in my exploration so far… but now I want to look at other self-hosting solutions, too. Suggestions?

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 15:55:37 -0400

Apple’s iCloud File Sharing Left Ex-Employees With Access to Secret Documents:

The former employees said many Apple files they had been shared on over their careers at the company—including planning documents for product launch events—continued to sync to their personal devices through the iCloud storage service after they left Apple. In some cases, they even received notifications about fresh updates to the documents. Some former employees said they were petrified to delete the files for fear that doing so would attract Apple’s attention.

Wow! I work in the banking system and such document life cycle management would be considered lousy at best. I think it’s time for Apple to make iCloud a little bit more business-friendly. The story on the iPhone is better as corporate-controlled apps are using their own partition which can be wiped independantly from the personal partition. But on iCloud? It doesn’t seem to be the case.

Too many products?

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 21:15:50 -0400

Today, while preparing the next edition of my newsletter, I wondered whether managing numerous product lines, with a multitude of variants and configurations, might be harming Apple, especially in the current context of supply chain difficulties. I feel that Apple’s strategy is no longer in tune with the times.

Are we in a world war yet?

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 20:46:28 -0400

In “The War That Could Swallow the World”, David French writes:

“I’ve often wondered what it was like to be alive in the summer of 1914, much less in 1938 and 1939. When did people start to realize that the world was on the brink of catastrophe? Speak up too soon or too frequently, and you look ridiculous — like the Chicken Little of World War. Speak up too late, and you live (if you live) with bitter regret.”

I often ask myself similar questions. When does it feel like it? Are we calling a world war after-the-fact? Does it matter in the end? This blog used to have a blog post category named “UkraineWar”. It will be renamed “Conflicts” which I think feels closer to what I perceive from today’s world.

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 16:57:40 -0400

In the TV series “Silo” there is a woman who seems to be responsible for retrieving and refurbishing old computer equipment or various devices. It makes me think that with the current situation, where electronic device prices are soaring, the periods of price drops for a computer or smartphone are over. One day, society might see the latest-generation devices become inaccessible to the general public, who will then have to settle for rebuilt or refurbished devices.

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 16:20:28 -0400

If my non-scientific calculations are to be believed, this week marks the weekly release of Apple’s OS 27 betas. In my case, Beta 4 was a bit of a step back compared to Beta 2 and Beta 3.

What's up with Anthropic?

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 09:13:37 -0400

I’m not sure what is going on at Anthropic these days, but updates to Claude Desktop have stopped. Normally, I would get an update every few days; the last update was July 24th. Something might be going on. I wouldn’t mind if AI companies took a pause and started thinking about the consequences of putting their products in the hands of millions, you know, being conscious about what you do? Alas, that’s not going to happen.

Keep dreaming

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 09:06:54 -0400

This morning, I received a renewal notice for a domain I registered during my transition from my previous job to my current one. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I would start my own consulting firm, so I registered the domain but then changed jobs. Despite that, I decided to renew the domain just in case. I like to think that one day I’ll be my own boss. It cost me about ten bucks a year, which is really cheap for dreaming.

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 22:01:00 -0400

Should You Use AI for a Task? Here’s a Simple Way to Decide - Schneier on Security

But it’s precisely because I have spent years developing my own writing skills that I’m able to identify prose that sounds great but doesn’t actually make sense. My students don’t have that skill; they mistakenly view a confident, well-written essay as evidence of the quality of their ideas. They see the AI as cleaning those ideas up, getting them through that uncomfortable stretch of having to turn those ideas into prose. What the students miss is that their initial discomfort is a normal and healthy stage of writing, and not something to quickly get beyond. The very act of struggling with how to express what they think is an important part of the process. It’s how they test out their ideas, examine their hypotheses, and actually figure out what they think. Homework is not work; it’s the gym.

Learning can be hard, for many people at least. I like the feeling of being outside my comfort zone when working on something because I know that at some point, the journey is going to be the reward. We forget that in the age of AI.

Yes this is scary as hell

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 21:49:32 -0400

The real AI risk is inside the labs -

I believe we should not consider AI safe. A critical event that may result in the extinction of Homo sapiens is possible, but the danger is not in open models, or China making faster progress than the US. The danger is that a few CEOs (everywhere in the world) without the required background and legitimacy are in the position of making hard choices for humanity at large. They were not selected to do so; it was just the randomness of events that created this setup. They can’t speak for everybody, given the stakes, just because they have GPUs and money. This is the first thing that should be fixed.

In light of recent security-related events, both at OpenAI and Anthropic, I also believe these companies must be held accountable for what they put out there. I believe we are entering dangerous times with AI, maybe we are even on the verge of being out of control with this. Add this to the AI bubble speculation. Scary.

Too much to ask

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:44:02 -0400

For the past two or three years, I’ve been contemplating the idea of creating a comprehensive training course for Craft. There’s nothing comparable to what you find for Notion or Obsidian. I think it’s a great opportunity, very niche, but still an opportunity. Craft has evolved considerably in recent years, making it difficult to produce content that doesn’t become outdated quickly. Now that Craft’s evolution seems to be slowing down, the idea of creating this training keeps resurfacing. But there’s a problem: a lack of motivation and time with no guarantee of results.

I tested creating a training plan using Claude AI, and while I’m impressed by the level of detail and completeness of the proposed content, I would need to record more than 75 video capsules lasting 2 to 4 minutes each. Preparing those recordings requires between 15 to 45 minutes of preparation, without considering the post-processing requirements. That’s quite a commitment!

I’m afraid the idea won’t materialize. Life is short and I’m not here on a humanitarian mission. I think I’ll move on to something else. 😌