We finally installed a new smoke alarm that has only been sitting unopened in its box for about two years. Feels like a major Saturday accomplishment. Very slowly upgrading everything.
First thoughts on Retro: great design and for me fills a similar role as BeReal. Not a true Instagram or photoblogging alternative because it’s focused more on private-ish photos. We don’t need another silo but in that niche they can get away with not being open.
Love this post from @adactio not just because he’s using Micro.blog cross-posting (thanks!) but also because the approach is exactly what we believe in. Start with your blog first:
"When the current crop of services wither and die, my own website will still remain in full bloom."
https://adactio.com/journal/20323 https://micro.blog/adactio
I don’t plan on using Threads indefinitely, but I am curious about the user experience, both good and bad. The algorithmic timeline is so puzzling to me. Despite following people who are posting, I first always see posts from people I’m not following. Seems overly tuned to the popular.
Over the last few days we rewatched Mission: Impossible 4-6, then went to see 7 tonight. Enjoyed it. Intense as expected. The audience was into it, laughing and clapping. 🍿
As the fediverse grows, new people will hear about Micro.blog and send us feedback about how we can improve. Always good! I listen to everything. On the other hand, the fact that the fediverse is so big means we can do things differently and still be successful. Not all platforms should be the same.
Reminded by Jeremy Keith’s post of this quote from Robin Sloan. Beautiful, true:
"The speed with which Twitter recedes in your mind will shock you. Like a demon from a folktale, the kind that only gains power when you invite it into your home, the platform melts like mist when that invitation is rescinded."
https://adactio.com/journal/20315 https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/lost-thread/
Finished reading: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson. This book alone was worth backing the Kickstarter project. Loved it. 📚
A new TestFlight beta is out for Micro.blog 3.1. The big changes for this release are per-post cross-posting options and video upload. (Might still be some problems for certain video files. Proceed cautiously in that part of the app.)
We’ve known for years that our onboarding in Micro.blog is bad. It’s tough to start with no followers and no recommended users. But even so, we’re not going to do the Threads or TikTok thing to just show a bunch of random popular crap. There’s gotta be a middle-ground to help people without that.
There are some quirky code design decisions in Micro.blog. For example, I prefer flat structures and all model classes are single words. Most are database tables and some are background tasks. Sounds obvious until you look at literally any other large web server project (and try to name things).
Accidentally clicked the “Post” button instead of “Bookmark” on that last link. Deleted it and the deletion should’ve propagated everywhere. I’ve fully switched to Micro.blog for managing bookmarks and web highlights… Perhaps we need an additional check to avoid accidental posts of just URLs.
The wild thing about Twitter’s demise is that it’s not too late to turn the platform around. Now that it has been burned to the ground, it could be rebuilt with a focus on standards, community features, and useful paid subscriptions. Would need new leadership, like a reverse-takeover from Bluesky.
Love what we saw from Victor Wimbanyama over the weekend. I missed some of the 4th quarter from yesterday’s game, so rewatching the highlights. Go Spurs Go. Next season is going to be fun. 🏀
Fighting with our Nest thermostat all week. It wants to save energy and I want to not die of heatstroke in my own house. ☀️
One of the things I’m most proud of with my blog is how consistent I’ve been about the problems with social media. It felt a bit tilting at windmills to quit Twitter in 2012. No love for Facebook, either! But now we have a framework for solutions and can judge these big companies beyond gut feeling.
Adam Mosseri on why ActivityPub https://www.manton.org/2023/07/06/adam-mosseri-on.html
Posted this week’s episode of Core Intuition. Random topics like the potential Elon vs. Mark fight and then a first-look at macOS Sonoma’s support for saving web apps.
https://coreint.org/2023/07/episode-563-pretty-good-at-tetris/
Blaine Cook on Threads bootstrapping from Instagram. I’ve seen a couple variations of this from other folks too:
"Threads is blowing up because Facebook is using their monopoly on the social graph. Legislation to guarantee easy, fast access to your own contact lists for use in non-billionaire-owned media would help level the playing field, because Zuck & co sure aren’t going to give the connections they stole back to us otherwise."
Ignoring fairness, it would’ve been more interesting if Threads had started from scratch, even just as a comparison with e.g. Mastodon stats.
https://mastodon.social/@blaine/110668126138677809 https://fedidb.org
Nice instructions from @Mtt on how to use Micro.blog to verify your Bluesky or Nostr domain. Hopefully we can make this a plug-in or setting later.
https://mattlangford.com/2023/07/06/how-to-verify.html https://micro.blog/Mtt