from jason

There's no King in No Kings

2026-02-12T00:00:00Z

There's no King in No Kings

When did we get so fucking polite?

Today, I find myself reading Letter From a Birmingham Jail in the hope of finding some familiarity. The essay by Dr. Martin Luther King doesn't deal much in metaphor, unlike his speeches. Instead, I get a grounded look into the practice and purpose of protest.

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

— Letter From a Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Contemporary political movements like No Kings (no relation) are, I fear, intentionally divorced from Civil Rights tenets. Though, its polished brand assets and pithy single-sentence messaging do allow the Indivisible-funded org to go toe-to-toe with any Texas megachurch. National protests have scaled well, too. Most of the No Kings' homepage is dedicated to comparing crowd sizes to Trump's inauguration.

But, at its core, No Kings is a Potemkin Village. There isn't much holding up that logo and color palette. Its messaging doesn't belong to any grander mission.

It lacks crisis, it avoids disruption of the status quo, and discourages direct action.

The No Kings organization operates exclusively within the grooves of political decorum, careful never to spill over onto the laps of those we are protesting. It's this proper behavior that a No Kings march strives to achieve, evident in what it chooses to highlight.

The message No Kings conveys is the complete opposite of what I remember the discourse being in the 2010s, when the resist movement was set to make history.

It's less we ate! and more “did we keep our elbows off the table?” (And for that, it infuriates me when I hear No Kings participants scold the youth for their absence in these marches. Especially when we judged how they fight against the Palestinian genocide, as if direct action was so completely unrecognizable to us that it's offensive.)

Maybe we got old.

A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values and to act lawfully at these events.

— No Kings website

No Kings invokes “non-violence” as an HR policy against civil disobedience and direct action. But, that’s not how Dr. King defined the term, and it's important we regain that knowledge because we're marching our way into a power vacuum without any viable opposition to take the reins (more, later).

During Jim Crow, the unlawful act of sitting in a “whites only” diner meant patrons, store owners, and police officers would retaliate against you, often violently. Non-violence from the Civil Rights era is a discipline that showed us how to respond after scalding hot coffee was thrown in our faces. Today, it teaches students to remain calm, even after they're assaulted with pepper spray, bottles, and fireworks. Non-violence is a necessity when disrupting the status quo, because doing so invokes violence in others.

The No Kings' declaration of “non-violence,” therefore, is a perversion of the original term, because the movement discourages the inciting incident necessary to enact change. Its footer manifesto dictates we stand outside the diner with a sign, staring through the glass with all the demands we aren't willing to go inside and take for ourselves.

If an organization lacks a call-to-action, or it foregoes any opportunity to compel decision-makers to come to the table, then what we see on our Instagram feeds the next day isn't protest. Its content.

I remember when the resist movement, young and bold, was about more than one king. We stood for healthcare and education. We fought for living wages and equal pay for equal work. We marched for Black lives. We were going to defund the police state and fund our communities. Sure, it was a “liberal” movement, before we made such distinctions, and things like direct action were fuzzy concepts. Before official culture tuned our rainbows into millennial-gray slop. But, it was ours, and we were headed in the right direction.

No Kings, MeidasTouch, The Lincoln Project—these are corporate-approved think-tanks just trying to keep neoliberalism alive until the next election. They convinced us that Branded Activism™ has billionaires shaking in their boots.

They've distilled all our problems down to a Trumpian sludge to better grease the wheels of reactionary politics. They warn us that abolition is political poison and they champion reforms that end up rotting in the Senate.

So what we get is a movement content with the cogs of fascism so long as they get to pull the levers. It's the antithesis of activism. It's deactivism.

And yes, anything that generates a crowd can potentially be a great thing. Talk to your neighbors, network with activists, take those lemons and make lemonade. I get it. That's not the problem.

I'm telling you, dear reader, that the machine behind that No Kings website, the people asking you for your name and email address, will never guide us towards real systemic change.

I fear the resist movement has become a way to keep the masses busy and feeling accomplished. Because the moment Trump is out of office, these organizations will vanish. And of course they will. They've made their mission clear from the start. That might be fine for those propping up a rotting neoliberalism corpse like the worst sequel to Weekend at Bernie's ever made. But it's not enough for us, and it's certainly not enough for those who exist in the margins.

This moment calls for more than an anti-Trump brand assets zip file. We need a movement that isn't so focused on one man's whims, because that man has an expiration date, and all the problems he exposed will far outlive him.

Perhaps we don't know any better because we lack a true revolutionary leaders guiding us towards successful outcomes. Perhaps we should reacquaint ourselves with our Civil Rights leaders of the past to better prepare ourselves for an inevitable future—a power vacuum we're ill-prepared to endure.

Because, if neoliberalism dies tonight, what'll be there in the morning to take its place? Crowd size statistics?

Read: The Computational Web and the Old AI Switcharoo

The Computational Web and the Old AI Switcharoo

2026-01-18T00:00:00Z

The Computational Web and the Old AI Switcharoo

For two grand I can buy a laptop with unfathomable levels of computational power. Stock, that laptop comes with silicon made of resistors so impossibly tiny, it operates under different laws of physics. For just a few hundred dollars more, I get a hard drive that stores more documents than I can write if I wrote 24 hours a day for the rest of my life. It fits in my pocket. If I'm worried about losing those documents, or if I want them synced across all my devices, I pay Apple for iCloud. Begrudgingly.

If I were on a budget, any two-hundred-dollar laptop and a twenty-dollar USB, could handle the computational load required for the drivel I pour daily into plain text files (shout / out / to / .txt).

Yet, the average note-taking app charges ten bucks per month in perpetuity. It stores my writings in proprietary file formats that lock me into the app. In exchange, I get access to compute located 300 miles away, storage I don't need, and sync-and-share capabilities that I already pay for. Now, I can also expect a 20% hike on all my subscriptions for BETA-level AI solutions desperately searching for a problem to solve.

Welcome to the Computational Web.

I define the “Computational Web” by the increasingly gargantuan levels of computational power (compute) required to run the modern Internet, enacted by a small group of firms uniquely positioned to meet those demands.

The Computational Web is the commodification of computational power. The Computational Web marks the achievement of absolute control over the modern technology stack. The Computational Web signals a future where all of our personal computers devolve into mere cloud portals. These devices would be sleek, and thin, and inexpensive, and incapable of answering "how many 'R's are in the word strawberry” without an internet connection (and maybe not even then).

The cloud used to be the place we stored our files as backups, and kept our devices synchronized.

But increasingly, we are seeing the cloud takeover everything our computers are capable of doing. Tasks once handled by our MacBook's CPUs and GPUs are being sent to an edge server to finish. No product on the market facilitates this process better than cloud-based AI solutions.

Aside: (I think) Sam Altman fundamentally misunderstood the role his product plays in the Computational Web. Now he's scrambling, begging companies with infrastructure for more compute.

Artificial intelligence, manifested in Chatbots and agents, isn't the product. The product is the trillion-dollar data center kingdoms required to power those bots. ChatGPT might be OpenAI's Ford F150, but datacenters are Microsoft's gasoline. Without Microsoft's infrastructure, ChatGPT is a $500 billion paperweight. I don't know when Sam Altman realized AI is just a means to sell retail compute to the masses. Probably just before the ink dried on the pair's partnership agreement.

Compute is expensive and difficult to scale. AI is the most compute-hungry consumer technology in the history of the web. So, shoehorning AI features into our apps isn't just tech bros following their tail. It's setting the expectation that all consumer technology requires AI. If all technology requires AI, and only a handful of companies are equipped to handle the computational load that AI requires, then compute itself becomes a moat too deep for competition to enter, and consumers to flee from.

Compute is a scarce resource, turning the tech industry into a cloud-oligopoly (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta (GAMM)). Our devices—laptops, desktops, phones—have grown dependent on the cloud, not just for storage, but to complete the types of tasks that our devices are largely capable of handling.

Our level of dependency on cloud-computing has made, by and large, local-computing redundant. Something has got to go. Can you guess which it'll be?

An interesting side effect of late-stage capitalism is the gained ability to forecast business strategies. Some in the blogosphere loathe this type of navel-gazing, but I find it fun. Because all you must do to extrapolate big tech's strategies is realize that morality, ethics, and sometimes even the law, are not considerations when one develops a “corner the market“ business plan. It's Murphy's Law but for big tech. If it's possible and profitable; if it causes dependency and monopolies, then that's the plan. Competition is for losers, after all.

The ol’ switcharoo #

Each iteration of the web starts with a promise to the people, and ends with that promise broken, and more money in the pockets of the folks making the promises.

Through the early nineties, the “proto-web” promised us a non-commercial, interconnected system for cataloging the world’s academic knowledge. We spent millions in tax dollars building out the Internet’s infrastructure. The proto-web then ended with the Telecommunications Act of 1996— the wholesale redistribution of the people’s internet to the American Fortune 500.

Web 1.0, or the “Static Web,” promised a democratization of information, and the ability to order your Pizza Hut on the Net. The Static web ended with the dot-com bubble.

Web 2.0, or the “Social Web,” promised to connect the world, even if that meant people dying. So we gave them our contact info and placed their JavaScript snippets into our websites. The result of Web 2.0, an era that ended around 2020, is the platform era: techno-oligarchs and fascists who control all of our communication infrastructure and use black-box algorithms to keep us on-platform for as long as possible.

We are halfway into Web 3.0. The Computational Web has tossed a lot of hefty promises into that Trojan Horse we call AI—ending world hunger, poverty, and global warming just to name a few. But this is for all the marbles. Promises of utopia are not enough. They must scared the shit out of us, too, by implying that AI in the wrong hands can bring about a literal apocalypse.

So, how will Web 3.0 end?

On New Year's, I made a couple of silly tech predictions for 2026 (because it's fun guessing what our tech overlords will do to become a literal Prometheus). The first prediction is innocuous enough. I think personal website URLs will become a status symbol on social media bios for mainstream content creators. Linktrees are out. Funky blogs with GIFs and neon typography are in. God, how I hope this one happens. Not even for nostalgia. In the hyper-scaled, for-profit web, personal websites are an act of defiance. It's subversive. It's punk.

My second 2026 prediction, something, for the record, I do not hope happens, is an attack on local computing. We'll see a mainstream politician and/or tech elite call for outlawing local computing. This is big tech's end goal—position AI (LLM, agentic, or whatever buzzword of the time) as critical infrastructure needed to run our software, leverage fear tactics into regulatory capture, then, the long game is to work towards a cloud-tethered world where local compute is a thing of the past. Thin clients with a hefty egress invoice each month. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta (GAMM) will become the Comcast of computational power. (Not all of this is happening in 2026. I kind of went off the rails a bit.)

To get that ball rolling, all big tech needs is a picture of a brown man next to a group of daisy-chained Mac Minis, and the headline AI-assisted Terrorist Attack.

Slop is Everywhere For Those With Eyes to See

2026-01-16T00:00:00Z

Slop is Everywhere For Those With Eyes to See

The size of your plate can influence how much food you eat. The absence of a clock on a casino wall can keep you gambling through the early morning. On social media, our For You Pages give us the illusion of infinite content. How our environments are designed influences how we consume. And wouldn't you know it, everything around us is designed for maximum consumption.

Open TikTok, and you can easily burn through a hundred videos or more before you glance at the time. It doesn't help that the For You Page hides the time on our phones.

We are over consuming content on the FYP. The sudden surge of low-quality, AI-generated content, i.e. “AI slop,” is a byproduct of that overconsumption. We don't see it because, well, we're conditioned not to, but slop always arrives on time. Slop is inevitable. Slop is quintessential. Slop is everywhere for those with eyes to see.

Olive oil, wasabi, saffron, vanilla, Wagyu, honey, champagne, and truffle,...reality TV, all hold examples of what happens when demand exceeds supply— companies fill the gap with slop. The free market loves a good filler. So, why should the digital realm be any different?

The For You page is designed to keep us playing the dopamine slot machine for as long as possible. The Average Time on Site metric is still the goose that lays the golden eggs, and both TikTok and Meta are reporting that their egg baskets have never been fuller.

But, there's a problem. On any given platform, only 1-3% of users publish content. It's called the 90-9-1 rule, and platforms that rely on free user generated content have been trying to solve this problem since the beginning of the commercialized web. The introduction of the For You Page, and the illusion of endless content, has only exacerbated the inequity.

Curation used to be part of our media consumption process. We would hop from website to website looking for a laugh. We used to click on hyperlinks for Christ's sake. Now, all we must do is sit at the trough and let daddy Zuck feed us.

In a recent essay, Joan Westenberg makes a complementary argument that the algorithm has “flattened” curiosity by eliminating the need to “hunt” for our content. They go on to say:

There’s a concept in behavioral science called the “effort heuristic.” It’s the idea that we tend to value information more if we worked for it. The more effort something requires, the more meaning we assign to the result. When all knowledge is made effortless, it’s treated as disposable. There’s no awe, no investment, no delight in the unexpected—only consumption.

(I'm reminded of the scene in Jurassic Park when the tour Jeep pulls up to the Tyrannosaurus rex exhibit. Doctor Grant says “The T-Rex doesn't want to be fed. It wants to hunt.”)

This type of mindless consumption is not only harming our curiosity, it's helping to cheapen creativity for the people who produce what we consume.

Creativity isn't scalable. Content creation has a hard productivity ceiling. Every human-created video on our feeds require some level of writing, production, and editing. Yet the For You Page has made the content consumption so efficient, that perhaps demand has exceeded supply.

If you're a product manager for a social media platform, you can reduce the friction of publishing content to the app, or ship better editing tools, but you can't optimize creative spark. You can't treat humans like content-generating machines (as much as they have tried). Despite the illusion of infinite scrolling thanks to the FYP, art remains a finite resource bound to the whims of human creativity.

You see their problem.

Mark Zuckerberg wants us on his platforms, flicking our thumbs, for as long as possible. But the more we open Instagram, the more creators he needs posting multiple times each day. Mark has very little control over this variable. Creators could suddenly post less, or simply stop posting all together, and there's nothing he could do about it. What's worse, creators could demand Meta pay them for their art.

Could you imagine?

Actually, yes. And it turns out, you could rather effectively kill a platform if you got a small group of top creators organized and angry.

Twenty on the Vine #

In the fall of 2015, twenty social media personalities took down one of the largest mobile video apps on the internet. They wanted money for their labor. The executives at Vine said no. The gang of twenty, who were the highest performing creators on the app, walked away. They stopped posting entertaining content to Vine, and instead repeatedly implored their followers to find them on competing apps.

Vine shut down for good just months later.

From Inside the secret meeting of Vine stars that ushered in the app’s demise:

Vine’s spectacular rise and fall showed the power of online creators. Its demise offers crucial lessons for platforms trying to engage with power users — and a deeper understanding of who ultimately controls a social product.

Vine creators exposed and exploited a weakness in Vine's conventional approach to social media. Follower count had power. Old-style discovery algorithms could be easily manipulated. Vine creators used that power to take over the app, and convinced users to migrate to other platforms.

You see why follower counts are less important today, and why black-box algorithms have full control over who goes viral and who gets “shadow banned.” TikTok saw the mistakes of its predecessor, and made it so content creators could never exercise collective influence again.

Because virality now feels more like gambling, I suspect people post more content today than a decade ago. But it's not enough. Our insatiable appetites for content is pushing for corporations to meet that demand with slop.

If it were up to TikTok and Meta, our feeds would be exclusively robot-made. Humans are a variable they cannot control, and I think they despise us for it.

Anyway, I have good news. Outside of our FYPs you'll find a surplus of art, essays, articles, and videos just waiting to be discovered. And best of all, these artists and writers are making things on their own terms. We, too, can enjoy the products of their labor on our terms, while not giving a dime of our attention to big tech.

This is the open web. Or the social web. Or the open social web. Or the-- you get the point. To find it, you must reacquaint yourself with the lost art of surfing the web.

Surfing the web is very different than scrolling the FYP. You don't often hear the words ”mindful” and “internet” together but, surfing the web was an art of mindful consumption that doesn't much exist today. Not to get all old man yells at cloud at you, but maybe we should bring it back?

Up next: The Lost Art of Surfing The Web (coming soon)

Hank Green And The Fantastical Tales of God AIs

2025-12-03T00:00:00Z

Hank Green And The Fantastical Tales of God AIs

AI Doomerism is a Decoy:

Yet the supposed AI apocalypse remains science fiction. “A fantastical, adrenalizing ghost story is being used to hijack attention around what is the problem that regulation needs to solve,” Meredith Whittaker, a co-founder of the AI Now Institute and the president of Signal, told me.

Savannah, Georgia—In the old lacquered coffee shop on the corner of Chippewa Square, I eat a blueberry scone the size of a young child's head and sip cold black coffee while staring incredulously at my phone. I'm watching Hank Green interview Nate Soares, co-author of the new book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, and I am in utter disbelief at the conversation taking place before my eyes. Hank Green, the internet's favorite rational science nerd, does not appear to be approaching this interview with any critical lens at all. Instead, he seems to be outright gushing over Soares, an AI-doomerist who’s made it impossible to know where his message ends and big tech’s lobbying begins.

Let me explain...

The second author of …Everybody Dies is self-described genius Eliezer Yudkowsky, founder of the Peter Thiel-funded nonprofit Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) and leader of the Rationalist movement. In his spare time, Yudkowsky writes the LessWrong blog where he tells his followers that they should find a dignified way to die. To Yudkowsky, the AI apocalypse isn't a cautionary tale; it’s biblical. It’s prophecy. (According to him, the singularity will happen in 2025.) And yet, despite being the hardest working guy in the AI-doomerist biz, Yudkowsky still finds time to take the odd selfie with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Hank Green promoted this guy’s book in an hour-long video. Hank then followed up with a second video where he makes an argument for the type of AI alignment that sounds like the talking points Sam Altman and other tech CEOs have been reciting to Congress. You wouldn't know it watching Hank’s AI videos, but to many, this AI-doomerist rhetoric—propped up by lobbying firms cosplaying academic nonprofits and hand-delivered to lawmakers by AI-company CEOs—is an obvious regulatory-capture strategy to kill open source and place AI tech in the hands of a few billionaires.

Extinction-level event(?) #

I shove another piece of scone in my mouth and wash it down with a long sip through my straw (I'm a stress eater). I'm watching Hank Green speak on AI, this time directly to his audience. It's my third viewing. By now, I’ve memorized the gist of his monologue, and I’ve jotted his cited sources in my notebook with aggressive ornamentation scribbled around a few key terms—Anthropic, Center for AI Safety, Control AI.

In We've Lost Control of AI, Hank Green warns us of catastrophe. He cites the Statement on AI Risk—a tweet-sized document on the Center for AI Safety’s website “signed by Nobel Prize winners, scientists, and even AI company CEOs,” as Hank claims. Hank reads the statement aloud almost verbatim, except, he omits a single word: extinction. As in: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” The video’s description, which also identifies the risk and encourages viewers to sign up for Control AI’s political mobilization tools, also omits the term extinction. Though, when you click through, Control AI’s webpage has extinction on it three times, once in the first sentence.

Extinction is the threat, according to these folks.

Hank clearly wants his audience to know he’s leaning on the testimony of who he identified as “leading AI experts.” Those experts thought it appropriate to use the word extinction. So, why would Hank omit the most consequential word in a single-sentence declaration? Is this Hank trying to spare us from anxiety? But then why make the video at all if he felt the need to coddle us?

Maybe the goal of the video was to mobilize his audience by generating just enough concern they click through to Control AI’s website, but not so much that people start asking too many questions in the comments.

Or, maybe Hank was just embarrassed, who knows? Either way, I imagine Sam Altman is over the moon watching the same Hank Green video that is currently filling me with dread.

The devil is in the details #

As it turns out, the Statement of AI Risk—the one hosted on the Center for AI Safety's website and cited by Hank Green—is not the document signed by multiple Nobel Prize winners. It is the document signed by Sam Altman, Bill Gates, Dario Amodei (Anthropic’s CEO), and other AI-company executives. And it's the document those CEOs are using to lobby Congress for self-serving regulations around AI.

According to Carl Brown of Internet of Bugs, the actual statement is named Global Call for AI Red Lines and its warning seems a little more like something respectable experts would sign.

Global Call for AI Red Lines:

AI could soon far surpass human capabilities and escalate risks such as engineered pandemics, widespread disinformation, large-scale manipulation of individuals including children, national and international security concerns, mass unemployment, and systematic human rights violations.

Number of times extinction is mentioned in Global Call for AI Red Lines: 0.

So then, who are The Center for AI Safety, Control AI, and what’s the Statement on AI Risk?

The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a billionaire-funded think tank/lobbying firm whose members lobby for legislative outcomes that conveniently resemble the desired outcomes of OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. The Statement on AI Risk is CAIS’s lobbying tool.

AI doomsayers funded by billionaires ramp up lobbying:

Each nonprofit spent close to $100,000 on lobbying in the last three months of the year. The groups draw money from organizations with close ties to the AI industry like Open Philanthropy, financed by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, and Lightspeed Grants, backed by Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn.

The Statement on AI Risk’s brevity is its strongest feature. It’s a clever trick, because it leans on the incontestable without ever having to provide evidence of a threat, or even specify the nature of that threat. Mitigating the risk of human extinction from anything should be a global priority. Of course I’ll sign it!

The statement makes no claim about the imminency of catastrophe or what we must do to mitigate it. It doesn’t even explain how AI would cause an extinction-level event.

Omitting those pesky details outlined in the original document frees up tech CEOs to make the Statement on AI Risk whatever they need it to be in the moment. The statement can be the prologue to any fantasy tale, so long as it compels Congress to legislate a deep lair for proprietary AI models where big tech gets to decide who has the keys.

From AI Doomerism is a Decoy:

Those 22 words were released following a multi-week tour in which executives from OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and other tech companies called for limited regulation of AI. They spoke before Congress, in the European Union, and elsewhere about the need for industry and governments to collaborate to curb their product’s harms—even as their companies continue to invest billions in the technology. Several prominent AI researchers and critics told me that they’re skeptical of the rhetoric, and that Big Tech’s proposed regulations appear defanged and self-serving.

Then there’s Control AI: the organization Hank Green recommends to his audience at the end of the video to mitigate the risk of catastrophe. Control AI is also the video’s financier, which feels different than a sponsor who supports an organic video of the channels choosing, then maybe slaps an ad in the middle of it. Like when MKBHD talks about iPads, then tries to sell you a screen protector. We’ve Lost Control of AI is different. The video itself is the advertisement.

SciShow Is Hyping up AI, Carl Brown of Internet of Bugs:

I’ve had Control AI reach out to me about collaborating, so I’ve done some research on them and I really don’t like what I saw there. Because they feel, to me, as if they are acting as a propaganda arm of the AI industry.

I agree with Brown. Though it’s difficult to know who Control AI speaks for since its source of funding is opaque as far as I can tell.

Control AI is lobbying Congress for AI licenses. Such legislation would end open-source AI models—the same models currently eating into Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s profits. These CEOs say they’ll carve out exceptions, but of course, that never actually happens, does it?

However you feel about AI and its long-term usefulness, I’m sure no one wants artificial-intelligence technology to become the catalyst for a telecommunications-style monopoly of our most critical communications infrastructure. AI is baked into everything. Big tech will continue to find ways to make the technology indispensable to our everyday lives and business dealings.

The Ghost Stories of Savannah #

I’m on my second scone. I’m not proud. I head out the cafe and towards the square to walk off all these delicious carbs.

I visit Savannah often. The bronze statues and sprawling oaks always make me want to write. The historic downtown is packed with so much implied history it practically begs its tourists to ask about it. Though, the stories of Savannah are decidedly spooky, not historic. Walk around and you can hear ghost stories told by any number of tour guides, all stopping at the same Victorian mansions, each with a slightly different version, all crafted to give you a cheeky Saturday-night scare. This is how tourists consume the history of this once-bustling slave-trade port. We all know where the doors under the stoops of these victorian homes once led, but its a more palatable vacation if we imagine ghosts instead of enslaved humans.

Savannah leans on the fantastical to hide a much darker history. The ghost tours are there to distract us from the echoes of slavery.

The question I wish I could answer in this post—the question I cannot answer—is: does Hank know? Does Hank Green know that what he’s peddling to his largely left-wing audience are ghost stories designed to distract us from the material harms caused by AI? Or that people like Eliezer Yudkowsky, and even the “godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton have expressed what feels like disdain for those issues?

AI models present plenty of concerns beyond the supposedly existential and science fictional ones Hinton is most preoccupied with, including everything from their environmental costs to how they’re already being deployed against marginalized populations today. But when CNN asked Hinton about those concerns in May 2023, he said they “weren’t as existentially serious” and thus not as worthy of his time. — Geoffrey Hinton, godfather AI

Does Hank know by echoing Anthropic’s unverifiable doom-marketing, he’s helping big tech, not challenging it? Surely Hank has heard of the FUD strategy. It’s Silicon Valley’s most tried-and-true method for killing open-source projects.

Watching Hank’s interview with Nate Soares, I get the sense Hank doesn’t fully understand these people’s ideologies or histories. Hank kept asking questions that Nate didn't seem to like, or have answer for. I didn’t get the sense Hank was playing 4D chess or anything. I just think Hank's a reasonable guy whose default is to arrive at reasonable conclusions. Hank kept hearing horses while Nate Soares kept trying to steer him towards zebras. If it were just that one video, I could write this whole thing off as Hank simply not doing his homework. But that second SciShow video was wildly irresponsible, in my opinion. And this is not the first, or even the second time Hank has made AI-doomerist content like this with a dubious call to action.

On some level, I think Hank knows something is off and he’s trying to rationalize it. In his very next video, titled Slavery Was Racist, Hank had a bit of insight that gave me some hope he’s becoming self-aware. I really hope he course-corrects soon.

When I go to dinner with people in San Francisco, they talk a lot about how to not die. Like, a lot. That, it's their main obsession, because it's the only bad thing they can still imagine happening to them. — Hank Green, Slavery Was Racist

Well said, Hank.

Sources and Further Reading #

On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜

MIRI announces new "Death With Dignity" strategy — LessWrong

Regulatory Capture in AI: How Fear of Competition Drives Policy

Eliezer Yudkowsky's Long History of Bad Ideas

We need to talk about that video Hank endorsed : r/nerdfighters

"“The whole thing looks to me like a media stunt, to try to grab the attention of the media, the public, and policymakers and focus everyone on the distraction of scifi scenarios,” @emilymbender “This would seem to serve two purposes: it paints their tech as way more powerful

AI and the threat of "human extinction": What's really going on here?

AI doomsayers funded by billionaires ramp up lobbying

AI Doomerism Is a Decoy

There’s an event tonight in for a book supposedly critiquing the AI industry called If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. The PR person for the book invited me to the event, I said great, RSVPd. Then they called and said I was DISINVITED for being too critical of the tech industry!

Researchers question Anthropic claim that AI-assisted attack was 90% autonomous

OpenAI’s Sam Altman Regenerates the Gilded Age Playbook - Bloomberg

AI Doomerism Is Bullshit

For even further reading, visit my bookmark collection for this post.

The bliss of good enough— an ode to my moka pot

2025-06-05T00:00:00Z

The bliss of good enough— an ode to my moka pot

It's early and unpleasant, and I am woefully uncaffinated. I brave my way through my small apartment towards the kitchen. My back and my left hip ache. I am getting older; crankier. The steady march of time is steadily kicking my ass, a situation I am most keenly aware of in the early mornings.

I spoon coffee grounds into the aluminum filter, careful not to spill any on the counter. I always spill coffee grounds on the counter. Admittedly, preparing coffee was a much tidier affair when I used a Keurig.

I set the stove to medium-low. You can achieve a faster brew with higher heat, though I find you get something closer to espresso when the water has more time to mingle with the coffee grounds. Otherwise, the steam expels the bean water through to the next chamber too fast and you get a weaker cup. That may be just fine for some, but I want my coffee to kill me, thank you very much.

I make Cuban-style coffee—whisk three generous spoonfuls of brown sugar with the first few drops of coffee that pour out the chimney (crema), until you achieve a frothy consistency. Listen to the metallic melody of the spoon slapping against the ceramic mug. Good, right? Then, add the rest of your coffee, with milk or creamer to your liking, stir lightly, and voilà—Cuban coffee.

Justa like mama Cubana used to make 🤌.

In my 43 years on this earth I've owned every coffee maker imaginable—from your standard paper filter pots to highly intricate machines. I've had coffee makers with touchscreens that spoke to me and automatically started brewing my coffee in the mornings. I've enjoyed coffee made from a fifty thousand dollar espresso machine (thanks MailChimp corporate office). All made great coffee, and in some cases better coffee, than my current method.

But, I love my moka pot. It doesn't need much to be happy. There are no consumable items I must remember to buy so that it continues working (besides coffee grounds). It doesn't ask me about WiFi or Bluetooth connections, or if I'd like to update its firmware. I can't tweet, or receive notifications from it.

My moka pot doesn't have a companion app for me to log my coffee consumption habits (thank goodness). It doesn't require DRM coffee pods, or a monthly coffee subscription. It doesn't email me about the latest moka pot models; I don't even know who makes it. All my moka pot does is push water from one chamber to the other when heat is applied, and if coffee grounds happen to be packed inside, it then turns that water into a piping hot cup of joe.

My moka pot is the product of some Italian guy's imagination, and not a board room of venture capitalists who wear sweater vests and talk about “cornering the market.” And because of that fact, my moka pot's design is timeless. Long after all the “Internet of Things” coffee makers are rotting away in some landfill (or under the rubble of a lost civilization) the humble moka pot will be there, ready to make someone a good-enough cup of coffee.

I think about this more than you'd think. I have a moka pot tattooed on my forearm, as a little nod to well-designed things; as an ode to a time when we made things because they made people's lives a little better. Those things still exist, and the moka pot on my arm is a reminder not to get too caught up in the technology carnival (which I'm prone to doing).

So, every morning, without fail, I do this little deliberate thing. Spoon the grounds. Light the stove. Watch the pot. Whisk the sugar. The process takes twelve minutes from start to first sip, and requires my full attention. If I miss the exact moment coffee begins to pour into the top chamber, I lose the opportunity to mix the crema with the sugar, and that would be a shame.

I get the sense that the people trying to sell us things every waking minute of every single day would prefer we live our lives on autopilot. Don't you? Everything we interact with is tethered to the cloud— automated, analyzed, and monitored for us.

And I don't mean to turn my nose up at anyone who uses a fancy coffee maker. Do what makes you happy. It's just, this morning ritual is a small part of my life that feels...analog, if you will. It forces me to take the wheel and steer for a moment. There's something precious about it that I wish I could replicate across the rest of my daily life.

It's 7:30 in the morning. I'm sitting outside with a cigarette in my mouth and a warm mug in my hand. I'm watching the crows fly from tree to tree. My back hurts a little less.

And no one, other than me, knows I made this cup of coffee. Well, now, you all know it. Because I just shared it with you on my blog...

Well, fuck.

The future of social media

2025-02-04T00:00:00Z

The future of social media

Imagine a world, in the not-so-distant future, where anyone can launch a fully functional social media platform with a few clicks and a credit card.

From a menu of options, you choose the primary media type (video, microblog, photos, etc.) and basic functionality. You can upload your logo and choose your color palette.

There's a marketplace for algorithms, recommendation engines, and other backend AI-powered functionalities.

AI moderation engines are pre-baked in and meet all necessary regulation requirements for every major country in the world.

A turnkey advertising network is optionally available. If you choose to run ads on your new social media platform, it's a 60/40 split.

You choose your monthly cloud service subscription based on estimated monthly active users, enter your credit card info, click “agree” and voilà! You are now the proud owner a your very own social media platform. Now all you have to do is get people to sign up for it.

What I'm describing would be the world's most sophisticated Platform as a Service offering in the history of Silicon Valley. Moderation, advertising, bug fixes, and improvement updates are all handled for you without you having to do much but cultivate a community.

Sound too good to be true? Yeah, it probably would be. But my guess is people would do it anyway.

Such a technology would completely change how venture capital is invested. Whereas in the platform era it would take a talented team of engineers and a business-savvy founder to lock in that round of seed funding, this new era, what I call The Computational Web, would dictate that any social media founder must only have a certain level of celebrity and influence to attract investors.

At first, this new Platform as a Service—let's call it Meta Cloud—would likely attract grindset influencers who see it as another Discord server where they can trap an audience and convince them to buy thousand-dollar e-seminars. Eventually, though, a big-name celebrity will see the potential and launch a fully-branded social media platform to great fanfare. It'll only take one, then the floodgates open.

Exclusive merchandise, early releases, a chance to chat one-on-one via live stream, whatever it would take to build a niche social media community with ten million users. Who will be the first? Taylor Swift? Oprah? Surely, Jeremy Renner would do it purely for the meme.

Of course, not everyone will want to spend their scrolling time on a celebrity-branded app. Even Taylor Swift's number one fan would want to switch it up a bit from time to time.

And that's where it gets interesting.

You see, all these micro-platforms run on the same cloud infrastructure. The account you created for Taylor Nation (working title) is actually a Meta account that gives you the privilege to hop in and out of any platform you want, whenever you want. So long as it's running Meta Cloud. It's like a digital passport that lets you visit anywhere on the internet without ever having to change your “digital identity.”

Think about it. A whole digital universe at your fingertips. A Metaverse, even.

OpenAI's “Operator” is Facebook's “like” button

2025-01-23T00:00:00Z

OpenAI's “Operator” is Facebook's “like” button

Remember when Facebook convinced us that our websites needed a "like" button in the late aughts? Few, if any, of us at the time knew what Facebook was up to. We all sort of just obliged, and by 2010, tens of millions of websites installed the bit of JavaScript that enabled users to "like" the webpage they were on.

Then Cambridge Analytica happened, and most of us wised up to Zuckerberg's game. He needed a way to secretly track us off Facebook's platforms, but he couldn't just give us a tracking device and ask us all to attach it to our digital legs. (We have legs!) So, Zuck sold his diabolical plan as a “feature.”

This sort of thing happens in tech all the time. I've given it a name— Feature Chum:

Feature chum is a shady business goal presented to consumers as a useful feature to a company’s product line or feature set. Feature chum always benefits the company’s objective of obtaining more power and growth, but not necessarily valuable for the end user.

This past November, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI will soon launch a new AI agent named "Operator" to complete tasks for you across the web. Need to book a flight? Just give Operator all the information you need, ensure you're logged into Priceline (or wherever), and Operator will get it done for you. In fact, let's make sure that you're logged into all your web accounts so that Operator has access to them.

See where this is going?

Eventually, every big tech company will offer its users feature chum so that it can wrap its tentacles around your digital self. Facebook did it with the like button. Google did it with Analytics (and essentially every product since). Now, OpenAI too, will know everything about you the moment you unleash its AI Operator onto your digital world.

The Computational Web

2024-12-11T00:00:00Z

The Computational Web

This note is a placeholder for a potentially longer, more in-depth essay I hope to publish in the future.

Decentralized social media, like blockchain and crypto, promises to topple old power structures and hand the Internet back to the people. But the Internet runs on a stack of technologies, and if you venture just a few layers down, you'll see some familiar faces. The techno-oligarchy is not only alive and well, but it's getting stronger. They moved underground to the Internet's infrastructure layer.

While companies like Bluesky are open-sourcing the protocol layer, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, and Nadella are building a new Internet on which those open-source technologies will run. It's an Internet that relies on massive kingdoms of data centers, thousands of miles of deepsea cable, and billions of dollars in specialized GPUs. This is Web 3.0. This is The Computational Web.

I'm defining The Computational Web by the increasingly massive amounts of computing required to run the modern Internet, thanks to AI and decentralized technologies and the elite group of tech firms that can meet those demands—Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta (GAMM). The more we expect these eyewatering levels of computation from our apps and websites, the more The Computational Web takes hold as the successor to Web 2.0.

Take AI, for example. We may not like it, but these large language models and recommendation engines have been able to intertwine into our daily lives in a way blockchain and crypto haven't. AI is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Compute is expensive and increasingly difficult to scale. These hurdles make compute accessible only to the largest tech firms in the world. Shoehorning AI features into our apps isn't just tech bros following their tail. It's a strategy to set the expectation that all consumer technology requires resource-hungry AI. If all technology requires AI, and only a handful of companies are equipped to handle the computational power that Al requires, then computation becomes a moat too deep for competition to cross. The Computational Web grows stronger.

"Computational power, or compute, is a core dependency in building large-scale Al. […] It is profoundly monopolized at key points in the supply chain by one or a small handful of firms." –AI Now, Computational power and AI

We can debate what Web 3.0 will be, but it's been here the whole time, and it's not Web3.

Decentralized social media, blockchain, cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence are part of the new web, just as the automobile is part of the electric battery market. Tesla isn't an automobile manufacturer. It's a battery company that sells the most battery-hungry product possible. Similarly, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta aren't platform companies. Not anymore, at least. They're an Internet infrastructure oligopoly that sells retail computing power (Meta is not quite there yet, but I believe they're pivoting to offering cloud computing services).

What we're seeing with all these computing-hungry products and decentralized networks is just the top layers of the stack falling in line for the new iteration of cyberspace—The Computational Web.

So, I wonder, how can we have this new decentralized Internet if all the infrastructure required to run it is owned by just four companies?

Computational Power and AI

Big tech’s great AI power grab

The Great Computing Power Chase: Why It Matters and How We’ll Win

How cloud computing became a global monopoly

Meta plans to build a $10B subsea cable spanning the world, sources say

Bluesky may have the juice, but we don't have to drink the Kool-Aid

2024-11-28T00:00:00Z

Bluesky may have the juice, but we don't have to drink the Kool-Aid

Any marketing guru with a Substack and a Udemy course will tell you that your brand should have a mission and an enemy; make your customer the hero, and you play the role of sherpa. I know this not only because I'm a marketer (derogatory) but also because I live and breathe.

We humans are drawn to the good vs evil narrative. It's the hero's journey. It's thirty-four MCU movies, all with essentially the same fucking plot. My reader in Christ, it's the Bible. So, I come to you, on this giving of thanks, as a marketer (sorry) and as a human person, to say— that the fight for a better web isn't a war of good and evil. It's so much more boring than that. Just because you left the bad place (X) doesn't mean you arrived at the good place.

Bluesky, for now at least, is just a place. It's run by fallible, corruptible people, just like every other social media company ever to exist. If we are to make Bluesky the “good place,” well, I don't have all the answers, but I know we should start by keeping a fire under the Bluesky team's asses; that, instead of our lips.

Just because the Bluesky team is friendly, writes in Internet slang, and doesn't repost race crime statistics, it doesn't necessarily make them the good guys-- I mean, I'm sure they are good guys (non-gendered), but this isn't a superhero movie. The war of competing interests isn't two platoons charging at each other from opposite ends of a desolate plain (sorry, I'm watching End Game while writing this).

On the web (and in life), we all want to be a part of something that isn't on fire. Our hope-starved souls are desperately seeking something to be happy about. For now, for many, for better or worse, that something is Bluesky. I totally get it. I just wish we were all a little more skeptical. We don't owe techno-libertarianism anything, least of all our blind allegiance.

And let's be clear (Obama voice)—Bluesky's vision for the new “social internet” is very much a libertarian worldview that is as old as the commercial web itself. Going back to the early days of eBay, technocrats have been trying to pawn off the labor of running a digital community onto its community members. What they'll never admit to, though, is that the digital spaces we spend our time in are rarely communities. They're markets.

Communities cultivate. Markets extract. Cultivators make decisions based on what is best for the community. Extractors make the number go up. Communities can have markets, of course. But when markets run the community, we end up with the Internet we have today. Markets had their shot and they fucked it up. It's time we brought back the virtual community.

So, is Bluesky a community or a market? It's hard to say. It's too early to tell. But I do know that people with power tend to do exactly what we allow them to do. That goes double for people who've convinced us they have no power at all.

Meta's Toaster Problem

2024-10-03T00:00:00Z

Meta's Toaster Problem

Meta has a toaster problem in that Meta does not sell toasters.

Remember the guy who tried to build a toaster by sourcing all its raw materials? His name was Thomas Thwaites, and by his own account, the project was a spectacular failure. It turns out it's very hard to build a toaster from scratch. Who knew?

Thawaites' failed venture into kitchen appliance manufacturing is excellent news for Big Toaster. However, companies like Meta, which sell ones and zeros, do not share this competitive luxury. Barriers to building digital products have always been low.

This hasn't been a problem for Zuck, historically. The network effect has been on his side for over two decades, and his anti-competitive strategies have always worked like a charm. The entry barriers were always just high enough for him to kill off any social media reaching the App Store's top 100.

Lately, however, it seems everyone wants to make their own toaster. Thanks to the concept of decentralized social media and OpenAI's magic toaster-making machine, ChatGPT, even a digital novice could now cobble together a Fediverse instance over the weekend.

So, what do you do when what you sell is accessible elsewhere? Well, if you sell plastic bottles with water inside, you convince the consumer that tap water is dangerous. If you're a restaurant chain, perhaps you spread the rumor that a particular type of tasty rock dust is bad for your health, then turn around and use that tasty rock dust in the food you sell to differentiate yourself from home-cooked meals. MSG, by the way, is a gift from our lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Use it.

When General Electric started losing its monopoly in the lightbulb industry, it created the Phoebus cartel. When Debeers learned that diamonds were a common gem, it stockpiled supply and also created a monopolistic cartel.

So what does a company like Meta do when building consumer-facing dopamine machines is no longer a viable business model? It moves down the technology stack into infrastructure. It then lobbies Congress for a set of laws that would force small, independent platforms to use compliance-ready cloud services. It then gets really chummy with the leaders of these small independent platforms and throws a lot of money at seemingly innocuous technology foundations.

It changes its name, has the founder tell the press he wants to be remembered for something more than his money-printing platforms, and then spends a cool hundred billy on data centers under the guise of building a Metaverse.

In short, Meta is pivoting to cloud infrastructure, and one day soon, all these cool, quirky little websites on the "indie web” will use the Meta Cloud™ and all its regulation-compliant services.

When anyone can make a toaster, toaster-making companies start selling toaster-making factories that toaster makers must use under the threat of law. It's the American dream.

Relevant & Interesting Links #

A good quote for all my Fediverse readers who still think Meta's presence in benign:

When it began, Facebook succeeded in part thanks to aggressive data scraping and interoperability with its competitors. By allowing its users to link their accounts to MySpace-which was much larger at the time-Facebook was able to poach users. Because users could send messages from Facebook to MySpace, and receive notifications from MySpace on Facebook, users chose to use Facebook as their MySpace client. Then, after it achieved scale, Facebook aggressively closed the door on interoperability. — Meta’s Interoperable Reversal

Data Piggy

2024-09-12T00:00:00Z

Data Piggy

Dear Internet,

It has come to my attention that people are calling Venture Capitalists "data piggies,” and I for one am appalled.

Sure, the definition of a data piggy is a tech sector Venture Capitalist who stuffs their little piggy faces on people's private information until their little piggy overall buttons pop off their engorged, little piggy bodies.

But, just because this is the official definition for the term data piggy does not mean we should call venture capitalists "little curly-tailed data piggies who follow us around the web slopping up our private information.”

Kindness is more important than accuracy.

So, I ask you kindly, please refrain from using the correct term "data piggy” when referring to any venture capitalist. For example, never say, "Marc Andreessen is the latest data piggy to invest in that cool new app, so expect major changes to the terms of service.” And if you hear someone say that, please do not respond with, “yeah, I can almost hear the trough being rolled out now. Those little data piggies sure do love slopping up our data.”

Finally, and I can't believe I have to say this, but, if you were to use the term "data piggy,” (you shouldn't) please don't follow it up with an "oink oink” sound.

— fromjason

Raw dog the open web!

2024-08-27T00:00:00Z

Raw dog the open web!

Monoculture is winning. The Fortune 500 has shrink-wrapped our zeitgeist and we are suffocating culturally.

But, we can fight back by bookmarking a web page or sharing a piece of art unsanctioned by our For Your Page. To do that we must get out there and raw dog that open web.

In our current digital landscape, where a corporate algorithm tells us what to read, watch, drink, eat, wear, smell like, and sound like, human curation of the web is an act of revolution. A simple list of hyperlinks published under a personal domain name is subversive. Curation is punk.

So get out there and find the parts of the web that aren't for sale. Use any search engine that isn't Google dot com. Sift through the corporate blogs and AI-generated prose until you find that speck of gold.

Then, embrace the oddity of reading a stranger's opinion about a niche topic. Explore the ones and zeros handcrafted by just some guy in upstate New York who likes to make DIY cell phones. And when you're done, share your bounties with another.

So let's take off the latex wrapped around our digital spaces by Zuckerberg and all his Technocrat cronies. And let the open web buss all over us— wait.

I'll work on the metaphor. You start making some hyperlinks.

Here are a few to get started:

Public Work by Cosmos

Potato Cheap: The Cheap Web

Design Manifestos

Arts & Letters Daily

Cari Institute Index of Aesthetics

Patterns For Personal Websites

Grumpy Website

And of course, my little website fromjason.xyz where I talk about things and stuff.

FireChat was a tool for revolution. Then it disappeared.

2024-04-29T00:00:00Z

FireChat was a tool for revolution. Then it disappeared.

For years, FireChat helped people circumvent their internet gatekeepers— the authoritarian governments and spineless corporations that control our every move through a network of proprietary data centers and deep-sea cables.

In Iran, forty thousand people downloaded the app when their government blocked internet access. Over one hundred thousand protesters in Hong Kong used the app to coordinate their resistance against Chinese authority. Singaporeans, Indians, Ecuadorians, Russians, and seemingly every pro-democracy movement globally took advantage of the off-grid messaging app.

What made FireChat an effective tool for revolution was its ability to bypass the centralized and often monopolized Internet Service Providers. Launched in 2011 by Open Garden, FireChat allowed people to communicate without an Internet connection. The mobile app cleverly leveraged Bluetooth and WiFi signals already emitting from our phones to create peer-to-peer connections known as a mesh network.

In 2014, after Hong Kong protesters demonstrated to the world how effective a tool it was, news blogs quickly pointed out that FireChat messages were not secure. By 2015, Open Garden updated the app to include end-to-end encryption, a feature that many modern messaging apps still lack today.

In 2015, Wired called FireChat a "Giant Network of Free Messaging.” Indeed, but it was so much more. The mesh network enabled by FireChat was a new internet by the people, literally. The larger the crowd, the better the technology worked, as messages would "bounce” from phone to phone until they reached their recipient.

Firechat updates as 40,000 Iraqis download 'mesh' chat app in censored Baghdad:

"Your phone today, your smartphone, not only has a radio to connect to a cell tower, but it also has other radios, like WiFi or Bluetooth, to connect to other devices around," explains OpenGarden co-founder Micha Benoliel. "And when smartphones are next to each other with Firechat, they directly interconnect."

The technology worked so well that Open Garden then released FireChat Alerts, allowing rescue workers to send offline messages during emergencies.

Mind you, all of this was happening off-grid, without mega corporations mining our data or governments spying through corporate-sanctioned back doors. Then, one day in February 2020, as COVID-19 swept the globe, access to FireChat was completely cut off without explanation.

Four months later, a police officer murdered a Black man in Minnesota, resulting in protests across the United States. Those protests sparked a roaring fire of consciousness over this country's injustices. But no one on the ground fighting for our rights has been able to use the people's internet that never was.

Today, if you go to the official FireChat website, you're greeted hostilely with a message that your IP address has been blocked for suspicious activity. The Internet Archive view of the site shows the same message, so don't feel too bad. The Open Garden website shows a similar, though admittedly less hostile-feeling 403 Forbidden error.

No acquisition announcement for FireChat can be found. No teary-eyed "it's been an incredible journey” open letter by its founders was ever published. FireChat, and then later its parent company Open Garden, closed for business without any acknowledgment.

Without any information, it's hard to say why FireChat disappeared. If pressed about it, someone somewhere has a carefully constructed story with a plausible explanation, I'm sure. However, by all accounts, FireChat's mesh network technology was greater than the sum of its users. It was freedom from a ruthlessly for-profit internet that has increasingly become more centralized and monopolistic. And the fact that no one seems to have anything to say about this once darling of Silicon Valley tells us all we need to know.

FireChat is gone because FireChat was a threat to the systems it circumvented.

Any Technology Indistinguishable From Magic is Hiding Something

2024-03-12T00:00:00Z

Any Technology Indistinguishable From Magic is Hiding Something

Somewhere between the death of our favorite aggregator websites and the world surviving a pandemic, the modern internet was reduced to four companies in a trench coat. On the breast pocket of that trenchcoat is a name tag that reads “The Cloud.” Under that name tag is an older name tag that reads “The Internet.” And under that name tag is a frayed embroidery that reads, “ARPANET (non-commercial use only, motherfuckers),” in a lovely script typeface and craftsmanship you just don’t see nowadays.

Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta (GAMM) now own most of the steel and glass that makes the internet go vroom. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft control seventy-five percent of the cloud computing market^[1]. Meta and Google own half of the fiber optic cables supplying internet services across continents^[2]. Most of our favorite productivity apps, retail websites, and social media platforms are beholden to proprietary infrastructure controlled by these four corporations. They own the most heavily trafficked server networks, all the GPUs, and gigawatts, and whatever.

They call it the cloud, but really, that’s just the internet.

So, what we know as the cloud doesn’t actually exist. It’s a euphemism that obfuscates the consolidation of critical infrastructure. The cloud is metaphysical porn for wild-eyed technocrats in Allbirds who say things like, “I’m making a dent in the universe” without a whisper of irony. It’s bullshit. It’s fugazi. There is no spoon, Neo.

The cloud is a lie.

So, now that GAMM owns all this infrastructure, but no one really knows they own it all, or even that there's an "all” to own, they're doing what American corporations do best— selling us the biggest truck we're willing to drive off the lot. But instead of F-250s, it's raw computing power manifested into virtual reality conference rooms.

The future of the web is consumption #

Web 3.0 probably won’t involve the blockchain or NFTs in any meaningful way. We all may or may not one day join the metaverse and wear clunky goggles on our faces for the rest of our lives. And it feels increasingly unlikely that our graphic designers, artists, and illustrators will suddenly change their job titles to "prompt artist” anytime soon.

But none of that really matters. We keep waiting for the next iteration of the web, or the internet, but the future is now, baby. We’re living it at this very moment. It snuck through the backdoor when no one was looking.

Over a decade or more, while our politicians were busy sub-tweeting fascists for clout, GAMM was buying up all the infrastructure it could carry. The old sync-and-share business model wasn’t working for them anymore, so they turned the internet into a network of expensive, gas-guzzling computing power.

It makes sense. The production cost of data storage plummeted by 94% in just ten years^[3]. You can't sell 50GB plans to college kids who own M2 Macbook Pros with a terabyte of solid-state storage. That's not how you build hundred-year empires.

So what did GAMM do? They convinced us that our notetaking apps require an internet connection and forty thousand dollar GPUs located on a server three hundred miles away. That's the future they've made for us.

It’s consumption. Its monopolistic control. It’s computing-hungry magic tricks thrown at the wall, hoping something sticks. The next iteration of the web by way of the internet is just one long infomercial of fifty-dollar solutions to fifty-cent problems.

I can’t stress this point enough. The reason why GAMM and all its little digirati minions on social media are pushing things like crypto, then the blockchain, and now virtual reality and artificial intelligence is because those technologies require a metric fuckton of computing power to operate. That fact may be devastating for the earth, indeed it is for our mental health, but it’s wonderful news for the four storefronts selling all the juice.

Open(ness) for business #

The presumptive beneficiaries of this new land of milk and honey are so drunk with speculative power that they'll promise us anything to win our hearts and minds. That anything includes magical virtual reality universes and robots with human-like intelligence. It's the same faux-passionate anything that proclaimed crypto as the savior of the marginalized. The utter bullshit anything that would have us believe that the meek shall inherit the earth, and the powerful won't do anything to stop it.

Right now, there's a four-way chess match in which each competitor will take a position of openness or security depending on which ideology helps them gain more market share.

Amazon controls 35% of the cloud computing market and has created a tight seal around its customer base. So, Meta and Google started preaching the importance of data portability. The Data Transfer Initiative is a red herring protocol that does little more than allow Meta and Google to compare notes on the data they have on us. But the message is, of course, "user empowerment.” El oh fucking el.

If either Google or Meta's market positions change, you better believe they will pivot to security fearmongering while lifting that drawbridge.

Amazon is mostly quiet as the frontrunner in the cloud computing market. Microsoft, however, may've earned itself a hundred-year reign with OpenAI. So, its job is just to scare us into believing that AI has the power to bring about the apocalypse and that Microsoft is the only company that can control it. There's no way OpenAI survives any of this, by the way—not as an independent company anyway. Without Microsoft running ChatGPT on its servers, OpenAI has no product.

Google and Meta want the tech world to believe that building a sufficient moat for its respective AI businesses is impossible. Google went so far as to leak a frantic internal memo. In it, an employee claims that open-source AI is "eating its lunch” and that they might as well release their code to the public.

This framing is a half-truth, and it's purposefully deceptive. Yes, if everyone open-sources its AI models, they cannot build a moat on proprietary software. However, Google's memo fails to mention that it already has the infrastructure to run computing-hungry AI models and that infrastructure is wildly expensive to build. That's why four companies own most of it. The real moat is the fields of data centers, specialized GPUs, and hundreds of miles of deep-sea fiber optic cables.

And then there's Zuck #

No one has a more grandiose vision for the internet than Mark Zuckerberg. The dude read a 1980s dystopian sci-fi novel where the world was so shitty, people spent all of their time in a virtual reality universe, and he thought— yeah, humans will love this beep boop beep (or whatever sound he makes when he has an idea). And you know what? There’s a sporting chance that the son of a bitch pulls it off.

Whatever. The metaverse is not the story here. And whether or not Zuck actually believes the bullshit he preaches about his virtual reality hellscape isn’t relevant.

What matters is that Meta is likely the most sophisticated cloud computing company on the planet. Facebook cut its teeth on a barebones web before the cloud market even existed. Zuck has open-sourced more cloud architecture than most companies could ever hope to develop in a lifetime. Amazon Web Services doesn’t gain a third of the cloud computing market without Facebook’s contributions.

So, I think it’s a mistake to write off Zuck as some tech-bro idiot chasing his tail. He’s not Elon Musk. Mark Zuckerberg is a capable businessman who understands the industry better than most tech founders.

I don’t know the guy personally, but look at the facts. Half of the world is on his suite of apps. He’s been the king of social media for twenty years. You can count on one hand the number of competing social media platforms that have survived his reign. His anti-competitive strategies are so effective that universities have studied it.

Psychopath? Probably. Should you hate him? Sure. But don’t underestimate him. He’s shrewd and cunning and will rip your fucking head off if you hit the App Store’s top 100.

With that in mind, let’s examine some of Zuck’s recent moves with fresh eyes.

Mark Zuckerberg didn’t spend ten billion dollars on GPUs to achieve augmented general intelligence, a pursuit no one can even confirm is possible, just so he can then give away the technology for free. That doesn’t make sense. He is a chief executive with a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

He’s made these moves because raw computing power is the business model. So, who gives a shit if Meta put Llama on Github for free? How will anyone ship their resulting AI-featured app without Meta’s cloud infrastructure? Read the terms and conditions. Llama is not open-source.

Zuck isn’t the mad scientist his PR team wants us to think he is. He’s selling us printers at cost so that later he can fuck us on the price of ink.

One layer up, one step ahead. #

This post has been a stone-cold bummer, huh? I know, I know. I put you through some shit just now. I’m sorry about that.

Listen, I know we want to believe that things are changing for the better. For the first time in a long while, there’s hope for the future of the web. There’s something in the air, something that feels like meaningful change. Things are happening. It’s lovely, actually.

When corporate social media platforms began to crumble a few years ago, we looked for alternatives. Some of us, like myself, rediscovered the open web. We reminisced about a time when the web was more than just search engine optimization and key performance indicators. Before an algorithm made us dance for our dinners. And it just felt right. So, we made blogs and personal websites and put little pixelated badges on the footers like we used to. We then moved to decentralized social media and joined small forums.

We carved out a space on the web that wasn’t for sale.

But don’t you see, you beautiful idiot? (Pretend like I’m shaking you by the shoulders frantically.) Our existence on this unincorporated web threatens those who have made their fortunes off our digital lives. The four largest corporations in the world won’t just roll over and let us have the quirky indie web we all want. They’ve moved one layer up so that they remain our gatekeepers no matter where we go.

There are no easy answers. Entire books exist on how to take back the internet they’ve stolen from us. Internet For The People by Ben Tarnoff is one of my favorites. It’s an inspiring exploration of the untold history of the internet, and it has some great calls to action.

Today, we can start by giving each other some grace. Let’s move away from the trappings of the morality Olympics we’re playing with the social media platforms we participate in. The factions created by that behavior don’t benefit us. It benefits them. They love to see it. Some people are on Twitter, some are on Threads. What the fuck ever. It doesn’t matter. Under the hood, Twitter is just the company that removed “Don’t Be Evil” from its mission statement. Threads is run by the company responsible for cultivating a genocide. None of our hands are clean.

And if you’re on Mastodon or some other decentralized social media, that’s great! Don’t be a dick about it. For some people, TikTok is their livelihood. For others, Instagram is the difference between speaking to someone that day or not. We’re all just doing the best we can. But we’re fighting each other when we could be working together to take these motherfuckers down a peg.

The internet doesn’t run on scattered clouds and rushing streams. It takes heaps of fibered glass and twisted steel to send a DM to that cute French boy from your year abroad. And it takes thousands of miles of laid cable, traveling at impossible speeds through the depths of our oceans, for him to leave you on read. I’m not judging. We’ve all been there, mon cheri.

But someone must own all that infrastructure. And with ownership comes control. This fact is worth stating out loud. It’s worth communicating in our preferred typeface. Even if some of us are more aware of it than others. Otherwise, we get lost in the magic of it all. We become more beholden to our Internet overlords.

Who’s to say how a cloud computing oligopoly will affect our everyday lives? But it feels big—bigger than even the telecommunications and cable TV monopolies of the 1990s or Bezos’s ownership of the Washington Post. The internet is how we’ve been able to disperse information and organize with each other. Good people on the web have stepped up when our news organizations and politicians failed us.

Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta already control so much of what we see and don’t see. If they can suppress an active genocide on the platform layer, imagine what they can do when they control the whole kit and kaboodle.

So, if we want a true indie web, we must be prepared to fight for it. Hope is not enough.

Where have all the websites gone?

2024-01-08T00:00:00Z

Where have all the websites gone?

It’s Tuesday morning. The year is 2009. You’re just waking up after a long and boozy New Year’s Eve with friends. Your head rings, and your mouth is the type of dry that makes you question your adulthood. You feel something scratch against your arm. Did you take a lover last night? Sort of. It’s a pizza box. Meat lovers.

You reach for your phone. There’s no TikTok or Snapchat yet. Facebook and Instagram are a thing, but they exist as a type of social syndicator— a place to see what your friends were up to last night. You already know as much. The occasional whiff of rank vodka keeps your memory jogged. You tap the browser icon and start typing a webaddress, perhaps appending www as a precautionary relic. Who got drunker than me, you wonder. After a brief page load, you arrive at textsfromlastnight.com. “I cant get the smell of ass out of my nose,” reads the top post.

You scroll, pausing only for the occasional forward to your best friend, who undoubtedly hurts as much as you. You both laugh at the crass misfortunes of others and quietly hope you hadn’t somehow made it onto the front page yourself.

You copy the link to the best of the bunch, the story that made you laugh the hardest, and post it to your Facebook.

For you, but not by us. #

For better or worse, the web doesn’t work like that anymore. No one clicks a webpage hoping to learn which cat can haz cheeseburger. Weirdos, maybe. Sickos.

No, we get our content from a For You Page now— algorithmically selected videos and images made by our favorite creators, produced explicitly for our preferred platform. Which platform doesn’t matter much. So long as it’s one of the big five. Creators churn out content for all of them.

It’s a technical marvel, that internet. Something so mindblowingly impressive that if you showed it to someone even thirty years ago, their face would melt the fuck off. So why does it feel like something’s missing? Why are we all so collectively unhappy with the state of the web?

Where did all the websites go? #

A tweet went viral this Thanksgiving when a Twitter user posed a question to their followers. A peek at the comments, and I could only assume the tweet struck a nerve. It certainly did with me. It's why I wrote this piece.

Everyone had their own answer. Some comments blamed the app-ification of the web. "Everything is an app now!," one user replied. Others point to the death of Adobe Flash and how so many sites and games died along with it. Everyone agrees that websites have indeed vanished, and we all miss the days we were free to visit them.

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that websites didn’t go anywhere. There are currently one billion websites on the World Wide Web. Here’s a few from my bookmarks that are amazing.

Cool, right? So here’s the bad news— we are the ones who vanished, and I suspect what we really miss are the joys of discovery.

We miss curation #

We used to know how to do this. Not long ago, we were good at separating the signal from noise. Granted, there’s a lot more noise these days, but most of it comes from and is encouraged by the silos we dwell in.

Somewhere between the late 2000’s aggregator sites and the contemporary For You Page, we lost our ability to curate the web. Worse still, we’ve outsourced our discovery to corporate algorithms. Most of us did it in exchange for an endless content feed. By most, I mean upwards of 90% who don’t make content on a platform as understood by the 90/9/1 rule. And that’s okay! Or, at least, it makes total sense to me. Who wouldn’t want a steady stream of dopamine shots?

The rest of us, posters, amplifiers, and aggregators, traded our discovery autonomy for a chance at fame and fortune. Not all, but enough to change the social web landscape.

But that gold at the end of the rainbow isn’t for us. “Creator funds” pull from a fixed pot. It’s a line item in a budget that doesn’t change, whether one hundred or one million hands dip inside it. Executives in polished cement floor offices, who you’ll never meet, choose their winners and losers. And I’m guessing it’s not a meritocracy-based system. They pick their tokens, round up their shills, and stuff Apple Watch ads between them.

So when we wonder where all the websites have gone, know it’s the curators we’re nostalgic for because the curators showed us the best the web had to offer once upon a time. And the curators— the tenders, aggregators, collectors, and connectors— can bring us back to something better. Because it’s still out there, we just have to find it.

Here’s the best part. You can be that curator right now, at this very moment. You can start to rebuild the interconnectivity that made the web fun to explore. And you don’t need to be a computer scientist to do it.

Open a Linktree account or whatever. And instead of adding your other social media accounts, add three links to your favorite blog posts. Or, add links to a few artists with their own sites. Or your favorite aggregator sites. It doesn’t matter what you include, so long as we make portals to other digital green spaces that exist outside of Instagram.

Then, throw that list into your link-in-bio. I just swapped my IG link from my home page to a post listing my favorite blogging platforms. Most, if not all, are from “indie” developers. And who knows, maybe someone clicks on it and the web gains a new writer. How cool would that be?

So what do ya say? Let's make a bunch of open web portals for 2024! I guess I set this up for a two-parter, haven’t I? I’ll see you at the next post.

Bloktoberfest— Some anticlimactic thoughts on blocking

2024-01-03T00:00:00Z

Bloktoberfest— Some anticlimactic thoughts on blocking

Note: this post is what I consider a note— some light musing that may or may not have a conclusion and may or may not turn into an essay one day.

Oh, Elon Musk. You’re like the Trump of the tech world. Not so much because you both have a thing for divorced white supremacists (you do), but because you both say the quiet part out loud.

Some people on Threads want to make a moral argument for leaving Twitter. That argument goes something like, “If you stay on Twitter, you’re funding white supremacy!” And you know what? That is not entirely untrue. I’m more of a “shame for corporations, grace for people” type of guy these days, but I see the validity. Where folks lose me is on the platform in which that message is spread^[1]. Mark Zuckerberg is known to court the occasional replacement theorist himself, you know. But he tends not to repost crime stat screenshots because Zuck isn’t a dumb-dumb. He’s a lot of things, but high on his own supply isn’t one of them. No, Meta’s CEO is much more discrete, if not audacious.

Nevertheless, Musk’s itchy Twitter fingers can provide a fascinating insight into the thoughts of other tech elites. For example, when Twitter doubled down on Blue and did the unthinkable— asked people to pay for verification— Zuck surprisingly followed suit. Today, you can pay $12.99 for a blue check across Meta’s app suite.

In November 2022, Musk laid off half of the Twitter workforce. It was his first order of business. Not to be outdone, Zuck laid off 11,000 Meta employees just five days later. Is Mark Zuckerberg copying Elon Musk? Nah. Not really. It’s just that both think similarly, but their approaches are vastly different. Zuck is a little bit symphony, Musk a little more rock and troll ^[2].

So, now that we’ve laid the groundwork, are you ready to leap over this chasm with me? Great.

A lot of people are blocking Elno on TwitterX. It’s become a bit of a situation^[3]. Not just for his massive ego but because blocking the largest account on the platform means a reduced inability to keep people engaged with his antics. So what did the most divorced man in the world do? He openly considered removing the ability to block people. Instead, he found “muting” accounts a far more attractive option.

Over on Threads, a similar movement is sparking. People aren’t necessarily blocking the king of Hot Boy Summer, per se. But there are growing sentiments that preemptively blocking trolls and notorious agitators is a better strategy than quote-posting them. Big accounts like the wonderfully loud and funny pearlmania500 lead the charge in the “block first, ask questions later” movement.

When we hop over to Mastodon, we see even more blocking. Entire servers with thousands of people have decided it is better to block Threads than put up with the bullshit. Mastodon leaders think that individuals should have the choice to block or not block Threads. However, from my understanding, it’s a choice that leads to confusion about what “blocking” actually does.

This Bloktoberfest across Threads and Mastodon, like on TwitterX, is also a problem. For Musk, he wants to desperately be loved and funny (and honestly, don’t we all). For Zuck, his strategy has always been rage engagement. If you’re on Instagram, you’ve noticed that the carousel of Threads in your feed highlights some of the all-time worst takes. (Or hot chicks, bro. People dig hot chicks).

Why does Zuck care about engagement so much? Because the longer we scroll our feeds, the more ads he can serve.

Suppose the Threads collective decides it’s better to block than engage. In that case, Zuck loses his ability to maximize the most important metric for social media— average time on site^[4].

Facebook basically invented the mute button some years ago. And remember that Burger King promotion that gave you a hamburger if you unfriended a few friends? Boy, did Facebook not like that. The Burger King himself issued a public apology on behalf of the meat monarchy.

So it stands that Zuck would find a way around this predilection to block-and-move-on as Musk has openly considered. The question then becomes, what would that something be?

If you have thoughts on this, I’d love to hear it over on Mastodon or via email. Not so much about my need to touch grass. I have enough of those emails, thank you. And, I know, I know. I have a date with some Kentucky Blue later in the week. I’m more interested in your thoughts on how Zuck could overcome his blocking problem. Or if you think it’s a problem at all.

I make no moral judgments of people who use Meta apps. Many reasons are not immediately apparent why it’s hard for some to leave and never look back. But you can’t take the moral high ground on a road pathed by genocide cultivation. That gets messy, fast. ↩︎
I’m obnoxiously proud of that stupid pun. ↩︎
Wesley and Liz ↩︎
To a lesser extent, Musk understands this too. He’s demonstrated a willingness to bring back to TwitterX the most vial alt-right personalities under the guise of “free speech.” But really, it’s the quote tweets that keep the register ringing. ↩︎

How do we stop Meta in 2024? We fix the information loop

2024-01-01T00:00:00Z

How do we stop Meta in 2024? We fix the information loop

Discursive dominance is “the ultimate emergence of one discourse as dominant among competing ones in their struggle for dominance.” Once discursive dominance is secured, objectives are easier to achieve. It’s why lobbyists exist. It’s why we’ve experienced so much synthetic chatter on Mastodon in the last year.

To win discursive dominance, we must continue writing, sharing and compiling information. We must fix the information loop on our feeds (more on that below). Some of the best indie bloggers in the world are on Mastodon daily. Why, for the love of all that is holy, aren’t we writing about how we feel and what we see?

And I get it. There are lots of bloggers who’ve made their opinions on Meta known. But for every blogger with a think-piece, ten are quiet. We need information that reaches outside the Mastodon community.

The problem is that the posts that reach a broad audience are often co-opted and recuperated. Sometimes, often even, the results of co-optation are outside of Meta-affiliated efforts. It’s just how the system works. Nevertheless, it’s the type of thing that makes you not want to write about it anymore.

In my last post, I offered an alternative theory to Meta’s sudden interest in ActivityPub and Mastodon. The post did numbers, as they say. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. It was actually a bit taxing, mentally. And isn’t it always?

The post, titled Copy, Acquire, Kill— How Meta could pull off the most extraordinary pivot in tech history, now exists on hundreds of Hacker News aggregator sites. Some under the original title (minus the Copy, Acquire, Kill part), and some under a new title— Threads.net is the new App.net but with ads and interoperable. Presumably, a Hacker News moderator made a stealth edit for the title...

Fine. Great. Wonderful! Everything is awesome, Mr. Business.

Who cares that the editorial decision stripped away the story’s context. It’s wonderful that the regulatory capture identified in the post was lost to commenters who didn’t bother to read it. It’s fantastic that Hacker News changes titles without any editorial cue, footnote, asterisk, caveat, icon, emoji, newspaper announcement—

Where was I? Oh, right. Convincing everyone they should write more.

Outside of Hacker News, I read a lot of frustrated comments under my post. People are tired of Meta-Mastodon think-pieces and want action. I want to address those comments and community members who left them.

First, I feel you. I get it. Everything around us that falls in the pro-Meta sentiment feels impossibly coordinated. Talking points and amplification from the “everything is awesome” camp are targeted and highly visible. Conversely, resistance feels scattered and unorganized. It feels like we’re not making progress. It feels like we’re just talking and not taking action.

But we are making progress. And we can continue doing so if we all keep talking. The moment we stop expressing our true feelings around the Meta-ActivityPub-Mastodon initiative is the moment that marks our defeat.

It might feel like everyone already knows that Meta is up to something, but I assure you, they don’t. Outside of the Mastodon bubble, people are woefully oblivious. Even within Mastodon, there is little agreement that Meta is up to anything at all. The only way we can change that is if we increase the number of times we collectively press publish.

The only way we can tease out the bad actors is to start highlighting the differences between them and us and stop amplifying factions inside the community that keep us divided.

For example, what if we, as part of an unorganized, diverse group speaking out against Meta, each published a disclosure. That disclosure states that I have not received any payment from Meta. I have not met with Meta or any of its affiliates. I have not, and do not represent any corporate interests when I speak about Meta and the company’s actions. That’s a distinction worth amplifying, in my opinion. But, I digress.

My guess is, anyone who wrote about their frustrations with Meta has been met with the type of pushback that makes you not want to write about the topic again. That is by design. The battle, right now at least, is one of public opinion. Fighting that battle can be taxing. We need more posters, amplifiers, and aggregators engaged and ready to sub in.

Posters, Amplifiers, and Aggregators make the information loop #

Consider the communication roles in a typical social media platform. There are posters, amplifiers, and aggregators.

The Poster synthesizes the world around them. These are your bloggers, micro-bloggers, essayists, shit-posters, or anyone who forms narratives.

The Amplifier spreads the word, often sifting through our noisy feeds for signal. These are your rebloggers, quote tweeters, and video stitchers.

The Aggregator guards the zeitgeist and compiles a complete accounting of events. These are your weekly digesters, Wikipedians, and digital archivists.

In a functional digital society, these roles feed off each other in an endless loop— Amplifiers feed off Posters and Aggregators feed off Amplifiers. Posters then close the loop by synthesizing the aggregate. It’s the circle of life, baby!

On Mastodon, this information loop occurs naturally. Posters, Amplifiers, and Aggregators provide “Mastodonians” with a steady flow of diverse opinions and accountings of events. The community then shapes its worldview and can take informed action when needed. In my opinion, the decision to make Mastodon chronological speaks to this phenomenon.

It’s not so much that algorithms always equal “bad.” Many users clearly want at least some curation. It’s that in corporate social media, it’s impossible for algorithms to escape enshitification.

A natural information loop is perhaps less prevalent on platforms like Threads and Twitter, where algorithms influence behavior and taint motivations. Modern algorithms are why grindset accounts and the worst hot-takes reign supreme on Threads. The incentive is not to inform but to provide content the algorithm “likes.”

When bad faith actors manipulate information channels and co-opt the communication roles, their actions create a fracture in the information loop. Community members then experience a decreased ability to separate sincere sentiment from synthetic chatter. Without a consensus, peoples’ ability to organize against bad-faith actors is stifled.

Within typical corporate social media platforms, algorithms automate the information channel manipulation. Bad actors only need to learn what the algorithm favors through trial and error.

Bad actors must develop new methods for breaking the information loop for platforms with chronological feeds like Mastodon.

Such methods may include:

Manipulating content moderation policies in a way that favors desired speech.
Coordinate efforts to co-opt dissenting opinions in a way that weakens peoples’ willingness to express their views over time.
Flood feeds at opportune times when dissenting posts gain traction.
Continuity in a single narrative across a select group of prominent Posters.
Targeted amplification of specific articles and posts that do not provide new information but continue to push a single narrative.
A reduced ability for Aggregators to aggregate. Whether it be from suppressing dissenting speech or reasonable doubt of authenticity.

What we consume as individuals becomes far more revealing in the aggregate, but only as much as those creating the narrative and those spreading it are trusted to act in good faith. Are our feeds filled with good-faith opinions?

The only way to stop the manipulation of the information loop is to overwhelm the channels with sincere speech from members of the digital community. This requires full action from Posters, Amplifiers, and Aggregators on every platform they participate. If you identify with one of those roles, your participation is a form of action and can absolutely cultivate change.

In other words— Don’t stop talking. Don’t stop sharing. Don’t stop writing. It’s what we need the most right now.

This post is number 3 of a series. You can read the first post The medium is the message— Threads isn't a win for the Fediverse, and the second post Copy, Acquire, Kill— How Meta could pull off the most extraordinary pivot in tech history

Copy, Acquire, Kill— How Meta could pull off the most extraordinary pivot in tech history

2023-12-30T00:00:00Z

Copy, Acquire, Kill— How Meta could pull off the most extraordinary pivot in tech history

Meta's sudden interest in ActivityPub and Mastodon doesn't make much sense. There are a few impossibly consistent talking points floating through the Fediverse. Each tries to explain away the oddity of Meta's presence.

I don't buy any of it. This is a plan years in the making. And we're watching Meta's biggest hurdle play out in real-time.

What if Meta's hidden objective behind the Threads-to-Mastodon initiative is a play on app.net? And, what if threads.net is a measured step towards what could be the greatest pivot in all of tech?

Put on your tinfoil hats, kids. Papa's got a story.

Over the past four years, Mark Zuckerberg has made moves that imply he's positioning Meta as a sort of Platform as a Service provider for social media companies.

This theory is in good company. Here's a 2019 tweet from "a member of Facebook's inner circle” reported by the Mostly Cloudy Newsletter^[1]:

I'm going to make a prediction: in five years, >25% of Facebook Inc's revenue will comes from selling cloud services to other UGC companies to meet global compliance needs.

If successful, Meta would usher in a new social media era as the first lords of the "social web.” The aftermath could mean that Meta gains an unprecedented concentration of power over what we see, who we interact with, and where developers can build digital communities.

Indie developers could gain a much-needed revenue stream through an ad-share program, which would be great if it weren't Meta writing the checks. We saw what happened to small businesses and aggregator websites. We saw what almost happened to corporate media after Facebook launched Instant Articles.

Everyday-users would pay the highest price. We'd be left with little more than the illusion of choice, resembling something approaching Proctor & Gamble's generic competitive strategy. We may gain the technical ability to move platforms with our followers and content in hand, but only so much as non-Meta affiliated social media exist. And perhaps not even then.

Meta must create a new market out of thin air to accomplish this monumental pivot. Such a feat could prove risky without something to compel indie developers and server admins to use Meta's shiny new infrastructure. That something could be regulation. Targeted lobbying has made it difficult for start-ups to compete in social media. Four new bills are floating around Congress. Each bill resembles Mark Zuckerberg's four-point plan.

Zuck's plan, published in the Washington Post, came one year after Cambridge Analytica and three months before the prediction tweet.

It sounds absurd that the biggest social media company would pivot from its golden goose. But when you peek into Meta's egg basket, you see it's empty. My guess is that goose was cooked a long time ago.

I'm not suggesting it happens all at once. It'll take years to fully pivot. And it's not like Meta will give away the billions of users it currently serves. But a decision has been made, and action taken.

Here's what I think happened: Zuck saw the writing on the wall, and he finally had enough— the congressional hearings, EU regulators, the impossible content moderation trap— all of it. It was time to get out of the social media game for good. Meta has the infrastructure skills and political influence to pull it off. He only needed the right angle to dip his toe in the water.

Mark Zuckerberg's Four-Point Plan #

In 2019, Mark Zuckerberg published an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for more government regulation of social media. He identified four areas needing policy— harmful content, election integrity, privacy, and data portability.

From Internet needs new rules. Let's start in these four areas, by Mark Zuckerberg, March 30th, 2019:

Finally, regulation should guarantee the principle of data portability. If you share data with one service, you should be able to move it to another. This gives people choice and enables developers to innovate and compete.

Zuckerberg then announces his support for the Data Transfer Project.

The Data Transfer Project, or Data Transfer Initiative (no one can keep the name straight), was founded in 2018. It provides a common framework for internet-based service providers to transfer user data between each other.

The project (or initiative) has some big names attached to it—Google, Microsoft, and then Meta in 2019. Twitter may have dropped out recently, as it's no longer included in press coverage.

All involved with DTP/DTI frame their efforts as a step towards users' controlling their own data. Not so much the type of data big tech may collect on us or what it's allowed to do with it. Just the swapping part. There are a lot of folks jumping from Instagram to Microsoft these days?

On Meta's engineering website, the company writes in length about the mission's importance and protocol's ease of use. But the tone for the project shifts within the context of the Fediverse.

A recent conference hosted by DTI (again with the name) announced guests from "the world's biggest ActivityPub projects" and Big Tech™. The event notes reveal that participants were concerned with trust and safety challenges that arise with data transfers on ActivityPub:

As a baseline, the ability of users to migrate their data between federated services is desirable, but any naive approach to this goal is a loaded gun.

That's... bleak. Where have all the techno-optimists gone?

It's unclear which participants shared concerns, as statements were anonymous. Perhaps DTI implemented Chatham House Rules. The event also notes that it can't provide an investigation and appeals process because the Data Transfer Initiative is "a small organization.” I hope Meta sprung for lunch.

The ACCESS Act was introduced in 2019 and reintroduced in 2022 and 2023. It would make data portability required by law. The bill is still under revision.

The RESTRICT Act, SAFE TECH Act, and Kids Online Safety Act also float around Congress. Each addresses one point in Zuckerberg's four-point plan.

The final versions of these bills could be a public good. Or, it could make starting your own social media company only possible with supplemental infrastructure. My bet is on whatever history would suggest.

Update: Since this post, I’ve discovered The Facebook Receipts, a project “designed to expose Facebook’s activity in Washington D.C. and around the globe as it attempts to influence legislation and regulation.” It’s worth a look.

threads.net is the new app.net but with ads and interoperable #

Consider a scenario where Meta leadership believed its business model was no longer viable long-term. What would their first step look like?

It might look a lot like the now-defunct app.net.

App.net was a microblogging platform that tried to compete with Twitter. App.net had a robust API that allowed 3rd party developers to build on its infrastructure. What made the start-up unique was that its founders encouraged developers to create social media platforms with their own branding, features, and experiences.

Threads.net would market itself similarly but with a few key differences— interoperability, content ownership, and a revenue split program. These flagship features make the platform attractive to small developers and server admins.

Threads.net's potential flagship features:

Interoperability ‌: All third-party apps are connected, or “federated”. Users can engage, follow, and migrate between apps easily.
Content Ownership: Unlike app.net, third-party developers and users "own” their published data. Each third-party platform has a distinct URL where content lives.
Ad revenue split: threads.net offers a turnkey ad delivery system. Qualifying third-party developers and admins can enroll in a revenue split program. If approved, they gain a dependable revenue stream.

An ad-revenue split would likely gain enthusiastic participation in the tech community. Most indie devs scrape by for years, and that's if they're lucky. The poor saps who receive VC funding get to watch their best feature copied on Instagram.

The interoperable and data storage features would also be widely supported. Martin Reece, creator of Micro.blog wrote about app.net in his online book. He suggested that what the start-up got wrong was its centralization.

From Indie Microblogging:

The app.net team got so much right — the early crowdfunding, the well-designed API, the developer story — that I didn't notice what they had left out until much later. All data lived at app.net URLs, and when the platform was gone, all the posts and data went with it. There was no way to own your content.

Server admins would have their choice of third-party apps if they chose not to develop. For the adventurous, Meta would likely provide tools, resources, and UI kits for developing bespoke threads.net apps. Thanks to Llama, Meta's open-source AI development tool, almost anyone can build their very own social media platform. Perhaps even large influencers with the means and desire to create a branded experience.

Meta's vision for threads.net won't be a cakewalk, though. This market doesn't actually exist. Except it does, and Meta has already leached onto its network. All Mastodon server admins need is a push in the right direction.

Copy, Acquire, and Kill #

In some ways, app.net failed where Mastodon succeeded. Eugene Rochko, Mastodon's CEO, has helped cultivate an impossibly vibrant social commons. He did it with zero ads, a decentralized network, and interoperable servers. If Meta could copy Mastodon's strategy, scale the ecosystem, and then monetize, it could pivot, and kill Mastodon at the same time.

The biggest lie in the Fediverse is that Mastodon is too small for Meta to care about. By all accounts and reason, that's simply not true. Zuck is in this impossible position because of how often and indiscriminately he kills off start-ups. Universities have studied it.

Meta's Copy, Acquire, and Kill strategy is well documented. In 2020, Mark Zuckerberg faced a US Congress on allegations that Meta spies on small start-ups to identify targets for its insidious tactics.

Representative Pramila Jayapal:

"Your company uses data to spy on competitors and to copy, acquire, and kill rivals,” Jayapal added. "You've used Facebook's power to threaten smaller competitors and to ensure that you always get your way."

There are some immediately apparent reasons why Meta is interested in Mastodon. None of which relate to building a better social media for regular folks. Mastodon has experienced server admins and nine million users that Meta can siphon after it fully invades the platform.

A thousand little nodes #

My guess is Meta's plans are an open secret amongst the tech elite. A swarm of new micro blogging nodes are already buzzing around ActivityPub with great enthusiasm— Flipboard, Mozilla, Tumblr, Medium, Post.News, Pebble (previously T2), WordPress, Vivaldi, and Mammoth, to name a few. Some are even well-funded. None seem to have a viable monetization strategy. Shareholders can't buy a third house with the spirit of the open web, you guys.

As Meta pushes forward, we'll see more of these little nodes. Each will offer something unique, and Threads will be careful not to overlap. Post.news interoperable with a no-news Threads is perfect, don't you think?

But here's the question— why ActivityPub?

This is a tougher nut to crack. On the one hand, the protocol is a perfect fit for Meta's threads.net ambitions. But wouldn't the Data Transfer Project Initiative meet those needs as well? Perhaps. But DTI's "mission” isn't necessarily social, and I think Meta wants to keep it that way.

Look, there are lots of good people with the best intentions at every level of that project- er, initiative. But surely, Meta will use DTI to migrate Mastodon users over to threads.net at some point. By isolating the social graph portability to ActivityPub, Meta can swap the protocol out with something proprietary (and more restrictive) once it ditches the Fediverse.

In the end, ActivityPub still exists, but its platforms are a virtual wasteland. Some version of Mastodon lives on through threads.net. But at what cost?

Mark's Catch 22 #

Mark Zuckerberg is in a bit of a pickle right now. If he could, I think he'd be cool just swallowing up start-ups and surfing with that white shit on his face the rest of his life. I think he wants to avoid pivoting to infrastructure. Was the whole Metaverse thing his last-ditch effort to do anything but Platform as a Service? I wonder.

Meta could've offered those services years ago. Instead, it routinely gives away its server architecture. Those contributions are the least objectionable thing about Meta.

But he can't not grow the company. Wall Street won't allow it. And he can't grow it through acquisition because of anti-trust. He's stuck.

After Cambridge Analytica, Meta couldn't buy a WordPress blog from Theme Forrest without the government up their ass. Zuck's biggest fear is anti-trust breaking up Instagram and WhatsApp. If he can remove the "Gatekeeper” characterization, he might have a chance to save his empire.

Infrastructure is Zuckerberg's only play. It's a good one, too. Effectively, four companies currently run the cloud. Barriers to entry are high, and infrastructure is costly. Just ask Meta. In the last four years, they've spent billions on non-Metaverse, non-AI data center expansion^[2].

Today, all your favorite apps run on Amazon Web Services. Soon, all your social media will run on threads.net.^[3]

This post is number 2 of a series. You can read the first post The medium is the message— Threads isn't a win for the Fediverse, and the third post How do we stop Meta in 2024? We fix the information loop

The tweet has since been deleted but exists as an embed on the Mostly Cloudy Newsletter post. ↩︎
Since 2019, Meta grew from 15 to 21 data centers across the globe, with at least three more reportedly in construction. This activity is in addition to any Metaverse needs, as Meta signed a long-term contract with Amazon Web Services for its virtual reality computing. In February 2023, Data Center Frontier reported Meta halted at least three data center projects. Its architects achieved a breakthrough that extended the lifespans of its servers. Meta decided to include those updates in new centers, so it delayed construction. The improvements did not extend to AI-based servers. ↩︎
Or maybe the Metaverse? Who knows. Hit me up on Mastodon with a good name: @fromjason@mastodon.social ↩︎

Posts critical of Threads and Meta missing on Mammoth app

2023-12-23T00:00:00Z

Posts critical of Threads and Meta missing on Mammoth app

There were big chunks of posts missing under the threads hashtag feed. Some are still missing. Many of these posts were critical to the Threads / Mastodon interpolation. I’ve observed this behavior only on the third party Mammoth app for Mastodon.

I'm asking everyone who already uses the Mammoth app to share if you have seen anything similar to what I'm about to describe. I reached out to Mammoth's Mastodon account last night, and I've yet to see a response.

So, here's what I saw, in chronological order, with whatever screenshots and video I have related to the event.

Notes: 1)I blacked out names of users where I could, as best I could, while still showing the necessary info. 2) I have been very critical of the threads mastodon interpolation. 3) I'm sorry for any typos. It's late, I'm tired. I didn't do much editing.

Post Removed messages #

It started yesterday afternoon, which would be Thursday December 22nd. I noticed a blank square with "Post Removed" on it on my Following feed in the Mammoth app for Mastodon. It appeared to be a repost by Seirdy. I thought it was odd, as I have never seen that before. I took a screenshot of it^[1].

That night, while scrolling a followed hashtag feed, I watched a post go from visible, to a blank square, again with the message “Post Removed.” But when I checked different apps, the same post was visible in the same place on the feed.^[2]

I thought maybe it was deleted or set to private as I was viewing it. Or perhaps it was removed from the server I'm on. So, I first went to the Mastodon official app. The post was there. Then I went on #IvoryApp, #IceCubesApp, The post existed in each location, both on the hashtag feed and the user's profile.

I tried using my other Mastodon account, I logged into safari, I even turned my phone on and off, per the sage advice of the IT Crowd. Couldn't reproduce it the behavior anywhere but Mammoth.

Missing posts under the threads hashtag feed #

Now I'm bouncing between three different Mastodon apps, scrolling the threads hashtag feed on each one. Immediately I noticed something else odd.

There are way less posts visible on the hashtag feed on Mammoth, than the other two apps. Like, enough were I noticed just by eyeing it.

Now I'm specifically looking for patterns. I see two posts that shared this link were missing from the feed in Mammoth. It was the same link that the disappearing Mastodon post shared.

What I eventually found was that posts that used the threads hashtag from around 245pm to 7pm were missing from the hashtag feed on the Mammoth app but not Ice Cubes, Ivory, or the official Mastodon app.^[3]

Missing posts seen on the meta hashtag feed #

So then I started scrolling a few other hashtag feeds that I follow— #meta, #smallweb, #freelance, and #FrutigerAero (nostalgia am I right). All of them seemed fine, except one.

On the meta hashtag feed, I see a post that had a threads hashtag, which I had not seen before. Then, I noticed another, and another. I screenshot about five in total before moving on.^[4].

Again, I could only replicate this behavior on the Mammoth app.

The disappearing post in a screen record, with others reappearing #

By now I'm wondering if it's a cache issue or something. I went to settings and saw Mammoth has a clear cache button. I started screen recording.

When I went back to the hashtag feed, I saw that the original post was once again visible. However, as you can see, it disappeared again.^[5]

As you'll see at least some of the missing chunk of posts reappeared. But it didn't resolve. I found more the next morning.

This morning two more posts missing #

I then noticed two more posts missing from the threads feed on Mammoth^[6]. Both shared the same link that the disappearing post shared from last night. The link was to a post critical of Meta, with specific mentions to the Threads Mastodon interpolation.

This afternoon another disappearing post on the Following feed #

Then this afternoon I saw another post disappear. This time it was in the Following feed on Mammoth. It was one of Seirdy's post again^[7]. This post was unrelated to the Threads and Mastodon interpolation.

Seirdy and I chatted and they said it was okay to tag them.

Conclusion, but not really. #

With posts reappearing after clearing the cache, but the post in question still disappearing, then the missing posts this morning again in the threads hashtag feed, I don't know what's going on.

I did my best to document what I was seeing. Take what's useful, dismiss what you find not useful. But please, keep an eye on this and share your findings.

Note: Since this post is way longer than I expected it to be, I will give a summary on Mastodon and link to this post. Perhaps in the morning I'll do a thread too.

Screenshots and records #

Seirdy's first removed post ↩︎
Post missing on Mammoth but visible on Ice Cubes. ↩︎
Video: posts jump from 4 hours to 9 hours on Mammoth while Those visible on Ice Cubes. ↩︎
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 missing posts found on the meta hashtag feed. ↩︎
Disappearing post screen record plus other posts reappearing. ↩︎
Video: Two more posts missing. ↩︎
Seirdy's second removed post. ↩︎

The medium is the message— Threads isn't a win for the Fediverse

2023-12-18T00:00:00Z

The medium is the message— Threads isn't a win for the Fediverse

Meta needs the Fediverse more than the Fediverse needs Meta. I say this in the sense that the Fediverse never needed Meta at all. In fact, the Threads / Mastodon interoperation is a net negative for "federated social media” and the "open web.” In the end, Meta will have fundamentally changed what those two terms mean. And the Mastodon collective will have fumbled what it needed most for mass appeal— continued validation of the influential adopter.

By allowing Threads to federate with the Fediverse, Mastodon has risked the very thing that made it appealing— open web federation. This claim may seem paradoxical, sure, but only as much as integrating with a closed system under uncertain terms. Twitter users who've perhaps already considered where to migrate must now reevaluate their choices. While some fedi-supporters feel the chips now fall in their favor, studied user behavior suggests a different outcome.

Meta was allowed to extract the marketing benefits of federated social media while discarding its ethos. If you ever encounter a 1920's French Situationist, ask them how movements die.

On Official Culture:

Official culture is the culture that receives social legitimation or institutional support in a given society. Official culture is usually identified with bourgeoisie culture. For revolutionary Guy Debord, official culture is a "rigged game", where conservative powers forbid subversive ideas to have direct access to the public discourse and where such ideas are integrated only after being trivialized, and sterilized.

(Summarization of The Situationist's manifesto: Report on the Construction of Situations by Guy Debord. Summary by Wikipedia.)

Where will Twitter users go? #

There’s a perception circulating the Fediverse that interoperating Threads with Mastodon lends credibility to ActivityPub’s mission for an open web. This clout will then, somehow, translate into more converted Mastodon users.

However, the opposite effect seems, at least, just as possible.

Kill Zone studies anti-trust behavior by big tech towards startups. It identifies early adopters, or “techies,” as playing a “crucial role in the success of an innovation.”

On early adopters and ordinary users:

Techies choose their favored platform mainly for its technical characteristics and have the incentive to uncover the underlying quality of each rival platform. The mass of early techie adopters, in turn, drives the adoption by ordinary non-techie customers for two reasons. First, the mass of techie adopters offers a signal about the fundamental quality improvement brought about by the new platform. Second, this mass creates a network externality for ordinary customers, who have to choose whether to adopt the new platform.

From Kill Zone, Sai Krishna Kamepalli, Raghuram G. Rajan, and Luigi Zingales, University of Chicago (2020)

The study reveals that novel technology attracts early adopters, “techies.” The “normies,” for lack of a better term, will watch what “techies” do before committing because moving costs are higher for non-technical users.

This behavior changes for both types of users when they believe a merger between the “entrant” and the “incumbent” is imminent^[1]. “Techies” no longer perceive value in the entrant once its flagship offering debuts on the incumbent’s platform. Side note: that’s why Meta copies the features of small startups. But we’ll get to that in a later post. “Normie” users are less inclined to bear the cost of moving if it is unnecessary.

So, it is possible that for every Threads user who discovers Mastodon through Meta’s ActivityPub implementation and not through, say, Mastodon evangelists, the incentive for early adopters to make the switch decreases.

Twitter’s “normie” users are then more inclined to migrate to Threads because that’s where the early adopter signal is strongest. Upon closer inspection, these users may feel a familiarity that Mastodon cannot compete with. Threads’ steady flow of feature announcements will only entice the users further. For the remaining Twitter users, where associating with Meta is, as a matter of principle, a dealbreaker, Mastodon is no longer a viable option. Such users will search for something new where early adopter signaling and familiarity are strongest (my money is on BlueSky^[2]).

In short, the very thing Mastodonians hope for— credibility through corporate interoperation— would sooner kill the platform than help it grow.

What the open web means to the average user #

Mark Zuckerberg wants, and has tried to achieve, a Meta-exclusive suite of interoperated apps. By intertwining Instagram, Threads, and Facebook, Zuckerberg makes it harder to break up his empire under anti-trust.

From Casey Newton’s Why WhatsApp and Instagram are just names now (2019):

If the Federal Trade Commission ever planned to compel Facebook to spin out WhatsApp and Instagram — a big if, I know — you can imagine the company explaining that there was no longer such a thing as “WhatsApp” or “Instagram.” Going forward, those names will refer only to their respective graphical user interfaces. Behind the curtain, there is only Facebook. It’s a characteristically savvy — and ruthless — move from Zuckerberg and his lieutenants.

Up until now, Meta (then Facebook) and its efforts to integrate its suite of messaging apps have been met with scrutiny from the EU and US regulators. Lucky for Zuck, though, Mastodon is the perfect cover. Adopting ActivityPub today, could help Meta thwart anti-trust or DMA laws down the road.

Along the way, Meta gets to signal an embrace of the open web, and gains the privilege of redefining the term for its billions of users. By the time Instagram, or a standalone Reels, joins the fedi-party, ActivityPub could look unrecognizable on Meta's side of the wall. Who's to say what protocol serves which interoperation? But we know how this ends. Meta is not now, nor has it ever been a bastion of a free and open internet. History won't gaze upon Big Tech with kind eyes, but only so long as they aren't the victors.

As sure as ActivityPub federates the open web today, a "MetaPub” would connect Zuckerberg's collection of walled gardens. And that's an invite-only platform your server will never receive a code for.

The medium is the message #

Regardless of what you think Meta’s intentions are, the company needs ActivityPub to meet its objectives. Zuck could never convince BlueSky to let him hop on the AT Protocol without public commitments. Dorsey is a jackass, but he’s not dumb. He knows when Meta knocks on the door, it's not to borrow an egg. It's a declaration of war.

Before Meta decided it needed ActivityPub, Mastodon had a hand it could play. Even if it wasn't a full house, it was something.

For folks who just lost their audience, Mastodon was an attractive option. It was the place you went if you wanted to keep your followers. For folks disenchanted by corporate media silos, Mastodon was a refuge. It was the place you went to get away from the big tech billionaires.

Put another way, Mastodon’s strong anti-corporate narrative resonated with people. It had a beloved open web protocol to back it up. All it had to do was nothing— bide its time, polish that iOS app, and wait for some of Twitter’s quarter billion users to come to you. But Mastodon and the greater fediverse lost what made it intriguing the moment it shook hands with Meta.

We are never obligated to extend the practice of our beliefs to bad-faith actors. In fact, we are obligated to protect the underpinnings that allow us to express those beliefs; doing so does not make us hypocrites, even if tech pundits who know better suggest otherwise.

You can't throw Che Guevara on an eighty-dollar tee shirt and hope the working conditions in which that shirt was produced improve. Just as you can't interoperate with a notoriously ruthless monopoly and hope its users embrace the open web.

The medium is the message. I’ll see you at the next post.

This is the first post of a series. You can read the next two posts Copy, Acquire, Kill— How Meta could pull off the most extraordinary pivot in tech history, and How do we stop Meta in 2024? We fix the information loop

Edit: Updated "Official Culture" source to include the direct work. Adjusted various formatting, fix grammatical errors, and restructure a couple sentence for better clarity.

Edit: Add more insight for the anti-trust section for better clarity

I get it. Mastodon and Threads are not merging into a single platform or company. But this, to me, is the crux of the issue when I observe the discourse on Mastodon. So many of us are so hyper-focused on the technology, we overlook the practical matters of human behavior. And I don’t mean the type of humans who write a README doc for fun. I mean normal people (joking). Whether interoperation is technically a “merger” is irrelevant to the average user. In fact, the safest bet for a non-technical user who cannot follow documentation is to assume that Meta will use their user data for nefarious purposes. And to be fair, it absolutely will if presented with a sliver of opportunity. Very few of us foresaw what Facebook was doing when we all had like buttons on our blogs for a summer. It’s not impossible for Meta to find a way to monetize Mastodon’s user data. Even if that isn’t its primary objective. ↩︎
I think Bluesky is set to take a surprising chunk of Twitter users, and I think Jack Dorsey knows it. When TwitterX experiences another mass exodus, Bluesky will open its doors after a comically long invite-only period. The announcement will dominate the news cycle as a companion piece to Twitter’s continued demise. To sweeten the pot, Jack will probably announce a new feature. If you forgot about Bluesky, that’s perhaps by design. It’s biding its time, waiting for someone to slip up. To be clear, I’m not a well-wisher. Dorsey is a fucking dork (derogatory). ↩︎

I got my first blue bubble scam text the other day and I think I know why

2023-12-05T00:00:00Z

I got my first blue bubble scam text the other day and I think I know why

Beeper Mini is a new Android app that gives Android users a blue bubble when they text iPhone users.

According to some folks on the internet, Beeper Mini tricks iMessage into thinking the sender is using an iDevice:

I’ve been using it for a while and it’s a really big deal. TL;DR

⁠This doesn’t use a macOS bridge VM on some computer you don’t control—iMessage has been reverse engineered to work on-device

⁠This app can register Android phone numbers directly for use with iMessage—no Apple ID required — /u/snazzylabs

Here's a YouTube video with a more in-depth explanation.

Apple brought this on themselves #

Apple has refused to adopt the RCS standard, causing all sorts of problems for Android users. If you ever wonder why videos from your Android friends are small and pixelated, it's because iMessage lacks RCS support.

The good news is that Apple finally announced it will support that SMS standard in 2024. But it's doing so only on threat of EU regulation.

Beeper Mini feels more like a troll to iPhone users than anything with long-term value. I can't imagine Apple does nothing about the new hack-as-a-service.

The app does make iMessage objectively less safe, at least empirically. iDevice users can no longer confidently say if a text is from a registered Apple ID. And you know what? That's 100% on Apple.

Whether or not it was possible to fake an iMessage in the past, I can say in my decade of using iPhone as my primary phone, I have never received a phishing text from a blue bubble. That is until this past Sunday.

Nevertheless, I offered this type of sender the same greeting I always do:

Why it feels like AIs are coming for the artists

2023-11-29T00:00:00Z

Why it feels like AIs are coming for the artists

Each week, a new AI thing goes viral. It's always something artistic-adjacent. Either it's a GPT-illustrated kids' book, an AI pop singer, or a chatbot promising to write the next blockbuster movie. And it's always from some guy whose profile pic looks like he's a Buffalo Wild Wings DJ.

It's driving me mad. Not just DJ Drumstick but this aggressive march toward perfunctory art. Why? AI can do so much more. Replacing artists feels like a trivial capitalist pursuit. I think about this often. It's probably safe to say a lot of you do, too.

The short answer is that it isn't. #

And then, a moment of clarity— AI isn't here to replace the painters, singers, and screenwriters. I mean, artists may be replaced incidentally, sure. But only as much as we all will.

Those consumer-facing products we see on social media are just the attention grabbers— the peddler's bell that draws a crowd. It's a classic case of loud and dumb.

Companies like OpenAI aren't burning billions of dollars, so some guy named Braxton may ask Generative AI what a big-boobed woman from each state looks like. It feels that way because Braxton and all the other low-level AI peddlers are simply the loudest bell ringers. So people convene around their buggies. But, really, it's the quiet ones we should worry about.

AI dropped, and some saw an opportunity to make fast cash. Typical grindset stuff— pretend to have made money, then use social media to promote your "expertise.” But it always fades away, and so will this.

For one, what they're doing isn't lucrative long-term. They sell their "methods” so that other grifters can repackage it, then turn around and sell it as their methods. Do you see the problem? It's incestuous. No one is making money because no one is actually buying the outputs. They're just trading the same twenty-five bucks between themselves, minus the Stripe processing fees.

Soon, a new shiny thing will emerge, just as people get wise to the elixir's low efficacy, and it's on to the next town.

So that's one reason— loud dumb-dumbs on social who think they "get” AI but don't. And to be clear, neither does this dumb-dumb. Not in the ways that enrich yourself, anyway. So, take what I say with a grain of salt. But I have just the right amount of cynicism and a decent sense of practical application. I also read a weird amount of tech blogs, but that's probably because I'm just as depressed as everyone else.

The second reason the "AI economy” feels so decidedly anti-artist is about who isn't ringing the bell— corporations.

Master of nun-ya #

RAG, or Retrieval-Augmented Generation, is a Machine Learning method that solves a big problem for corporations interested in AI.

Here's the problem— Large Language Models are generalists. It's a jack of all trades, master of none-situation. ChatGPT may know the names of every mountain in Japan but not, say, how Nintendo internally handles unsatisfied customers. The latter is where the money is, apparently.

ChatGPT also has a bad habit of "hallucinating” facts, whereas it may provide "Mount Fuji” as the correct answer to "what's the tallest mountain in Japan” but cite Yoshi as its source.

RAG solves both problems by “feeding” a customized GPT with a corporation's knowledge base. That way, the GPT is not only a mountain trivia whiz, but knows that Nintendo offers a discount to angry customers in some instances (I don't know if they do or even why I picked Nintendo as an example).

More importantly, the GPT can use that knowledge to deal with customers directly via chat, email, or even a phone call. You see where this shit is going.

The Great Plugin #

These corporate-trained GPTs will veritably replace all the call center reps, data analysts, and the folks who generally perform "email jobs.” GPTs will also eliminate many administrative tasks shared across an organization, resulting in more cuts. And that's just the heavens and the earth— day one shit.

Perhaps it's already starting with mass tech sector layoffs.

For the rest of the non-tech business world, it'll take time to get its ducks in a row. A lot of corporate knowledge is still kept in human brains, so there's a lot of work to do to convert it to 1s and 0s. We may even experience a hiring spree as corporations prepare for "The Great Plugin.” HR administrators will necessarily work themselves out of a job authoring detailed policy procedures.

But once the troves of internal corporate knowledge are ready to be fed into BrandNameGPT®, it's shareholder value time, baby!

The people who know what's coming— the CEOs (actual CEOs, not Twitter bio CEOs), CTOs, developer-led startups, computer scientists-turned-corporate executives, and otherwise anyone at the vanguard of AI technology are shutting the fuck up. At least for the moment. Because they're just about to thump out a lot of coin from somebody's boot. (likely us poors). And, nan-a single AI-generated Star Wars / West Anderson mashup can stop them.

While these MidJourney muffin-tops cry on Threads because no one respects their "art,” Fortune 500s are training AI mercenaries. So when the next time a customer calls with a billing question, it won't be Jake From Statefarm or whatever poor schmuck making nine bucks an hour who'll look up the account. It'll be some chatbot named SAFFRON or some shit. And SAFFRON has a dozen vector databases shoved up its ass with everyone's account info, HR corporate policy manuals, a copy of How To Win Friends and Influence People, and every frequently asked question since the Bush Administration.

None of us, least of all the DALL-E dildos, are escaping unscathed.

And yeah, I played with generative AI. It was fun for a month. My niece and I made a shark biting a guy's head off. It was like magic to her. She'll remember it forever. But even a six-year-old knows the difference between something her uncle showed her on an iPad and the beautiful stick figures she makes for me. The first thing she said to my sister was, “Look what the robot made, mommy.” And it was her prompt!

I'm not here to shame anyone who uses AI for work. Honestly, I'm not. Get a leg up while you can because shit is about to get ugly for the working class real quick. It's the grifters and peddlers that irk me. It's the demanding of artistic accolades for administrative work.

I make websites for my whole-ass living. I watched an AI do what pays my bills using a doodle and some text as a reference. Seriously. You draw a rectangle with a few extra lines, and in 30 seconds, you get a working website. It had a fucking contact form. The drawing doesn't even have to be good, either. Wait until my niece hears about this!

Listen, if a custom GPT and some productivity hacks keep my clients from replacing me for a few more months, a year, five, whatever, I'm doing it. The chicken is already plucked. Our best hope is to find who's about to eat our dinner and help them choke on the bones.

But I'm not about to pollute the world with an uninspired AI novel like some fake feckless writer, and then have the audacity to act like I reinvented art. In the same way I won't cum in a jar and demand you call me a father.

So, if you're wondering why it feels like AI is coming for the artists, it's because the most unimaginative among us can't think of anything else to use it for. And in the absence of ever having an expressed emotion worth sharing, they try diluting everyone else's work until it's as tasteless as they are. And somehow, that's supposed to make them rich. But the jokes on them because all of us are fucked. At least some can offer us comfort with their art.

The Village Effect of the Greater Web

2023-11-27T00:00:00Z

The Village Effect of the Greater Web

The internet is a vast and open plain. It represents the best account we have of the human condition (it's also really fun and interesting once you know your way around). So why does it feel so cramped in here? Why are so many of us confined to a handful of apps? I turned to M. Night Shyamalan's The Village for some answers. Why? Because we're having fun!

Warning: This post is another “forest as a metaphor for the web” exploration. If you are sensitive to the further beating of this horse, proceed with caution.

Meta, Google, TikTok, and Twitter. Some refer to this collective as the “corporate web,” while others gift it a more sinister term— The Dark Forest.

The Dark Forest theory can get a little fuzzy in the abstract.

Yancey Strickler, who coined the term describes The Dark Forest as a place internet users retreat into:

In response to the ads, the tracking, the trolling, the hype, and other predatory behaviors, we’re retreating to our dark forests of the internet and away from the mainstream.

Maggie Appleton expounds on Strickler's observation but also tweaks it a bit. In The Dark Forest and The Cozy Web, Appleton visualizes The Dark Forest as the areas we avoid:

We create tiny underground burrows of Slack channels, Whatsapp groups, Discord chats, and Telegram streams that offer shelter and respite from the aggressively public nature of Facebook, Twitter, and every recruiter looking to connect on LinkedIn.

In her illustration, the “Cozy Web” exists below The Dark Forest. It's where we share, chat, and otherwise commune outside the algorithm's grasp. Personally, I like this slight adjustment to the metaphor. It resonates with me more:

Illustration by Maggie Appleton (maggieapplton.com)

Okay. We have the dark forest. Scary! We have the cozy web. Less scary! So what's beyond the horizon? And why aren't we all packing our carriages to head out west? It's because few know what horrors lie beyond the Google SERP. And the only time we're brave enough to find out is when one of our corporate web “silos” becomes uninhabitable.

It's scary out there #

Meta wants the web to feel small. Real small, like, I don't know, a village. As does TikTok, Twitter, and even Google. Because the smaller the web feels to the average user, the closer these corporate dweebs get to realizing their vision of cable tv internet.

So they make the web feel small and the digital sprawl of the greater web feel scary. “The dark web,” incels, hackers, 4chan, and hackers named 4chan are “those we don't speak of.” And hyperlinks? You mean the color that attracts the beasts? No thank you, Joaquin. It's why Instagram keeps banning Linktree, and why TikTok's in-app browser won't let your webpage hop to Safari. To keep us safe! It's certainly not because human curation tends to steer us out of our siloed feeds, so the corporate web gave the curator job to robots and suppressed anyone sharing an external link, but all that did was make us miserable so now out of desperation they're allegedly sexualizing children to attract god knows what type of user. Deep breath. That's silly! /s

The corporate web is fucking up, big time. And except for perhaps TikTok (give it time), users retreated to the DMs à la the “cozy web.”

Out of the village and into the towns #

But the cozy web is, of course, a lie (as is the cake, hahaha am I right, Reddit? It's late. I'm tired). The apps we hide in are made by the same corporate web ding-dongs that gave us The Dark Forest. The algorithm is still listening, hovering hauntingly where the kept grass meets the brush. It's just waiting for us to kick up our feet before it feeds (feeds! lol). In other words, what is the Cozy Web if not The Dark Forest persevering?

But beyond the horizon— out of the cozy web, past The Dark Forest, and over the Google perimeter, we find “The Towns.” Some call it the Indie Web or the Small Web. It's where freedom rings, baby!

And here, take this bag of CSS and make something nice. Grab a handful of hypertext and grow a little garden in your backyard. It's okay. The grindset guys can't reach you out here. They're too busy pretending to be rich to an audience pretending to be human. You're safe now.

Oh. By the way. You know JavaScript, right?

Postscript #

If you're wondering where all the foliage metaphors for the web come from, read Hypertext Gardens by Mark Bernstein (1998). Not only does Bernstein give us an excellent framework for content discovery, this piece highlights just how absent our contemporary hypertext curators are from this algorithm-powered world.

If I continue my post as a series (I just might), I'll explore the problems of modern curation as it relates to the web. TTFN.

Other sources, inspirations, and further reading #

If you're interested in learning what's beyond the “dark forest,” I recommend reading these posts by some really smart folks.

The small web is beautiful

The Small Website Discoverability Crisis

Rediscovering the Small Web

The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral

Hunting the Nearly-Invisible Personal Website

The Bullshit Web

We're all lurkers now

I have joined the IndieWeb

My blog is a digital garden, not a blog

Why is gifting subscriptions so hard?

2023-11-22T00:00:00Z

Why is gifting subscriptions so hard?

As a freelancer, some years are better than others. The last two years have been difficult for me financially, so I'm always thinking of ways to better weather the storm.

I had this idea to ask my family to gift me subscriptions this Christmas for the online tools I use most. A month of Webflow, a year of micro.blog, or Notion would be a cherished gift because it's one less expense to worry about. Even a few months of Apple Music would ease some of my anxieties. Music is good for the soul or, as Dead Prez would say, “One thing about music, when it hit you feel no pain.” Gifting subscriptions, at least for me right now, are the type of rare gifts worth more than their retail values. And, yeah, asking for specific gifts can feel a bit awkward, but I don't need socks this year. Throw me a month of Raindrop.io, dear sibling.

But to my surprise, the act of gifting subscriptions doesn't really exist for most software as a service (SaaS). You can buy an Apple Music gift card, but that's mostly where it ends. Why?

I'm old and cynical enough to know that new ideas are rare. If none of these outfits are offering gifted subscriptions, there's probably a reason for it— some obscure financial metric that shareholders don't like. Or maybe it's the result of shortsighted executives. Who knows.

Subscriptions are out of control, I know. #

I'll be the first to gripe about the current state of software, and how everything is a damned subscription. As a result, customers get shafted and left with dark pattern practices that keep us locked in. To justify the monthly expense, the software then becomes bloated and unfocused over time. I get why some services use a subscription model (i.e., micro.blog), but mostly it's bullshit. This is the world we live in, nonetheless, and subscriptions add up fast, especially for digital freelancers.

Gift URLs #

Wouldn't it be great if these companies had a "gift link" users could share or publish to their personal websites?

For example, gift.micro.blog/fromjason sends you to a gift page with 1, 3, 6, or 12-month subscription options to gift your favorite micro-blogger.

Note: that link, of course, does not work. Here's my actual microblog account URL: micro.blog/fromjason.

In such a world, I would create a dedicated page on From Jason with just a list of gift links for all the software I use. Users like me get longer-term stability; SaaS companies get free advertising and increased revenue (I think?). These companies are always begging us to pay for annual subscriptions, so why not offer the ability to gift it to someone?

Take it a step further, SaaS gift links could show how far in advance a particular user is paid up. Gift givers could then choose which subscription to gift based on a person's needs.

Why doesn't this exist? Or does it and I wasted 500 words? Or is this a horrible idea for reasons not obvious to me? Let me know your thoughts. Reply to this post on my Mastodon post or via electronic mail.

Database in love

2023-11-22T00:00:00Z

Database in love

Multi-relational

Polyamorous

A Frantic Friday Massacre

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

A Frantic Friday Massacre

Update: The Verge is reporting that Altman is in talks with the board to come back as CEO, is "ambivalent" about retuning without governing changes to the company.

Lmao. What an embarrassing fiasco this all is. It's not even Monday yet.

From Axios:

Sam Altman's firing as OpenAI CEO was not the result of "malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices" but rather a "breakdown in communications between Sam Altman and the board," per an internal memo from chief operating officer Brad Lightcap seen by Axios.

So why the spectacle? Why the melodramatic press release and thoughtless communication with investors? Why not wait for the markets to close? What was so pressing that forced such a clumsy public execution?

I will not shed a tear for Altman or Microsoft. I could give a shit about wealthy stakeholders, either. But the circumstances surrounding this Friday night massacre make the board's decision feel increasingly frantic and ill-advised.

Am I missing something? I'm nothing approaching an expert in any of this, so I'm likely neglecting some apparent considerations.

Or, perhaps, start-up board members tend to lean towards petulance.

I keep going back to the press release, where they sandwiched the firing between this statement:

OpenAI was deliberately structured to advance our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity.

Big "if god is for us, who could be against us" vibes. Emphasis mine.

Whatever's going on, it feels icky. Historically, shadowy coups with populous justifications have a tendency not to benefit all of humanity.

My precious

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

My precious

From Atlantic Staff Writer Charlie Warzel (via Threads):

One thing in the OpenAI stuff that feels consistent (based on some internal convos I've had) is that a group of people that are laser focused on the doomer elements of AI and the more abstract principle of AGI for the betterment of humanity might also be the same people who do not fully think through the more human/money elements of firing the figurehead of the generative AI movement and pissing off the company that invested $10 billion in a very specific company/vision

I'm trying to understand why takes like Warzel's resonate with me. I don't often find myself siding with the tech bro. And I'm not, really.

It's that I'm skeptical of Open AI's "for all of humanity" narrative. Despite the inference, the message has big my precious vibes, particularly as it's coupled with AGI doomer rhetoric from the Ilya Sutskever camp.

They've assigned sentience to this alluring, but still very inanimate, object. They then hunch over it, hissing at all who approach. Because they are its true guardians.

But don't worry, this technology is for everyone. But also, it's dangerous so don't come near.

I don't trust Altman, or Microsoft to do anything approaching the "right thing." But I understand their motivations. And I'm familiar with what gobs of cash can do to a person, at least in the abstract.

But this jumpy, overprotective shit coming from the opposing OpenAI team? It feels foreign and unsettling. Because if money and power corrupt the soul, what does believing you're a life-creating god do to it?

App defaults

2023-11-17T00:00:00Z

App defaults

Just last night I stumbled on The Small Website Discoverability Crisis post while scrolling Hacker News. And here I am tonight, writing a post based on a viral trend with over 150 personal sites participating so far.

The internet finds a way (goldblum.gif).

There's another digital world out there; one buried under the Google SERP and Meta algorithm. But, once you find it, nothing else will do. It's a wonderful place with handcrafted blogs, lingering digital gardens, snarky manifestos (and even snarkier manifes-don'ts), and other fantastic internet oddities that you just won't find on even the fifth page of Google.

Anyway, this trend is dope. I also suddenly feel a little vulnerable about the apps I use. Am I vanilla? Me?

My default app list #

Mail Client: Outlook & Apple Mail
Mail Server: Office 365 & iCloud+
Notes: Notion
To-Do: iOS Reminders or Notion
iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera app
Photo Management: Apple Photos
Calendar: Outlook & Apple Calendar
Cloud File Storage: iCloud + but also kinda Notion?
RSS: Reeder
Contacts: Why? You want my number? Apple Contacts.
Browser: Safari but slowly testing Arc.
Chat: Discord
Bookmarks: Raindrop.io and it gets used often.
Read It Later: Raindrop.io
Word Processing: iA Writer, enthusiastically.
Spreadsheets: Excel til I die. Also sometimes Airtable.
Presentations: Just made the switch to iA Presenter
Shopping Lists: Reminders but I also have a wishlist on Raindrop if you want to get me something.
Meal Planning: gut instincts (but also shout out to Mela)
Budgeting and Personal Finance: see meal planning.
News: Apple News+ and a curated Reeder feed.
Music: Apple Music (I have Apple One, okay?)
Podcasts: Pocket Casts
Password Management: 1 Password (but looking for recommendations. Hit me on mastodon.)

This was fun. Shout out to Robb Knight for cultivating this trend. Happy thanksgiving.

On iA Presenter and my mission to preserve my digital assets

2023-11-15T00:00:00Z

On iA Presenter and my mission to preserve my digital assets

So certain that the world didn't need another presentation app, I ignored iA's new offering for months. Not even through a week of daily visits to ia.net did I so much as peek at its product page. I thought that, at best, my corporate slideshow days were over, and Presenter was for some other poor schmuck in a cubical.

What a terrible mistake. It turns out, Presenter has helped me in my mission to standardize my digital assets (more on that in a bit).

Indeed, I'm not about that corporate life anymore. For almost ten years now, I've been a freelance designer, copywriter, and web developer. I don't see the inside of many conference rooms these days, and I won't wear a single collar shirt all week if I can help it.

But just because I'm a freelancer in stretch chinos doesn't mean I've lost the need to convey ideas. In fact, I've been questioning, and subsequently retooling, how I communicate with clients for all aspects of my work.

For a branding project, I once wrote a slide deck titled What makes a good logo. I included some Saul Bass designs, a few Vignelli quotes, and my client loved it (or, at the very least, seemed engaged). The presentation set the project's tone, and we landed on a great logo. The experience taught me that gentle client education at the top of a project can go a long way. Now, when I close a branding deal, I whip out my logo slides for the kick-off meeting.

I've toyed with boilerplates for all my onboarding and project discovery processes. I envision a collection of bite-sized messaging I can mix & match and reuse for client presentations, emails, PDFs, and even landing pages. This idea plays into my asset standardization project, but progress could be faster.

I couldn't figure out how to organize everything. Do I make a bunch of PowerPoints like my logo deck, effectively trapping my copy into a single format? Do I write it out and store the collection in a Notion database? I'd then have to copy/paste into presentations as needed. None of these options appealed to me.

And then this morning, an hour before a client meeting, I decided I needed a slideshow.

While waiting for PowerPoint to fire up, I remembered Presenter. All that time spent on iA's website reading documentation for Writer (their flagship app I adore), I ignored Presenter. But, I knew it was there. And I knew (somehow) that it made slides dynamically. I may have peeked at the product page after all.

I filled out a form for the free trial, and a few minutes later, I was writing my presentation— one I didn't need ten minutes ago and had 50 minutes to write, source images for, style, and proofread. Did I mention I was sitting on the sidewalk outside a hospital, desperately searching for an internet signal? I booked my meeting the same morning I was to drive my mom to the doctor. Traffic diminished any hope of arriving back home in time.

Under pressure.

Here's the thing. I was done in thirty minutes. The remaining time I spent driving to a stronger WiFi signal. I even had time to grab a cold brew. Thanks, Corporate Coffee Shop™.

Like iA Writer, Presenter lets you focus on the writing. Its design discourages fiddling with formatting for half an hour before you jot down a sentence. I spent ninety-eight percent of my time organizing my thoughts and shaping my message and two percent clumsily navigating a foreign UI. I spent zero percent on presentation layout and formatting. That part was done automatically and looked great.

My meeting via video conference went well, and I suspect it benefited from a visually structured presentation. And because I was able to spend all my time on my message, my clients were able to grasp some technical concepts that I struggled to communicate previously.

I did have one hiccup, though. While on my Teams meeting, I couldn't figure out how to share the full-screen slideshow and then switch to my notes without my client's screen blacking out. (Presenter smartly separates the slideshow from your notes into different windows.)

After the call, when I wasn't frantically writing and had time to poke around, I read the documentation and watched some product videos. I learned that my screen-sharing scenario is a significant selling point for Presenter. I suspect my issue was either user error or a salty Microsoft, making things harder than it needed to be.

What I loved, and couldn't believe I didn't realize before, was that Presenter builds presentations from Markdown text. And, of course it does! Presenter's sibling is the original “distraction-free” writing app I just so happen to use daily- iA Writer.

Remember my logo presentation? What I didn't mention earlier was that I lost my accompanying notes after presenting the first time. I had worded my speech just as I wanted and could never get it back in my rewrites.

This experience is just one of many times I felt my writing was trapped and unorganized. Over the last six months, I've made it my mission to better preserve and catalog my digital assets. I've focused on methods to improve reusability and portability for the things I write.

The answer, of course, starts with non-proprietary archival formats like .txt and .md.

My mission (hyper-fixation?) has led me to a renewed appreciation for iA Writer (I switched to Ulysses for a few years and recently came back). My mission resulted in my designing this very blog, which preserves my writing in .md files in a single folder. And now, my mission has led me to Presenter. Not just for what the app can do but what it represents.

The tools we use to create should bend to our creations, not the other way around. Our creations (writing, photos, graphics, code, etc.) should exist independently, free to move around, reshape, and repurpose. If an app can't respect that, I don't want it.

Now, my collection of evergreen messages seems possible to create.

It's all so simple— write it in Markdown, present it in Presenter, email it in Rich Text, and then store it in text files. I can render it in HTML for my portfolio site (that I'll never finish building) to boot!

Now, if I can only get well-meaning clients to stop sending website copy in Word docs. One mission at a time.

You likely already own the first big AI wearable

2023-11-13T00:00:00Z

You likely already own the first big AI wearable

It's AirPods. The world's most ubiquitous earbuds just so happens to have a computer chip and a voice assistant. The opening is right there.

I'll eat my hat if Apple's first foray into the LLM market doesn't unfold like this:

AirPods version-whatever is announced. Maybe it's the pro line, but let's have some fun while we're speculating and say it'll be a new product variant. "AirPods Ultra" comes with a brand-new chip. It's fast. It's strong. It’ll come with some new, lukewarm feature that doesn't seem deserving of dedicated silicon. Apple likes to lay pipes before they build a house.

Then, after a product cycle or two, Siri gets its much-needed overhaul— it's smarter, more conversational, and it remembers things, for Christ's sake. But, by then, Google will have already released its LLM hardware, and Siri 2.0 will immediately feel lackluster in comparison.

Speculation before the Siri announcement had the new-and-improved voice assistant locked into the AirPods Ultra model only. This expectation leaves Tech pundits pleasantly surprised to learn that Siri will still work on most AirPods models. Write-ups on the big press release, therefore, go easy on comparing Siri to similar offerings.

Blah, blah, blah, a new iPhone is announced. Yada, yada, yada, the latest iPad still isn't a viable laptop replacement.

And then, one more thing— Siri as a Service. Let's call it Siri+.

Siri+ isn't free, but terms are favorable. Apple Music, iCloud+, and Apple One subscribers get the next-gen voice assistant bundled in at no extra cost.

Siri+ can write macros on (voice) command using the Shortcuts app— "Siri, open my garage door when I get home from work, but not on the weekends"

Siri+ can write emails— "Siri, follow up with Maria about the corporate retreat. I still don't know who our keynote speaker will be."

Siri+ can do all the shit we wished it could do for the last decade.

Siri+ will only work on AirPods Ultra (and Max, maybe), And it'll still launch the AirPods line to the top spot in AI-powered hardware.

That is if Apple can get their shit together with Siri's ethos. Anyway, I like my hats plain, no ketchup.

New technology same old people

2023-11-12T00:00:00Z

New technology same old people

Humane, an AI hardware start-up whose name choice is as transparent as glass, has a "trust" section front-and-center on its website. It reads:

At Humane, we believe you deserve the ability to own your data from the outset. That personal information should be protected. And, that having transparency as a value isn’t radical. As a privacy-first company, we build knowing privacy should be a core value and honestly—a given. Our commitment is to you and that which you value most.

Humane's new "ai pin," is not off to a good start with public opinion. I called bullshit back in September based on little more than my ability to live, breathe, and remember the past.

You hate/love to see it— a bright-eyed start-up announces a new piece of hardware, and the internet roasts it into obscurity. It's been that way since Google Glass. But, maybe our contempt for novel technology goes beyond the fear of looking like a glass-hole. Perhaps we're just sick of the corporate fuckery.

Over the past twenty years, they've used technology not to improve our lives, but to conquer— markets, people, minds, and sometimes the economic system it depends on, or so it seems. Silicon Valley, for all its lead-with-empathy, people-first bullshit, has been some real coldhearted motherfuckers. Some have destroyed markets by burning through billions of VC funding. Others have cultivated civil wars. They all rely on the type of slave labor that would make Willy Wonka blush.

We don't need a new Google or Apple. We never need another Uber-for start-up. Not after we've learned that the business model only works if labor is cheap and people need a side hustle just to survive.

So, we revolt against new technologies. Not just because a lot of them are dumb (they are). But because we know how companies act when they get a little money. We've seen the morals of founders pivot after a round of funding leaves escrow. We know that whatever bylaws they write on the wall, they will amend in the dark in pursuit of brute-force market share.

We don't want to live in the metaverse. And we'll skip the surveillance camera lapel, thank you very much. Most of us just want a society that won't toss us in the landfill next to our smartphones the moment we can no longer sell our labor. We want living wages and universal healthcare.

And hey, start-up founders, here's a billion-dollar idea: you want AI to replace a job? Start with venture capitalists.

Madonna in the 80s? AI already tainting our history

2023-11-09T00:00:00Z

Madonna in the 80s? AI already tainting our history

This Reddit post, an ode to early Madonna, has 505 upvotes at the time of writing this note. But, the seemingly innocuous collection of Madonna photos from the late 70s and early 80s feels off. Particularly photos 7 and 8, where Madonna's face gives an almost uncanny valley feel. Maybe it's the extra arm coming from Madonna's torso in pic 8.

Here's an actual photo of young Madonna from the collection:

And here's the AI-generated photos that made its way into the Reddit post:

The redditor who posted the collection claims to not have noticed that two of the dozen photos were fake:

I just googled "Madonna in the 80s"

Sorry I am not an expert at detecting AI, but you are acting like I'm deliberately deceiving people.

I'm not.

I believe them, which makes this situation that much more unsettling.

Google is just throwing AI generated photos into the pile with all the authentic photos. No disclaimers.

History is already warped thanks to the internet. I can't see how AI helps the situation.

Unrelated, Madonna is a babe.

How to properly peel a pomegranate

2023-11-07T00:00:00Z

How to properly peel a pomegranate

Pomegranates are delicious, but can be tricky to rip open. In this guide I'll show you how to expose that sweet, sweet flesh and get away with it.

Step 1: beat it over then head with a wooden spoon.

Keep doing it until blee— uh, leaks.

Step 2: Rip open the pomegranate's body, exposing its insides.

Step 3: Dump its guts into a bowl.

Step 4: Don't forget to ~~hide the body~~ throw away the husk.

Step 5: Enjoy the fruits of your labor!

Bonus: eat your pomegranate in front of another pomegranate so they know who's boss.

From Jason 2.0 is an 11ty-powered digital garden with multiple plots

2023-11-06T00:00:00Z

From Jason 2.0 is an 11ty-powered digital garden with multiple plots

From Jason 2.0 builds on the concept of 1.0 where I created sub-sections ("subs") that behave like independent blogs. These subs now have a new name— plots.

I made From Jason as a digital garden. It's a space where I can grow a diverse range of ideas and subjects with my writing, outside the limitations of traditional blogging. (That's the goal, anyway.) What better way to cultivate away from garden variety blogs, than to introduce my digital garden to a few plots?

Before I get into the weeds (I can go all day with the garden metaphors), I should warn you— I'm still learning 11ty, and to a greater extent, JavaScript. Version 2 is structured a bit neater than version 1, but posting is mostly still a manual process, and my code isn't near as DRY as I know it could be.

In short, syntax is my achilles heel, but I'm improving. Feel free to ask me technical questions about this project, but know I'm still learning and am in no way an expert in 11ty. "Me still baby," as my friend Rob would say.

That out the way, lets talk "plots."

About Plots #

Each plot behaves as a distinct blog and lives in the "p" directory. (Think Reddit and subreddits.) For example, my notebook plot (p/notebook) has its own homepage with a filtered view of posts and a filtered archive page named "all" (p/notebook/all).

Posts in my notebook are identified in the front matter with a "sub" key and a value that matches the plot's name (i.e "sub: notebook") Posts that belong to a plot are unofficially called "sub plots", hardy-har-har.

In addition to posts, plots can contain "series" sections, which are a group of serialized posts with a special table of contents page. For example, my freelance plot (p/freelance) has a series called "How to commission a logo design," which lives at p/freelance/s/how-to.... My hope was to implement a maintenance-free series feature, like described in this wonderful post by Shiv J.M. but, alas, my eleventy skills still need sharpening. For now, setting up a series is a relatively painless process, but still very much manual and requires multiple steps.

Finally, you can also subscribe to a plot's RSS feed without subscribing to other plots. Or, you can subscribe to From Jason and get everything! What you subscribe to depends on the url you input into your reeder.

Everything is then tied together on the homepage, where I list posts from all plots.

Technical note: all posts, regardless of plot, live in the /posts input directory. I use directory data files (i.e. posts.11ty.js) with the permalinks key to redirect where the post lives in my output folder. This structure was important to me as I wanted to maintain one folder for all my writings in a markdown format. 11ty for the win.

Other sections in From Jason #

Separate from plots, From Jason has a "me" and a "resources" section.

The me index page (/me/) contains my h-card and rel=me markup. Additional pages in me include my bio page, colophon, and a "now" page that I 100% stole from Maggie Appleton's blog.

The resources section is experimental (hell, all of this shit is experimental) and contains things like my Lorem Ipsum tool.

Why structure my blog this way? #

On my search for a better blogging experience, I came across Write Freely. Sick of being boxed into algorithm-driven niches and platform silos, I was drawn to its "distraction-free" consumer offering Write.as.

There, I experimented with writing in separate blogs that all lived on the same domain. I immediately love it, even if I wasn't completely sure what "it" was. I knew I disliked niche-based blogging, corporate platforms owned by petulant billionaires, and SEO-crazed keyword optimization. I knew I liked writing about various topics and publishing to something that felt like mine.

My previous blogs were always based on a specific niche, usually the subject I was most interested in at the time. After a year, or even as little as a few months, I got tired of the forced-narrowed writing and started posting articles outside of my niche. This behavior, I assume, was jarring to my readers. Posting about contentious political topics in a travel blog isn't going to do well. So, I eventually would pivot the blog to the new subject of interest, or abandon the blog altogether and start over.

After a month or so on Write.as, I found this wonder blog post titled Communal Bonfires on the Read.as feed. In it, was the first time I heard the term "digital garden." From there, I went down a rabbit hole that I have yet to crawl out of. I learned about the world of digital gardens, the indie web, static site generators and a hundred other concepts I now have bookmarked and reference often. This desire I had, fuzzy and undefined, suddenly had a blueprint. I wanted From Jason to be a fully custom digital garden that participated in the indie web. From Jason 1.0 got me there, and 2.0 pushes the boundaries just a bit.

From Jason gives me the freedom to hop around my topics of interest without "cross contaminating," for a lack of better phrase. The plots concept isn't an attempt to replace tag categorization, but rather an expression of my multiple online personalities. Plots represent the different sides of me that aren't always omnipresent, but exist nonetheless. I don't foresee creating dozens of plots, but there are a couple more I have in mind. I see myself creating a political plot and possibly a design plot in the future.

And then there's my notebook.

My notebook is my catch-all. It's where I can write about anything, including my "micro obsessions"— little things I'm passionate about that don't warrant a full plot. My notebook is where my typos and oddly structured sentences live. It's where I can published a still-evolving opinion or a seed of an idea. My notebook relieves me of perfection. I can't remember exactly which blog I borrowed the notebook idea from, but it was almost certainly one listed on my colophon.

Conclusion #

I'm excited about the possibilities From Jason 2.0 introduces to my personal writing. Again, the code isn't exactly perfect, but I think I moved a step forward. I'm happy to have shared it with you, and will gladly answer any questions to the best of my ability. I'll likely write up something more technical in my colophon in the coming weeks.

I made a Lorem Ipsum page

2023-11-02T00:00:00Z

I made a Lorem Ipsum page

Go to: Lorem Ipsum with copy button

I made a Lorem Ipsum (Lipsum if you're nasty) because the site I use for my website dummy text has gone mad with advertisements. I suspect it's the same site we all use.

I'm cool with ads. Get paid for your work! But when the ads have user-hostile behavior, I'm out. The website I'm speaking of now jumps the page down when you try to copy the text. It does this to show an ad. Booooo.

Anyway, the new Lorem Ipsum page has a copy button next to each passage. I also designed the passage for specific typesetting: small paragraphs, a few titles, and longer paragraphs. It's a version 1 attempt for sure, but I find it better than the alternative. It's what I'll be using for all my Lorem Ipsum needs.

I used generative AI to populate the text #

I gave Chat GPT 4 a prompt to generate the dummy text. I felt better using AI than copying directly from another website.

Chat GPT spat out the Lorem Ipsum and also included a translation. Is it real Latin? Who knows. Chat GPT likes to talk out its ass sometimes. My understanding is that standard Lorum Ipsum is not real Latin. It just looks like it.

Results from Chat GPT 4 #

Link to full chat: Lorem Ipsum 2.0 Renewed

Here's an excerpt with the accompanying translation:

"In perenni questu formae perfectae, ‘Mysterium Artis’ se expandit ultra marginem, fontes et spatia inter verba subtiliter moderans. Hic, in labyrintho pulchritudinis typographicae, designatores quaerunt harmoniam absconditam, elementa visiva inter se nectentes in chorea silentii. Ars typographica est tamquam flumen, cuius undae sunt ligaturae et capita, motus et pausas textuales creantes. ‘Lorem Ipsum 2.0’ ambulat per hanc viam mediam, inter lucem et umbram, ubi forma tantum non est figura, sed nuntius internus, sermo sine sonitu, qui mentes movet et oculos delectat. Ad hunc finem, structurae novae, simul cum antiqua arte manu scriptorum, sinunt legentes etiam inanis verbi profundum gustare, ut verum artis essentiam capiant."

(Translation: In the eternal quest for the perfect form, 'The Mystery of Art' extends beyond the margin, subtly moderating fonts and the spaces between words. Here, in the labyrinth of typographical beauty, designers seek the hidden harmony, connecting visual elements among themselves in a dance of silence. The art of typography is like a river, whose waves are ligatures and headings, creating movements and textual pauses. 'Lorem Ipsum 2.0' walks this middle path, between light and shadow, where form is not just a figure, but an internal message, a speech without sound, which moves minds and delights eyes. To this end, new structures, together with the ancient art of handwriting, allow even the depth of an empty word to be savored, capturing the true essence of art.)

...okay.

Anyway, feel free to use my Lorem Ipsum page.

My indie web list

2023-11-01T00:00:00Z

My Indie Web list

Note 12/10/2023: I am in thr process of revamping my bookmarks and curation. if you came here hoping for a big list of cool sites, you'll want to come back in a couple days. Id say Monday. I have some fun stuff I'm finishing up. For now, most of my lists are disabled.

At night before bed, I'll bounce around the indie web for a couple hours. I used to spend that time on TikTok, but I've slowly moved away from trad-social for a few months now.

Along the way, I'll bookmark a website, or three, or throw one into to my RSS reader. I love it! I find new, interesting people all the time. Each for a different reasons.

Maybe I like the person's site design, or I enjoyed a piece they wrote, or whatever. I'm just trying to build a feed that lives outside of Meta and TikTok, you know?

But, the next time I open Reeder, and I see a site I add just the day before, I have no idea who these people are and what they're doing here. Why did I take the time to save them? Reeder doesn't seem to have an annotation feature so I never jot down a reason.

So, this is my half-assed attempt to make note of what I thought was so interesting about said person.

For now, I'm embedding a Raindrop collection called Indie Web. I'd to post natively but at the moment, there's too much friction between my writing app and publishing here (I'm still settling into my new site). I don't see myself posting each time I bookmark.

This temporary process is not ideal either. I'll have to add a site to Reeder, then add it again to Raindrop with a note. That's way too many steps. We'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll write an iOS Shortcut or something.

The List #

This list is for personal websites I add to my RSS reader while researching the indie web. Each entry will (should?) have a note to remind me why I added the site.

This event was shot on iPhone and edited on Mac

2023-10-30T00:00:00Z

This event was shot on iPhone and edited on Mac

Just finished watching Apple's Scary Fast Event[^1]. Cook & Co. announced a new MacBook Pro, updated iMac, and the M3 chip family (M3, Pro, Ultra). Pretty standard stuff, if not a little light on substance. I'm not complaining. They can't all have "one more thing" energy.

But there was something at the end I hadn't noticed before in previous events. Did you catch it? On the last slide of the presentation, there was a message under the Apple logo: "This event was shot on iPhone and edited on Mac."

That's a pretty impressive claim when you think about it. A trillion dollar company used a smartphone camera to shoot its infomercial. Wild stuff.

Anyway, here are some press photos from the event with a screen shot of the message at the bottom.

The Space Black MacBook Pro looks dope. It's almost time for an upgrade too...

You know what?

I wrote and posted this article from my iPhone, come to think of it.

And then I downloaded the images from Apple's press release and uploaded to my server, all without opening a laptop.

I wish we had Universal healthcare...

but this is nice too, I guess.

The future is now.

[^1] Watch event

Design articles I still think about

2023-10-30T00:00:00Z

Interesting finds: Design articles I still think about

This post is officially my first on my newly designed custom blog (if you don't count the colophon). I figured I should share a few articles that have impacted my approach to design.

As I write this, I realize the three articles below are a decade or more old. I've had them bookmarked all this time and still revisit them often.

1. Invincible Apple: 10 Lessons From the Coolest Company Anywhere by Farhad Manjoo #

The article itself is good, but what hit me was how Steve Jobs designed a DVD burner app for the Mac. Mike Evangelist, lead designer for the project, tells the story:

“We had about three weeks to prepare,” Evangelist says. He and another employee went to work creating beautiful mock-ups depicting the perfect interface for the new program. On the appointed day, Evangelist and the rest of the team gathered in the boardroom. They’d brought page after page of prototype screen shots showing the new program’s various windows and menu options, along with paragraphs of documentation describing how the app would work.

Then Steve comes in,” Evangelist recalls. “He doesn’t look at any of our work. He picks up a marker and goes over to the whiteboard. He draws a rectangle. ‘Here’s the new application,’ he says. ‘It’s got one window. You drag your video into the window. Then you click the button that says burn. That’s it. That’s what we’re going to make.’ “

“We were dumbfounded,” Evangelist says. This wasn’t how product decisions were made at his old company. Indeed, this isn’t how products are planned anywhere else in the industry.

Read: Invincible Apple: 10 Lessons From the Coolest Company Anywhere

2. How to create a great website by Seth Godin #

Designing websites for a living, you tend to get frustrated with some clients who think that design is a team sport. Not to put too fine a point on it but, it's not.

You can always spot a design-by-committee website. It looks busy and inconsistent.

Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a dealbreaker.

As I get older, I'm more selective with the website projects I choose (assuming I can pay my bills that month). Godin's article taught me to avoid situations where it's impossible to make something good. Companies that design by committee, while likely well-intended, make the project infinitely more difficult.

Read: How to create a great website

3. Sweep the Sleaze by Oliver Reichenstein #

When Sweep the Sleaze came out, every website had a row of like buttons for every social media platform. Remember?

When Facebook first introduced the like button for websites, I was a big fan. The company I worked for at the time was redesigning its website, and I convinced them to include the like button on the top of each page.

A couple of years later, when every platform, from Twitter to Google Plus, had its version, I grew suspicious of those buttons. Turns out, the code to make the buttons work was heavy and made sites slower. And, of course, we later learned about all the spying and data collection— the true reason for offering an off-platform like-button.

From Sweep the Sleaze:

Don’t worry. These buttons will vanish... Or do you seriously think that in ten years we will still have those buttons on every page? No, right? Because you already know as a user that they’re not that great.

Oliver Reichenstein was the first I saw who publicly questioned the usefulness of those social media buttons. His article taught me a valuable design lesson— just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it good design.

I've been a big fan of Reichenstein since I found that article. His design firm, Information Architects, created iA Writer, the writing app I use for all my posts (including this one). Their website design from 2012 was a huge inspiration for the From Jason design. They have since updated their site with a new design, which looks great. But I'll always love the classic iA style. Here's their old site from 2012 on Wayback Machine.

Read: Sweep the Sleaze

Meta doesn't hate news, just anything that moves us off the app

2023-10-13T00:00:00Z

Meta doesn't hate news, just anything that moves us off the app

Meta's vision for social media is a billion lobotomized users engaging with The Hamburglar's new value meal. To realize that vision, the conglomerate is downgrading "news" on its platforms.

Link to post here.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has taken a wishy-washy stance on news and its roll on the Threads platform. He's mentioned "over promising" and "under delivering" at least a couple of times. Whatever the hell that means, I don't buy it.

Meta does not like posts that take you off its app, like ones with URLs. Like news. They never have. That's really the crux of this news situation.

Facebook learned that bullying news outlets into publishing natively on Instant Articles does not work. If it did work, and Threads could keep everyone on the app while offering breaking news coverage, the folks at Meta would be singing a different tune.

Mosseri says he won't "amplify" news. He has yet to, as far as I'm aware, define what "news" is and isn't. He has not announced what "amplify" means, or if the opposite of that means "suppress."

This whole news thing is a convenient problem for Meta because now they can flag all URLs as "news" and suppressed it in their algorithm. Are cooking blogs considered news? Who knows.

Anyway, let's all be good little users and creators who exist only to amplify Fortune 500 companies and produce content for Meta's large language models.

Design and Art

2023-10-13T00:00:00Z

Design & art

There's a fundamental misunderstanding of what design sets to accomplish. Scrolling design-focused forums, you get the sense that design and art are viewed as interchangeable ideologies. We've somehow formed the belief that design, like art, can exist for its own sake without any consideration for function or purpose.

By all accounts from great designers, this aesthete view of design is a misguided dogma.

Design can absolutely be a work of art. But unlike, say, a painting, a logo design derives its beauty from function.

Art may live without any justification. It is art, and its purpose is simply to exist.

Design, however, must prove it is worthy of existence by demonstrating a functional ability. If design fails to meet this threshold, it is neither art nor design. It is noise.

Interesting finds, October 10, 2023

2023-10-10T00:00:00Z

Interesting finds, October 10, 2023

A few things I stumbled upon last week. No theme. Just some cool stuff.

Every Noise Ever wonder what genre an artist belongs to? In an effort to categorize music and personalize playlists, Spotify "invented" a bunch of sub genres. Every Noise lets you enter an artist name and reveal the associated sub genres.

First iPhone Impressions Noted Apple blogger and Markdown inventor John Gruber writes about his experience with the first ever iPhone in 2007.

Autonomy Online A Case For The IndieWeb Name says it all. Good write up.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey tweets his love for the stock Notes app on iOS (2018) Nothing wrong with using notes but, I never felt the urge to evangelize Apple's most neglected bloatware. Jack seems to love it. Good for him. Maybe he can write an apology in it for selling twitter to a child.

Publishing to 11ty with iA Writer and Micropub I am this close to building a custom blog. I've done a ton of research to find a good static blog framework and 11ty seems to be a favorite among bespoke bloggers. Here's what appears to be a great tutorial (haven't done it yet) that explains how to set up an 11ty-powered blog and post directly from iA Writer. It's exactly what I want to do so I'm excited to try it.

Patreon's new logo design is good actually

2023-10-09T00:00:00Z

Patreon's new logo design is good actually

From my post in r/logodesign

Patreon is the latest brand to get dragged by the internet for its new logo design. At the risk of catching a few strays, I'm here to defend it, just a bit, especially in the context of this sub.

Is the logo marking basically just a blob? Yes. Is the accompanying philosophy maybe a little pretentious and wacky? For sure. It reminds me of Pepsi's logo rebrand doc

But the Patreon logo is fundamentally a good design, in my opinion (which I try my best to form using guidance from great logo designers). Here's why:

It's identifiable, scalable, and highly adaptable.

Identifiable: The marking is as simple and solid as possible without feeling ambiguous. We might see a kidney bean now, but that will pass. Over the years, the marking will be unmistakably "Patreon." Same with the custom(?) lettermark. It complements the marking but is distinct enough to stand on its own.

I see so many designs here that first aim to be clever, adding unnecessary ornamentation at the expense of recall ability.

Scaleable: When I think of scaleability, I think of the Twitter logo. You can tell that the designers worked hardon keeping its shape when small. Patreon's marking, lettermark, and combination mark are identifiable at any size. The marking will even look good as a favicon (32x32). How many logos can claim that?

Adaptable: Patreon's brand guide covers multiple use cases for its logo. All work well. Adaptability is primarily dependent on the first two points above. For example, the ability to use the logo as a marking, icon, lettermark, and combo mark without losing its identity means it'll adapt to any medium, from an app icon to a billboard.

The logo also looks good monochromatic. I don't know what they're doing with the animated blob thing, but it doesn't lose any detail as a solid color. That's important for formats that restrict the use of color, or when the logo isn't the focal point of the marketing message.

Conclusion #

Patreon's logo is just very different from the geometric outline shapes we're used to. It's solid and organic. It's anti-brutalist and anti-Scandinavian (design style, not the people.) Maybe it's the start of a whole new design era. Who knows. Organic shapes and ornamentation are already popping up on website designs.

None of this is to say that personal taste doesn't account for anything. A logo can be fundamentally "correct" and still look ugly. Maybe that's the case with Patreon. But personally, if I'm aiming for anything in a design, it's the three things mentioned above. These are targets too important to miss.

I guess I'll just pay til I die? Why I'm switching from Ulysses to iA Writer

2023-10-09T00:00:00Z

I guess I'll just pay til I die? Why I'm switching from Ulysses to iA Writer

I'm switching to iA Writer from Ulysses as my primary writing tool. The process has left me with some big feelings about Software as a Service (SaaS), particularly with writing apps.

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a fanatic with writing apps. I see a new one, and I must try it. And I've tried them all. Fifteen or so over the past decade. So I bounce around a lot, sue me.

The ones I remember #

A list of writing apps I've used a non-trivial amount. App Store only. In no particular order.

Ulysses
iA Writer
Day One Journal
Vesper (RIP)
Google Docs
Apple Notes
Notion
Evernote
Notability
OneNote
Final Draft
Writer Duet
Write.as
Bear
Untitled
Drafts 1.0

I've settled down in my old age, though. I've used Ulysses for three years because it's a great writing tool.

My main beef with Ulysses is it doesn't save my writing in .txt files in my iCloud folder by default. It still uses my storage, of course, housing my files that take up space on my hard drive. But they hide the folder from me and manage my writing files in the Ulysses proprietary format.

I know using proprietary file formats is a common practice, but it's particularly infuriating when text editors do it. It's text. Virtually plain text at that. Dump it all uncategorized in a single folder, I don't care. Keep your fancy file extensions if you have practical uses for it, I don't care. Just don't obstruct my ability to leave you.

But Jason, Ulysses has an export button that allows you to save in multiple open formats in any folder you wish!

Yes. And to be fair, I'm also now aware of the external folder feature. It took me three years of writing before discovering it, but I guess that's better than nothing. My problem is that these features are passive with a manual process. Ulysses' archival method is still hidden and proprietary. When I download a writing app, it's a tool for writing, not a method of obstructive storage (I pay Apple for that privilege.)

In other words, my writing shouldn't be a function of the writing tool. The tool is a function of my writing. I could write in a text file for the rest of my life and be happy. And I'll do it, man. I can quit all these writing apps whenever I want, man.

Listen, painters don't keep their art inside the house of the dude who sold them the canvas. And that canvas isn't in a proprietary— I could beat this metaphor into glue.

I blame the SaaS model #

Is software as a service (SaaS) a better model for those who can't afford a large lump sum? Tech companies often make this claim in defense of their rent-to-never-own software. Of course, that's not the reason everything is subscription-based these days.

The claim that SaaS makes the tools we need more accessible is valid in the sense that it lowers the barrier to entry. But it's not better for anyone except the companies who enjoy perpetual monthly fees. For the consumer, it means we pay more in the long term. We can then cancel and leave with nothing, or we can pay until we die.

It's the boots theory in full effect.

From Men at Arms (1993):

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

A "poor man" will spend more in his lifetime for a worse pair of boots than someone who can afford the upfront expense of premium footwear. SaaS models produce similar outcomes. We pay a smaller monthly fee for the implied promise of long-term, iterative software improvements. But subscription models don't incentivize companies to make better "boots," just deeper moats that keep us trapped inside the service.

When it's time to cancel, because we can't afford the fees, or we found a better service, we first have to cross the moat. Whether having to find a hidden cancelation process, or exporting our work one file at a time, the resulting effort feels a lot like wet feet. Ulysses has a straightforward canceling process because I subscribe via Apple's App Store, but the migration process is more cumbersome than it needs to be.

SaaS models also demand perpetual growth, which means specialized tools slowly morph into "everything apps." In my opinion, this is what's happening with Ulysses. Developers keep adding new features that move further from the Markdown-powered, distraction-free writing experience I value in a text editor. For example, Ulysses started hosting images in the file, requiring a proprietary file format. It's a feature aimed at new writers who are uncomfortable with Markdown, presumably. So as a monthly subscriber, it doesn't feel like I'm paying for the tool as much as I'm funding the company's future and continued growth.

Conclusion #

I don't know the answer here. Indie developers need stable revenue streams, I get that. But the subscription model isn't in users' best interests, no matter how hard companies try to sell us on it.

I moved to iA Writer for two reasons:

I already owned the apps, both iPhone and iPad. I paid in full in 2012 and then in 2017. When the time comes, I'll pay again. Offering a one-time payment option removes the temptation to keep me locked into a subscription.
iA Writer respects my writings. They save my files in .txt in a folder where I have full access.

Writing is a personal experience for me. And yeah, a lot of it is just shitty drivel. But it's my shitty drivel. My writings are an account of my experiences. They're records of my existence. All I ask from my writing app is to store them without obstruction, automatically and by default. Not tucked behind an app with a shiny interface. I don't think that's asking for too much.

Sources of inspiration #

Choose Boring Technology

Write in Plain Text Files

Love, Loss, and Raspberry Scones

2023-10-07T00:00:00Z

Love, Loss, and Raspberry Scones

Dearest Juanita,

I am currently floating through the tireless void of space.

How are you?

Please don't worry for me, Juanita. The stars will surely guide me home. It's just, old men with estranged hearts and muttered minds tend to grow bitter and world-weary (and melodramatic). And I have, for many years, moved around in circles and marked over squares and appeased the passing of time. What could possibly be the purpose?

Oh, Juanita! The lull of the cosmos has sparked my mind into a delightful frenzy. It makes my bones feel young, and my skin glow like the stars around me. Ah yes, the stars! They sing sweet melodies for my dancing heart.

Perhaps I've had too much coffee...

This morning, just before the sun pierced the horizon, as I sulked in the newly ground snow, the warm scent of freshly baked scones greeted my nose. And for a moment, you and I, we, were back at the bakery on top of the hill.

Remember? The one with a crow in a chef's hat above the entrance (who knew birds could bake?)

We laughed at old blunders and washed down raspberry scones with hot black espresso. You wiped the beads of sweat from the bulb of my nose and smiled when my cheeks turned red.

It was a moment I had lost until this morning. And now, it brings me closer to you.

Last night, from a restless bed and shivering balconet, I pondered the advice of a star with two bright faces. The voices called to me, euphonious and serene.

My dear Abraham, when the cold pass of time whisks you away—

Seek the moments that crystallize you, like snowflakes on your window.

For a time, I laid still. The darkest hours came in a rush, and with it, a bitter blue moon to bear witness. I leaned into the frigid air and humored my shining visitors, who then told me to follow the moon.

I stepped from my door and into the brisk city twilight. The world felt heavy under my boots. The coupled star kept behind me, gliding from one tree to the next.

It whispered chaos in my ears.

Beautiful

defiant

chaos

a mutiny against the very ground that compelled me.

The world absurd, chases its beloved sun through the cosmos but forbids you to do the same?

I ran down the narrow roads of the square; the violent winds lunged at each turn.

And time relentless, for all its fickle demands, takes what you cherish but leaves nothing in return?

I kept on through the alleyways rife with rats and wafts of rotted food. My legs were never so swift. Not even in my younger days. Though, after some distance my bones recalled their age, and I began to slow. Despair coursed through me. Was this a trick? Or had my mind finally sprung?

I trekked up the hill towards the fainted moon with all I had left. And just as I reached the top, my legs flung to the sky!

And my ass thumped into the snow.

In a bitter tone, I yelled at the moon and the star and the crow above the entrance, who gazed down on a pitiful curmudgeon. My eyes shut tight, but could not hold back a gush of tears.

For today, I am one year older and many years removed from everything I have cherished. And still, I find no purpose in a world turning without you, Juanita.

When I saw us together again, bright and fearless, it gave me all I ever needed to soar over that moon and never look back. It was the feeling of new and audacious love that once blushed my face in that bakery on top of the hill.

So here I am, floating across the galaxy, like a snowflake in the sky, with a box of raspberry scones under my arm (and an empty moka pot in my hand), searching for my moment.

Searching for you.

Yours,

Abraham

Apple is killing the cloud as we know it

2023-10-07T00:00:00Z

Apple is killing the cloud as we know it

Hello. A technology novice may know that iCloud syncs their documents across all their devices— iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Someone a little more tech-savvy may understand that the cloud, as a general concept, is also used to offload computing burdens like speech-to-text and virtual assistants.

We all know that our data floating in the cloud is being kept, monitored, analyzed, and sold. Tell Alexa your hopes and dreams, how perhaps you are having trouble sleeping, and he'll blab to Jeff Bezos about it. Maybe Jeff uses that gossip to sell you a better mattress.

Google Assistant and Cortana (RIP) are both blabbermouths, too. It's not unreasonable to think Siri rolls with the same crowds. But I'm not so sure. Most of what you tell Siri never leaves your phone. Even for processing your voice, it's all done on your iDevice.

Listen, I get it. We live in a capitalist world with faceless shareholders and petulant billionaires. Why would Apple be any different? Part of me knows that enough time passes and my foot will eventually reach my mouth. But right now, based on the information available, it's clear that Apple is killing the cloud as we know it. And it's doing so in favor of on-device computing and storage.

Anything that floats in the air is encrypted and out of Tim Cook's reach. That's an incredible feat. It shows a path for tech companies to profit without soaking themselves in our data. Will Amazon or Google ever give up their data addiction? Likely not. But start-ups sprout every day.

Over the last few years, Apple has favored on-device computing and encryption:

Siri processes on-device
So does dictation
And the Neural Network
Our files live on our devices first
All our stuff in iCloud is encrypted

Plus, iPhones increase storage every year like clockwork. We can get 2TB mobile devices. That's wild. I mean, it's overpriced like hell, but it's still amazing.

iCloud has essentially become a traffic guard that directs our digital lives from one iDevice to the next. And it never asks, "How's your day, hot shot?" That seems like a good thing.

Note: This post is mainly rushed thoughts. I'll keep adding and polishing.

Interesting finds, Oct 2, 2023

2023-10-07T00:00:00Z

Interesting finds, Oct 2, 2023

Things I stumbled upon on the internet last week. I've been into guides and manifestos lately, so here's a few I loved.

A credible threat to (and from) commercial social network silos/1 Case against Facebook joining the Fediverse (ActivityPub). I like this essay because it touches on the concept of Embrace, Enhance, Extinguish, a tactic Microsoft used in the 90s to kill open source technology.

King of the Hill Animation Style Guide A detailed best practices for animators of the show. A fascinating peek into all the work that goes into animating a classic tv show.

The Website Obesity Crisis I can never get enough manifestos against what I like to call "flash and trash" web design.

Designers Against Monoculture Fight against corporate design sensibilities. Even has a badge you can display on your website.

Taco Bell Programming Interesting and succinct philosophy.

Elon received playbook to kill Twitter

2023-10-07T00:00:00Z

Elon received playbook to kill Twitter

From Ben Collins for NBC:

Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the 3,000-word anonymous article said, would amount to a “declaration of war against the Globalist American Empire.” The sender of the texts was offering Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, a playbook for the takeover and transformation of Twitter. As the anniversary of Musk's purchase approaches, the identity of the sender remains unknown.

The article Collins refers to was published by an ex-Trump staffer and texted to Elon Musk before his Twitter purchase. It outlines a strategy wishlist for destroying the platform. Such items include blaming the ADL when advertisers flee, purging the "blue checks" and deplatforming prominent accounts, which, the ~~article~~ text predicted, would be a "battle."

Ben Collins provides the details via video on TwitterX. In it, he asks for help revealing the person who texted Elon the article link, which is currently redacted.

A friend and I often debate whether Elons actions are a deliberate attempt to kill the bird app. My friend, more reasonable than I, reminds me not to blame malice for stupidity. And he's right. Even with Collins' reporting, how do we prove intent? But man, it's hard not to draw conclusions. Elon is like Jack Donaghy with none of the charm, and Tucker Carlson's Twitter show is God Cop.

https://youtu.be/clPlucoobUg?si=eQsIDoKndI19-vt7

Some thoughts on naming your business

2023-10-04T00:00:00Z

Some thoughts on naming your business

A common theme I've noticed when freelancers name their business is the name is too long--way, way, way too long.

People want a name that describes what business they're in. I get it. I make websites and logos. My business's name is Pixel Riot.

People also want an available website domain for their business name. Also, reasonable.

The problem is when the business name gets so long, it hurts the logo's composition and makes it difficult to fit anywhere. The same goes for a long website address.

Shorter is better.

Your business name doesn't have to be so short that it falls into abstract territory, like a computer company named after a fruit. But it also shouldn't work so hard at describing your business that the name reads like a whole sentence.

Entity name vs. DBA #

Perhaps you're worried that your chosen name might be unavailable and the federal government will hunt you down in the middle of the night if you try registering it. And honestly, maybe they will. I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. Check your state laws.

But you should know there's a difference between the name on your logo and your checks.

Your entity name is how the state recognizes your business. You'll use your entity name to open a bank account, and it's what you'll see on your first check from a client.

Your Doing Business As or DBA goes on your marketing materials like your website, business card, and logo.

As far as I'm aware (again, check your state's laws), your entity name and DBA can be different.

For example, my company's legal name is Pixel Riot Marketing Agency Augusta, LLC*. My company's DBA is simply Pixel Riot. I submitted a super long entity name to the state to reduce my chance of choosing an unavailable name, and the state subsequently rejecting my LLC application.

There are websites where you can check if your name is already in use. Here's one.

Conclusion #

In short— descriptive name good, long name not so good. Do your best to find a happy medium. Or, go bold with it and name your business Pomegranate.

In a future post, we'll explore the various logo types. I'll try to remember to include a section with special design considerations for a long-ass business name. All of which you can avoid if you choose a short DBA.

Helpful resources: #

*I changed up my legal name for this post because it felt weird to post that information publicly.

Write the worst brand identity anyone has ever written

2023-10-03T00:00:00Z

Write the worst brand identity anyone has ever written

Take it from the king of shitty first drafts— no one ever has to know.

Our previous series post identified three objectives for your logo design project. You can read that post first for more context if you're just joining us.

Today, we'll discuss how to identify some key aspects of your business's "brand identity" so you can offer some guidance to your logo designer.

Your brand's identity before the logo design

Listen, you really should write up some thoughts on your brand's identity and purpose. It'll save you time, stress, and maybe even some cash. At a minimum, you'll need to share what your business does, what it sells, and a couple matters of tone and vibe to your logo designer (and everyone else for the rest of your life).

I know, I know. Sitting down to a blank computer screen, expecting to make a wholly remarkable brand out of thin air, is not what dreams are made of. I'll let you off the hook a bit and tell you that you won't get it right the first time. Hell, you probably won't get it right the fifth time. I sure didn't. But you have to start somewhere, sometime. How about right here and now with something small?

Let's take 30 minutes and get that first drivel out of the way. You'll likely learn something about your business you didn't know before. And when your designer asks you their discovery questions, you won't have to start with a blank screen.

I took the liberty of writing out some fun prompts that'll help you gain insight into your business without dying of boredom.

Answer the following questions as sloppily and long-winded as you can make it:

The most annoying family member just cornered you at a holiday dinner and asked, "So, what does your company do?" How do you respond truthfully without encouraging follow-up questions?

The New York Transit Authority called. You just won a free advertisement on the E train. How serious is your ad's tone on a scale from Vitamin Water to the CDC?

Follow up: Which typeface do you use? Times New Roman, Helvetica, or something fun like Lobster?

Side note: don't use lobster font for your logo. This is just an exercise, you weirdo.

You're setting your business up on a blind date (stay with me). What companies do you think your business would be into?

Now you need to buy your business an outfit for its date. Would you shop in the men's or women's department? Or something more androgynous?

Oprah called. She will buy one of every service or product you offer on grand opening day. Write out a list for her.

Write some thoughts down. Set it aside. Come back with fresh eyes and start a new draft.

Conclusion #

This article was initially going to outline a few core concepts that will meet the three objectives from the previous post. A thousand words in, I realized that the entire series is about meeting those three objectives. Isolating a few concepts into a single article became increasingly difficult. I kept adding sections until I was dipping into future posts I've outlined. So, I backed up a bit and limited this post to a single concept— communication.

Conceptually, communicating clearly to your stakeholders is the best way to meet any objective. In the matter of logo design, that would be to your designer. Most experienced graphic designers will ask a client some discovery questions. These questions are designed to help them understand your needs, wants, and sensibilities toward design.

The longer you have to mull over the answers, the better you will be at communicating your vision.

Later in the series, we'll discuss the various logo "types" and why you can choose any one so long as it's the one I recommend.

Three objectives for your logo design

2023-10-02T00:00:00Z

Three objectives for your logo design

You're starting a new freelance business. You're excited. You're motivated. You're — oh no. You need a logo! Where do you start?

Start here.

This article will be part of a series called How to Commission a Logo Design: a Guide for Non-Designers (working title).

Unless you're starting a graphic design business, you probably have little experience with project managing a new logo. This series aims to show you how to do that using straightforward logo design principles, so you end up with a logo that meets your needs.

Today, we're identifying your objectives, or goals, for your new freelance logo. There are only three of them.

“Fight against the ugliness” — Lella & Mossimo Vignelli

Your three logo design objectives: #

Your logo fits neatly in a social media profile photo.
Your logo's design holds up on a black and white invoice.
Your logo can fit on a horizontal business card above a tagline.

That's it? That's it.

Should your logo look cool? Sure. Should it pop? Fine. But those metrics are hard to measure. This is “Three Objectives…” not “Three Subjectives…”

Also, don't get too caught up in whether or not you'll have a social media account or black-and-white invoices. These objectives are simply measures that are indicative of good design.

Let's take a closer look at the objectives: #

If your logo fits neatly on a social media profile photo, that means it looks good and is identifiable on a small scale. If it looks good small, that means your logo can adapt to different mediums.

This is important because your logo will appear in many places with varying sizes, from mobile websites to billboards (if we're lucky).

“Logos survive because they can adapt to countless formats.” — Sagi Haviv

If your logo retains its design on a black-and-white invoice, that means it can be used monochromatically. If your logo can be presented in just black or just white, it can identify your business in different mediums and contexts.

This is important because full color may not always be preferable or even an option. You need a design you can present in one color when necessary.

“Simplicity, carried to an extreme, becomes elegance.” — Jon Franklin

If your logo can fit on a traditional business card above a tagline, that means a couple of things:

First, it means your logo is also horizontal, or you have a horizontal version of your logo (more on this tomorrow). If you have a horizontal logo (as opposed to stacked), that means your logo is easy to incorporate in various design grids.

This is important because often, marketing materials designate a space for your logo in a row, not a column. Think website navigation, flyer footers, and business cards.

Second, it means your logo doesn't have frivolous information baked into the design, like the year established or a catchphrase. If it doesn't have those things, it means your logo is symbolizing, not selling; punctuating, not speaking.

This is important because logos that attempt to inform or sell will lose all sorts of adaptability and scaling. Your logo won't be legible when small, and you'll find you have less control over your marketing messages.

On one side of your business card, you should have your logo front and center, with a one sentence description of your business. With a "tall" logo, you lose the ability to increase its size without the business card feeling crowded. With a logo that already includes a tagline, you lose control over the placement and sizing of the tagline.

You also may not need a tagline with your logo in some instances. You can always add one, but its hard to remove elements permenently set in your logo.

“A logo does not sell, it identifies.” — Paul Rand

The exception proves the rule #

I present this information and will continue offering future related tips in this series, as a matter of fact. Not because it's the only way to do things, but because I'm making two big assumptions.

One, your business doesn't require you to be famed logo designer Saul Bass; therefore, you have little experience with logo design. Two, you don't have a quarter million dollars in the budget for your brand identity. (If you do, please email me.)

And thats totally cool. You probably won't need logo design experience past your own project.

New freelancers sometimes get too caught up in their logo's design. They place too much or too little importance on its role, spend too much or too little money on a design that doesn't work for them, overlook filetypes they need, or one of countless other common pitfalls I've seen in my years of logo design project management.

This guide is a clear path to a successful logo project that will result in a versatile logo and get you through your first few years, at least.

Mind if I search your car

2023-10-02T00:00:00Z

Mind if I search your car

Reuters reporting on Meta's AI chatbot and the dataset the company used to train it:

Meta also did not use private chats on its messaging services as training data for the model and took steps to filter private details from public datasets used for training, said Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg, speaking on the sidelines of the company's annual Connect conference this week.

Emphasis mine

This is a neat little trick. A reasonable reader, or someone not completely cynical, may think the term "private chat" just means chats, which are private in nature.

But Facebook / Meta doesn't believe chats are inherently private. Privacy is an opt-in feature on Messenger. You must explicitly switch on the end-to-end encryption. Only then will Meta agree to keep out of your user data.

From Facebook's help center:

A secret conversation in Messenger is encrypted end to end, which means the messages are intended just for you and the other person - not anyone else, including us.

So, when Nick Clegg, Meta's President of Global Affairs, goes on record to say the company's AI doesn't train on "private chats," it reads like a benign statement. But, it's impossible to decipher how Clegg is using the term— as an adjective, or part of a noun with a precise technical meaning.

It's possible that the term belongs to Reuters, as "private chat" isn't directly quoted. But I find that to be a weird liberty for a journalist to take in a published interview.

Okay, I know it sounds like I'm splitting hairs but, in five years when an exposé breaks, and Zuck is invited to another congressional hearing over privacy concerns, that phrasing gives him an out.

Zuck can be like "we didn't mean private, we meant Private™. Then some congressperson with a hundred grand in Meta stock can throw up their hands and be like "who's to say, case closed."

I know of at least one other situation where this type of wordplay occurs.

Ever been pulled over by a cop and they ask "mind if I search your car?" They specifically ask like this because you're likely to respond with "yes" or "no." And because of the way the question is phrased, both potential answers can imply consent to search.

"Mind if I search your car?" "No."

You may've meant "no you can't search my car," but a cop can argue to a judge that they thought you meant "no, I don't mind." The reverse is true with the answer yes. "Yes I mind" and "yes I give you consent" are both plausible interpretations.

It's a neat little trick.

When exactly is Email Forgiveness Day?

2023-10-01T00:00:00Z

When exactly is Email Forgiveness Day?

I remember it being April 30th. In fact, I'm sure of it. But, Gimlet Media, the company that produced the podcast where the holiday was invented says Email Forgiveness Day is September 30th. Today.

Gimlet is the first on the search results for the phrase "Email Forgiveness Day." The second is this website that has what appears to be a direct quote from Alex Goldman (one of the inventors of the holiday):

If there’s an email response you’ve wanted to send but been too anxious to send, you can send it on September 30th, without any apologies or explanations for all the time that has lapsed. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been. Just include a link to this explainer, the one you’re reading right now, so that your recipient knows what’s going on. Together, we can all make our inboxes less stressful.

Emphasis their's.

The attribution then links back to the Gimlet page, which doesn't mention Goldman at all.

I am vaguely aware of the Reply All controversy a couple years back. Could that have something to do with it? I don't know enough to have an opinion. But, changing the date seemingly without acknowledging it seems ~~weird~~ . I'll go with thoughtless.

Below the first and second search results are pages of old articles referencing the April 30th date for Email Forgiveness Day.

Which day is it? I need to be forgiven.

On the old web

2023-10-01T00:00:00Z

On the old web

I stayed up late last night searching for the "old web"— personal homepages, digital gardens, manifestos, guides— the type of stuff FAANG buried under algorithms and shiny interfaces.

And boy, did I find some stuff.

The old web is alive and, well, its alive at least. I have a bucket-full of bookmarks I have to sort through but, I'd like to post them here soon, under some undecided context.

Update: this is now a growing list of sites from the old web.

Various sites from the old web #

Some of these sites haven't been updated in decades, some are still updated regularly.

There was Tigerden's Big Page of Furry Links, which delivers exactly what it promises (I wouldn't click on the links in that list, though. The site is twenty years old, who knows where those URLs go to now).
There's the Project Xanadu page from the folks who invented the concept of hyperlinks (jump-links to them). They're snarky and stubborn in their philosophy. I love it. Here's a 1995 article from Wired about their story titled The Curse of Xanadu. Good read.
Stinkymeat— A well documented three week prank.
Internet Explorer is Evil— haven't read the entire site but I vibe with its premise. Wonder though if sites like this were a precursor to the Bill Gates micro-chip conspiracy theories?
The Internet Pizza Server is a charming little oddity. Here's the pizza I ordered with pepperoni, green peppers, and fingers.
A forum discussing 9/11 as it was happening. Eerie and surreal stuff. "I was on the "E" Train, which heads straight into the WTC, only seconds before the crash, when I decided to switch to the "R" Train (which avoids the WTC). I would probably still be stuck on the train now, and for hours afterwards."
The LoserUsers— I can't make heads or tails on what this site is in reference to.

Special Interests #

Lost Parks— a page dedicated to all of Florida's lost tourist attractions. Started in 1997 and was updated as recent as 2015 from what I can tell
A brief history of Psychological Operations from a Desert Storm Vet. A fascinating read. I couldn't find any mention of the internet as an effective medium for PSYOPs, to give you an idea how old the site is.
"Weird Al" Yankovic Homepage

Guides & Tutorials #

Detailed instructions for accomplishing something.

DIY Cellphone is a guide that literally shows you how to make your own cellphone, by a couple of MIT folks.
An old HTML Tutorial from Stanford with a fun writing voice. "...we'll share what we've learned over the months in the School of Hard Knocks. Of course, everything we tried worked...NOT!!"
Cold Water Reactor
The SECRET Guide to Computers

Digital Repositories, Collections, & Archives #

Writings, graphics, gifs, and other things made of 1s and 0s from the old web.

Iconology
Hacked Sites
Complete Review— A Literary Saloon and Site Review
Ascii Art Dictionary from Andreas Freise
Lies, Damn Lies & ICQ Messages

Vintage Digital Gardens #

Personal homepages from the old internet dedicated to documenting their lives, experiences, and interests.

Contact me about this list #

How to reach me.

If a listing is harmful: While I always poke around, I haven't thoroughly reviewed all of the sites listed. If you see something listed you think is harmful, please contact me so I can remove it.

If you have an addition: I can't promise I'll add everything submitted, but I welcome contributions!

If you want your site removed: If your site is listed and you want it removed, let me know. I'll be happy to remove it.

If a link is broken: If you come across a broken link, let me know.

that look lion

2023-09-30T00:00:00Z

You've been visited by
‍that-look lion.

Someone at the bar explaining the nuanced differences between long-form and short-form improv? That-Look Lion will shoot you over, well, that look. You'll get just the right amount of validation to remedy that deep discomfort.

All That-Look Lion asks is you send this page to 10 people so they, too, may roll their eyes at a theatre kid with a trusted friend.

If you don't send this page to 10 people, That-Look Lion will gaslight you. Hard. They'll give you that look for nice things, like when your dad hugs you. Trust me, it may not sound so bad, but that look eventually burrows into your soul.

shame fish

2023-09-30T00:00:00Z

You've been visited by
‍shame fish.

Shame Fish will wipe away one embarrassing memory from your brain. No more, no less.

All Shame Fish asks is you send this page to 10 people so that they may enjoy the magic wonders of Shame Fish.

If you do not send this page to 10 people, you'll force Shame Fish to remind you of five embarrassing moments you forgot about. Good luck sleeping tonight.

photog phil

2023-09-30T00:00:00Z

You've been visited by
‍photog phil.

Photog Phil will never let you take a bad picture again. Photog Phil knows your good side. He has a lighting kit in the trunk and he never forgets to set his iPhone to portrait mode.

All Photog Phil asks is you send this page to 10 other people so they may also receive compliments like "You're so photogenic!” Unless you don't want that (haha wink).

Anyway, if you don't forward this to 10 people, Photog Phil will kill your family. Thought I was gonna say something like, "Oh, you'll take bad photos for the rest of your life,” or something, right? Nope. Photog Phill is fucked up, man. I've seen him do it.

irate ivan

2023-09-30T00:00:00Z

You've been visited by
‍irate ivan.

Irate Ivan has a knack for working those dreaded customer service calls you've been putting off. Want to cancel your Hims subscription? Need to speak with a CVS pharmacist? How about asking your husband for a divorce? Irate Ivan will handle it all for you with grace.

All Irate Ivan asks is you send this page to 10 people so they may utilize Irate Ivan's god-given gift of gab.

If you do not send this page to 10 people, you'll force Irate Ivan to text political donation solicitations to your phone every day, each more desperate than the last, for the rest of your life. No replying "STOP” to get out of this one.

drunk baby

2023-09-30T00:00:00Z

You've been visited by
drunk baby.

Drunk Baby tells you the truth. Not pulling off that new septum ring? Does your breath stink after lunch? Drunk Baby will give it to you straight.

All Drunk Baby asks is you send this page to 10 people so that they, too, may avoid the accusation of millennialism. Trust me, you're not free because you're cringe. People are writing NYT think-pieces about you.

If you do not send this page to 10 people, Drunk Baby will pretend like everything's cool, at first. Then, when you least expect it, Drunk Baby will betray you. Oh, it won't be the first or even the fortieth time. But one day, when you have long forgotten, and the stakes couldn't be higher, Drunk Baby will let you leave the house with a cum stain on your shirt. Have a great first date.

Yuck Leopard

2023-09-30T00:00:00Z

You've been visited by
‍yuck leopard.

Did a creep just offer to buy you a drink? Yuck Leopard will casually walk by with a perfectly timed "yuck,” just loud enough for them to hear it.

All Yuck Leopard asks is you send this page to 10 people so they, too, can cause psychological harm to people who quote Andrew Tate unirioncially.

If you don't send this page to 10 people, Yuck Leopard will confess their love for you five years into your platonic friendship. And when you reject their advances, Yuck Leopard will start posting Coldplay song lyrics to their Threads. And not new, pop-y Coldplay either. Parachutes Coldplay. The real depressing shit.

On digital gardening

2023-09-28T00:00:00Z

On digital gardening

When I stumbled on the concept of digital gardens, it lit up my brain^[1]. It gave me a framework for something I've long tried (and failed) to accomplish with my previous blogs.

My failures weren't always related to technical limitations. Though, I see now how chronological order blogs can stifle creative exploration.

The phrase "digital garden" is a metaphor for thinking about writing and creating that focuses less on the resulting "showpiece" and more on the process, care, and craft it takes to get there. —My blog is a digital garden, not a blog by Joel Hooks

It had more to do with a lack of permission to post anything that wasn't a stellar 1,500 word think-piece. The idea of retroactively altering my post almost felt deceptive, or even criminal. It was as if my words were evidence to a crime, and the Twitter police would break my door down if I tampered with it.

Now that I have permission, and a solid framework, my vision for this project is clear, and I'm excited to get started.

I do worry that my ADHD brain will get caught up in too much "pruning" and not enough "planting".

I'd like to get rhythm going for my garden— plant-plant-prune, plant-plant-prune.

Three phases for my notebook entries: #

Note: my initial knee-jerk thoughts on a subject.
Concept: a more polished and intentional write-up, with research any additional developments since my note.
Essay: An exhaustive exploration on the subject. Maybe with graphics and illustrations.
Dead: Maybe a different, less ominous word. For a "dead" note I could even have a "petition to revive" in the form of comments or direct emails. Oh, I like this.

Structure inspired by Maggie Appleton's Garden.

Do I keep the same page for all three phases, or start a new page and link to it?

Some unstructured thoughts on structure #

I'm going all in with write.as for my digital garden. There are some obvious limitations (bi-directional linking, categorizing, etc.) but that's part of the appeal.

I'd like a way to distinguish my external and internal hyperlinks. I think it'll keep the reader oriented. Using CSS and JavaScript for different colors seems like a potential solution.

Inspirations: #

https://blog.erlend.sh/communal-bonfires https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history http://www.eastgate.com/garden/Enter.html https://stackingthebricks.com/how-blogs-broke-the-web/

Bookmarks #

I made a public bookmark collection for Digital Gardens on Raindrop.io where I'll add anything I find interesting.

I will expand on this soon. Also, made this ref just to test the ref feature for 11ty and markdown. ↩︎

Just one more technology bro I promise bro

2023-09-15T00:00:00Z

Just one more technology bro I promise bro

just one more technology and the world will be a better place, bro, for you and for me, bro.

From How a startup full of ex-iPhone talent is trying to make phones obsolete:

Humane is trying to realize the promise of “ambient computing” — an artificial intelligence-driven computing experience that’s personal and contextual — by building a software platform and hardware line that doesn’t rely on screens.

Go on...

Humane was founded by Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri, ex-Apple employees who played major roles in the creation of both the iPhone and iPad.

Two ex-Apple employees who want to make a (presumably) better AI assistant than Siri? Okay, I'm listening...

At Humane, their stated goal is building technology that's “familiar, natural, and human,” betters the human experience, and is “born from good intentions.” The company believes “we all deserve more from technology,”

Here it comes...

Chaudhri also stresses that Humane is focused on “trust and privacy from day zero.” You should have control over what your technology knows, “your data should be owned by you and only you.”

Oh, fuck off lol.

I'm so tired of the "better tomorrow" promise from snazzy tech start-ups. These "privacy from day zero" promises cannot be kept in the longterm. Not if they want VC funding. Not if they want to go public. Not if they build their empire on techno-capitalism.

But please, continue.

the company is building screen-free ambient computing hardware, and a platform for it to run on, possibly with Android as a starting point...

El Em Motherfucking Aye Oh.

Emphasis mine.

He killed something beautiful

2023-08-23T00:00:00Z

He killed something beautiful

You know how when you push down on your feed, it refreshes? Twitter's design team invented that feature. They invented it; something so ubiquitous and elegant you don't even think about it.

Twitter was one of the first social media companies to brand user interactions within the platform— tweets, retweets, hashtags— that was all Twitter's wildly inventive dev team.

Twitter's user interface is so incredibly well-structured, with such a strong design language, that it feels as natural as the multi-touch screen it lives in. Companies, to this day, shamelessly copy everything Twitter does.

When mobile websites started gaining popularity in the early 2010s, Twitter released Bootstrap, one of the first responsive front-end frameworks, for free. Today, millions of websites are built on Bootstrap because how well structured it is. I learned how to code using Bootstrap and I still use it often.

Twitter has one of the best logos ever created. It’s iconic in its simplicity and thoughtfulness. It was one of the first to consider mobile interfaces, designed to be recognizable no matter the size.

All this to say, to watch the brand fall victim to the antithesis of good design is gut-wrenching. I can't think of a worse death for the bird app. Elon bought something beautiful, and his instinct was to destroy it. It almost feels as if he's punishing it for achieving something he could never have achieved on his own— good taste and measured execution. You wonder if the only reason he hasn't destroyed Tesla is because he has shareholders to tell him no.

I want Twitter to die. Not because of what it was, but because of what it has turned into. Twitter deserved a dignified death. Elon denied it that. He snuffed it out in the ugliest way possible.

Moderate Hikes Near Glacier National Park With Stunning Views beautiful

2021-09-20T00:00:00Z

Moderate Hikes Near Glacier National Park With Stunning Views beautiful

It's tricky to gauge if you’ll be comfortable on a trail when looking at labels like “easy,” “moderate,” or “difficult.” And even harder when you try applying those labels to the hiker. Am I a moderate-level hiker? If you compare me to dudes that hike up a mountain for two days, then no. I am a beginner at best. But, compared to other “day hikers,” those who hike 10-mile loops, then yeah, I would say I am in the moderate range.

I can hike about 10 miles on mostly flat ground before I get cranky. If the elevation gain is greater than 1,500, that distance drops down to about 6 miles. If we’re talking 2,000 feet of elevation gain, I'm complaining pretty much from mile two.

Now that you know what kind of day hiker I am, here are a few hikes around Glacier National Park that were in my comfort zone or just out of it.

Check it: always check to see if a trail is open. Nature doesn't care about our plans. Harsh weather, bear activity, and time of year can close all or part of a trail. I like to use the AllTrails app or the National Park Service website to check on the status of a trail.

Lion Mountain Trail #

2.6 miles | 351 ft | Loop

The effort-to-payoff ratio for this trail is in your favor. I hiked Lion Mountain Trail in Whitefish, MT (30 minutes from Glacier) to get used to the elevation and to get those hiking muscles working again after the long drive from Atlanta, GA. The view of the lake is beautiful. I even found a piece of free art at the top.

Check it: this trail is dusty af. Don't wear your good boots unless you want to clean them after.

Danny On Trail #

7.2 miles | 2,034 ft | Out-and-back

This trail was a challenge. I foolishly assumed that the 7.2 miles of this out-and-back trail accounted for both out and back. Turns out, it's just out. Two things made this hike worth it — the views and the wild huckleberries I ate along the way. Okay, three things. The ski lift I was able to take back down the mountain saved my day from disaster.

There's a bar and restaurant at the summit so, if you're reading this post-covid (if that will ever exist), have a beer for me.

Check it: The elevation for this trail is not easy. No shame in taking the ski lift down, like I did. I can't remember the cost but wasn't too bad. Maybe like 10-15 bucks. Honestly I would've paid a hundred.

Hidden Lake Trail #

5.3 miles | 1,374 ft | Out-and-back

There's a reason why this trail is popular. The views are incredible from start to finish, and there's a good chance you'll see some wildlife. I was lucky enough to spot a Ram on the mountains and a mountain goat grazing just a few feet from me. The trail was closed from the lake overlook on due to bear activity when I was there. But, I didn't feel like I missed out. It was one of my favorite hikes.

Check it: Parking can be a challenge at Logan Pass Visitor Center (where the trailhead is located). I had better luck early evening, around 4-5pm than the mornings.

Wildhorse Island #

This one will take a bit of planning to get there. But don't worry, I'll show you what you need to know.

The aptly named Wildhorse Island sits in Flathead Lake, about 40 miles south of Whitefish, MT. The goal of this hike is to find wildlife. So, be a little flexible with your trail but still be mindful of your surroundings, location, and time.

This day trip was one of the first times I can remember feeling genuinely amazed; like damn, I’m here in the Wild West looking at fucking goats, and, of course, wild horses.

It’s about an hour's drive to get to the lake from Whitefish (1hr 30min from West Glacier). There, you can take a boat, rented or chartered, to the island. I opted to pay $40 for Boat Rentals and Rides to boat me to shore and pick me up 3 hours later (again, be mindful of your time). The boat rental place is right on Flathead Lake. It’s about a 15-minute ride from shore to shore.

Check it: You'll want to make sure you book a few days in advance. The further out, the better as the boats tend to fill up days in advance.

Boat Rentals and Rides ‭+1 (406) 260-5090‬
Google Maps: 44227 A St, Big Arm, MT 59910
Apple Maps: 44227 A St, Big Arm, MT 59910

Here's a full list of the trails mentioned (minus Wildhorse, follow instructions above) with directions, reviews, and other important info: Trails Under 10 Miles Near Glacier National Park #

Do you have any favorite hikes near Glacier National Park? Hit me up anytime. I’m interested in hearing from you.

My email | @jasondotgov

Encinitas, California

2021-05-23T00:00:00Z

Encinitas, California

The air is sweet on Neptune Avenue. Blooming Star Jasmine and gnarled cacti creep through my senses as I start my ascent up the pedestrian-friendly road. A man carrying a surfboard approaches. He leaves a damp trail behind him. I give a faint wave hello, but he keeps forward, too exhausted from a day of surfing to notice me. I don’t take it too personally, though. The vibe here is decidedly carefree, and I’m helplessly infected by it^[1].

As I pass my third Mercedes Sprinter Van, I fantasize about living life off capital gains. The road levels off, and a neat line of ocean interrupts the chaotic row of architecture. I’m at the top of the bluff. I peak down and over the railing and spot a gaggle of surfers lying on their boards. It’s a fascinating lifestyle, but I’m entirely uninterested in participating. There are easier ways to catch a rush that doesn’t involve another knee injury. Perhaps, something with a chile-salted rim.

Slightly winded, I arrive at my destination— a deceivingly modest-looking beach house with a side entrance. I ring the doorbell twice, wondering if I’m heard over the cracking waves. A moment passes, and a large smile and open arms greet me. It’s Lori. She’s spent the past five months working remotely here in Encinitas and is happy to have a new visitor. I am also pleased to be here, among friends. I step into the living room and to my left, three wide open glass doors and a hundred miles of ocean. To my right, a masterful group of digital nomads— two FAANG employees and one business owner. They know how to unearth a visiting city’s gems, and I’m prepared to submit my time to their expertise.

A crisp breeze brushes over my sweaty face. “What do we have to drink?” I ask optimistically. Another moment passes, and a warm wave of local, organic tequila finally crashes through my body. I have arrived in Southern California. Must find tacos.

Surfhouse #

A short walk back down the bluff is the Surfhouse— a boutique motel that caters to visiting surfers and, also, me. Sun-bleached slabs of wood line the 15-room, two-story building with large numbers painted on each door. I’m in room one.

The accommodations are clean and spacious. A small kitchenette and closet fill the wall in front of me. A queen-sized bed sits under a pop of teal and faces a mounted TV that feels slightly too big for the room. A seafoam green barn door reveals the bathroom with a glass partition between the toilet and shower. Beach pebbles and mortar surround the drain. It’s all very cute and charming.

Nectarine Grove / Coffee Coffee #

As you may have guessed, life in Encinitas is Enci-expensive-as-fuck. The Surfhouse is a good option if you’re unwilling or unable to spend a couple grand on an Airbnb. There is no getting around the $7 cold brews at the cafes on either side of the motel, however. Take it all in stride. The paleo pancakes at Nectarine Grove are fluffy and delicious. I don’t even mind the gluten-free label. I just defiantly slather on more syrup. The coffee and pastries at Coffee Coffee really hit the spot on my first jet-lagged morning. Try the danish if you’re into that sort of thing. If you’re not, I no longer trust you and ask that you immediately stop reading this. Both Nectarine Grove and Coffee Coffee are just a few hundred feet from Surfhouse.

Side note: The barista at Coffee Coffee was kind enough to offer me a cold brew as they were closing on my first day in town. She saved my life. I’ll never forget you, person.

Stone Brewing World Bistro & Garden #

After a short hike around Lake Hodges, we head fifteen minutes south to the Stone Brewery in Escondido. The aroma of musty yeast sludges through our nostrils as we approach the building. We’re early to our reservation by an hour, and the host offers up the gift shop as a waiting room. We politely decline. Instead, we use our time responsibly and grab a beer down the road. These are prime drinking hours, after all. We’ll be back.

Upon our return, the high industrial ceilings lead us to open sky and round tables. A lush garden dances seductively, hoping to distract us from the beating our wallets are about to take. I order a light-bodied lager instead of the brewery’s flagship IPA. It’s the type of bullshit move waiters snicker at, equal to ordering your steak well-done at a fancy steak house. For dinner, I go with the Asian spicy noodle dish. It was unremarkable. This, again, is entirely on me. I should’ve ordered the burger. Real pub food. No one has ever said, “be sure to order the Asian dish at that brewery with outdoor garden seating.”

Please don’t make my mistakes. Personal missteps aside, I enjoyed my time at Stone Brewery. Have a couple of tasty beers with a few great friends. Exit through the gift shop.

The Taco Stand #

My toxic trait is I prefer hardshell tacos over soft. I’ll eat a soft taco because that’s what society demands of me, but I’m no fool. Softshell tacos are nothing more than open-face burritos.

In record time, I wash down my second tostada with an ice-cold Coke. The hard shell plate is stacked high with crisp carnitas, fresh onion, cilantro, and a creamy lime sauce. There’s a bit of mango in there somewhere, giving just the right amount of sweetness to its savory surroundings. The Taco Stand feels like a hidden gem but, is in fact, a regional chain with five locations in Southern California. This isn’t Chili’s, though. The food at The Taco Stand holds its own and I’m grateful to have experienced it.

Other Stuff #

Here’s a Google Map List of everything mentioned in this post.

Food #

Corner Pizza: ‘The Killer Bee’ is prepared with pepperoni and drizzled honey. Get drunk first.

Leucadia Liquor: Just down the road from Surfhouse. I bought the tequila I had tried on my first day at this liquor store. The brand is Solento Organic Tequila.

Richard Walker’s Pancake House: A popular breakfast spot located in the Marina District of Downtown San Diego. Order the baked pancakes if you have nothing else to do that day. You won’t be able to walk it off. Source: trust me.

Puesto: A trendy restaurant with good margaritas and ambitious taco creations. Located in Ja Holla near
Windan Sea Beach.

Herb & Sea: Fine dining in Downtown Encinitas. We saved this spot for my last day in town. The cocktails are out of this world. The food is surprising and delicious.

Cali Cream: Tasty ice cream in downtown Encinitas. They are generous with their scoops.

Pannikin Coffee & Tea: Iced latte and a big blueberry scone. I wish I spent more time here.

French Corner: I didn’t get a chance to stop at this cafe, but it does come recommended. If you go, let me know what you think of it.

Birdseye Kitchen: Get the pork belly.

Shopping #

Gaslamp Quarter: We just passed by this commerce area. There seemed to a lot going on, booze-wise.

Vuori: Popular athleisure wear store in Downtown Encinitas. I almost bought a pair of shorts.

Outdoor Activities #

Lake Hodges Overlook Trail: Tried to earn those margaritas with a hike.

Annie’s Canyon Trail: I didn’t get to do this hike, but it looks like a good time. Instagram-able.

Windansea Beach: Why doesn’t anyone have a COVID body in this dumb town? Good beach for the sun.

Grandview Beach: Popular spot for surfing, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Children’s Pool La Jolla: Check out some seals and sea lions. They smell bad but are cute. I have no idea why this beach is named Children’s Pool. It’s a whole-ass ocean.

Self-Care #

Fairmont Grand Del Mar: This is a total splurge of a spa day at a beautiful resort. After our massage, we spent the day by the pool. The staff is so attentive you’ll feel important.

Torry Holistics: I’m not saying you should bring weed gummies back with you on the plane. Just that the California TSA doesn’t seem to care.

Clean Green Patient Services: Another weed spot. This one has delivery for $10 with a $60 minimum.

Revive Spa: B12 shot for happiness.

After a few days of overcast, the sun reappears. It’s my last day in Southern California. We head over to Children’s Pool Beach and check out the seals and sea lions. A few are flopping around on the rocks, but most take the opportunity to soak up the sun. I spot one seal lying remarkably still. I stare at him. “Is he dead?” I ask. A young boy walking by shoots me a look of concern, then continues on. Three minutes pass. No movement. Five, maybe seven minutes later, and still not even a rise of the chest. We’re now concerned, and I’m thinking of who, if anyone, I should call. A vet? The zoo? I am unprepared for this. Just then, a seagull pokes the seal in the belly, and the seal pops up. Whew, I thought. “You scared us, dude!” I give him a wave, but he ignores me and flops back down onto the rock. That will be the last time I wave to anyone without a shirt on.

If you have questions or want to give me a shout, hit me up on my Instagram. I’d love to hear from you. Thank you for spending time with me. Talk with you soon.

This is a test footnote. ↩︎

The Bradfordville Blues Club

2021-05-21T00:00:00Z

The Bradfordville Blues Club

It’s been ten years since I was here last. It was during my intense love affair with Adderall, so I doubt I remember many details. Just vibes. Very, very focused vibes.

I remember how cool I felt at this funky little blues club in the middle of the Tallahassee forest. I drank cheap beer and listened romantically to one of America’s best exports. Oh, I bet I was smug about it too. I was in the know, after all.

The Bradfordville Blues Club is what some might call unassuming. I think it makes a whole bunch of assumptions, though, like people's ability to find the place:

Head north on Bradfordville Road from Tallahassee. When you see a lit tiki torch, turn left. Don't let the thick brush and the general feeling of doom deter you. This is the place. Continue down the dirt road for a half mile until you hear the music. When you approach a drab grey cabin, find a parking spot.

Three mossy oaks surround the central area, which consists of a stout cinderblock structure with an outdoor stage and seating area (bring your own lawn chair). Sprawled strings of light hover above the crowd and convene center stage. The crowd, I think to myself. There's a lot of older white folks here. More than I recall the last time. It's giving Cheeseburger in Paradise. Perhaps I'm just a forty-year-old lost in his own projections. But, I don't feel as cool as I did when I was here last; I feel a little less "in the know." The forest is sparse now, and I can clearly see a new subdivision behind the stage.

Tonight’s featured guest is The Sauce Boss. He and his band are halfway through the first song when I arrive. Two large aluminum pots sit curiously on either side of the stage. One pot has a guitar poking out. The other is emitting smoke. Are they cooking on stage? I'm hungry.

To the far left, a small shack embraces the light from a bonfire. If I remember correctly, and I think I do, there’s fried catfish inside that shack. I take a quick inventory of my feelings and decide a drink is in order first.

I make a beeline to the club. There's a bar inside.

Tables and chairs are stacked near an empty stage— a reminder that this place struggles to keep the lights on during the pandemic. Portraits of important blues musicians cover the walls (I assume they're noteworthy. I'm a little rusty on my Blues history). At the bar, a handwritten sign reads “Bacon salt for the afflicted.” This is presumably an inside joke that I decide I'm a part of forever. After what feels like an eternity of waiting in line, I order a Yuengling and ask the bartender to keep the tab open. I then head back out towards that shack.

I join a second line for catfish. I immediately recognize the chef. She’s an older lady with short white hair and a round face. Maybe my memory’s not so bad after all. I don’t remember who I came with the last time, but I remember her. Ced, an old friend I reunite with later in the evening, astutely points out why I remember her. She fed me. And she’s about to do it again. Bless.

The fried fish sits on a bed of sliced bread, store-bought and doughy from the steam. The meal comes with a generous helping of thick-cut fries, too, prepared straight out of a Great Value bag and into a frier. None of this matters. The catfish is the star of the show. I plop down on a nearby picnic table and dig in. A man tosses a pallet into the bonfire, and I watch the flames dance with renewed vigor as I eat.

Man, there are a lot of white people here, I think to myself. Is that a bad thing? I’m unsure. I know little about the blues genre, except it is a Black art form born from an unsavory past. No one here, except for the men on the walls, the woman who served me catfish, and my friend Ced is Black. How much should I worry about this? I’m vibing right now. The music is great, the beer is cold, and I’m sure something's cooking in the big pot on stage.

The Bradfordville Blues Club feels more like a public service than a for-profit business. The establishment is now a landmark. An iron plaque inscribed with a historical blurb stands outside the club. No one here is getting rich, except maybe The Sauce Boss, who took the opportunity to hack some of his white-label hot sauce during intermission (I bought one). Tonight is a benefit concert to help keep the lights on and, in turn, maybe even help keep the blues alive. That’s a good thing, right? Even if what I fear I am watching is the Margaritaville-ification of Black art, it’s better than forgetting entirely...right? I turn to my friend Ced for answers since he apparently represents all Black people within a 20-mile radius. He shrugs. “I don’t know either,” he answers.

The show ends, and The Sauce Boss invites everyone up for a bowl of gumbo. I knew it. The Sauce Boss can shred a guitar and cook a mean pot of stew. Okay, so maybe sitting on a lawn chair with a belly full of food and Yuengling isn’t what Muddy Waters had in mind when he sang Standing Around Crying. Maybe The Sauce Boss is closer related to Jimmy Buffet than Jimi Hendrix. And perhaps the last time I was here, I was a little less sensitive to cultural appropriation. But this was fun, and I hope the Brandfordville Blues Club lives on as one of the historic stops on the Chitlin’ Circuit. The blues is worth preserving, even by imperfect protectors... right?

Update: I wrote this piece in 2020. Since then, it appears The Bradfordville Blues Club has permanently closed its doors and only offers streamed shows from its Facebook page. This is sad news. I'm glad I got to visit one last time.

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