I've said before that it's difficult to write in 300 characters about the war in Gaza. I've been drafting a full blog post about it, but I don't think I will ever post it. I love blogging about many topics, including politics, but this is so divisive that I can't see any good that will come from it.
Bookmark improvements for AI, browsers
Rolling out bookmark improvements in Micro.blog Premium today. Two things:
- Micro.blog will now try to summarize the text of a web page that is bookmarked by sending it to our future robot overlords at OpenAI. This is hidden by default, but can be enabled by clicking Bookmarks → "…" → "Show Summaries" on the web.
- There is a new web browser extension to make bookmarking the current web page easier, initially available for Firefox and Chrome, with Safari to follow. You can find it by searching "Micro.blog" in the Firefox and Chrome extensions directories. After it's installed, you can pin it to your toolbar.
The AI summaries are still experimental. I've found them useful to get a quick glance of something I want to read later. In the future, I hope we can use them to improve search too.
Here's a screenshot of a bookmarked web page with the summary shown:
It's going to be a busy week. We have another new feature set to launch this month, with a new app that I'm submitting to Apple today. Thanks for your support!
Getting good feedback (positive and negative) about how we're using AI in Micro.blog. We transcribe podcasts automatically and we summarize bookmarked web pages. It is fairly isolated, but even so I get that some folks don't trust AI even for this. I don't want to push the limits either.
Submitted a new 1.0 app to Apple! Requires a Micro.blog account, so who knows whether it will go through app review smoothly. A recurring conflict with the App Store: Apple wants an app that anyone can download and I just want to build something useful for my existing customers.
Ben Thompson's review of the Apple Vision Pro is excellent. There's a lot there. I don't think I had fully thought about how Apple's expanding product line is (in a way) limiting each platform. The iPhone replaced the iPod, but no product since attempts to do that. Gotta buy all the things.
Great overview (and video) from Craig Hockenberry on how Tapestry works with JavaScript and JSON under the hood. Essentially there is a plug-in system so that it can be extended to work with lots of platforms.
Just tuned into the last part of Biden's speech today on the border security and foreign aid bill. He looked good and made a strong case. Really dumbfounding if Republicans don't back this. 🇺🇸
Congrats to the Bluesky team on opening to everyone today! Expecting a lot to happen this year with AT Protocol.
Wordle 962 4/6. Sharing this one because it’s a sort of perfect pattern that doesn’t happen often. Still playing nearly every day.
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Working on a new (small) web site and using @Mtt's Tiny theme. The new microhooks are so useful, it's making me think more about how we can integrate this convention into more themes and even the Micro.blog editing interface.
Apple has approved our new app and I'm sort of almost shocked, but happy. You never know! It's a big relief to know that we can continue to plan for a new thing. Plenty of other things to work on before it's enabled in the App Store, though.
Adam Newbold blogged last month about resisting the urge to respond to some posts online:
The urge to engage can be overwhelming. It’s normal to want to respond—to correct a mistruth, to set the record straight, to defend a point, or to just add words of strength and courage in the proximity of hate and negativity. But it’s really best that you don’t.
It's difficult sometimes to know when it's appropriate to reply and when it'll just make things worse. One way to think about it: is my comment going to be welcomed and considered by the recipient, even if they disagree? If not, skip it.
Scrolling through news.micro.blog, there have been 42 blog posts so far this year. Each one is announcing a new feature or set of bug fixes. Many features are sort of hidden below the surface, so if you're using Micro.blog and ever think "huh, nothing has changed recently"… check out the blog.
I created another short video for Micro.blog, this time going through some of the bookmark-related features in Micro.blog Premium. Bookmarking a web page, highlights, and AI summaries.
My first thought on hearing about the Epic and Disney partnership is that this is how Fortnite eventually gets back into the App Store. Apple is going to need games and content for the Vision Pro.
To underscore the feeling over the last couple weeks that there has been a rise in COVID cases again, today the doctor's office called to reschedule because almost everyone in their office has it. 😷
Bluesky has added another million users this week, bringing the total to over 4 million. By comparison, the ActivityPub-based fediverse has about 10 million users according to FediDB. The situation will change when Threads is added, but if Bluesky keeps growing it's worth asking how they've done it.
Bluesky domain handles in Micro.blog
I've always liked how Bluesky uses a domain name for your handle. Starting today, Micro.blog has built-in support for verifying these! If you've signed into Bluesky with Micro.blog, it will automatically return your AT Protocol "DID" from the .well-known URL for your blog. No DNS fiddling.
In more detail, it looks something like this:
- Your blog is (for example)
myblog.comhosted on Micro.blog. - Your handle on Bluesky is
@myuser.bsky.socialbut you want it to be just@myblog.com. - Sign into Bluesky in Micro.blog under Account → Edit Sources & Cross-posting.
- Go back to Bluesky and change your handle to
@myblog.com. You'll want to choose the "No DNS Panel" option.
That's it! Bluesky will check with Micro.blog to verify that it's your blog. After everything is set up, you may need to go back to your cross-posting settings and update to use your new Bluesky handle too, if you want Micro.blog to send blog posts over there automatically.
Tested the Vision Pro for the first time today, in the Apple Store. The passthrough quality and immersive video are pretty unbelievable. Apple must've done something right because afterwards I was questioning my whole life (or at least my tech opinions). Still no plans to buy one, yet.
When you pay for something, whether $5 or $3500, it's natural to justify the purchase. You really want it to be worth it. This is mostly how I see the "the killer app is a huge Mac screen" justification for the Vision Pro. This device does have value, but maybe more for escaping work than anything.
Manuel Moreale: The great list of all the blog platforms. I'm not just linking to this because Micro.blog is on it... It is a good, simple list of platforms that are actually nice for blogging, with prices for comparison.
Last week Casey Neistat posted a fun video about the Vision Pro. I love those fun videos he makes. But his latest video is really what it's about: Sisyphus and the Impossible Dream. It's up there with Make It Count from 2012. "If it was easy, everyone would do it."
Poked through the special counsel report on Biden's documents. It's upsetting that personal opinions that have little to do with the investigation were carelessly strewn through the report. Biden is qualified and capable to do the job. I've said before, I like him more now than I did years ago. 🇺🇸
Didn't realize until reading this blog post from the Fediverse Report that much of the new migration to Bluesky is from Japan. Seems significant as Twitter X was always popular in Japan.
Spent time profiling server code today. I don't do that often enough. It's sometimes surprising what is dragging things down and can be optimized.
New Core Int! A full hour show with our thoughts after using the Apple Vision Pro.
Enjoyed this review of the Vision Pro from Joe Cieplinski. I'm not convinced about using it for real work, hours every day, but I do agree with how mature and polished visionOS is for a 1.0:
This is the best 1.0 Apple has ever shipped. It’s probably the best 1.0 anyone has ever shipped. […] All the things people have been complaining about iPadOS not being ready for proper productivity? visionOS already has all that settled.
Finally got the hang of CloudKit JS. It's not as flexible as I'd like, or as seamless as iCloud is in native apps. Sometimes feels that half the problem with web apps is just being signed out constantly.
Meandered from browsing old political posts on my blog, to wishing I could link to all posts that contain a certain keyword, to updating my search plug-in to handle this. I know not everyone is a developer, but maybe an under-appreciated feature in Micro.blog is the plug-in system. Just HTML and JS.
Still love developing Mac apps. It's such a nice feeling to know I can continue to work on little improvements and bug fixes right up until the moment of release, because I don't use the App Store.
Haven’t posted a new home screen in a while. Our new app in the dock, almost ready. Otherwise my go-to apps remain about the same.
I dunno folks, I'm starting to think Trump isn't on our side:
...while president, he told the leaders of NATO countries that he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that had not paid the money they owed to the military alliance.
Everything Hillary Clinton said about Trump has been proven right. 🇺🇸
Congrats to @brentsimmons and the NetNewsWire contributors on the 21-year anniversary of the app! This sounds impossible and yet I did first mention NetNewsWire in a blog post back in 2003. Still as relevant for today’s web as ever.
Started a little slow but that turned into a great game. Can’t believe I doubted Patrick Mahomes at any point in the game. Fun to see the cuts to Taylor Swift and her excitement too. 🏈
Increasingly feel that I'm paying an Objective-C tax in Xcode. Typing and debugging is so much slower than it was a few years ago, even as the rest of the app has improved nicely.
