One reason I want to bring blogging and social media together is so I don't have to think about where I will post stuff. This is really important. I want my blog to be a complete record of everything I write publicly. The way our online writing world has been siloized, basica...
People and blogs involved with and about the IndieWeb community, the fediverse, and/or the open web in general.
I got a US Mail notice to answer a Census form, so being a good American I did. It was a .gov address, and looked like a government form. The initial questions were standard census questions, then they started getting into personal things that I didn't like answering. Then they asked if I was born in the US. That's a really shitty question to ask now. I was glad to see that I could just click Next without answering any question, and they got worse, more invasive, esp considering who the president is, and who he brought with him, so I just closed the page and wrote this post. I would, if I had it to do over again, not answered any of their questions, or maybe stopped at the standard Census questions from years past.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
DOGE Is Building a Master Database to Surveil and Track Immigrants
[Makena Kelly and Vittoria Elliott at WIRED]
The Holocaust was organized on IBM punch cards. Hitler gave the head of IBM, Watson, a medal for his services; they met in person so that Watson could receive the award. Later, they named their AI tech after him. ...
New laptop sticker, from Vintage bookstore and wine bar. Booksellers not algorithms. 🍷
Thinking about AGI. The big step that is missing is personal AI being able to learn when it answers a question. So if I use deep research and my AI goes off and spends 10 minutes researching an answer, all of that should be fed back into the model for later.
This Week in the IndieWeb
April 11-18, 2025
Recent Events
From events.indieweb.org/archive:
Homebrew Website Club - Americas
Wednesday, April 16 at 6:00pm
Homebrew Website Club Europe/London
Wednesday, April 16 at 7:00pm
foss-north 2025
April 14 - April 15
GOTHENBURG, Västra Götalands län...
To me, Objective-C has always felt expressive and capable, doubly so when I first started using it.
After Swift became popular, I felt kind of guilty still using Objective-C so heavily, but I’m over it. Micro.blog for Mac is all Objective-C. I did two new releases this week.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
If I ran Mastodon
A community platform for a vibrant, diverse social web.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
If I ran Mastodon
This is the second part in a three-part series. Part one was about Bluesky. To make sure you get part three, make sure you’re subscribed.
In 2011, I sat on a panel at SXSW Interactive with Blaine Cook, the former Twitter CTO who had demonstrated an decentralized integration...
La De Da 20 Years Later
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
Trump Halts Data Collection on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change, More — ProPublica
[Alec MacGillis at ProPublica]
The statistics that help us navigate our world are under thread:
"Every year, year after year, workers in agencies that many of us have never heard of have been amassing the statistics that undergird decision-making at all lev...
Finished upgrading a server. Some things should be faster! (And some won’t be.) I’ll continue to look for places to optimize.
IndieWeb Blog Carnival — “Renewal”
reillyspitzfaden.com/posts/2025/04/indieweb-blog-carnival-renewal/
I'm working on a baseline theme for WordLand-authored sites. I want to show people how to get a good result with WordLand, even if they have plenty of experience with WordPress, but especially if they don't. I want people to look at a user's site and think "Hey I want one of those!" Not too fancy, just get out of the way and let the writer's writing stand out and look great. This is a replay of the work we did on Manila and then Radio. I hope we're able to start a designer community as vibrant and productive as the one we had a few years ago.
Today's song: Pump It Up.
Coffee yesterday at Lazarus. ☕️
Untitled
📗 Want to read We Need Your Art by Amie McNee ISBN: 9780593833001
Now that I’m using Hetzner in the EU, I’m having difficulty understanding Linode pricing. For example, dedicated 16 CPUs on both hosts:
Linode: $288
Hetzner: $110
This is a massive difference. Is Linode that much better? I feel like a fool for paying this.
Micro.blog for Mac continues to improve. Just released version 3.5. A new feature I like in this release: paste a photo from the clipboard directly into the Uploads section to upload it.
Also added a Preview button. I use this with command-shift-P but I’m sure some people didn’t know it was there.
Everyone has to communicate in plain language, directly to the people. The courts, universities, every institution that the president is defaming. Go direct, go around the media. Start communicating in the language we communicate in these days. Use the tools. The campaign never stops. Then we'll know what we have to do to protect the rule of law. And the Dems are starting to do that, some of them, thankfully. Best example so far -- AOC and Bernie. Elizabeth Warren. Chris Murphy, Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen. And lately some Repubs too. It's the same old thing the web does -- Sources Go Direct.