Back in August, I got a Tempest Weather Station. I had been wanting a weather station for some time.
Why? Well, that is hard to put into words. I guess the answer is that I really like technology, I am fascinated with self-hosting as much as possible, and I like collecting data and contributing data to something larger without having to pay a subscription.
Anyway, I got this Tempest Weather Station for a great price during Prime Day. I put it up and integrated it into a Python weather program, while also using Tempest's own software.
But there was something I didn't know, and probably should have checked. It wouldn't have changed my mind, but there are hundreds of these things around me.
Government public information should be published on public infrastructure first, then shared through open feeds to websites, social platforms, apps, and newsletters, ensuring open standards, wider access, and a more informed public.
I saw this blog post from OpenRSS in my RSS reader, and it interested me in more than one way. I agree wholeheartedly with its sentiment.
Government offices, officials and agencies used to seem much more focused on making information publicly accessible. Here in Florida, we even have strong public records and open meetings laws, commonly known as the Sunshine Law[1], though lately it sometimes feels like we are going through a cloudy season.
Now, however, it seems like a huge amount of government business, alerts and notifications take place primarily on Twitter. I still can't bring myself to call it X.
Public information should not require an account with a private company to access it. Government websites should be the primary source. The infrastructure is already there, already paid for by the public, and making information easily available should simply be part of doing the people's work.
I have been noticing a couple of disturbing trends this year outside of the AI/LLM bubble. Has anyone else noticed them?
First, domain registrars seem to be raising domain name prices like never before. Every couple of months, I get an email from Porkbun or Cloudflare saying that the registry controlling a domain's TLD is raising prices on such-and-such a date. I can't remember the last time I saw domain name prices decrease. They only seem to go up.
That is why I try to renew domains for more than one or two years whenever I can. If my budget allows, I will pay for all 10 years upfront rather than wait for the next price increase.
I saw this blog post on bubbles.town, and the title caught my attention, so I clicked through to read it. It was also timely because just a few days earlier I had added share buttons to my own site.
I don't know if I agree with the conclusion of the post. If share buttons are done tastefully, selectively, and with privacy in mind, I think they're perfectly okay.
We're seeing a trend toward making websites personal again, a little like they were in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Social sharing buttons started becoming common as services like Twitter and Facebook (UGHHH!) grew in popularity. Email, of course, has always been around.
I have been holding off on writing about Matt Mullenweg and everything happening around WordPress because I wanted to make sure I wasn't just reacting to the latest round of drama.
I don't know Mullenweg personally, just like I don't know Elon Musk. But the more I watch his public actions and statements, the more I see a similar pattern.
I found another independent blogging service in the same general vein as Micro.blog, Scribbles.page, Pika.page and Pagecord.com. It is called Inkwell.social.
Inkwell is inspired by the old LiveJournal. I never used LiveJournal myself, but I certainly heard of it. After looking around Inkwell, it feels very much in the spirit of the IndieWeb to me. It is open source, supports ActivityPub, lets you use your own domain, and gives you ways to export your writing.
TiVo, there is a name I haven't heard or thought about in a while. I used to love the hardware and platform. I thought I was the coolest tech-savvy person, and that TiVo was the way to watch TV. The tech was just so cool.
At one point, I had three of them. Most were the OTA version, though I had the cable version once with a CableCARD. That was an adventure to get working.
This has been some week for hardware and appliance problems in my household.
Thursday, I had a silent hard drive crash. It could have happened before then, but I didn't notice it until Thursday. The drive was there last week, but Windows 11 would not recognize it. I tried it in two different computers to rule out bad cables or a motherboard issue.
I didn't realize the drive was 10 years and 3 months old until I removed it and looked at it. It is kind of like a washer, you don't think about how old it is until something happens. I had a stale backup, so I probably lost 5 to 10 percent of the stuff that was not backed up.
I just wanted to say I saw the news of John C. Dvorak passing yesterday. I hadn't heard much from him in years and often assumed he had retired. I was first introduced to him by watching Leo LaPorte and TechTV back in the day.
I remember being introduced to Google Voice when Mr. Dvorak and Leo talked about it on a show. I can't recall the exact show or episode, but Mr. Dvorak talked about how he and his son used it to save on phone costs. If I remember correctly, it helped with long-distance charges, though I'm not certain. I also remember reading the articles he wrote for PC Magazine.
What I didn't know until he passed was that he came from a semi-famous family, the inventor of the Dvorak Keyboard (never used one).
It's getting to the point where some of the pioneers from the internet era are starting to pass, and that's a sad reality. I knew of John C. Dvorak more than Om Malik, even though Mr. Malik and I were closer in age. These losses feel like the end of a chapter.
Praying for his family to have strength and resolve.
People of all ages and backgrounds come together outdoors, connecting ideas and technology to illuminate the diverse and collaborative nature of AI innovation.
Okay, this will probably sound controversial, but that's not my intent. I'm just sharing my thoughts because AI is everywhere right now, especially on social media and in blog posts.
But there was something I didn't know, and probably should have checked. It wouldn't have changed my mind, but there are hundreds of these things around me.
