Downtown from old east Dallas. Some yellow in the sky before sunset.

At Micro.blog we’ve used Sticker Mule for a while. A few years ago, I remember reading something about the founder supporting Trump. We actually talked about it internally. Do we care about the political opinions of companies that make a product we pay for? Ultimately, I dec...

Finally some good news. We need more big plans like this:

President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, including proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code, according to two people briefed on the plans.

He is also weighing whether to call for a constitutional amendment to eliminate broad immunity for presidents and other constitutional officeholders…

It’s a high bar to pass a constitutional amendment, but this is the right path anyway. 🇺🇸

Om Malik blogging about the Taboola deal:

Apple’s decision to strike a deal with Taboola is shocking and off-brand — so much so that I have started to question the company’s long-term commitment to good customer experience, including its commitment to privacy.

Apple was a great company when their business was aligned with their values and the interests of customers and developers. Services and ads have pulled them too far off track.

John Gruber blogs that it’s the guns: The truth is that our nation, great though it is in so many ways, has a horrific history of political violence and a seemingly innate obsession with firearms. […] Tomorrow morning Chuck Schumer should put on the floor of the Senate a la...

The new Overcast is looking good! Smooth upgrade. From Marco’s blog post:

For Overcast to have a future, it needed a modern foundation for its second decade. I’ve spent the past 18 months rebuilding most of the app with Swift, SwiftUI, Blackbird, and modern Swift concurrency.

I’ve recorded a short 2-minute video to show how we’ve updated Micro.blog’s editor layout for blog theme templates. Simpler, faster. You can find it on YouTube here.

Finished reading: The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz. I enjoyed the first half of this book. But after the time jump, for me it couldn’t recapture what had worked in the opening characters and story. 📚

From the news blog:

We’ve updated how blog themes are edited. If you don’t have a custom theme, Micro.blog will now create a placeholder one for you, with an “Open” button to edit any templates. There’s a new sidebar of template names, faster search, and faster CSS editing.

Micro.blog News https://news.micro.blog/2024/07/15/weve-updated-how.html

There are a bunch of little tweaks to make themes easier to use. Going to try to do a video tomorrow to help explain it.

My blog has probably shifted way too much to the political, but that’s how it goes in an election year. Personal blog, personal opinions. But I’ve got some new Micro.blog improvements to talk about this week! Starting tomorrow.

Chris Enns:

I wish we could have a day or two each month where we all collectively agreed to post about things we enjoy, love, appreciate, or celebrate. No rage farming, click baiting, or rants allowed. Just for one day.

That would be nice! I might fail at this test, but it’s a good goal.

Just watched Biden’s statement on the shooting. Very good. He is the President and our Democratic nominee. To me, the debate about replacing him is over. The campaign is chaotic enough already. I still think he can win, but it’s going to be close, and it’s going to be work. 🇺🇸

Saying that Trump is a threat to democracy is not a call for violence. He caused January 6th. He refuses to accept the last election or the next one. He is chaos. Even after being shot, he’s shouting “fight” to the crowd. Everything he touches becomes more dangerous. Vote. 🇺🇸

Just posted a new Core Intuition: A Billion-Dollar Flop. We check in about the Vision Pro, then think about how Apple plays the long game and what we can learn about balancing marketing features vs. app polish.

Always love “going indie” posts. John Siracusa:

By 2022, I had returned to thinking not only that it’s possible for me to quit my day job, but that it’s necessary for me to do so. http://hypercritical.co/2022/03/30/independence-day

Congrats to @RogueAmoeba on the release of Audio Hijack 4! Really big update. Their blog post has details on the new features, design, and scripting.

I think it was @amit who suggested something like this change at Micro Camp earlier this month, on the panel with @pimoore. Thankful for all the Hugo experts who actually know more than I do about it. 🙂

Deployed a bunch of server changes today. Some behind-the-scenes stuff that @vincent has been working on, plus fixes to managing themes and pages. Micro.blog now respects min_version in Hugo’s theme.toml file and will show this notice to make it easy to update:

I’ve been reading a lot of e-books and audiobooks, so wanted to pick up something new in print. Just arrived: The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh. 📚

Improved several things in the Bookshelves section of Micro.blog on the web. More consistent navigation and book sorting fixes.

Austin has come alive in the last week with blooming red buds, mountain laurel, and bluebonnets.

Finished reading: Magician’s Gambit by David Eddings 📚

Realized last week that I need to actually use the email newsletter feature of Micro.blog myself so that I notice more of the quirks that we can smooth over. You can now subscribe to weekly emails on manton.org. Got the first one today and it looks pretty good!

We watched the Oscars live last night and were confused and then stunned by what happened with Will Smith and Chris Rock, and I hoped by this morning I could focus on other things. Still can’t stop thinking of what Denzel Washington told Will Smith: “At your highest moment, be careful, that’s when the devil comes for you.”

Working on Epilogue this morning, and Android + iOS builds have my Intel MacBook fans going at full speed. Not ready to jump to M1 yet, though. When I bought this 16-inch MacBook Pro, I said I’d keep it for at least a few years and trying to stick to that.

Congrats to @marco on the new Overcast redesign. I’ve been using the beta and it’s a really nice update.

Following up the new bookmarks improvements with more changes today: added Pinboard import and fixed some other problems. Thanks to folks who have upgraded to Micro.blog Premium to take full advantage of bookmark archiving, highlights, and search! That helps us make it better.

The last time I was here (Wright Bros Brew & Brew), you could park across the street because it was just a dirt parking lot next to the train tracks. Now it’s a Whole Foods and Target. ☕️

New Spurs mural on east 4th. Getting coffee around the corner at Wright Bros. ☕️

We’ve started to get the videos from Micro Camp up on the YouTube channel. Thanks again to our speakers and everyone who joined us!