2025-10-01

Living in tech debt, just like the Stagnificent Seven or whatever we're calling Sam Altman's brain trust now. While I was right that the likes API would be easily extensible to this subdomain, no one could have predicted that I would have made bad styling and hierarchy assumptions mucking up actually embeding the button. At the end of time, I will be asking myself if I should be using a gap or tailoring margins on :last-child pseudoselectors.

It's been about a week since I've taken a Bluesky detox by deactivating my accounts. My attitudes about ATProto and large socials aren't bright line, but a week away has given me some relief while also allowing me to reflect on what I expect to squeeze from them. I'm not sure it's actually about wanting to be perceivedーthe panoptic surveillance of platforms like Bluesky is what develops the most anxiety in meーbut actually the touch of FOMO. Whatever residual is left of Xitter does not inspire me to post, but there is a mass of posting inertia it moves with that does make ignoring it difficult.

Bluesky's vitals are not especially encouraging in this respect when it rarely feels the case that there is enough on it to fill what should be endless feeds, a design pattern it has otherwise carbon copied in every other way. Without engaging either Bluesky and Xitter, I'm absent from effectively all large platforms du jour that have adopted the format. Silence can be both golden and deafening when you live as a shut-in, but there are still a lot of dumbasses yelling into the void if you want to perceive them elsewhere.

For now I've brought @mad.denden.garden back up, since it can hum without my babysitting it. If you give it enough attention, Billy Herrington might end up in someone's Discover feed.