I wanted to open a link pointing to a post on x.com. Clicked on it. After a few seconds, X website opened but right after the App Store launched to the download the app for reading content on X. I went back to the website, dismissing the App Store. Clicking to play the shared media again launched the App Store. I went back to watch the video. What an awful experience.

I wondered if installing the X app would make the experience more tolerable. The login / signin screen scared the shit out of me when I started remembering all the bad things about social networks, Musk, etc. but then I started thinking that even if things like the dark web is bad, some people still need to visit this place for investigation. Was I investigating this morning when opening up X? I certainly was looking to understand something.

Having to create a new X account, then being exposed to ads, tracking, etc. killed my desire to understand. It’s ok not to understand everything. I’m a happier ignorant.

What can I learn from the demise of EchoFeed? Earlier this year, when I heard about this service, I looked into it to see if it could be useful. It wasn’t, thanks to Micro.blog’s ability to cross-post to Bluesky, Mastodon and more. Plus, at first it looked like an experiment more than anything else. I didn’t know EchoFeed’s long-term goals. I was on the breaks.

I’m wary of one-person services like EchoFeed. Another example is FeedPress. I like this service a lot, but I think there is only one person behind it, and it’s owned by a parent company which I know nothing about. It’s not entirely clear from this post what their mission is. What happens if this guy decides, or the parent company says, it’s no longer viable? Moving off EchoFeed might be a pain for people who need cross-posting capabilities. I highly doubt these people are willing to move to Buffer.

The same could be said about moving off FeedPress. It would be a pain in the ass to reconfigure all my feeds. The same torment applies to Micro.blog itself (or Scribbles.page, for that matter!). What is the future of Micro.blog if something bad happens to its founder? What is the continuity plan? Micro.blog has done everything it can to enable data portability and ownership, but moving things around, even if you own most parts, is not as easy as it sounds. In today’s world, nothing is permanent, and planning for this is mandatory.

In “The War That Could Swallow the World”, David French writes:

“I’ve often wondered what it was like to be alive in the summer of 1914, much less in 1938 and 1939. When did people start to realize that the world was on the brink of catastrophe? Speak up too soon or too frequently, and you look ridiculous — like the Chicken Little of World War. Speak up too late, and you live (if you live) with bitter regret.”

I often ask myself similar questions. When does it feel like it? Are we calling a world war after-the-fact? Does it matter in the end? This blog used to have a blog post category named “UkraineWar”. It will be renamed “Conflicts” which I think feels closer to what I perceive from today’s world.

I don’t know if I should trust the news, but it seems that opposition to data centers and artificial intelligence is growing. Nowadays, you have to be cautious about what the media spreads. Controversial topics sell, but they don’t always reflect reality. Still, I get the feeling that frustration is gradually building. 🤨

AI coding is creating a new generation of makers:

it’s been heartening seeing people reverse engineer things and build weird little things that they never would have done before. I guess they’d be scrolling TikTok instead.

Anything to stay away from TikTok is a win for humankind.

Open-plan offices have many drawbacks, and I was reminded of another one today. Instead of a generic, rotating desk, I much prefer having a dedicated, private office. I want a space of my own, and I enjoy seeing how others personalize their workspaces. You can learn so much about people’s interests and personalities just by seeing how they occupy the space where they spend a third of their lives.

This morning, after reading and asking Kagi Summarizer for a summary of this article, I wanted to write a response and attempted to craft a counterargument, first using Kagi Summarizer, then using Claude AI. I reviewed numerous versions but remained unsatisfied with the results. After reviewing my options, I ultimately decided to create this version, entirely my own. I still have a feeling that AI helped forge my thoughts.

Since reading David’s article, “the solution might be cancelling my AI subscription”, I cannot stop thinking about how different our experiences are.

Six months ago, right before subscribing to Anthropic’s Claude AI, none of the following custom-built apps existed: a useful, personally fitting bookmark manager; a purpose-built RSS reader that works hand in hand with my bookmark manager; and a simplified task manager that also works in conjunction with the other two. As an experienced user of many RSS readers, bookmark managers, and task managers, knowing my friction points with these apps, I have always dreamed of what would be perfect-for-me versions of them. So I built those, one by one.

Thanks to Claude Code and my vision for what would make the perfect versions of each of these apps, I could build them without being constrained by not knowing Next.js, TypeScript, CSS, etc. I don’t plan to make commercial versions of these nor open-source them. There are a few, and I can tweak them as I see fit and as my needs evolve; this is where I’ll keep focusing. AI empowered me and will continue to do.

You see, the solution for me is to keep iterating and keep my subscription. Two different stories, two different outcomes. Maybe there is something that I didn’t catch in David’s experience.