FeedCity

Dries: "For an Open Source company, the test is not only what they build for themselves. It is what they help build for everyone."

I wrote about beats and grooves.

On Twitter: "I envision a network of twitter-like systems built out of components of the web and nothing more. Every part replaceable."

The only twitter-like system that does text right is Elon Musk's X. I find that somewhat ironic. It's also the only twitter-like system where there's any kind of an actual community. They also have an API that works, has been around for more than a couple of years, and doesn't have a W3C working group messing with it. There's a lot of hype flying around, and we don't have any real journalists covering it so there is no real source of truth. I think the entrepreneurial twitter-likes should stop thinking in terms of owning the web and start adding back the text features the original Twitter thought the web didn't need, over 20 years ago.

A reminder of Oscar Wilde’s advice to readers regarding the three kinds of books.

Mux is what developers reach for when they need to do more with video. Video files are packed with data and context waiting to be unlocked.

Mux Robots are AI workflows that unlock that data inside your video for summarization, caption translation, moderation, and more. Configure once and your workflows run automatically on new uploads.

Mux is video infrastructure trusted by Patreon, Substack, and Synthesia. Start building for free. Use code FIREBALL at signup for an extra $50 credit.

Nick Heer, at Pixel Envy, last week published a remarkable essay surveying — with copious receipts — the rise and fall of “metaverse” hype: The obsession with the metaverse seems to have solidified in Silicon Valley after Matthew Ball published an essay in January 2020 i...

Hamilton Nolan, writing at How Things Work: There are only a few reasons why you might be hired for a prestigious job that you are obviously not qualified for. One is “they have recognized you for the genius that you are.” The urge to conclude that this is, in fact, the ...

I wrote a post for my Buy Me a Coffee supporters.

This Adam Neely video about his alma mater, the Berklee College of Music, which is simultaneously fascinating and immensely discouraging, provides an excellent illustration of the ways that all the institutions scrambling to get on board the AI train, in the belief that that will make them seem up-to-date and relevant, just end up giving a “How do you do, fellow kids” vibe.

John C Reilly has only one audiobook, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He's the best audiobook narrator. Wish he would do more. Also there's a great interview with him on the Rachel Martin podcast.

Om Malik: The Adventures of Pinocchio was published in serial form in 1881, aimed at Italian children in the way the 19th century aimed things at children, full of suffering, consequence, and moral instruction delivered through catastrophe. The puppet is hanged. He is sw...

Galicia, May 2026.

From the video The only way I know how to make great photographs.

If you work at Automattic as a developer, if there's another Radical Speed Month for devs, if you want, let's work on a project together even though I don't work for the company. I'm most interested in making products work together where the result gets people thinking about the web in a new way. A8C has a big enough product set, and FeedLand and WordLand are by design well-equipped to talk with other products. I love APIs and we have some good ones to work with, and some very underexplored (imho because we got too fixated on the silos for so long). Very much open to ideas, and I love working with good developers. Maybe I'll post some ideas here. I'm esp interested now in hooking other projects up with FeedLand.

Maybe the best way to deal with the AIs is to quarantine the data centers on the moon or Mars, and if you want to hook up to the network, you have to move there, and quite possibly not be allowed to return, depending on how things go. It would make it possible for us to change our mind after we see a preview of the consequences. Now the big question, would you volunteer??

Juli Clover (release notes, no security, no enterprise, no developer, full installer, IPSW): According to Apple’s release notes for the update, macOS Tahoe 26.5.1 addresses an unexpected shutdown issue affecting certain enterprise users on M5 Macs. See also: Mr. Macintosh. Previously: macOS 26.5

Juli Clover (release notes, no security, no enterprise, no developer): According to Apple’s release notes, the update fixes a previously documented charging issue with iPhone Air and iPhone 17 models. Previously: iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5

Bare Bones Software: This release of BBEdit introduces expanded support for macOS “Shortcuts”, via additional actions provided in the Shortcuts application. A “Transform Text” operation allows invocation of “one shot” operations of many kinds, and transforms are provided for extracting matching lines, deleting matching lines, sorting lines, and text replacement. The shortcuts can either interact […]

To each his own, but I’d rather go to the First Church of Lucifer Antichrist than to James Talarico’s church. Say what you will about Satanism, dude, at least it’s an ethos.

Katie Notopoulos, a month ago at Business Insider:

Amazon has launched a new feature that uses AI to generate a short, podcast-like audio segment where two “hosts” discuss the merits and reviews of a specific product.

I think it could be one of the funniest, closest endpoints to human civilization we’ve seen yet in our new AI-enabled world. If this sounds a little confusing, here’s an example. I tried it out for diaper rash cream, and, voila! A podcast! (Sound on.)

I don’t know what’s worse: that anyone at Amazon thought actual people would really listen to these, or if actual people really are listening to them.