Tiny Tea Dispatch #002

While I was walking back from the bakery today, on the crossroads, I just missed an old lady getting hit by a car right on the crosswalk. If that’s not some kind of metaphor for our times, I don’t know what is.
Hello from the very edge of this very eventful old year.

 

Let’s see, what have I been up to the last 2 months? I quit (most) social media. At this point, Instagram is the only channel that still provides me some kind of joy (I mostly follow visual artists) and a good place to post my drawings. The rest was a constant stream of frustration I can’t use in my life.

They don’t make it easy, which in turn makes it all the more satisfying to be rid of it.
For Twitter I had to rename & delete my accounts + reregistered the usernames so no one else can get them.
On Facebook I removed all content I could (again) and unfollowed everybody, creating a blank ‘news stream’. The only reasons I’m keeping the account itself, is that I can only get a hold of some via Facebook Messenger and friends of friends in case of emergency. Meaning I’ll probably delete my account and set up a dummy one purely for Messenger soon.

Say goodbye to 2016. Hit it with a shovel and never stop looking over your shoulder ever again.

~~ Made ~~

I took part in a chain comic from Artropoda that’s coming out in the coming year. Not much I can tell you about it for now other than it has a midieval setting and I made 2 pages for it.

 

~~ Reading ~~

The only downside I’ve experienced from quitting Twitter, is being a bit further removed from news updates. Which is meaningless anyway if your stream is full of self-important nonsense. So I’ve been changing my reading habits. I have been following RSS feeds and e-mail newsletters with interesting information for a while but I still need to find sources for more direct & breaking news.
I’m also trying out a few good Kindle newspaper and magazine subscriptions but so far I haven’t found much. Have newspapers always been this bad?

Tips for good news(paper) RSS feeds or Kindle subscriptions with international and Belgian news would be greatly appreciated.

I would’ve preferred to stick with the Kobo eco-system but their hardware doesn’t hold up against this. I mean, they’ve made occasional upgrades to their devices, sure, but the results have been sub-par. The Aura ONE suffers from battery drain, most device screen resolutions don’t hold a candle to the Kindles and it’s still very slow (try zooming in on a PDF). It’s sad because Kobo showed much promise 2 years ago, with their built-in support for easily side-loading (drm-free) ebooks and support of many more formats than Amazon. But there’s software like Calibre made to circumvent those issues on other ereaders. You just can’t trade on those promises alone.

 

~~ Watched ~~

That semi-sentient robot show

Damian Williams has some excellent thoughts on A.I. which everyone involved or interested in the creation of artificial intelligence should read and take to heart. He has a tendency to talk about/warn of situations turning very real only weeks or months later.

 

~~ Playing ~~

• Steamworld Dig:
  Lousy ending but a nice game if you like exploring and digging for goodies.
• Little Big Planet 3:
  because Booo has a PS4 now.

 

~~ Links ~~

• New Year’s wishes from captain fluffbutt
• Damien William’s Newsletter
• Steamworld Dig, on Steam
• Artropoda

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