Thinking more about what I need for home NAS or OpenClaw server. I have an old Drobo that has important files I need to transfer before it stops working. Could get a Synology, Mac mini that solves multiple problems, or… nothing. I don’t love maintaining extra hardware.

Flipping through news channels over breakfast like I usually do, the Today Show actually had a pretty good segment on AI technology to help with air traffic control. Good balance of facts and humor. I think that’s largely going to be the mainstream response: “Interesting. And yet life goes on.”

AI tends to over-engineer more than I would. It’s kind of nice, because the code is often robust today, but it’s a lot to maintain tomorrow. I usually have to walk it back after a first pass, streamlining things, simplifying database changes. There’s a cost to doing too little and doing too much.

Reviewing the latest draft of the LOLA portability spec for ActivityPub. Micro.blog supports a bunch of import and export formats, as well as the “move” activity. Planning to add LOLA too.

OpenAI blogs about a new advisory group for math and AI. On their new internal model:

In addition to resolving the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize problem⁠, this model has now resolved more than 100 long-standing open problems across most areas of mathematics. The pace of its progress⁠ in mathematics has surprised the mathematicians within OpenAI.

I think OpenAI realized they rushed out Navier–Stokes, creating controversy that overshadowed the achievement. This post sounds like a good reset.

Caleb Hailey responded to my comment about a MacBook Neo-class Mac:

When the redesigned Mac Mini was announced I had hoped for it to be USB-C powered. But a Mac Nano (or Mac Neo) would be an even better fit for a USB-C powered Mac that could be used in all the ways you can use a Raspberry Pi. I bet they could beat the old Mac Mini pricing for a device like this, and ship it at $299-399.

I wouldn’t expect Apple to go that low, but even $499 would be great. It could literally be the same components as the Neo except no screen, no keyboard, and no battery.

Yesterday when I was clicking around checking the social web — Micro.blog, Bluesky, Threads, and X — it was only on Threads that I saw the news about ICE in Austin. I don’t want to read too much into one example, but Meta often does seem the most likely to show divisive, outrage-amplifying topics.

From Jason Snell’s review of the new Mac mini:

… at $599, the Mac mini was about as close to an impulse buy as a Mac desktop could get. At $899, it’s crossed an invisible threshold. I can understand it, but I don’t have to like it.

Maybe there’s a missing product in Apple’s lineup: a Mac with the guts of the $699 MacBook Neo. Call it a Mac nano.

The release notes page for Micro.blog for Mac is now so long, going back 9 years, that I hit Discourse’s default 32k character limit today. Had to bump the setting.

“Your feedback is important to us…” [delete]

Federico Viticci has an exhaustive review of the new Mac Studio with M5 and 256 GB of RAM. Lots of cool charts on performance. It sounds like a great Mac. The problem is that config will set you back $9k! For me, a $100/month subscription for frontier AI over many years is still better.

A man is in the hospital after being shot by ICE in Austin today. I watched some of the press conference… APD and the Texas Rangers are going to investigate.

If and when Democrats take the House, there is a long list of things to do. Oversight of ICE and pressure for reform has gotta be in the mix.

Elon Musk today again teased a hyperloop tunnel between Austin and San Antonio. Doesn’t seem likely to me. And it’s a major failure that we still have no usable train connecting literally any combination of Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Whenever there’s small progress, it stalls.

Servers getting hammered today by hackers. Sigh. Whenever I noticed this, I add some more blocking rules, but it’s such a waste of everyone’s time.

Dave Winer:

We’re starting to find the networky-ness of the web coming back to life.

Another shot of Austin, a little later in the morning from the Lamar pedestrian bridge. Love this city and don’t actually go downtown often enough.

Morning in Austin. From the bridge looking east.

Went to see Come From Away tonight at Zach. I love musicals but had been avoiding it over the years, felt too close to 9/11. Glad to finally see it. It’s good. 🎭

A long, well-researched blog post from Andrew Sharp that attempts to pour some cold water on the accelerating “AI is going to kill us all” narrative:

The vague and unfalsifiable fears expressed by AI leaders are predicated on leaps in the technology that may well be foreseeable, but also on the assumption that humans will be completely powerless to intervene and mitigate harms, or perhaps use technology themselves to innovate solutions.

This is a streamlined version of Justin Jackson’s original page about HLS video and podcasts. This is all you need to know to create video podcasts that use open standards.

1. Publish the audio version of your podcast.
2. Publish the video version as HLS video streaming with a .m3u8 file.
3. Add an element to your RSS feed that connects the audio to the video.

<podcast:alternateEnclosure type="application/x-mpegURL" 
	height="1080" 
	lang="en" 
	title="HD Video Stream" 
	rel="alternate">
	<podcast:source uri="manifest.m3u8" />
</podcast:alternateEnclosure>

That’s it. Now compatible podcast players can switch between audio and video. I’ve also written a longer post specifically about Micro.blog.

I don’t think my little $14/month server for OpenClaw is cutting it anymore. But Hetzner seems to have doubled their prices, so not sure about upgrading in place. Maybe everyone ordering Mac minis had the right idea. Even with new Apple prices, a Mac mini is a better deal over 1-2 years.

Had my first “uh oh” moment using OpenClaw. It accidentally had access to my GitHub account, instead of its own more sandboxed GitHub account. Not sure how this happened. Hopefully human error.

Re-reading Anil Dash’s endgame for the open web blog post and giving it some more thought. The two biggest areas that need our attention: keeping podcasting open and curating the web to highlight human-created content. There are other challenges too, but that’s where I’d start.

Would’ve been my mom’s birthday today. Last year, we celebrated in the hospital. Picked up Tiny Pies. A special moment, even if small. Pushing through today, working, because that’s sometimes all I know how to do.

Over the last week or so, I’ve gotten way too worked up over things I can’t control. That’s usually when I make mistakes, even if it’s something in private. Gotta keep focused on the big picture.

One of my concerns with tabs going on the right is discoverability. Turns out you can tap and hold on icons to show the label for each tab. Here’s a quick video of how this looks in Epilogue, which is the first app I’m experimenting with for the Duo.

Doing some initial testing with the Duo simulator. It is strange. There are potentially a lot of layout choices to make. I think bare minimum now, then more changes later when I actually use the real hardware.

Jared Sorge’s app Baseplate has the best name and icon. I haven’t even tried the app yet and it makes me smile.

Remember in old emails and usenet posts how people would put quotes in their signatures? Kind of miss that. I wonder if there’s a modern IndieWeb replacement for that.

It’s silly how excited I am to see the 40th anniversary release of Transformers: The Movie tonight. Feels like I’m 11 years old again. Also hope my wife enjoys it at least for the 1980s music!