Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word is in 2 hours. You can watch it for free but need to first register for a “free” ticket.
Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word is in 2 hours. You can watch it for free but need to first register for a “free” ticket.
A few things for you:
Enjoy your weekend!
I’ve just realised; the recent Questions and Answers episode of Micro Monday ought to be renamed:
Manton Reece: Meme Hater
My bet on the next web-publishing company to fuck up: Squarespace.
Between their disconcerting deal with Unsplash and years-long seeding of the tech podcast industry, this dynamic has all of the elements required of a destructive fallout.
Further to the Gutenberg editor and the inadequacies of WordPress for those of us who are focused more on publishing the things we make, yesterday I posted my Micro.blog wishlist. I didn’t mention categories or custom homepage, since Manton has already spoken about those.
I have written about Gutenberg before now and I’ll say this much for people who do not like the bloated mess WordPress has inevitably become; Micro.blog is better for focusing on what you make. It’s not perfect but it is getting there.
I have been taking notes for this wishlist for some time. Two things have stopped me from writing it up and posting:
Now here I am, not only more convinced of just how right the entire idea of Micro.blog truly is – after all, it’s not just about Micro.blog but the potential in ideas similar to the platform insofar as sharing the same ideals – but also newly motivated to attempt to make a constructive contribution. As such, here is the list:
(Note: I have published three posts around this subject, all of which play a part in the list. Links: Quick list; Needs; Thoughts)
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tags, VoiceOver support, and a robust editor are some of the necessary pieces to making Micro.blog as accessible as possible.There might be things I’m missing but there is one glaring omission; Android. I have mentioned the Apple-heavy support of Micro.blog but not listed Android, or any other platform. The reality is an official Android app is all but impossible in the current circumstances, whilst third-party efforts are ongoing but appear to be particularly difficult to implement; this is of course not at all exclusive to Micro.blog but remains a fact even so.
Windows and even Linux support have also been spoken about by developers but for now the web is the answer for those of us outside of Apple’s ecosystem, and I believe some of the items on my list would further soften the blow that is a lack of cross-native app support.
• • •
Micro.blog recently hit the first year of public release and it is fair to say it has come a long way in those 12 months, let alone the progress Manton has made from the earliest days of the Kickstarter project. I for one have found just the right place for my life online, to such an extent that I now begrudgingly use the mainstream silos of the web for work and do everything I can to avoid them in a personal context. For that reason and that reason alone I have spent plenty of my time on the timeline, my hosted site, my new photoblog, and Today I Learned.
And, like Micro.blog itself, I’m just getting started.
What do you think? Do you have your own wishlist? Here are some links for getting involved if you want to do more:
GitHub questions: I was thinking about using it for somewhere to post the custom CSS for my blog theme. Is that a good idea or should I put it somewhere else? If it has a place on GitHub, where exactly? Somewhere in the repo? Fork? Start my own?
Finally, the blog post we’ve all been waiting for:
Why write about lunch? by Brent Simmons
Oh, yeah, also Micro.blog is 1 year into its public life.
Oh, it’s Micro Monday again! I’d like to point you to @Miraz, who posts about a variety of subjects in a thoughful and considered manner and gives a look into her world all the way down there in glorious New Zealand; her photos are often stunning and make me super jealous. 😍
Five decades of Met publications on art history, available to read, download, and/or search for free.
MetPublications is yet another project of the web in which we freely share the best of our societies.
HOW MANY FAHRENHEIT ARE IN A CUP
– Innes McKendrick, encountering the imperial system of measurements
This thread is fucking glorious. 😂
I often forget the Internet Archive is more than just the Wayback Machine. In fact, it is a reflection of humanity at our very best. Preserving the records of our actions is one of the best ways we can plan better for the future.
Advent Calendar of Compliments
@mandaris has a great idea for the holiday season. This is such a nice addition to the Micro.blog community. 😊
… there’s no fallback to a web page …
– John Gruber, I’m Ping Pong King
The feature stories for iOS can’t be viewed on a Mac. The same stories Apple says negate the need for affiliate revenue to exist.
Reminder: Apple doesn’t give a shit about the web.
A few things for you:
Enjoy your weekend!
This is kind of an “iTunes on Windows” moment.
– Manton Reece on Apple Music coming to Alexa devices
I couldn’t agree more. iTunes on Windows + iPod = my only exposure to Apple previous to the stage in my life when I actively got involved with the Apple enthusiast community, and those two things made a lasting impression.
In fact, earlier this year I tried going all-in on Google, Android phone, the works, and that included not just dumping Apple Music but also iTunes; in the end, every other music player grated on me and that was in comparison to iTunes for Windows. Things have become bad enough overall that I have now returned to my goal of attempting to go all-in with Apple, starting with AirPods (they’re fucking awesome) and the 2018 iPad.
With moves like this Apple could build up a buffer of goodwill and for sure help themselves with future mistakes; the past few years has seen most of the heavy criticism aimed at the company come after other mistakes and missteps were made. Too much negative momentum has built up over time and making as many steps into cross-platform waters as they can will likely help negate that momentum, even if only as a starting point in the effort to do so.
I too easily forget about the Acknowledgements page on MacStories. It is heartening to see such a prominent highlight of the importance of Open Source.
In reply to:
I really think hosted Micro.blogs need an on-blog comment system so non-blogging friends can comment. If you are coming from FB, you can tell your friends about RSS readers and keeping in touch, but if they can’t converse with you it’s all for nothing.
If it worked with webmentions and the like then sure, even still that would mean needing to prompt people to get that set up for themselves – the infrastructure for this already exists through Micro.blog accounts and IndieWeb custom domain usernames – which flies in the face of that which people have been trained; easy, frictionless, embedded, centralised.
I don’t think closed Micro.blog commenting (like WordPress comments) does much to change enough of the existing problems with commenting systems; as one of the stated goals for Micro.blog is to encourage people to own the things they post, I’m not sure ease of use is a strong enough factor to encourage such a thing. Also, if it was done similar to WordPress comments we get back to the point where it’s down to the person running the blog to manage comments – personally, I’d rather take a walk in traffic – and invariably includes the complications inherent therein; aside from anything else it often looks cluttered and unintuitive.
If the option to display comments comes to hosted sites a good first step might be the aforementioned messaging to encourage people to use their own domain or a Micro.blog account for commenting. Beyond that, I think it’s a case of waiting for other commenting systems based around similar ideals to surface; the open web, ownership, etc…
Although, if Micro.blog commenting were to become that in and of themselves I wouldn’t complain. I mean, I would be shocked to see such a thing since, seriously, there is no skeevy VC money here or soul-destroying monetisation through which Micro.blog could gain a team and work at the level required to also build a separate, complimentary commenting system.
The new design for the Micro.blog Help home page is looking… mighty fine. 😉
Mira Sorvino makes an observation about the US with President Trump, then some rando decides it’s time to put her in her place via Twitter, and her reply is FUCKING. EVERYTHING.
I love seeing sad little manbabies getting put into their place. It feeds my soul.
The UK would be significantly worse off under all possible Brexit scenarios in 15 years’ time, according to a benchmark economic analysis produced by a range of government departments including the Treasury.
Water remains wet.
Patrick Rothfuss has started the 10th Annual Worldbuilders End of year Fundraiser. And he’s already crying.
Here is the fundraising hub for a damn good campaign. Well worth your time.
In reply to:
so unless apple delivers something as successful as a product that repeats the success of a prior product that pretty much all in the industry agrees is unparalleled in terms of success than any other product ever produced … they are stalled?
(Did that make sense?)
I’m not talking about the best they’ve ever done… I’m talking about the bottom standard:
I mean, come on. Of course they have always fucked up, that’s to be expected since people run these companies but Jobs set a platform and Tim Cook has missed a great chance to create a cavernous difference in quality and stability between them and the competition, a true and undeniable justification for the premium label.
Now of course, I am an outsider (I have an iPad and AirPods – both of which are brilliant) who has listened to a bunch of Apple tech podcasts and read Apple punditry for the past few years. If over the next year, as I get more Apple hardware and immerse myself further into their ecosystem, things aren’t as bad as they seem (see: the list above) then great, turns out perception does not match reality. At that point, despite the failings of the people in my position I will still lay some of the blame at Apple’s feet; too many times when they engage in any sort of PR action it is either neutral to the point of irrelevant or so clumsy you’d think they were a bunch of young idiots running their first company, and that is unacceptable.