One Man's Notes

Ah, the horror on my daughter’s face was only matched by the delight on mine when Siri delivered The Wurzels version of I wish it could be Christmas everyday, rather than the original…

Proper job.


Sad to see TinyLetter closing down. It was ahead of the curve on newsletters, but got bought by MailChimp, and was left to wither on the vine.

MailChimp is all about the marketing, and that’s very different from editorial newsletters.


It’s easy to claim you have ethical supply chains. It’s much harder to actually monitor them to check, say, your outdoors costs aren’t being made by Chinese prisoners.


OMG: On TikTok, kids are making Christmas wish list PowerPoint decks

My girls will use Keynote, or it’ll a disappointing Christmas. 😉


Started reading: Flourish by Antonia Case 📚


It’s beginning to look a lot like…

Christmas decorations on Clerkenwell Green in London.

”’Was your world once wild?' a distant intelligence might ask. Yes, we’d say. Till it went under our ploughs and the hooves of our cattle. Under the weight of our stuff.”

Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie 📚


WordPress themes that are dependent on multiple plugins to function are a crime against all that is good and holy in web publishing.


The problem with WordPress’s 100 year plan.

I would absolutely pay for a service to keep my work online after my death. This is not the service for me — and the fact that they haven’t sold a single account in three months makes it clear I’m not alone.


OpenAI’s interim boss seems… nice. 🤦🏼‍♂️


Started reading: Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie 📚

It’s this month’s Adventurous Ink book.


Interesting update from Bluesky:

  • They’ve hit 2m users, despite still being invite-only
  • A web view of posts and timelines coming this year
  • Federation should be working early next year

I’m really happy with this little quality of life improvement from the Ghost folks. As a habitual emoji user, anything that makes it easier gets a 👍🏻 from me!


The Gawker brand is coming back — but not the archive or the same approach, it appears.


For years, Twitter was second only to to Google as a source of traffic to my blog. This month, it’s being beaten by… Yandex. LinkedIn is now the top social referrer.


A dalmatian pelican at the Arundel Wetland Centre.

A dalmatian pelican in Sussex.

Sadly, I had no ducks left to give.

A sign saying “ducks (and staff) only”.

Lovely to see someone whom I got started in blogging (I ran the network of businessss blogs he alludes to), hit a decade of doing under his own steam.


Podcast listeners!

I’m looking for podcasts with vibrant and well-managed online communities, be they on Reddit, in Facebook groups, Forums, Discord, or whoever they chose to create them.

Suggestions gratefully received.


Started reading: Enchantment by Katherine May 📚

Reminded to do so by this podcast with her.


This is worrying: publications are using AI generated images of the Gaza conflict from Adobe Stock without declaring that they are AI created.

One might also ask if this is an appropriate subject for generative AI…


I’ve spent a lot of time on alt text for presentations over the past five weeks, and more than once Apple’s Live Text feature has saved me a whole bunch of retyping, when people (myself included) have used non-accessible infographics in their decks.


Put that phone down and go be bored: your creativity depends on it.

(And other things worth reading).


Worth a read: Mastodon Is the Good One


Greetings from Storm Ciarán…

Adam Tinworth in the rain, during Storm Ciarán.