Little known feature in Micro.blog: it saves each copy of a draft in case you need to revert or get text from a previous version. Apparently I hit ⌘S a lot while writing that post about TikTok this morning.
TikTok bill is not xenophobic https://www.manton.org/2024/04/25/tiktok-bill-is.html
How am I only just now seeing the trailer for Chris Sanders’s The Wild Robot? Beautiful, like a mashup of Iron Giant and Bambi. Reminds me of why I love animation.
I’m a progressive, but we may look back on woke-ism as perhaps overcompensating. I worry about societal division. We can go so far in what appears to be the right direction that we lose sight of the big picture, like narrowly following old driving directions and getting lost when the world changes.
Continuing to learn a lot about AI. I’ve spun up several servers trying to find the right config for reasonable performance even on small models. Fixed costs but still quite expensive for me, and hard to match the reliability of OpenAI.
What happened last night with our primary db server was sort of amateur hour, something I learned a lifetime ago but still tripped me up. I recently reset the replication server, upgrading it, and last night it got hung up on an error and filled the disk with MySQL binary log files. Sigh.
Fish pond after getting coffee at Epoch earlier. Looks the same as a couple decades ago except all the retail space has changed, except Korea House. When I walk through I always think of the little model train store that used to be on the corner.
Didn’t realize my library card was expiring, and now I can’t get the books I’ve been waiting weeks for in Libby. Life is rough. 🙂 Going to renew online but it’s not exactly automated… Luckily have more than enough to read in the meantime. 📚
A first look at the Rabbit R1 from David Pierce at The Verge:
"…the best way I can describe the R1 is like a Picasso painting of a smartphone: it has most of the same parts, just laid out really differently."
Mostly positive. There are shortcomings but this is a fun $199 device, so no one is expecting the polish or maturity of a $999 iPhone. I’m excited to get my R1 eventually.
https://www.theverge.com/24138746/rabbit-r1-hands-on-ai-gadget-chatgpt
I read a little of HR 815 to remind myself how the TikTok divestiture works. As much as Congress often looks like chaos in the news, there have to be writers on the staff who know what they’re doing, which is a little reassuring. 🇺🇸
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/text
Apple and Google as the bottlenecks for app distribution is what makes the TikTok forced divestiture possible. I wonder if ByteDance has considered rebuilding TikTok as a PWA to skirt the law. Not an ideal experience, especially without US hosting, but video sharing should be fine via the web.
Watched the Rabbit R1 launch party. I love what they’re doing. The vision goes beyond a little orange AI gadget. Especially interested in teach mode and what a full web platform (“rabbitOS”?) might look like.
As seen in this video about Meta’s glasses, a clever solution to video calling: just stand in front of a mirror. Very low-tech but also looks more natural than Apple Vision Pro personas.
It’s still very early in the trial, but seems the prosecution knows what they’re doing in methodically building the case. From coverage in the The New York Times:
"Before court adjourned for the day, Mr. Pecker testified that Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump had asked him what he and his magazines could do “to help the campaign,” a crucial statement that supports the prosecution’s argument that the men were not just protecting Mr. Trump’s personal reputation, but aiding his presidential bid."
🇺🇸
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/23/nyregion/trump-hush-money-trial-news
I hate Apple’s control of app distribution, but while they’re at it why not ban useless release notes like “bug fixes and improvements” or “we improve the app every week”. If devs don’t know how to document what’s new, feel free to scroll through the M.b release notes history going back 7 years.
For folks using Micro.blog Premium with the AI setting enabled, you may start to notice some new generated data for photos, as in this screenshot. I’ll blog more about this in the coming weeks when it’s fully enabled. The goal is better photo search and accessibility.
Coffee this morning at WhichCraft. I have the whole place to myself for now. ☕️
The New York Times:
"Swift has been inescapable over the last year. With the release of “The Tortured Poets Department,” her latest (very long) album, some seem to finally be feeling fatigued."
I’m enjoying the album. But I think we are spoiled. For her next album, Taylor Swift should go back to basics: 10 tracks, no music videos, no special editions, vinyl only. After abundance, we need a reset.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/arts/music/taylor-swift-album-fatigue.html
Announcing Micro Camp 2024! Coming up next month. From Jean’s post:
"Save the date! The 4th annual Micro Camp will be May 17. It will be a bit more micro this year, but we’re still doing it. 😇 Christina Warren / @film_girl@mastodon.social will join @manton and me for a chat about the evolution of blogging and social media to kick things off."
It’ll be a single day this time instead of multiple days. Should make for a simpler schedule. Hope folks can join us!
https://micro.blog/film_girl@mastodon.social https://micro.blog/manton
Learning about the jury process for Trump’s trial, seems like even with the slow start they’ve got things well in hand. We can wait a few more days. There are limits in the system, so the defense can’t veto thousands of potential jurors until they find the rare Trump fan in NYC. 🇺🇸