Ryan Sholin is sticking with WordPress — but leaving behind Automatic hosting and services.

Seems a sensible response to the recent behaviour of the Automattic CEO.


Excited to see, via @manton, that @tapbots@tapbots.social have a new Bluesky app coming:

Phoenix.

I can’t wait.


This is just awesome:

A phantom “Super-Jupiter” 13 times more massive than our solar system’s gas giant is drifting through the cosmos around 20 light-years from Earth.

Read on…


I did my paternal duty and produced a stack of pancakes for my offspring to celebrate Shrove Tuesday.

A plate of pancakes with an unusual pattern resembling a face formed on the top surface.

Interesting to see Press Gazette doing a “return to the office” survey of journalism workplaces - using Substack.

But it requires you to have a Substack login to take it.


Making space elf Fire Dragons with my youngest in the Warhammer store.

A detailed miniature figure of a futuristic armored soldier holding a weapon and wearing a helmet with an elongated crest is being assembled.A child is engaged in assembling a Warhammer 40k miniature at a table, in a Warhammer shop.


It’s a landmark day for beavers:

Sussex Wildlife Trust welcomes the announcement today allowing licensed releases of Beavers into the wild in England, whilst confirming that all existing wild populations can remain and expand naturally. This means that rather than releasing into isolated enclosures, the Government will support catchment-scale releases of Beavers. For the first time in over 400 years, Beavers can live and move freely in our rivers.

In a sea of bleak, depressing news, this is exciting stuff.


Well, it had to happen. Here’s the first thing I actually agree with the current US president about:

Trump likens UK encryption law to ‘something you hear about with China’.

A stopped clock etc etc


That is… not a small number.

A screenshot of a Ghost publishing screen saying that this was the 5,400th post published on the site.

We have entered the age of goatse as government.

IYKYK

(I’m unreasonably proud of that phrase.)


Just updated my Twitter archive on micro.blog. It really brought home just how little I use the platform now. I first joined back in 2006, and it was once my main social media hangout.

Thanks for nothing, Melon Husk.


Terrible Tudors time from Horrible Histories at the Worthing Pavillion with my youngest.

A crowd of people is gathered in front of a stage set for a "Horrible Histories: Terrible Tudors" performance.

The Open Rights Group:

The Home Office’s actions have deprived millions of Britons from accessing a security feature. As a result, British citizens will be at higher risk of their personal data and family photos falling into the hands of criminals and predators.

Exactly. They made us less safe to make their life easier.


I’m disgusted and angry at this. Not at Apple, but at our government:

Apple is taking the unprecedented step of removing its highest level data security tool from customers in the UK, after the government demanded access to user data.

The BBC’s Zoe Kleinman has the details of what’s happening to Advanced Data Protection in the UK.


Matt Webb:

Blogs are a backwater (the web itself is a backwater) but keeping one is a statement of how being online can work. Blogging as a kind of Amish performance of a better life. Oh except that it does work as well as those other platforms, if that’s what you want, that’s the magic. Also all the good people are here.

He’s hit his 25 years of blogging. For me… that’s next year. Blimey.


What are the best RSS readers on Android and Windows these days?


Peter Bihr:

Rather than accepting that tech happens to society, we need to put societal needs first, and then examine how we want and allow tech to play into that.


Seth Godin:

Connection is powerful and magical. It’s also enervating, subject to manipulation and addictive.


It’s always encouraging seeing new banks of EV chargers popping up. Today, it was my first spot of chargers on a National Trust property: Nymans.

A charging station is situated along a pathway with parked cars and a person walking in the background.A row of electric cars is parked at a charging station beside a white building.


I sometimes find it depressing how rarely I actually see people in their gardens.

A collection of small sheds and structures is surrounded by overgrown vegetation in a wooded area.