Jamie Zawinski: Do Not Use Services That Hate The Internet. This is where I say that Micro.blog is made by people who love the web. It’s possible for app-only networks (see: Glass) to evolve to work with the web, but it’s easier to start with open, web-first platforms.

I’ve just opened the doors on a new project I’ve been working on, ooh.directory, a collection of hundreds of blogs, to help people find good blogs that interest them.

If you’ve been reading my weeknotes, this is the site I’ve been referring to as $new_project until now.

You can read more about the site on the, er, About page and the first post on its own blog, so I won’t repeat all that here.

Apart from the recent frustrations with writing my own code to fetch all the feeds, which delayed me launching for a couple of weeks, I’ve really enjoyed working on this. For a long time I thought, “I honestly don’t mind if I never show this to anyone; it’s been a very pleasant way to spend my time, tinkering away on this with no pressure.” But, obviously, here it is.

I’m sure I’ll mention it again, but if you want the latest updates on the site, read its blog, follow it on Mastodon or Twitter, or subscribe to its email newsletter (a new experiment for me).

Read comments or post one

I wrote on Twitter yesterday:

“But Scalzi,” I hear you say, “How do we bring back that artisan, hand-crafted Web?” Well, it’s simple, really, and if you’re a writer/artist/musician/other sort of creator, it’s actually kind of essential:

1. Create/reactivate your own site, owned by you, to hold your own work.

2. When you create that site, write or otherwise present work on your site at least once a week, every week.

3. Regularly visit the sites of other creators to read/see/experience the work they present there.

4. Promote/link the work of others, on your own site and also on your other social media channels where you have followers. Encourage your followers to explore more widely, beyond the algorithmic borders of “social media.”

Now, why should we bring back that artisan, hand-crafted Web? Oh, I don’t know. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a site that’s not run by an amoral billionaire chaos engine, or algorithmically designed to keep you doomscrolling in a state of fear and anger, or is essentially spyware for governments and/or corporations? Wouldn’t it be nice not to have ads shoved in your face every time you open an app to see what your friends are up to? Wouldn’t it be nice to know that when your friends post something, you’ll actually see it without a social media platform deciding whether to shove it down your feed and pump that feed full of stuff you didn’t ask for?

Wouldn’t that be great?

“But Scalzi,” I hear you say, for a second time, “I spent all this time on social media and all my people are there! You’re asking me to start from scratch!” Well, see: You don’t have to leave Twitter or Facebook or TikTok or wherever. Stay as long as you like, and post whatever you like there. Just carve out some of that doomscrolling/toiletscrolling time for your own space, that you control, too. And when you do, then link to your own site from that other social media, and invite your followers on those services to visit you in your own place. And link to other people’s personal sites, so your followers can visit them, too. Make social media work for you, and not just for the amoral billionaires.

That said, yes, it will take some work. Setting up a site, or reactivating it, takes a bit of time. Writing or presenting work exclusive to your own site takes some work. Getting your followers on social media used to the idea of leaving those walled gardens of content takes some work. It’s an actual project. But look at this way: You have just spent years building an audience on a platform someone else owns. Why not take a little time to do it for yourself? And to help others build their own platforms, too. No rush! Let it build over time. But put in the time.

Your platform, one post a week. It’s not too hard, and the upside is less reliance on other people’s platforms, and a healthier, more varied Web. Stay on social media! Make it work for you, not you work for it.

Build a better Web. An artisan Web. A handcrafted Web. Take the time to get people used to it. We’ll all benefit from it. We just have to decide to do it.

— JS

Last.fm on Twitter:

It’s our 20th birthday today . A huge thank you to everyone who supported us and scrobbled with us throughout that time. You make http://Last.fm possible. Bring on the next 20.

Via Jacob Kastrenakes at the Verge:

I was a little surprised to see that Last.fm was still around when I first started writing this story, let alone that it had new communities flourishing around its data. (The company didn’t respond to a request for an interview.) But I suppose in a world where most services close off and hide your data, there’ll always be people looking for a way to track it and analyze it themselves. And in exchange, they get the joy of arguing about music stats every day — and not just once a year when Wrapped comes out.

It is not just about the stats and the tracking — it is about what those things can do. When I re-activated my Last.fm scrobbling last spring, my goal was to pair Apple Music’s massive library with Last.fm’s more compelling listening suggestions. Keeping those things separate also makes it more portable. If I ever decide to switch to Spotify or drop my Apple Music subscription and rely only on local files again, my history and recommendations will be preserved elsewhere.

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Craig Hockenberry:

Now that you know what Xcode is using, you’ll wonder where it’s getting the disk image. It’s located in a sibling directory: /Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Images. That folder also contains an images.plist file that contains metadata for the disk images. There are only a handful of files there, but on my Mac they use 13 GB of disk space.

And up until a couple of hours ago, that folder contained 7 GB of data that was incompatible with the current version of Xcode. I had to delete these files manually.

[…]

In the end, this short post saved me 32 GB of disk space. If you’re developing for platforms other than the current iOS, you’ll likely see something similar. As time passes, you’ll need to manually keep an eye on this stuff: Xcode can’t clean things up for you because it has no idea what you need.

We’re honored to have worked with Grammy-winner Jordan Rudess on our latest app, Jam with Jordan.

This is the first AudioKit Pro app we’ve created with the SwiftUI programming language. And, we tried to create an app that was more “iOS-centric” and not based on traditional gear. It’s almost like a game. It’s a chance to “Jam with Jordan”

Creating the app inspired us to create several free & open-source SwiftUI libraries and tools you can use in your own app. We made you a music theory library, node editor, controls, keyboards, and more. You’re free to create any app you want, without restrictions, from the source code.

Who is Jordan in “Jam with Jordan”?
Jordan Rudess has been voted the best living keyboard player in the world for two consecutive years in the annual Music Radar poll. From David Bowie to Dream Theater to Deep Purple, he’s played keys for legend after legend. And, he’s a super nice guy. Surprisingly cool for a music prodigy (Not that we meet a lot of them). We loved working with him. And, learned so much.

We hope you enjoy the app as much as we enjoyed making it!

Get Jam with Jordan now for iPhone & iPad

Intro Price: $2.99

Learn more about the app at the official Jam with Jordan page.

It’s perfect for kids and people exploring music-making. Create and play chords, drums, lead, and bass sounds!
Explore iOS music-making with this fun and original concept.