Rolling out a few improvements to Micro.blog today, including a new “trash” for deleted posts, an “x” button to hide the publish pane, Typepad import, and other tweaks. More to come! | Continue reading
Rough morning for the Micro.blog servers. Woke up to a major problem with hung connections tripping up a few things. I have a few nice feature improvements ready to go, though. | Continue reading
My current concern with iOS 26 is not any of the developer stuff, it’s the Phone app! I consistently see caching problems where the UI is out of sync with the notification badge, and missing voicemails until I force quit. Never seen this many problems in a core Apple app before. | Continue reading
Threads is testing long-form text attachments on posts. Not good. It would centralized blog-like content that should be on someone’s own site. | Continue reading
Brent Simmons reminiscing about Frontier and why modern development environments aren’t as good: I’m not saying apps these days need to be Frontier-like in any details. But it seems absolutely bizarre to me that we — we who write Mac and iOS apps — still have to build and run the … | Continue reading
AI might eliminate some programmer jobs. It’s also going to create new programmers, people who don’t have a traditional CS background. I’m not convinced the sky is falling on work. The greatest challenge is not to the economy but to a fractured society, with AI becoming as divisi … | Continue reading
John Gruber blogging on RFK vs. the CDC: We really needed the CDC five years ago. We’re in big trouble if we need them again before the US electorate ousts these wingnuts. There are new vaccines approved by the FDA but the guidance is really confusing. Going to defer to my doctor … | Continue reading
Dave Winer: Think Different about WordPress: WordPress has a deep and powerful API, well designed, documented, and they don’t break it. Developers who know me know that the last part is the most important. A platform must remain unchanging. Dave’s work is similar and well aligned … | Continue reading
I’ve been wanting to make this change for a while: Micro.blog’s Design page has now been split into separate “design” and “blog settings” pages. This makes more logical sense and keeps each page cleaner. | Continue reading
Watched The Yogurt Shop Murders on HBO, even though it’s not my kind of show. I was in high school during that time, and the shop wasn’t far away. Just sad and still a little surprising that it could not be solved. | Continue reading
Doing an inventory of my domain names, just realized tonight that one expired. Luckily no one grabbed it, so I re-registered it. Spread across four registrars, really cumbersome to keep track of everything. | Continue reading
I’m always curious about other blog hosts' pricing. With Typepad shutting down, I took a screenshot of their pricing page. One of the most confusing, “why would I upgrade to Premium or Enterprise?” set of plans. | Continue reading
OpenAI has a long blog post about what more needs to be done to make ChatGPT safer, especially for teens: We’re also exploring making it possible for teens (with parental oversight) to designate a trusted emergency contact. That way, in moments of acute distress, ChatGPT can do m … | Continue reading
Typepad is shutting down after an amazing 20+ years. It was spun off of Movable Type back in the very early days of the blogosphere. Seth Godin used to use it too, and I see that his old URLs redirect, which is great. | Continue reading
John Gruber with analysis of the latest lawsuit in the Masimo patent saga: It reads to me like that same decision would have been made, at the same time, if Kamala Harris had won last year’s election. But that’s the problem with a pay-to-play corrupt government like Trump’s, and … | Continue reading
Walked to the coffee shop to pick up a to-go coffee, first time in over a week, since being sick. Covid is everywhere at the moment, so I was trying my best to avoid spreading anything. Really missed working out of the house. 😷 | Continue reading
Released a lot of little bug fixes for the Mac app recently, so it’s already up to version 3.6.9. As long-time listeners of Core Intuition know, I don’t do .10 releases, so it’s time to bump to 3.7! But gotta justify that version number. What features to add? 🤔 | Continue reading
There’s a short “Apple ❤️ Gemini” segment on the latest Upgrade. Does a good job of covering the pros and cons of Apple partnering with Google on Siri. I’m warming up to the idea. | Continue reading
Anthropic experiments in using a Chrome extension instead of building their own web browser. Also some good notes about safety. I’m still enjoying Dia, but it does seem like a lot for everyone to create a new browser. | Continue reading
Bounce from A New Social is now live. Another big step to account portability between platforms. The more tools like this we get, the more it encourages developers to support migration APIs. | Continue reading
With a new iOS beta dropping today, we’re nearing the end, and I’m still not sure it’s a good idea to update Micro.blog on day one. Liquid Glass introduces lots of weirdness with nav button sizes and tap areas. Not going to rush it. | Continue reading
In the 1990s, I had an internship at Apple here in Austin, in a building they were leasing off 183, just east of I-35. They’ve long since expanded to a new campus in northwest Austin, much fancier, reflecting what a massive company Apple has become. I still often drive by that ol … | Continue reading
The key to managing a large code base is extreme minimalism wherever possible. Less code. Simpler names for things. Fewer dependencies. It’s hard to convey with a list of rules, but I know it when I see an unmanageable, cluttered project. | Continue reading
Haven’t quite figured out the best UX for passkeys yet. I’ve been slow switching to them for my accounts, but now that it has been a couple years, hopefully the quirks have been worked out. | Continue reading
When I have a hard time finding a title for an essay, I usually pick the most boring, least clickbait-y title possible. I ran a title by ChatGPT and it said my title was bad for SEO and discoverability… That’s when I knew I had found it. 🤪 | Continue reading
I dug into a little bit of pulse oximeter history. That to me was the major breakthrough, decades ago, so I’m still skeptical there’s enough innovation in Masimo’s new patent. Maybe all the legal fallout is karma for Steve Jobs’s “and boy have we patented it” bragging during the … | Continue reading
Great profile of R. F. Kuang in The New Yorker: I actually am afraid of being totally happy with my work, because, if you are perfectly satisfied with your abilities, there’s nowhere else to go. | Continue reading
Finished reading: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz. Cozy sci-fi! Several robots (and a human) open a noodle restaurant. 📚 | Continue reading
It is common on Mastodon to append a bunch of hashtags to the end of a post. I’ve added a new feature in Micro.blog to help wrangle these. Here’s a screenshot from the Account page: This doesn’t affect inline hashtags, only hashtags at the end if they’re in their own paragraph. | Continue reading
I turned on Threads automatic cross-posting from Micro.blog today, just to test something from my account, then promptly forgot about it. Hadn’t posted in months until now. Maybe I’ll keep it on again for a little while before going back to blog + Bluesky only. | Continue reading
Trying out the new Mythos theme for Micro.blog. It’s really good! | Continue reading
Bluesky blogging about not allowing access in Mississippi: We believe effective child safety policies should be carefully tailored to address real harms, without creating huge obstacles for smaller providers and resulting in negative consequences for free expression. That’s why u … | Continue reading
Picked up this little sticker at Muse Coffee Truck while out today. Feels good to get out after being mostly stuck at home sick all week. ☕️ | Continue reading
Mark Gurman with another new report about Apple’s effort to rebuild Siri: The company is simultaneously developing two versions of the new Siri: one dubbed Linwood that is powered by its models and another code-named Glenwood that runs on outside technology. Executives had long v … | Continue reading
Finished reading: The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu. Very different than most modern fantasy, in pace and character viewpoints. Loved it. Truly epic. 📚 | Continue reading
We got a nice rain this afternoon, the perfect test for the new gutters. Still landscaping and drainage to do, but this was a much-needed house upgrade. | Continue reading
The albums page on @birming’s photo blog is really nicely done. I’m assuming this uses separate Micro.blog pages and photo collections. Very cool because it gives the illusion of a photo albums feature that doesn’t really exist in the platform! | Continue reading
The term superintelligence has been bugging me. AGI hasn’t been achieved yet and some folks are already jumping ahead to AI smarter than humans? I prefer the idea of AI as a team of the most knowledgeable people in the world, each an expert in their field, working together to sol … | Continue reading
I’m not concerned about Bluesky’s terms of service — although I’m glad other people are concerned and checking it! — but I do love this sentence that Cory Doctorow wrote: This is so pro-enshittificatory, it’s like a landing strip for the sole use of Enshittification Airlines, whi … | Continue reading
Great post from Kuba Suder about how all the Bluesky and AT Protocol pieces fit together. | Continue reading
Fascinating post by Mustafa Suleyman on the risks of achieving “seemingly conscious” AI, and how we must design systems to help real people, avoiding the illusion of consciousness: A coherent and persistent memory, combined with a subjective experience, will give rise to a claim … | Continue reading
Skimming over the new Google products. I’m still not in the market for an expensive foldable phone, but I could be interested in a simpler design, without a front screen, more like a foldable iPad. | Continue reading
Continuing to feel better today, so pushed out an email newsletter improvement for Micro.blog Premium folks. I had mostly coded this a couple days ago, was waiting to make sure I could be around to test and monitor it. | Continue reading
Spent most of the day resting, listening to the audiobook for The Grace of Kings, and trying to avoid working. My body was exhausted and Covid was the non-negotiable reminder to slow down. Feeling better. 😷 | Continue reading
Liquid Glass has (deservedly) received plenty of criticism. But there are some areas that are clearly better, like these buttons in iOS alerts. | Continue reading
MSNBC → MS NOW. In fairness to the designers, any new logo is going to be worse than the peacock. During the first Trump term, I thought MSNBC’s coverage was great. But this year they’ve seemed unmoored. I’ve mostly stopped watching. This rebrand was a chance for something new an … | Continue reading
Sitting outside at the hotel, drinking so much water and Gatorade. I always seem to get sick while traveling. 😷 | Continue reading
Lots of good quotes from Alex Heath reporting on a dinner with OpenAI execs and others. Sam Altman: I do think people will go to fewer websites. I think people will care more about human-crafted content than ever. My directional bet would be that human-created, human-endorsed, hu … | Continue reading