Monthly Archives: October 2023

Bye bye Pebble!

Pebble, aka t2.social, was a short lived social network like Twitter. Last week they sent out emails to all their users to tell them that the site was shutting down on November 1st. I first came across it thanks to Topgold, but it was always a small site. In a crowded section of the Internet, another Twitter clone would have a tough time competing.

I hadn’t posted much there and wasn’t going to download my data, but this post by Eugen Rochko caught my attention and reminded me to go visit.

If was part of the social web, they would have had a network of 1.8M active users, not 1,000, and perhaps wouldn’t have had to shut down.

Eugen Rochko

Maybe it would have survived, but it would have had to be extra special and offer some compelling features to compete with all the “free” Fediverse servers out there. The Activity Pub plugin for WordPress recently hit version 1.0 and was launched on WordPress.com too, so potentially millions of new Fediverse sites are coming online, all of which are on more mature software.

I listen to podcasts

It was nice to hear an Irish voice, Sorcha, on the latest episode, Leif, of Heavyweight.

Also, I totally forgot that Pocketcasts has a web player that syncs with the app. So handy!

Another great episode of Cautionary Tales I listened to recently:

All their episodes are great. You should subscribe.

If you watched The Dig on Netflix, you’ll love listening to this episode of the Short History Of… podcast. Even though it’s a “short history”, it has a lot more detail about the dig at Sutton Hoo, the treasures found there and in nearby mounds.

I started listening to a new Sherlock Holmes podcast. I’m only on the first episode, but it has the same feel as the recent TV series, and I’m very much enjoying it so far!

Some of us are still blogging for the hell of it. (HN)

If you’re on the Fediverse, you’re blogging, IMO. 🙂

Final section of Macroom Bypass opens soon

The final section of the new road bypassing Macroom and other towns in Co Cork will be opening next month, hopefully. The existing sections make that drive a pleasure now, as we can bypass the bottleneck of Macroom, and avoid the twisting roads just west of Ballyvourney.

We drove to Killarney on Saturday morning to photograph the deer in Killarney National Park, and that road was lovely to drive. It’s disconcerting there’s no hard shoulder, but there are lay-bys at least. We passed through Ballyvourney around 7am, and saw a local shop was already open, but I wonder what effect the new road will have on local business?

On the way back, we stopped in The Mills, on the edge of that town, for lunch. It was well over a decade since I’d eaten there. The place was packed with diners, and even a Hen Party! The food was delicious and staff were friendly. Will it be so easy to get there next month, or will drivers have to drive through the entire town to visit?

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