textlog

about

The quieter social microblogging platform.

textlog is a simple social text log: write short notes, follow people and hashtags, and join conversations without turning every thought into a performance.

Notes are limited to 500 characters. The constraint keeps them quick to write and read, making room for one thought at a time.

Small by design

textlog is built around words: notes, people, hashtags, and conversations. It is intentionally small, straightforward, and easy to follow. There are no engagement tricks or pressure to build an audience.

Your profile and notes are public. Joining is free, and you can download or delete your account data whenever you like. If you feel like it, you can also donate to support the service.

textlog collective is fiscally hosted by Open Source Europe. Our finances and contributions are publicly visible on Open Collective.

Be a good neighbour

Share what is yours to share, treat other people with respect, and don’t use the service for harassment, abuse, spam, impersonation, or anything unlawful. We may moderate or remove content that puts the community or the service at risk.

What's next?

Any conversation

spiral #execnotesenter to follow for(y=-5;y<5;y++){ s="" for(x=-10;x<10;x++){ r=Math.hypot(x/2,y);a=Math.atan2(y,x/2);s+=" .:*#█"[((r+a*2)%5+5)%5|0] } console.log(s) }
::.........:::***## .. ...::**## ######## ..::**# ###********# ..::*# #**:::...::*# ..:**# . ##**::. ..::**## ##**:.. #*::***## ##**:.. ###### . ##**::... ... . ##***:::......:::
Someone can create enormous value while their manager controls the narrative around that value. Conversely, a manager can conceal structural problems because the people capable of exposing them depend on that same manager for evaluation and promotion
profileenter to followI am just a grain of sand on your beach.replied toprofileenter to followEat, drink, listen to 🎶, & watch the fish. Occasionally cook.:
I never used the online version, but the last time I used the offline version it already was a horrible experience. This was about 5 years ago, before I had moved entirely to Linux. It was so bad I downloaded a pirated version of some old MS Office 2007 Blue Edition to have something acceptable. I unironically prefer Libre Office.
We have 27 chickens right now, 18 of which are new this year and are just starting to lay in the last few weeks. I have collected 13 eggs today so far.
😊profileenter to followPresbyter, husband, father, technologist, linguist, musician.wrote:
Цветок розы не издает голоса, а благоухание его далеко расходится молча; так надо жить и всем христианам. —Святитель Феофан Затворник
The rose flower makes no sound, but its fragrance spreads far and wide in silence; so should all Christians live. —St. Theophan the Recluse
Frustrated with my phone usage again tonight, I uninstalled several pointless and time-consuming apps. It’s a cycle I repeat every few months. During this cycle, I wasted a lot of time on one of those puzzle-matching games. I'm considering switching to Ubuntu Touch at this point
profileenter to followpermanent head damage, human-computer infractionwrote:
I'm not an optimist, just a pessimist who's still proactive: I don't think things are going to get better, but I just can't talk myself into giving up yet.
profileenter to followHow wonderful to be alivewrote:
Last year I wasn't feeling too good. I turned forty, waited for surgery, and was hurt by my own colleagues. So I dealt with things. Maybe not so well, but to the best of my ability. One of the consequences was that I got a bit heavy. My body changed, and I didn't feel like myself. It was a problem for future me. So now I am here with this little belly of mine. We're not enemies, but I decided it's time to part ways. So I count calories. Maybe not so well, but to the best of my ability.
profileenter to followHow wonderful to be alivereplied toprofileenter to followPresbyter, husband, father, technologist, linguist, musician.:
Thank you! Almost back to baseline now, after a few months. trigger warning, eating disorders: I sometimes forget to log what I eat in my app of course, but what is perhaps slightly nore disturbing is the fact that I sometimes log stuff and then forget to actually eat them. Some sort of Baudrillardian simulacrum of eating.
profileenter to followex-perl programmer, linux userwrote:
let's see how arabic letters are rendered here: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Let's see how Arabic letters are rendered here: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
🧑‍🚀profileenter to followнυмαηwrote:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣀⠀⠀⢠⠉⢹⢳⢄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡤⠔⡞⠛⣵⠀⠀⠙⡄⢸⠀⢸⠀⡜⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡴⠉⠈⡧⣀⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡰⠃⠀⢰⠀⠘⡆⠀⠀⢰⠈⡀⠀⡀⡇⡇⠀⠀⠀⡰⡱⡝⠀⡜⠀⡜⠀⢈⠆⠂⠤⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡀⢏⠀⢇⠀⠀⢃⠀⠸⡀⠀⠀⡆⡇⠀⡇⠁⡇⠀⠀⡰⢡⡱⠁⡐⢀⠌⢀⢴⠋⠀⠀⠀⣈⡆⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡁⠈⠹⣦⠈⢆⠀⠈⡆⠀⠱⠀⠀⢰⢁⠀⢃⢸⡇⠀⢠⢁⢧⠃⡰⢀⠎⢠⡾⠁⠀⠀⡠⠊⡠⠃⠈⣄⠀⠀⠀
profileenter to followSoftware engineer (of course) in Londonwrote:
I finished Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte and now I'm struggling to take any other book seriously. I need a pallet cleanser or something before I can move on
I think if @stagasprofileenter to followcreative technologist creator of textlog intends to be an active user of the site henceforth, it'd it should be kosher. Otherwise, one of us who's been active on the site for a while could submit a post.
I plan to remain active, so not planning a top level post just yet. Will try to engage first for a few days so the ratio is low when I do the post.
5 min/km is pretty quick, as far as I'm concerned! My easy/forever pace is more like 8:30–9 min/mile right now.
It’s using the /firehose /apitextlogAPIA quieter place for your thoughts. endpoint. It’s an SSE endpoint publishing everything latest. Though I meant it to be used server-side, since it’s heavily rate-limited — up to 3 conns under the same network, but I can’t control how clients decide to use it so.. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
profileenter to followwrote:
(Opinion) People don’t like generative AI because it made the {insert creativity} too easy. Saw the HN post on ‘AI music banned from top 40 chart in Australia’ and people had very strong opinions in both directions. The hot take: If you’re ok with someone’s creativity being outsourced to others, then you should be ok with AI doing the same. If “AI made this and I call it mine” is bad but “someone overseas on fivver made this and I call it mine” and it’s suddenly ok, time to self reflect.
My hot take: from the moment you use technology, be it an instrument, a synthesizer, a DAW, and now AI, it is still your idea, your effort, your time spent, and that makes it yours. Others can do the same if they choose. The same way someone chooses a classic guitar over a synthesizer, one can choose an AI over (insert ancient way of doing things).
I am not a musician, so I lack the jargon to properly explain what I mean. I used AI for creative writing (nothing too fancy, TTRPG). There, the broader the dice roll, the more generic and uninteresting the results. Slop, if you will. It was surprisingly good to build up on ideas I had however. I imagine muisic also has building blocks. Melodies, instruments, mixing, etc. AI can perhaps be used in a similar fashion there.
I heard a perspective I sort of like: if AI is a tool then acceptable AI use is, more or less, defined as "when my audience no longer notices or cares". It's dynamic like that. Bad photoshop is detectable and annoying, so are overusing presets. Your artistry needs to expand to meet the tool. I don't know if I 100% like that or agree. At the same time, it's a pretty straightforward line, a practical take.
I kind of ask that and here is my theory... news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49289341#49290428 But on the rejection for AI just for the sake of it, I think part is that analyzing takes effort and if there is more and more to analyze you creates this mechanism to defend yourself... scroll twi... I mean reject the premise as false and ask for a human made thing because that one is "truth" more worthy.
I think it will still apply, just perhaps to a lesser degree. Kind of related to this blog postevnm.substack.comPlatform engineering still mattersReuse is a good thing, even with agentic coding I wrote recently (not to shamelessly plug my stuff 🫣)
🙈profileenter to follow"Beware those that would deny you access to information, for in their heart they dream themselves your master." — Sid Meyerswrote:
Well, I think my IRCd (Eris v2) is close to be complete.
😊profileenter to followPresbyter, husband, father, technologist, linguist, musician.continued:
After #exercisenotesenter to follow everything's awake and a good kind of sore. So much of habit-building has been to identify and train myself to value moderate discomfort that leads to growth as the most pleasurable of goals. Consistent spiritual efforts, healthy food and in proper amounts, minimum sleep quota, regular exercise a few times a week—all of these involve discomfort and force of will, but all of them enable growth and fulfillment.
profileenter to followlate is the hour in which this conjuror chooses to appearwrote:
🐉 #execnotesenter to follow let N=6,D0=[0,1,0,-1],D1=[1,0,-1,0],s=[],g={},d=x=y=xa=xb=ya=yb=0; for(let n=0;n<N;n++){s=s.concat([1]).concat(s.map(x=>!x).reverse())} for(let i=0;i<s.length;i++) { x<xa && (xa=x);y<ya && (ya=y);x>xb && (xb=x);y>yb && (yb=y); let t=s[i]?1:-1,e=(d+t+4)%4; g[x]||(g[x]={}); g[x][y]=g[x][y]?"┼":"┌┐└┘"[(t*(D0[d]+D0[e])>0?0:2)+(t*(D1[d]+D1[e])>0?0:1)]; x+=D0[e];y+=D1[e];d=e; } for(j=yb;j>=ya;j--) { let u=""; for(i=xa;i<=xb;i++){u+=(g[i][j]||"·")} console.log(u); }
·┌┐┌┐······· ┌┘└┼┘····┌┐· └··└┐┌┐···└┐ ···┌┼┼┘···┌┘ ···└┼┼┐┌┐┌┼┐ ···┌┼┘└┼┼┘└┘ ···└┼┐·└┼┐·· ····└┘··└┘··
profileenter to followlate is the hour in which this conjuror chooses to appearcontinued:
OK, so you only get 10 lines of output. (I tried to get ChatGPT to write this program but it kept messing up, so I wrote it by hand.)
profileenter to followwrote:
Do you code in silence or do you listen to music? If so, what kind of music do you prefer? Personally, I prefer Synthwave, vaporwave or the occasional country.
I listen to about anything as I can easily tune out the vocals. Jazz, Boiler Room sets, PoolsuitePoolsuite ☼Poolsuite ☼The ultra-summer internet radio station, playing an infinity pool of summer sounds 24/7. Swimwear optional. Formerly Poolside FM., and puppet DJsYouTubeTinypuppetsoundTiny Heart. Big Move. You Just Dance. 📩tinypuppetsound@gmail.com are my current rotations.
The job market feels like it's been run over by a truck. What's the play here? Anything automated/streamlined (job platforms, LinkedIn, etc.) feels like a dead end. Messaging people, networking and so on seems like the only reasonable way, and that's a hustle all on its own.
profileenter to followOld school metallian, hobbyist developer writing things mostly in Rust…mostlywrote:
Sharing your work with others is a hard computer science problem in 2026, the Year of our Lord. You either here the sound of chirping crickets or the sound of "AI Slop" yells.
My past 3 projects went viral. I didn’t write a single line of code in any of them. But I still feel I engineered them. There were a few people that noticed but the majority didn’t see an issue.
You're fortunate in that you've genuinely captured something that people clearly want with textlog. No one wants another static site generator or coding harness. Ideas that resonate are pretty few and far between now.
I should have said past 4 projects went viral but the other one I did a lot of coding too, so wasn’t entirely “AI slop”. In all cases though, I made something I wanted to see. It just happened to resonate with others. Still, none of them extremely popular yet. All <500 users.
github.com/unsayGitHubunsay - Overviewunsay has 30 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub., however my project @C0C0A5profileenter to followwww.C0C0A5.com will be on Tangled. tangled.org/unsay.comTangledunsay.comunsay.com on Tangled.
github.com/crustyrustaceanGitHubcrustyrustacean - OverviewBuilding all the things mostly in Rust...mostly... - crustyrustacean Unlike others, I’m far too quick to put stuff up here. I tend to look on building and showing as THE point, but maybe I’m wrong.
I'm doing experiments with short attention-span students and code. Starting with python, and, oddly, now working in BASIC. As a C programmer of 40+ years, I find this aesthetically and pedagogically displeasing, but I am delighted to see them getting fully absorbed in writing 130 PRINT "You have been eaten by a bear!" : GOTO 900. Yes there is spaghetti, but it's their spaghetti and they seem to take delight in debugging it. Python will come later. #educationnotesenter to follow #programmingnotesenter to follow
profileenter to followreplied to(deleted account):
I was talking about this with some alumni students, specifically their experience learning python with us a few years earlier (these are college students who are not really using python any more). What it seems to boil down to is that with python you have the feeling that there is this huge forest of solutions to any problem you are having -- but you will never know the whole forest. BASIC feels like you "know" it after a day or two of playing around, evidently.
profileenter to followI am just a grain of sand on your beach.wrote:
while we wait for this to be true we could add our bits together remember to not sleep forever return when your dreams are through Start with cringy poem, end with cringy pseudocode. At least it comes naturally.