manton.org - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

iOS will have new APIs for getting the age of a user. Sarah Perez writing at TechCrunch: "It puts Apple in the position of collecting kids’ ages via parental input but still puts the onus on the third-party developer to extract and us... https://www.manton.org/2025/02/27/ios-will-have-new-apis.html

submitted 20 hours ago • 0 comments

Love an old train station getting a new life. Bloomberg article from a couple months ago, about the station in Detroit with new office space and green space: "But the main attraction is still the 18-story tower, designed by the sam... https://www.manton.org/2025/02/27/love-an-old-train-station.html

submitted 22 hours ago • 1 comment

Nick Heer is impressed with Alexa+, except: "But there is no part of me that would ever want Alexa or any other voice-controlled assistant buying tickets to a show, or booking a vacation rental, or even buying groceries." I also... https://www.manton.org/2025/02/27/nick-heer-is-impressed-with.html

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

If you’re in town around SXSW, check out Fediverse House, a 2-day event hosted by Flipboard and Surf. Amazing lineup of folks including Mike McCue, Molly White, Evan Prodromou, and Paul Frazee. I’ll also be giving a short presentation during the developer meetup about Micro.blog and the fediverse.

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Many news sites and social networks have a headlines section for trending news. Maybe we need to take a hint from traditional newspapers and replace that with a high-profile “corrections” section that is just all the news that’s factually wrong with a summary of the truth.

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The measles outbreak here in Texas is such a sad reminder of the real harm of misinformation. So many little kids are in the ICU that it seems likely more will die. Tragic and preventable.

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I still want to do more with Open Library. Our app Epilogue can search and get covers from Open Library. But the database just isn’t complete enough and needs more apps to help users add and curate book metadata.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

When I added tracking what books you’re reading (and blogging about) to Micro.blog, I used ISBN as the identifier. Every once in a while that’s a problem, like my post today for a short story. I added it manually using the Goodreads ID with a “G” prefix. Not great but maybe a possible convention.

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There’s another lawsuit against Matt Mullenweg and Automattic, this time from a WP Engine customer. It seems to conflate the project code and the servers into a single “WordPress ecosystem”, but that’s not how open source works. The software can be totally free and companion services less free.

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Finished reading: Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent by Scott Lynch. Great to have another Gentleman Bastard story. Split into two parts in Grimdark Magazine. 📚

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Alexa+ pricing makes no sense. $20/month or free for Amazon Prime subscribers… Prime is $15/month. I can think of a few reasons to do it this way and none of them justify user confusion.

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I’m following the Verge’s live blog for the Alexa event. Amazon really should be leading in this space since they created the Echo out of nothing 10 years ago. Fun to re-read my first blog post about the Echo. Alexa+ will be a paid upgrade. Tim Cook is now wondering how he can charge for Siri too.

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Dave Winer: "People give Matt Mullenweg a lot of shit, but do they realize how hopeless the open web would be if he and his friends hadn’t kept it going for 20+ years." Fascinating to imagine what the web would look like if WordPress didn’t exist. What would fill the void, and would it be as open?

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Trying out Flashes, a photos app for Bluesky. On the surface feels similar to our Micro.blog companion app Sunlit. Lots of potential.

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Tried out ChatGPT Deep Research now that it’s on the less expensive plan. Don’t have a lot of use for it, but it’s super impressive as a tool you might take out every once in a while. I used it to dig into some background facts for a blog post.

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Scott Lynch in his newsletter: "I have decided to post every short story I’ve ever written (once rights exclusivity periods or other arrangements for them expire, for those that haven’t already) on my website, for free, in perp... https://www.manton.org/2025/02/25/scott-lynch-in-his-newsletter.html

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

HTTP content negotiation was a mistake. The perceived wins are always overshadowed by all the new problems. I’ve long thought a slimmed down ActivityPub without content negotiation and without JSON-LD would be so much nicer. Sorry folks! Controversial hot take but it’s true. 🤪

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Working on Open Graph: https://www.manton.org/2025/02/25/working-on-open-graph.html

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Congrats to John Siracusa on the release of his newest Mac app, Hyperspace: "There are plenty of Mac apps that will save disk space by finding duplicate files and then deleting the duplicates. Using APFS clones, my app could rec... https://www.manton.org/2025/02/25/congrats-to-john-siracusa-on.html

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Apple antagonism: https://www.manton.org/2025/02/24/apple-antagonism.html

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

A little quiet today but I got a lot done. Random debugging and wrapped up some new Open Graph plumbing which I’ll blog about tomorrow morning.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Two stories that feel loosely connected. First on NPR, highlighting a veteran in Alaska fired from the Small Business Administration. He was planning to finish his career with the government, now he’s losing sleep, worried about... https://www.manton.org/2025/02/24/two-stories-that-feel-loosely.html

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Finished reading: Empire of Exiles by Erin M Evans. This was excellent. Starts like a murder mystery set in a fantasy world, with unique magic. 📚

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

The new 5G router — which we knew would be a temporary solution until Google Fiber is sorted out — has a habit of going out every afternoon around 2-3pm. Just poof, no wi-fi for a little while, time to take a walk or read a book. Maybe random but it’s feeling like a pattern.

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Dave Winer is launching WordLand: "The goal is to bootstrap something new – a social network without all the problems of Twitter et al. Ultimately the limits they impose on writers are unacceptable. I’ve waited for them to f... https://www.manton.org/2025/02/23/dave-winer-is-launching-wordland.html

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

In addition to being a very good Micro.blog client, Micro Social also has pretty much all of the book features from our companion app Epilogue. I recorded a quick video playing around with it. https://www.manton.org/2025/02/23/in-addition-to-being-a.html

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Git scraping is a clever technique from Simon Willison to track changes to web pages by adding them to a repository. He’s using this to crawl the DOGE site.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Fiddling with improved Open Graph support for hosted blogs. I’ve never liked how most social platforms use Open Graph previews. Sometimes they’re great, sometimes they’re redundant, and sometimes they’re plastered over a timeline like ads. But bloggers need more control over this.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Almost whenever I run an alter table in MySQL, I think back to a conversation with Marco Arment at SXSW 15 years ago, about how Tumblr’s database was so big it was faster to add new tables instead of changing existing columns or indexes. MySQL has improved a lot since then.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Patrick Rhone: "We are not on the verge of a constitutional crisis, we are in the aftermath of one." Things are indeed dire. I’m focusing on the only thing I know how to contribute: helping people post on the web and discouraging t... https://www.manton.org/2025/02/22/patrick-rhone-we-are-not.html

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Federico Viticci on the products after the Vision Pro: "I may be stating the obvious here, but I fundamentally believe that headsets are a dead end and glasses are the ultimate form factor we should be striving for. […] Ther... https://www.manton.org/2025/02/21/federico-viticci-on-the-products.html

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

AI as a feedback machine: https://www.manton.org/2025/02/21/ai-is-good-for-editing.html Thinking about the effect of using ChatGPT to help get feedback on a blog post. Why the same traits that make it good for editing might make it worse for creating new content.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Letting go of Advanced Data Protection in the UK seems a reasonable compromise from Apple. If I’m going to nitpick anything in their statement: "Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption is more urgent th... https://www.manton.org/2025/02/21/letting-go-of-advanced-data.html

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Submitted another Micro.blog iOS bug fix update off to Apple for review. I’ve gotten much more consistent about keeping TestFlight betas up to date too. I think it’s making a difference.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Ben Werdmuller on the latest People & Blogs: "My site is my online identity; I write about things that I find interesting. That’s all I want it to be. It’s just me." Ben’s blog has become one of my favorites. Lately a mix of tech, politics, fediverse, and the IndieWeb.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Our TV screen going out that I blogged about? It’s fixed, replaced some board or another for $200 + $40 diagnostic fee. I’m not sure the TV was worth much more than that, but when we bought another TV to replace it… it just wasn’t as good. Returned the new one. Happy, and less junk in the landfill.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Humane pin wrap-up: https://www.manton.org/2025/02/19/humane-pin-wrapup.html

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Stephen Colbert in last night’s Late Show monologue: "Do you want to know how messed up things are? The lightest story in the news is a plane crash." Humor helps. See also: MapQuest’s brilliant rename the Gulf of Mexico website.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Nice update to the Bayou theme: "Included in this version is the option to define how many microposts and longform posts are shown on the homepage, change the categories for microposts and longform posts, set the site language (en, de, es, fi, fr, it, pt, ru), and change the date format."

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

The TikTok-ification of other platforms (Reels, Shorts) is optimizing for user engagement instead of usability. Good luck pausing, rewinding, or sharing one of these clips. At times it’s actually user-hostile.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Maybe I’ve been conditioned by seeing the GPT-4o name everywhere, but I don’t hate the iPhone 16e name. Weird lineup to still include the iPhone 15 without Apple Intelligence.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Matt Webb reflecting on 25 years of blogging. On the very early days of blogging: "So I would post 4 or 6 times a day, like most people. Just a line with a shower thought, or a link and a comment, or a response to someone else" I’ve also found that before Twitter, blogs were often microblogs.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

This life in weeks page by Gina Trapani is amazing.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments