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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 29th, 2023

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  • I use Strava a ton. This update sucks.

    Strava has positioned themselves as two things:

    1. Social media for fitness
    2. Data aggregator with a nice API

    So there are a lot of people, like myself, who bike and use a Wahoo bike computer, or bike inside on Zwift, or run outside with a Garmin or Apple watch, and push all those activities to Strava because everything integrates with it.

    Then, if you want to, you can easily tap into all that data with another platform like TrainingPeaks or Intervals.icu (I bike more than run but there are more for runners). These platforms do really fun data analytics that Strava doesn’t provide, and also have coaching integrations so your coaches can log in and you can authorize them to see your workout results, which helps them build plans for you.

    Two changes from this update fuck up everything:

    • Strava data can’t be shared with anyone by a third party app. Even if I want to allow it. I can’t opt in to share my own data with people I deem appropriate. So my coach can no longer see anything about my activities.
    • Data pulled from Strava can’t be processed in any way. At all. This isn’t talking about feeding random AI models. Platforms like Intervals.icu, which is run by one guy and just provides lots of useful algorithms and graphs of fitness trends, now can’t do anything if your data comes from Strava. Strava is not implementing anything on their end to replace these. They’re just removing the ability to use implementations made by others.

    In short, as a guy who likes training and tracking my fitness, this breaks everything for me. Many many people who casually run or bike or swim or whatever will be in the same boat as me. This sucks.

    EDIT:

    They have framed this as a user protection. It isn’t. No one could see my data that I hadn’t provided explicit permission for via the third party app of my choosing, after voluntarily entering my own API key.

    What this does do is likely set them up to offer a paid API in a few months, so everything that is free and has been free since it’s inception will now cost these third party applications per-request to retrieve. Which is bullshit, because this data is not Strava’s - it’s mine.

    This on the heels of their shitty AI summary bot experiment which was not opt-in but opt-out. There’s a 0% chance Strava built their own AI LLM so even while they’re shutting out access I explicitly invited, they’re piping all my workout data, including any activities I mark as private, straight over to OpenAI without my explicit consent unless I go through the effort to opt out.


  • Don’t think that things like “rescinding your apology” are necessary - just be done. If you can support yourself, and have friends or other people you can emotionally rely on, I would just simply “stop” with your family. Why “rescind your apology”, that will just start another argument for the sake of trying to give yourself some sort of moral high ground, which it aounds like your mother will not acknowledge.

    You don’t need to make a statement about it, you don’t need to announce to them some big decision, just move on. Live a happy life. Be you. Don’t include them in that process if they are not going to be a positive part of it.






  • I’ve started reading the somewhat expansive Cosmere universe of books by Brandon Sanderson.

    I like actually reading, but there is a LOT to get through, so I’m reading the series (a couple trilogies, a series of 5 books) in actual print, and listening to the standalone novels in the universe on audio.

    It’s actually been a nice day to keep moving through all the different overlapping character lines. One particular character, who I’ll call H, spans the various worlds and stories often. It’s fun reading something about H in one book and then hearing him as the narrator or showing up as a character in the audio book I’m listening to later.



  • This is a very odd and out of touch comment with what the game currently is and what is being produced by the devs. Have you even played it recently? All the new Varlamore region stuff is aimed at early and midgame players.

    And yes, the game progresses towards grinding endgame encounters… Like every single MMO ever. If you’re friend is a maxed out account farming for ultra rare drops, I don’t think you can say that what he is doing is “the content the game has to offer for people”. What would you prefer instead? What do you think it should be like, if not this?