Willie Mays of Giants baseball fame has passed - An incomparable player who truly loved the game & brought joy to so many. May he rest in peace & keep up the fun in the eternal fields. ⚾️🏟️🧢

(via Baltimore Sun)

Cataloging here Micro.blog’s emoji tags for finding other microbloggers. (Plus testing the Scheduled Post feature.)

Personal Technology Renaissance

I feel like I’m having a personal technology renaissance.

  • A long-time user of Evernote, they were acquired by Bending Spoons in recent years and the development team there I think are finally getting it right after about a 5-8 years of laggard progress on a category-defining platform. New & improved features that are breathing new life into my use of the product: (a) Consolidated task management across notes with due date & reminders; (b) Easier and better Note sharing/ syncing with others; (c) Easy note headers/ section collapse with automatic table of contents creation; (d) Single file list view; (e) And others. Thank you and kudos to the Evernote team!

  • And Micro.blog itself, harkening back to the good ol' blog days of yore, updated for lessons learned (good & bad) from the age of social media, providing a platform for expression & good Internet citizenry.

While I know I’m just a ‘single use case’, I do feel like we are in a technology inflection point – To me, at least, 1999-2001 was one and 2010-2012 another. Holding onto hope for the current inflection point! :)

Very interesting read about how content creators are fighting back against LLMs sourcing their material to power their economic model.

How We’re Trying to Protect MacStories from AI Bots and Web Crawlers – And How You Can, Too

via @markstoneman

Been awhile since I was last able to get a physical copy of The Sun (harder to find in my neck of the woods, despite many attempts). Good (and strange) to hold in hand again, as it provides a particular satisfaction over its digital doppelgänger. :)

Happy Father’s Day out there!

Assateague Island

Hello world!

Although not a coder, somehow I still feel this an appropriate start to my Micro.blog. 🙂

Chanced across the platform when I discovered a friend/ colleague hosted his professional blog here, and immediately dove in as it hits so many things I’ve been looking for.

Even further affirmed when reading the references to Tumblr, where I’ve maintained a tumblelog since June 2007 (albeit with heavier and lighter seasons these last 17 years). It’s felt less like home towards the latter part of that time, and while I’m glad the likes of Automattic are giving it some love now, Micro.blog is definitely more of what I’m looking for. :)

As it stands now, I’m planning to put the Premium plan through its paces: multiple blogs for business & personal use, custom domains, cross-posting, WordPress import, Tumblr import, photos, and I even have an idea for podcasting and email newsletters (among others).

So here goes, and cheers to the adventure!

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5 Pencil and Paper Games to Do When You’re BoredThe first 3 are ol’ faithfuls (hangman, battleship, & squares), but the last 2 are new to me (obstruction & sprouts).Good to keep in mind for when down time with kids. :)

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Remember the early days of the Internet? There were all types of easy blogging platforms, most people had a blog of some sort, there were commentaries quoting other blogs, h/t, etc.?With the advent of platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, it sorta short-circuited what I’d say was a better way to communicate, collaborate, and exchange on the web. Plus the content was locked away behind logins, often no easy way to search, and it was branded under the platform (and not you, the content creator).Tumblr, especially in its early days, was a nice middle ground – Away from long-form blogging, simplifying the ability to add media, Reblogs were great, etc.Perhaps it’s nostalgia, but I’ve been thinking something a la the early days would be nice, but hadn’t run across anything like what existed before (or even a more modern re-imagination). Until now …Micro.blog is a simple, strong feature set, low-cost way to ‘do internet’ right – You can have your own real estate, there’s built in media sharing (even easy podcasting), a human-run community, and more.I think this exists in my future sometime soon. :)

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Some days, right? 😜Garfield, 9 Jun 2024 via Baltimore Sun

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AI Transcription optionsBeen giving serious thoughts towards activating an AI Transcription tool for business use (predominant use cases of virtual meeting transcript/ summaries & YouTube/ other video summation).Three I’ve seen contacts reference well are:Fireflies.aiRev.comOtter.aiNoting here for additional research/ evaluation - Perhaps helpful to you too.

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“Books are a frozen conversation”This reality understanding at a deeper level as I continue (slowly) making my way through Merton’s “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”.

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Boy Scouts’ first-ever change of name will reflect inclusion - Baltimore Sun“ Boy Scouts of America” to become “Scouting America”.

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CloudConvertCloudConvert - Online file converter between all different media types, including video, audio, image, text, etc.Could be very useful, perhaps in coordination with Zapier and AI tools.

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The Weekend Hustle

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Many of Conan’s podcast episodes have wonderful insights shared by guests – Here, Jimmy Carr shares a nugget:You escape competition through authenticity – No one else can beat you at being you.Writing that one down.

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Many of Conan’s podcast episodes have wonderful insights shared by guests – Here, Jimmy Carr shares a nugget:You escape compet

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Newspaper Club - Make and print your own newspapersHere’s a neat service that’ll enable you to print your own newspaper, from 1 copy to thousands.Choice of three different formats, two printing methods - Prices don’t look super cheap, but for the right use, very reasonable.Now to just channel the inner Hearst into the next big thing! :)

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St. Thomas did not seek to be imposed on the world. He asked only to be understood in the world, as revealing the possibilities the world had in itself. In a time of drastic change, one can be too preoccupied with what is ending or too obsessed with what seems to be beginning. In either case one loses touch with the present and with its obscure but dynamic possibilities. What really matters is openness, readiness, attention, courage to face risk. You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope. In such an event, courage is the authentic form taken by love.Thomas Merton, in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

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Lawmakers eye changes to pot laws Md. lawmakers eye changes to pot lawsvia The Baltimore Sun