IndieWeb
This is a nice surprise from Jamie Thingelstad:
I love to see new blogs being created. In the spirit of Christmas, I’m gifting five 1-year subscriptions to micro.blog for readers of the Weekly Thing (announced in WT304). These folks can then get their blogs going and in January I’m going to share links and introduce each of them. Fun! 🤩🎁🎄
There’s a lot to do today. Started the day with something very simple: updated the profile icon for Micro.blog news. Now in color and centered so it looks nice with rounded profile icons. We post here throughout the week with platform updates.
I’ve updated our Mastodon and Bluesky cross-posting to have new options to control whether to backfeed replies to Micro.blog. It also now better respects the visibility of posts to avoid leaking semi-private posts outside of Mastodon. Screenshot of the setting:
So cold this morning, instead of walking I grabbed a Lime scooter up to the coffee shop. First time I’ve ridden a scooter since San Jose a few years ago. Working on making Micro.blog better, of course, because it’s Saturday morning.
With the success of Bluesky starter packs — which Micro.blog can browse natively! — every other social web platform is trying to invent their own similar format. But we already have blogrolls and OPML. I’d love to see some standardization around this so that there’s a shared format across platforms.
Good blog post on the ramifications of Micro.blog’s new backfeed replies from Mastodon and Bluesky:
While you could argue that publishing something on the internet means it’s fair game to use elsewhere (in a Google search result, for example) I would argue that our social media interactions at least feel limited to the context in which they take place.
This is an evolving balance between the open web and semi-private communities. More we can do here.
Most of the week was rolling out bug fixes and little improvements. Also mostly wrapped up updated iOS and macOS versions of M.b which will hopefully ship this weekend. December fully underway, good time to tie up unfinished software loose ends.
Great story at The Verge about AI companions:
Millions of people are turning to AI for companionship. They are finding the experience surprisingly meaningful, unexpectedly heartbreaking, and profoundly confusing, leaving them to wonder, ‘Is this real? And does that matter?’
It kind of snuck up on me… It’s Wind and Truth release day. Looking forward to starting it this weekend. 📚
I’m pretty confused debugging Threads fediverse interoperability. Sending new posts to Threads returns 404 not found. Even just trying to grab an actor with curl and Accept: application/activity+json fails, for any user.
IndieWeb Meetup tonight! Reminder that we switched up the venue: it’s at Radio Coffee & Beer, 7pm.
Little known fact: Micro.blog has the best photo search of any blogging platform. Great to find one of your old photos to reference, or to remember if you blogged about something. If there’s anything even close to this good, let me know.
From a few days ago, this little “eggplant” sign makes me smile whenever I see it.
Deployed a flurry of server fixes this morning. Espresso machine power is out at the coffee shop, so enjoying a cold brew instead. ☕️
Great new preview videos of the upcoming Micro.blog app Mikro. Looking really nice!
Woke up to a whole bunch of good (though not positive) feedback. Going to be a busy day!
I’ve been trying to trim down my business-related expenses. It’s mostly going well. I do sometimes miss ChatGPT Plus.
After 49 years in Austin, you’d think I’d know every little neighborhood. But places change with time. Searching for a house this last year, we’re discovering all these hidden gems. Old properties that have been dusted off. Neighborhoods whose time has come again.
Last month I coded up an OpenAI-powered note dictation experiment. I’m still not convinced Siri dictation is going to improve significantly in the next 2-3 years. (Example today: “in Austin” became “and awesome”, which made no sense in context.) Apple models are too limited until we have more RAM.
Didn’t realize this was missing but now that I’ve implemented it, I love it. Post to your blog, someone replies in Bluesky. The reply appears on your blog. If you reply back on Bluesky, that reply is included in the conversation on your blog too.
That wide-eyed look of discovery and wonder in a little kid’s face when they see something new for the first time… How much of our life as adults is just trying to recapture that feeling again?
Paul Kafasis blogs about cutting back on news consumption for our mental health:
…in Donald Trump’s first term as America’s commander in chief, I was unnecessarily tuned in to each and every horrid aspect of his presidency. I don’t intend to repeat that mistake when we take this wretched ride for a second time.
🇺🇸
While you can certainly have open APIs that require user authorization, it’s always a nice indication of just how open something is when there are public endpoints. Mastodon and Bluesky both get this.
Listened to the new Wicked’s Defying Gravity this morning in the car. Everything about it — Cynthia, Ariana, the orchestra… This rendition is extraordinary. 🧹
Book and film covers! I’ve updated Micro.blog to show little thumbnails of book covers when you blog about a book using Micro.blog or our companion app Epilogue. I wanted something visually helpful but less in your face than link preview banners. There’s also special support for Letterboxd links.
I’ve never thought custom emoji were a good idea. People say they love them, but how often are they used? Micro.blog spends a silly amount of time just downloading all the custom emoji from Mastodon instances so they can be displayed correctly. Currently 1 million custom emoji from 4000 servers. 🤪
Mum Foods. The best BBQ I’ve had in a long while.
