Do you know that the largest empire in the world, the Achaemenid Empire, owes part of its architecture to the civilization of Elam, which once had a powerful government in the west of Iran?

https://www.pirsik.com/tours/t-10446

#Iran #Travel #2024 #2024goal #destination #history #culture

Do you know that the largest empire in the world, the Achaemenid Empire, owes part of its architecture to the civilization of Elam, which once had a powerful government in the west and southwest of Iran? In this tour, we travel to the third millennium BC

https://buff.ly/49wOljn

#Iran #Travel #2024 #2024goal #destination #2024destination #history #culture

Microsoft. Apple. Amazon. Meta (Facebook). Alphabet (Google). Together, these companies comprise what is known as Big Tech. The services offered by the companies throughout the years are utilize by many businesses and consumers all over the world, including myself.

The business practices of Big Tech, however, are questionable, at best.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates era was marred by predatory and monopolistic business practices, while their current focus on subscription services started a dubious trend across technology. Apple champions themselves as protecting user privacy, but their hardware is designed with no user upgradability and few, it any, user repair options. Amazon has all but declared war on small businesses and their own employees. Meta created a toxic social media environment that fosters disinformation and extreme right wing beliefs, not to mention major privacy concerns. Speaking of privacy, Alphabet wrote the book on accessing user data as the trade off for their “free” services.

In order to move away from these companies as much as possible, I am looking at software and service alternatives that fit some of all of the following criteria:

• Comes from the FLOSS (Free, Libre and Open Source Software) community
• Is platform/hardware agnostic
• Is user/consumer focused
• Is privacy focused

In some cases, I’ve already made the move to providers which fit these criteria. I’ll be discussing their pros and cons, as well as other options you can choose from. In other cases, I’ll be checking out my options as I prepare to make my move away from Big Tech and will bring you along on the journey. There may even be some services which I self host, now that I have a fiber connection for my home and some spare equipment I can put to use. I actually like that idea the most since I would have full control of the software and hardware.

If you’re already using non Big Tech software and services or know of some you think I might be interested in, let me know in the comments.

https://medi-nerd.com/2024/01/20/2024-goal-minimize-big-tech-reliance/

#2024Goal #Alphabet #Amazon #AppleMeta #BigTech #FacebookTechnology #Google #Microsoft #MinimizeBigTechReliance

The good news is that this post gives me a week of daily posting to start the year!

Many of us post to Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites on a daily basis, usually multiple times throughout our day. They’re usually free and easy to access, plus it’s a way for us to stay in touch our friends and family. Social media sites have a number of issues, however:

• If you’re not paying for it, you become the product – An issue with any free service on the Internet for years, their terms of service (TOS) usually give them the right to use anything you enter, from your contact information to your photos to anything you post in your social media feeds, however they wish, including selling that information to people and companies you may not want association with.
• The “enshittification” of social media sites – Author Cory Doctrow coined today term in 2022. It was named the word of the year in 2023. In short, enshittification is what happens when sites like Twitter and Facebook lock their users in with high switching costs (“all my family is on Facebook!”) and then keep making changes that makes the site/service worse and worse until the site loses advertisers and, finally, users. Elon Musk bought Twitter, for example, and made sure to accelerate the enshittification of the site to the point that it’s a ghost of its former self.
• Social media is limiting – Twitter has a character count limit of 280 characters. Mastodon’s limit is usually 500 characters. Other social media sites have similar character limits, while services like Facebook are limited more by their interface, which isn’t designed for long form writing and publishing. Posting on my site gives me the ability to combine my writing along with photos, music, videos, and other media, as well as the ability to format it the way I want.
• Censorship (or lack thereof) – Many times, I’ve seen friends post screen shots of posts they’ve made which were blocked by Facebook or Twitter because they “violate community standards”, though what standards are violated are never made clear. Twitter even suspended my account twice for similar reasons. Meanwhile, fascists and bigots post with near impunity, even after reports from multiple users. I don’t have to deal with any of that on my own website.

I will continue to post on my social media accounts, but you may have already noticed that most of my posts link to my website. My main writing will take place on my site, while I’ll use my social media accounts to amplify my posts. I may drop a comment or reply here or there, but I hope to keep my “doomscrolling” on social media to a minimum.

https://medi-nerd.com/2024/01/07/2024-goal-write-a-daily-post-on-my-site/

#2024Goal #CoryDoctrow #Enshittification #Facebook #Mastodon #SocialMedia #Twitter #WordPress #WriteADailyPostOnMySite

Over the past few years, I’ve tried to set myself a goal of reading a certain number of books in a calendar year. Usually, that goal is 52 books so I average a book a week. Life hasn’t always let me do so, however. Last year, for example, I was only able to read 19 books. This is by no means a failure on my part, but I do think I need to change my goal focus. Instead of a set number of books in the year, I’d like to build the habit of reading every day, even if it’s just a few pages.

The books I plan to read will come from the following:

• Books from my local library
• E-books, audiobooks, and graphic novels from the Libby and Hoopla apps
• Books I purchase locally, from either Black Cat Books & Oddities (new books) or The Bookshelf (used books)
• Books, e-books, audiobooks, graphic novels, and manga I’ve purchased from various Humble Bundle events

To track my reading progress, I have an account on Bookwyrm, a federated social media service for reading. I’ll also try to write reviews of the books I read, both here and on Bookwyrm. If you’re also tracking your reading, let me know where I can follow you so I can see what you’re reading.

https://medi-nerd.com/2024/01/01/2024-goal-read-every-day/

#2024Goal #BlackCatBooksOddities #BookWyrm #Hoopla #Libby #MedinaCountyDistrictLibrary #ReadEveryDay #TheBookshelf