WordLand opened for everyone to use yesterday. There was a deal-stopping bug reported last night, fixed provisionally immediately, then for real this morning. Prevented new users from getting started. Really embarassing. If you have trouble, please report. There's a link for Support in the main menu in the app.
Jay Rosen started a list of journalism sources on Bluesky. John Spurlock wrote an app that generates an OPML subscription list using Bluesky's API. It will enable us to recreate a world that Jay put together, outside of Bluesky. From AT Proto to OPML and RSS.
We aren't prepared for what's coming.
Fiddling with improved Open Graph support for hosted blogs. I’ve never liked how most social platforms use Open Graph previews. Sometimes they’re great, sometimes they’re redundant, and sometimes they’re plastered over a timeline like ads. But bloggers need more control over this.
Almost whenever I run an alter table in MySQL, I think back to a conversation with Marco Arment at SXSW 15 years ago, about how Tumblr’s database was so big it was faster to add new tables instead of changing existing columns or indexes. MySQL has improved a lot since then.
We are not on the verge of a constitutional crisis, we are in the aftermath of one.
Things are indeed dire. I’m focusing on the only thing I know how to contribute: helping people post on the web and discouraging the spread of misinformation, which I think is largely to blame for getting us here. To those on the front lines for democracy, please remember to be better than the other side. Everything we do must be grounded in truth and compassion.
The Brian Lehrer Show
• WNYC
Brian Lehrer Weekend: Elie Mystal on Eric Adams; Trump's Putin Pivot; SNL's Best Political Sketches
Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them.
Analysis from Elie Mystal as a judge deliberates Mayor Eric Adams' future (First) | Richard Stengel, Former Under Secretary of State during the Obama administration, on Trump's pivot away from European allies and towards President Vladimir Putin's Russia (Starts at 35:47) | The best political sketches so far in SNL's 50-year history (Starts at 1:06:10)
If you don't subscribe to the Brian Lehrer Show on iTunes, you can do that here.
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The Daily
• The New York Times
'The Interview': Ed Yong Wants to Show You the Hidden Reality of the World
The Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer talks about burnout from covering the pandemic and how bird-watching gave him a new sense of hope. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and
Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here
https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For
more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at
nytimes.com/app.
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Matt Mullenweg
• Matt
WordCamp Asia and Kumbh Mela
It’s been fantastic being in the Philippines for this year’s WordCamp Asia. We have attendees from 71 countries, over 1,800 tickets sold, and contributor day had over 700 people! It’s an interesting contrast to US and EU WordCamps as well in that the audience is definitely a lot younger, and there’s very little interest in … Continue reading WordCamp Asia and Kumbh Mela →
5 years or 20 years?
Federico Viticci on the products after the Vision Pro:
I may be stating the obvious here, but I fundamentally believe that headsets are a dead end and glasses are the ultimate form factor we should be striving for. […] There’s a real possibility we may have Apple glasses (a...
Post Reports
• The Washington Post
The Trump honeymoon is ending
Senior political reporter Aaron Blake talks with Post congressional reporter Liz Goodwin and Dan Lamothe, who covers the Pentagon and the U.S. military, about the week’s political news. They dig into Trump’s sharp turn against Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. They also talk about new polling that shows Trump’s sweeping federal policy decisions are largely unpopular. Plus, why GOP lawmakers are quietly begging Trump to spare their districts from Trump and his ally Elon Musk’s splashy government spending cuts.
Today’s show was produced by Laura Benshoff. It was edited by Lucy Perkins with help from Rachel Van Dongen. It was mixed by Justin Gerrish.
AI as a feedback machine
This is a variation on something I’ve mentioned in passing before. I like running draft blog posts through AI. Even for very short posts, sometimes I’ll paste the text into ChatGPT and ask it to tell me what the post means. If AI can “understand” it, humans probably can too....
DOGE and the Shakeup in Government: A Culture Shift
Without a doubt, the entire world has seen the shakeup in the U.S. federal government led by the President and DOGE.
In a nutshell, the fundamental culture of the federal government has been impacted by a shift from a traditional bureaucracy to an entrepreneurial, cost-cutting mindset.
Each type of organization has one keyword that's a driving force in its organization. For the federal government, that word is "risk." What's the risk of doing this or what's the risk of doing that?
For entrepreneurial organizations, the key driving force is "opportunity." How can I turn this challenge or setback into an opportunity?
Opportunity prioritizes speed of change over security, whereas risk prioritizes security over speed. Each has its appropriate place and time.
The Brian Lehrer Show
• WNYC
The GOP's Beleaguered Budget
House Speaker Mike Johnson has several holdouts in his own party on the budget blueprint he wants to put on the House floor in the coming days. Meredith Lee Hill, Congress reporter for POLITICO covering GOP leadership, breaks down the beleaguered House budget and the Republicans pushing Johnson not to slash SNAP benefits and Medicaid.
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The Brian Lehrer Show
• WNYC
Judge Deliberates Mayor Adams' Fate
U.S. Justice Department attorneys and Mayor Eric Adams appeared before federal Judge Dale Ho, asking that the five federal corruption and bribery charges against Adams should be dropped. Elie Mystal, justice correspondent and columnist for The Nation and host of their legal podcast, "Contempt of Court," author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution (The New Press, 2023), and the forthcoming Bad Law: 10 Popular Laws That Are Ruining America (The New Press, 2025), offers legal analysis of the request as Judge Ho continues to deliberate.
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Letting go of Advanced Data Protection in the UK seems a reasonable compromise from Apple. If I’m going to nitpick anything in their statement:
Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption is more urgent than ever before.
Urgent? Important, yes, but urgent is something that needs immediate attention, and I hardly think encrypted cloud backups qualify. Apple’s statement doesn’t actually matter but the word choice stood out to me.
The Brian Lehrer Show
• WNYC
Workday Nap, Anyone?
A recent AP story focused on people who take naps to help refocus on workdays and callers share if they break for naps and if their employers support that.
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The Brian Lehrer Show
• WNYC
Trump's Attack on Science Funding
Katherine Wu, staff writer for The Atlantic, explains how the Trump administration's cuts to research grants has already — and will continue to — impact scientific progress in the United States.
=>"The Breaking of American Science" (The Atlantic, Feb. 14, 2025)
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Submitted another Micro.blog iOS bug fix update off to Apple for review. I’ve gotten much more consistent about keeping TestFlight betas up to date too. I think it’s making a difference.