Jamie Thingelstad

I suspect the reason Apple Intelligence mail categories are only supported on the iPhone is at least in part because of the difficulty with synchronizing that state across multiple devices. Feels similar to People identification in Photos at first, but Apple can’t control the backend on email.

I’ve used Sanebox for a decade to defer emails, but now I’m trying Fastmail and I’m realizing how nice it is to be able to individually specify a defer time per email instead of just having two or three options as folders. Downside is I can only defer in the Fastmail clients.

After much debating I finally decided to get a new laptop and ordered a MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and configured nicely. This thing is going to be fast! Will be especially nice for photography. 😎

I’ve been a Sanebox user for over a decade on all my mailboxes. I’m trying going without on my personal email and using Apple Intelligence features with Fastmail support for defering. Sanebox hasn’t been innovating for a long time and I want to see if I really need it.

I’m a big fan of Jay Farrar and Son Volt so it didn’t take much debate to become a member of the Electro Melodier Society, aka The Official Son Volt Fan Club. I dig that they are creating a channel to distribute new and old music to members.

Tammy made a batch of these Peppermint Bark Chocolate Chip Cookies and they are so good. 🤤

We had an incredible brunch with friends at Lynette. Tammy and I shared the Blackened Avocado Toast and Stuffed French Toast. The avocado toast was amazing! Tyler enjoyed the Burger and thought it was great. They also do custom lattes. I had the Potica Latte which was perfect! Will return!

I’m adding one more Shortcut to my Micro.blog Collections Shortcuts. One of the concerns I’ve had with collections is making sure that I have some way of undoing them. If I move to another blog service and it doesn’t support these I need to know which photos are in those collections. This is gracefully handled by micro.blog when you export your blog. It will replace them all at that time and your good to go.

However, I’m a bit of a “belt and suspenders” person and I’d like more than just that. Also, what if I just wanted to undo a single collection and I’m not exporting my whole blog? I’d like to be able to get at this data easier. Add to that that for very large blogs micro.blog export doesn’t work today due to file size limitations. I wanted another way.

This Shortcut gets a list of all your collections, then iterates through that list building a JSON data object that contains all your Collection names along with an array of the photos in that collection.

It can take a bit to run, and Shortcuts in general isn’t great with loops of loops and building larger data sets. Give it some time and it will finish just fine. It takes about 15 seconds to run for my over 60 collections.

Add Micro.blog Collection Exporter

The output of this Shortcut will give data like this:

{
    "Collections": {
        "Coffee": [
            "https://www.thingelstad.com/uploads/2021/31d369a8f6.jpg",
            "https://www.thingelstad.com/uploads/2021/c41923433b.jpg",
            "https://www.thingelstad.com/uploads/2021/015df1a057.jpg"
        ],
        "Iceland": [
            "https://www.thingelstad.com/uploads/2022/799a9cb53a.jpg",
            "https://www.thingelstad.com/uploads/2022/1822276426.jpg",
            "https://www.thingelstad.com/uploads/2024/24df887cc9.png"
        ],
        "Italy": [
            "https://www.thingelstad.com/uploads/2023/020261c875.jpg",
            "https://www.thingelstad.com/uploads/2023/269481db10.jpg",
            "https://www.thingelstad.com/uploads/2023/43c4de5c52.jpg",
            "https://www.thingelstad.com/uploads/2024/054ebe3a4d.jpg"
        ]
    }
}

One of my favorite things on a weekend morning is a good cup of coffee and writing a blog post that I had no idea I was going to write when I woke up. My favorite writing environment: weekend morning, cup of good coffee, quiet house, words flowing.

I was emailing a friend about Drafts and how critical it is to my writing. It made me think I should share that there is a 50% off 1-year subscription offer until January 15! I do almost all of my writing in Drafts. Sync and automation are key features for me. “Where text starts…” 👨‍💻

I saw Jatan Mehta reflecting on this question (on micro.blog no less — 👋 @moonmehta) and I couldn’t help but ponder the question myself.

For context let’s get some things in order since the question is premised around time.

• The official start date for my blog is June 2, 2004. There are posts before that but that is a different blog post.
• I joined Twitter in December 2006, and left it in 2017.
• For the ten years of 2007 to 2017 I had both my blog at thingelstad.com and my Twitter profile.
• Most of my writing from 2007 to 2017 originated on Twitter — low-effort, low-value.
• I was never predominantly writing on Facebook, and deleted Facebook before that time but don’t remember when. You can see I’ve written and used Facebook in the past.
• Over the last 10 years my blogging has been increasing and I’m strongly opinionated against social media.
• I also publish the Weekly Thing which gives subscribers a way to get my blog via email, along with commentary on links and other things.

So given the above it may not surprise you that my “too long, didn’t read” response to this question is a resounding yes, I would absolutely blog.

And I think it is worth noting that I only had a blog for about 30 months before getting on Twitter.

Thinking more about the question though I think it is interesting to look at the framing.

Progression?

One view is that this is like time and progression. We had vinyl records, then cassettes, then CD’s, then digital music. While records still are used they are an atypical use and we tend to think of this path as progress. One being better than the other. Is this appropriate for blogs? Are blogs the records and social media the CD’s? This would suggest that you can do the same things on either one which you cannot. I can’t even use simple bold and italics text on a modern social media platform in 2025. The very first blog ever made can do that. I can write long posts like this with paragraphs and complete thoughts. Most social media platforms do not allow this.

I would suggest that in reality the only things that social media and blogging share is some idea that a person is writing something, with or without limitations, that others may read. The book wasn’t replaced by blogs. There are many reasons and use cases that people will share their writing and they are not a progression. They can just be different.

Efficiency?

Another view of this question is to look at efficiency or improvement. In the past we may have rode a bicycle, then we had a car, now we even have buses and trains. Fundamentally a bus or a train is far more efficient than a car. If so, why not get rid of our cars and use those only? How about apartments? An apartment is more efficient than a single-family home. Yet we haven’t decided to only live in apartments designed for maximum efficiency. This analogy to me is the one that resonates the strongest in this area because of the desire for self-expression.

Social media is a lot like living in an apartment. There is a landlord who can decide to allow you to rent or not. There are rules and limitations. You cannot just paint the walls whenever you want and you certainly cannot just remodel the kitchen. You also have to modify your behavior. You cannot play your stereo super loud in the middle of the night. Consider that for a moment and it sounds like most social media platforms. You get an apartment — your profile. You can post as long as the landlord is okay with what you say. You cannot change the way your writing is displayed — no remodeling here. And as long as the landlord keeps the building up your words will be there. But you don’t own anything, and when they decide to sell the building you will go with it.

Having a blog is like having a single family home. Want to remodel? Okay. Want to play your stereo? Okay, within the noise ordinances. Want to change the way the living room is laid out? Fine, none of our business. This is why I have a blog. I want to have my own space, and do my own things, and not be under a landlord. That also means I have to mow my grass, tend to the rain gutters, and manage the upkeep. And just like houses some take more of that than others.

Commercialization

The final way I would look at this question is around the role of companies in our daily lives. Here there are some interesting paths. Let’s look at money. Most of us, including myself, have largely given up our right to transact freely and privately with cash. The tradeoff and convenience of credit cards is so great that we’ve largely agreed that we will allow a company to manage the engagement we have with others for money. With the rise of Venmo we’ve even done this for paying back our friend for an evening of bowling. Rather than handing him a private and secure $10 bill, we decide to allow multiple companies to sit in between that exchange because it is more convenient. To be honest I dislike that but I make that trade-off today.

So how does that apply to me sharing my ideas. Well, before the web and before blogging we actually were in that model with companies in the middle. I could really only get my words to a lot of people if I had a company in the middle. Some publisher or media organization would have to decide that it was beneficial to them in some way to share my writing with others. They got something out of it, and also had their own opinions. The web changed all that forever. In the world of news Dave Winer captured this in 2009 with Sources Go Direct. But it isn’t just news. Thanks to the web and blogging I’m typing these very words on my computer on a Sunday morning. I’m going to hit publish soon and with no concern to the content you will read it. Are there still companies in the middle? Sure, but none of them cared what I wrote. They weren’t a publisher.

So in this case the question about social media or blogging would be better stated as “Should we revert back to a model where companies will only share your writing for their benefit and people do not have their own voice?” While the modern social media company claims to not be editors (even though they are, especially with algorithms) they are only publishing your words because it is in their economic interest. In this case to get data, sell ads alongside, and algorithmic addict others, including you. So no, I don’t think we should go back to that.

Other blog posts on this:

• Bloggers at the right time by Manuel Moreale.
• I would not blog by Matthew Graybosch

We had a nice afternoon bowling at Elsie’s in Northeast. We got almost 19 frames in for a total of Tyler 161, Tammy 119, and me at 228. 🎳

After two attempts for dinner we finally made it to Mothership Pizza Paradise for lunch today. Started with Arancini and Woodfired Veggies (Carrots) and then Kay (margarita) and Kathy (pepperoni) pizzas with a hot honey dipping sauce. Finished with M&M Cookies and Milk. Was great!

Congratulations to Manton on the launch of micro.one! I have been a happy customer of micro.blog since launch and I love this new simplified version that makes blogging even more accessible at a super low $10 a year!

Living inside the little box that a social media platforms give you, in exchange for your personal data, is oppressive. Having a voice on the web means having your own domain. Even the simple act of formatting with bold, italics, and using hyperlinks freely can only be achieved on your own blog. Take a moment to consider that. Using these massive surveillance systems is fundamentally curtailing your ability to express yourself. In return for what? Being fed an algorithmic stream of garbage to addict you?

Having your own website has never been easier. And it isn’t free which is also how you know it is honest! My Grandpa, and probably yours too, taught me there was no free lunch. $10 a year to be able to express yourself on the web? So cheap. There is no way I know of to take a photo, attach a few sentences, and put them on the web better or easier than this.

In celebration of the launch I would love to sponsor some micro.one users. Email me if you’d like to get your own blog but the $10 is a barrier… it is an extension of my Weekly Thing Christmas Blogs!

There are organizations that I think are making the web better every day: Wikimedia, Let’s Encrypt, Internet Archive, Creative Commons. I think I need to add micro.blog to that list!

Little Snitch is a great app to protect your privacy. It is also incredible to use your computer for average stuff and see that you are connecting with systems all around the world. I’m even running 1Blocker in my browser which stops some things before they even get to the network layer!

24 years ago today Dave Winer introduced Payloads for RSS — which became the structure of the entire podcasting world. If you listen to a podcast, you are using RSS with enclosures. I love the backstory that he disagreed with the premise but Adam Curry “persisted” and convinced him of the value.

RSS already does most of what we want. With the addition of the <enclosure> sub-element of <item> any RSS element can describe a video or audio file (actually any type of file).

<enclosure> has three attributes: url says where the file is located, length says how big it is, and type says what its type is. This way a workstation or aggregator can know in advance, without having to do any communication, what it’s going to get, and apply scheduling and filtering rules.

This is another great example of the power of open protocols and the open web! 🪄

I’ve gone “all in” on Micro.blog’s photo collection feature. I’ve created 64 collections so far which if I’m reading id numbers right means 17% of all collections on micro.blog are ones I made. 🤓

I needed some tooling in order to migrate to collections and use them the way that I want to. I’m sharing here the three shortcuts that I’ve created to do this: Creator, Copier, and Viewer.

Requirements to be aware of:

• You will need an App Token for these Shortcuts. Create one on your apps screen.
• These shortcuts, like most of my more complicated shortcuts, all use Logger for Shortcuts. Make sure to install that on your devices. It is free and a great utility. I debated removing the logging methods to avoid this dependency but these shortcuts can run for 20 or 30 seconds and it is very helpful to be able to see the logging output while it is running.

Collection Creator

I’ve updated my original Collection Creator shortcut through my own use. Most of my collections have been populated with this Shortcut. I’ve found it even more useful than I thought to be able to take a clipboard full of URLs and create a collection out of the linked images. I’ve used it for posts, for pages, and even some cases where I just grabbed a bunch of image links and create a collection.

Improvements since the first release:

• Improved confirmation prompts for clarity.
• Improved logging to be more useful and include progress indicators like “1 of n” to each item. ¹
• After completing create the shortcode for the collection and put in the clipboard so ready to use.
• Minimal monitoring of API failure. ²

Add Micro.blog Collection Creator Shortcut

Collection Copier

I’m not sure how common this will be, but at times I want to include all the photos from one collection into another collection. For example:

• Blog post about a day of hiking in Switzerland uses a collection for that post.
• Page about that overall trip has a collection of photos for that trip.
• A photo page that contains all photos I’ve taken in Switzerland.

In this case these photos are in three collections. The easiest way to populate the aggregated collections would be to copy all photos from individual collections to them. It would be nice to “Add all photos from Collection X to Collection Y”. That is what this Shortcut does.

Add Micro.blog Collection Copier Shortcut

Collection Viewer

The viewer collection I don’t use a ton because it doesn’t do anything different than just looking at the collection on micro.blog. But I do like having the ability to quickly index into a collection and just verify what is in there so I’m keeping it around too. It was also the first Shortcut I wrote for this to figure out how to get into the API and see the responses.

Add Micro.blog Collection Viewer Shortcut