IndieWeb
Kagi has a blog post about the Google antitrust ruling and the need for a more open search index, including perhaps a government-backed service:
This layer would replace the role public libraries played for centuries - a role that effectively disappeared when commercial web search took over in the late 1990s. Our ancestors understood well the benefits that non-discriminatory, direct access to information brings to citizens, and ultimately society itself.
Manu Moreale, as usual being thoughtful on his blog:
Assuming something about someone else, based on your own worldview and without asking questions, is intellectually lazy. And it also prevents people who might have different views from engaging in conversation and exploring differences.
The upcoming Europe-based W social network seems well intentioned, but there has gotta be a better name than W. Why draw attention to Twitter / X? And W has the most syllables of any letter. Admittedly “Micro.blog” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue either. 🤪
This blog post from OpenAI about their data center buildout — called Stargate — sounds a little like a response to the mistakes xAI made in Memphis:
Stargate is a partnership with communities, and we can only achieve our mission by being good neighbors.
There’s also more on their approach to the electrical grid and water. All this new infrastructure seems to be moving along quickly.
Spurs lose a close one in Houston, but this team has been on a roll otherwise. Looking really good and fun to watch. I want to get down to San Antonio again soon. 🏀
Exactly one year since Trump was sworn in for his second term. Some things have been predictably bad and some things (Greenland?) have been nutty even for him.
I re-listened to the podcast episode I recorded two days after the 2024 election. I should listen to this every year to recenter myself.
I hinted a few times that I was adding WordPress and Ghost sync to Micro.blog. It was a big change, and I deployed it just for myself last week to test in production. It’s sort of amazing, unlike anything out there… but also it’s not good enough. Putting it aside for a couple weeks.
The best way I can explain how I work: every day, I fix a bug, I work on a new feature, I reply to a customer. The balance isn’t perfect but it’s always all of these things. Keeps things moving forward.
After Google Reader, folks asked me about building an open API for feed syncing, given my history with Tweet Marker. I didn’t work on it because I wanted to focus on indie microblogging. But it was inevitable that eventually Micro.blog would have something. Like Apple having both Pages and Numbers.
The Iconfactory is out with a new Kickstarter campaign! Nice pitch:
We all need a way to unplug from time to time - the world’s gone off the rails and no amount of doomscrolling is fixing it. That’s one of the reasons we created Ollie’s Arcade - to be a pixelated place to take refuge from the real world and enjoy some simple, fun old-school arcade games on your iPhone or iPad.
Over the last year I’ve become hyper-sensitive to extremism. The lesson from Trumpism should be to do the opposite of whatever he does. Less hate, less judgement, less bullying. More empathy. I’m hopeful that whoever picks up leadership of the Democratic party will understand this. 🇺🇸
Matt Mullenweg blogged about Scott Adams, trying to reconcile good memories of Dilbert with later racist comments:
When I was younger, I used to have a more binary view of people, but as I’ve grown, read a ton of biographies, seen the press cycles, and been lucky enough to meet some idols and villains, I’ve become much more comfortable taking everyone as a flawed human being.
Nuance here is difficult because we shouldn’t downplay hurtful comments with a “both sides”-style argument. Sometimes we must draw a line. Still, I agree we should avoid reducing people to a single moment.
My short posts tend to cut corners so they flow a little more like informal thoughts. I wonder if I’ll one day regret all the intentional comma splices. The semicolon is sitting right there yet I reserve it for only the rare sentence, like it’s sacred punctuation that will draw attention to itself.
Nice new micro app from @mattbirchler: Quick Stuff, for making App Store screenshots. If you look at any of my apps, the screenshots are always way out of date. I’d rather improve the apps than fiddle with screenshot sizes.
I enjoy visiting Apple’s home page every January to see the update for Martin Luther King Jr. They don’t reuse the same quotes and photos from last year, it’s always something a little new. Maybe I’ve lost faith in Tim Cook — see the bonus episode of Core Int — but this tribute still feels genuine.
We’re on a roll with movies this weekend. Just got back from Avatar 3. Unfortunately while I was away being overwhelmed with the beauty and spectacle of what they put on screen, the Micro.blog servers were being overwhelmed with traffic. 🍿
I always thought I was lucky to grow up in the 20th century. I didn’t even realize how poor my family was until years later. But the future is going to be much better for our grandchildren. I was born too early! It’s hard to see because the last decade has been such a setback for social progress.
Going back and forth between bug fixing and something new. So fun to start from a blank slate, yet still be able to build on all the plumbing we’ve built in Micro.blog APIs for years.
Wish I knew more about the reason for this post from Eugen Rochko, although we can guess:
I will be opting my account out of the #Bluesky bridge next week. If you follow me from Bluesky (I think there are about 3.9K of you) and want to continue seeing my posts you will need to get an account on the fediverse. Cheers.
Last year there were periods of time when I stopped sending my blog posts to the fediverse. So that’s similar, right? Maybe. Bridgy Fed is an unusual case because of how dramatic the opt-in / opt-out story unfolded.
Watched: All You Need Is Kill. We love Edge of Tomorrow so had to see this. It would be fun if there were more adaptations or spinoffs. 🍿
Went to see Marty Supreme. Wild, much different and better than I was expecting. Loved it. 🍿
Fascinating drama in Elon Musk’s court filing against OpenAI. OpenAI’s web response is well done, with color highlighting of passages from Greg Brockman’s journal.
Always good to take notes. I wouldn’t be able to remember these kind of details from 8 years ago without writing them down.
Rewrote some WebSocket code this week and it seems to have made a dramatic improvement not just for Nostr (which uses it) but general stability with hung Sidekiq processes. Reviewing Nostr, I still find it an elegant protocol. Just not sure how it fits in the modern social web.
Ads are coming to ChatGPT. OpenAI is attempting to head off some of the inherent misalignment with ads and users by outlining some ad principles:
Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. […] We keep your conversations with ChatGPT private from advertisers, and we never sell your data to advertisers. […] We do not optimize for time spent in ChatGPT.
The problem is once you’re making money with ads, it’s hard not to optimize for more ads. I just hope ads will remain a small part of their business compared to Plus and Pro subscriptions.
I blogged briefly this morning about the W3C. Connected Places has a much longer post today about the new working group and participation.
I’ve submitted my name as an invited expert. I think they will have plenty of ActivityPub experts, but I’d like to help with testing LOLA and updating Micropub.
Reviewing some of the W3C policies, kind of interesting who can be part of a working group. Small companies can be members for $2k/year. Invited experts can also participate, but:
Invited Expert status is not normally granted to individuals employed by organizations which have significant business interest in results from W3C.
If they’re too strict about this, which I think is unlikely, it might create a hole where very small companies don’t have a clear place.
A long story in The Hollywood Reporter about George R.R. Martin and all the work he is juggling. The problem with a book taking so long — I know this firsthand — is that the author’s expectations keep going up, as if it needs to be even more perfect. But it never will be. Maybe best to just ship it.
There’s never been a better time to learn a little about nearly everything in web technology. 2026 will be a year for generalists and new tools that span platforms. And yet I see folks on the fediverse who have strong opinions about Bluesky without really understanding why it exists or how it works.
We officially have a new W3C working group to advance ActivityPub and related specifications (including IndieWeb standards). There has been a lot of work in the years since the last specs were updated, so it’ll be good to see conventions formalized.
