I reckon Musk should’ve been put in charge of mass deportations—I mean, just look at the amount of people he’s already managed to get to leave Twitter.
People and blogs involved with and about the IndieWeb community, the fediverse, and/or the open web in general.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X
[The Guardian]
Given the reluctance to leave X among most publishers, the Guardian is taking a big leadership role here by refusing to continue to post to X:
"This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted ...
A Wednesday morning ramble
We start with what didn't work about the election of 2024 as the question du jour, and the answer is basically everything. The Democratic Party is a funnel which tries to funnel what the elites think we need without triggering Jake Tapper or Maggie Haberman or the publisher ...
2024 is different from 2016
It's good to have a record of the things you posted and when you posted it. On August 12 of this year, I tweeted this: "When the NYT makes Trump sound like a reasonable candidate that a sane person might vote for, remember this day." I included a screen shot of the front pag...
My guess is that they haven't released enough code to run a Bluesky of your own, because all the answers from people who say they know say the same thing -- "It doesn't work that way." You could write your own, but if we were to do that, why use their one-off API, use a standard instead, and we might have a chance to interop with other systems in a meaningful way. I don't blame them for wanting to cash out, but I do blame them for conning people into believing it's some kind of escape. Until I hear otherwise Bluesky is a dead-end, not worth investing your hope in. If you're migrating from Twitter this is no better. Keep looking. But I promise to let you know if I get any info that changes my opinion, so if I've got it wrong, people from Bluesky, just answer the freaking question in the post at the top of this page. Thanks.
Tuesday session
Tuesday session
Love this video from Rivian about the environment. I’m a fan.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
The corner café
We’ve got a new takeaway in the neighborhood, occupying a small space that was previously taken up by a pizza joint. Their opening was a bit of a saga — it seemed like they were waiting an age for permits to be approved — so it’s exciting to have them finally open.
I was als...
Regretting my new attempt with SwiftUI for Mac apps. My gut said stick with AppKit but I was sucked into the ease of bootstrapping a new app. Lots of paper cuts, now seriously considering wrapping NSTableView to replace List.
If Bluesky is open source, which it appears to be, someone who has time and has experience packaging products, should create a Bluesky distribution for a few popular hosting services, so installing a new instance is as simple as it can possibly be. One click? That would be aw...
1 dataset. 100 visualizations.
The same small dataset visualised in a hundred different ways, with notes on the strengths and weaknesses of each one.
Creativity cannot be computed
The slides from Hidde’s presentation at Beyond Tellerrand.
The meaing of “AI”
There are different kinds of buzzwords.
Some buzzwords are useful. They take a concept that would otherwise require a sentence of explanation and package it up into a single word or phrase. Back in the day, “ajax” was a pretty good buzzword.
Some buzzwords are worse than u...
Walking to get coffee, a car honked at me. Not a mean “get out of the way” honk, just a friendly “it’s your turn to cross the street” honk. But it still pissed me off! Austin is not New York City. There is zero reason to honk unless a wreck is imminent. Be more patient.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
I’m a neurology ICU nurse. The creep of AI in our hospitals terrifies me
[Michael Kennedy and Isobel Cockerell in Coda Story]
Just one example of many of AI being used to take agency away from ordinary workers:
"The upshot was, it took away our ability to advocate for patients. We couldn’t point to a score and say, ‘This patient...
Feeling quite proud of myself for getting my broken microwave repaired instead of mindlessly taking it to the dump and buying a new one. Only cost £45 to replace a blown capacitor.
Matt Mullenweg
• Matt
RIP Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones had such an impact on the culture that it’s impossible to summarize. His discography is amazing. I feel so lucky to have met him in 2012 when I was much earlier in my career, and he didn’t have any reason to give me time, but he treated everyone as if they were important. … Continue reading RIP Quincy Jones →
Does anyone know who was doing the work at kamalahq on the various social networks? I wonder if they would like to keep posting. They stopped updating on Election Day. We could change the names of the accounts. I thought it was great that there was a steady source of political news that didn't equivocate like the NYT-inspired news orgs. I would love to help fund a continuation of that flow.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
Congress About to Gift Trump Sweeping Powers to Crush Political Enemies
[Noah Hurowitz at The Intercept]
This should be a five alarm fire:
"Up for a potential fast-track vote next week in the House of Representatives, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, also known as H.R. 9495, would grant the s...
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
How I ship projects at big tech companies
[Sean Goedecke]
This is very good. It's advertised as a piece about shipping in big tech companies, but honestly, I think it's true of many smaller companies too. It's not true in the smallest startups or for organizations with certain kinds of engineering c...