anildash

anildash, 1 year ago to random

Since some people have asked me, here's a quick thread on initial experience comparison between Bluesky and the fediverse. It's important to note that this comparison is somewhat absurd by default because Bluesky is still tiny & unproven, but there's interest so I'm happy to share what I've observed. Also, I don't get into protocol differences because honestly who cares. So:

anildash, 1 year ago to random

Been playing around with Bluesky a bit & it’s pretty interesting. They have an easier consumer experience (signup/discovery/UI works like Twitter) and it all feels very snappy. I like how they use domain names (or subdomains) instead of what look like funky email addresses. By far the biggest problem Jay & co face is that Jack Dorsey has effectively poisoned the well on everything from people assuming it’s a crypto platform (it’s not) to assuming (understandably) that be bad at trust & safety.

anildash, 8 months ago to random

The received cultural mythology of 9/11 is so far from my actual lived experience of being an adult New Yorker on that day that it breaks my brain (and my heart) to even try to reconcile the two. For those who are younger, question nearly all of the political framing you hear about that day. All these years later, it’s clear Bin Laden got nearly all he wanted, thanks to the predictability of American reactionaries.

anildash, 4 months ago to random

"Wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement. https://www.anildash.com/2024/02/06/wherever-you-get-podcasts/

anildash, 8 months ago to random

A key thing to understand about the technology industry is that Hacker News is a very well-known community for some kinds of coders to hang out; it is an extremist content site run as paid promotion for the venture capital firm YCombinator. Here, an ordinary discussion of the obvious reality that tech workers deserve unions features responses citing explicitly white supremacist rhetoric as a counterargument. No one is even surprised that this is how YC markets itself. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37507458

anildash, 8 months ago to random

One to watch for today: many tech pundits/journalists will describe Apple’s support for the USB-C standard in its new iPhones as being “forced” by EU regulators. This is a pro-consumer move, so consider why they don’t describe supporting standards-compatible wifi or 5G compatible as being “forced”.

anildash, 4 months ago to random

After a closer look at the Apple Vision Pro reviews & talking to people who’ve used it, my prediction of the most likely path is that its evolution resembles the Apple Watch, which went from big, vague promises to a simple health & notifications device. So, a future Vision Air (or whatever) will ditch external eye displays & complexity and mostly be a very large smart display. You can tell any Mac, iPhone, iPad or Apple TV (maybe HomePod!) to extend to this display. That’s the big, basic deal.

anildash, 10 months ago to random

Instead of blocking AI crawlers, sites with good, legitimate content should serve up garbage to the crawlers and poison the training models

anildash, 2 months ago to random

This is a milestone for the open web. https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24119353/joe-biden-threads-mastodon-activitypub-fediverse

anildash, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to random

Roughly 1/3 of all sites on the Internet just entered the fediverse. You can’t stop an idea whose time has come. https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/11/wordpress-com-blogs-can-now-be-followed-on-mastodon-and-other-federated-platforms/

anildash, 5 months ago to random

Meta just said they’re starting to test federation on Threads. This is a win for the movement to re-open the social web, where even the most powerful social platform knows that the threat of regulation and the ascendancy of open innovation mean that they have to go with the momentum that’s pushing for open standards.

anildash, 9 months ago to random

I’ve always been interested in woodworking (used to do a lot when I was a kid), so I thought I’d go down that YouTube rabbit hole a bit, and it’s all some moderately serviceable advice being given by a white guy in a t-shirt that says some version of “I love when cops kill Black people”. jfc

anildash, 7 months ago to random

I’ll write a fuller response later, but when billionaire tycoons who profit from genocide say that they want to become “supermen” while explicitly endorsing colonialism, that’s not optimism. That’s fascism with a smile. I actually make stuff, and help other people make stuff, and genuine optimism (technological or not) looks like community, nurturing, organizing and empowering — not indulging billionaires who profit from genocide.

anildash, 11 months ago to random

Have any of you bought a dot-matrix printer recently? (I guess in this context “recently” means “in the last decade”.) I’m curious the state of the art.

anildash, 11 months ago to random

Well, I did manage to get the NYT to post about “VC qanon” and the brainworms infecting the tech tycoons. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/opinion/robert-kennedy-jr-silicon-valley.html

anildash, 9 months ago to random

My phone has had two settings icons for like a year. It truly inspires confidence in the quality of this OS for me.

anildash, 1 year ago to random

Okay, everybody tell us what your favorite file type is.

anildash, 11 months ago to random

One of the great things about drivers is, if a pedestrian or cyclist offends them in any way, they’ll drive more dangerously & threaten other pedestrians and cyclists. But if a car impedes them in any way, they’ll drive more dangerously & threaten pedestrians and cyclists.

anildash, 9 months ago to random

bring back the YO app

anildash, 10 months ago to random

This is genuinely exciting news — the fed has launched its system for doing instant electronic payments, with 35 institutions already signed on. Ask your credit union or bank when they’re launching support for it. (And note which tech media give coverage to bullshit claims from fascist CEOs purporting to build apps for this purpose, vs. actual real implementations that serve everyone.) https://explore.fednow.org/

anildash, 9 months ago to random

Elon Musk:

1. Directly funds those who share child sexual abuse material on Twitter/X, refusing to suspend their accounts
2. Directly promoted the child sexual abuse accounts by allowing them to buy Twitter Blue/X Pro to amplify their evil content
3. Promises that soon you will not be able to block the accounts that share this poison
   It is past time to hold this dangerous predator and his enablers accountable.

anildash, 4 months ago to random

On this day in 2007, Prince delivered the greatest Super Bowl halftime show of all time, delivering the most-viewed musical performance in American history. But the deeper personal, artistic and social themes of his performance elevated it to a cultural milestone. Prince skipped his own biggest hits like When Doves Cry & Kiss in favor of covers from artists across various decades and genres. Here’s the story behind that choice. https://www.anildash.com/2021/02/05/how-prince-won-the-super-bowl/

anildash, 5 months ago to random

Reposting this from Threads, as people there were asking why some mastodon admins were defederating, and many there found it inexplicable, or even petulant: The fediverse (and all open systems) are about giving people choices, and giving communities power. Being able to block Facebook/Meta from connecting is a demonstration of that power …

anildash, 1 year ago to random

A few thoughts on the Apple headset:

• Sure, it’s too expensive and all that, that’s sort of background noise compared to the overall vision
• They have made a very good version of a device in a category that nobody is even certain exists; this will likely decide finally whether this category is real or not
• Very, very little of the demos of the platform were about “3D” experiences — it’s largely 2D in a virtual or augmented space; this is the most significant philosophical difference

anildash, 2 months ago to random

I regularly see very smart people making totally avoidable mistakes in the documents they make for their jobs, whether it’s resumes or reports or whatever. I’ve gathered some of the most common kinds of feedback that can help into one simple guide: Make Better Documents. https://anildash.com/2024/03/10/make-better-documents/