#Notes
July 26, 2026
July 25, 2026
Notes for July 25, 2026
Reading Practices, Habits, and Phones
Reading is a skill. Or maybe a set of sub-skills really. But like most skills, the more you do it the better you get at it. So it makes sense that if you don’t read much long-form writing you may struggle at first. A lot of people say they can’t concentrate. They say they are too busy. They’d like to read but there are obstacles like these. Well, the only way to solve that problem is to start small and read.
I'm one of those people. I read blogs and articles all day long, but I really need to pick up a fucking book every once in a while. And I really have no excuse; my girlfriend has already turned half our house into a library since we moved in a few years ago, and she got me a Kindle for Christmas last year but it mostly just sits in my work bag.
I do complain that "I never have the time" but then I'll sit around playing Nintendo games and getting stoned until 2am. I think my biggest thing is that I feel like I always have to read non-fiction. Stuff about psychology, sales, biographies...
Thinking about this reminds me of another post, from Joan Westenberg:
Look at the big picture of human progress. The most revolutionary ideas, the ones that have truly changed the course of history, often started as “fiction.” Science fiction has predicted and inspired countless technological advancements. Philosophical thought experiments have shaped ethical frameworks. Even religious parables, regardless of your beliefs, have profoundly influenced human behavior and our social order.
via Joan Westenberg - Why we need fiction
She writes about how your neural circuits light up as if you're actually experiencing what you're reading; how fiction teaches you things you'll remember because it's as if you're living the story. And even in non-fiction books, most of the real knowledge lies in metaphors and other little stories that make it make more sense.
I need to read more fiction.
A few links from today 🔗
'We're at a Crazy Moment in History': Midjourney Buys Astrology App Co-Star
The bullshit generator of AI paired with the bullshit generator of an astrology app truly feels like a match made in the heavens.
via gizmodo.com
You can't leave politics out of anything
There’s no such thing as leaving politics out of anything. Because existence is political.
via rogue.site
Michael Stipe Previews Solo Album with New Song “Hum Desiderata”
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars...
via consequence.net
Annnd that's all I've got for now. I woke up at 5:40am for a meeting that could've been an email, so I'm definitely not firing on all cylinders today. I'm ready to get home and rot on the couch until I fall asleep with my contacts in 😪
July 24, 2026
Notes for July 24, 2026
The pitch to a mainstream user currently sounds something like: "Join the Bluesky app, this is the "example" app for the protocol. Want a dedicated short video like Tiktok?, download Skylight (don't worry, it's the same protocol, your followers come with you). Livestreaming? That's Streamplace. Photos like instagram? Try Flashes."...Nobody thinks that way. Nobody is going to think that way. Users will learn, recognize, and go to BLUESKY. That word is the network. If the thing they want to do isn't in the app with that name on it, as far as they're concerned, the network can't do it.
I'd take it a step further and say with Bluesky as the main point of entry to the Atmosphere, most people who use Facebook or Instagram still don't really get it. I remember when I started getting into Twitter a decade and a half ago. Sometimes I'd share memes or cross post other stuff over to Facebook, and occasionally a few people would get curious and try Twitter for a couple days. They always ended up leaving because they just didn't see any value in microblogging. The biggest hurdle for most of my friends who didn't get Twitter was that none of our other friends from IRL were there, so what's the point?
Honestly, that's what I always loved about it though. It's more of a global community where Facebook is the place everyone you've ever met has an account and you can get ahold of them 24/7 whether you have their phone number or not.
I think if Bluesky would've launched as a Facebook clone rather than a Twitter clone, that would've pulled in a lot more users right off the rip. The cozy (local) town hall vibe is a big part, but also the "everything app" feel of it is big too.
The ecosystem story and the everything-app story aren't even in conflict. Let Bluesky-the-app be the flagship that does everything, and let the ecosystem be the escape hatch and the innovation lab. The escape hatch is the insurance policy that makes the flagship trustworthy. But insurance policies don't sell subscriptions. Products do.
I do like that idea. The Atmosphere has always felt like the place you go if you like to tinker and test out the more experimental, bleeding edge stuff. But you could have both this way.
Of course Bluesky wants to gain some market share and give Big Social a run for its money. But those of us who fell in love with this place did so because it's so different from the Zuckerverse and X.
Shortform videos are the next evolution of social media, so it makes sense to go in that direction too... if we're talking about growth for the sake of growth. I mean even Reddit and YouTube have endless vertical videos now; if you build it, people will doomscroll it.
Personally, I like that Bluesky is smaller and more cozy, but I'm always wondering about the longevity of it in the back of my mind. I think most users want a balance between the #1 social app in the world and a neat little place you can hang out and make friends. It has to be successful enough to stick around, but not so much that it turns into another thing we hate but still use because we have to.
A few links from today 🔗
Barstool Sports Suffers Worst Loss in Celebrity Family Feud History
In the end, Barstool made Family Feud history for all the wrong reasons, suffering the worst defeat in the show’s 13-season history by a score of 543-0.
That tracks. It doesn't take a prediction market to guess that Dave Portnoy would absolutely bomb when faced with deep intellectual questions such as “What makes pizza so good is ___.”
via consequence.net
Atari Signs Deal With Universal Pictures To Turn 10 Games Into Movies
So what could we be looking at here? Missile Command starring The Rock? Galaxian starring Batista? I bet there are a lot of actors who grew up with Atari games who would jump at the chance to star in a film adaptation of their favourite titles, but I just don't know how turning games with very little storyline into films is going to go.
Capitalism gonna capitalize, even if it's a few decades late to the game. Look at how The Backrooms blew up and suddenly every movie studio is combing through Reddit threads trying to find the next meme to turn into a money printer. Sometimes adaptations are really, really good. Other times they're just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks.
via retrododo.com
ANBERNIC Shows Gameplay & A Few Specs Of Upcoming RG SP Retro Handheld
New clamshell GBA SP style emulator console from Anbernic! I'm still rocking the older RG35XXSP running MuOS and it's more than sufficient for anything up through PS1. But let's be honest, if you're buying one of these it's mostly to play GBA games, and for that it's absolutely perfect. The new version is a bit slimmer and more sturdy, so it's not a huge upgrade. But definitely worth the sub $100 price tag if you're looking for a solid portable retro gaming machine.
via retrododo.com
Video: Scientists watch orcas ram a sunfish so hard it explodes
Killer whale just loves killin'
via npr.org
Why Are These Whales Floating Upside-Down? They Might Just Be Moms Who Need a Break From Feeding Their Babies
In other aquatic mammal news: parenting is hard no matter who you are.
July 23, 2026
Notes for July 23, 2026
This year I gave my older failing gaming laptop to my tech illiterate boyfriend and built a home PC and got an ipad which I use for drawing and mobile work. While in SF, I was locked out of several accounts who were suspicious of my shiny new California IP addresses, so I just, used Steam to remote into my computer. I promptly received a panicked call from my boyfriend asking why the computer was possessed. I assured him it was just me and replied to some important work emails, and did a few other things, accidentally refreshing bluesky because my 42in extra wide monitor was hard to navigate fitting onto my 13in ipad...Unfortunately, pinging in on bluesky's servers from two different sides on the continent does look like hacking, even if I can assure them that I was the one that did it. Hence, the ban.
That's a pretty easy mistake to make, tbh. I never would've thought twice about it. And it gets worse:
Apparently you lose access to everything. Every single service on ATprotocol. Yeah. No more leaflet, no offprint, no witchsky, no pinkleap, no aniisota.
Instant panic mode 😬
Goes to show that just because something's decentralized, it doesn't mean that you can't lose everything in an instant with the way you log into every ATProto service with one single account. It's convenient as hell but everything has its pros and cons.
Found this cool blog on a Bluesky post (author has since deleted it):
Worse on Purpose
California Governor Signs Octopus Farming Ban into Law
These animals have significant cognitive abilities and can learn new skills, navigate complex mazes, are known escape artists, and even use tools. Due to their complex mental ability, octopuses have high enrichment needs that simply cannot be met in farming environments. Intensively confining these highly intelligent, solitary animals in unnatural farming conditions is inhumane, as there is a high likelihood of stress, aggressive activity, and high mortality among octopuses in these settings. Methods of slaughtering octopuses have historically been highly inhumane, including clubbing, slicing, asphyxiation, and chilling.
Octopuses are people too 👊
For real though, they're such a unique and intelligent species. Their DNA is more complex than ours and they share almost nothing in common with any other living thing:
“The octopus appears to be utterly different from all other animals, even other mollusks, with its eight prehensile arms, its large brain and its clever problem-solving abilities,” said US researcher Dr Clifton Ragsdale, from the University of Chicago.
via Antartica Journal
via aldf.org
Just some nice pixel art wallpapers. They're free but you can donate to the artist too.
Conor Oberst Says He’s Finding It “Almost Impossible” To Write About Trump Era
“You can’t satirize, or whatever, what’s already like a parody” or a “disgusting, gross cartoon,” Oberst explained.
We are living in a fucking wacky cartoon world.
via consequence.net
July 22, 2026
Notes for July 22, 2026
DNS.pizza — Check, fix, and monitor your domain and website
DNS.pizza showcases the oldest domains still online:
The DNS opened for business in 1985 — nordu.net was created on January 1, and symbolics.com became the first registered .com on March 15. Below: the earliest-registered domains among the 85,936 domains dns.pizza has analyzed with verified registration dates, and how registration grew from a handful of research labs to the modern web.
via dns.pizza
Microsoft Has Just Announced Xbox Backward Compatibility for PC
The four games that are currently available are BLiNX: The Time Sweeper, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, and Fuzion Frenzy.
YES! I never played the other games listed here, but with all the classic N64 titles available on Nintendo Switch Online, I've been pretty bummed out that Conker's Bad Fur Day is still this inaccessible relic of the past. In my experience it's one of those games that runs like shit on emulators, so you need an actual N64 and a physical copy of the game to play it. Super stoked to see Microsoft finally re-issue this classic Rare title. Most of the retro games I play are less about nostalgia and more about playing rad pixelated masterpieces I never knew about when I was younger, but this is 100% nostalgia for me.
Bonus: also found this when I was scrolling the RSS feed today. Some footage of an earlier version of CBFD called Conkers Quest.
via dsogaming.com
Hasbro Reveals First Wave Of Legend of Zelda Action Figures
The Legend of Zelda is in the spotlight at the moment, all thanks to the upcoming movie, set to be released in April 2027, and ofcourse in Nintendo fashion, they want to milk it as much as they can, and I don't blame them, it's an incredible piece of IP. Well, it seems they have now partnered with Hasbro to release an array of The Legend of Zelda action figures, with their first 3 being teased via their official website.
In other nostalgic Nintendo news: I'm not big on collectibles these days, but reading about this brings me back to when I got the Ocarina of Time figures for Christmas one year when I was a kid. They were advertised in a little foldout pamphlet that came with the game cartridge.
via retrododo.com
Baby name 'Donald' hit record low popularity in US
"Donald" is the new "Adolf"
My online personality isn't an act, it's not necessarily my 100% real self, but it's parts of me that I want to show to the internet. That's also marketing. I'm marketing myself as a kinda goofy, fun developer who likes to try out different ideas and see what works. I'm not about shipping the most polished software, I'm about shipping things that solve problems and serve as explorations on what we can do with the protocol.
Love this take. Any time you're on a public stage you're marketing something. Whether it's for free or for profit, an idea or even just yourself, you're kinda selling something. Attention is a form of currency and we're selling things we like in exchange for a little bit of that.
I feel this so much 😅 I catch myself getting a little smug when I see a Gen Z kid wearing baggy pants and rocking Nirvana shirts. Or when I hear slang like "out of pocket" or "slay." But then I remember my silly ass walking around in skin tight Levi's, rocking Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin shirts in the 2000's, and listening to shit like Korn's cover of Another Brick in the Wall.
Cool shit always makes it back around and there's always a new wave of kids to embrace it. I know millennials get a lot of guff for never feeling like we grew up, but I don't think anyone ever truly feels like an adult. Until they start reflecting on this kind of stuff anyway.
via snopes.com
July 20, 2026
A few small notes on the small web
The small, real, original web
Incredible intro to the small web, and not centered around the Atmosphere like most of the things I post here. The internet isn't dead, you just have to know where to find the cozier, more authentic parts of it.
via spacetimetech.wordpress.com
The Feed is the Product: Why We Stay in Walled Gardens, and Why We Might Finally Leave for the Open Social Web
Posts like this make me jealous of how talented some indie bloggers are. This is by far the most comprehensive case I've seen on why the open social web is so important, and why anyone still living in the Zuckerverse should make the leap over here. If I still had Facebook or Twitter, I'd share this with everyone.
Blog how you want to blog!
Especially if you're doing it for you. Everything doesn't have to be a spectacular show of professional journalism, covering breaking new stories that take dozens of hours of research.
A lot of us are here because it got way too toxic in the Zuckerverse and Twitter. Or sometimes we write just for fun. Mostly it's that.
This space isn't reserved for some highfalutin group of elite writers. It's for everyone.
I came across a post on Bear Blog's Trending feed yesterday. It was from this guy who took time out of his day to dig through someone else's archives and make a big list of posts he thought were "unessential", "repetitive", "redundant"; a list of negativity linked to different posts, trying to dunk on a really nice guy. A guy who writes thoughtful posts that inspire people like me and plenty of others to keep blogging. That guy is Robert Birming, and here's his response:
Re: Re: Blank blogging counts too – Robert Birming
I'm probably reading into it more than I should, but it's such a bummer because this place has been so chill otherwise. Honestly I guess that's a good thing though? I've been on the small web around four years and this is the most drama I've seen here so far. Props to Robert for taking it with grace and going about his day.
July 19, 2026
Notes for July 19, 2026
Andrew and Tristian Tate arrested
via apnews.com
I wonder if it makes sense to try to implement standard.site in the context of rss.chat?
via Dave Winer / Scripting News
Not much to go on here, but it's cool to see the guy who invented RSS talking about standard.site! Full disclosure, I don't fully understand how rss.chat really works... I mean it's definitely a microblogging platform tailored to developers, but I think you have to run you own instance? Big Micro.blog vibes though — it's cool to see so many OGs of internet culture still tinkering and innovating.
Colin Domnauer: The Hallucinogen That Isn't There
This is the kind of shit I wish I could volunteer to get out of work for. You should be able to choose one thing a year: either jury duty or eating a bowl of mysterious mushrooms that are totally safe, aside from making you hallucinate tiny people for an unknown amount of time.
tipping culture is odd
i believe it really shouldn't be like this. instead of employees and customers shouting at each other, they should take it to business owners and managers who pay below minimum wage! why are they owning a place if they can't pay their staff properly? in my mind, employees deserve at least the minimum wage, some guarantee that the work they are doing is getting them something. and customers should get to pay the price that's on the menu without being shamed into paying the employees' salary- that's on the owners!
I hate tipping culture, but in my experience as someone who grew up dirt poor in some backwoods Ohio town, it's one of the few ways to actually make an allllmost livable wage without going to college. That, and working for commission but I'll leave that be for the sake of not writing an even longer wall of text.
My partner used to work at a dive bar that didn't pay an hourly wage at all, but on a good Friday or Saturday she would bring home $300 in cash. When she left and started a new job in retail, at the beginning she was only bringing home a little more than that per week.
I will say it drives me insane when I go somewhere like a vape shop and they ask for a 25% tip because they rang you up at the point of sales.
I've always lived here so it never dawned on me how fucked up tipping culture is until non-Americans started pointing it out. But I always tip my barber 50%, at least 25% on any sit-down meal, and no less than $10 for a DoorDash order, no matter how small, because I honestly wouldn't drive to a fast food place, wait in line for 20+ minutes and then hand-deliver someone's food — period, let alone for a $2.60 tip on a $26 order.
All of that being said, I totally agree with the author of this post. Especially the note they left at the bottom:
NOTE: i do apologise if i have made any obvious mistakes in what i'm saying. once again, i'm not american and my opinion is based on what i know about the tipping culture over there. i just believe that this system is wronging both the customers and the employees- and that the real enemy should be confronted.
Can't argue with that. It's a bad way to do business and things should work differently. It's just as shit as most other American "culture" but I don't think it'll ever change tbh.
I'll add my own closing note, er more of a question I guess:
Do service workers in countries without tipping culture make a decent wage? I feel like they do, but I've never been to a restaurant with servers who even make minimum wage.
July 18, 2026
Notes for July 18, 2026
Online Friends Are Real Friends
For my whole life, there was always this stigma towards online friends, honestly just people online in general. Having more friends online than real life seemed like a trait a complete loser would have. While I think that stigma still exists, it exists to a lesser extent. Especially with younger generations who spend a lot of time online.
I remember those days of people cringing from a mile away when you said you "met someone online" lol it's definitely changed a lot, and I agree people's perspectives on "online friends" has too.
I've got friends all over the world, and I think that's beautiful. My friends from Germany, Austr(al)ia, the South, Hong Kong, or Italy are just as real to me as any of my other friends. I value all of them because they're all lovely people.
That's is what's beautiful about the internet. Sure, there are terrible places here too, but someone from a couple generations ago never could've imagined the luxury of being able to meet people from all different cultures and backgrounds, anywhere on Earth from a little rectangle in your pocket. Especially when you live somewhere that's hard to find likeminded people, or if you're stuck at some dumb ass job all the time to survive. Online friends keep me sane, and that's worth something.
i don't want to be defined by only one thing
and neither should we be defined by what we do for work. i like that i discuss a variety of things on my own blog. i like various art forms, retro computers, the indie web, flower photos, and cute things. sure, i bring up my music video animation business every now and then on this blog, but that doesn't mean that's all i want to talk about.
So many people let their jobs define them. That's one thing I hate about working in sales. Every sales manager tells you to "always be selling; tell people who you are and what you do!" as if your entire life revolves around work.
That's also one reason I quit trying to make a niche blog and got into personal blogging. That's why I loved Tumblr so much back in the day, too — it's this scrapbook of things you saw and said "hm. That's neat" so you reblogged it. Added it to the collection. Regular blogging can be that way too. Talk about what you wanna talk about and don't worry about cramming yourself into a box ❤️
via rnotte.art
I sketched out a joke about doomscrolling
via jetgirl.art
I Spent an Hour Learning Who DHH Is. That Was Enough.
Tl;dr Omarchy is racist Linux
Local Home Depot's Sign Change Upsets Customers
In related news: there are a lot of loudmouth dipshits like the Omarchy guy living in Michigan. It hurts no one to add an extra language to store signage. Especially when so many of the locals speak it.
via dailydot.com
7 Reasons Why Standard Reader Is My Choice
It is the Google Reader of the ATmosphere network. If the classic Google Reader read syndication feeds based on the W3C Atom standard and the old RSS format, Standard Reader reads and displays Standard Site data.
When I wrote my post about the Atmosphere yesterday, this didn't even dawn on me. It's so true though. Back when Google Reader was at its prime, most RSS feeds looked great. Nowadays, almost every commercial website on my feed is just a short, one sentence summary and a link to read more. Or sometimes there's no content at all, just a link to the article and some garbled social media links and blank bullet points. Every personal blog lets you fetch the full feed, and it's the same with sites on ATProto. The irony is that with most blogs, I'd actually rather read it on the website to see the author's style. Standard Reader lets you set things up that way, if you prefer.
via mochott.site
July 17, 2026
What's so great about ATProto? From an end user
First things first, this is coming from a complete rube with little to no understanding of software/web development, but: why would you ever need something like ATProto?
The internet itself is already a bit of an operating system right? You interface with it through the browser, and you can point it at the address of a website or a web app. It runs on JavaScript, HTML, CSS, etc. while your PC runs on more powerful languages like C++ and all of that other stuff.
Back to the browser:
ATProto is like another layer on top of that existing environment. It's an ecosystem that runs on top of the web we've already had for decades. I hate to use this analogy, but it reminds me a bit of when cryptobros were going all in on "Web 3" — only without all the funny money, Ponzi schemes and dumb ass six-figure JPEGs. You could log into all these different websites, games, marketplaces with your wallet address. No need for a password. And it was like its own little universe. A universe of garbage, but a universe nonetheless.
The Atmosphere lets you do all that, only without being garbage. It's quite nice actually.
You could build a cozy blogging platform that looks identical to Leaflet with HTML and JavaScript; you don't need any of these open standards or integration with Bluesky, or Standard.site or whatever.
But then it would just be another blogging platform.
I could install my own Miniflux instance on a server and have an RSS app I have total control over, but then why did I just trade that in for an RSS reader that runs on ATProto?
I'm writing this without knowing much about the mission statements or philosophy behind it too btw; I'm writing this as some guy who's simply online way too much and has become absolutely obsessed with all the cool shit I keep finding here. That's why I decided to write it though: there are hundreds of posts about what makes this machine run, but the second I start reading one of those my eyes glaze over and I might as well be trying to decipher hieroglyphs.
I wanted to give some perspective from an absolute end user who really, really appreciates what's being created here.
A big part of it is the community.
It's wired up to this place where I'm already shitposting and re-skeeting posts from other people all day: Bluesky. Or if you use one of the other servers like BlackSky or Eurosky, they're all using the same protocol so you can log in with one of those accounts too. I have a single unified login that gets me into a suite of different apps without creating a million different accounts. I have the same username everywhere in the Atmosphere, instead of being moldyringwald in one place, m0ldyr1ngw4ld somewhere else, and moldyringwald199 in a third place.
I could even take it a step further and use one of my own domain names for my handle if I wanted. I can self-verify my identity on social media as the guy who owns this blog through updating a couple of DNS records where I host my domain. That's pretty cool, if you ask me.
Another reason this feels so important to me is because it's open source, and a lot of it is community built. You can log onto Meta's dreadful servers and have an account on Instagram, Threads and Facebook, and even log into third-party games and apps, but it's... on Meta's servers. It's so commercial and the entire goal of having you there is for billionaires to make more money off of you, or at the very least harvest all of your personal data to serve you eerily relevant ads and influence you through gross algorithms.
That doesn't exist here. At least not yet. And that's definitely one thing I'm afraid of; Bluesky isn't making money, so how sustainable is it? When will they introduce ads and pro plans that come with different tiers of subscription fees?
I honestly have no idea what's in the cards for this place down the road. But I'm confident enough in what's being built across the 'sphere that I paid for a year subscription to Leaflet and deleted my old blog. At the very least, it's largely community built. There are already microblogging alternatives to Bluesky. It doesn't really mean anything to ATProto; it would be perfectly fine without Bluesky at all.
A big part of this whole thing is that no single entity owns it; no one is responsible for maximizing profits and increasing member signups. There is no board of directors who need to see improvements on earnings month over month.
Some apps I like / final thoughts:
Things like Anisota completely rework what it means to interact with a social network. Glean makes RSS more social without feeling like ancient tech or trying to reinvent the wheel. Leaflet brings blogging to your digital social life without being an entire ecosystem of its own like Wordpress. Standard Reader makes it easy to read and interact with all the bloggers you follow in the Atmosphere. And KlearSky? Well it's just another Bluesky client like Anisota or the Skeets app, but it looks so fucking good. You have all these options to drastically change your experience here.
Where most of the tech world is going corporate minimalism, the Atmosphere is a fucking rainbow of color.
Freedom, I guess? It boils down to freedom. The freedom to use whatever front end you want, to do whatever you want with your data, and to be in a community that doesn't resort to ragebaiting and manipulative algorithms to influence elections and sell screen protectors.
I'm sure I got some stuff wrong, but this is my best understanding of what this place is and why it matters to me, the end user. So far.
Notes for July 17, 2026
The Vampire Problem: The Paradoxical Psychology of Why It Is So Hard to Change
The problem is pressing, because many of life’s big personal decisions are like this: they involve the choice to undergo a dramatically new experience that will change your life in important ways, and an essential part of your deliberation concerns what your future life will be like if you decide to undergo the change. But as it turns out, like the choice to become a vampire, many of these big decisions involve choices to have experiences that teach us things we cannot know about from any other source but the experience itself.
On Loving a Senior Dog
Cocoa isn’t just my dog. She’s my soul dog. The only way I’ve ever been able to explain it is that it feels like, in another lifetime, we were one soul that somehow found its way back together again in this one.
Maybe that’s why everything just feels extra heavy lately. The thought of mortality doesn’t just feel like a heartbreak. It feels like imagining a part of my soul being torn away.
But she’s still here.
I’m trying not to grieve tomorrow while we’re still living today. I’ll keep helping her heal, maintain her quality of life, celebrating the good days, and loving her through every moment we still get to share.
I feel this so much. We have a few cats and a little rat terrier at home, but my 18 year old cat Pepper is the most important one in the whole world to me. I have anxiety about how old she's getting, but she's been through so much with me and she just keeps on going. I definitely baby her more than the other animals. I'll sneak her extra treats sometimes when no one's looking, and she has toys that are just hers, that she treats like little trophies. I, too, have to shake it off and tell myself pretty regularly that we've had nearly two decades together already and I need to appreciate her while she's here instead of looking too far into the future.
I'm still new here. Just found out about the ATStore! You can browse different apps on ATProto, which is nice because before I knew about it, I was just googling random shit and going off Bluesky posts to find new stuff here.
Last night I found possibly my favorite RSS reader yet on it: Glean.at. It feels sorta like Miniflux in a way; the simplicity of it and all. But it also integrates Leaflet posts and adds the social aspect of trending stories, similar content you might like, and it has a neat AI summarizer for the top news of the day. You log in with your Bluesky handle and then you can import your OPMLs and all that good stuff.
People, Not Posts
Blink-182 Team Up With Pac-Man For Arcade Collaboration
This seems like a weird collab but then again Mark hasn't taken off that 7-11 Pac-Man shirt for like three years...
via retrododo.com
A tiny keypad for chatting with chatbots
Codex Micro is a keypad by Work Louder, for OpenAI, that's designed for use specifically with LLM-related tasks such as chatting to chatbots and marshalling your agents. It has 16 RGB keyswitches (clicky or silent) in a 4×4 grid and 32 keycaps for various functions; the corner switches are fancy rotary ones and it comes with dials and knobs for them.
I admit I'm probably turning into a grumpy old man a little more every day, but who actually needs this?
Rant incoming: I feel like we're at a point in the evolution of tech where everything useful has already been invented. Though I can't help but think of my dad back when smartphones first came out. He was still rocking an old HP tower running Windows XP and he'd always say shit like "I don't need a computer in my pocket I just need my PHONE to be a PHONE!"
Meanwhile these days he's just as addicted to social media and TikTok brainrot as any other boomer. He uses speech-to-text because he never quite learned how to type on a qwerty keyboard efficiently and of course he still needs to text and drive somehow. He uses Google Lens or whatever it's called to do AI searches of random shit, and he's still blown away by the fact that you can use Shazam to figure out what song is playing on the radio in a matter of seconds.
A lot of boomers thought smartphones would be a total flop because it was such a wildly new idea; to be eternally connected to broadband and chronically online via tiny pocket-sized computer.
15 years later or so, we're all addicted to these things. Even I didn't think touchscreens would ever take off because typing on a slide-out keyboard with physical buttons is so much better, but here we are.
Any time I see a new piece of hardware for AI, I can't help thinking of the Humane AI Pin. For a (very) premium price, you can have a clip-on microphone and camera that can do all the things an AI assistant can do on your phone, only shittier.
And maybe I am just set in my old ways; I still wear a digital Casio watch because I think smartwatches are too much. But as much as I hate the implications, I won't be totally delusional and say AI is a total failure or just a trend that'll disappear in a couple years. It's clearly here to stay, and will continue to be crammed into every facet of our lives from here on out.
I just don't think we need a whole hardware industry for it, but I guess there's a market for it. I will never be okay with smart glasses though. That's a hill I'll die on.
via boingboing.net
1Password lets Claude log you into websites without ever seeing your passwords
Even without seeing your passwords, this still creeps me out. Like I wouldn't even trust a close friend with my Yubi Key... nothing is sacred anymore 🤪
via thenextweb.com
Comic Sans is Great and I'm Tired of Pretending It's Not ↗
I thought either A) I was going to hate this post or B) it was satire and wouldn't be that funny. But I was wrong, because now I think Comic Sans is fucking punk. I've always despised this font in the same way most millennials despise Nickelback. It's cheesy and cringe. But now that I think about it, I'm cheesy and cringe. And no generation BUT millennials really have strong opinions on Nickelback. Honestly, why should they? There are far greater and lesser bands than them. I'm not going to be rocking out to Rockstar or How You Remind Me any time soon. But I'm definitely a tool for shitting on things I think are beneath me.
More than that, just have fun. It's a silly font, and this is the small web. Rock what you like with confidence. I actually quite enjoy reading Absurd Pirate's blog with this outfit on.
↳ via blog.absurdpirate.com
Making gay jokes about Republicans is homophobic & counterproductive ↗
There are plenty of reasons to dunk on terrible people. Sexuality is not one of them.
↳ via lgbtqnation.com
In the Age of AI, the Analog Restaurant Feels Radical ↗
Stole this link from waxy.org:
I'm not going to pretend AI can't do cool shit, but one thing it absolutely cannot do is make real art. I know if you're some marketing director sitting around strung out on cocaine in the upper levels of a Marriott hotel somewhere in the Midwest, it looks super professional and polished. But, and I know I'm kinda contradicting myself here, it's the marketing equivalent of using Comic Sans for your promotional material. But even Comic Sans is intentionally silly. AI art is silly (derogatory).
↳ via eater.com
The Exhaustion of Talking to a Tool ↗
I've never thought about AI from this angle before. Social burnout is a real thing, and I don't see why this would be any different. Weird time to be alive.
↳ via ohadravid.github.io
Facebook Verified, distinguishing human users from AI accounts, cats, dogs, etc ↗
What a fun, cool new way to enjoy social media 🤪
↳ via disassociated.com
Is It Time to Wash the Dishes? A Flow Chart ↗
Very informative flow chart on whether or not it's time to wash the dishes.
↳ via mcsweeneys.net