Just tried an experiment, I asked ChatGPT to review ActivityPub re Rules for Standards-makers. I don't know if it was blowing smoke up my you-know-what, it did know that I wrote RFSM. But as you might imagine, after reading it, I totally concurred with its conclusions. In any case, it illustrates how ChatGPT can be helpful in designing new formats and protocols, making them more supportable and more useful for interop, which according to Rule 1, is the only reason we make standards.
People and blogs involved with and about the IndieWeb community, the fediverse, and/or the open web in general.
Manuel Moreale — Everything Feed
• Manuel Moreale
P&B: Matt Webb
This is the 84th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Matt Webb and his blog, interconnected.org
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ArtLung
• Joe Crawford
Field trip to La Jolla Shores. Kelly and Gwen. Water was extraordinarily cold.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer
[Damian Carrington in The Guardian]
Quite a headline!
"The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s bigge...
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
Facing the Looming Threat of A.I., Publishers Turn to Decentralized Platforms
[John Markoff in The New York Times]
A lovely piece about Mike McCue, who, through Flipboard, Surf, and his general activities through the community, has become one of the open social web's most important figures.
"Three decades ago, as vice president of tec...
So many great lines in this piece by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic:
By the numbers, the tariffs are less an expression of economic theory and more a Dadaist art piece about the meaninglessness of expertise.
Journalists still sanewashing
They're still sanewashing Trump.
Example. Just listened to Brian Lehrer, a news interview and call-in show on WNYC, which I revere, for many reasons. Lehrer is smart, and doesn't dumb things down for his audience. He usually asks the question I'm dying to hear the answer to,...
We're doing some research into the origins of my family in Germany, learning a lot.
Chris Aldrich
• Chris Aldrich
Game: Name that naked typewriter
Thursday session
Thursday session
Who knew Bill Gates was such a good blogger? Love this story of Altair BASIC in a quirky, unique design with animating text.
Apple stock getting destroyed today. I feel for small investors who are caught up in this. But also maybe a lesson for Tim Cook and his $1 million donation to the inauguration.
Trump is reckless. You might think you’ll benefit by supporting him, but really you’re just empowering him.
Micro.blog 3.4.5 for Mac
Today’s update to the Mac app addresses a few things related to managing uploads. It’s now easier to upload a new photo, or start a new post from an already-uploaded photo.
These screenshots highlight a couple of the new items:
There are also some bug fixes and little improvements that make using the app nicer.
Manuel Moreale — Everything Feed
• Manuel Moreale
Online counterculture
The year is 2025 and the web is—or at least it appears to be—an awful place to spend time on. Negativity is everywhere, ads are omnipresent, influencers are permeating every single corner, everything is hyper-commercialised, and AI garbage is now unavoidable.
To make things ...
Had a dream where one of my notebooks had special AI pages. I could write questions on them with ink and answers would appear. Too much ChatGPT on the brain. Also, the future will be just as much The Diamond Age as it will be Her.
Haven’t had coffee or left the house in a couple days after being sick, and those are two of my favorite things to do. Finally outdoors again. The gloomy weather isn’t helping… Need some sun.
You can use the light-dark function in your :root CSS variables
Last weekend, I attended State of the Browser 2025, a conference all about browsers and the web 1. Niya gave a talk called “To light-dark() or Not To light-dark()” in which she introduced the light-dark function. This function allows you to specify different colours for a val...
Sorting HTML lists with an atoz helper class
I have a few wiki-like pages on my website. Among the most frequently updated is my movies page, in which I list both the movies I have enjoyed and the movies I plan to watch. The movies page contains several sub-lists, each for a specific genre like comedy and romantic come...
Chris Aldrich
• Chris Aldrich
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
How to leak to a journalist
[Laura Hazard Owen at Nieman Journalism Lab]
A good introduction to leaking to a journalist:
"I spoke with eight journalists about how to leak in a safe, smart way. Disclaimer you probably knew was coming: No method of leaking is 100% secure, and the tips he...