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Browse past newsletters →Purpose Doesn't Come First
This post is my entry for the August 2026 IndieWeb Carnival, hosted by Chris at Uncountable Thoughts. This month's topic: purpose. Honestly, this one made me think more than most of what I write. I've researched other posts before, and written about …
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Verb appropinquate | |
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: to approach; to near. |
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Verb appropinquate | |
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: to approach; to near. |
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Noun misoneism | |
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: a hatred, fear, or intolerance of innovation or change |
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Noun collywobbles | |
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: (informal, mainly humorous) Stomach pain or queasiness. : Intense anxiety or nervousness, especially with stomach queasiness. |
"My initial speculation was that maybe they’d hide invisible non-printing Unicode characters in the text. Just spitballing. Turns out that’s not what they’re going to do. What they’re going to do is apply a form of steganography, where the choice of words (or other token output) at inference time will leave fingerprints that can later, maybe, be detected probabilistically."
—Daring Fireball (Anthropic’s ‘Watermark’ Text Adulteration in Claude Is a Perversion of Writing)
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Verb spitball | |
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: to propose (ideas, suggestions, etc.) for consideration in an informal, preliminary way “Writers spitballed story ideas; editors dreamed up coverage …” |
"Say 'idempotent' one more time," I recently dared a computer I pay for.
And, then it did.
hotdogsladies@mastodon.social Go to text →
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Adjective idempotent | |
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: relating to or being a mathematical quantity which when applied to itself under a given binary operation (such as multiplication) equals itself |
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Adjective exigent | |
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1 : requiring immediate aid or action “exigent circumstances” 2 : requiring or calling for much : demanding “an exigent client” |
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Adjective diffident | |
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1 : hesitant in acting or speaking through lack of self-confidence 2 : reserved, unassertive 3 : distrustful |
Recent Geekouts
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Finally, Something Built for How I Actually Talk
Caught My Eyes: The Last Orange Line
From the Vault: February 8, 2008
💬 Micros
Staying at my partner's parents' place for a little over a month, and they don't have cable. Basically, I've been doing nothing but being on my phone all day. Why not pick up a book instead?
Funny thing though, I read something every day, just not a book. Why is reading books harder today than it used to be? Is it because it's easier to pick up my phone than a book? True, it's always right there.
Anyway, I wanted to read Daniel Kalla's Cold Plague, but figured I'd read Pandemic first. Realized I read it years ago, so it's a reread now.
P.S. Moving those books to DNF later since they haven't been read for a while. But I'll get back to them.
Spent the day making my blog more accessible — aiming for WCAG compliance and I think I’m close. Also gave Word Nerd Alert its own section and bumped a few font sizes. The tinkering never ends. There’s always room for improvement.
I thought it was a brilliant idea. I also learned that @manton plans to figure out which other social platforms support that API and roll this out there too. That means no more stale crossposts hanging around after I’ve deleted the original post on Micro.blog. I’ll find out for myself the next time I delete one.
Updated Bluesky automatic cross-posting to also delete the copy of a post on Bluesky when the blog post is deleted in Micro.blog.
news Go to text →
🎬 Reel and Remote
Husbands in Action (2026)
★★★★☆
Aug 5, 2026
The East Palace (2026)
★★★★☆
Aug 2, 2026
The Devil's Mouth (2026)
★★☆☆☆
Jul 31, 2026
Watchlist: Disclosure Day (2026)
Watchlist: Long Walk (2025)