FeedCity

Thursday session

Fun teaser from OpenAI on X (sigh) about Astra’s presumably imminent release. I guess it’s going to be called GPT-6. I’m working on Micro.blog improvements today, like always, but have my eyes on the wider social web for this release, so my posts will probably be a bit AI-heavy today. Apologies. 🤖

Part of Kawhi’s statement after the NBA investigation into the Clippers. Sort of a non-apology apology:

Integrity and respect for this game are fundamental to who I am. I accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle…

I feel like the punishment is very lopsided against the Clippers. No first-round picks for 5 years. 🏀

Firefox adds a global AI opt-out checkbox:

Opting out of upcoming and current AI features on your browser should not require endless navigation through multiple Settings pages. That’s why Firefox offers an AI controls section within its General Settings panel. A single, easily located place where you can block current and future AI features and related pop-ups with the swipe of a toggle.

Kind of similar to Micro.blog’s AI checkbox, but the Firefox version is more complicated, allowing control of various AI-related features.

There was no moonlight tonight. Paris was left to dream of soft romantic hues radiating from the far away icy sphere that glows with celestial fervour. She was left to wonder what it would be like for the hopeful trees to be tinged with silver and white and flutter slowly with the cool, ethereal breeze of night. She was left to imagine hours where the near and distant skies were cloudless, where beaming stars gracefully dotted the heavens with eternally flickering, beautiful sights. There was, after all, moonlight – and stars – tonight. The soothing, quiet, gentle glow, was – is – always inside.

This story is written in the "Drabble" form that I first learned from Juhis.

👊 It's a secret to everyone! Read more about RSS Club.Dave Winer hat ein (vielleicht nicht mehr ganz so) neues Projekt: A simple chat network, client and server, based on RSS 2.0 feeds and websockets. https://rss.chat Und weil ich die Idee mag und nur WordPress kann, hab ich ein kleines Plugin geschrieben. Viel Spaß beim […]

The question of when humans invented art leads us to imagine early humans much like ourselves, deciding one day to express themselves through symbols and figures. The assumption hidden in the question is that they already had minds like ours and simply chose, out of all the things they might have done on a frigid day in the Ice Age, to pick up ochre and make animal pictures. But the evidence, it seems to me, points the other way: it was the practice of making images, repeated over hundreds of generations, that occasioned the emergence of those minds we take for granted.

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A fascinating essay by Celine Nguyen on the history of taste; not changing tastes but the very concept of taste throughout history.

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Welcome to September! Time for a new blogging challenge for the month. After some ideation, here’s my proposed September blogging challenge, on topics I find myself reading and posting about, with an emphasis on pragmatism:The Web And Standards September Useful Posts blogging...

There are many paths onto the #indieweb. Two of the most common:1. an idea for a name and a website2. a desire to create and express yourself, independently of social mediaIf you start with (1), have an idea for a domain name, find one, and buy it, then you need a place to di...

When I last visited the National Museum of Scotland, they had an ~A5 booklet of 10 ideas of things to do in an art gallery. I love the idea of a guide that helps you navigate a gallery space. Yesterday, I decided to make a zine in a similar vein, except with some of my own ...

This is my second music exchange with V.H. (see our first exchange) in which we each shared songs with each other from which we would pick one to write about. I chose “Bridge Over the Stars” by Keiko Matsui from the options V.H. sent me, and V.H. chose “iPod Touch” by Ninaji...

trees and canopies
shelter for the fisherman
stoic as a river: he is still
in movement
engaged like a painter
watching the moment.

This poem was inspired by Jules-Louis Dupré's "Willows, with a Man Fishing".

Burning Man really tests my mantra, “There’s no bad weather, only bad clothing.” But it’s true! For one week, it’s the most interesting art and technology playground in the world, creativity unbound. As a photographer, it’s a great place to test out new gear and processes. Here’s a few snaps from the opening days. The … Continue reading BM Snaps →

Opening the window, a vivid dancing shadow of the trees between the glass and the sun appears the wall, illuminating yesterday’s ideas written across my whiteboard. The shadow is a temporary, moving work of art, detailing the contours of leaves and, when I stand in front, th...

Weird AI ordering system at the Panda Express drive-thru. I’d love to know what model they use. It was a little flaky (“please review the order on this screen…” but the screen showed an ad).

People always say they don’t want AI shoved everywhere. I think that’s partly because it’s used so poorly.

Everyone is introducing themselves on the Berkman community mail list, at the beginning of the fall semester, and here's the story I am telling. Good morning. My name is Dave Winer. I was at Berkman in 2003-04, worked on blogging, podcasting, RSS, political blogging and the ...

A bunch of tech billionaires have chipped in a million each to fund a new Linux distribution. I can't imagine how this is supposed to work, all those huge human egos, how much will they pay their developers to contribute what. I have to find out what the goal of the project is. It would be nice to have a Linux that was extensively tested for use by regular people.

After saying I was putting my tech work aside, yesterday, I had a bolt of determination, and realized I don't like collaborating with Claude Code, but maybe it's just when we get to this stage of a project where it's all details, and they're hard to communicate, and the bot has a bad habit of ignoring things I tell it to do. It also returns code to me to test that no human developer would pass on to a user. It would be too embarrassing. But the bot isn't aware in the same way a human is, not even close. Now that is something I'm sure they can be taught to simulate well enough to be as good as a human collaborator.