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Manton Reece @manton.org · 2h

Sora is not really for me. It’s fun to watch, but I’ve never wanted to create this style of video. Then I thought, could I use it to create some animated videos with public domain material like 1920s Mickey Mouse? Nope! Their guardrails are too strict.

Manton Reece @manton.org · 4h

Good post by Michael Tsai on Apple’s exclusive control over app distribution and how the problem is more fundamental that just the ICEBlock removal:

"They designed a system with a kill switch, and now people are surprised and upset... https://www.manton.org/2025/10/08/good-post-by-michael-tsai.html

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 5h

Picked up my car from the repair shop. Nice new bumper and paint, “like new” for a 2008 car. Itching to drive somewhere.

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 11h

Matt Baer writes on the state of the web and looking for real-life connections:

"Now we create “content” for the masses, and consume others' commodified lives; we self-censor and are careful not to post. The light, fun space the inte... https://www.manton.org/2025/10/08/matt-baer-writes-on-the.html

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 11h

I post to my blog with Micro.blog and it automatically converts to Bluesky format and preserves the inline links.

Manton Reece @manton.org · 12h

I think with optimizations this week I inadvertently made some blog publishing times slower. Rolling out a potential fix and continuing to monitor. Also deploying a bunch of behind the scenes infrastructure for the new video stuff.

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 1d

Spent some time reading through Mastodon’s early draft for starter packs. Too soon for me to implement anything. We’ve supported browsing Bluesky starter packs inside Micro.blog for a while, so would still like to do more there.

Manton Reece @manton.org · 1d

I’m sorry, I just fixed it. In some cases the post may have actually gone through successfully despite the error.

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 1d

When I have a blog post draft that has been sitting around for too long, I copy the text into a Micro.blog note and delete the draft. It’s surprisingly freeing not to have unfinished posts hanging around. (Yet still have the text if I ever want to bring it back into a new post.)

Manton Reece @manton.org · 1d

Yep! No need to escape angled brackets for tags. For best results, I recommend some kind of JSON processing library that will handle everything for you.

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 1d

Anil Dash making a strong case for video creators to work on independence from TikTok and other big platforms. The algorithm is fragile. It might help you today, but tomorrow you’ve lost everything without a direct connection to your audience.

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 1d

Federico Viticci blogging about the news from yesterday’s OpenAI DevDay and the impact of ChatGPT becoming a platform:

"If I were Apple, I’d start growing increasingly concerned at the prospect of another company controlling the interactions between users and their favorite apps."

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 1d

It’s a great question. You’re right that local models are going to keep getting better, but until our phones have 48 GB of RAM, I think large platforms are still going to be important. Privacy is an issue that needs attention, though.

Manton Reece @manton.org · 1d

The nice thing about JSON is that you do not need to escape HTML tags! However, you do need to escape quotes, otherwise it won’t be valid JSON. We also have validator.jsonfeed.org to check feeds. If it helps, also check out my JSON Feed as an example.

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 1d

Big news from Riley Testut about AltStore PAL, integrating with the fediverse, and new investment to grow the platform and give back to other open web tools. Very cool, congrats to everyone involved!

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 1d

Ben Thompson: “OpenAI is making a play to be the Windows of AI.” Also, on the inevitable bubble and the infrastructure we’ll be left with:

"The real payoff would be a massive build-out in power generation, which would be a benefit for the next half a century."

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 2d

Thanks!

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 2d

Here’s a quick screencast to show the new Movies page in the Micro.blog sidebar. This blog post is also a test of longer video hosting on Micro.blog! 🤞 https://www.manton.org/2025/10/06/heres-a-quick-screencast-to.html

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 2d

FediForum starts tomorrow and runs for a couple days. It’s an online conference for folks who want to discuss and build for the future of the social web, from Mastodon to Bluesky. There has been a lot of new developer activity over on the Bluesky side, so I’m curious if any of that will bubble up.

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 2d

For all the folks overseas, I’d like to do more for localization in Micro.blog. Not the main UI, but the parts that show up on your own blog, e.g. “Finished reading”, “Watched this movie”… I tried AI to dynamically translate a few things on the fly, but it’s a dead end. Maybe crowdsourced later.

Manton Reece @manton.org · 2d

Parker Ortolani blogs early praise for Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses. They are solving completely different problems than the Vision Pro:

"At one point I was walking down the street, spotted a coffee shop across the way, and simply popped up the maps app on the glasses to see details."

Manton Reece @manton.org · 2d

Really good Stratechery update this morning from Ben Thompson about Sora’s rise to #1 in the App Store. People are having fun with the app, but I don’t think creativity with prompts is the same as real photography and filmmaking. I’m also pessimistic about the effects of infinite scrollable content.

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 3d

Watched One Battle After Another. Even though I saw the trailer, didn’t actually know what it was about. Intense, excellent. 🍿

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Manton Reece @manton.org · 3d

Brent Simmons blogged about why NetNewsWire isn’t a web app, along the way making the case for Apple letting us use our devices as the computers that they are:

"What I want to see happen is for Apple to allow iPhone and iPad ... https://www.manton.org/2025/10/05/brent-simmons-blogged-about-why.html

Manton Reece @manton.org · 3d

Manu Moreale blogs about posting on social media as a performance:

"By doing it publicly, you can be part of the mob of the day, find yourself in the company of like-minded individuals (that you likely don’t know and might as well hate you in real life), and have fun berating someone."

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