They tried to tell us that without the power of algorithms, we wouldn't gain any readers, no one would hear about us, and our sites wouldn't emerge from the depths of the Internet for even half a second. How wrong they were. Or perhaps they knew they were wrong, but were trying to prevent anyone else from finding out?
June is beginning, and it's a month when it's especially worth boosting the blogosphere and exploring it every day. For the second time, I'm joining the 'Junited' initiative. I took part two years ago, but I wasn't very active. That's why, when moving from one blogging platform to another, I deleted that post. This year, however, I intend to change that and actively promote interesting posts across the blogosphere.
I've changed the content of the blog menu. Until now, it consisted of the following elements: 'About', 'Articles', 'Notes', and links to Mastodon, a contact form, and a subpage with a list of RSS feeds. This week, I published the first photo on the blog, so I created a new category. There hadn't been a place for it in the menu until now. There was also no room for 'Weeknotes'. That's why I decided to change it. Instead of expanding the menu (I like minimalism), I scaled it back by creating a new 'Categories' subpage. That's where the list of all categories is located. I don't know if more will be created. For now, I'm happy with this layout.
The world would be much more beautiful if every website, every category, and every author had a separate RSS feed. This would mean complete freedom in creating a truly bespoke digital magazine, accessible at any time from a single app.
A May trip to Wrocław and a stroll by the Centennial Hall. Pictured is the Iglica monument standing next to the Hall.
I've been meaning to write something more about the changes at Bitwarden for about a week now (they really winds me up, and I'm not the only one). But after reading the post on blog.ppb1701.com, I realised I couldn't have put it better than Patrick did. So, I definitely recommend giving his piece a read.
There was a time when I wanted to be everywhere at the same time. I ran a fan page and profiles on multiple social media platforms. I wanted to build reach for my content, have a massive community, and so on. Nowadays, a modest corner on Mastodon, a small blog, and an RSS reader are enough for me to keep up with what other bloggers are writing. Is it old age, exhaustion, or wisdom? Or maybe everything at once?
Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, titled "Magnificent Humanity", has just been published. It's dedicated to AI. This is probably the first time in the history of the Church that such a document has been issued specifically regarding artificial intelligence.
I can't call myself a very religious person, but I wanted to write about this for several reasons. I'm glad the Church is addressing this topic, publishing its perspective - a perspective through faith - on a new technology that is changing the world at a terrifying pace.
A very intense week at work meant I didn't find the time to regularly keep notes for a weekly summary. But I have more energy today. Especially since moving my blog from Bearblog to Pagecord brought me a lot of joy. I really like Bearblog. It's a wonderful platform, but I felt the urge to experiment and try something new. It was a spontaneous decision, but I'm glad I made it. I like experimenting. I wrote a separate post about it. You can find it here.
This is a crazy story. It started completely out of the blue. A few days ago, I read a post by Gobino on Mastodon. He wrote:
If anyone is looking for a great, cheap and very easy to use blogging platform, have a look at https://pagecord.com. I am and will remain a happy customer.
It reminded me of Pagecord, because a year ago I set up an account on this blogging platform created by Olly. I tested it for a bit and then abandoned it. I wanted to see how it differed from others I knew. I knew that Olly had recently created it and was constantly adding new features. I wanted to come back after some time and see how he was getting on.
Weeknotes! I’ve always wanted to give this a go. Though I had to work through it and pluck up the courage. The biggest challenge won’t be the writing itself, but staying consistent. I’ll treat it as a challenge and a way to improve my regularity. I haven’t been writing much on the blog lately. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s precisely because of a lack of consistency. Now - as planned - I should publish a post at least once a week. Keep your fingers crossed.
I’m currently in the process of switching services. I’m trying to shift the weight from major platforms to more niche ones, while looking for similar or better quality. An equally important motivation for me is maintaining as much privacy as possible; I don’t want the service provider trading my data and profiting from it.
David Sparks wrote:
If you’re not careful, every time you open your RSS reader, there will be 1,000 unread articles waiting for you, which completely defeats the purpose of using RSS. The trick to using RSS is to be brutal with your subscriptions. I think the key is looking for websites with high signal and low noise. Sites that publish one or two articles a day (or even one to two articles a week) but make them good articles are much more valuable and RSS feed than sites that published 30 articles a day.
Just look at this: As usual (almost every day), I popped over to Robert’s blog (robertbirming.com) and came across a post titled ‘Blogs are alive’. It included a quote from an interview with Patrick (patrickrhone.net) as part of a series hosted by Manuel (manuelmoreale.com). Before I read the interview, however, I visited Patrick’s blog to get to know him a bit. There I came across the ‘About’ page, where I found this sentence:
My little place on a quiet street of the Internet.
I’ve just found out that Michael has died... I didn’t know him personally, but I know he was a blogger. I’d only recently started reading his blog. I saw a post on Mastodon that was published today on his profile. Intrigued, I expanded the post before I started reading it.
It came as a bolt from the blue... I found it hard to believe what I was reading. But it was true. Michael has passed away. He died on Wednesday…