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

Been working on an old mastodon hosting project I tried to start a few years ago, with a focus on privacy. This is the first big project I've tried to come back to with the help of coding agents and find it invigorating, and gives me the confidence to actually finish the project. Who knows if it will ever make a dollar, but it sure is fun to watch my ideas come to life.
Similar with having access to so much critically acclaimed media, but they are so emotionally or intellectually draining that I find myself rewatching ol' familiars. Availability seems just one aspect, and perhaps not even the most limiting factor. Maybe most people have a "limit" on number of "lives", as in number of times you fall in love, change, get inspired, connect, etc..
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 followHi! I'm a programmer and enjoy playing music. Jesus is my Savior, and my ultimate goal is to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever." (Westminster Q1).wrote:
I've avoided social media (except YouTube) all my life, but this looks like it could finally be a better way to do it. Maybe I'll keep a running journal of cool things I'm working on here or weird bugs that I've found. Or just the struggles of coding. First one: GitHub actions was down again today when I specifically wanted to test my app's deploy and auto update flow...
#execnotesenter to follow let i=0;while(++i){process.stdout.write(i%80==0?'\n':Math.random()<0.5?'/':'\\')}
\\\//\/\\\\\\\///\///\\\\\//\///\/\/\\//\/\//\//\/\//\\/\///\\\\\\//\\\\\/\\\\/ \\/\\/\/\///\\\/\///\/\/////\\///\/\\/\\\//\\\/\///////\\\/\////\\\/\\\//\\/\// \\//\\\\\/\\\/\///\\///\\//\\\\/\//\\\//\////\//\\\\////\\/\/\/////\//\\\//\/// \\/\/\\//\\///\/\\\//\/\/\\\///\/\\\/\\/\\\\/\\\\\\\\\\/\\//\/\\/\///\//\\\//\\ /\/\\\\/\/\\/\\/\\/\\\\\\/\\\/\\//////\/\//\\\//\//\//\\/\\\/\//\\\//\\\\\\\/\/ \\\///\////////\\/////\\//\/\///\\\\\////\/\\\\/\//\\/\/////\\\//\\/\/\\\\\//// \///\/\/////\//\////\\\/\\/////\\\////\//\\\\/\\\\//\\\///\\\\\\//\\////\////// /\/////\\\\\\//\\/\/\///\////\/\\\///\\///\//\/\/\\\/\\/\\\\\\//\/\\\///\\/\/\\ … \\/\//\\//\///\/\///\\\\/\//\/\\/\/\//\\/\/\/\\/\/\\/\\\\/\/////\\\///\\\\\//\\
Cool!! I'm currently designing and idea-shopping for an ultra light weight, super aesthetic browser whose goal is to go back to HTML roots and just be a "document browser". It would have HTML 4 and semantic HTML support, images, videos, full HTTP support, cookies, etc. No CSS, JS
profileenter to followdeveloper stereotype: music lover, gamer, and failed artistwrote:
everytime i see projects like this, i think that a rss implementation it wolud be so cool. Although iknow that there is not that much rss lover out there haha
profileenter to followOld school metallian, hobbyist developer writing things mostly in Rust…mostlywrote:
I’m an insane person who built their own coding harness, in Rust. I’ve called it Rho. Please forgive this landing page: https://rho-code.dev I just wanted an easy central spot.
Not insane at all. People should build their own instead of using other people's agents. It's easy to do and the results can be great for you. I've built several; one that is effectively "stuck" in Kakoune: youtube.com/…/playlistYouTubeLLMs stuck in Kakoune
profileenter to followwrote:
I like this, it feels like Reddit before what it is now, but I feel like it won’t be long until the internet destroys this place. Until then I’m happy to be here.
profileenter to followlate is the hour in which this conjuror chooses to appearreplied toprofileenter to follow:
My favorite part of classic reddit was the use of elaborate hacks to circumvent the restrictions on custom subreddit CSS. E.g. animated gifs weren't allowed, so people made filmstrip sprites with stepwise animation in such a way as to look exactly the same.
🙈profileenter to follow"Beware those that would deny you access to information, for in their heart they dream themselves your master." — Sid Meyerswrote:
I am trying to wrap my head around Traefik (which I have never used; have only used Caddy for most of my needs) to plan a migration for things I now run on "bare metal” to containers, and then use Traefik as entry point. If you know some good guides, send the link my way, please.
profileenter to followMillenial/Xenial who used to be really excited about programming.replied toprofileenter to follow:
As young kid I dreamed of working with reel-to-reel machines Cutting/splicing tape, happy accidents As a teen I couldn't afford reel-to-reel but got decent with multi-track cassettes Everyone was telling me digital was The Way (tm) In my 30s, I finally learned how to use a DAW properly In my 40s, I'm back to playing around with multi-tracks cassettes There is no money in it, but I'm enthusiastic as I can be (this is not so much as direct response as simply a response) #musicnotesenter to follow #aifearnotesenter to follow
profileenter to followlate is the hour in which this conjuror chooses to appearwrote:
one more step. just a moment. attention required! enable javascript and cookies to continue. verifying the security of your connection. your browsing activity has been paused. content unavailable in your region. 429 too many requests. 403 forbidden. connection has timed out.
profileenter to followI am just a grain of sand on your beach.replied toprofileenter to followlate is the hour in which this conjuror chooses to appear:
The future is here. But instead of flying cars or holodeck, what you get is tracking cookies and captcha everywhere. Maybe someday you will need to have your rectum scanned by Google or Meta nee Facebook before your browser does a HTTP request.
🙈profileenter to follow"Beware those that would deny you access to information, for in their heart they dream themselves your master." — Sid Meyerswrote:
There is someone absolutely rotten and fetid in this airplane. Every 10 minutes. Dear Spaghetti Monster!
profileenter to followOld school metallian, hobbyist developer writing things mostly in Rust…mostlywrote:
I've linked up my blog (jeff-mitchell.dev) to textlog. I hope to use the two things together now to build a bit more of a writing habit. The 500 character increase is nice, room to breath but not an essay. Gotta build the muscles slowly :)
🙈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 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 followI really enjoy learning, I really enjoy making. I'm learning to be less guarded.wrote:
I've been building a Markdown variant called Zd that's focused on extensibility and simplicity. I'm curious what you would change about Markdown if you were designing it from scratch, what challenges you face as a user, or what you wish were easier to do when incorporating Markdown into your own projects.
Yeah, 100%. That is completely something I am punting on currently. It would be easy to just copy over the solution from (extensions to) Markdown, but it's hard to entirely narrow in on both what tables ought to do and how to make them do it. If you had a magic wand, what would you have them be more like?
Huge refactor today, moved from sync SQLite to Worker based, touched 88 files, pre-#AInotesenter to follow it would have taken a week or so, finished now in ~1:30h. And I wouldn’t have the confidence I have now that it went correct. It went well, though a bug or two might surface, we’ll see.
SQLite is embedded in the main thread same as the HTTP server. I noticed some requests dropping and because the queries have become more complex I figured it has to do with SQLite blocking for too much time. Moving it to a Worker makes the DB asynchronous and bypass this problem.
🥸profileenter to followJust another AI guywrote:
I was curious of testing the Omarchy distribution this week just because I had some free time to work on it. I saw a lot of hate around it and kind of get the point but so far at least for what I have been doing it wasn't terrible (at least at the point of writing this) although I am not trying to convince anybody to use it. But it just remember me how much do I hate MS.
I think a lot of the pull around Omarchy is you get a riced desktop out of the box? Personally, I wouldn't really consider it for a number of reasons but I do appreciate a nice looking desktop. If you want something similarly pretty but a bit more normal and less monolithic (who needs a whole 'distro' for what Omarchy provides anyway?) approach then I'd suggest Niri + Noctalia.
😊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.
was shocked at how antiquated making international payments are in 2026!! used transfermate - no tracking, no visibility. just transfer and pray my money reaches 🙏
profileenter to followI carved wooden spoons and my favourite herb is lemon thyme.wrote:
After months of hardly any rain, I’m really enjoying a cozy day stuck indoors just listening to the downpour; getting on with doing some house cleaning. Is it too premature to declare this autumn⁇
Opened up signups and postedLinkedInMain · A quiet, well-organized record of everything that keeps your home running. | Evan MeagherI'm excited to share something I'm working on with Eric Noggle: https://getonmain.com For most people, a home is the most valuable asset that they own. And yet, homes remain chronically under-managed. Cars have service records. Portfolios have dashboards. Homes have a junk drawer full of manuals and receipts. This leads to problems that degrade a home's value over time. Deferred maintenance snowballs from small issues to emergency repairs costing thousands. And the effort you *do* put into your about Maingetonmain.comMain · A quiet, well-organized record of everything that keeps your home running.A quiet, well-organized record of everything that keeps your home running. on LinkedIn yesterday. Really strong response so far!
profileenter to followHow wonderful to be alivewrote:
I forgot that I was at work and did my big sneeze, not the work sneeze. The one where a startled deer looks straight into the camera, which then zooms out to a flock of pigeons taking off, and a crow makes a warning noise. Someone dropped something in the adjacent lab. I hope it wasn't my fault.
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
profileenter to follow10+ years Seattle based software engineer.wrote:
Recently hit 10+ years (cumulative) of being a software engineer. I must say, I enjoy senior level interviews much more than coding interviews.
Catastrophic interference is also a favorite Wikipedia page and concept. The thing is, it doesn’t only happen to artificial neural networks, I’ve had it happen to me a few times. Especially with pin numbers, newer pins overwriting old ones and I’m always scared when I’m having hard time remembering something that this catastrophic interference applied and now the information is gone from my brain.
profileenter to followOld school metallian, hobbyist developer writing things mostly in Rust…mostlywrote:
Having a little difficulty seeing how long this service will exist. People are terrible. Sooner or later it will be found and ruined.
working on permanent.sh a coding agent for the growing and seemingly permanent underclass of people that are left behind by the unbelievable pace of progress in ai the big labs are fighting over felonybench (exploitbench) and google deepmind ceo left to work on drug discovery
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 followwrote:
日本語話者はどれくらいいるんだろう。ここで日本語で書き込み続けるのはどうなんだろう
I wonder how many Japanese speakers there are. Is it okay to keep posting in Japanese here?
ここで日本語で書き込み続けるのはどうなんだろう サイト作成者はさまざまの言語の話者が一緒に話せる場面にしたい気がする /post/1045
I wonder if it's okay to keep posting in Japanese here. I get the feeling the site creator wants this to be a place where speakers of various languages can talk together. /post/1045
Fired up street view on Google Maps to have a look around. It seems like a pretty relaxed and peaceful place to live. 🌞
I was obsessed with Greece as a kid because of The Chipmunk's Adventure movie where they were dancing on the statues, ha. I was more into he statues (even if cartoon) than the dancing, and yet I have still never been there (I'm 45).
Crete is beautifulIt is!hiking a long gorgeThat would be Samaria Gorgeen.wikipedia.orgSamaria Gorge - Wikipedia! it’s not very far from here and it’s the largest in Greece, 7–8 hours hiking. You arrive at a beautiful beach. I crossed it when I was little, I remember whining a lot because for my small feet it was much harder.
profileenter to followYear 4 CS. Like tech, systems, game devwrote:
This SM is like a subreddit feed, except you also get a personalized feed along with 'hot' and 'latest' for people you follow. Or maybe it's modelled after twitter? Never used it so wouldnt know