Scripting News: Dropbox almost reinvented the web

I was trying to explain to Miguel de Icaza, a longtime developer friend, how Dropbox was within inches of making the web a million times more useful, ten years ago, and then backed away from it. I don’t think I’ve ever told the story here on my blog, so here goes.

I didn’t realize Dropbox had worked on something like this. I think Dave is right, this could have helped establish a platform for a whole ecosystem of small, indie web apps.

SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn completed the first private spacewalk

While I know this is a big achievement, I can’t help but feel this is still a step back from the Shuttle program, where astronauts could exit through an airlock rather than expose the whole capsule to the vacuum. The approach with the Dragon gives me Mercury/Apollo vibes.

Via 512 Pixels

Here’s a fun memory on the Dreamcast’s 25th anniversary: I remember renting the Dreamcast the summer before its launch. I think this was a promotion by either Blockbuster or Hollywood video (RIP to both).

I got to take home the console and Sonic Adventure, but no memory cards were available. So, that first night I kept the console running with the TV off all night long so I could keep my progress after school the next day.

The rental period, whatever it was (probably not more than a few days or week) went by in a flash. I was left feeling super hyped for 9/9/99.

Can you imagine a console releasing like this today?

Happy 25th anniversary to the Dreamcast 🌀which launched on an iconic 9/9/99!

mastodon.world/@vingtroi…

Interviewing Epic Games Founder/CEO Tim Sweeney and Author/Entrepreneur Neal Stephenson — MatthewBall.co

I hadn’t been keeping up with Stephenson and was surprised to see him interviewed with Sweeney, so I learned a lot about their current involvement with the Metaverse, AI, and blockchains. When you write it out like this, sounds like Stephenson is jumping on every modern tech bandwagon. But, they seem to have a shared interest in helping to create a more open Metaverse platform and tooling, so maybe there will eventually be something of substance there.

Checking out the new Reeder App which has support for Micro.blog alongside RSS, Mastodon, and other feeds. Very interesting!

Via Jim Mitchell

Atlanta City Council bans data centers along Beltline - Rough Draft Atlanta

The Atlanta City Council voted Tuesday to ban data centers along and near the Atlanta Beltline and within a half-mile of MARTA stations.

Interesting and unexpected. I’m in favor of this. Data centers are an important part of our digital infrastructure, but there’s no good reason to locate them near the city center or areas of high population.

Is my blue your blue? I got hue 179 which is bluer than 84% of the population.

Via Alex

Hilton Head, South Carolina

Testing out Threads cross posting from Micro.blog!

Finished reading: Dune by Frank Herbert 📚

Switched my site’s footer over to the IndieWeb Webring 🕸️💍, check it out on doug.pub!

A quick roundup of a few posts from across my feeds about the last ever (🥺) XOXO Festival.

ArtLung | Post-XOXO Ramble on Websites and Freedom: Everybody Comes To Ricks

During XOXO, Andy Baio said “Every one of you should have a home on the web not controlled by a billionaire.” Cabel Sasser recommended that we all “put up the dang portfolio.” Molly White asked us to think back to “when was the first time you thought the web was magic?”

Molly White | XOXO and that feeling

I mentioned that I’ve been feeling this a lot over the last few years, even as I too am witnessing what many of us think about as “the web” rotting right in front of our eyes. Working outside of that rot pile, and perhaps motivated by it, there are so many people who are excited about the potential for a better web.

Grep Jason | XOXO

This conference festival experience was incredible. There were amazing talks and demonstrations from all over the Indieweb space. From the opening party and arcade to the tear-jerker of a closing speech, it was positive and pure emotional joy the whole way through.

Kottke | Thanks, XOXO

Thanks to Craig Mod for coming all the way from Japan to share the stage with me for a too-brief chat about membership programs. In the run-up to this, Craig and I had three extensive conversations about memberships, the open web, the value of writing your own software, Walt Disney’s corporate strategy chart, and many more things.

Reading these posts, I got a dose of second hand excitement about the open web and the energy to continue to build it into the thing we all want.

In Philly for the weekend. I really like how Halide rendered the lighting in this photo.

My favorite part of the Atlanta airport. Also, an excuse to try out Halide’s Process Zero.

Red Michigan sunset.

Slug on a shroom.

The New Internet | Tailscale Blog

You can’t build modern software without networking. But the Internet makes everything hard. Is it because networking has essential complexity?

Well, maybe. But maybe it’s only complex when you built it on top of the wrong assumptions, that result in the wrong problems, that you then have to paper over. That’s the Old Internet.

Interesting article describing how Tailscale sees the future of the Internet.

I’m a Tailscale user for my personal network and I really do like how it provides peer to peer connectivity. But, I don’t think the New Internet should only have one provider.

Here’s what the web looked like in 1994 via Kottke

Announcing the Ladybird Browser Initiative

Ladybird uses a brand new engine based on web standards, without borrowing any code from other browsers. It started as a humble HTML viewer for the SerenityOS hobby project, but since then it’s grown into a full cross-platform browser project supporting Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like systems.

Cool!! Was not expecting to see a new, from scratch, browser engine come into existence!