Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

Annoyed With Instagram

For the past few months I’ve been having intermittent trouble staying logged into Instagram. Each time I wrote it off as some kind of glitch, but during the last 48 hours or so it’s been constant.

I use an app called Grids to view my Instagram feed and save those images I find interesting. I also use something called 4K Downloader to back up my (and to be honest a few of my favorite posters) pictures wholesale. I can no longer use either. I’ll log in, get presented with a bunch of verification bullshit, and then after successfully getting in, I get knocked out about three minutes later and the apps are just broken until I go through the whole login process again.

Instagram’s web version and the native iOS app work just fine (although after getting knocked out of Grids or 4K, both prompt me to log in again). I did some cursory investigation and apparently Instagram is now blocking all third-party apps.

 

Instagram is the last bit of social media I participate in. (I don’t count Tumblr as a part of that, although I suppose technically I should.) I don’t know what prompted this draconian lock down of their APIs, but I have a feeling it has something to do with Elon Musk’s ongoing destruction of Twitter. I’m sure Zuck looked at what was going on over there, and thought…

Meta needs to fail. Twitter needs to fail. These social media mega corporations in general need to die, but sadly that won’t happen as long as people use them.

I left Facebook almost a decade ago; I left Twitter—after having returned a year ago solely for the porn—much more recently. But Instagram is going to prove to be more difficult. I killed my account back in 2012 when it was taken over by Facebook and immediately regretted it, rejoining the service almost immediately.

It’s an addiction, I know.

Thankfully I had the foresight to back up my photos from all the years leading up to 2012, and I have backups of everything since, but where to post them? Right now I have about 5200 images from 2012 onward, and probably a third of that prior for the years I was on prior to that. Should I post them here? Innundate my tumblr? What do you guys think? Would you be interested in seeing any of it?

1 comments

Posted on

Expand The Court

The only way it’s going to happen is to get a solid Democratic majority in both the House and Senate. THIS CAN BE DONE if we just get people off their asses!

0 comments

Posted on

Forever My Queen

A few mega, major, beyond snapshots of DonnaSummer from the upcoming Christie’s auction, some by Scavullo, some by Harry Langdon, one or more by David Alexander and some by none of the above!

[Source]

0 comments

Posted on

Chills

I first read DUNE when I was 19 years old, during what I affectionately refer to as the summer of STAR WARS. I remember stumbling over the vocabulary, Bene Gesserit, Mentat, Gom Jabbar…referring to the glossary at the end of the book more times than I care to admit. But it soon became my favorite book of all time, and I voraciously consumed the original remaining five books penned by Herbert. (I only picked up his son’s work—all of which were imminently forgettable—during the many long, sleepness nights I experienced during my cancer treatments.)

After the much-anticipated  David Lynch version came out in 1984 (long before Heretics or Chapterhouse were published), I gave up all hope of the original novel ever receiving a big screen treatment in a manner worthy of the source material. I—along with so many others—feared it unfilmable.

That was, until Denis Villeneuve’s version burst upon the scene two years ago. I had (and still have) some small quibbles with it, but by far this remains the most faithful scren adaptation we are likely to see in our lifetimes.

That being said, the trailer for Part 2 just dropped, and OH. MY. GOD. I knew Denis was promising so much more for this one, but these few scenes actually gave me chills.

November is just around the corner, and it may be the first time since Part 1 that I actually venture into a theater again.

If the film itself is half as good as what this trailer hints at, Villeneuve owes it to his fans to proceed onto Dune Messiah…although I am willing to wait until after he completes Rendezvous With Rama (another of my favorite books).

2 comments