Another photo from the now closed North Carolina Aviary - A Victoria Crowned Pigeon with its vibrant blue plumage, deep red eyes, and a dramatic crest of lacy, white-tipped feathers #bird

A Victoria Crowned Pigeon with its vibrant blue plumage, deep red eyes, and a dramatic crest of lacy, white-tipped feathers.

This Week's Bookmarks - Buffy Returns, $1 Million Puzzle, Using Signal, Attending Protests, Night Experiences, Chatbot Limits, More Movies

Buffy

Sarah Michelle [[Gellar]] Says Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Return Is for the Fans - The Slayer herself revealed that a Buffy revival has been in the works for a while ahead of this week's announcement.


Officials Are Offering $1 Million to Anyone Who Can Decode This Ancient Script | Smithsonian - The enigmatic Indus Valley civilization left behind a script that today's historians haven't yet deciphered. While amateur theories abound, scholars are increasingly relying on computer science to crack the code


How to: Use Signal - Signal is a free and open-source application for Android, iOS, and desktop that employs end-to-end encryption ![[zz-attachments/b6c7153398baebdb9a3e3f70bbea364d_MD5.jpg]]  to keep communications safe.


Attending a Protest - Protecting your electronic devices and digital assets ![[zz-attachments/b6c7153398baebdb9a3e3f70bbea364d_MD5.jpg]]  before, during, and after a protest is vital to keeping yourself and your information safe, as well as getting your message out.


Five extraordinary night-time experiences around the world - From fiery festivals to nature's most dazzling "sky-dance", interest in the night skies is booming, with "noctourism" poised to be a major travel trend in 2025.


Chatbot Software Begins to Face Fundamental Limitations | Quanta Magazine - Recent results show that large language models struggle with compositional tasks, suggesting a hard limit to their abilities.


AMC Theaters Stubs-A List Increases to Four Movies a Week - Film fanatics are getting a greater value for their money, too. They'll receive an additional weekly reservation, allowing them to see up to four movies instead of the current allotment of three per week.

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When he was tiny like this, my grandson was very attached to his Mom, so it was rare for him to voluntarily leave her like he did in this photo when his curiosity led him to walk with me across this field. He eventually got tired and simply sat down on the grass and had to be carried home.

Person and child, both in red shirts, walk across a dry, grassy field with trees and houses visible in the background.

Telling Stories

four

My Dad can be aggravating every so often. He's conservative and opinionated and not a little arrogant. He got religion about thirty years ago and that made it worse. Despite all of that, he is as entertaining as anyone I have ever known for one reason. He is a supremely skilled and captivating storyteller. Granted, most of the stories are about him, but he's lived an interesting life, and he weaves all sorts of different elements into his tales. Unlike many combat veterans, he loves to talk about his time at war. It's rarely about the ugly parts. Usually, he has funny stories about different men in his unit during his first tour in Vietnam or men he flew with during his second tour.

One of my favorite stories is the one about one of his young soldiers who Dad said was the happiest American in Vietnam. Dad was a second lieutenant in charge of a platoon on armored cavalry soldiers. He knew this private stateside, before they deployed because the kid had gone through training at Ft. Know while Dad was also stationed there. He's found the private crying one day outside the barracks and with his best fatherly attitude (he was 21 at the time), asked the kid "What's the matter son?"

"Sir," the young man answered, "My girlfriend, she's going to have a baby." My Dad assured him that he could arrange leave for him to go home and "make things right." "But sir, you don't understand. Her Mom."

Dad asked,"What about her Mom, son"

"Sir, she's pregnant too."

Dad said it took a few seconds for the situation to become clear. Yes, the answer is yes. This young draftee from Nowheresville, Oklahoma had gotten both his girlfriend and her mother in the family way at the same time and then left for the Army. So, yeah, when he ended up in the jungles of Vietnam fighting a way, he was relieved that he wasn't back home being murdered by two irate women.

Telling stories runs in the family, though. My grandfather never presented himself as a military man, although he had been on active duty before Pearl Harbor and didn't get discharged until 1946. His World War Two stories were mainly about geography and culture. The National Guard unit he joined during the depression had been activated and sent to Trinidad in the later 30s. He pronounced it Trinny-dad. There was, of course, no combat there, but he played a lot of baseball. He'd been all over the states and spent time in England before landing in mainland Europe where he proclaimed to he's gone all the way across France and Germany until he "hugged necks with the Russians at the Elbe River." Some of his stories were harrowing in their own way. His unit liberated a German POW camp holding Russian prisoners. Before running from the approaching US Army, the Nazis turned loose their Alsatian dogs on their prisoners in a final spurt of brutality. The Russians, rather than scrambling in fear, instead caught the dogs and promptly ate them. I heard that story many times and thinking about it today reinforces the "war is hell" ethos like no other I've ever heard personally.

Some of my stories also take an ironic turn like that. I was in the military during the Cold War, so I thankfully, I have no combat tales. My personal war stories are from working manhunts after prison escapes. The most surreal moment from that period was when I was sent to escort a bloodhound handler into a patch of woods, where minutes before three prisoners who'd managed to penetrate a fence fled under gunfire. Two of the prisoners were being held at the prison where I worked even though they hadn't been convicted yet. They'd escaped from jail and were being held at my unit because they were a security risk. Yeah, no shit. Since they were not yet convicted felons, the "shoot on sight" law that is supposed to keep criminals from climbing fences technically did not apply to them. Thus, my captain as he pushed me into the woods to look for then cautioned me to "Try not to shoot them." Read the whole story.

Those stories are memorable, but they aren't my favorites. I loved to listen to my grandmother's tales of cooking for her six brothers on a wood stove, trying in vain to quell their appetites after they'd spent the days plowing with mules. I also love to hear my mother recount her early hardscrabble life living in an old farmhouse without running water or adequate heat where sometimes the hot water bottle she took to bed with her would fall to the floor where she'd find it frozen in the morning when she crawled from under the quilts.

It's not just the older generation that can spin a story. My kids love to elaborate on the things they did to exasperate me when they were growing up. My oldest daughter, who I dearly love, has and has always had a slightly sharp tongue. She used it one too many times on a trip home from a friends' lake house one day back in the 90s and I turned around in the car to pop her on the leg as a warning, except I didn't. I tagged her brother, who, while not an angel, was an innocent bystander in this case. "Dad, you got me!" was his indignant response. I was doubly furious. When we finally got home, my daughter, sensing that she had pushed things too far, climbed over the other children in the back seat and took off running as fast as she could with me chasing her. Lucky for both of us, I didn't catch her. Not funny at the time but hilarious to hear then tell it now.

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A winter sunset over Badin Lake in the heart of the Uwharrie National Forest in central North Carolina.

Sunset sky casts a warm glow over calm waters, with silhouetted trees and driftwood framing the serene lake scene.

I Hate PDFs, Here Are Some Tips

PDF_Logo_Laptop

First off, just let me say I hate PDFs in the workplace because even in 2025, few people understand all the ins and outs of working with them. All they know is that the boss needs to buy them or IT needs to give them some expensive software, preferably top of the line Adobe software, so they can do what they want with a single damn document they got from some seminar.

If you occasionally work with documents saved as PDFs, you can probably avoid purchasing, or worse, subscribing to expensive services to create, join, split, annotate and convert files. The key word is occasionally. If your everyday workflow involves working with PDFs all day, you need to go ahead and invest in the tools you need.

Both Macs and PCs can create PDF files from just about any file you can print. Where folks run into trouble is when they get a PDF file created by someone else, and they want to edit it as if it were a Word document. It is not. When you look at a PDF, you are essentially looking at a picture of a document rather than an original. Still, depending on your pain point, there are free tools you can use to make some modifications to PDFs.

There are also free tools to do OCR (object character recognition) on PDF files so that you can search the text in them for keywords. Not every PDF has a searchable layer. It can be created if it doesn't exist, but it isn't always there by default.

One last bomb blast from your IT guy - do not come at me with some 1GB 800-page PDF full of tiny text and full color pictures and complain about anything because you are asking for trouble if you expect to work with files like that. You just are.

PDFgear - Free PDF Editor Software & Online tools

Annotate a PDF in Preview on Mac - Apple Support

How To Edit a PDF on Mac—Three Fast and Free Ways | Smallpdf

PDF online - FREE | Adobe Acrobat

PDF OCR - Recognize text - easily, online, free - PDF24

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I’ve been looking at this giant oak since I was a kid when it was in front of the local newspaper. After the paper moved, the area became a notorious red-light district patrolled by civilian police and Army MPs. Today, the tree is on the grounds of the Army Airborne and Special Operations Museum.

A large, sprawling tree with thick branches spreads its canopy in black and white. Sunlight filters through the leaves, set in a grassy park with a fence in the background.

Acorn Image Editor Provides Great Value

Acorn
Acorn


Through the years, I've used multiple versions of Adobe Photoshop, Pixelmator add even GIMP for layered image editing and graphic design. The most user-friendly yet powerful app I've ever used in that category is Acorn, by the developers at Flying Meat, Inc. For less than $20 you get a Photoshop compatible application, either from the developer's website or the App Store.The feature set is long and varied, but the interface isn't overly complicated, and you don't need to buy an 800-page book to explain the ins and outs of using it. A two-time Apple award winner, it's a one-time purchase of $19.99, and you get access to extensive online documentation, a user forum and tech support. The current version is a universal binary compatible with macOS 14 and 15, but earlier versions can still be downloaded.

New Features in Latest Version

  • AI subject selection
  • Live text tool
  • Data-driven graphics
  • On canvas ruler
  • JPEG-XL support
  • Look up tables (LUTs)
  • Super resolution (upscaling)
  • Extensive export support
  • Apple shortcut support

Basic Use Cases

  • Design logos and custom typography by adding text to paths or shapes.
  • Remove backgrounds using Magic Wand and Instant Alpha Eraser.
  • Combine images to create collages and layouts.
  • Retouch images with Clone, Dodge, and Burn.
  • Adjust contrast, highlights, and shadows with Levels and Curves.
  • Export professionally with customizable color profiles, file formats, and precise size control.

Extended Feature Set

  • Layer capabilities
  • Filters, effects and styles
  • Basic and custom brushes (including Adobe imports)
  • Magic Wand shapes
  • Vector support
  • Supports multiple file types

If you only need basic features, like image conversion, compression and resizing, there are programs with smaller feature sets to accomplish those tasks. If. However, you want something full-featured with batch processing capabilities (using Automator support), Acorn is a good tool to have.

Limited Purpose Tools

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I captured this snap of a Blue Crowned Hanging Parrot, one of the smallest, at our state aviary before it closed a few years back. It was one of my favorite places in the world

A Blue-crowned Hanging Parrot, a small, bright green parrot with a blue cap, red throat patch, and yellow and red rump, clings to a thin branch.

Get Ready for More

IMG_0168

If you aren't a regular reader of Linkage, the daily collection of interesting places to visit on the Internet, you really should be. Earlier tonight i shared the news that I've decided to stop working at the university where I've been full time since 2022. My new ambition is to be able to devote my time to writing in a way I never have been able to before. Writing is what brings me the most joy these days but I have had to cram it into a life with a full time job, family time that I treasure and trying to be a supportive husband to Wonder Woman. I've always enjoyed helping people with technology issues, so my job wasn't unenjoyable, but like any workplace, sometimes personalities and politics get in the way of the mission. Well, not any more, not for me. My last day in my 50s will be my last day as an employee. My first day of the final retirement is going to be my 60th birthday.

This is the real culmination of a dream I've had for a while. There are so many things in my life that have taken a back seat. I'll have time to cook again. I won't have to go for walks in the coldest hour of the day. I can spend evenings doing things with Wonder Woman as opposed to doing things near her.

My vision for writing is to be able to spend more time developing ideas, spending some time mind mapping or outlining what I want to write about. I may even start proofreading before I publish! Usually my editing is of the oh, shit variety, after I spot a mistake or three on a live blog post. I get email from developers fairly regularly asking me to consider reviewing their apps and now I will have time to do more of that. It would really make me happy to be able to lend a hand to someone who comes up with a great idea to get more attention for their work. I don't have the stress or pressure faced by commercial journalists.

For this blog, where tech takes a back seat and I tend to write more autobiographical prose along with social commentary, nothing will change about the format or direction. I'll just be able to develop some ideas more fully. It is a precarious moment in time. Documenting how we get through these next four years is important. I want to be a part of a support network of progressive voices who advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the face of an assault on vulnerable people. Activists absolutely need to be in the streets, but no one should discount building communities online. If the right wing's Internet presence is a problem for the left, the same can be true in reverse. Keeping people engaged and involved and ready to vote isn't a given. I'm not planning to become a pundit. I just want to be the same outspoken citizen I have tried to be since conservatism turned so poisonous.

I am excited and happy. Life is awesome.

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Vivaldi, My Favorite Browser Just Got Some Updates

Vivaldi Speed Dial
Vivaldi Speed Dial

I switched to using Vivaldi late last year after being all in on Microsoft Edge because of work. I am trying to leave as many big tech companies behind as possible, and I grew tired of having AI shoved in my face all day. Vivaldi is a Chromium-based browser designed for the technically proficient, who form the core of its 3.1 million user base.

Through the years I've used Netscape, Internet Explorer, Camino, Safari, Chrome and Edge. None of them ever provided the customization options that Vivaldi does. The ability to group tabs and save them as browsing sessions is a real game changer. The iOS version is great too and getting to my bookmarks, tabs and history works well between platforms. Version 7.1 was released recently and these are some of the new features.

Bring Your Tabs Along

If the thought of abandoning the open tabs in your current browser gives you anxiety, Vivaldi now has you covered. It can import them all so you can get right back to doing what you were doing without having to set things up again.

Speed Dials

Vivaldi has a mechanism for setting up link collections called Speed Dials. You can reach your Speed Dials right from the new tab page. I have several, including one with the websites I use for posting to my blog and another for research. The process for adding sites to them has been redesigned and is no easier than ever to manage.

Seamless Tab Sharing

If, like me, you use your browser on multiple devices, four in my case, the ability to send tabs to my phone, iPad or work computer is easier than ever. I can continue to read or research anything without using third-party software or cumbersome workarounds.

New Default Search Engines

Vivaldi doesn’t track you, profile you, or sell your data. It's monetized by defaulting to one of three search engines, although you are free to use anything you want. Vivaldi features Startpage, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo and Qwant. It's built in tracker blocking and the availability of ad blockers routinely give me a score of 99 to 100 on sites that grade privacy.

Weather Widget

There is a new custom weather widget for Vivaldi's new tab page, which it calls a dashboard. The dashboard already has widgets to display your email inbox, top stories from your choice of RSS feeds, your calendar and more.

Dashboard Customization

You can now customize the look of your dashboard with themes ranging from minimalist styles to bold and colorful. The page background is adjustable to fit your style, and you can color your widgets to match the overall them you've chosen for the browser as a whole.

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Vivaldi, My Favorite Browser Just Got Some Updates

Vivaldi Speed Dial
Vivaldi Speed Dial

I switched to using Vivaldi late last year after being all in on Microsoft Edge because of work. I am trying to leave as many big tech companies behind as possible, and I grew tired of having AI shoved in my face all day. Vivaldi is a Chromium-based browser designed for the technically proficient, who form the core of its 3.1 million user base.

Through the years I've used Netscape, Internet Explorer, Camino, Safari, Chrome and Edge. None of them ever provided the customization options that Vivaldi does. The ability to group tabs and save them as browsing sessions is a real game changer. The iOS version is great too and getting to my bookmarks, tabs and history works well between platforms. Version 7.1 was released recently and these are some of the new features.

Bring Your Tabs Along

If the thought of abandoning the open tabs in your current browser gives you anxiety, Vivaldi now has you covered. It can import them all so you can get right back to doing what you were doing without having to set things up again.

Speed Dials

Vivaldi has a mechanism for setting up link collections called Speed Dials. You can reach your Speed Dials right from the new tab page. I have several, including one with the websites I use for posting to my blog and another for research. The process for adding sites to them has been redesigned and is no easier than ever to manage.

Seamless Tab Sharing

If, like me, you use your browser on multiple devices, four in my case, the ability to send tabs to my phone, iPad or work computer is easier than ever. I can continue to read or research anything without using third-party software or cumbersome workarounds.

New Default Search Engines

Vivaldi doesn’t track you, profile you, or sell your data. It's monetized by defaulting to one of three search engines, although you are free to use anything you want. Vivaldi features Startpage, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo and Qwant. It's built in tracker blocking and the availability of ad blockers routinely give me a score of 99 to 100 on sites that grade privacy.

Weather Widget

There is a new custom weather widget for Vivaldi's new tab page, which it calls a dashboard. The dashboard already has widgets to display your email inbox, top stories from your choice of RSS feeds, your calendar and more.

Dashboard Customization

You can now customize the look of your dashboard with themes ranging from minimalist styles to bold and colorful. The page background is adjustable to fit your style, and you can color your widgets to match the overall them you've chosen for the browser as a whole.

✉️ Reply by email

Quitting But Still a Winner

Quitting_Meme

I did something today I've only done a couple of times in the 21st century. I quit my job. Technically, leaving my previous job wasn't quitting. It was retiring. I spent 27 years working for the state of NC before sailing off into the sunset. I ended up not liking my first shot at retirement, but I think this time will be different. For the past two years I've been an end user support specialist at a private university in the town where I live. The students and 99% of the faculty were great to work with. The atmosphere in tech has really changed though. A lot of time and energy is spent on what is essentially security theater. While there is information the law requires an IT department do everything in its power to protect, there are also lots of restrictions placed on folks that are there purely for show and don't do a damn thing to make data more secure. It makes me crazy. So I turned in my notice. My last day at work will also be my last day in my 50s. My 60th birthday will be the first day of my second retirement.

To celebrate my impending freedom, I found a few good stories about people leaving jobs to share with you.

Quitting Stories- Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com

The CRAZIEST Job Quitting Stories You Will Ever Hear - Don’t Try These Yourself - YouTube

30 Hilarious Ways People Quit Their Jobs

4 of the wildest quitting stories we've ever heard

‘I’m outta here': Employees Share Stories About Quitting on the First Day - FAIL Blog - Funny Fails



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Winter sky

Bare tree branches stretch upward, silhouetted against a bright sun in a cloudy sky, creating a stark contrast. The surrounding trees add depth to the scene.

Let's Talk About Corporate Hypocrisy

Vivaldi - 2025-02-05 at 19

When the Republican's in the NC legislature pushed through the nation's first bathroom bill in 2016, other states banned travel there, artists like Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam canceled concerts, major corporations canceled plans to open offices and the NCAA pulled the college basketball Final Four tournament. By the time the bill was rescinded, North Carolina lost billions of dollars in revenue as the nation punished it for enacting a spiteful and hate-filled law. Times have changed. Today the president of the NCAA issued a fawning statement with a positive spin on Trump's executive order banning trans athletes. In eight years time, the NCAA lost what little moral compass it ever had.

To give this exploitive and hypocritical organization, tonight I'll feature a few other less than respectable organizations.

2016

NCAA pulls 7 championship events out of North Carolina - ESPN

2025

NCAA vows to comply after Donald Trump signs executive order seeking to ban transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports - Yahoo Sports


Disney is once again giving money to anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans who passed the "Don't Say Gay" law | Salon.com - the recipients include Republicans who supported the law that banned discussions about LGBTQ+ issues in public schools through third grade, even though the company, under pressure from its employees, previously opposed the measure, officially called the Parental Rights in Education bill.


Representative from Duke Energy posts a sign mocking people for littering, despite the fact that Duke has gotten away with dumping millions of gallons of coal ash into the lakes and rivers of North Carolina


Facebook settles a federal lawsuit over allegations it favored foreign job applicants : NPR - This is the same company that just crawled into bed with MAGA and its America First Agenda.


Dove's 'Real Beauty' campaign: Hypocritical? | The Week - After earning praise for featuring women who were not professional models in an ad campaign, Dove decided to solicit candidates with this pitch - "Beautiful arms and legs and face... naturally fit, not too curvy or athletic!" the ad read. "Beautiful hair & skin is a must!!!"

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Located right off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC, Cone Manor, the former home of one of NC’s textile barons, overlooks the frozen surface of Bass Lake down below.

A frozen lake with cracked ice sits quietly beneath a cloudy blue sky, surrounded by dense, leafless trees and distant rolling hills.

Affirmations - IndieWeb Carnival for February 2025

ireland-2

This month, the topic for those participating in the monthly IndieWeb Carnival is "affirmations." I've long enjoyed reading poetry and collecting quotes. I will stop whatever I am doing if I hear a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Winston Churchill, two of the greatest speakers to ever be recorded. I am inordinately fond of the power of language. Several years ago, I decided to see if it was possible to achieve happiness through adopting positive behaviors. Among the many things I tried over the course of the year-long experiment was internalizing affirmations. I didn't use an app for it or search through my quotes collection. Instead, I looked at the parts of my life that caused me the most stress. Then, I flipped that by determining what my favorite things were about myself.

Affirmations for Stress

The year I undertook this project was one of changes. After 15 years of working in elementary and middle schools supporting teachers and students using Apple computers, I switched to working in high schools where everything was Windows-based. I transitioned from using computers and software with which I was intimately familiar, to systems I loathed and had done my best to avoid for a long time. Not only that, I was faced with learning the ins and outs of the faculty and staff at four giant campuses. I went from a life on cruise control to one where the stress level was ramped up by the demands of high-stakes online testing, students striving for college admissions and ramped up security concerns.

Since I was trying everything in my power to make that year the best I could, I used two affirmations, which I wrote out by hand in a notebook every morning.

  1. I react calmly to stressful situations
  2. I am intelligent and resourceful. I find solutions to problems. I am not defeated by them.

I repeated those affirmations to myself before I got out of my car in the mornings as work and I had post-it notes taped to my laptop as constant reminders. I was doing a lot of other positive things that year, meditating, walking several miles a day, striving for eight hours of sleep a night, eating healthy. Combining all of those things did, in fact, keep the stress level down. Despite my misgivings, I finished out my career truly enjoying the time I spent working with older students and adapting to a whole new workflow.

Having a Purpose

The other word game i played with myself, not only that one year but right until this very day was taking the time to determine my purpose. What is it I'm on earth to do? It's a hallmark of my personality to like the things I like as much as I possibly can. I am not one to dip my toe into the pool. I do a cannonball. Because I am usually convinced that my latest passion is the best thing ever, I naturally try to convince other people to take part. When I started rescuing parrots, I had two aviaries built at my house within a year. I set up anyone who was interested with a bird of their own and helped them outfit a habitat and choose the right food. When I was into cycling, my greatest joy was helping people train for and complete their first 100-mile bike rides. When it comes to tech, I have spent the past thirty years showing people how to use various gadgets and programs to be more productive and creative. With blogging, I went from one blog to four in just a few months and I evangelize for the IndieWeb every chance I get.

My Purpose — To let my curiosity and enthusiasm create and nurture passions I can share with others.

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Tapestry by Iconfactory on Day 2

Tapestry
Tapestry


Announced a year ago on Kickstarter, Tapestry by Iconfactory was released on February 4. Tapestry is an aggregator that creates a combined timeline from a long list of possible sources including :

  • RSS feeds
  • YouTube channels
  • Podcasts
  • Mastodon
  • Bluesky
  • Micro.blog
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Items in your timeline are shown in chronological order. There is no algorithm. Searching within Tapestry searches across all feeds. Likewise, setting a mute filter for terms such as "Elon Musk" will block content from every source. Content from different sources is color coded to make readily apparent which resource your information is coming from. If you install Tapestry on a phone and an iPad, your reading position syncs across devices via iCloud. You can combine sources in any way you want to have your own custom feeds. I am still experimenting, but so far I created the following:

  • Personal bloggers
  • Hard news
  • Tech news
  • Combined Mastodon and Bluesky home feeds
  • Favorite individual social media feeds, since you can add a feed for a single account holder (e.g. Kottke, AOC, Joan Westenberg)

The settings allow you to choose an icon, a theme and a font for the timeline. You can use the in app browser or your default browser to view content. I recommend doing that so you can view content using reader mode. Reddit links open in the Reddit app. Mastodon links open in my browser, although I can use the share sheet to open them in my preferred app. Tapestry also has bookmarks.


The privacy policy states that all searches take place on your device. The developers do not collect any data.

Iconfactory offers monthly subscriptions for $1.99, yearly for $19.99 and a one time purchase for $79.99. A Mac version is in the works, but is not here yet. There is a free version with limited features. Get it on the App Store

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Tapestry by Iconfactory on Day 2

Tapestry
Tapestry


Announced a year ago on Kickstarter, Tapestry by Iconfactory was released on February 4. Tapestry is an aggregator that creates a combined timeline from a long list of possible sources including :

  • RSS feeds
  • YouTube channels
  • Podcasts
  • Mastodon
  • Bluesky
  • Micro.blog
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Items in your timeline are shown in chronological order. There is no algorithm. Searching within Tapestry searches across all feeds. Likewise, setting a mute filter for terms such as "Elon Musk" will block content from every source. Content from different sources is color coded to make readily apparent which resource your information is coming from. If you install Tapestry on a phone and an iPad, your reading position syncs across devices via iCloud. You can combine sources in any way you want to have your own custom feeds. I am still experimenting, but so far I created the following:

  • Personal bloggers
  • Hard news
  • Tech news
  • Combined Mastodon and Bluesky home feeds
  • Favorite individual social media feeds, since you can add a feed for a single account holder (e.g. Kottke, AOC, Joan Westenberg)

The settings allow you to choose an icon, a theme and a font for the timeline. You can use the in app browser or your default browser to view content. I recommend doing that so you can view content using reader mode. Reddit links open in the Reddit app. Mastodon links open in my browser, although I can use the share sheet to open them in my preferred app. Tapestry also has bookmarks.


The privacy policy states that all searches take place on your device. The developers do not collect any data.

Iconfactory offers monthly subscriptions for $1.99, yearly for $19.99 and a one time purchase for $79.99. A Mac version is in the works, but is not here yet. There is a free version with limited features. Get it on the App Store

✉️ Reply by email

Linville Gorge in Western North Carolina, home to some of the most challenging hiking in the Eastern US.

Two towering rock formations stand with a narrow gap between them, allowing a glimpse of a bright, distant sunset. Lush greenery covers parts of the rugged cliffs.