The status page for Micro.blog shows that everything is fine — I think? It’s not entirely clear to me — and yet there is a blog post I cannot access.
I’m frustrated since the title of the blog post alone has me excited, whilst the helpful MB page isn’t helpful at all.
Changes Ahead by Alan Jacobs is not the first post of its kind that I have read in the seven years since joining Micro.blog.
A good broad, long-term goal for platforms such as this would be to change this dynamic. To truly be the best option for anybody who just wants to blog.
Apple finally realised people also use maps in browsers.
To follow Leon’s post, itself a nod to Alan’s post, I say:
We must help ourselves, otherwise we cannot hope to help others.
(Yes I’m ranting here and I know it.)
It’s tiring to see so much of The Little Boys Club culture on show when it comes to the tech industries.
Why are so many of the decision-makers in tech just shitty men who have failed to grasp even the most basic skill of asking first. It’s beyond pathetic.
If you eat eggs, that’s great. But, I don’t care? This is not a callout. I was not thinking about you when I wrote what I wrote. I was thinking about the fact that I don’t like eggs. This was not an eggs-based personal callout to you.
— James Spencer, This is not a callout
John Voorhees, over on MacStories:
Industry-wide, AI companies have scraped the content of websites like ours, using it as the raw material for their chatbots and other commercial products without the consent or compensation of publishers and other creators.
Good stuff.
Vincent Ritter, introducing Sublime Feed makes a point that feels like it was just for me:
There is also no concept of “unread”. I don’t need that in my life… and I know some of you do. I think having an unread count isn’t healthy. Each time you load up your feed it’s a snapshot of this very moment in time and you can just pick and choose. I think it’s easy enough to remember the post you just read and move onto the other.
I agree with this, mostly. Given that I’ve given up on remembering every little thing, Sublime Feed will be a place in which I will only read my favourites.
Finished a (too) late night with a deeply satisfying task: re-developing the TIL roadmap. The first part of Orchid was, by necessity, weighty. To fulfil my goals with the programme future updates will contain fewer changes.
The primary benefit is that I’ll quickly make improvements.
This was my quickest solving of Cross|word by far. Feels pretty good.
Want to read: Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum 📚
Micro.blog State of the Platform is happening on YouTube. A surprise demo is currently happening!
Micro Camp links
Getting some chores done and preparing for Micro Camp. Working out my window set-up, between Zoom, YouTube, and a spare browser.
Edit: I now know that we’re going back to the Help forum chat for during the sessions. I’ve used the web app Mac feature for the chat:
Another Micro Camp, another chance to win an awesome prize:
All the prizes are amazing, so you really can’t go wrong.
Fully agreed with Jean on this. Good luck!
Such good news to see Kimberly Hirsh joining the Micro.blog team! 🎉
Also fantastic news from the same post:
Vincent has also been at work behind the scenes to improve the admin features in our platform, with the hope that some of it can be available to more community members.
Yet more great work from Vincent, and also a good sign of the team taking the well-proven careful and considered approach when making significant changes to the platform.
Brad Enslen has made a new linkblog. An easy choice to follow.
Tonight’s D&D was another great one. It’s like drinking a late coffee — honestly it reminds me of when I’m in the flow with @TIL.
For new users who join Micro.blog starting today, it’s turned on by default.
— Manton Reece, New AI global setting
The switch for the setting is good.
I continue to feel sad about the broken nature of our world of technology such that opt-out is deemed not just preferable, but essential.
Gregory Alvarez said a lot in Living Like It’s 99: No Social Media, No Smartphone, and I’m not going to quote anything in particular right now. The whole thing is worth a read.
(h/t @jamesvandyne)
Gibberish doesn’t have those features, it’s meant to be easy to understand. I want my users to use almost all of the features in Gibberish, not just 10%. Users are supposed to click around the Gibberish app, look at the post information etc, and ask, “Is that all?” That’s a good thing.
— Zhenyi Tan, Gibberish Is Now Available on TestFlight
The app is an intriguing idea in its own right. However, I love seeing people make anything with this mentality and am keen to support those efforts.
The newest video from the folks at Lux, about the latest update regarding their upcoming video app, Kino is a good example as to why I am so happy to largely buy from them sight unseen. Clear and simple communication is one of those creative tricks; it takes so. much. work to produce such a thing.
In Manners Maketh Man, Davey Craney states:
This bitter growing rumbling spiteful hosepiped rage directed towards these truly inconsequential matters. Imagine the multitude of ways this bitter buffon could channel his energy better within his day.
I largely agree. However, the word “growing” caught my eye.
Davey, I like a lot of what you have written here. Regarding the position of “nowadays” and “the political landscape”, though, I have to disagree. I see a lot of this viewpoint — to me it’s similar to the mentality that leads to making things great again — and I can hardly ever agree.
What made the multiple bad experiences I had in service 20 years ago happen? Or, more importantly, when my cousin was racially abused as a child by other children? Did somebody travel back in time from now and poison the well? Nah I don’t think so. Instead, I think this is just looking for patterns where there are none; seeking certainty because, as an animal, we hate uncertainty.
I’m happy you happen to have the right mix of personhood to handle stress and disappointment in such a cordial manner; not only do I strive, as you do, to always maintain my composure in this way I also believe we’d all be better off if everybody attempted to do so. However I do think it’s important to remember that not everybody is the same and that’s ok. An assertion that your way is undeniably correct seems a little short-sighted, given the vast differences in the lives of people even on our tiny island — again, I am happy for you but I see a lot of this viewpoint as well and I’m not comfortable with casting aspersions in this way.
Your view seems to be “This happened to me? Things must be getting bad.” and that idea makes complete sense when looking to make order out of the chaos of life. I’m not convinced, though, that it’s a particularly helpful way to process these events.
I’m probably missing your specific, nuanced point; it just caught my eye in the way I’ve seen some of the more generalised aspects of these issues presented by others. And I struggle to reconcile that with my own experiences, overall.