Nick Heer blogs a little Siri + AI skepticism. It’s a good point, why do we keep expecting the next guy is going to fix this? I was just looking at my first post about Alexa from 10 years ago. That whole time, Siri hasn’t changed significantly that I can tell.

Just noticed that the bottle of Dr. Pepper they gave me at the restaurant last night looks like a 20 oz bottle, but it’s 16.9 oz / 500 mL. Shrinkflation? Sort of makes sense to standardize on an even number like 500 mL for global distribution.

Anthropic acquires the JavaScript tool Bun. A quote from Mike Krieger: "Bun represents exactly the kind of technical excellence we want to bring into Anthropic." Curious where they take this. Bun is our default for building the Micro.blog mobile apps. It’s good.

Trying out Fizzy from 37signals. I don’t need another tool… Tools are kind of like code dependencies: fewer is probably better. But I’m sure there are some interesting choices in the UI to draw inspiration from.

Mastodon CEO change, 2026 reset: https://www.manton.org/2025/12/02/mastodon-ceo-change-reset.html

Good Stratechery update today on OpenAI’s “code red”, with Sam Altman telling the company to refocus: "Altman’s declaration raises another long-standing Stratechery concern about OpenAI: the lack of focus. I wanted the compa... https://www.manton.org/2025/12/02/good-stratechery-update-today-on.html

John Giannandrea is leaving Apple and Amar Subramanya is joining, and announcing both at once seems to underscore Apple’s patience. They scrambled a little before WWDC 2024, but then slowed down, waiting for someone new before John Giannandrea retired. Not competitive, but not out of the long game.

Just hit my monthly search limit on Kagi’s starter plan. Turns out we still need traditional web search even with AI everywhere.

Good post by Allen Pike about why ChatGPT for Mac is better than the competition. I remarked a year ago that there is clearly some AppKit goodness in the app.

It’s December already? ⛄️ Good start to the morning so far. Responded to a few emails. Releasing updates for iOS and Mac apps today.

Simon Willison marks the 3-year anniversary of the ChatGPT launch with a blog post about how it almost didn’t happen. Clearly being first matters, but also OpenAI still makes very good products, like their Mac app and Pulse. Hard to predict where things will be in another three years.

“He has a hundred ideas a day. Four of them are good, the other 96 downright dangerous.” — from Darkest Hour, although inspired by something FDR said 🍿

Got sidetracked looking at photos and satellite imagery of Hudson Yards, before and after the current redevelopment project covered half the tracks. Now I want to go back to New York. 🚂

Thinking longer for a better answer. ☕️

Amazing win by the Longhorns. I hope they end up making the playoffs. 🏈

Mickey Mouse holding horseshoe ornament. 🎄

Micro.blog’s CDN bill is up about 25% from last month, no surprise with the launch of better video hosting. I’m taking the opportunity to dig into CloudFront stats that I’ve never actually looked at. Seeing a few things that could be easy wins to optimize.

Federico Viticci blogging about AI results, matching my recent thoughts about the products and design mattering: "…since the baseline is now good enough, the app experience and how LLMs are woven into a people’s daily lives and workflows will be the differentiators going forward."

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I think this is the earliest we’ve ever gone Christmas tree shopping. Also we’re now measuring tree height in percentages of a Wembanyama. Got a tree that is about one Wemby tall.

Surprisingly quick one-day app reviews from Apple and Google, so we were able to release the new version of Strata today for both mobile platforms. If you use notes or bookmarks in Micro.blog, this update has a few improvements that make the app nicer to use.

Private encrypted notes in Micro.blog present some challenges, especially for search. If you only have a handful of notes, it’s no big deal, but I have over 2000 notes in Micro.blog now. So searching on the web, for example, has to load everything into the browser and decrypt it.

Cold weather is back in Austin. Morning coffee at Cosmic. ☕️ We’re preparing a few things for a new Strata release. I wonder if Apple and Google app review folks have to work on Thanksgiving. 🦃

Fun discussion on the latest ATP about the OpenAI “egg”. I’ve been saying for a year or two that there is a real product here and eventually someone will crack it. (Oops, unintended egg pun…) Sandbar’s ring is the current best-looking attempt, but it’s 6+ months away.

Dave Winer blogging about a new commenting system to connect blogs. I’ve been following his recent work on FeedLand and related projects, so curious how the plumbing for this is going to work: "The first thing to know is that all... https://www.manton.org/2025/11/25/dave-winer-blogging-about-a.html

While I was feeling terrible in bed yesterday, I couldn’t even sleep, my mind kept drifting to various online drama. I sometimes have a hard time shaking off old problems. But I’m feeling good this morning, ready to get some work done. ☕️

Finished reading: Relics of Ruin by Erin M. Evans. A great second book. Same feel of a mystery as the first book, lots of layers. 📚

World of Frozen opening in Disneyland Paris in March. Really impressed with the new robotic Olaf. ☃️

I like this quote from Jony Ive in the conversation: "There’s not a lot of humor in the products that are being designed and made, particularly in this area. I really sense very clearly there is a huge desire for us not to take ourselves quite so seriously, even though these are serious times."

Got my Covid vaccine yesterday and it floored me. Does the dosage need to be adjusted considering that Covid seems generally (not for everyone!) less severe than it used to be? I just want to stay in bed all morning. Watching this new video with Laurene Powell Jobs, Jony Ive, and Sam Altman.

Crazy comeback win from the Cowboys. When they couldn’t score at the 1 yard line, down 21 points, I would not have predicted this, and in fact turned it off for a while. Gotta play the whole game. 🏈

Thanks @numericcitizen for the new video about what’s new in Micro.blog! You can watch it on YouTube here and it should be available hosted directly on Micro.blog later too.

Watched: Wicked: For Good. In the first hour I almost started to doubt, thinking maybe it needed another pass at editing, but they won me over with No Good Deed. Cynthia Erivo is fantastic. 🍿

Updated my state parks page. 27 down, a whole bunch to go. Glad to resume this challenge after several months that were too busy and too hot. 🏕️

Went camping last night, then home early but a late start getting coffee. Drove by three coffee shops before finding one that wasn’t completely overrun with people. Don’t all these happy people enjoying coffee outside and talking with friends know that I’d like to sit here by myself and work? 🤪

Inks Lake State Park.

One mistake I made building the bed platform for my car is these flimsy little brackets. They ended up bending enough over months that they broke in half. Worked on fixing this today.

A thoughtful post today from Laurens Hof in the Fediverse Report about Mastodon’s new CEO and the project’s sustainability. It’ll be interesting to look back a year from now on whether there are visible changes. Hope in the meantime that Eugen Rochko gets some rest and a vacation or two.

We released Epilogue 2.1 for iOS and Android today. Now with easy blogging for movies. Here’s a short video to show the new interface. https://www.manton.org/2025/11/21/we-released-epilogue-for-ios.html

So happy with how well the new video hosting with Micro.blog Studio is going. I used to fumble around with video file sizes or just give up and use YouTube. Now I can post everything to my blog.

Android app review submissions have been going through very quickly. Nice work by Google. Even when Apple’s reviews are 1-2 days, I wish they were hours.

Raining finally. The new tree is getting a much-needed soak. I decided a few days ago to go camping tomorrow… Looks like it might clear up at least for a day. 🌧️

I wonder if this proposed Algorithm Accountability Act has the right idea. Instead of wiping away Section 230, we could chip away at very specific aspects of it. I feel like this could have broad support.

Some folks are addicted to refreshing social media all day. Not me, but I have noticed that I’m now sort of addicted to asking AI dumb questions and getting random ideas for how to implement things whenever I’m bored. If this was a human assistant, they would be annoyed with my endless questions.

In today’s Stratechery interview they talk about the potential revenue that OpenAI lost by not having any ads in ChatGPT for the last three years. But there would’ve been a cost to having ads too! The product would’ve been slightly worse.

Experimenting with a new Movies tab in our mobile app Epilogue. Feels a little weird… The app is for books. But also, I think it works here better than in the main app. I’m going to finish implementing it and use it and then decide for sure.

Jensen Huang on the Nvidia earnings call: "There has been a lot of talk about an AI bubble. From our vantage point, we see something very different." I guess he would know, but this growth doesn’t seem sustainable to me. We’re not going to keep building data centers at the current pace.

Finally worked through some Epilogue for Android issues. Submitted to Google for review! 🤞

Bluesky is expanding their moderation tools and the granularity of reporting. Sounds like good changes: "Not every violation leads to immediate account suspension - this approach prioritizes user education and gradual e... https://www.manton.org/2025/11/19/bluesky-is-expanding-their-moderation.html

Congrats to Gus Mueller on Acorn’s recognition as a finalist in the App Store Awards! I use Acorn pretty much every day, sometimes for design or mockups, and sometimes just as a scratchpad of screenshots and other graphics that need a quick crop or edit before uploading to my blog.

Love the covers on these special TikTok editions of a few of Brandon Sanderson’s books. Might’ve ordered a set for gifts. And I’ll keep The Emperor’s Soul, which I don’t have in print. 📚