In my opinion, the strongest reason for any random person to start a blog is that you will have more awesome friendships—both in the sense that you will meet new awesome people as a result of your blog, but also in the sense that writing will cause you to have more interesting ideas, which will make your existing friendships more awesome because you’ll have better stuff to talk about.
Most other important things in life, like job opportunities and romantic relationships, are downstream of the quality of your friends, so this is pretty great.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been writing on the internet for much of my adult life, here and there, anonymously and, at least recently, not. The power of the internet is in finding connection, and I’ve made friends or acquaintances via my online presence that make my life far more rewarding. In “real life,” I know at most one person that’s interested in iOS app development, another one person that might appreciate (yet doesn’t love) Star Wars action figures, and maybe two or three that are interested in technology in general. “Real life” is bounded far more by geography and circumstance, but online, people with similar interests flock to each other like moths to a flame.
Thing is, none of this has happened on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok… These companies that tout their “we’re all about connecting people” bonafides are advertising companies and nothing more. Don’t be fooled. The only site that has a semblance of camaraderie (in my experience) is Reddit, and even that has started to undergo some unpleasant changes.
The real fun lies in the small web. What started back on uJournal and LiveJournal back in the late 90s and early 2000s led me here to Micro.Blog twenty years later. It’s the joy of hunting for great writing, for righteous opinions, for scathing dissents, for unique voices, all unfiltered by the cruft of advertising. It’s the human internet.
I am, as ever, torn. I both love my corner of the internet and hate The Internet. But I have to remember: I’m an anomaly. I pay for my search engine so I’m able to tweak my personal search algorithm. How many people do you know pay for a search engine? How many people spend a good deal each year on bespoke software for their iPhones and Macs so that they might use them to their fullest potential? My internet is not most people’s internet, and that’s easy to forget.
But I am, at heart, in love with my internet. I am so immeasurably grateful for the opportunity to have connected with so many people over the years. After all, what else is there?
MAGA is not interested in building anything, in winning a real majority, in constructing an actual future rather than lamenting an invented past. Everything is performative and destructive. It’s all driven by who they are against rather than what they are for. As a Republican Senator told Romney as he settled in, their view is that the first consideration in voting on any bill should always be: “Will this help me win re-election?”
There’s no definitive moment in the collapse of a republic, but that quote comes close. If all you care about is your own grip on power, regard the opposing party as ipso facto illegitimate, and give zero fucks for the system as a whole, a liberal democracy has effectively ceased to exist. A single major party, captured by radicals and nihilists, can do that.
The Ace Theater boomed with laughter, a thousand bodies convulsing right back at him, blonde beach waves straight from the dry bar bouncing with mirth. That energy hit the stage. He kept shaking. This was not the sound of “offense,” but its opposite, the release of people hearing something they had long wanted to say, reassuring themselves that they are not culpable for the misery they Lyft beyond.
On Tuesday, Apple revealed yet another reason why we might want to have our Apple devices with us at all times: Roadside Assistance. The service, which is compatible with the iPhone 14 and later, lets you contact AAA via satellite in case your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere.
In the West, I use location sharing via satellite connectivity on my iPhone 14 constantly, but visiting family in the Midwest I don’t (and can’t) use it at all. It’s a testament to cell carriers that they’ve blanketed much of the eastern half of the United States with cellular connectivity.
When people attack a teaching by criticizing the behavior of the messenger, they fail to distinguish between truth and authority. Truth does not depend on the person preaching it because truth is objective. If objective truths did not exist, then any discussion on moral codes is meaningless because two persons could have opposing views on the acceptability of murder and both would be correct from their subjective standpoint. Murder being right and wrong at the same time is absurd. Thus, though humans may err in interpreting truth, truth itself is objective and outside of humans.
I’ve always been a touch uneasy with the charge of hypocrisy — both leveling it and having it leveled at me. It’s a bit too…easy. Online, it’s a get-out-of-jail-free deflection, a charge you can throw at someone to put them back on their heel and thus distract from your own inevitable failings.
I found this article particularly interesting given it’s a Catholic publication and, well, need I say any more? But in our cultural slide toward relativism, I find myself with strange bedfellows yet again.
On the photography front there were two major new features announced Tuesday. The first is a new generation of portrait photography, where Portrait mode can be applied to an image after it was shot as a regular still image. I’ve wanted this feature ever since Portrait mode debuted. While capturing, you don’t have to do a damn thing. You just frame your photo and hit the shutter. No switching modes. But on-device machine learning will decide on the spot whether Portrait mode would improve the image (which will only happen automatically if the subject is a person, dog, or cat), but you can enable it, disable it, and adjust it to your heart’s content in post.
The second is the iPhone 15 Pro models’ ability to capture spatial video. I had speculated over the summer that it would be cool if Apple could launch this for iPhones this year, and they did it. Clearly the optimal way to watch spatial video will be with a Vision headset, but the best way to capture them — especially in terms of the old adage that the best camera is the one you have with you — will be with iPhones. I considered it a lock that iPhones would eventually be able to capture spatial video memories, but to me it’s a sign of operational excellence and cross-device collaboration that Apple pulled it off this year, with iPhones that will ship months ahead of the first-generation Vision Pro. (The ability to shoot spatial video using an iPhone 15 Pro isn’t available yet — it’s “coming later this year”. And the hands-on area units didn’t have the feature, nor any example spatial videos preloaded. So the only thing we know about the feature is what was broadcast in the keynote.)
When I was shooting film, the problem was the huge expense of processing and printing. With digital, the problem became the crazy amount of time it took to grade, retouch, and print my pictures. I loved shooting for myself, I just couldn’t justify the money, or the post-processing time – or both.
But in 2007, everything changed. The iPhone was launched.
We, the audience, are not responding to the sharpness, the clarity, the minimal chromatic aberration or lack thereof — the technical quality aspects of this imagery. We’re responding to the honesty; to the realism; and to the intimacy of the photographs people are posting on Instagram, Pinterest, Flickr, etc. After all, we’ve never really seen it before. Or at least, not in such abundance.
That morning, there were so many moments I was hopeful. First, it was just an accident. Next, that everyone could escape the towers if given the chance. Then, that only one tower would fall. Then, that these would be the only casualties. Then, worst of all, that something this profound and dramatic would soften people’s hearts and make them reflect.
I was wrong, over and over again. I don’t know exactly where the line is between optimistic and naive, but these days I feel tremendous compassion and empathy towards the young man who had all those foolish beliefs. I don’t regret hoping that such a horrible day could lead to something better.
But I really did underestimate how power works, and how little it would take to push people from their better angels to their most vicious, vengeful selves.
A disclaimer: I have had substantially more at-bats with debt collectors than most people, as a result of an old hobby of writing letters on behalf of debtors to their lenders and non-affiliated debt collectors. I did this over the Internet, on my own volition, because it seemed pro-social and I was extremely underused by my actual job at the time. This experience leaves me with strong opinions on the debt collection industry; a frequent archetypical person in need of a letter was a Kansan grandmother in diminished financial circumstances who had been harassed for months. I’m going to try to keep these views to a dull roar here, in the spirit of spending more mental energy on discussing why the system presents as so broken.
People with a passion are not to be underestimated.
There is a familiar pattern to my writing. To my actual writing.
I sit at my desk. I start to write. I build up momentum.
A few pages in, I start to think how people might respond to it. I think of the thousands of oh, that's easy for you to says and well, you've never had tos I've heard over the years and I slow down.
Then I stop. And I erase what I've written.
I have a lot of ideas, some of them good. I think I know the way things should be better than most people. I have a strong desire to change the world, to make this planet a better, kinder place for all creatures, not just humans.
But when you've had a life like mine, how can you tell anyone else how to live theirs? When I've been afforded so much, how can I tell others how it should be?
Thing is, all those that's easy for you to says? They're not wrong. It is easier for me to say certain things, to reach certain conclusions. But the irony remains: just because some conclusions are easier to reach, it doesn't make those conclusions wrong.
When you're a beneficiary of luck and capitalism as I have been, no one wants to hear your fucking opinion. Being born to two kind, loving people? Pure luck. I may not have a lot of power and I may not have a lot of money, but I don't have any debt. I don't need anything and I want very little. That is true freedom.
This is why I delete. It's the same urge that drives me out into the woods or up into the mountains. Let's face it together: I am not going to change this world. No matter how good my ideas, no matter how right my conclusions, no one wants to hear that shit from me. This culture loathes imperfect messengers, no matter how good a point they might have.
So rather than complain, rather than coming off as a spoiled brat, even if I'm not wrong... I keep my mouth shut and retreat.
Summary: I believe that small websites are compelling aesthetically, but are also important to help us resist selling our souls to large tech companies. In this essay I present a vision for the “small web” as well as the small software and architectures that power it. Also, a bonus rant about microservices.
In a section of the FAQ titled “Do AI detectors work?”, OpenAI writes, “In short, no. While some (including OpenAI) have released tools that purport to detect AI-generated content, none of these have proven to reliably distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated content.”
How I love summer, for I am far less online and far less anxious about the rise of AI when I’m able to go outside.
The average iPhone customer is 7.4 times as valuable as an Android user. That’s remarkable, but not surprising.
I know very few Android users these days, but those I do share a common refrain: “tech is too complicated, so why would I pay more for an iPhone?” Never having used an iPhone, they become used to a certain…lack of polish. Case-in-point: for the first decade of Android, scrolling on the devices was awful. Jittery, jumpy… Compare that to the very first iPhone, which nailed smooth scrolling right off the bat.
Like using a Mac, the joy and delight (and I use both of those words intentionally) of an iPhone is not in the tasks you accomplish with it (you can, after all, take a photo with an Android, or send a text, or browse the web), but the million little in-between interactions. Opening an app. Swiping to go home. The speed at which FaceID unlocks your phone. The little thoughtful, playful animations of the Dynamic Island. All those interactions add up.
They add up to customers that deeply and perhaps subconsciously satisfied. And people who are satisfied are far more likely to use their phone. It so happens that most people use their phone to, well, buy stuff.
Me? I spent a good deal of money on software for my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. I buy apps that are thoughtfully designed by creative people. (Lumy is a recent find that I just adore.) And, notably, I’m happy to do so. For that, I credit Apple.
The reference desk at my local library. Ask a question about, say, local history…then stand back. Phone books, plat maps, soil surveys, yearbooks, geographic studies…you name it, they know where to find it. You know you’re on to something special when you get a reference librarian to say, “Well now I’m curious.”
The loss of Black-owned land in this community exposes a cruel irony. Pembroke has been one of the few places Black landowners could gain a foothold in Illinois, in part because this land was passed over by white settlers who presumed its sandy soils were worthless. And now, after generations without large-scale development or landscape-destroying corporate farming, this land has become sought after by outside conservationists because Pembroke’s savannas remain largely untouched.
Another story of black land being “taken” (through entirely legal means), but this one has a unique backstory:
No one knows how Joseph “Pap” Tetter escaped the horrors of slavery in North Carolina, only that he, his wife, children and extended family arrived in what would become Pembroke Township in a wagon one day around 1861.
Tetter homesteaded 42 acres of land, which he parceled out and sold to fellow settlers. Proceeds went to help liberate more enslaved people via the underground railroad, according to oral histories.
Unlike the black, spongy soil that made Illinois an agricultural powerhouse, Pembroke’s sandy soil — widely considered some of the poorest in the state — didn’t retain moisture that would allow commodity crops like corn to thrive. But the land offered a fresh start for people who had been owned as property and forced to farm under threat of violence. Through trial and error, they found what could survive the sandy soil, growing specialty crops like okra, collards, peas and watermelons.
I grew up just a few miles from here. I had never heard of Pembroke or Hopkins Park until last week. Never a mention at school, never a mention at home. This week, I messaged some friends from my hometown and none of them had heard of Pembroke, though one responded, “my mom says ‘he’s not traveling there is he?’”
I’m fast approaching forty and I’ve long thought certain things could no longer surprise me, my hometown being high on that list. But here is a township founded by a man who escaped slavery not 30 miles from where I grew up. There are no historical markers, no mentions of it on the Illinois Historical Society website, nothing.
In 2023, that is shameful.
A town founded by an escaped slave became a terminal on the Underground Railroad…thirty miles from my hometown. One of the poorest communities in the United States, a town that was once the largest community of black farmers north of the Mason-Dixon Line…is thirty miles from my hometown.
If anything, I’m embarrassed that I too have fallen into the trap of thinking 1) that area has no surprises left, and 2) that the racial history of the United States isn’t this alive and well.
But I’m suddenly filled with pride knowing that I grew up just a few miles from a town founded by a man who escaped slavery with his family, a town founded as a haven for people escaping some of the worst cruelty imaginable. That history should be known, and it’s a damn shame it isn’t.
I think I’ve accepted the rhetorical framing of the L.G.B.T. community simply because it is widely adopted in our politics and in our discourse. But I tend to agree that it’s not necessarily a legitimate concept in that I’ve never really felt a part of any community. I’ve never felt welcomed. In fact, I’ve mostly felt rejected or attacked. I also think that I’m completely supportive of the rights of transgender adults to live their best lives however they see fit. But I’ve never truly understood the lumping in or connection of transgender issues and gay rights issues. They always have seemed to me to be somewhat distinct.
It doesn’t sound like Mr. Polumbo and I have much in common politically, and while I can’t agree that “I’ve accepted the rhetorical framing of the L.G.B.T. community” (I have not), I really feel his sentiments about community.
In my humble opinion, gay culture has far too warm an embrace with hedonistic capitalism, with empty consumerism, with the vacuous pop culture of Instagram and People magazine and Bravo. Put simply: we sold out. And to express this sentiment openly is to be labeled a traitor to “the community.”
The appeal of traumatic literalism is not so much its scientific rigor as its scientific sheen, which seems to promise objective, graspable solutions to our defining political crises. For the past three decades, liberals have insisted that the institutions of American power, while flawed, were in essentially good shape. Those for whom the status quo wasn’t working out were welcome to jockey for inclusion by claiming identity-related injury. For a liberal politics of inclusion founded on claims of injury, what could be more useful than a way to turn that injury into biological trauma, something objective, observable, and measurable in the brain? In their focus on narrative — that is, on recovering and integrating declarative memories — the battle lines of the ’80s and ’90s trauma culture wars were staked out along clear lines. If you were a feminist or an antiwar activist, you invoked trauma; if you were a conservative, you didn’t. But today’s literalization of trauma is politically promiscuous. In fact, rather than treating trauma as an ideological weapon of the left, now the right wants in on it too.
Floppy disk drives are curious things. We know them as the slots that ingest those small almost-square plastic “floppy disks” and we only really see them now in Computer Museums. But there’s a lot going on in that humble square of plastic and I wanted to write down what I’ve learned so far.
Even if you do have a smartphone, it’s not great to have it be a single point of failure. It could be lost, stolen, away from cell service, or have a low battery. Most electronic tickets and admission passes don’t seem to work with the Wallet app, and who knows whether an e-mail, app, or Web link will fail when you need it, even if it was cached. A common pattern is to take a screenshot of the barcode or QR code, but that requires more tech-savvy.
I run into this problem all the time. Rather, I watch people I love run into this problem all the time.
A very dear friend lives in an off-the-grid cabin. He’s proudly never used a computer (aside from an Apple Watch, which I set up as his phone and sole electronic device a few years back). Lately, he’s had some health concerns that require near-constant communications with doctors via MyChart… which can only be accessed by a computer or smartphone.
People like him get lost and left behind in a digital world. I say this as an evangelist of the iPhone: the pocket computer is an incredible tool — camera, GPS, offline maps, streaming music, FaceTime, plant identifier, etc. etc. — but the simple fact is that most people have no clue how to use their phones to their max potential…nor do they care to.
There’s a head-in-the-sand element to this I’ve always found frustrating. More than one friend reacts with what looks like rage when their phones (or the internet) doesn’t behave as it “should.” (And when you become known as the “tech friend,” that rage is often directed at you.) I’ve had to learn to handle those people with care and not mirror their anger back at them. Which ain’t easy, because if people just took a fucking second to learn something…
But then there’s my friend in the cabin, who abstains entirely. I cannot convey how much I admire his conviction, and how much I agree when he says that tech is going to be our downfall. “Sure,” he says, “you use it to identify that star, but everyone else uses it to get on instagram and make themselves feel like shit.” He has a point.
The world is leaving him behind, and it can’t rely on people like me to constantly bridge that gap.
