Another morning for me on the internet

Good morning

I know, it's probably not morning where you are. Or when you are. But I like to start my day off with a bit of cheerfulness. Perhaps for international acceptance and relevance to all, I should just go with "Good day," but then I'm missing out on getting my cheery start to the day to go along with my breakfast.

I often start a post on Mastodon with a good morning. There's actually a #GoodMorning hashtag that you can follow, so that all the posts using it will pop up in your feed throughout the day, as the world's different time zones wake up.

It's all nice and cheery until the day's themes, news and angst sets in of course. Because as desperate as you may be to maintain cheeriness for as long as possible, it will only last for a few seconds. This is because it seems a lot of people feel it's their duty to pass on all the news and angst they've seen to everyone they know via their social account.

Even if everyone they know is also using the internet, and are quite capable of visiting news sites and read it for themselves if they really wanted to. But apparently we need to know, even if we had already chosen not to know.

I've generally chosen not to know because I've opened Mastodon and not the news websites, but despite avoiding news until tonight's dinner time, I'll get a taste anyway.

It's not just worldwide news of course. Because it's Mastodon, there is generally some unintelligible to me tech news that is an outrage to be reacted angrily to as well.

And then, there's the rest of the internet.

Control via App

Last night, I wanted to send J (my wife) some money, so I reached for my phone and opened the banking app. But instead of opening, like it normally does, it showed me a message. Apparently, they had 'detected' that the keyboard app I use (an open source one from F-Droid) was incompatible and not secure for their app, so I should disable or uninstall it and use the default one instead (Google - now there's 'secure'!)

And the only option supplied on there was to close the app again.

Thinking 'Ahh, I'll get round that by logging on to the internet interface instead', I opened the bank's website on my laptop. Then I found that they'd updated the logging on method for internet-based banking to require a secure code generated by the phone app – that wasn't working on my phone.

So now, I couldn't get into my bank account to send J her £40 of my money. Not until I install a keyboard that I already didn't want to use (for security issues because Google) but that my bank app, that needs very tight security, will be only to happy to work with.

So this morning I have been talking to the bank's technical team, who inform me that the only way to get this working is indeed to uninstall my choice of keyboard app, and install their choice of one.

Then I am looking to change bank accounts, from First Direct (which I should have done already from an ethical viewpoint, but you know, inertia) with all the work that entails for me, and having to check with any candidate bank that I can do what I want on my phone and still use their app. Or at least access the web interface without one if I choose.

Next, I logged on to my Trello boards to update and review my tasks, as is my new fancy routine (I'm trying hard to have a new fancy routine). On opening the board on my desktop PC, I see a banner message across the top of the screen.

Our updated legal terms go into effect on August 17, 2026 and apply to all Atlassian cloud customers. Review the terms

I sigh.

It's not 8 am yet, and the modern internet is doing modern internet at me already.

Safe

For a little bit of calm, I've retreated to my blog. Here, the frustrations of the morning can be written and worked out of me, hopefully with a little bit of humour, and getting a sympathetic hearing, without needing anyone else's approval.

Then, I shall try to have a day that is as close as possible to not needing any more internet in it at all.