FeedCity

We value learning. We value the merits of language design, type systems, software maintenance, levels of abstraction, and yeah, if I’m honest, minute syntactical differences, the color of the bike shed, and the best way to get that perfectly smooth shave on a yak. I’m not...

They all say podcasting‘s open period is over and one or another huge billionaire-owned platform is the new owner of podcasting. This time it's YouTube. How many times has this happened? Many. But not enough for journalism to respect the power of the people. So here we go again.

Paul Brainerd, the founder of Aldus, publisher of Pagemaker, died. At least that's what I'm seeing on various social networks. No mention of his passing in the News tab on Google, or on Wikipedia. Pagemaker was a milestone product, it was the first popular desktop publishing app on the Mac, the first to really make use of the graphic OS and laser printing. We worked with Aldus on scripting via Frontier. The ability to automate Pagemaker and then Quark XPress (its main competitor) was very important in the prepress market. I once said no one wants that (referring to Pagemaker) just shows how little I know. There are good reasons to believe that one product saved the Mac and Apple.

I would like to have an OPML subscription list containing the feeds of all RSS-based products. So when they update everyone can see what they did. I'd also like to encourage people to post screen shots so we can get an idea of what the product does before installing it. Maybe it's for a platform we don't use? Let's have a new practice where we all know what everyone is doing.

Just noted that Brent mentioned FeedLand (my own product) that does things differently. Thank you. I don't read most of the pieces that come in via RSS. I scroll through the updates, and if something catches my eye, I stop, read the first part, and then if my interest continu...

I wrote a this.how doc a few years about with some of the lessons I've learned doing work on web standards.

There’s so much fun stuff happening, first the new assistant launched on .com, covered by TechCrunch and in this video. Also some cool Claude stuff launched. James has a nice write-up of the other dozen things that are going on, it’s fun to see the AI parts of WordPress moving at AI-speed. We just need … Continue reading WP & AI Updates →

Wednesday session

"Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes." This study shows that some do - to significant effect.

I found the URL design page particularly interesting. I have given URL design some thought. I should maybe write up the thinking behind the current design. However, I've sometimes gotten frustrated because I felt that I couldn't reach a perfect design. And perhaps there is no right and wrong. Only trade-offs as in other types of design. I want to implement URL rewriting so that I can fix bad URL design with HTTP redirects so that old links can keep working while still promoting the newer ...

I'm curious about how private posts could look like on the open web. I see a need to share certain posts only with certain people and not have everything on my blog public. Today I have to share that in another way. And I'm not sure they can all co-exist on my blog and what that would look like.

Bono on today’s release of Songs of Ash:

The songs on Days of Ash are very different in mood and theme to the ones we’re going to put on our album later in the year. These EP tracks couldn’t wait; these songs were impatient to be out in the world. They are songs of defiance and dismay…

Always happy for new U2 songs. Listening now. 🎶

My social networks are currently awash with Deep Blue:

…the sense of psychological ennui leading into existential dread that many software developers are feeling thanks to the encroachment of generative AI into their field of work.

adactio.com/links/22408

My social networks are currently awash with Deep Blue:

…the sense of psychological ennui leading into existential dread that many software developers are feeling thanks to the encroachment of generative AI into their field of work.

adactio.com/links/22408

I recently wrote:

The issue isn’t with the code itself, but with the understanding of the code.

That’s the difference between technical debt and cognitive debt.

John has written lots more on this.

adactio.com/links/22407

I don’t and won’t use “AI” in the text of any of my published work. I’m not worried about “AI” replacing me as a novelist. People in general are burning out on “AI.” I’m supporting human artists, including as they relate to my own work. “AI” is Probably Stickin...