Some spoiler free thoughts about the first episode of "Jet Lag: The Game" season 13
March 5, 2025
Tom Scott is playing to win.
Maze Mice
February 25, 2025
I was late to the party, but I played Luck Be a Landlord last year and really enjoyed it. It’s a deckbuilder where you build combos by manipulating the icons in your custom slot machine. I linked above to the Steam page, but it’s on just about every platform — I played through it on iOS.
Sequoia's "Macintosh" screen saver and old Control Panels
February 24, 2025
I was recently on-site with a client and noticed that one person was using the new “Macintosh” screen saver that was added in macOS Sequoia. If you haven’t seen it, here’s a video of it in action.
Algorithms are breaking how we think
February 22, 2025
Today, Alec Watson posted a video titled “Algorithms are breaking how we think” on his YouTube channel, Technology Connections. The whole thing is excellent and very well argued. The main thrust is: people seem increasingly less mindful about the stuff they engage with. Fewer people are reaching out for stuff to read/watch/listen to, and are letting systems control that for them. Watson argues that this is bad, and I agree.
Two flavours of open social media
January 14, 2025
Yesterday, the Mastodon team announced it would be handing over control of its project to a new non-profit organization. The timing of this announcement is perfect given everything that’s happening with WordPress, Meta, and… well, everything else. To date, I think Eugen Rochko has done an excellent job stewarding Mastodon, but I also might have said the same thing about Matt Mullenweg a few years back. Why gamble when you can set up safeguards?
WordPress is in trouble
January 11, 2025
Since I last wrote about WordPress, things have gone off the rails. This after a brief period when things were blissfully quiet. Matt Mullenweg stopped commenting for a while, though his company had launched WP Engine Tracker — a site for tracking WordPress-driven websites that moved away from WP Engine. I think this is a bit gauche, but it seems like fair marketing given everything that’s going on. It should be noted that many sites are leaving for Pressable — owned by Mullenweg’s company, Automattic — because of a sweetheart deal.
Apple and the AI divide
January 7, 2025
This morning I read a 404 Media article about Instagram showing people ads with AI-generated images of themselves. I thought this take from Sam Biddle was very good:
A look back at 2024, and what's next for 2025
December 31, 2024
At the end of last year, I wrote about wanting to focus on the web in 2024. How did that shake out?