Kevin putting it out there

  • Changing Hosts

    After 20 years with Webhostinghub, who have overall done very well, I am moving to a more bare-bones (cheaper) option at hostinger.com (referral 20%off/$4/month). This reflects less of a need to put stuff out there as I move away from producing stuff in English and toward integrating into the culture here in Japan, which is requiring a lot of time for language learning.

    I feel good about this change. But it means my personal email address at ryan@kevinryan.com no longer works. It was flooded with too many ads and I had moved most of my important account maintenance to another address.

    Kevinryan.com will continue here, with my personal thoughts and ideas. I’ve decided to follow Cory Doctorow’s idea of posting in one place and then sending out links on social media to that one place. WordPress makes that easy, except for Facebook, where it only posts to my page, and not my timeline. That may change as Zuck keeps loosening restrictions and allowing more “free speech” on the site, but I am less and less engaged there.

    I’ll post once a week in Facebook to point to my blog. Hope to see you sometimes. Comments available but I have to approve your first one. Going old school. You can email me at my gmail address too.

  • You are the product

    Even when you buy the product. In this case, Apple owners. Apple has been listening and sharing data with third parties (selling). Get in line, you can get up to $100 when they get things set up. From Ars Technica.

  • Facebook or Fakebook?

    Zuckerberg’s Meta is planning to populate Facebook and Instagram with AI-created “members”. Oh joy. From Rolling Stone. (4 clicks to get through the ads.)

  • Word Quiz

    NYTimes (gift article) checks your knowledge of current words that are popular. A good example of a quiz working as a learning tool. I got 6 out of 10, which I consider pretty good. I especially liked the new meanings of “preppy” and “Ohio”.

    Take the quiz.