Mickey and Minnie in Steamboat Willie, finally in the public domain. Happy New Year! 🎉
Updated book.micro.blog with the latest draft. Lots of little edits, and more updates for X, Mastodon, and Bluesky. Near final, planning to link up the ePub tomorrow and call it done.
The draft of the book is in Ulysses, each of the 70+ chapters as sheets, and the web site is hosted on Micro.blog with a couple theme tweaks for the contents sidebar. I wrote a little Ruby script that will push all my changes from Markdown files back up to Micro.blog, via Micropub's "update" JSON.
Love seeing all the "year in books" blog posts from folks. If anyone's curious about how Micro.blog handles this, I recorded a video on YouTube a few months ago that walks through the Epilogue interface and how it integrates with your blog. For 2024, more blogs please!
ePub fiddling today. Still don't have a great workflow. Ulysses export → ePub with CSS tweaks, then run a script to download inline images and rewrite the XHTML inside the container, then try to piece things back together with Calibre.
Finished reading: Age of Death by Michael J. Sullivan. Fifth book and I think the weakest in the series, felt like an unnecessary detour. Still a fairly quick read. 📚
For his birthday, Matt Mullenweg just wants you to blog. I love it because it’s actually a gift to the web. “No wrapping paper or bows. Just blogs and blogs and blogs, each unique and beautiful in its own way.”
Fun fact about my book Indie Microblogging, it has about 300 quotes. This is partly why it's so long. I wanted to capture lots of little important quotes that might otherwise be lost to time and link rot.
Added a footer on book.micro.blog to show that the book is Creative Commons (CC BY). This means you can do basically anything with it, even sell some version of it yourself. Also pushed more edits, including a new chapter in the conclusion.
ePub testing on Kindle.
New Chuy’s going up in Mueller. 🌮
At the restaurant for lunch they had the highlights from Spurs vs. Bucks on the TV. So good. I watched the 4th quarter last night... That final shot to tie it just didn't go in. Some great moments from Wemby, including a late block on Giannis and then back the other way for a 3. 🏀
Going to roll out a slight layout change to Micro.blog on the web later this month, to better use the full browser width. I'm using it now and really like it. Might push it earlier if I get impatient.
Just published the first episode of Core Intuition for 2024. We talk about finally winding down the writing on my book, and another book Daniel is reading that is well-timed for the new year.
Kickstarter update with ePub
Today I sent the following update to Kickstarter backers about the ePub version of Indie Microblogging. Note that the link to download the book is disabled below. This is for Kickstarter backers first, then we'll sort out how to get it to everyone else.
Today I'm making a near-final draft of my book Indie Microblogging available to Kickstarter backers in ePub format. You can load this up on a Kindle, Apple's Books app, or your favorite e-book reader. The latest version is also available on the web at book.micro.blog.
Over the last year, I've updated the book for recent events that affect blogging and social networks, such as Elon Musk acquiring Twitter, Meta's Threads launch, and the latest with Bluesky. There's also a new interview with Om Malik. I'm still planning to go through the book one more time and refine what is there before we officially call this done.
If you aren't ready to jump into the book, I suggest skimming the version on the web to get a feel for the content, but wait to download the ePub until later, to make sure you have the latest draft.
The ePub file is [available for download here].
What about the PDF and print edition of the book? I'll be sending another update to Kickstarter backers with more information about that. It has been years since the original Kickstarter campaign, so I expect many of you have moved, and I want to make sure that we have everyone's correct shipping address.
Thanks as always for your patience and support! And especially to everyone who is using Micro.blog. The platform has come a long way, and there's more to come in 2024.
I get Apple's stance on privacy and tracking, but clearing cookies and especially localStorage after 7 days inactivity is just too extreme. Hurts legitimate usage of these web APIs.
Ray Roberts Lake State Park. First state park of the new year as I attempt to visit all 88 parks in Texas over the next couple of years.
I remain convinced that normal people don't want the Vision Pro, but I'm not willing to go quite so far as predicting a flop. The fascinating question to me is whether it's possible to take a mediocre idea and make it succeed through excellence in tech and design alone.
Went on a short hike at Lake Whitney State Park. Windy day near the water.
Trump lies so much it's bonkers. Meanwhile, I kind of like it when Biden accidentally goes off script, starts to say a little too much, and then you can see him bite his tongue and pull himself back, smiling. He's human and honest. Is he old? Yes. Is he perfect? No. Still, good guy, I think. 🇺🇸
I don't enjoy flying. This 737 Max 9 news is actually reassuring, though, that the plane landed safely after a huge hole was made in the cabin at 16k feet. Kudos to the pilots for keeping their cool. Also, phones sucked out and found in working order after making the drop! Must be a nice phone case.
