In the age of AI, Markdown is even more the default choice for text, something I heartily approve of. And that's why I think now is a good time to sneak some new open non-silo'd technologies in there, like for example, WordPress. Open source is not the only reason WordPress is valuable, it also supports all the standards of the web. It means WordPress can tie together text on the web in a way nothing else can, and it works really well with Markdown.
People and blogs involved with and about the IndieWeb community, the fediverse, and/or the open web in general.
One of the great contributions of AI is that you can quickly research prior art for any design decision you need to make. You don’t have to relearn every lesson that people who came before you learned. Study history or repeat mistakes.
My father was a professor at Pace Univ in NYC. When he retired, he used my blogging software to create a book for his students at mbatoolbox.org. Over the years the site moved a few times, and the http protocol was hacked by Google. I used Claude yesterday to get it working again. I'm glad to get this off my todo list. He put the work in because he wanted to leave this behind. My job is to make sure it survives as long as I can. And Claude makes short work of it. I put a copy of the website in a spare folder, and opened Claude Code in the folder, said what the problems are. We worked together and in about an hour it worked again. It could certainly look better, but that was his thing not mine.
Indieweb Movie Club May 2026 announcement: Network (1976)
michaelkupietz.com/indieweb-movie-club-may-2026-announcement-network-1975/
ArtLung
• Joe Crawford
“You were due”
I went to the beach Saturday. We washed Gwen Saturday. She was delighted. We watched Groundhog Day and it was–as always–excellent. Again. My art piece Galletas de Mar pero no comer sold Sunday. (Previously) My name is Art. On impulse, today I bought joespartydepot.com. It felt great. My name is Joe. I said to Kelly...
Watched: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 📺
Great North Fun
Another trip north, this time to Durham, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Edinburgh and the Berwickshire coast.
I have a single page site with all the WordPress news. Bookmark it. Here's the OPML subscription list, import it into your feed reader, get the news as you like it. WordPress is an amazing platform with a blogging community that we just can't see. And once we're listening, more will appear. It's a great idea exchange platform. So -- are there any great WordPress news feeds we're missing? Please share here.
Everyone is working on something with Claude.
Heard on the internets ad nauseum. "I know how to do what you do much better than you do."
I was just marveling with Claude about how well all the pieces are fitting together, two databases, connected by an RSS 2.0 feed and a websocket pipe had to agree on how to communicate the same object. Worked the first time. Small pieces loosely joined.
Losing my patience after another rejection for Inkwell. This is a nice app for people to read blogs. I’m not trying to trick anyone or take over the world. Apple is out to lunch with their tight control.
I don’t even want discovery in the store. I just want to let my existing users install an app.
Burning tokens
With the higher GPT-5.5 pricing, I wasn’t sure if in practice it would matter, so I preemptively disabled /fast in Codex. Seems like a non-issue. I can’t get anywhere close to using half of my tokens. Whenever I check it’s at 80% or higher remaining.
I’m now back to running “high” and /fast for everything. If I think a problem is difficult, I’ll bump to “xhigh” and won’t think twice about it.
Michael Tsai quoted this from X:
I have a friend in apple.
He has over 200 dollars credit on claude everyday to spend.
I find this difficult to believe. Even though Claude Code is more stingy with tokens than Codex, $200/day seems outrageous. If this is even close to true, it’s no wonder Anthropic is making so much money. But the popular opinion about Claude might be a trailing narrative, before everyone notices how good GPT-5.5 is.
Untitled
📕 Finished reading Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders ISBN: 9781250867322
Scoble asks on Twitter if there are successful companies that have an open source product. There are lots of them. There are markets where users and developers won't even consider your product or service if it isn't open source. It's a trust issue. I offered an example, WordPress, which probably wouldn't have launched well if it wasn't open source.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
The way to save news is not to create monopolistic monocultures
"Why, a funder asked me recently, do two intermediaries this funder saw as offering duplicative services both still exist? Because you—and your funder colleagues—let them, I said." But consolidation is a dangerous road.
Another review of the X3 e-reader, this time from TechCrunch. I keep seeing reviews of this and each time I come this close to ordering one. I love my Kindle but I don’t always have it with me.
ArtLung
• Joe Crawford