No one loves Meta's Metaverse. Including the people working on it. I still haven't found a compelling reason for the metaverse to exist until we can have a fully immersive virtual reality where I can be an elf.
I nuked my Graphene OS install on the Pixel 6 because I had never been able to re-lock it. So it's currently Android 13, and it's a good reminder of how much Google's Android is in your face and capturing your data all the time. I know Google now makes a story about its commitment to privacy and putting you in control. Still, it now has so many services doing stuff in the background I doubt any consumer can actually make a call on what to block -- or even what they can block. It'll be back to Graphene soon.
John Gruber has a good post about the putative X - The Everything App that Elon Musk teased. There are lots of reasons what amounts to a WeChat clone won't take off in the West, but honestly, would you want it to? Would you want your entire digital life in the hands of Elon fucking Musk?
IMPORTANT ONE: We Hunted The Mammoth is having a pledge drive, and it's not going well. The site does the absolute best work in uncovering both the hideous misogyny of the so-called men's rights movement and the awful transphobia of so-called "gender criticals" -- who are often related or actually the same bunches of people. Throw them some money, even £5, if you can.
This post on how it's getting harder to preserve the internet reminded me of something. One of my favourite podcasts of the mid-2000s was On the run with Tablet PC, hosted by Marc Orchant and James Kendrick. As the name suggests, it focused on Microsoft tablet PCs and had some really good guests. Sadly Marc died in 2007 and James in 2018, both too young. The page for the podcast has now vanished, and before that, the links to the files were broken -- I would love to find copies if anyone has them.
