/reader

I think of this now as the difference between living in a house you built that requires some effort to visit and going into a town square where there are not particularly rigorous laws about whether or not someone can punch you in the face. Before social media, if someone wanted to engage with you, they had to come to your house and be civil before you’d give them the time of day or let them in. And if they wanted you to engage with them, they’d have to make their own house compelling enough that you’d want to visit.

Getting a toot boosted on Mastodon is good. Getting your blog linked to by a fellow blogger? The best.

Note: Spiers writes about blogging in the past tense. I have to remind myself not to do that. Blogging is alive and well. Like the old forests, blogging will still be here when the social media landscape has withered and died.

 

Photo 365 2025. Year 4, Month 11.
Photo-a-day for the month of Nov 2025.

Start Select Reset 📑

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The post November 2025 | Photo 365 appeared first on thejaymo.

There's a question going around in WordPressLand as to whether there are any RSS apps. Yes, of course there are. Have a look at daveverse, in the right margin. That's a feed reader. All the feeds I follow personally. When one of them updates it goes to the top. You can see the five most recent posts by clicking on the wedge next to the title, and from there, you can go to the website by clicking the link. That's available as a WordPress plug-in. #

On Saturday I reported a problem with WordPress feeds that created a problem for the software I was working on. It's Tuesday now, and it's fixed. This really feels good. Thanks Jeremy! The WordPress community is special. Never seen a big product like WordPress respond so quickly. #

I asked ChatGPT to write an email to Sam Altman for me. It's about a possible way to compete with Google. #

Pluribus spoilers below#

• Theories on what's actually going on. #
• It's a love story between Carol and Zosia. You can fall in love with a person with no sense of self. They plotted to have Helen killed, and waited until Carol's "f*ckable" judgment turns into real love. They get married and everyone lives happily ever after.#
• Alternate theory -- the original people are still in their bodies, suppressed to keep quiet. Inside they're screaming to be saved, as pissed off as Carol. They want their bodies back. They have the ability to write messages on their skin, so what Carol saw at the end of the last episode was a corpse with the words HELP ME! visible on the body's belly.#
• Another alternate theory about the end of the last episode -- it took a moment for Carol to recognize her own body, possibly dead, and realizing this is all a dream. It's another version of The Matrix, where this is the fake reality that we've been seeing. None of this is really happening. (Like the end of the Bob Newhart show?)#
• Also is Plur1bus like Saul Goodman, in that if you say it a different way it has a message encoded? The 1 instead of an i seems like a clue.#

Jill Bolte Taylor, the scientist and neuroanatomist who had a stroke in her left brain when she was 37, described the lack of separation between her and the world in that state: “And I look down at my arm and I realize that I can no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can't define where I begin and where I end, because the atoms and the molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and molecules of the wall. And all I could detect was this energy -- energy.”

That’s how I feel when I write - I am touched by this page and this world, and I merge with everything around me, because we’re all energy and there is really no reason for us to be separate from one another.

It’s an abstract thing, I know, energy. Here’s what is less abstract - my current location: I am in Wānaka, New Zealand, five hours’ drive from Christchurch. Walked past a sign in town yesterday and it said:

“Haere mai - 
Welcome to Wānaka.

There is a mood, a feeling, an essence that makes this place so special. We are constantly trying to find the expression to communicate this to those who are yet to experience it - no word comes closer than Wairua (spirit). No-one who comes to Wānaka can fail to be awed by the sheer beauty and majesty of this place. We think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world.”

Here I am, in one of the most beautiful places in the world, my legs  majorly aching after yesterday’s hike. It’s the best kind of feeling in the world, of being meaningfully spent. The hike was difficult - 6.5km all the way up, with almost no flat areas - which made it more beautiful, and all the way up and down I cursed how steep the climb was and also dreamed of hiking forever and struggling up mountains forever, because that’s what life is all about - merging with the energy of mountains and wind and sheep and clouds.

We were supposed to leave Wānaka today but decided to stay for one more day so we can absorb and enjoy its surrounding waters and mountains. The plan today is to rest, visit the bookstore in town, find delicious food, and do not much of anything!

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