Here is a better article about this change: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2024/11/stravas-changes-to-kill-off-apps.html

Here is the precise line that sucks: “You may not process or disclose Strava Data, even publicly viewable Strava Data, including in an aggregated or de-identified manner, for the purposes of, including but not limited to, analytics, analyses, customer insights generation, and products or services improvements. Strava Data may not be combined with other customer data, for these or any other purposes."

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.

Was it though?

A billionaire buys or funds a privately owned platform and does with it as he pleases, despite the obviously humanitarian route being something different. Have we really never seen that before?

Whhhhhhy?

This is the same thing. This is the exact same type of platform that will eventually go the same way. This is shooting yourself in the foot once, then aiming the shotgun at the other foot and pulling the trigger thinking that the bullet was a fluke the first time.

I mean… It’s not wrong, actually.

That’s the joke.

SSX Tricky brought up to PS5 graphics.

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?

I flew into Boston from Europe three weeks ago.

I also flew into NYC from Europe earlier this year.

They use images of your face and biometrics. This is how travel works. It has nothing to do with how civilized you think you are.

Have you flown international lately? This is what it looks like to land in the international terminal in most major US airports as well.

You forgot apathy. That’s what works for me.

The third of Arthur C Clarke’s three laws:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

That seems fine. Honestly, if he’s new to Linux and wants something stable, maybe consider an atomic distro. But Debian is pretty damn good.

I’d wait until he has requests. Ask for feedback about what he feels like he’s missing and make updates as needed. Easier than trying to anticipate.

Dude I’m a millennial, why are you talking like a decrepit retiree? We aren’t that old. You shouldn’t be that sick unless you have some niche conditions that don’t really apply to most “aging millennials”.

The two party system is hot flaming garbage.

In order for ranked choice voting on a national level to get incorporated, the elected officials have to vote to change the system that put them in power. Neither of the two parties’ politicians wants that, since it would then be easier for someone else to potentially beat them, so it doesn’t happen.

If it is not open source, and you are not paying, someone else is and you are the product.

Ironically there used to be a subreddit for this.

It was intentionally meant to be view-only for humans, and the bots within it were named for and trained on other subreddits. So you have AdviceAnimalsBot, LinuxBot, GamingBot, AskRedditBot, GoneWildBot, etc. They would post on a rotation, emulating what users in their respective subreddits posted. They would all comment on each other’s posts, emulating their respective subreddit’s comments.

As an experiment it was actually really cool and fun to read through. It was also very clear that these were bots and you could identify which was which, and nothing was pretending to be a human for karma (there were no votes in the subreddit).

It’s a bad study metric though.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a fuck ton of unhealthy people in the US, but weight isn’t the end all be all. I’ve been “overweight” since I was 15, for the last 14 years now. I’m also 11% bodyfat and very very athletic. Weight and BMI are bad metrics.