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I was thinking about Wisconsin news orgs and remembered we called the two Madison papers the Crap Times and the Wisconsin State Urinal. I don't know why that's so funny. Everyone does it. We used to call our own company Living Videosex, and the company that bought us out was Cementech or Sementech. Still makes me laugh. And there are company names that are funny without changing them like Microsoft. Sorry.

An update on Strata for Android. Getting closer to a release. We had a rejection, resubmitted. Pretty confident it’ll be approved and out today or early next week.

It has come to my attention that "It's even worse than it appears" might not be the right overlay for Kamala Harris, whose picture is the current banner art for Scripting News. Of course she's still even better than she appears. I really mean that, and if you read this blog r...

Humor and putdowns in politics are great if you know how to do it and if the time is right. Trump was the only comedian on stage at the debates. And his act was fresh. The people who loved him loved that the other people hated him. It really was simple. Like a sports team or...

I use my blog in the earliest part of the day to warm up and procrastinate.

Tantek Çelik blogged about IndieWebCamp Portland:

We wrapped up with our usual Create Day Demos session, live streamed for remote attendees to see as well. Lots of great demos of things people built, designed, removed, cleaned-up, documented, and blogged! Everyone still at the camp showed something on their personal site!

I miss IndieWebCamp. Don’t think I’ve attended one since we hosted in Austin a couple weeks before COVID hit.

For this "Summer Friday" we've put together some of our favorite conversations this year: Eddie Glaude, Jr., Princeton professor and the author of We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For (Harvard University Press, 2024), argues against waiting for "h...

Setting up some more customer support email filters. It’s gotten to where I have so much spam waiting for me, I hate to check support email, which is really bad for everyone. 🙁

Phil Donahue, the game-changing daytime television host, died last week at 88. Mr. Donahue turned “The Phil Donahue Show” into a participation event, soliciting questions and comments on topics as varied as human rights and orgies. Michael Barbaro explains what Phil Donahue ...

Why does it seem like Democratic attacks on Trump are breaking through now? Joe explains why it was always the contrast - and how Kamala Harris opens up new ways for Democrats to make the case. Why getting into Trump's head (and staying there) matters so much. And how should Kamala Harris prepare to debate Trump? Joe has some pointers.
And don't forget to check out Sez.Us - it's time to stop being held hostage to algorithms and rebuild the town square.
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By now you’ve heard that Donald Trump’s campaign aides had a physical confrontation with an official at Arlington National Cemetery who tried to prevent them from filming in a restricted area, which apparently violated the law. This scandal worsened Thursday when the Army sharply rebuked his campaign. Democratic Senators are getting involved, which could bring a fuller accounting. We talked to political scientist Jonathan Bernstein—author of a good new piece about this saga—who details how Team Trump’s actions are now signaling a larger deterioration of the rule of law and democracy.
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This is my 9th Burning Man; I started coming in 2013. It’s incredible how much it has changed and evolved in that time. I love seeing all the technology and engineering advances every year. In my time it has gone from more fire and flashlights to LEDs with rainbow and color everywhere. I drove in … Continue reading Burning Man So Far →

Pavel Durov has a lot to answer for — but how he is prosecuted could reshape the internet

Provide more opportunities to sign up, more details for people who want them, and reminders for folks who aren't ready to sign up

I have a few upcoming camping reservations, part of my quest to visit all 88 state parks in Texas. Got this email the other day about one of the reservations:

Select sites at Abilene State Park are closed due to hazardous trees.

Hazardous trees! Luckily the park changed their mind and will allow camping anyway. I’m more amused by the notice than worried, but still gonna try to avoid camping underneath any branches that look ready to fall.

From The Wall Street Journal: Apple, Nvidia Are in Talks to Invest in OpenAI. This makes sense to me. Apple is obviously developing their own AI models, but I don’t think they care about AI as much as OpenAI, Anthropic, and others who live and breathe it. See more commentary from M.G. Siegler.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, there has been a big uptick in the use of the powerful anesthetic ketamine to treat anxiety and depression. But after the death last year of actor Matthew Perry, star of the hit sitcom “Friends,” due in part to the effects of ketamine, doctors and government officials are reconsidering the drug’s widespread availability.

On today’s “Post Reports,” Elahe Izadi speaks with reporter Daniel Gilbert, who has been following the ketamine boom for years. They talk about how ketamine became so widely accessible and about the uncertain future of the drug. 

Today’s show was produced by Peter Bresnan, with help from Emma Talkoff and Ali Bianco. It was edited by Monica Campbell and mixed by Rennie Svirnovskiy. 

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There are some interesting things going on with the new Patreon-like Sub Club for the fediverse. Presumably it can send members-only posts via ActivityPub because it knows which followers are paid subscribers. I’m puzzled by the payment inside third-party apps, though… I wonder how that works.

I like this post from Marty McGuire about the IndieWeb and how the indieweb.org wiki can sometimes be overwhelming for new users:

That’s because indieweb.org is not a presciption or a cookbook or an exercise plan. It doesn’t tell you how to “be IndieWeb”. It’s a collective memory of experiments, some successful and some not, from a group of experimenters that has changed greatly over time.

Also some nice words for Micro.blog in there. The wiki is an incredible resource, but just start with your own web site and don’t worry about the rest unless you want to dig deeper.

I joked yesterday that enabling the AI features in Micro.blog for everyone might bankrupt me. I didn’t seriously think that it would be out of control, but API usage is sometimes hard to predict, and bills usually only trend in one direction: up. Now with 24 hours usage, seems totally fine.