Toby Kurien

The #Smashwords website is nothing like a modern website, and I love it!

"Digital Vegan" is a deep dive into the problems with our current technology (Big Tech and social media).

Did you know you can download all of Wikipedia onto your hard drive and use it offline?

A free e-book on advice from a philosopher billionaire: "Almanack of Naval Ravikant".

Nostr is: "The simplest open protocol that is able to create a censorship-resistant global "social" network once and for all." and "a truly censorship-resistant alternative to Twitter that has a chance of working" #nostr #twitter #decentralized Nostr http…

I got off GMail back in 2013, right after the Snowden leaks.

The latest incarnation of my #raspberrypi DIY audio player.

A critique of Web3.

As is the trend these days, @ForGoodZA have updated their site to be far more user-hostile: cookie popup, 7+Mb of javascript, and tons of 3rd party requests without which the site won't work.

@deerbard thank you for the heads-up about the date format!

Why, oh WHY, do those #?

I discovered the #Gemini protocol about a year ago, and it's still a thing!

Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide "I don't want to become some huge bodybuilder freak, I just want to get in better shape and look better.

This is a thought-provoking and insightful podcast filled with deep thinking about #crypto #NFT #DAO and the future of #Web3 The Tim Ferriss Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Long-tailed widowbird and red-collared widowbird #birding #photo

This is an amazingly well produced, must-watch video about the influence of technology in our lives.

"You're Not Addicted to Your Phone.

To get my digital vaccine certificate for covid-19, I have to use a government website protected by Google Recaptcha 🤦 This hits me particularly hard since I evade Google tracking, so I get forced into doing free labour to help Google train their self-dri…

"The Single Most Productive Thing You Can Do" #sleep #productivity Grace B https://www.youtube.com/watch?

This season of Formula 1 is the best I've ever watched.

So true: There's still no beating "git push heroku" for deployment.

Book recommendation: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

"A practical philosophy of health, wealth and happiness" Happiness https://nav.al/happiness

Surely, the mother of all unboxing videos: unboxing a quantum computer!

I recently discovered the Coc plugin for vim, which brings VSCode-like smarts to vim.

A fairly compelling argument for publishing documents as PDF files rather than as HTML pages.

I blogged about how I create audiobooks from epubs and the like, using text-to-speech.

I've recently started listening to more audiobooks than actually reading books (physical or on an e-reader), as it allows me to consume more books and long-form articles.

Really cool online browser multi-player games to play with colleagues during lunch break: https://shellshock.io https://blocktanks.io https://smashkarts.io https://sidearms.io https://krunker.io

The "Physiological Sigh" provides instant reduction of anxiety and stress and is easy to do, although you shouldn't undo it by resurfacing the anxiety to test if it worked!

Sampler is an amazing text visualization tool for the terminal.

Some photos from a recent trip to a mountain resort.

"Over a month ago, I came to the realization that my smartphone was having several negative impacts on my mental health...

TIL: there's Android ransomware that works not by encrypting your files, but rather by showing a system modal window that cannot be dismissed by the user until the ransom is paid.

A great talk arguing that software is in fact getting worse, because of more complexity.

Over a month ago, I came to the realization that my smartphone was having several negative impacts on my mental health: Anxiety over tracking and loss of privacy.

Photos from a recent trip down to Port Edward, KZN South Coast.

And here's a gorgeous screenshot of khal in action, if you're still on the fence about #cli PIM tools.

Instead of installing and configuring a heavy GUI app for my calendar and todos, I've discovered the command-line based pimutils.

Book recommendation: Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.

By a truly unbelievable coincidence [...]

I made a music player using the awesome Pimoroni Pirate Audio HAT for #RaspberryPi.

Birds on a wire.

I let out some of my frustrations in a ranty response to a Github feature request for my app.

Giving up the smartphone (currently in airplane mode in the drawer) for a dumb phone.

TIL: trackers/spyware can bypass even third-party blocking and same-origin-policy by using CNAME cloaking.

Not really about 5G, the article mentions ways that SAPS could get hold of your data.

Great video with a LOT of information for privacy-aware smartphone users.

Photos from a recent #hike near Hartebeespoort dam

I was recently treated to a visit from an African Grey Hornbill.