Watching the news at lunch. I want to blog about the war in Israel but it’s too divisive and terrible. Not interested in inviting a debate right now. Strong feelings mean everyone is quick to hit reply. I’m okay writing about American politics but this is much harder to get right … | Continue reading
Super Mario Wonder is so good. And yeah, I did end up getting a new Switch Lite to play it. ️ | Continue reading
Strongly agree with everything in @gruber’s post about pushing for gun legislation: The aftermath of a massacre is the time to demand sane gun control measures. That’s when the issue is clarified. There are already so many assault weapons out there, we won’t fully see the impact … | Continue reading
Biden should focus his 2024 campaign around banning assault weapons. Keep it simple, nothing else except guns and some basics about the economy. I think most people across parties are ready for it. 🇺🇸 | Continue reading
Testing out SupportAgent.ai which uses AI to draft answers to support email. It is blowing my mind. However, human replies are always better, so not sure I can actually use it. Also, it replies to spam! 🤣 Here’s a screenshot to give an idea of how powerful it is but also … | Continue reading
Spurs throw away the game in the last couple minutes but still a lot to like, despite the turnovers and foul trouble. Going to be a fun season. | Continue reading
I saw a couple Cybertrucks on the road today, in northeast Austin, presumably Tesla testing things out. Such a bizarre vehicle. I don’t get the appeal but I like that they tried something weird. | Continue reading
Doesn’t take much to make me happy. Walking to pick up coffee is one of those simple things. ☕️ | Continue reading
This one ended a little more quickly than I expected: Our goal was to build a kinder, safer, public square. We grew from 6 users on the first day (Dec 9, 2022) to a community of 20k by October 2023. But we weren’t growing fast enough justify additional investment, and we also und … | Continue reading
Watching the courtroom statement and apology from former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, on CNN video here. Some of these lawyers and supporters were caught up in something much bigger, lost their good judgement for a while. Contrast with Trump who will never admit he lied, will never … | Continue reading
David Pierce at The Verge: The poster’s guide to the internet of the future: The idea is that you, the poster, should post on a website that you own. Not an app that can go away and take all your posts with it, not a platform with ever-shifting rules and algorithms. Your website. … | Continue reading
Planning another road trip for next month, here to Nevada, California, and points in between, then back through Utah. The key is having enough downtime so I can work and not be on the road all day. My notes just have dates, reservations, nearby coffee, things to see, driving time … | Continue reading
Finished reading: Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell by Brandon Sanderson. Hadn’t realized until I had finished The Sunlit Man that I had missed this Cosmere novella. | Continue reading
The kids took all our Nintendo Switches to their own apartments. Seriously considering picking up a Lite to play the new Mario Wonder. ️ | Continue reading
Picked up Killers of the Flower Moon a few weeks ago and only now starting it. Got tickets for the movie next week so I have a little time to make a dent in the book, at least. | Continue reading
Happy Friday! New @coreint podcast to wind down the week. Episode 573 covers Apple’s “video reactions” feature and what we can learn about rolling out a surprising feature. Then we jump back into Twitter/X news with the $1/year subscription announcement. | Continue reading
Thinking about Biden’s address to the country last night, he did something remarkable that I didn’t realize at first. After the Hamas attack, I assumed that any chance of peace had been set back decades. Biden steered me back from the cliff: no, we cannot give up on peace, even w … | Continue reading
This post from @mia@void.rehab will ring true to anyone who has actually implemented an ActivityPub server. We talk about ActivityPub as if it’s a fully-formed spec, but it’s really a suite of specs, and trial and error. I’d love to see the specs streamlined without breaking comp … | Continue reading
Matt Mullenweg on the experience of riding in a self-driving taxi: The thing is I know these self-driving cars exist, I’ve seen them around San Francisco forever, but the experience of being picked up and dropped off by a robot navigating the tricky SF hills and streets just hits … | Continue reading
The last big upgrade for my Honda Element was to build a bed platform to use for car camping. I worked on this a little bit at a time over about a month. I was inspired by designs from other people, but ended up just sketching out something that I thought would work for me. I wan … | Continue reading
Looks like Georgia knew what they were doing with the 19-person indictment… One by one the defendants agree to tell the truth until only Trump and a handful of people are left for a trial? Sidney Powell pleads guilty, via CNN: Fulton County prosecutors are recommending a sentence … | Continue reading
Thought I had a good job for our robot overlords. I grabbed a list of language codes from Wikipedia, ran some regex on it to make it JSON, then asked ChatGPT to trim it to the most popular 50 languages in the world. No luck, the output was wrong and not usable. AI still has a way … | Continue reading
Finished reading: Age of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan. Still enjoying this series. | Continue reading
Wow, great game to wrap up the WNBA finals. Liberty so close to forcing a game 5. Congrats to the Aces! Becky Hammon building a heck of a coaching career so far in Vegas. | Continue reading
Didn’t take many photos while in west Texas. Here’s a random shot as I stopped for a minute driving back to I-10. | Continue reading
Need to remind myself when on an interview or podcast: I usually do okay the first 15 minutes, then get a bit worked up, talk too fast, and lose my train of thought. Especially when the AC is off and I start sweating. Argh, summer. | Continue reading
Reviewing the cross-posting chapter of my book, several things are out of date. I’m doing a final pass through the book, cutting a few sections. Would rather most of the book withstand the test of time but things change too quickly, calling it “done” has been hard. | Continue reading
Seeing some variety in reactions to Marc Andreessen’s techno-optimist manifesto. I read it quickly and haven’t thought enough to have a strong opinion, except that I don’t like how “enemy” is used. Technology’s role in society should be a conversation, not a war. | Continue reading
On the last Core Intuition, I joked about a hypothetical manton.ai… But then I sort of worried someone else would register it, so I decided to grab the domain myself. Whoops! Too many domains. Just made it a placeholder site hosted on Micro.blog. | Continue reading
Finished reading: The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson. Listened to the whole audiobook on the drive to and from the Davis Mountains. Brandon giving us a taste of the Cosmere endgame! Loved it. | Continue reading
Found a great spot to work for the afternoon in the library at Sul Ross. | Continue reading
Kottke.org is bringing back blog comments. Members-only, which seems like a nice solution. I think we’ll see more of this as the social web evolves away from silos. | Continue reading
It’s that time of year when my iTunes Match subscription renews and I don’t know what will happen if I cancel it. One day need to figure out how to find iTunes Match tracks that are not on streaming. Or do I even care anymore? Just throwing money into Apple’s services revenue pot … | Continue reading
Another upgrade I made to my car is to add the weBoost Drive Reach Overland antenna on top. It essentially takes whatever cell signal it can find and rebroadcasts it inside your car. The antenna can rise several feet over the top of the car, picking up distant signals that the iP … | Continue reading
Drove out to west Texas today. Left late, felt like I was always chasing the sun, and it was dark before I got to the Davis Mountains. Forgot how amazing the stars are. | Continue reading
Just published a new Core Intuition episode about ActivityPub support in WordPress.com and its impact on Micro.blog, plus a a discussion of Humane and the potential for new AI-based devices. | Continue reading
Watching Biden react to the chaos in the world, the narrative that he is “too old” just does not match reality. He’s competent and thoughtful. Meanwhile almost nothing Trump says makes any sense. Biden is doing the job of president and Trump is still on some kind of improv stand- … | Continue reading
Basketball fans who don’t usually have a way to tune-in to Spurs games: Spurs/Heat on TNT tonight. Big change from the last few years when we had almost no national coverage. And it’s still just the preseason! | Continue reading
The updated vaccine floored me for a couple days. I was starting to wonder if it was worth it, but then I remembered that I haven’t been actually sick in three years. Knock on wood, feeling lucky about that. I used to get a cold or flu or something every year. | Continue reading
The Morning Show does a great job of reinventing itself each season. I wasn’t sure after the first season if they could sustain it, keep it relevant, but here we are in season 3 and it still works. Last episode with the Paul Marks interview was really good. | Continue reading
Great to see WordPress.com’s support for ActivityPub. Following WordPress blogs from Micro.blog looks good, although @-mentioning Micro.blog from within WordPress isn’t working for me. I’ve been testing and reviewing the code, will make any tweaks I can so everything is compatibl … | Continue reading
Went to the HEB on Lake Austin Boulevard today to get the updated COVID vaccine. When I was growing up, this was a Safeway that they had literally built around a big tree rather than cut it down. But nothing lasts forever, and the site is unrecognizable now. There’s a great histo … | Continue reading
A random shot from a few weeks ago, walking down Steck over Shoal Creek back to the Honda dealer, waiting for service. | Continue reading
Updated the Epilogue beta on TestFlight with a new feature for book cover management using your own Internet Archive / Open Library account. Still early. You can browse editions of books and upload new covers. Here’s a quick video demo: | Continue reading
We don’t get a lot of disputed charges in Micro.blog. Maybe once a year. But it’s especially frustrating when a potential spammer disputes a charge. Every dispute costs us a $15 fee, so now we’re effectively paying extra for someone to violate our guidelines. | Continue reading
It’s only preseason but great to see more of what Victor Wembanyama can do. Great first half, so much potential for this Spurs team. | Continue reading
Evan Prodromou had an important post a few days ago, arguing for backwards compatibility with future ActivityPub work and discouraging competing protocols. I found some things to agree with in his post, but I’m less certain that there is a single path forward. On Bluesky and othe … | Continue reading
I’m the guest on the latest ShopTalk Show! Really enjoyed talking with Dave and Chris about blogging and social networks. We cover a bunch of Micro.blog features. | Continue reading