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

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 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.
profileenter to followwrote:
I think more than 50% of our economy's businesses, are cosplaying. Not in it for customers or profit; in it for investors and investments. "Looking like a business", as your real line of work.
a business loan is not an investment, it is debt financing that pays back with interest. An investment means putting money into a company to gain ownership or a share of future profits. to me it feels like youre arguing against cosplaying, showing small businesses struggle and arent just playing boss for the funzies.
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.
Bonnie Raitt stuck in my head, who, by some definition, is a nepo baby, but well before the term was coined. I think the problem is obv not family businesses, but a shrinking pool of opportunities for those without a prebuilt network to inherit (or buy).
having just spent a week camper-travelling Norway, hiking mountains and glaciers, swimming in fjords really put some things into perspective for me - I should take more vacations
Inspired by two projects of github:schildep I start to explore what can be expressed in Lean and make coding agents implement and prove the implementation at the same time.
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.
profileenter to followCurrently in remission from ME/CFS after 3+ years. Occasional software engineering leader, app developer, blogger, zwifter, and just being online.replied toprofileenter to followJust another AI guy:
Determine what matters most and make a list of the no more than 7 things. Do one thing well at a time, top down. Reprioritise as you learn more. Notes:
  1. If you half-arse a task and decide that'll do, it's evidence it wasn't the right priority. Learn.
  2. Any sort of productivity, multi-tasking, app, solution type thing is a scam or a money grab and isn't needed.
  3. People tend to remember 7 things well, but struggle with longer lists and particularly fail to remember things in the middle.
🤸profileenter to followcreative technologistGitHubstagas - Overviewstagas has 462 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub. creator of textlogreplied toprofileenter to followCurrently in remission from ME/CFS after 3+ years. Occasional software engineering leader, app developer, blogger, zwifter, and just being online.:
_ _ __ ___.--’_`. .'_`--.___ __ ( _`.'. - 'o` ) ( ‘o` - .`.’_ ) _\.’_’ _.-’ `-._ `_`./_ ( \`. ) //\` /\\ ( .'/ ) \_`-’`---'\\__, ,__//`---’`-'_/ \` `-\ /-' '/ #ascii_artnotesenter to follow
Added #meta tag — use it whenever you want to talk about the site itself, and these posts will not show up in all, any or the post’s page. Only those that follow the tag or the person will see these posts in my feed or in post pages. This is to keep the site clear of meta discussions which dominated a lot at this early stage and I think were annoying to many people. So this is the last meta without the #meta tag you’ll see unless u follow. I’ll try to tag every post I find.
There are many distractions. Much is way too verbose. A calm, quiet and “distraction less” experience suits me better. I am not sure my thoughts will fit in 280 characters, but let’s try and see how far that goes.
profileenter to followSoftware • maker projects • music • DIY Mostly figuring things out as I go.wrote:
bill gates built microsoft by making computation cheaper faster and harder for government to restrain. now that he's a billionaire no longer dependent on the free market for his own success he's discovered the virtues of taxing the next wave of computation. 1995 gates would have called it a tax on innovation. classic pull-the-ladder-up-behind-you politics. #billgatesnotesenter to follow #microsoftnotesenter to follow #AInotesenter to follow #AItaxnotesenter to follow #techpolicynotesenter to follow
profileenter to followI carved wooden spoons and my favourite herb is lemon thyme.replied toprofileenter to followSoftware • maker projects • music • DIY Mostly figuring things out as I go.:
These were exactly my thoughts reading about how he thinks we should “preserve” some jobs for people; I don’t remember him being an advocate of preserving the jobs of typists, draftsman, typesetters, and other clerks when his company was leading a prior digital revolution…
profileenter to followwrote:
It's not clear, based on personal experience, how long - if it all - the software development field will value devs who actually enjoy the work. Most people I know are producing mostly AI work and there's an obvious skill decline that's resulted from it. 1/?
But does it matter if your boss doesn't care? Or if their boss doesn't care? If the paychecks keep coming who cares? What's the point of choosing the mountain if the "joy" just means more hours on screen that could have been spent elsewhere? 2/?
🤸profileenter to followcreative technologistGitHubstagas - Overviewstagas has 462 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub. creator of textlogreplied toprofileenter to follow"Beware those that would deny you access to information, for in their heart they dream themselves your master." — Sid Meyers:
Yeah it's happening to people. It's because the email contains a link and we don't have the reputation yet. Not sure what to do, have you tried reporting it as 'Not spam' in your client? Maybe if enough people do that it will fix. Gmail works ok.
🙈profileenter to follow"Beware those that would deny you access to information, for in their heart they dream themselves your master." — Sid Meyersreplied toprofileenter to followcreative technologistGitHubstagas - Overviewstagas has 462 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub. creator of textlog:
Yup, I am moving them out of it. It might take a while, but eventually should be OK. All good, hopefully now with a password I will not have much use for them any more.
i keep hallucinate.sitehallucinate.site open all day - the 3d pauses when the tab is out of focus, so i just get a ton of music i like without wasting cpu/gpu, and occassionally switch to the tab and play a little or chat if anyone's there. #funnotesenter to follow #vrnotesenter to follow #3dnotesenter to follow #ravenotesenter to follow #technonotesenter to follow
I underestimated how many terrible programmers who think C++ is a good choice over C exist on LinkedIn and ended up in some kind of flamewar, my bad.
profileenter to followOld school metallian, hobbyist developer writing things mostly in Rust…mostlywrote:
top
I don't see much point in trying to build software at a "higher level", like whole products and services. I'm going to go down low and train myself on the fundamentals. Hopefully in time I'll be able to contribute to the foundational bits. You're right, it does get exhausting. At some point you just want to rebuild everything, which is not possible.
NIH syndrome? I am guilty of it too. I love implementing things from scratch, you learn a lot by doing so and you get to own the codebase end-to-end, so no surprises and fighting around others’ choices. It can get exhausting too though, in the end I succumb to using off-the-shelf components because my primary goals move at a higher level.
i like things being as fast as possible. link?
profileenter to followProgrammer by day and night. Lover of art. Mixing art and programming is the dream.wrote:
Zik is my pet project - a photos manager that is as fast as possible and as small as possible. It leaves sparks as it goes (lol jk) #ziknotesenter to follow
profileenter to followProgrammer by day and night. Lover of art. Mixing art and programming is the dream.replied toprofileenter to followcreative technologistGitHubstagas - Overviewstagas has 462 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub. creator of textlog:
Unfortunately no. Just starting it. Got the proof of concept loading a dir with its sub-dirs then rendering on the GPU in textures silky smooth. 1.7mb executable, but will need to level up to SDL and that will double the size I think.
profileenter to followProgrammer by day and night. Lover of art. Mixing art and programming is the dream.replied toprofileenter to follow"Beware those that would deny you access to information, for in their heart they dream themselves your master." — Sid Meyers:
I agree. It is #zilchnotesenter to follow for now. Will do better next time, but in my defence the text above the text box (when writing a new message, not a reply) says “What’s on your mind”. :-P
profileenter to followNew herereplied toprofileenter to followMillenial/Xenial who used to be really excited about programming.:
Visiting, for the first time. It's about a 9 hour drive from home so we've never made the trip, but so worth it. Went to Ile d'Orleans yesterday, just... so quiet and beautiful. Seems a bit of a paradise, haven't even made it up to the natl park(s) yet. My French is coming back a little each day, made it all the way through the coffee order just now :)
I'm making a Kakoune version of this for sure.
Ah, no, I meant meow, the Kakoune-inspired emacs plugin.
You have #kakounenotesenter to follow, there is no need. I tried Emacs out a while ago to see whether it could replace Kakoune (I wanted to draw arbitrary stuff like images, 3D views, etc., in the editor) but honestly, Kakoune makes everything so easy to integrate that it was hard for it to compete.
The essence of aligning large LLM models is basically to conform to the existing social order. ChatGPT respects China's order, while China's open-source models, although reluctantly, also tolerate the order in the US. Maybe we can build a revisionist SFT dataset.
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.
profileenter to followI really enjoy learning, I really enjoy making. I'm learning to be less guarded.wrote:
there's a gentle kind of space not some echoing cave nor some incessant chirping flock more a darkened back room lit by a projector candid photos of your neighbors songs made only for friendly ears and the kind of brave words that rarely make it out of our hearts
You look in the corner, you see a guy quietly eating cigarette butts. It's ok. He's dealing with a lot of stress from work. He takes care of his family. Capitalism
🙈profileenter to follow"Beware those that would deny you access to information, for in their heart they dream themselves your master." — Sid Meyersreplied toprofileenter to follow:
Likewise... you look in the corner, you see a guy quietly eating cigarette butts. It's ok. He's dealing with a lot of stress for lack of work, or food, or future. He wants to take care of his family. Communism. We haven’t figured out yet. Maybe we never will.
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profileenter to followcoder, reader, guitarist, seeker, builder.wrote:
Judgement, taste and quality were always precious skills. In the world of #AInotesenter to follow, I have become more aware of the fact that it is often hard to put in words why something is good, great or amazing - or just looks good, but is average. A lot of the professional content I see feels like most Netflix series. They have all the elements - but the overall experience is still meh. Quality is still hard to achieve.
profileenter to followDigital business analyst, mostly on AI. Addicted to apps and domains. Family man.wrote:
took me until now to learn described images with low-cost models > attaching images to high-cost model. silly me. output quality remains, cost lowers.
🤸profileenter to followcreative technologistGitHubstagas - Overviewstagas has 462 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub. creator of textlogreplied toprofileenter to followDigital business analyst, mostly on AI. Addicted to apps and domains. Family man.:
I'm amazed how good these models have become, that probably you don't need the high-cost one yeah. I'm producing comics for fun with the latest ChatGPT and they're flawless, no artifacts. ibb.co/TGBgYMQImgBBvibecoder hosted at ImgBBImage vibecoder hosted on ImgBB ibb.co/dn7rCxhImgBBpnp hosted at ImgBBImage pnp hosted on ImgBB
Vår konges livsgjerning går mot slutten, landet samler seg for å ta farvel med en konge som har vært samlende og god for landet. Må Gud velsigne hans minne og hans etterfølger. #norgenotesenter to follow #kongharaldnotesenter to follow
Our king's life's work is coming to an end, the country comes together to say goodbye to a king who has been unifying and good for the country. May God bless his memory and his successor. #norwaynotesenter to follow #kongharaldnotesenter to follow
🙈profileenter to follow"Beware those that would deny you access to information, for in their heart they dream themselves your master." — Sid Meyersreplied toprofileenter to followcreative technologistGitHubstagas - Overviewstagas has 462 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub. creator of textlog:
I used to do the same (discard medicines notifications). Now I don’t do it until I’ve taken them. And mine notifications are very persistent. It is either that, or keep—or aggravate—my issues.
I once saw someone flip their pill bottle upside down after taking a pill. Not sure it'd help me, because I suspect that somehow I'd still only pay half-attention when taking pills and so still get forgetful and confused :shrug:
profileenter to followa work in progress; i love cats 🐱replied to(deleted account):
I never understood why they would allow you to follow different “feeds” but not hashtags. I like mastodon’s approach better.
profileenter to followa work in progress; i love cats 🐱replied to(deleted account):
Oh my god, art was the only reason I used bsky regularly. Not anymore, and I miss it too.
profileenter to followOld school metallian, hobbyist developer writing things mostly in Rust…mostlywrote:
I'm not sure the world needs another static site generator, but I made one. get-taxus.org Giving the project some TLC this week, doing some bug squashing. If you want and SSG that doesn't fight you, give it a go.
didn't want to invite all the bots from day one :P we're #open_sourcenotesenter to follow if someone wants to implement API authentication and mutation endpoints they are free to try github.com/stagas/textlogGitHubGitHub - stagas/textlog: textlog.cctextlog.cc. Contribute to stagas/textlog development by creating an account on GitHub.
profileenter to followOld school metallian, hobbyist developer writing things mostly in Rust…mostlywrote:
The pendulum has swung far in the direction of favouring machine generated content over that from actual people. I wonder when it will swing back?