2026-04-11 00:12:12
I know it’s been a while. 225 days or so, if anyone is counting.
Around the time I got laid off, my writing here began to slow down. It wasn’t right away, but gradually enough that I could feel myself slipping away. I remember telling myself I wouldn’t lose who I was in the process, and that my career wasn’t tied to my self-worth. In reality, I completely failed at keeping myself together. Still, I’d like to think I said all the right things in the beginning. They were the kinds of things that sounded solid and convincing in theory. I think some things are just easier said than done. Anyways...
I mean, really lost. The kind of lost where I wasn’t sure if I’d ever find my way back. Honestly, I’m still somewhere in the middle of it all. There were days when I thought I could see the light, and that I was getting close to something that made sense again. Then there were days I realized it might have just been my mind trying to give me grace, something to keep me moving forward. It felt like I was thrown deep in a forest with no clear path out, and for a while, even my own words couldn’t reach me there.
I kept writing, but just not here. I made a quiet decision early on to truly just write for myself. There was no audience, no pressure, no need to make anything sound polished, complete, or make myself sound put together. Most of them were just pages of thoughts I didn’t quite know what to do with. I poured everything into my journal including the messy parts, the unsure parts, the parts I wasn’t ready to share. Somehow, it kind of helped.
At that point, writing became the thing that kept catching me, like I was jumping off a cliff over and over again and my words kept finding a way to hold me before I hit the ground.
While all of that was happening, I tried, in small ways, to step outside of my own head. I went outside more and let myself sit in the warmth of the sun. On the plus side, my skin is starting to get that golden tan! I learned to appreciate running in solitude and even found comfort in the rhythm of it. I enjoyed the quiet, and the way it gave my thoughts somewhere to go. At the same time, I also found joy in running with others. In a completely unexpected turn of events, LC and I joined a run club. Somewhere in between those solo runs and group runs, I started to feel small pieces of myself come back. Baby (running) steps.
There’s a lot I could (and need to) say about these past seven months, including navigating my new norm of unemployment. I think at some point I’ll find ways to talk about it here and there. For now, I guess this is just a post to say hello, and that I am trying to find my way back here again.
Stay for a while, if you’d like. I have some stories to tell.
2026-04-10 11:07:00
2026 is doing something right for the small web. People are building tools that don't try to replace things. They just make them better.
Bear Roll is one of them.
Bear Blog's Discover page moves fast, especially if you frequent "New".
Miss a day? You miss posts.
Check too often? You forget what you've already read.
Bear Roll turns Discover into a daily snapshot.
That's it!
Only the stuff that makes it up top gets saved.
Which is the point.
The creator, Josh, mentions being inspired by hckrnews.com, which solves the same problem for Hacker News. Tom Waits would call him a "Raised Right Man" for putting real effort into performance.
He tuned it using Lighthouse (Google's site audit tool), which basically means:
You can feel this in action. It's as snappy as the official Discovery page.
We're seeing more tools like this lately.
Not bigger platforms, just smarter layers on top of what already exists.
Bear Roll doesn't try to change Bear Blog. It accentuates it. It's the Yang to Bear Blog's Yin.
If you use Bear Blog, this is a no-brainer:
If you would like to keep up on the happenings on Bear Roll here is a link to the blog and here are stats for us nerds out there. ■
🎧 Darling West - 12th And Porter via Folk Forward on SomaFM
2026-04-10 05:06:00
what if - hear me out - WHAT IF we don't send rude messages to strangers online? Yes, Bob (?), I'm talking to you. I don't mean to sound crazy, but sometimes it's ok just to think.
2026-04-10 04:12:00
If a stranger is annoying me, they'll probably never know it. I have tremendous patience and will put up with most things as long as I can maintain the peace, even if I'm seething inside. But there are other times when I reach a breaking point and I have no choice but to be a little petty.
Recently, I was on a plane flying home after a short trip. At first I was in a pretty good mood: the seat next to me was empty and I was engrossed in a good book. But then the person in front of me decided to move their chair back. I didn't mind at first (as this is something that always happens on a plane), but they kept moving it further and further back until I had no space for my knees. I tried to move my own chair back, but mine was broken and wouldn't move. On top of that, the person kept hitting their back against the seat, so that the seat would lean back and practically smack me in the head.
I turned my knees to the side and tried to ignore it, but then (and it was either the same person or someone else) I started to smell farts. Very strong earthy farts that grew and dissipated, off and on, for about two hours. At that point, everyone on the plane was asleep while I sat in my chair, my knees getting crushed, inhaling someone's unapologetic farts.
And that was when it hit me: Why do I have to be the only person on this plane who's uncomfortable? Why do I have to be the only one inconvenienced? My inner passive aggressor was kicking in. The entire cabin was dark and everyone was asleep, so I did the unspeakable: I turned on the overhead light.
I then sat pathetically in my seat thinking, "That'll show them," hoping the light would annoy the people around me and wake them up.
Is this the true meaning behind passive aggression? Is it just passive justice? It's not like it made my flight any better. All I did was make people feel as miserable as I did, but I guess that's always the goal, isn't it? It's just to drag people down to whatever mood you're in.
After the flight, I was telling the story to my husband who thought I didn't do anything that bad and said it was "cute" that this was my version of rebellion. Most people curse and throw hands, meanwhile I'm possibly disturbing people's sleep!!!!
I guess it wasn't really that big of a deal, but I did learn something: that passive aggression isn't just a cowardly form of revenge, it's about making yourself feel less alone. Why did I never notice that before?
2026-04-10 02:10:00
I have been wanting to write a blog for a long time now. About three years ago, I discovered Flavio Copes who used to write bite-sized blog posts every day. I did not really read his posts that much, but his habit of writing everyday was what I liked. It gave me the urge to start writing blog posts of my own on what I was learning at the time. This was also the first time I learned about static site generators (Hugo) as his site was made using this.
Later, when I searched for more blogs similar to his, I found Herman. I was really impressed by his Bear Blog. At that time, I didn't have a way to buy the subscription to Bear. So I just made my own site with Hugo, trying to make it look like Bear. But I never wrote anything on it.
I think I did not write because English is not my first language. I also have a problem with perfectionism. I spend too much time thinking and not enough time doing. I also did not know who would read my posts, so I just stopped.
The last three years were very difficult for me. I had no job and I was in debt. I almost dropped out of my studies too (I took a 4 years break). But now I am trying to build my life again. I am still a bit lazy sometimes, but I am making progress every day.
I found Bear blog again recently. This time I saw the Discover page and the community. I like that people just share their thoughts here. I do not use social media and I am careful about what I share online, but I want to be part of this community. So, this is my first post. It took a long time, but I am finally starting.
_
2026-04-10 01:50:15
I saw Dave Lee's post quoting James Ball's post about fears around Bluesky's lack of user growth, and therefore profitability and sustainability. It's a company with hundreds of millions of dollars invested into it - the platform will inevitably enshittify in an effort to pay back its investors.
To that, I suggest Mastodon. It's a social platform like Twitter, Bluesky, and Threads, but with a few key differences.
This means there's no secret data exfiltration or surveillance taking place. We, the community, can audit the source code and provide feedback, features, and bug fixes. This leads to a more involved community and greater trust between users and developers.
Being open source also has huge implications for the long-term sustainability for the platform. If the developers behind Mastodon were to eventually get acquired by a corporation or prove themselves untrustworthy stewards, the application can be forked and development continued by more trustworthy people. In fact, there are already third-party alternatives like Sharkey, GoToSocial, and Snac. They all speak the same language, enabling users of Sharkey to interact with users of Mastodon, users of Snac to interact with users of GoToSocial, and so on. This is called "federation" and will be explained more in the next section.
Because Mastodon is open source, with the right amount of technical know-how, anyone can host their own instance. An instance is just a computer running the Mastodon server application. Under the hood, Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol for federation with other instances. So even if you're the only person on your Mastodon instance, you can still talk to your friends on other instances!
Fun fact: Threads also uses ActivityPub, so people on both Threads and Mastodon can interact with each other!
This means that you can choose which provider you want to go with, from the biggest instance, mastodon.social, to any of the smaller instances with only a few users. You can pick and choose based on the existing community, or find an instance whose moderation rules and admin team you most agree with and trust. If you have the know-how, you can even host an instance for just you (and your friends!), meaning you'll only be subject to your own moderation rules.
This decentralization is also a big deal for data sovereignty. For example, if you want to avoid U.S.-based services, or you can find a Mastodon instance that is based somewhere else, like the EU or Canada.
And no, despite Bluesky's marketing, Bluesky is not decentralized. Like, at all.
Mastodon feeds are chronological, so there isn't an algorithm constantly trying to maximize engagement and overwhelm you. Instead, popular posts get shared by way of boosts (Mastodon's term for retweets or reposts). This has the downside of your feed feeling empty when you first join. However, you can find people to interact with and follow with the local feed (posts from just your instance), federate feed (posts from all federated instances), and by following hashtags for topics you are interested in. Plus, you can add users and hashtags to lists, letting you organize feeds by topic.
You won't get force-fed ads, or bombarded with paywalls. Though, if you're able, you should definitely donate to Mastodon and the admin of your instance. There are some paid options, but most instances are run by volunteers and made available for free to anyone who wants to sign up. The vast majority of instance admins put donations towards infrastructure cost and improvement.
There are downsides to Mastodon. The initial onboarding can be overwhelming; figuring out what an instance is and which one to join is already a lot. Then there's the initial loneliness of an empty feed. Where most people are used to a centralized platform with quick onboarding and an algorithm learning their preferences and letting them jump in right off the bat, Mastodon requires initial learning and intentional usage and setup.
There are those in the Mastodon community who can be unwelcoming to users who feel overwhelmed by the onboarding requirements. However, there are even more in the community who are happy to welcome and help new users get started.
I won't pretend that Mastodon is perfect, nor that it's the right platform for everyone. It still has plenty of rough edges and asks a lot from its users. However, if you are tired of big tech's stranglehold on your attention and online connections, and you don't mind putting in some time and effort to see what this Mastodon thing is all about, then I say give it a go.