📷 #mbApr Day 14
Cactus.
The fediverse is getting a bit messy for me over in Micro.blog-land. No fault of the platform, but when people have and use both a MB account and a Mastodon one (or now Threads), I have to follow them all to not miss their replies to other people. And when they crosspost, I see everything twice. 😑
I’m not opposed to people using both, but it’d be better (for me) if they chose a primary place from which they do all their interactions. And if they told people which account they should follow/mention.
(By the way, I’m a proponent for the option in Micro.blog to limit what you see on the timeline to people’s original posts and their replies only to accounts that you follow. It cuts way down on the busy-ness of the timeline. 👍 But I do want to see all the replies to and from my online friends, which is tricky when they have multiple accounts.)
Heads up to Micro.blog users: For a while, I resisted @-mentions because I didn’t want those posts to end up on my blog/RSS feed. I knew replies to other posts wouldn’t, but I thought original posts would. But MB is smart and if you start a post with an @-mention, it won’t be a regular blog post. 🧵
📷 #mbApr Day 13
My favorite kind of page these days.
Sorry everyone vying for the cutest dog pic today, I didn’t expect him to just steal the show like that! 🥹 🐶 📷
Doing things for simple pleasure.
I just do it because it soothes me. By copying a drawing, I inadvertently observe the final piece in much more detail than I would just by looking at it. It makes me pay attention to the artist's choices and techniques with much more interest and love. I don’t have to create anything, I don’t have to overthink it.
No pressure, no high expectations, just lines. and appreciation.
In the department of Things It Took Me Too Long to Realize™, it just occured to me that “Howdy” is probably a compressed and slangified version “How do you do?” and not just some made up cowboy greeting. 🤦♂️
// cc: @hotdogsladies@mastodon.social @siracusa@mastodon.social
Despite the reviews, (original iPhone software keyboard creator, Humane team member, and Micro.blog user) @kocienda remains firm in his convictions about the Humane Ai Pin:
I feel like I can trust my intuition. Years ago, I made the autocorrecting keyboard for the first iPhone. There was considerable doubt about the very concept of the touchscreen keyboard. And yet, when I built the tech, I felt that it was learnable. I saw how there were people among that initial cohort inside Apple when the product was still a deep dark secret: they got it. It became easy for them with just a little time and effort. Obviously, in time, this also became easy for most humans on the planet. Then this effort opened up with whole phone screen to them, since the keyboard could disappear when they weren’t using it. This same kind of disappearing act takes place all the time with the Ai Pin. Find the touchpad, ask a question, listen to the response, put the answer to use, keep going with your life. Using the Ai Pin is so simple and free of friction. My intuition tells me that we are on track. People will get it with a little time and effort. This model will win.
I think there’s something there, but it needs more time and advancement in the foundational tech. I’m not ready to count them out.
A year of average workouts in one go? Yeah, that sounds about right. 😲
Damn. This is fantastic data https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/12/apple-watch-marathon-heart-movement-study/
Choosing to run a marathon is literally adding a year of basic movement to your life in one day
Okay, super time for bed. I’m going to regret staying up so late again in a few hours, but I did cross a few things off my todo list. 🙂🥱 Hopefully tomorrow later today will be an easy day at work.
I just updated my ‘🤣 Markdown Memes’ shortcut to version 1.1:
- Swapped ‘Micro.blog Multimedia Uploader’ shortcut for ‘Simple MB Image Uploader’ so there would be fewer menus and interactions to get through
- Added an opportunity to edit the Markdown’s alt text before it’s saved
- Clarified some menu text
Get it for free from the HeyDingus Shortcuts Library.
🆕📝 Making a dynamic auto-sorting list in Shortcuts to easily deploy memes
Come down the rabbit hole with me and see how I built one of my favorite shortcuts to date!
I just released my ‘Simple MB Image Uploader’ shortcut version 1.0:
No frills or menus to tap through. Just get an image into the shortcut and it spits out Markdown. Works great when run as a function from other shortcuts, like when building a blog post with an image, since it requires minimal interaction.
Get it from the HeyDingus Shortcuts Library.
I just realized that my source feed which usually auto-posts links to my blog posts stopped working a couple days ago. I don’t want to double-hit the timeline in case @help resolves it, but if you usually follow my stuff here and not RSS, you’ve got some goodies waiting for you at heydingus.net. 🙂
Made a bunch more little improvements around the site today. It’s fun gleaning more about CSS. But I need to stop tinkering with design and get more actual writing done!
If you’re following me on Mastodon and wondering how those link posts I did this morning (and have made for months) have hyperlinks and styling, they’re all done with this shortcut and Micro.blog. It plays nicely (if not perfectly) with Mastodon and all lives on my own website. (Try the permalinks!)
Alright, that’s pretty good. 😆
We also have a shirt inspired by @marcoarment’s recent nostalgic foray into Palm hardware and software. If you know, you know.
(Available in many colors, plus long-sleeve, sweatshirt, and tank top.)
Not perfect, but progress.
Great news coming from Germany: today, the Bundestag adopted the gender self-determination law, which will allow trans people to change their gender on their official papers with a simple declaration at the civil registry. Gone are the medical requirements. 🏳️⚧️
https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2024/kw15-de-geschlechtseintrag-997406
I’m thrilled to see the Duel of the Defaults continue to rage, stewarded by @robb@social.lol, over five months on. The teeny-weeny-web is so cool. 😎
I kind of lost my morning hanging around waiting for a call from pest control who said they would ring me up Friday morning. But, (more) credit due, the phone rang at 11:55 AM. 🤷♂️
🆕📝 Humane pinned their launch date, if not their pin
Forgive my pun, but I’m just oh-so-clever. 😜
🔗
We start out building valuable devices, move into services, capture users and step on developers.
We spin up streaming media, drop prices, increase availability, wait for collections to whither and then safely hollow out libraries, squeeze creators and raise prices.
Ooh, cutting to the quick. 😬
🔗
The rather depressing fact is, much of what I do online is because I like interacting with other people. As I wrote about a few days ago, I have zero friends and rely heavily on platforms to provide this for me. More than this, though, is my love of getting replies. In many ways, the reason I take pictures and write blog posts is for other people’s reactions, and not hearing them sucks.
I wouldn’t say not getting replies sucks, but it sure is a thrill when I do hear from readers.
Follow that siren’s call, Greg, back to Micro.blog. 😉
🔗
No other foldable has this form factor and I really like it. It is almost like it brings everything a lot closer to you and gives you just enough space to be comfortable. Sometimes using the iPhone Pro Max, I feel the phone isn’t the right device for this task and I wait till I get to my MacBook. These instances occur far less on the Pixel Fold.
This—forgive me—flexibility to cover a wider use-case area is why I’m eyeing the Pixel Fold with jealously. I think they nailed the form factor and now just need to refine the experience.