The options we pass to FFmpeg in a variety of cases is now so complicated that I can’t really understand or edit it without AI.

Nick Heer blogs a little Siri + AI skepticism. It’s a good point, why do we keep expecting the next guy is going to fix this? I was just looking at my first post about Alexa from 10 years ago. That whole time, Siri hasn’t changed significantly that I can tell.

Just noticed that the bottle of Dr. Pepper they gave me at the restaurant last night looks like a 20 oz bottle, but it’s 16.9 oz / 500 mL. Shrinkflation? Sort of makes sense to standardize on an even number like 500 mL for global distribution.

Anthropic acquires the JavaScript tool Bun. A quote from Mike Krieger:

Bun represents exactly the kind of technical excellence we want to bring into Anthropic.

Curious where they take this. Bun is our default for building the Micro.blog mobile apps. It’s good.

Trying out Fizzy from 37signals. I don’t need another tool… Tools are kind of like code dependencies: fewer is probably better. But I’m sure there are some interesting choices in the UI to draw inspiration from.

I spent some time reviewing various Mastodon drama from over a year ago that I thought contributed to Eugen Rochko eventually stepping away from a leadership role in the project. In Eugen’s announcement post: I steer clear of showing vulnerability online, but there was a pa...

Good Stratechery update today on OpenAI’s “code red”, with Sam Altman telling the company to refocus:

Altman’s declaration raises another long-standing Stratechery concern about OpenAI: the lack of focus. I wanted the company for years to give up their enterprise business and focus on ChatGPT; I eventually conceded on this point, but there sure do seem to be some focus issues at play with this news!

I have mixed feelings. I like when companies try lots of things. But OpenAI’s strength is they have good products, so prioritizing ChatGPT also makes sense. Ads would get in the way too.

John Giannandrea is leaving Apple and Amar Subramanya is joining, and announcing both at once seems to underscore Apple’s patience. They scrambled a little before WWDC 2024, but then slowed down, waiting for someone new before John Giannandrea retired. Not competitive, but not out of the long game.

Just hit my monthly search limit on Kagi’s starter plan. Turns out we still need traditional web search even with AI everywhere.

It’s December already? ⛄️ Good start to the morning so far. Responded to a few emails. Releasing updates for iOS and Mac apps today.

Good post by Allen Pike about why ChatGPT for Mac is better than the competition. I remarked a year ago that there is clearly some AppKit goodness in the app.

Simon Willison marks the 3-year anniversary of the ChatGPT launch with a blog post about how it almost didn’t happen. Clearly being first matters, but also OpenAI still makes very good products, like their Mac app and Pulse. Hard to predict where things will be in another three years.

“He has a hundred ideas a day. Four of them are good, the other 96 downright dangerous.” — from Darkest Hour, although inspired by something FDR said 🍿

Got sidetracked looking at photos and satellite imagery of Hudson Yards, before and after the current redevelopment project covered half the tracks. Now I want to go back to New York. 🚂

Thinking longer for a better answer. ☕️

Amazing win by the Longhorns. I hope they end up making the playoffs. 🏈

Mickey Mouse holding horseshoe ornament. 🎄

Micro.blog’s CDN bill is up about 25% from last month, no surprise with the launch of better video hosting. I’m taking the opportunity to dig into CloudFront stats that I’ve never actually looked at. Seeing a few things that could be easy wins to optimize.

Manu Moreale:

…there is so much interesting content out there ready to be discovered. And discovering new content also means connecting with new people, getting exposed to new ideas, different cultures. That’s by far the best quality of the web if you ask me.

Federico Viticci blogging about AI results, matching my recent thoughts about the products and design mattering:

…since the baseline is now good enough, the app experience and how LLMs are woven into a people’s daily lives and workflows will be the differentiators going forward.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I think this is the earliest we’ve ever gone Christmas tree shopping. Also we’re now measuring tree height in percentages of a Wembanyama. Got a tree that is about one Wemby tall.

Surprisingly quick one-day app reviews from Apple and Google, so we were able to release the new version of Strata today for both mobile platforms. If you use notes or bookmarks in Micro.blog, this update has a few improvements that make the app nicer to use.

Private encrypted notes in Micro.blog present some challenges, especially for search. If you only have a handful of notes, it’s no big deal, but I have over 2000 notes in Micro.blog now. So searching on the web, for example, has to load everything into the browser and decrypt it.

Cold weather is back in Austin. Morning coffee at Cosmic. ☕️ We’re preparing a few things for a new Strata release. I wonder if Apple and Google app review folks have to work on Thanksgiving. 🦃

Fun discussion on the latest ATP about the OpenAI “egg”. I’ve been saying for a year or two that there is a real product here and eventually someone will crack it. (Oops, unintended egg pun…) Sandbar’s ring is the current best-looking attempt, but it’s 6+ months away.

Dave Winer blogging about a new commenting system to connect blogs. I’ve been following his recent work on FeedLand and related projects, so curious how the plumbing for this is going to work:

The first thing to know is that all comments are blog posts. You write the comment on a blog that you own. And maybe that will be the only way anyone other than you will ever see it. But you don’t have to “go” to the blog to write the comment. You stay right where you are.

Sounds like there could be parallels with Webmention too.

While I was feeling terrible in bed yesterday, I couldn’t even sleep, my mind kept drifting to various online drama. I sometimes have a hard time shaking off old problems. But I’m feeling good this morning, ready to get some work done. ☕️

Finished reading: Relics of Ruin by Erin M. Evans. A great second book. Same feel of a mystery as the first book, lots of layers. 📚

World of Frozen opening in Disneyland Paris in March. Really impressed with the new robotic Olaf. ☃️

I like this quote from Jony Ive in the conversation:

There’s not a lot of humor in the products that are being designed and made, particularly in this area. I really sense very clearly there is a huge desire for us not to take ourselves quite so seriously, even though these are serious times.