Excited for tonight’s Semisonic show!
Semisonic at First Ave! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Afternoon father-son excursion on the Northstar Train to Big Lake and back. 👨👦🚆
Snowy field along the Northstar Train route.
Proud member of the EFF! Donate now!
Somebody thought these red sunglasses with flashing lights were a good idea? 😕
Friday night and I’m drafting up tomorrows edition of the Weekly Thing! Sign up now to get one tomorrow morning. 😁
We went to Wonder tonight and it’s a fabulous movie. It tugs at the heart strings all over the place, but the journey is entirely worth it. 👏
Great Minnestar board meeting today. It’s very rewarding to think about how far this organization and the events have come. More good things on the horizon! I’m honored to get to be part of such an impactful non-profit!
Amazon Prime Video now on Apple TV! I can finally watch The Man In The High Castle without the abomination of UI that other Amazon Video experiences had. 👏🏻
I just donated to Wikipedia. 😊🎓 Support free knowledge!
Removed Google Analytics
I’ve never desired to put a lot of tracking code on my websites, but I had left Google Analytics. I’ve decided to remove that too. In fact, I’ve removed all third party resources. You can check for yourself by using Ghostery and going to my sites.
While I found the information on what you all read and look at interesting, there are three primary reasons I’ve done this.
Analytics as Addiction
I believe there is a clear trend to use analytics as an addicting feature. How many views, likes or comments something receives is a psychologically affirming tool that services use to addict us to them. Is there any social media platform that doesn’t use these feedback loops to encourage you to spend even more time using them?
If your goal is to addict a user then, by all means, use every means possible to create feedback loops. If your goal is to drive attention and engagement on content, then show writers analytics so they can optimize that. I don’t have these goals for my sites, so I don’t need it. I’m needlessly toying with an addictive substance that I don’t need.
Residential Zone
I’m a firm believer that we need a concept of zoning on the web. When I’m in someone’s house, I have a different expectation of privacy than when I’m in a shopping mall. When I’m in a park, I have different expectations of safety and freedom than when I’m in an industrial facility. We should be able to cue our expectations around privacy and freedoms off of our surroundings. On the web this is confusing. Facebook is a shopping mall, but it pretends not to be.
Visiting my websites should be closer to visiting me, personally. If you are having dinner at my house and comment on my espresso machine, I don’t send a note to a tracking service to let them know you might be interested in buying a coffee machine. I don’t think that should happen on my website either.
Don’t be a Hypocrite
I run 1Blocker and Ghostery in my browsers to protect my privacy. In those tools, I block hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of 3rd party services and scripts. I think you should do the same. It is hypocritical for me to embed a tracking service on my sites, that I block on other people websites, and encourage people to block themselves.
Eero Plus subscription with security and ad blocking, and now Encrypt.me and 1Password for Families partnerships is a pretty good deal. I’m in! 👍
Having fun trying Apple Pay over iMessage with some friends. Sending $1 around. This is pretty nice. 👍🏻💸
Replacement hard drive for one of my Synology RAID units on the way.
Hung these shelves in Tyler’s room. They look great but what a pain to hang! 😤
After a long hiatus I’m finally watching the last episode of Game of Thrones, Season 7. 🤫
Scanning “Twitter Moments” is pretty good confirmation that Twitter and I parted ways a long time ago. 😳
Family theater 🎭 this afternoon with Snow White and the Seven Vikings. Good performance at the Old Log Theatre! 👏🏻
Had a nice time at Julmarknad at the American Swedish Institute this morning! 👍🏻
First trip to Lucky Oven Bakery; very good food, broad menu, good coffee. Very busy though, expect will settle down after a few weeks.