Another advantage to having a blog as the center of all things is that when I'm busy, I can just temporarily disable cross-posting to other services. I can also tune down the Micro.blog timeline settings to see fewer replies to other people. The writing process is the same, just fewer distractions.
Not sick of me singing the praises of OpenAI yet? Their batch API is incredible. An elegant design, if you can say that about an API, and very powerful.
Helpful blog post from @matt17r about the steps he used to migrate a blog between accounts on Micro.blog. Hope to make this even smoother in the future.
It's fine to have multiple social web protocols, because this is a good time to experiment and see what sticks. But there's a limit, and I'm drawing the line at Farcaster. ActivityPub, AT Protocol, and Nostr each provide unique strengths. We do not need a blockchain-based additional platform.
Broke the corner of my old Apple Watch screen, not badly, but enough that it was time to upgrade after several years. New one is a tiny bit bigger and noticeably faster.
Busy morning, so only just now catching up on all iPad announcements. The Verge as usual has a good overview. I've fallen out of using iPads, but tempted again by the new pencil.
TikTok lawsuit against the United States seems weak on first glance. This argument that they can't move the source code to a new owner is hard to take seriously:
…precipitously moving all TikTok source code development from ByteDance to a new TikTok owner would be impossible as a technological matter. The platform consists of millions of lines of software code that have been painstakingly developed by thousands of engineers over multiple years.
Sure, it would be some work to sift out what is TikTok and what is ByteDance. Better start the refactor now. From the text of the court filing.
I was actually thinking about going to Dragonsteel Nexus, even though it doesn't make any sense to travel to Salt Lake City for a book release. Luckily the event sold out right away, no need to decide. I should take all that money I just saved and throw it away on an iPad that I don't need! 🤪
Violet Hill B&B, Natchitoches.
Jean has posted the schedule for Micro.blog. It's even more micro this year. Micro Camp changes a little every year. I don't think we need to be set in exactly the same pattern. This time we're going to lean into more Q&A, extending the State of M.b so there's plenty of time to answer questions.
Traveling this week so a bit scattered, but also working on a couple pretty important blog posts about Micro.blog. In a perfect world with a larger company, maybe there'd be a PR firm to review the timing of everything? It's all good, though, and whenever posts are published will be the right time.
Posted to my blog from the passenger seat of the car and then we immediately drove into a national forest with no cell coverage. It’s so easy to take internet access for granted.
Thank you, Jean MacDonald
It’s hard to believe it has been seven years since Jean joined me to work on Micro.blog. After a few emails back and forth in early 2017, Jean and I met at Fairlane Coffee while I was up in Portland. I showed her an early version of Micro.blog and we talked about how we could work together.
Reflecting back on that day, it was a pivotal moment because it helped accelerate Micro.blog growing into its own company that could become my focus, instead of just one of several projects I was working on in my indie software company Riverfold. Micro.blog was going to need more of my time, and then some!
Jean has been an integral part of everything we’ve done since then. She created the Micro Monday podcast, organized in-person and online Micro Camps, and ran the photo challenges for the community, all on top of managing the Discover section of Micro.blog and working through community issues with me. This is perhaps the most rewarding part of working with someone else — seeing new things happen that I couldn’t have done on my own, and in some cases new ideas I had never considered.
Thanks Jean! As you move on from Micro.blog, wishing you the best of luck with your long-form writing, hopefully a little microblogging too, and whatever else is next.
Because everyone is mad about everything now, I try not to overreact to the latest hot takes until I see things for myself. Finally watched Apple's "Crush" ad, and sort of agree with the consensus that it feels wasteful, uncomfortable. Ads should inspire, and this does not.
We recorded a new Core Int just a couple hours before Apple issued their apology about the Crush ad. Still had fun talking about new iPads, then a discussion of Mastodon as a non-profit and more.
Micro Camp is one week from today! I updated the home page with the schedule.
Jack Dorsey and Bluesky
This interview with Jack Dorsey provides some closure to his part of the Twitter and Bluesky story. On leaving the Bluesky board:
So I just decided to delete my account on Bluesky, and really focus on Nostr, and funding that to the best of my ability. I asked to get off the board as well, because I just don't think a protocol needs a board or wants a board. And if it has a board, that's not the thing that I wanted to help build or wanted to help fund.
Jack says that he respects Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, just that what they each wanted went in different directions.
Jay herself responded this week on Bluesky:
With all due respect to Jack for having the vision to invest in decentralized protocols, we’ve carried out the work in a way I don’t think he fully understands. Bluesky is structurally open in a way Twitter has never been, but the design of atproto allows it to feel familiar and easy to use.
There was also this defense of Jay from Bluesky developer Paul Frazee:
I've been watching Jay make consistently strong strategic decisions under incredible pressure, and watching her get dogged by this 2nd rate nonsense is too much. That guy isn't the story. The fact Jay charted her own path is.
Personally, I still really like what Bluesky is doing. We're continuing to add Bluesky features to Micro.blog, like being able to see and reply to Bluesky posts within Micro.blog. For the foreseeable future, the social web is not going to be a single protocol (except of course HTTP).
Welcome Kimberly Hirsh! 👋
Excited to announce that @kimberlyhirsh is joining the Micro.blog team. She'll be helping part-time with curation and community. We've been talking to Kimberly for a while and I'm happy she can join us as @jean moves on.
I'm looking forward to working with Kimberly, and seeing what new ways we can expand the team from here. As I mentioned in my post thanking Jean for all her work on Micro.blog, I think everyone can bring something different to the company. Vincent has also been at work behind the scenes to improve the admin features in our platform, with the hope that some of it can be available to more community members.
We know the long-term vision for what we want Micro.blog to be, but exactly how we get there can still be a surprise. Thanks Kimberly for wanting to be a part of this!
The first update from Ghost about ActivityPub has a screenshot of their early experiment. There's also a lot about timing:
In 2024, for the first time, it finally feels like we have a critical mass of people and platforms who are interested in rewilding the internet to bring back what we lost, and create something new.
Not sure about "for the first time", but that's a minor nitpick, mostly selfish on my part. I'm glad Ghost is doing this and look forward to following their email series.
Nothing surprising in today's NYT story about Apple's AI plans. I wanted to comment on this part:
Apple plans to bill the improved Siri as more private than rival A.I. services because it will process requests on iPhones rather than remotely in data centers.
Apple genuinely believes in privacy, even if it is also a strategy credit for them. Using generative AI on iPhones will make for a much better Siri. I'm looking forward for it. But we shouldn't expect it to be in the same league as GPT-4 unless they can find some way to seamlessly blend on-device and server-based AI, likely much later.
Very curious what OpenAI is up to with their announcement coming up on Monday, from this post on Twitter X. In the last few months they've announced all sorts of big improvements with just a blog post. Seems significant.
Yet more Apple + AI news from Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use the startup’s technology on the iPhone, part of a broader push to bring artificial intelligence features to its devices, according to people familiar with the matter.
I'm fascinated by this because clearly Apple will have small-ish LLMs on device for apps and Siri to use. Maybe there will be a more ChatGPT-like interface that is powered by OpenAI, similar to how Maps was originally powered by Google? Could also partially insulate Apple from hallucinations and bad press.
From the road trip a few days ago, a train somewhere along Texas highway 79.
The New York Times: Frustrated by Gaza Coverage, Student Protesters Turn to Al Jazeera. People see what they want to see, look for news that confirms their own perspective. Let's queue up some more TikTok videos too! 🤪
Rainy day to be on the road. Clouds and skyline in the distance as we drive back through Dallas.
