Manton Reece:

This thread from Mark Zuckerberg could’ve been written by Elon Musk. The last thing we need is X and Threads adopting the same perspective on moderation. I’ve read it through a few times and I feel worse about it each time.

Agreed. This makes me angry. Threads was made as an alternative to what X had become, but it’s gone to shit already and is about to get so much worse.

Basically, Zuck said, “We’re good with the disinformation, and the vitriol directed toward diverse groups. Open the floodgates!” Fuck that and him.

Bluesky and (🤞) Micro.blog are gonna get new folks.

A new Very Good Tweet™ has landed:

Sheena Vasani, theverge.com:

Philips Hue’s new generative AI lighting assistant lets users create personalized lighting scenes based on occasion, mood, or style. They can do so by typing commands like “Give me a scene for a garden party” into the Hue app and also by using their voice. The assistant will then either recommend scenes from the existing Philips Hue gallery or create a new one entirely.

A great idea — getting all the colors right is too fiddly, but this needs to be at the infrastructure/Home app level. I have lights from many different brands that I want to match to a scene.

🆕📝 My Big-Number Fitness Goals for 2025

I like goals that will take the whole year to complete. Hopefully, this'll keep me motivated every month, week, and day. 💪

Sounds like people are going to need longer games because they’ll be playing them so fast with Nvidia’s new hotness. 😏

Ella: ‘Write Books With the Block Editor’ wordpress.org

All this inspired me to wrap our editor in an app that can read and write local files–just as other document editors do. It turns out that EPUB is the best file format to store the content, because EPUB is an open standard for e-books that is essentially a ZIP file containing HTML and media–HTML like your WordPress posts!

Having recently praised wrapping exported files up in locally-browsable HTML, this caught my eye. I could see doing a ‘Best of the Blog’ ebook someday.

Andrew Liszewski, theverge.com:

Dell’s new 32-inch 4K OLED display uses an infrared sensor and five speakers located below the screen to track your head and beam sound directly to your ears. The feature eliminates the need to keep your head positioned in a sweet spot for optimal sound, and it could be ideal for gamers who are constantly moving around in the heat of battle. The monitor also features a 120Hz refresh rate, a 0.03ms response time, and will launch in the US on May 22nd, 2025, for $799.99.

Now that’s some cool, human-centered tech!

Jason Snell: ‘Apple Intelligence summaries might get warning labels. That’s not enough.'

Apple is shipping these AI-based features rapidly, and marketing them heavily, because it fears that its competitors so far out in front that it’s a potentially existential issue. But several of these features simply aren’t up to Apple’s quality standards, and I worry that we’ve all become so inured to AI hallucinations and screw-ups that we’re willing to accept them.

We shouldn’t be. Apple’s shipping a feature that frequently rewrites headlines to be wrong.

Jason makes good recommendations, too.

🔗 This ‘Features of Adulthood’ comic is shockingly accurate. xkcd.com

I’ve made the realization that I’ve done a poor job following blogs and accounts by women. The ratio is truly shameful. I’d love your recommendations for your favorite female friends. I’m into tech, outdoor adventures, and blogging, but I’ll read anything well-written. Always open to new interests!

🆕📝 My Blogging Origin Story & Other Questions: A Blogging Challenge

Sorry it's so long, Kev, but you did ask for it!

David Smith: ‘Four years after mob violence, Kamala Harris hands power – peacefully – to Trump’

Like Vice-Presidents Gore and Mike Pence before her, Harris did her duty on Monday. America has returned to a peaceful transfer of power. Yet the unpalatable truth was that the candidate who tried to overturn the previous election is legitimately returning to power. Democracy had prevailed to elevate a man who spits in its face.

That she didn’t gag while certifying the results proves she’s made of tougher stuff than me.

(Via Dave Winer)

🆕📝 7 Things This Week [#165]

An alternate Genmoji app, a Shrinking creator interview, a passkey vs. magic link login blog post, how to kill spam messages online, an MKBHD year-end recap, a beautiful media year-end recap, and a sobering look at the sum total of human creation.

If given the choice, I’ve decided that I’d prefer a 3x telephoto lens to a 2x one as second camera on my iPhone. But I guess that wouldn’t work out as nicely to get a sharp crop from the 48MP main lens. Still, it’d be nice if I could choose the zoom of that extra button on the Camera’s interface.

Matt Birchler: ‘Sign up for X to see that amber alert. Yikes’

I believe it’s a good thing to meet your constituents where they are […]. However, it is very bad for them to put essential information on a private website they don’t own and that blocks access from logged out users. [And] zero logged out users would see a thread, since for a year or so X has only shown one post at a time to logged-out visitors.

This is why it’s important for people to own their presence on the web, especially when it comes to government agencies that need to communicate with people.

👏 Own 👏 Your 👏 Web 👏

🔗 Joe Rossignol: ‘Satechi’s New Mac Mini Hub Solves the Power Button Problem’ macrumors.com

With the extra frontside ports and built-in external storage for backups, I continue to think these made-specially-for-Mac-mini stand things are a great investment.

🆕📝 Some personal news: I’m an unpaid volunteer editor at The Verge (at least until they’re better at linking to things)

Or, 'Jarrod got grumpy and made a mountain out of a molehill' 🤪

🆕📝 I’m switching from Raindrop to Apple Notes for saving my shopping links

It sounds inconsequential, but I think it's going to make an outsized difference. I've been toying with the idea of 2025 being The Year of Small Improvements, and this plays nicely with that theme.

Tom Warren: ‘Microsoft is using Bing to trick people into thinking they’re on Google’

If you use Bing right now without signing into a Microsoft account and search for Google, you’ll get a page that looks an awful lot like… Google.

[…] The Google result includes a search bar, an image that looks a lot like a Google Doodle, and even some small text under the search bar just like Google does. Microsoft even automatically scrolls down the page slightly to mask its own Bing search bar that appears at the top of search results.

That’s really something. Microsoft, your lack of taste is showing.

🔗 All we have is a tiny portable propane grill, and I’m no grillmaster. So the $400 price point on this Brisk It grill is attractive, as is the assistive cooking AI — if it actually works as advertised. theverge.com

🔗 2025 will be the year — and perhaps this Schlage Sense Pro Pro Smart Deadbolt (what a mouthful!) will be the unit — that I invest in a smart lock. I’ve spent too many years fumbling with my key in the bitter cold and my arms full of gear. 9to5mac.com

🔗 ‘Shazam Fast Forward predicts 50 breakthrough artists in 2025’ Ben Lovejoy / 9to5mac.com

I’m looking forward to their 2025 Predictions playlist, presumably available after the 5-day countdown.

🎁 Folks who share gift links to paywalled articles, I appreciate you. 🙌

Or, for this crowd, “The Constitution is all very well up to a point, but the needs of [Apple] must come first.” Fuck that sentiment. theatlantic.com

🔗 It speaks to Lutron’s rock-solid performance that I now unreservedly covet $400 smart window shades. casetawireless.com