micropost
It is great to see all sorts of small blogging platforms popping up. I might have to take the time to create an overview in a post, but for now I want to bring your attention to Gibberish. A blogging app that looks and feels like a messaging app. It’s weird and that’s the point. We text and Whatsapp all the time. But when it comes to blogging, we stare at a blank editing screen like a rabbit in the headlights. The UI of Gibberish tricks you to go into writing mode. Just go. Gibberish is not for everyone and that’s OK. For instance, the maker states:
[…]The smaller the text input field is, the more users are willing to type text in them. Typing in a giant blank screen feels like a chore. But typing in a tiny text field feels effortless.
This goes diametrically what others are saying, like Dave Winer, who wants to eradicate tiny textboxes and have more space to write.
Whatever your flavor, just keep publishing and sharing!
I love Readwise. I don’t use it too often but I love how they create a universe for my read-later pages, PDF’s, newsletters and since a few days, RSS. I’ve been testing the new feedreader for a few days. It’s not fully to my liking yet, but I understand the roadmap of Readwise, so I’m patient. However, while browsing through a selection of my daily feeds, I was stumped to read in Readwise a post by Ben Werdmuller. Or so I thought. What happened is Ben links to another site in the title of his own post. He gives a small comment on the page, but in my Readwise Reader, it parses the site Ben links to. Which, I agree with Ben, is inspiring. But I’d rather have Ben’s thoughts in my feedreader instead of the parsed site he links to. It is pretty easy to give feedback to the Readwise, so I did. I hope this issue is resolved soon.
Elke XKCD comic is waanzinnig, maar deze machine is next level awesome! Lekker knutselen!
Ik laat nu Micro.blog zien aan Kirsten Jassies, bekend van de Podcast over Social Media
I’m halfway into @annaleen@wandering.shop ‘s The Future of Another Timeline and I feel I should’ve made my own notes on who does what with whom where in which timeline… I’m getting confused!
The first sunny day of spring and there is a long queue at the local ice-cream parlor. Totally worth it!
30 years ago today...
I still miss Kurt. What kind of music would he make if he was still here? And to give you some perspective, in 1994 it was 30 years since Sam Cooke died. Or Ian Fleming. I’m getting old…
Time to crank some Bleach, Nevermind and In Utero today. And of course, the infamous MTV Unplugged session.
Kagi update #2: Well thát escalated quickly… After the glowing reviews, I also found concerns about the ethical choices of the company. It all comes down to the discussion in this forum thread. I have to be honest, it’s a messy situation. I wasn’t even aware of the issues with the Brave browser, which is my default browser for over a year now. I don’t know for a 100% how to deal with this. I still want to read some of the more thoughtful and balanced responses in the thread. I have experience working at a startup and currently work at a creative agency. I recognize some of the discussions and arguments that are given from both sides. I don’t claim to have the answers for them. I don’t even know for sure how I feel about it myself.
I only know for now, for myself, I don’t live in a vacuum. I don’t live in an ideal world. I want to be the positive change myself. I know I can’t fight every battle. I know I will not see the end of the discussion. I need to move on from day to day. I have other priorities.
So… I don’t have a definitive answer to the situation of Kagi, Brave and the intersection of tech and politics.
I read two glowing reviews about searchengine Kagi. Yesterday by 404 Media, today Cory Doctorow, who explains it as “Kagi is a heavily customized, anonymized front-end to Google” and “discovers that Kagi - the good search engine - is mostly Google with the weights adjusted to serve users, not shareholders.” I now run a free trial of Kagi as my default searchengine to see how it holds.
📚 Currently reading: The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz (@Annaleen@wandering.shop)
“The mind-blowing punk feminist sci-fi time traveling thriller you’ve been waiting for, and which our culture desperately needs. Packed with action, sass, righteousness, and danger, it just might be a perfect book.” —Michelle Tea
The Imperfectionist: The life-changing magic of not tidying up:
Impose too much order on your notes, and you eliminate the serendipitous connections that are how ideas arise.
For some reason my old Digging the Digital blog got a ton of visitors the last two days. I have no idea why that happened. I have some basic analytics from Tinylytics (by Vincent Ritter) that showed a big spike.
Looking into Tinylytics also made me decide to install it here on this blog as well. Let’s see what happens on this here little corner of the internet!
The session by @nicole@pkm.social and @zsviczian@pkm.social on the use of Excalidraw in Obsidian for tabletop RPG’s was insane. I knew Excalidraw is powerful, but what I just saw was just incredible. Really something to dig deeper into. Not only for gaming, work as well. #PKMSummit2024
So now I follow @manton on his Threads account @manton@threads.net. With my Mastodon account @frank@indieweb.social. Whilst posting about it on micro.blog.
This might get confusing… 😂
So here’s me testing if this small post will show up on the timeline but not on the frontpage of my blog. And come to think of it, surely it will show in the RSS feed…
Another fine example on how the small and personal web is so much more fun and human. This morning I asked on the micro.blog help-forum how I could use the new Blogroll functionality to create a page where I have more control over its appearance. Within hours did not only Manton Reece come to the rescue with a terrific explanation how to do this (build your own plugin, which is shockingly simple!), he also updated the original Blogroll dataset to include the RSS feed for use in my plugin. So now my /blogroll page is powered by the micro.blog functionality. It all just works. Now it’s time to hop on the Blogrollin’ Train again and see what Dave Winer is up to!
Can anyone help with how I show my micro.blog-based blogroll in a way I want it formatted?
“my own habits–how often do I have personal data on my phone in a public place? My website lists plenty of information about me, and other places on the Internet probably reveal even more.” Personal data is everywhere in public
I think about this more and more. Over the last 25 years online, I’ve published quite a lot about myself. From my blog to social networks. Photos, videos, LinkedIn information. I’ve been a freelancer, with my address visible on Google Maps. It’s pretty impossible to remove all this information and make me invisible online. Which in a strange way is a good thing. Because there is no clear line between online and offline anymore. To disappear completely online would, after all these years, in my specific situation, mean something bad has happened offline.
To quote Nathan again:
The real defense against burglary (and identity theft) is our social contract.
This social contract helps us to know from each other that we are who we say we are. By voice, sight or touch. It is interesting to see how technological advancements in generative AI will help but also harm this social contract. We’re in for a wild ride I guess…
This weekend I will be at the PKM Summit in my hometown of Utrecht. A two-day community-based event on everything regarding Personal Knowledge Management. Yes, it will a geeky and fun event on how to take notes. And actually do something with them. I look forward to two days in this safe and comfortable bubble of note-taking enthousiasts who also love to configure everything and anything under the sun when it comes to Obsidian. Or even Emacs perhaps? The timetable doesn’t say anything about Emacs-themed talks. And I am too much of a padawan to give a talk about this DIY kit for building Your Personal Text Editor myself. I still have to think about what I want to take out of it and plan accordingly. And I have to figure out how to combine this conference with the annual Mariokart Tournament on Friday evening at our corporate clubhouse!