So long, and thanks for all the tweets

Twitter has been going downhill ever since Elon bought it. But things like unbanning Nazis and removing actual verification didn’t directly affect me so, shamefully, I still kept reading Twitter every day.

You see, although there’s a lot of talk about leaving that hellsite, there are lots of people holding on, perhaps worried about losing the vast number of followers they have collected, or thinking things would go back to how they were eventually.

I am a Twitter completionist. This means that for as long as I can remember, probably since not long after I joined in 2007, I have read every single tweet on my timeline. This was helped enormously by third-party Twitter apps, especially since they started keeping your place in the timeline (shoutout to Manton Reece for inventing Tweet Marker).

Twitter was where I would get most of my news, either current affairs or just news about cool new tech. Using a third party app (mostly TweetBot, though I flirted with Twitterific for a while), meant that there was no algorithm and no ads – just a chronological list of tweets from my curated list of accounts that I followed.

That all changed about a day ago when Twitter removed access to third-party apps. They still haven’t explained it or confirmed it is new policy, but their silence on the matter speaks volumes. Elon obviously decided that people using third party apps and not giving him as revenue were fair game to ‘sacrifice’.

Spending just a few minutes on the official Twitter app was enough to convince me I won’t be using it daily. It disrespects your choices by forcing you back into the algorithmic timeline on every launch, and the chronological timeline is chock full of ads. Even if there are still people there that I want to hear from, I don’t want to do it like this. I’ll probably jump in every now and then just out of morbid curiosity, but it’s no longer a big part of my life.

So long, and thanks for all the tweets.

You can find me on Mastodon.

2022 in Fitness & Travel

I took ~2.5 million steps – avg of 6.9k per day
I worked out 305 times – highest concentration was February & March
Lost 5.2kg and 3.8% body fat (lost more than that actually but gained some too!)
And in travel, I visited all over the UK, France, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Las Vegas, and Mauritius.

November Fitness

November was a bad month in fitness for me – in my defence we did spend a week of this away with no access to a gym, and early morning starts. On top of this, it was a very wet and cold month – waking up in the morning feeling cold is not a motivator for me!

In an attempt to make December better, I will be using the treadmill a lot more now. I did do a 6km run on the treadmill a couple of days ago.

November 2022 stats

I worked out 10 days, a total of just 4 hours of workouts.

4 hours of exercise – worst month this year!

October Fitness

October was an average month for me in fitness – I blame the colder weather, it really demotivates me! Although once I’m out there running, the cold weather actually helps me go further and faster – I broke my distance record this month.

October 2022 stats

I worked out 14 days. That’s 11 hours of workouts! Mostly walking, I went 41.8km, and did my longest run of 8km without stopping or slowing down 🔥

60% walking, 24% dumbbells, 12% running, 4% misc.

11 hours of fitness this month – around average

Vegan for 1 year!

I’ve been a strict vegan for just over a year now! According to thevegancalculator.com I have saved:

• 3,322kg of CO2

• 1,519,823 ltrs water

• 1,022 sq m forest

• 365 animals lives

#EarthDay #EarthDay2022

Didn’t quite make the 25 min run on Friday. Maybe because it was later than usual, or I ate too much the night before (Andrew’s birthday!). Going to try it again Monday ?

Into the unknown

What do you want? ‘Cause you’ve been keeping me awake

Are you here to distract me so I make a big mistake?

Or are you someone out there who’s a little bit like me?

Who knows deep down I’m not where I’m meant to be?

Every day’s a little harder as I feel your power grow

Don’t you know there’s part of me that longs to go…

INTO THE UNKNOWN!

Plot holes introduced in The Timeless Children

I’ve just watched The Timeless Children (latest episode of Doctor Who) and there seem to be many plot holes. I’ve not yet seen all of Classic Who so forgive me if I miss any…

Spoilers!

  • River Song was apparently born a Time Lord because she was conceived on the TARDIS, but that no longer makes sense because they said the Time Lords invented time travel themselves, independent of the Timeless Child stuff.
  • When Clara Oswald jumped into The Doctor’s life stream thing in “Name of the Doctor” and saw all his faces… it completely ignored all his other past lives
  • How come The Doctor and the Time Lords have the same DNA, including 2 hearts, if they are different species?
  • Also in “Name of the Doctor” it showed that it was Clara who suggested which TARDIS to steal, but that makes no sense now because he would have had to steal the one he always steals in every lifetime (as evidenced by the Ruth!Doctor having the same TARDIS)
  • Why would they always call themselves The Doctor even after lots of mind wipes? And where did it come from originally? It was pre-Hartnell…
  • What’s the point of using The Doctor for dangerous missions and resetting their memory lots of times when they could just use literally anybody else from Gallifrey? Now that they all have regeneration powers (and the limit is self imposed) they could just do the missions themselves, and The Doctor is probably the most important person to keep safe as they still don’t know where she came from?
  • The Death Particle killed them all excited why didn’t they all regenerate?
  • Can Cybermen be created by converting dead bodies? I’m not sure about that, may be a Classic Who thing. And if the Time Lords are dead how do they regenerate? That was strange.
  • Not exactly a plot hole but in The Time of the Doctor it was the Doctor’s last life, no regenerations left, and Clara begs the Time Lords to give him a new set… we now know they didn’t have to, so I guess that was just for show?
  • We may discover this later I suppose but if The Doctor was controlled and kept as their “weapon” then how did he have a family, including a grandchild (Susan), before his escape?
  • Why in all their travels did The Doctor never meet her original people?
  • What was The Hybrid all about then? All Time Lords are hybrids…
  • Also why is it “children”?

I have many questions!