mastodon 4.7.3A gen X with a straight to the point attitude. Based in the UK, I play bass and design sound under the moniker Minutes to Midnight.
In a previous life, I spent decades working as a #GameAudio designer and a #WebDeveloper.
I turned this account into a blog feed, automated and not monitored. Might be temporary, or permanent, time will tell. Email me to get in touch.
Steve Wozniak interviewed for CBS:
"I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups [...] I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out."
He turned 75 4 days ago.
When I keep saying that being on #streaming platforms is a pointless exercise, I get sometimes asked for numbers, or proofs.
Here you go. A single song of mine was played a MILLION times in 3 months, in 2022 (and, in later months, another 750k times), with a net gain of £33.
A million plays on streaming pays for a pizza night out for me and @silviamaggi@mastodon.design
Took me FOUR sales on Bandcamp to reach the same amount.
So, ask me again, why quit giving out music to the techbros?
Activists from the UK and Italy placed a 20 square meters banner in Piazza San Marco (Venice, Italy) to say something that should be a given, but it's not.
I don't think I've ever hated anyone like I hate billionaires.
More info:
"This isn’t accidental. It’s cultural. We’ve created an industry where complexity is celebrated. Where cleverness is rewarded. Where engineering sophistication is valued more than clarity, usability, or commercial effectiveness."
From the same article: "Accessibility? Maybe, if there is time."
There NEVER is time. The industry is now a travesty, and it ruined everything around it.
Read: "JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)" by Jono Alderson.
https://www.jonoalderson.com/conjecture/javascript-broke-the-web-and-called-it-progress/
I'll never tire of saying this: growth at all costs is a metastatic disease.
What's wrong with being content with what you have? Plateau isn't a bad thing, it's wonderful, it's sustainable, it's sane, it's healthy.
Stop fuelling companies or individuals who are involved with metastatic products.
Can anyone recommend small independent sources of information/news, either about tech, world facts, or both, that are in a similar ballpark as kottke and 404media, but they're not US-centric?
Anything interesting in Europe or elsewhere?
Plan for the next few years.
- Move away from Ruby and avoid anything built on a fragile mental stake of dependencies.
- Move to Linux, use Hackintosh to keep tabs on Apple related music software.
- Move to Fairphone.
- Delete YouTube and move to PeerTube.
- Delete Google account.
- Check if I have a Microsoft account. If yes, delete it.
- Move to Framework if I want to keep a laptop around.
- Start self-hosting a few services.
- Avoid the news.
- Radicalise.
"Please stop legitimizing LLMs or AI image generators or GitHub Copilot or any of this garbage. I am begging you to stop using them, stop talking about them, stop making new ones, just stop. If blasting CO2 into the air and ruining all of our freshwater and traumatizing cheap laborers and making every sysadmin you know miserable and ripping off code and books and art at scale and ruining our fucking democracy isn’t enough for you to leave this shit alone, what is?"
https://drewdevault.com/2025/03/17/2025-03-17-Stop-externalizing-your-costs-on-me.html
#LLM
🪴 New blog post: "Leaving the web industry"
I accepted an offer for a permanent job in one of the most prestigious British institutes. To get there, I had to first understand I'm not cut for the web industry anymore.
https://minutestomidnight.co.uk/blog/leaving-the-web-industry/
After another try, and a solid run through the many customisations available, I might be settling well with #Vivaldi. At the moment it looks like the only real cross-platform solution. Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android — all without ads and tracking.
No other acceptable browser is offering the same. Its HQ is in the EU, they’re not involved with crypto, its founder is not a homophobic creep, they’re not propelling AI or “acceptable advertising”.
For now, it’s good enough.
A few days ago my 2015 MacBook Pro died. After a short rumination, I'd decided NOT to buy a new Mac, because no matter how much I despise what Apple has become, but I should walk the walk.
Found a logic board replacement on eBay, costing a fraction of what iFixit is selling in Europe. I guess the seller listed the item with the wrong CPU speed.
Result, after a 50-minutes surgery: I have my laptop back, perfectly working, with a CPU that clocks higher than before.
Fuck planned obsolescence.
Link: "Why Are Cars Getting Bigger?"
"To stop the climate crisis, we have to dramatically change the way we live, and that's really scary. Making our cars smaller isn't nearly enough, so we make them bigger, because to make them smaller is to acknowledge that the problem is real.
Capitalism is a cult. Like any cult, when confronted with reality, its members must instead choose to double down on fantasy."
Why did I just leave Spotify?
Nobody has ever reached out by saying they were interested in knowing more, after finding my music on there. Since this is *by design*, I removed all the music and deleted both my personal and artist accounts.
Same as when I deleted my SoundCloud a few weeks ago, it feels pointless to scatter songs over centralised online silos.
The sanest direction of travel from now on is to follow the principles of #BeYourOwnPlatform
Apparently, a single song from my album "After 1989" racked up 1,568,434 streams on YouTube.
PRS UK paid me today for that, so it's new car, caviar. Or maybe I'll buy me a football team.
https://minutestomidnight.co.uk/blog/more-than-1-5-million-stream-brought-me-royalties/
#WordPress and #Adobe accounts > deleted.
Next in line: #Spotify, and seriously considering wiping out #Google as well. For the latter I need to find another Ungoogled custom ROM for my Android first.
2024 seems to be my year of digital cleansing.
Feels good. I might set up a side project with a tiny landing page called 'Accounts Graveyard' or something like that.
New instance, new #introduction
Simone here. A professional bassist, sound designer and producer for more than 25 years, I've been juggling between creativity and technical jobs for decades.
Pioneering #GameAudio in the early 2000s, I'm working to go back to the #videogame industry after a long hiatus. I was present at both the launch of Steam by Valve and Game Audio Network Guild, in San Jose, GDC 2002.
Passionate about the #SmallWeb and #WebStandards
I have neither time nor energy to even pondering these things. They're quick to turn things into shit, I'm also quick to wipe that shit out.
🔖 New post: three years after I left Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, I might have found a space where to both agree and disagree in peace, while growing meaningful connections. It's a point of view on how I feel free to engage with people on the fediverse, without forcing anyone into a 'building community' trope.
The post is about the #fediverse, #MusicProduction, mutual respect and support.
Particular shout outs (but should be more):
@hilljam@mastodon.social
@mosgaard@uddannelse.social
@zeruch@mastodon.social
I've developed a new pet peeve. Musicians on Mastodon who publicise their Bandcamp address in their bios, but then DON'T have their Mastodon profile on Bandcamp.
I lost count of how many artists I liked and/or followed on Bandcamp from Mastodon, but then lost on the fediverse because too many tabs, and asynchronous navigation.
Please add your Mastodon URL on Bandcamp, it's also the simplest way to authenticate that profile in your bio here.
