Starting to doubt my low-tech video workflow of “just use QuickTime Player” for simple edits. I keep uploading video to YouTube where the audio becomes out of sync after upload. This is probably a reminder to make Micro.blog suitable for longer videos.

Updated the new help page for Open Graph card templates, which are rolling out in Micro.blog today. Plug-in developers can essentially design cards with HTML and CSS. Micro.blog then renderers them as static images.

David Smith blogging on the 5 year anniversary of Widgetsmith, telling the story of how a seemingly niche app ended up huge:

I then open my helpdesk page and I am shocked by what I see. There are new emails coming in at a rate of multiple per second. A literal waterfall of customer outreach.

Drove through my old neighborhood in south Austin for the first time in a while. In some ways, the decades haven’t changed it. But things are still different. A few larger new houses. Waymo cars driving themselves down streets as if that is perfectly normal and not science fiction.

Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses really are impressive. I’m not going to support Meta with a purchase, but I do appreciate the work that went into them. Nice live demos too, even if a couple failed. Ben Thompson:

They are an excellent explanation as to why Apple now fully pre-records their product announcements, but it’s the risk of demo fails happening that makes them so compelling.

Listening to This Week in Startups interviewing Medium’s Tony Stubblebine. He makes the wild claim that ChatGPT’s obsession with the em dash is because it’s so commonly used in Medium posts! I’m having trouble accepting this theory, but it would be amazing if true.

Love this story and illustrations on animator James Baker’s blog, from a trip to China in the late 1980s.

Says something about Vimeo’s decline that I heard about them being acquired not from the tech news websites that I read all the time, but from Cartoon Brew in my RSS reader:

Vimeo, once the internet’s most prestigious stage for independent filmmakers and animators, is being acquired by Milan-based app developer Bending Spoons in a $1.38 billion all-cash deal.

There is a narrow space for an indie-focused, YouTube alternative. Hosting video is difficult.

It’s funny to me that Apple made the new battery pack exclusive to the iPhone Air. If I really wanted the thinnest possible phone, no way I’m putting a case or extra battery on it. Even the bumper seems like too much.

From the latest Fediverse Report, about Mastodon quote posts:

Mastodon’s concern regarding the potential for harm with dunking does need some context however, researcher Hilda Bastian has a highly detailed overview of over 30 studies on quote posts on Twitter and their impact. Bastian notes: “There’s conflicting evidence on whether QTs increase or decrease incivility, and whatever effect there is, it doesn’t seem to be major.”

I think this dunking is real, but there are many other problems with social media that Mastodon does not attempt to address. Not sure quote posts are make or break.

OpenAI published a pair of blog posts today about their next steps for teen safety, acknowledging the trade-off on privacy. Sam Altman: First, we have to separate users who are under 18 from those who aren’t (ChatGPT is intended for people 13 and up). We’re building an age-...

Added a help page for upcoming Open Graph improvements in Micro.blog, including a template system to override the default styles. This is rolling out over the next few days. Very flexible, so hopefully plug-ins can be created for various styles.

Thinking of Robert Redford, what a career. Sneakers is one of my favorite films, and arguably the best film about computers ever made. All the President’s Men is so good. Watched both of these countless times. (Also just learned his mother was born in Austin.) 🍿

Tracks at North Lamar and Airport Blvd. 🚂

Finished reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. A short book, but it’s something special. 📚

A heads-up for Micro.blog theme developers: I’m revamping our experimental Open Graph support with more advanced features. If your theme doesn’t have its own Open Graph image, I recommend adding the og:image tag based on the page’s .Params.opengraph.image, which we’ll fill in automatically.

Paul Frazee blogging on Leaflet about whether Bluesky’s AppView should be renamed to more clearly convey what it does:

At this point, it seems better to just call it an App and then explain that the data gets stored in the PDS, like a kind of universal cloud filesystem or datastore.

While age-gating often creates new problems, I like the fallback in this New York law:

Under the proposed rules for New York’s SAFE For Kids Act, social platforms must serve unverified users or kids under 18 only chronological feeds or posts from people they follow, as well as ban notifications from 12AM to 6AM.

Fair intro in Jason Snell’s macOS 26 review:

macOS 26 Tahoe is two things at once: It’s the broadest and most productivity-focused update for macOS in years, while also taking collateral damage from Apple’s broader design ambitions on its other platforms.

Waiting on hold. “There are currently 146 callers ahead of you…” Seriously?!

Looking through Federico Viticci’s iOS 26 review. He starts on a fairly positive note about Liquid Glass. Or at least, not a “the sky is falling” panic:

I can’t stress this enough: the first thing you need to understand about Liquid Glass is that it’s not a drastic, groundbreaking redesign that changes the look of your iPhone overnight, like iOS 7 did for millions of people in 2013.

Watching the Emmys. 📺

“…and laugh out loud comedies like The Bear.” 🤣

ActivityPub is notorious for being a little chatty, and FEP-044f (quote posts) is sort of an extreme example of that. Lots of back and forth between servers, approving quotes, fetching content, deleting approval stamps, etc. I’m not saying I have a better idea… except <blockquote>. 🤪

From Mastodon’s blog post introducing quote posts:

Quoting is a powerful tool, and like any tool, it can be misused. That’s why we’ve taken time to introduce quotes in a way that aligns with Mastodon values, focusing on safety and mental health – not just on engagement.

Micro.blog will have limited support for this after it’s rolled out on mastodon.social next week.

Working in Go this morning! Micro.blog obviously uses Hugo, written in Go, but we also have a little custom Go tool that runs behind the scenes for newsletters, with more to come. Nice to have a common template language.

Nick Heer blogging about the win Automattic got this week in having some of the charges in the lawsuit from WP Engine dismissed:

Even if this case ends with a complete victory for Mullenweg and Automattic, his actions have shaken my support of — and faith in — the WordPress ecosystem.

While I do think there has been damage to the WordPress community, if Automattic wins most of the case, maybe settles the rest, I don’t know if there will be significant lasting damage. The views from WordCamp US this month didn’t look like a community in decline.

I think some of the worst-case scenario AI worries are overblown, but I do like this book title: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.

Good feedback from folks on whether and how to adopt macOS Tahoe menu item icons. After experimenting, menus seem to look better with icons in most places so that major sections of menu items are aligned together. I’ll ship this in a few days.

I’m noticing some new faces and some returning customers. Means a lot to me. From Pedro:

I went elsewhere for a while. I tried other services, they are fine. But they don’t come close to what Micro.blog offer.

For rail fans in the London area, Museum Open Depot days:

Discover rare road and rail vehicles spanning over 100 years, signs, ceramic tiles, original posters, ephemera, ticket machines, and more.

🚂