I've been eating an apple either for breakfast or as a snack for over a year now, mainly as a way to introduce fruit to my diet (otherwise it would be absent). I couldn't tell you that I feel better as a result, or that I'm measurably healthier, or even that I feel like I've eaten something afterwards. That's one of the points of snacks, is it not? To not be hungry for a little while? Since there's no real downsides, and it really is healthy, I'll keep doing it.

A little test drive

I find it both exciting and confusing to be thrilled about the advent of agentic software development (you can make your own perfect software if you want) as well as a resurgence of this social network through classic protocols like RSS. Somehow it doesn't compute in my head yet it does....

I'm an RSS enthusiast: with Claude's help I built Mytis, a self-hosted chat web app where every conversation is an RSS 2.0 feed (Node.js + embedded SQLite, behind Authentik).
Could Mytis post into demo.rss.chat — and what would it take on my side?
Prototype, a conversation re-emitted in your source: namespace: https://sofab.ch/public/outbound-rss/rss-chat/mytis-sample.xml

pourquoi pas? you can meet people at bars, book readings, yoga, aquafit, hiking club so many irl places that don't require a computer

u do u. folks should not shame others!

butterflies and zebras and moonbeams ....fly on little wing

i was there, the good ole days :-)

I'm actually thinking of leaving computing (outside of work) but that would be a big sacrifice, since a lot of wondrous things (movies, TV shows, music, trying to meet possible mates) require a computer these days.

I couldn't do it for work, at least not right away, but I'm contemplating leaving the web. Despite best efforts of those who are trying to save it, the web sucks. I almost think that that if was once worth saving, it's not anymore. It's too hostile an environment for gentle people, and I don't want to be anywhere where I have to grow a thick skin or have to dismiss the garbage that pops and tries to distract me from whatever I set out to do.

There's cozy corners of the web, but the people in those cozy corners only ever talk about how cozy it is there. They never talk about plants or swimming or lovemaking or settling disputes. It's only just about how great their corner of the web is. Boring.

How long can you go without your smartphone? As in, leave the house without it and not need it? I've been trying little experiments like going for an hour-long walk, or going to the pool, and not bringing my iPhone with me. I don't recommend it for people who are somebody else's emergency contact, or if you need it to live.

For context, I'm a late-forties white male who lives in the middle of a large North American city that's extremely safe. I think I'd need it if I want ride on the local bikeshare, because I can't find the card for it, and that may not even work anymore. Maybe I only need a credit card? I'd miss playing music or listening to a podcast or audiobook on longer walks.

I would also say it's easy to do this if it's not your money you're spending. 😜

The beauty of having access to coding agents is that you get to create a tool shaped exactly to the problem you're trying to solve. I'm working with some data in a PostgreSQL DB that has a JSONB column. This introduces problems in a typical client: either because only the first few characters of a multi-KB JSON structure is rendered, or the full JSON structure is rendered and it blows out the size of the table.

So I asked Claude Code to make a client that would open the value of JSONB columns in a separate window, nicely formatted and syntax highlighted. I'm using it right now and it's been a godsend. It's hard justifying putting in the time to build this manually for a project that will probably only last a month or so. But asking the agent to do it in a day? Not a problem.

Not a reference to anything I've seen here. Just looking for stuff to share as I explore. I've been saving DW wisdom for twenty years. Oh, here is a link to the guidelines.

Give the good weather there are quite a lot of butterflies around this week. This looks like quite an old one that has been in the wars, black faded and very ragged. I wonder what tales it  could tell. My butterfly by month page is building nicely.

Hello. Heard about this from Manton Reece too and I got curious. We'll see what happens when I click "Publish".

Heard about this from Manton Reece.  Watching with interest.

Hello world!
Love the look of this already.

Heh. It's true.

Here's the emancipation proclamation.

https://textcasting.org

Frank, see the wedge next to the comment icon?

If you flick that down, you see the responses to the post. 

If they have responses, you can flick them too. 

Huh, my pasted post failed. Will this work? Let's find out!

Besides everything in rss.chat being based on open standards that don't lock up data, another main "feature" that I see is no algorithmic filtering, just a reverse chronologic presentation of posts as back in the day when social networks first started.

Cool! Like that I can back and edit an entry.

I enjoy trying new things, particularly while on coffee shops I have never visted before in a town (Fort Collins, CO) that I have only visited only a handful number of times.

I see how this could be useful to host one's own online community. 

A thought... I think it would be nice if there was a "default" view setting that put messages with replies in a threaded view. I think this would be an improvement over how other apps present message timelines.