A team lead for Kaliber Studio, a talented group of content specialists. He’s a pioneering blogger, author of Bloghelden, the definitive history of blogging in the Netherlands.
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2024-05-19 00:30:51
Right now I am testing some LLM’s that have trainingsets specifically for the Dutch language. I can test them offline, on my own machine in the terminal. It’s extremely easy to try and test these models. And after some digging, I found the dataset on which it is based. The Gigacorpus with Dutch forumposts, books, law-texts, Wikipedia etcetera. It’s fascinating to see how so many researchers and enthousiasts are working on AI models that are private, local and open source. What a difference with the ongoing and growing hype we see with OpenAI and Californian Big Tech…
2024-05-18 16:20:17
The last days I’ve been testing Ollama, an open source app to run Large Language Models offline on your own (beefy) machine, together with the OpenWebUI frontend. See this explanation for a deeper dive in the possibilities. To have an AI fully offline, without any information you provide it leaving your own machine is very interesting to me. It is also a way to test different models, and to explore the potential to make your own model. And yes, I have already made a Deep Thought model, a simulation of the supercomputer from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” And yes, it is funny.
2024-05-17 03:45:18
In het Coalitieakkoord 2021 - 2025 (ons vorige kabinet) was in elk geval nog een hele (!) pagina ingeruimd voor de kop “Digitalisering”. Met onder andere de vooruitzichten
Gaan we nog verder terug, naar Rutte III, dan konden we lezen
Wat is er te lezen in het huidige Hoofdlijnenakkoord?
Natuurlijk, het is een akkoord op hoofdlijnen en de invulling wordt door nader te bepalen ministers en bewindslieden verder vormgegeven. Maar er wordt met geen woord meer gerept over digitale geletterdheid, over een open internet, fundamentele digitale burgerrechten. Naast de groeiende zorgen rondom A.I. zijn er minstens zulke grote problemen als het gaat om de kloof met digitaal ongeletterden. Digitaal burgerschap gaat verder dan alleen je DigiD kunnen bedienen. Wat is de rol van mediawijsheid in het basis- en voortgezet onderwijs? Hoe keren we het tij met de afnemende vrijheden van ondervertegenwoordigde groepen in het online domein? Hoe bieden we een Europees tegengeluid aan Silicon Valley met een open internet dat zich primair richt op menselijk contact in plaats van commercieel gewin?
Natuurlijk, de digitale plannen van voorgaande kabinetten bleken ook moeilijker uitvoerbaar en andere dossiers kregen voorrang. Maar er was op zijn minst iets op papier gezet. Net als over alle andere onderwerpen die nu begrijpelijk veel aandacht krijgen (wonen, migratie, natuur, onderwijs) ben ik minder optimistisch over een mogelijke sprong vooruit die we op digitaal gebied kunnen maken. Zullen we het toch zelf moeten doen. Van onze bewindslieden hoeven we weinig te verwachten.
2024-05-16 14:56:21
Ik heb het hoofdlijnenakkoord met een eenvoudige prompt door ChatGPT laten omzetten in kernpunten. Met de vraag om vooral aandacht te hebben voor de digitale samenleving, mediawijsheid en digitale cultuur. Maar zo in het antwoord te zien is het de angst die regeert.
Ik ga het later zelf nog eens goed lezen en kijken hoe deze samenvatting stand houdt. Nu eerst gewoon gaan werken…
2024-05-16 14:31:05
I made my previous post from my iPhone in the micro.blog app. I uploaded photos directly from my camera-roll into the post. But somehow I can’t get a proper routine in my template and CSS that looks if there is more than one photo uploaded. If so, it should post the photos in a grid, at approx. 40% of the screen-width. Now the photos are too big and it just doesn’t look nice. But when I add only one photo in my blogpost, it should be centered, not too big as well. Especially when it’s a portrait photo. Which most of the time it is because I am too lazy to change settings on my camera or edit photos afterwards.
I think it can’t be that hard to create this routine, without me having to remember I have to add extra CSS or HTML in my post. Whether I post from Drafts, Emacs, Obsidian, the micro.blog app or website, I should be able to write, add images, publish and be done with it. No extra fluff to remember. Have the templates and CSS figure that one out.
Any tips are welcome!
2024-05-16 12:12:18
On my day off I did what I wanted to do. Build robots out of old stuff. It’s a fun way to keep myself entertained and learn kitbashing along the way. The final result will be up in a few days.
2024-05-11 14:41:04
Pearl Jam is on tour again and of course there are tons of fans livestreaming every show. I’m watching them play live in Portland right now thanks to Instagram. While our cat Bowie has his morning nap Eddie Vedder belches out the lyrics to Do the Evolution.
I’m ahead, I’m a man. I’m the first mammal to wear pants, yeah
2024-05-11 13:41:32
Een kleine stap brengt veel vooruit.
Een six word story, iets dat me de laatste twee weken bezighoudt. Binnen ons team van Kaliber Studio oefenen we met dit format. Eén van ons geeft op donderdag een prompt of thema, de maandag er op delen we onze Six Word Stories bij de start van ons wekelijks overleg.
Ik was daarom blij verrast om te zien dat Remco van den Akker een verwoed Six Word Story schrijver is! Ik ontmoette Remco online, omdat ik op zoek was naar een goede lamp bij mijn tweede scherm. Hij heeft me daar uitstekend mee geholpen en we raakten aan de praat over bloggen. Hij wilde al een tijd zijn blog starten, had al wel wat staan maar wist niet goed hoe verder. Ik lees zojuist dat mijn tips hem dat zetje hebben gegeven om daadwerkelijk te publiceren. Daarom speciaal voor hem deze Six Word Story! Het maakt me blij dat ik door kleine zetjes iemand vooruit kan helpen. Vooral als het gaat om online publiceren en je eigenaarschap online omarmen.
Die tips zou ik weer eens als blogpost moeten delen. Ik heb in het verleden genoeg van dat soort posts geschreven. Hier een voorbeeld. Vooruit, nog eentje dan. Ik kan er inmiddels wel een mooie verzameling van maken. Maar eerst ga ik van een zonnig weekend genieten en Remco’s Six Word Stories lezen!
2024-05-10 16:06:43
One of the most influential and robust protocols on the web is RSS. There, I said it. without RSS, we wouldn’t have known the social timelines, podcasts would cease to exist and we wouldn’t have an extra reason to hate Google for abandoning a great product (Google Reader that is…)
But RSS-feeds have a big flaw: They are impossible to read and understand for a normal human being. RSS is meant to be read by machines and not by us mere mortals. But if you want to get started with RSS, you will visit a link to a feed and be all like “WTF is thís garbled mess of code and letters? I don’t understand, bring me back to my pristine algorithmic timeline! I shant visit such a feed-page again!”
Anyway…
Time to get this fixed.
Since I have some control over the templates on my blog, I can create a stylesheet to make the RSS-feed more readable for humans, yet keep it machine-readable under water. This is all done by the magic power of XSLT. Yes, another abbreviation, I can’t help this. The technologists need some proper copywriters and productmanagers to make this all a bit more inclusive for…you know…all of us.
XSLT stands for Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations. It is used to transform machine-readable documents into human-readable documents. With specific rules you can reorder and manipulate the contents of the original document without actually changing this source for the machines. Sounds like something we can use!
I added an XSLT-file to my RSS feed, in which I also explain what RSS is and show the last 25 posts. Just by giving it some styling we fix a major user experience problem for those who are new to RSS and it makes your webfeed feel part of the open web. And it has no impact on those who already use RSS. What a win!
These next steps will help you to create a human-readable RSS feed for your micro.blog-based website. The steps are relatively the same for other blogplatforms, as long as you have access to the templating engine.
Go to the admin-section of Micro.blog > Design and pick Edit Themes button below “Hugo Version” For this post, I use my test site with the default theme from Micro.blog. You need to make a custom theme. Don’t worry, I’ll guide you through it. It’s just a few steps. Click the blue “New Theme” button on top. Give your own theme a name and click Add Theme. You don’t need to clone a github URL.
Now click on the name of your new custom theme, in the list of Themes. You’ll get to a page with templates. On top, click the blue button “New Template” Create a new file called “static/css/rss.xsl” (without the quotation marks)
Copy the raw text from this file (tip: click the button “raw” and select all the text you see), paste it in the editor and click “Update template”
Click “Back”
You will now see the file static/css/rss.xsl under the header “Custom Templates”. Hurrah! You created your first custom template. Celebrate.
Again click on “New Template”. Name this one “layouts/index.xml”. Get the raw text from this file and paste it in the file. Update template and click “Back” again. You now have two files under Custom Templates: layouts/index.xml and static/css/rss.xsl.
You have effectively created a duplicate of the original template for an RSS feed. Which is exactly what should have happened. Celebrate again.
Go back to Design and select your custom theme. Click “Update blog settings” You might have to rebuild the complete blog for everything to settle in. Go to Account > Logging > View Logs and click “Rebuild your sitename”
Now go to the RSS-feed page of your site (yoururl.com/feed.xml) and tadaa! Here is your stylized feedpage. Isn’t that wonderful!
Most of the XSLT file is styling of the page. There is a small part that actually takes the machine-readable contents of your RSS feed and displays it in a specific way. I made a choice to show only the title and the published date. I don’t always use titles. When this happens, I want to show the first 30 characters of the blogpost, without any HTML-output like paragraphs, links or images. In the XSL file (see the gist file again) I have the following logic built in
In the custom template for the RSS-feed, I added a link to the XSL-file for styling and I added the information to show your avatar in the styled feed. This should not impact your current readers.
Now go out and make RSS great again!
All the styling is done in the XSLT file. Other authors created their own styling for the RSS feed. A few examples:
2024-05-09 12:40:37
It turns out my idea how to add a stylesheet to my RSS feed was right. Now I need to get it working. I think I have all the elements in place, yet somehow the feed doesn’t show any other styling or new elements I added to the template.
Maybe I should add a new post to have the underlying machines create a new feed where it will use my new template. So that’s what this post is, next to a small update.
2024-05-09 03:49:42
Added this to the public micro.blog forum, but perhaps I can find help here as well: In accordance to the idea to make an RSS feed more pleasing to the eye, I want to add an XSL stylesheet to my feed. I use the Tiny Theme. What would be the best way to do this? Should I create a copy of layouts/_default/rss.xml and add the reference to the XSL stylesheet in there? And how would I create a XSL stylesheet in the directory structure? Is this also like layouts/_default/rss.xsl or could this better be static/css/rss.xsl?
2024-05-09 02:05:20
Just browsing through my bookmarks and I came across Phanpy.social, a nice client for Mastodon. I like their catch-up functionality where you can filter and tweak what you want to see from your timeline at any given moment. It also has some great shortcuts to browse through the timeline by just using your keyboard. They instantly feel familiair to me.
2024-05-09 01:39:33
I took the plunge and decided to give the Arc browser another try. It is such a different way of browsing the web and working on the web. But it is enticing. I feel like I can do more by just using another browser.
2024-05-02 14:19:10
Als de sterren en het verkeer op de A10 mij gunstig zijn, ben ik vanmiddag bij het jaarlijkse Staat van het Internet event van de Waag Futurelab. Dit jaar geeft Kim van Sparrentak de lezing, zij is lid van het Europees Parlement. Zij was onder meer betrokken bij de AI Act, het initiatiefvoorstel over ‘verslavend ontwerp van online diensten’ en maakt ze zich hard voor het terugdringen van de macht van Big Tech door de ontwikkeling van wet- en regelgeving. Ik zie uit naar de lezing, het aansluitende panelgesprek en mogelijk interessante ontmoetingen naderhand.
2024-04-29 14:14:45
Here are two subjects I haven’t thought of they would collide…
I will be speaking about Artificial Intelligence in origami at FoldFest 2024, an online origami convention organized by OrigamiUSA.
Thanks to the indieblog.page “Get me a random personal blogpost” link you can find more gems like these!
2024-04-29 13:43:00
Thank you Manu for a great reasoning why the web as we know it is still alive and kicking!
The web is not dying. The web is huge. The web is ever-expanding. The fact that the web is just the same 5 big websites is a fucking lie. It’s like saying the restaurant industry is the same 5 fast food chains. It is not. It’s up to you to decide to stop visiting those 5 sites and stop ingesting their fast food content.
Add to that what danah boyd writes in her newsletter and the spot-on comment to it
Can someone help me unpack a puzzle? I keep hearing AI pundits talk about how this is like 1999 with the internet. They mean this positively, focusing on all of the startups and energy on the cusp before the population writ large really appreciates all of the value of the internet. The thing that has me scratching my head is that this comparison seems to ignore that there was a complete and utter economic collapse of the tech industry in 2000/2001. So why are the business types not dreaming of 1996?[…]I think the reason why it’s not 1996 is because the mid-90s were about as much noncommercial expansion of the web as the commercial side, while the most easily-reachable parts of the web had become dominated by market interests a few years later.
2024-04-28 14:31:16
It was a beautiful day at the local Vrijmarkt yesterday. We avoided the hustle and bustle of downtown Utrecht during King’s Day and opted for a smaller children’s Vrijmarkt on the University grounds in the neighborhood. Add some foodtrucks to that, a few bouncy castles, a drinks tent and a DJ, and you have a great afternoon program for the whole family. My search for miniature toys for my own craft- and kitbashing yielded nothing. Where wasn’t much for offer. I did see some Hotwheels cars here and there, but what the kids mainly offered for sale was their old collection of baby and children’s books, clothes that were too small, old board games and dolls.
The center of the grounds was a great base for the four of us to have drinks and snacks.
Meanwhile, Tess found old PC games of The Sims. A game she still plays faithfully after all these years. Finn managed to buy some nice Pokemon cards that fit nicely with his collection.
As we left we came across this beauty. Not for sale of course, presumably belonging to one of the families on the Vrijmarkt. A beautiful 1970 Saab 99 TS. They don’t make them like this anymore…A search online yields some fine blog posts about this iconic car. Such as a restoration blog for a slightly new model and a blog by an old Saab copywriter.
All in all it was a good day!
2024-04-27 03:07:37
This afternoon the inner city of Utrecht slowly turns orange when the annual King’s Night starts. In and around the center of Utrecht there are parties and we have what is called the Vrijmarkt, which loosely translates to “Sell the trash from your attic and shed in front of our house”-market. These parties and the self-proclaimed street-entrepreneurship naturally transcends into the King’s Day festivities which will happen tomorrow. Not only in Utrecht but throughout the whole country. I don’t have any warm connection to our monarchy or the ceremonial traditions it tries to represent. But I find the orange-clad crowds partying in the streets, the young salespeople finding a quick buck a nice way to spend the day off.
My wife and I had a small walk through some of the streets where you can buy any old vinyl, half-broken toys, shady “second-hand” bikes, questionable “vintage” jewelry and other knick-knacks. I had the idea to find a small collection of toys and assorted plastic junk I could use to kitbash some new monsters and robots together.
Alas, no luck during the small walk tonight. We might try again tomorrow, when we will visit the terrain of the University College around the corner. There will be foodtrucks and again a children’s Vrijmarkt. But we will start King’s Day with at least one tradition at home: the orange Tompouce! A Dutch pastry that consists of two layers of crispy puff pastry with an airy, creamy filling in between, topped with a sweet orange glaze. Maybe more pictures tomorrow…
2024-04-26 14:24:59
On May 17th there will be the annual Micro Camp. A virtual gathering of and by the Micro.blog community. I look forward to be present this year! When I look at the impressions of previous years, it’s quite an event with lots of talks and connections. Nice!
2024-04-25 15:31:16
I am currently listening to part three of the five-part trilogy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And yet again I am highly amused at the great quotes and incredibly clever oneliners in the story. How the guide explains the art of flying once again has me giggling on my morning walk through the city center. People looked puzzled as I walked by with a daft grin as I listened to “There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. … Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, that presents the difficulties.”
And yes, there is a full The Hitchhiker’s Wiki entry on the art of flying. Because of course.
2024-04-24 13:22:10
“we’ll meet at Miffy”, Peter said and I knew exactly where that was. They had just come back from Roy Scholten’s printing atelier in Hilversum to pick up the new edition of Peter, Lisa and their daughter L. ‘s project This Box is for Good. A fantastic idea to spread connection, inspiration, fun and ideas around the world. Or as they say themselves on the website: creative social interventions.
I now have four boxes waiting to be filled with something special for anyone else. My wife and I think about who we should give a box to both enjoy the contents and to better solidify the idea these boxes will travel the world in due time. Equal the fun is thinking about what the box should contain to give joy and delight. I am pondering the idea of all four of us making something to add to the box. But are we creative enough? (Yes, silly yet unrelenting voice inside my head, everyone is a creative!) And since we have four boxes, maybe each one of should give a box away to someone in their circle.
The creative cranks are cranking again, I’m feeling the joy of this project and what it can do moving forward. Thank you Peter, Lisa and L. for including us in your creative social interventions!
2024-04-23 15:00:29
“Webbing” the IndieWeb – Tracy Durnell:
Is requiring a website to participate something the IndieWeb community prioritizes enough to disregard the needs of most Internet users (i.e. non-posters)? Can we better support IndieWeb readers who don’t have — and don’t want — their own websites? Frankly, can the IndieWeb “succeed” if having a website is a mandate?
Tracy slaat de spijker op de kop met haar observatie over het indieweb. Is het een noodzaak om een eigen site te hebben om een onafhankelijk web succesvol te maken? Moet je een eigen domein hebben om er deel van uit te maken? Volgende week ben ik te gast bij de Podcast over Social Media van Kirsten Jassies, waar we onder andere deze onderwerpen behandelen. Ik ben doorgaans van mening dat iedereen in Nederland bij ontvangst van een BSN nummer, eveneens de vrijheid krijgt om een eigen domein te registreren. Gratis, voor de rest van je leven. Met de complimenten van een overheid die de noodzaak snapt van digitale vaardigheden. Met een eigen domein kun je al redelijk snel een eigen site maken, je eigen plek online. Al is het maar een “dit ben ik” pagina, met basis informatie voor anderen om je te bereiken.
Maar is een eigen site eigenlijk wel een noodzaak om een mensgericht alternatief voor het “corporate web” te laten slagen? Zoals Tracy verder gaat, is het niet al een stap om kleine interacties mogelijk te maken voor lezers? Natuurlijk zijn er reacties, maar het kan nog eenvoudiger. Waar Tracy een hartje in de header plaatst om je waardering uit te spreken voor een post, bij mij kan dat met een duimpje, onderaan elk artikel. Dit is een onderdeel van de Tinylytics app, waarmee ik anonieme statistieken zie van deze site.
Net als in de hoogtijdagen van het bloggen, zal niet iedereen actief zijn met een eigen site. Maar we kunnen het lezen, beleven, verbinden en reageren op elkaars site wel zo aantrekkelijk mogelijk maken. Zodat we een volwaardige plek vormen met elkaar naast sociale platformen.
2024-04-15 00:15:35
Ik heb mijn About-pagina aangevuld met podcasts waar ik te gast was. Vooral om te praten over indieweb en decentrale sociale netwerken.
2024-04-14 15:22:19
Cory Doctorow’s linkdump of today is so dense with great quotes and stories, it’ll keep you clicking and learning a full day.
Enshittification came to the ISP business early and hit it hard. The cartel that controls your access to the internet today is a billion light-years away from the principled technologists who invented the industry with an ethos of care, access and fairness. Today’s ISPs are bitterly opposed to Net Neutrality, the straightforward proposition that if you request some data, your ISP should send it to you as quickly and reliably as it can.
From the birth of ISP’s to AI snake-oil and giraffology. Happy sunday!
2024-04-13 13:58:48
Patti Astor, who co-founded the renowned Fun Gallery in New York City, has passed away at the age of 74. She was known for her advocacy of graffiti and street art as legitimate forms of art, as well as for her involvement in the influential film Wild Style. In 2014 I received an autographed copy of her biography. Filled back to back with great photographs of her life in the hip-hop scene.
The STRAAT museum in Amsterdam is a continuation of the vision Patti Astor had, to show how graffiti is a legitimate form of art. If you have the chance to visit this incredible museum, you will not regret it. See my own (Dutch) review in the archives…