I’m a frequent critic of modern Apple but I’m happy to point out when they stand up for values that have nothing to do with money. As Meta and Amazon are disbanding their DEI efforts, Apple is pushing back. The term DEI is tainted now, unfortunately. Scrap the acronym. Keep working toward the goal. https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/10/24341082/apples-board-recommends-that-shareholders-vote-against-a-proposal-to-roll-back-its-dei-efforts

I’m interested in the IndieWeb, books, and thinking about curation, so of course I love this post from Ben Werdmuller:

"The indieweb should feel like the Norrington Room: an expansive world of different voices, opinions, modes of expression, and art that you can explore, peruse, or have curated for you. It’s not about any particular goal aside from the goal of being enriched by people sharing their lived experiences, creativity, and expertise. It’s a journey of discovery, conversation, and community, not a journey of extraction."

Hope to visit Blackwell’s one day too. https://werd.io/2025/the-indie-web-should-be-a-universe-of-discovery

Palmetto State Park. San Marcos River, trail, and old CCC building.

There are a bunch of interesting new smart glasses at CES — see this post by Victoria Song at The Verge — but I’m still looking for something simpler. Looks like normal glasses, can take photos, no screen, optionally you can talk to it, not made by Meta. https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/10/24340208/ces-2025-smart-glasses-rokid-halliday-xreal-vuzix-nuance-audio

Ouch. Pretty good game until everything unraveled on the 1 yard line. Great season overall for UT though. 🏈

On Core Int 624 we talk all about Micro.one! Daniel checks it out live on the show for the first time and has feedback about the sign up process and business. https://coreint.org/2025/01/episode-624-reach-more-people/

Hachyderm and Threads https://www.manton.org/2025/01/10/hachyderm-and-threads.html

Catching up on the Bluesky world, I missed this note in Last Week in Bluesky about trending topics:

"The technological underpinning of how Trending Topics work on Bluesky is noteworthy: every trending topic is a custom feed. Every time a new topic is trending, a new custom feed gets created, giving the team better control over the topic. It also allows for new possibilities that have not yet been explored, such as archiving and documenting feeds after the trend is over, or other options that have not yet been explored."

I like it. Technical choices affect what’s possible with moderation. https://fediversereport.com/last-week-in-bluesky-2025jan-a/

On the Meta content moderation change, I think there’s something to the idea that a company will always pivot or disappoint you if you don’t know what they stand for. Twitter also changed who they were multiple times. I want to build a company that has an unwavering, clear message over decades.

Photos of the LA fires are unreal. Feeling for everyone out there.

Very cold and slightly rainy afternoon. For some reason I picked this weather to go for a short walk along the river.

It's 2025, a statement https://www.manton.org/2025/01/09/its-a-statement.html

Micro.blog’s status page has been down for a while. It’s back up now. No actual server downtime while the status page was down, thankfully. 🤞 https://status.micro.blog/

I enjoy reading Ben Thompson’s Stratechery every day, and I’m always nodding along, but I think his take on Meta and content moderation is off the mark. The web is the open platform where nearly any speech is allowed. Platforms need to tread more carefully because of their power to influence. https://stratechery.com/2025/meta-changes-moderation-policies-zuckerbergs-journey-and-mine-the-audacity-of-copying-well/

Feel like I can finally catch my breath and start promoting Micro.one now. Great to see so many people share a link to it. I noticed a handful of posts and probably missed some.

We’re starting up a new beta for Strata, our companion mobile app for private and shared notes in Micro.blog. You can join the TestFlight beta here. Bookmarks, tags, and highlights are moving into Strata and (eventually) out of the main Micro.blog app. https://testflight.apple.com/join/Ehw968Dy

Colin Devroe with some thoughts on social platforms and VC funding:

"People are still chasing follower counts. Mastodon (which may not be perfect but the model is far more attractive and sustainable than anything else out there right now) isn’t growing at the pace Bluesky is and so people aren’t even considering it. That is a shame."

If you’re chasing follower counts, you’ll never be truly happy. Chase good content and good conversations. Chase having your own space on the web. https://cdevroe.com/2025/01/09/making-social-choices/ https://www.threads.net/@craigmod/post/DEkitjtS2OE

There’s now an event page for next week’s IndieWeb Meetup in Austin. ☕️🍺 https://events.indieweb.org/2025/01/indieweb-meetup-austin-zFL9jqPFAgIK

New Micro.blog coffee mugs! T-shirts too if you haven’t seen them, courtesy of @jimmitchell who has my blessing to run with this merchandise. https://jimmitchell.org/2025/01/07/unoffically-official-microblog-swag/ https://micro.blog/jimmitchell

Trying to pay some old fee from a car lease that I returned 7 years ago, stuck on the phone, dropped calls, terrible finance websites, and generally just a complete waste of time… But this typo on their website maybe hurts me the most:

"Please note that it may take upto 15 minutes to receive."