FeedCity

Alexa+ pricing makes no sense. $20/month or free for Amazon Prime subscribers… Prime is $15/month. I can think of a few reasons to do it this way and none of them justify user confusion.

I’m following the Verge’s live blog for the Alexa event. Amazon really should be leading in this space since they created the Echo out of nothing 10 years ago. Fun to re-read my first blog post about the Echo.

Alexa+ will be a paid upgrade. Tim Cook is now wondering how he can charge for Siri too.

Michael Taylor has perfected the art of getting AI to speak in tongues. He’s taught it to mimic the voices of your customers—so you can see how they would respond before you ship. Michael is the creator of Rally, a market research tool that lets you simulate an audience of AI...

Michael Taylor has perfected the art of getting AI to speak in tongues. He’s taught it to mimic the voices of your customers—so you can see how they would respond before you ship. Michael is the creator of Rally, a market research tool that lets you simulate an audience of ...

Dave Winer:

People give Matt Mullenweg a lot of shit, but do they realize how hopeless the open web would be if he and his friends hadn’t kept it going for 20+ years.

Fascinating to imagine what the web would look like if WordPress didn’t exist. What would fill the void, and would it be as open?

Trying out Flashes, a photos app for Bluesky. On the surface feels similar to our Micro.blog companion app Sunlit. Lots of potential.

On the podcast today we have John Overall, a veteran podcaster in the WordPress space. We discuss John's journey in podcasting, starting with WP Plugins A to Z. John shares insights on the evolution of podcasting and WordPress, emphasising the importance of audio quality and the community's role in WordPress's growth. He talks about involving his daughter in his podcast, adapting content for a younger audience, and continuing to expand their business's expertise. The episode highlights the enduring value and impact of podcasting in the WordPress community. If you’re passionate about WordPress, podcasting, or just interested in understanding a holistic approach to long-term content creation and audience engagement, this episode is for you.

An email arrived from the Social Security Administration entitled Help Us Slam the Scam. Explains how not to get scammed by people who want our checks. Wonder if they realized it applies equally to Elon Musk, richest man in the world, who wants to eat old people's cupcakes because, well I can't explain it.

People give Matt Mullenweg a lot of shit, but do they realize how hopeless the open web would be if he and his friends hadn’t kept it going for 20+ years. I wrote the other day that I feel like a time traveler, discovering WordPress 20 years after I left UserLand. I care that it's open source, but I care much more that it's open web esp after we've been so thoroughly dominated by feature-limited silos such as Twitter, Facebook and yes -- even Mastodon and Bluesky. Even if there's a theoretical way to do it, practically speaking we have to wait for their developers to implement the features we want. Open source doesn't help there, but open web does. Matt puts the emphasis on the open source part, that's why it wasn't until very recently that I realized that open web is more important, to me at least.

I asked ChatGPT to draw a picture of a death panel as described by Republican lawmakers as they fought the Affordable Care Act. I was surprised it was willing to do it.

According to the bot: "The concept of 'death panels' was a widely debunked political talking point used by opponents of the Affordable Care Act. It falsely suggested that government-run committees would decide whether individuals—especially the elderly or disabled—would receive life-saving care.

"I can generate an image depicting a grim, dystopian bureaucratic setting where a group of shadowy officials in suits are sitting at a long, dark table, stamping papers while an elderly patient looks on with concern. The room would have a cold, sterile look, with a looming clock symbolizing bureaucratic power over life and death."

Guy Kawasaki sits down with Steve Gordon, Director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). Gordon, a former Cisco Systems executive, shares how he transformed one of the state's most crucial yet historically frustrating agencies into a customer-focused operatio...

Today, as the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas enters its most fragile phase, no one knows who will control the future of Gaza. Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times, talks through this delicate moment — as the first part of the deal nears it...

At Tuesday’s media briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the White House will now decide who attends briefings, an effort to insulate President Trump from tough scrutiny. She also offered awful spin about the developing...

Making app stores verify kids' ages could save everyone a lot of grief — but some worry it will introduce new risks

Tried out ChatGPT Deep Research now that it’s on the less expensive plan. Don’t have a lot of use for it, but it’s super impressive as a tool you might take out every once in a while. I used it to dig into some background facts for a blog post.

Host Martine Powers speaks with Supreme Court reporter Justin Jouvenal about Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, which will be heard before the country’s highest court on Wednesday.  Ames and her attorneys say she was held back at her job because she is straight ...

Working on some ActivityPub tweaks today, finally added some code to handle Question objects / polls. It was confusing to not have the context for these posts from Mastodon before. They look like this in the Micro.blog timeline now:

Personally I don’t use polls. I’ll revisit doing more later.

The price of a dozen eggs is surging throughout the New York area. Dionne Searcey, New York Times reporter, reports on how bird flu is causing the sticker shock on eggs, how different types of businesses are dealing with the cost and how New Yorkers are finding deals. Plus listeners share their tips on where to find affordable eggs and whether the prices are causing them to change up how eggs fit into their diets.

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For all kinds of marketing materials..

This is what the page looks like when published.

Scott Lynch in his newsletter:

I have decided to post every short story I’ve ever written (once rights exclusivity periods or other arrangements for them expire, for those that haven’t already) on my website, for free, in perpetuity, at the same time I make them available as e-books. Many of them are available elsewhere for free already. I just want to centralize the archive.

Feels like a very IndieWeb-y statement. And more authors when self-publishing are fine with DRM-free, which is also great.