People and blogs involved with and about the IndieWeb community, the fediverse, and/or the open web in general.
As all our former allies pay homage to Xi in Beijing, I was thinking well at the least the whole world speaks our language, and that'll take a few generations to change, but then I realized I bet the Chinese have been preparing for this, and of course they have.
You know you're on the right track when all the questions have answers.
More important than code is the right place for the code.
Elizabeth Warren asks OpenAI to promise they won’t ask for a bailout if they fail:
In a letter to CEO Sam Altman, Warren says she is concerned that the company is preparing to fall back “on the classic strategy of privatizing profits and socializing losses” amid soaring spending and growing fears of an AI bubble popping.
I like Elizabeth Warren and voted for her in the 2020 primary after my other favorite candidates dropped out. But I think she’s wasting her time here. If OpenAI fails, they fail spectacularly, and no bailout will help. They have gone all-in… and might actually win.
I've learned a new self-management strategy. At the beginning of a day's programming work I set a specific goal that I feel I should be able to accomplish very quickly, in an hour, perhaps -- but probably less. If I get it done by the end of the day I will feel like I really ...
Daughters of Sparta by Claire Heywood
Towards the end of 2025, I wrote:
I think I might change things up in 2026. Instead of waiting until the end of the year to write all the little reviews at once, I think I should write a review as soon as I finish a book. Instead of holding onto my reckons for months, I ...
More from Brandon Sanderson on why he chose Apple and his involved in the project:
I will be writing the Mistborn screenplay myself over the next 5 months, as my full time work. […] I promise not to get too distracted to do books. However, if I want this done right, I need to give some real attention and heart to it now.
Zeldman found the Google and HTTP post I wrote many years ago. Thankfully they haven't completely broken HTTP yet. I like to think they can't because so much of the web would break if they did. People might not notice the Not Secure message they post in Chrome for sites that...
Wednesday session
Wednesday session
ArtLung
• Joe Crawford
Yesterday I went to the shore but conditions were not quite right. So I punted. It was the right decision. Today: I went to the shore and I went in. It was slight, but satisfying.
We went to a candlelight vigil for Alex Pretti tonight, organized by nurses at Seton. They also played the new Bruce Springsteen song, Streets of Minneapolis.
Apple’s notorious secrecy really hurts them when leadership needs to comment on something important. I know Tim Cook is busy, but imagine if he regularly blogged or wrote essays to share his perspective in a more human way? We might still be disappointed, but it would at least feel authentic.
I’m always a little pleasantly surprised when someone actually reads my book. Jatan Mehta blogs about one chapter in particular focused on the intersection of blogging and the fediverse.
It’s funny how prevalent favicon.ico still is, many years after we’ve had better ways to specify icons in HTML tags. When building backend systems or native clients, there’s really no way to avoid pinging a blog to check for favicon.ico as a fallback.
Apple TV acquires rights to the Cosmere! From The Hollywood Reporter:
The streaming giant has closed what has been described as an unprecedented deal to land the rights to the Cosmere books, the fictional literary universe by fantasy author Brandon Sanderson.
This lines up with what Brandon has said before: Mistborn as a feature, hopefully a theatrical release, and Stormlight as a series. Also:
Sanderson will be the architect of the universe, will write, produce and consult, and have approvals. That’s a level of involvement that not even J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin enjoy.
"There is no advantage that I can discern for creating a new format that only works in Bluesky." I put that at the end of a post the other day and as they say in journalism, he buried the lede. "Only works in" means silo. And it always results in stagnation because big organizations suck at shipping new ideas. For that you need a lot of people with laptops and a net connection and lot sof spare time to be able to replace small pieces, and join them up to the network, try out new ideas. When you're in a silo the owners place severe limits on what you can do. If you think you found a benevolent one, the exception -- there is no such thing. You're waiting for a "some day" that will never come.
Beautiful essay by Terry Godier about RSS reader UI and software creating obligations:
An interface that shows you an unread count is making an argument: that reading is something to be counted, that progress is something to be measured, that your relationship to this content is one of obligation.
TechCrunch on the Snap / Specs spinoff:
Later this year, Snap is expected to launch the latest consumer version of its AR glasses, Specs. In anticipation of that big event, the company has launched a new subsidiary, Specs Inc., focused solely on further developing the glasses.
Makes sense. Specs felt like a weird experiment inside Snap.
You Can Just Say No to the Data - Jim Nielsen’s Blog
Appealing to data as the ultimate authority — especially when fueled by engineered desire — isn’t neutrality, it’s an abdication of responsibility.