AI hesitancy

I’m 48 years old. If you start counting with my paid internship in college, I’ve had a roughly 30-year career in the software industry, give or take a year. I feel extremely lucky that the web came along just as I was getting my feet wet as a developer. World-changing technologie … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 6 months ago

Great blog post from Om Malik on the current AI hardware from Humane and Rabbit, and where things are going. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 6 months ago

I posted a video on YouTube today with where we’re going in Micro.blog to use AI in a limited way to help with search and accessibility. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 6 months ago

Got derailed looking at electric bikes (again!) and now I want this: eeyo.bike. I’m not super picky about bikes, but the cheap one I got a few years ago is busted and it’s impossible to find a new battery. This seems a common problem for many brands. 🚴 | Continue reading


@manton.org | 6 months ago

Great effort from the Lakers. That was a good one. Looking forward to Nuggets vs. Timberwolves! 🏀 | Continue reading


@manton.org | 6 months ago

I feel like MKBHD is trolling us now with the clickbait video titles. R1 review is overall pretty fair, doesn’t change my expectations much. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 6 months ago

Recorded a new video to release tomorrow, with a walkthrough of what is possible with photos and AI. Just a first step, nothing earth-shattering you haven’t seen before, but I really like how it’s coming together in Micro.blog. Our robot overlords made me post this. 🤖 | Continue reading


@manton.org | 6 months ago

Watched the first episode of Fallout last night. Really good. I never played the game, so no idea how closely the show is inspired by it, but I like what they’ve done so far. 📺 | Continue reading


@manton.org | 6 months ago

It was going to be confusing for DMA-required changes on iOS to not also apply to iPadOS, especially for developers with universal apps. I assume syncing them up won’t be a major problem for Apple, hopefully for iOS 18. MacStories has the latest EU news on this. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 6 months ago

When I find myself questioning whether I’m on the right side of an issue, it can be a little comforting to realize that there is no right side. Some things are just a mess. Humans are imperfect, but we’re trying our best. ❤️ | Continue reading


@manton.org | 6 months ago

Wish I could permanently remove that red dot from the Threads favicon. Life is better with most app icon badges and notifications hidden, and this one is really glaring. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Thanks @numericcitizen for a new YouTube video about what’s new in Micro.blog! Covers updates to newsletter updates, Bluesky support, AI setting, blogrolls, and more. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Uploading photos to Micro.blog? Don’t forget about Mimi Uploader. We will be rolling out some AI-based features in Micro.blog soon for photos, but you can already use Mimi today to help generate photo alt text. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Check out the iOS app Bound if you ever have a bunch of downloaded audiobook files that can’t fit in Audible, Libby, etc. I’m using it with the MP3s for Dragonsteel Prime and it works great. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

It remains good advice not to judge an album (or a book, or almost anything) too quickly. From Oliver Darcy at CNN on Tortured Poets: One week later, my view of the album has entirely reversed. After spending more time with the two-hour sonic feast, more methodically touring thro … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Biden was great at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. And Colin Jost was excellent: funny but also meaningful and sincere. Really well done. 🇺🇸 | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

One of the most confusing parts of Micro.blog is the Account → Edit Sources page. It is also one of the most powerful and unique parts of how Micro.blog was designed. If you’re confused by it, how can we improve it? I’ve made a couple tweaks here and there this year, but need a f … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Manuel Moreale blogs that the web is not dying: Let’s imagine we ban TikTok. And Facebook. And Instagram. And Threads. And all the other huge platforms. There would still be one global town square left. It’s called the web. The web itself IS the global town square. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Mark Gurman says that Apple “has renewed discussions with OpenAI about using the startup’s technology”. GPT-4 is simply more advanced than anything else. Makes a lot of sense for Apple to have their own small models run on device, and lean on others for larger server infrastructu … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

We just posted a new episode of Core Intuition, about recent Micro.blog downtime and then a full discussion of the TikTok bill. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Years ago when we launched Micro.blog, I had a clear vision for indie blogging that felt on the cutting edge of the distributed social web. Now that federation is just accepted as the base foundation for any new network, thinking about if that changes our identity. We sort of won … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

For everything in the news that I blog about, there are probably five stories that I just bite my tongue on. Don’t need the controversy. 🙂 But on the next Core Int, we talk a lot about TikTok, which was a fun change of pace. I’ll be editing it today. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Obviously would’ve been good even earlier, but I’m glad to see construction for the Gaza floating pier is underway. From the NYT: Senior Biden administration and military officials detailed a complex plan in a Pentagon call with reporters on Thursday afternoon, explaining how the … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

If you missed the announcement, next month we’re having Micro Camp, our free online event for the Micro.blog community, and anyone interested in blogging and the social web. Special guest Christina Warren! May 17th. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Little known feature in Micro.blog: it saves each copy of a draft in case you need to revert or get text from a previous version. Apparently I hit ⌘S a lot while writing that post about TikTok this morning. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

TikTok bill is not xenophobic

I wasn’t sure whether I felt that strongly about the TikTok bill until I read this blog post by Ben Werdmuller. I usually love Ben’s posts but I disagree with him on TikTok and the open web, so let me respond to a few points: Ironically, banning a service from the open internet n … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

How am I only just now seeing the trailer for Chris Sanders’s The Wild Robot? Beautiful, like a mashup of Iron Giant and Bambi. Reminds me of why I love animation. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

I’m a progressive, but we may look back on woke-ism as perhaps overcompensating. I worry about societal division. We can go so far in what appears to be the right direction that we lose sight of the big picture, like narrowly following old driving directions and getting lost when … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Continuing to learn a lot about AI. I’ve spun up several servers trying to find the right config for reasonable performance even on small models. Fixed costs but still quite expensive for me, and hard to match the reliability of OpenAI. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

What happened last night with our primary db server was sort of amateur hour, something I learned a lifetime ago but still tripped me up. I recently reset the replication server, upgrading it, and last night it got hung up on an error and filled the disk with MySQL binary log fil … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Fish pond after getting coffee at Epoch earlier. Looks the same as a couple decades ago except all the retail space has changed, except Korea House. When I walk through I always think of the little model train store that used to be on the corner. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Didn’t realize my library card was expiring, and now I can’t get the books I’ve been waiting weeks for in Libby. Life is rough. 🙂 Going to renew online but it’s not exactly automated… Luckily have more than enough to read in the meantime. 📚 | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

A first look at the Rabbit R1 from David Pierce at The Verge: …the best way I can describe the R1 is like a Picasso painting of a smartphone: it has most of the same parts, just laid out really differently. Mostly positive. There are shortcomings but this is a fun $199 device, so … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

I read a little of HR 815 to remind myself how the TikTok divestiture works. As much as Congress often looks like chaos in the news, there have to be writers on the staff who know what they’re doing, which is a little reassuring. 🇺🇸 | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Apple and Google as the bottlenecks for app distribution is what makes the TikTok forced divestiture possible. I wonder if ByteDance has considered rebuilding TikTok as a PWA to skirt the law. Not an ideal experience, especially without US hosting, but video sharing should be fin … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Watched the Rabbit R1 launch party. I love what they’re doing. The vision goes beyond a little orange AI gadget. Especially interested in teach mode and what a full web platform (“rabbitOS”?) might look like. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

As seen in this video about Meta’s glasses, a clever solution to video calling: just stand in front of a mirror. Very low-tech but also looks more natural than Apple Vision Pro personas. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

It’s still very early in the trial, but seems the prosecution knows what they’re doing in methodically building the case. From coverage in the The New York Times: Before court adjourned for the day, Mr. Pecker testified that Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump had asked him what he and his m … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

I hate Apple’s control of app distribution, but while they’re at it why not ban useless release notes like “bug fixes and improvements” or “we improve the app every week”. If devs don’t know how to document what’s new, feel free to scroll through the M.b release notes history goi … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

For folks using Micro.blog Premium with the AI setting enabled, you may start to notice some new generated data for photos, as in this screenshot. I’ll blog more about this in the coming weeks when it’s fully enabled. The goal is better photo search and accessibility. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Coffee this morning at WhichCraft. I have the whole place to myself for now. ☕️ | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

The New York Times: Swift has been inescapable over the last year. With the release of “The Tortured Poets Department,” her latest (very long) album, some seem to finally be feeling fatigued. I’m enjoying the album. But I think we are spoiled. For her next album, Taylor Swift sho … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

I’m grumpy and bitter about several unrelated things this morning. Probably shouldn’t be blogging, but I am anyway. Hope everyone’s Monday is off to a good start. 🙂 | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Ghost has announced they are working on ActivityPub support. This is great news. Although the “It’s time to bring back the open web” headline irks me since people have been asking Ghost to support open posting APIs for years. Micro.blog had ActivityPub in 2018. But now it’s time? … | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Sarah Sherman and Chloe Fineman at the Paramount. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

I got into web development in the mid 1990s when I was about 20 years old. I feel very lucky to have fallen into a career that I can continue to be passionate about almost 30 years later. AI will be the same for some young people today. It’s a rare opportunity. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Seth Godin has one of the clearest blog posts about AI. Much of AI is an illusion. That doesn’t mean we should ignore it, but it does mean we need to be thoughtful about how we use it, with reasonable expectations. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago

Don’t have much to say about Post.news shutting down other than what is already obvious to everyone. There’s no space in the social web for silos unless you’re Meta. Very similar problems to what I wrote about with App.net in my book. | Continue reading


@manton.org | 7 months ago