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I find that a lot of my posts here on my blog are just like the tweets I post on Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads and Twitter. I used to have an icon in my outliner that tweeted the text of the bar cursor headline. I could make it work once again, but it would be wasted if I couldn't send it to all four of the services I use regularly. Something has changed in the twitterverse, it's grown new centers. But each of them is acting as if they are alone. This is a mistake, for sure for the open web, but I think it may be a strategic mistake for each of them. I could cite lots of examples where this didn't work, when an open ecosystem whose benefits were by then obvious to users, completely erased the ecosystem that had existed before, and with remarkable speed. None of them are strong enough to try to dominate.

If ChatGPT had a simple, non-AI scrapbook, like the old Mac OS had, where you could just throw something over your shoulder so you can find it later with a text search, that would make it a lot more useful for retaining practices that work. It's a shame to work something out, come up with the answer that worked, and then to have to do it all over again 23 months later when you encounter the same problem.

Caroline O'Donovan / Washington Post:
How Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are fighting an Ohio power company's proposal to increase the upfront energy costs they'll pay for their data centers  —  Negotiations between Big Tech and an Ohio power utility could set a national precedent as communities grapple with the energy demands of the data center boom.













Bloomberg:
Some of the largest custodial banks are interested in crypto custody but are hindered by the SEC rule SAB 121, which establishes accounting standards  —  - Coinbase, BitGo have been among the dominant service providers  — SEC rule seen making it impractical for banks to do custody





The Verge:
A look at the US DOJ's divestment case against TikTok, which relies on classified material that TikTok can't review, as oral arguments begin on September 16  —  Next week, a court will hear arguments about whether the US government can ban TikTok, based on evidence it doesn't want anyone — including the social media company — to see.


PYMNTS.com:
Nirvana, which provides insurance verification and cost estimates to healthcare providers and their patients, raised a $24.2M Series A led by Northzone  —  Nirvana has raised $24.2 million in a Series A funding round to add more specialties to its platform that provides insurance verification …



Aditya Kalra / Reuters:
Regulatory reports: India's CCI accuses Samsung, Xiaomi, and other smartphone makers of collusion for exclusively launching products on Amazon and Flipkart  —  Samsung, Xiaomi and other smartphone companies colluded with Amazon and Walmart's (WMT.N) Flipkart to exclusively launch products …


Zoltan Vardai / Cointelegraph:
Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of USDC issuer Circle, says the company is moving its global HQ to One World Trade Center in New York City, ahead of a planned IPO  —  2025 could bring stablecoins into the mainstream, after 2024 introduced a “turning point year in crypto,” according to Circle's Allaire.



Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Boston-based AceUp, which offers AI-powered business coaching and performance analytics services, raised a $22.5M Series A led by PJC  —  Is a business coach really worth the investment?  Execs often seek coaches to bolster aspects of their work, like communication skills and their productivity.




Ionut Arghire / SecurityWeek:
Maryland-based Aembit, a non-human identity and access management provider, raised a $25M Series A led by Acrew Capital, bringing its total raised to ~$45M  —  Aembit has raised $25 million in Series A funding to protect non-human identities and minimize attack surface.




Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:
Apple's Activation Lock for iPhone components will make a huge dent in the market for stolen iPhones, though it introduces another barrier to DIY repairs  —  Apple's latest theft-prevention measure went live for beta testers yesterday: Activation Lock for iPhone components.


Shahram Mokhtari / iFixit News:
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold teardown: impressive repairability for a foldable, with a modular design that separates high mechanical wear parts like the USB-C port  —  The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has come a long way since the first generation Pixel Fold.  That's because unlike other foldable smartphones …








M.G. Siegler / Spyglass:
OpenAI should've stuck with the name Strawberry for o1, avoiding user confusion between models named 4o and o1, and helping humanize the tech  —  OpenAI releases o1, its first model with ‘reasoning’ abilities  —  But it's not cheap.  —  The Verge  —  Well, what was coming in …





BTW the Wikipedia page for the MetaWeblog positions it as a replacement for the Blogger API, but it's an extension of it. You could use MetaWeblog to publish to Blogger sites, but it also supported features that Blogger didn't have, that were in our blogging software, Manila.

Could we agree that ChatGPT can ingest everything that's in Wikipedia? I particularly want the images. I'd like to ask for a picture of Chuck Berry, and get something nice and be able to put him in a scene with the Wordle Kitty. That seems pretty harmless. And the news industry could hardly object, they didn't invent Chuck Berry, or own the copyright of the picture of him in Wikipedia.

I'm searching for some common ground between the twitter-like systems, a basis for interop, a common API even. We had that for the blogging layer of this onion, something called the MetaWeblog API. All the popular blogging software supported it. And that meant you could write once and publish to many places. And you could write the script that did that in an afternoon or two. We started out with simple systems and the best of intentions. There's no technical barrier. And we could do it in a few weeks at most if there was a will to do it

Hecklers at last night's rally in Greensboro, couldn't hear what they were angry about, but it had something to do with Gaza.

The US isn't doing the killing there, the issue is with Netanyahu who is part of the same political party as Trump. So you can be pretty sure the killing won't stop there at least until after our election. One way to be sure the killing continues is to elect Trump.


It's wonderful that we're laughing at Trump now.

What a joke to think that after all he took us through, there are 47% of the people in the country who want more of that!

OMG we must be crazy. What else are you going to do but laugh.



Financial Times:
An overview of California's AI safety bill SB 1047, which easily passed the state's legislature, as it awaits Governor Newsom's signature or veto before Sep. 30  —  California's Gavin Newsom has until September 30 to decide whether to sign legislation that will reach far beyond the state


Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
Recent announcements from Apple and Google show that AI is most useful as a feature in devices and software we already use, rather than a standalone product  —  Apple and Google are showing how AI is really a feature in other products at this stage  —  AI's boosters have billed it as a technology …


Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Doctor Web: malware dubbed Android.Vo1d has infected ~1.3M TV boxes running OSes based on Android Open Source Project in almost 200 countries, forming a botnet  —  Infection corrals devices running AOSP-based firmware into a botnet.  —  Researchers still don't know the cause …