Off and on for years I had been trying to figure out what a more slimmed down version of Micro.blog would look like. Maybe text-only blog posts, no photos? Maybe only short posts, or only long-form posts? Maybe some limit with podcasting? But taking away certain features und...

Having fun this morning working on a couple animated GIFs for the Micro.one website. Using Gifox for the basics, which I really like so far. Simple, clean design. And Acorn 8 can now edit animated GIFs as layers, great for quick resizing or edits.

“Did you ever re-subscribe to The Washington Post?”

“No. And I never will.”

My good opinion once lost is lost forever.

Nick Heer blogging about the report of Meta’s plans for AI-generated social content: Imagine opening any of Meta’s products after this has taken over. Imagine how little you will see from the friends and family members you actually care about. Imagine how much slop you will...

Another detail about Micro.one, especially for folks who want to share it with friends and family as soon as it launches: it will be limited to 3000 total subscribers. That’s a tiny number at the scale of big silos, but it’s a lot for us. Needs to be sustainable in the context of the whole platform.

Fleet Coffee on Manor. ☕️

“When ya ain’t got nothin', you got nothin' to lose
You’re invisible now, ya got no secrets to conceal
How does it feel?” — Bob Dylan

Found this first edition, signed copy of A Song for Arbonne at Half Price Books the other day and had to get it. Read it so long ago that it’ll be like reading it for the first time. I’m always on the lookout for old Kay books, they seem in short supply. 📚

Added a new blogging page to the Micro.blog website when you’re not signed in. This is the start of bringing back some more text and screenshots. Just a Mac screenshot for now. Also might reuse some of this for Micro.one.

Texas French Bread, still boarded up after the fire a couple years ago.

Several people have already correctly guessed that Micro.one will be a ridiculously low $1/month. I hope this helps it reach more people. It will also be a perfect gift subscription to give to friends and family.

Nice video review on YouTube of many of the improvements in Micro.blog recently, including photo collections and replies from Mastodon and Bluesky.

At the coffee shop this morning I asked the barista to make my latte before I paid for it so I could try it first. Wait, no. Because demos and trials are an important complement to things that need thought and time and money, like a $40 app. But does $5 software need a trial? What about if it’s $1?

Rail lights from Manor. 🚂

To know what a product is means knowing what it is not.

I’ve suggested a couple times this year that I want to rethink the Micro.blog trial period. It feels like the time for a change. Next week I’m going to remove the 10-day trial. You can pay, or not! And new users can start with a Micro.one subscription and then upgrade to Micro.blog if they want to.

Some interesting stats in Mastodon’s 2023 report. Patron donors have dropped over the last couple of years, but total donations are up because of larger, single donations. Makes me wonder if the future of financing Mastodon might be more commercial offerings, like paid hosting or subscriptions.

Christmas tree with green books at Half Price Books. 📚

By popular demand, added a sign-up form to the Micro.one teaser home page. I’ll send an email to everyone at launch on January 2nd. Then I’ll sell the mailing list to the highest bidder and you’ll get spam for life. (Just kidding. It’ll be a one-time email.)

We got a new game for the holidays: Everdell. Still figuring it out but it’s great so far. Looking forward to checking out the expansions too.

One week until the Micro.one launch.

I created a new demo site demo-photos.micro.blog to showcase some photo blog features in Micro.blog. It doesn’t use any custom code… Just the home page photos plug-in and Micro.blog collections. For photos, I imported my old Instagram archive.

It has been a very nice Christmas Day. Happy Holidays, everyone. 🎄 Also saw two movies this week that I enjoyed: An Almost Christmas Story, a short stop-motion film on Netflix; and A Complete Unknown, which was excellent. Listening to Bob Dylan ever since. 🍿

For your Christmas Eve podcast listening queue, we just posted Core Intuition 623. Daniel and I talk about shipping new features like Micro.blog’s photo collections, preparing the next MarsEdit release, and the Micro.one teaser. 🎄

Feedback on my post about Matt Mullenweg over the weekend has been fairly positive. One topic that I wish I had covered: will our opinion change depending on whether the court rules in favor of Automattic or WP Engine? I think it could, but that outcome is a long way off.

Nice use of Micro.blog photo collections on David Dykstal’s photos page.

From last night, the Zilker tree at the Trail of Lights. 🎄

Strongly agree with this reaction from Ben Werdmuller on Joe Biden commuting many death row sentences:

The death penalty is a barbaric practice that has no place in the 21st century, just as it had no place in the 20th century. It needs to be abolished everywhere, for any reason.

Life in prison is enough. And it allows a reversal when we get a conviction wrong. Justice, not revenge.

We should all give people space to be wrong a few times before we lose our shit. Outrage is a last resort.

I’m falling well short of my reading goals this year. My currently reading list keeps getting bigger, but I’m not finishing anything. For the rest of 2024, just want to finish Wind and Truth. 📚