FeedCity

As a lifelong Mets fan since 1962, I say they blew it. And if you follow my sports writing here, mostly about the Knicks and Mets. I can usually see a pro and a con to everything. And I let the team run itself, and I ponder the philosophical intentions, because to me the Met...

In the world of WordLand and FeedLand I can create my own API for my own client. No more living with all the things the Twitter and Bluesky API designers left out or made fragile, or straight out broke. If there's a missing endpoint, I have a talk with the service devs (ie me), they listen and understand, and in an hour or so there's a new freaking endpoint. This is how we did it in the early days, I had all three components needed to move publishing forward: Manila, my.userland.com and Scripting News. Well folks we're back in business again. Enough for a rebooted writer's web. As they say, still diggin! :-)

Not sure yet how to read the Epic vs. Apple appeals court decision. Seems like a partial Apple win, but Tim Sweeney says on Twitter / X that it’s actually good progress. I think we’ll know for sure when the district court judge updates her ruling.

A little-known Micro.blog feature is getting better visibility today: we store previous versions of private notes (and blog posts!) so you can restore them if you make an editing mistake or delete something. From @news:

Added note versions browsing to the web interface. When editing a note, you’ll now see a “5 versions” link in the corner. For Premium subscribers, we’re storing previous versions for a full year. (60 days for everyone else.)

The NYT should have started their own Twitter, with exclusive access by people who are quoted in the NYT, so there would have been a connection between the pub, its rep, more inclusive than the masthead, but still fairly exclusive, in the way of the NYT. I'm not being funny or sarcasting, I mean it. They already had a mechanism for deciding who matters. And the software they used could have been employed by all the other pubs, and anyone else. What I'm describing is the alternate reality where the Twitter founders followed the WordPress business model. They might not be worth billions, but they certainly would have far more money than one person can use. And I don't think they could be happier with the way it actually turned out.

The natural follow-up from my last post: people want a place to belong. Friends, a community. So the challenge is building a community that minimizes the more negative effects of tribalism. I’m not sure how to do this, but I can usually spot when things have drifted into unhealthy territory.

Let’s not confuse tribes and principles. Principles allow us to build coalitions with people who don’t agree with us on everything. They keep us on the right path, even when it’s unpopular. With tribes, we are heavily influenced by those around us, sometimes with social pressure to attack others.

Without much of a spoiler, this end of this week's Pluribus made me both emotional and aroused at the same time. People complain because after the first two or three episodes they thought it was going to be an adventure, like Last of Us or Lost, but it turned out to, at least for now, be more thoughtful and emotional, and sexy.

I wonder if the VCs would fund an entirely fictitious implementation of Twitter with AI of course. All the other people can be exactly the kind of people who make you feel good. On "Your Own Twitter," or perhaps "TWTR 4 U" you'd have the most followers of anyone. Elon Musk would kiss your ass. You could change reality at will, have Trump removed from office and watch the MAGAs wail in pain. You could say absolutely whatever you like and never be cancelled. Don't laugh, I bet this happens.

In the face of government oppression, it's time to encrypt.

This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Nick Heer, whose blog can be found at pxlnv.com. Tired of RSS? Read this in your browser or sign up for the newsletter. The People and Blogs series is supported by Robert Birming and the other...

Tonight was a lot of threads connecting for me. At Automattic’s Noho Space we hosted an event for Martin Scorsese’s new documentary about Pope Francis, called Aldeas. There was a point in my life when I wanted to become a priest, and I had been inspired by meeting a Franciscan seminary student. I took it … Continue reading Aldeas →

No, you’re not dreaming, that is a blue Menorahcorn decoration on the lawn across the way. 🕎🦄🤩

Happy we got the new Android update out today. I worked on a few other web things tonight, queued up as pull requests to deploy in the morning. I think we’ve had a good pace of improvements lately, before things slow down a little for the holidays. Tomorrow: photo challenge announcement. ❄️

"Wow, we made it. 2025. One of the years of all time." Tumblr didn't die - figuratively or literally - and, honestly, it's just nice to see it.

"President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday intended to limit state regulation of artificial intelligence." At the same time, states are watering theirs down.

I recently asked the kind folks at Lochby “if the Folio A6 will comfortably fit 25-50 standard 4 x 6″ index cards which are slightly larger than an A6 notebook? If not, is it something you might consider for some of us ‘Hipster PDA’ tribe members in the future?”   Erring on the side of caution … Continue reading

Brodart has recently discontinued their salmon card index cards with pre-drilled holes #23-188-218. This has been a shift since the summer of 2025, though they’re still carrying the standard salmon index cards (without predrilled holds for card catalog rods). A conversation with their customer service team seems to indicate there aren’t plans for discontinuing their … Continue reading

When driving sometimes I’ll have a few ideas for blog posts and I’ll try to narrate the gist of them so I can remember later. My digital notebook is full of discarded blog post drafts. Reminds me of Peter Dinklage’s character in Elf, pointing to his notebook:

I’ve got about 5 of 6 great starts here. I have one idea that I’m especially psyched out of my mind about.

🤪

Delivering total nonsense, with complete confidence.

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