I'm still an avid Flickr user, school of 2004 yo. Their "year in review" just came out. A little light on detail compared with, say, last.fm. There are really two (somewhat underwhelming) sections.

Your shot that received the most love.

And a few quick activity stats.

My goal for 2023: upload a photo every day, which I'm happy to say was mostly successful. I followed more photographers last year than ever before and made more of an effort to engage, drop a fave, and leave a comment.

Flickr may not be the photography juggernaut of years gone by, but I saw a higher level of engagement with my own photos, and my feed is busier than ever. There's still a living breathing vibrant community there. Long may it continue.

Last year I mentioned:

Subscribed to a few more blogs of late. Think it's healthy to keep that independent publishing ring alive in 2023

I still think it's important we few remaining bloggers keep the fire alive now more than ever. Feeling some inspiration from a few more folks I've followed of late.

Manuel Moreale thinks he should create more and consume less. Can't argue with that.

Loving the AI hero art on posts at cafelog.fr who reminds us we shouldn't overthink posting. Wise.

And then for whatever reason I've never followed Matt Mullenweg. His advice: Don't sweat it. Just blog

ma.tt is a great domain by the way. Still kinda bummed kev.in is taken. Maybe I should make him an offer.

Books are a thing. And I decided to get back into them again in 2023.

What happened was, I started reading again. After a two year slump in which nothing happened whatsoever, turns out all you need to do is start. Imagine that. And the rest just falls into place.

For a late starter, I ended up reading 10 books. Which is 10 more than I've read in the previous 3 years, so I'll take it.

(you're gonna spot a theme here)

Leviathan Wakes – James S. A. Corey
Caliban's War – James S. A. Corey
Abaddon's Gate – James S. A. Corey
Cibola Burn – James S. A. Corey
Nemesis Games – James S. A. Corey
Babylon's Ashes – James S. A. Corey
Persepolis Rising – James S. A. Corey
Tiamat's Wrath – James S. A. Corey
Leviathan Falls – James S. A. Corey

…and…

All Souls Lost – Dan Moren

last.fm have their own year in review called last.year. Not only is it far more comprehensive than Spotify Wrapped, but they do it right by acknowledging that December is a month that exists.

So here's mine. I listened to more music in 2023 compared to the previous year. 24,053 listens. Comprised of 2,552 artists, 4705 albums, and 9,644 unique tracks.

I was going to come up with a "my favorite albums of 2023" but I must admit I haven't really paid attention to new releases and have a lot of catching up to do.

That said, albums from 2023 that I did listen to and recommend are:

Ladytron – Time's Arrow
Depeche Mode – Memento Mori
Blur – The Ballad Of Darren
Sleaford Mods – UK Grimm

Looking forward to all the songs in my ears 2024 edition.

Finished Leviathan Falls, the ninth and final book in the science fiction series The Expanse.

Set in a future where Earth, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt are major players in a politically charged and technologically advanced spacefaring society. From the bustling streets of Earth to the militaristic strongholds of Mars and the rugged outposts of the Belt, each location is vivid and immersive.

The story is propelled by a series of interconnected events, beginning with the discovery of the mysterious protomolecule. This discovery sets off a chain reaction of political intrigue, interplanetary conflicts, and existential threats to humanity. The pacing is masterful, with each installment building upon the previous one, creating a sense of escalating tension and stakes.

I first fell in love with the Expanse universe because of the TV show. The series came to a close after the sixth season, but always felt like an odd place to leave it. Learning there were another three books worth of material, I was excited to find out how it ended.

And what a ride. After nine books and 5062 pages, they stuck the landing. Probably the best story I've ever read.

We've had the New York Times delivered every Sunday for a long time. You know how life happens and the realization there are not enough hours in the day? Well yeah, that.

When we found we hadn't read the paper in three weeks, it was time to cancel. The cancel process was more painful than I feel it should have been, and I ended up getting frustrated and canceling everything NYT related.

In hindsight, a bit of a mistake and I just resubscribed to the New York Times online all access. I really do still want to read articles from time to time and this was the third time in as many days hitting their paywall and groaning as I no longer had a subscription.

So, welcome back old friend.

I still have my original unwrapped 2008 Barack Obama wins election copy in pride of place.

update: the original post was a bit of an odd word salad, so this is more of what I really wanted to say.

Dan Sinker on what we're all feeling about Twitter these days. The diaspora of our friends to pastures green, and posting less.

Year Of The Living Dead

I'm on all of them (because of course I am) and ultimately they're all fine but, over the course of the last year, I've found that I post to them less and less.

Yes! And this hits the nail on the head for me.

For years Twitter was just the place you could dump your thoughts. You didn't have to think about it, you just dumped. I dumped a lot of thoughts into Twitter. I made lots of friends along the way. But now? Now those friends are spread across multiple sites, if they've landed anywhere. And any thought you want to dump now? You've got to decide where to dump it. Nowadays I find myself asking, "Is this a Mastodon thought?" "A Bluesky thought?" "A Threads thought?" Do I post it to all three? (And what does that mean?) By the time I've run through this particular flowchart, the thought is usually gone.

Elon Musk everyone. Great job.

Update: the link to Dan's blog post was hilariously busted. Be careful with curly quotes on mobile.

Today marks the end of an era. Pour one out for the old Movable Type install I still had laying around. I kept it up purely for Action Streams support. Which, at the time, was a kinda cool aggregator of "the things you do elsewhere on the internets". Not something I've had on the site for a while now so decided it was time for MT to retire up state.

I had a pang of nostalgia for the good old days of blogging as I typed cd cgi-bin && rm -rf mt 🥲

What happened was, I had a fully stable 16" M1 Macbook Pro, bricked it, and ended up with an OS I didn't want.

A tale as old as time, you're now older and less enthusiastic about tinkering. Stability replaces the urge to upgrade to bleeding edge. There's something to be said about "just works".

True to form in fine risk aversion mode, there I was still on Monterey. With Sonoma just coming out thought it was safe to be "Captain 12 months ago" and install the latest Ventura with all the kinks worked out. Made a Time Machine backup of current, started the upgrade, and walked away.

Came back 20 mins later to see how much time was left. Completely black screen. Weird. Hit a few keys and used the trackpad to wake it up. Nothing, system had powered off. Hitting the power button displayed the apple logo as expected, but then it powered itself off again.

Had that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Made the decision to just restore from the backup I'd just made. Nervously powered it back on holding down the power key to boot into recovery mode. No recovery mode.

Fun!

A spot of light googling commenced and the internets told me that I was indeed fucked. But there was a path back to glory if you have another Mac.

Connect two Macs together via USB-C. On the working Mac, install Apple Configurator. Power cycle the bricked Mac and do the "hold down various keys for various amounts of seconds" dance to force it into DFU mode. Inside Apple Configurator on the working Mac, choose 'Revive Mac'. This will download and reinstall the recovery toolset on the bricked Mac.

That worked. Which now allowed me to boot into the recovery options on the "no longer bricked but still hosed" Mac. Yay, there's now an option to restore from backup. Chose that. Nope. Wouldn't let me do that. Instead, Apple sayeth reinstall MacOS from scratch and migrate your apps and user data from your backup using Migration Assistant. Ugh, sure, I guess?

And which OS was the only option? Of course, Sonoma. Which I had no intention of installing and absolutely did not want. But, when you're already dead in the water, just pull the trigger. So I did, let that churn for a bit. Booted into Sonoma, and assumed it would be the vanilla OS and I'd have to now try to recover all my actual stuff. But no, oh look happy day, everything is already there. And it all just works.

I saw that Sunday afternoon going differently in my mind. And no, I'm never upgrading OS again.

Genesis. Often unjustly maligned in the British press over the years. They've sold eleventy billion albums, and yet remain the most uncool of bands. But I like them, no I love them.

Their evolution from the Peter Gabriel led progressive rock band of the late 60s to the Phil Collins hit singles era is well documented. With Collins taking over vocal duties in 1976, they underwent a transformation, embracing a more streamlined and accessible sound. The 1980s saw Genesis reach new heights of commercial success with albums like "Abacab" and "Invisible Touch." Collins' distinct voice and the band's knack for catchy melodies resulted in chart-topping singles and sold-out stadium tours.

Their self-titled album from 1983 is often overlooked, which is a shame, because it contains quite possibly the best song they ever wrote. Home By The Sea is, quite frankly, a masterpiece. I love the atmosphere, the delivery, the production, and even the subject matter. A burglar breaks into a house, only to find it haunted, he's captured by the spirits who force him to sit and listen to their stories for the rest of his life.

I can't think of a better vocal performance by Collins in his career. I could listen to this song every day for the rest of my life and it would never fail to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

'Cause you won't get away
No, with us you will stay
For the rest of your days

SIT DOWN

As we relive our lives in what we tell you
Let us relive our lives in what we tell you