Wired: How to Protest Safely in the Age of Surveillance – Law enforcement has more tools than ever to track your movements and access your communications. Here’s how to protect your privacy if you plan to protest.

Creating new types of feeds

I saw a post by Tantek Celik today describing how he created an h-feed microformat from a list of HTML elements. He then showed how this microformat could be read and parsed by the Monocle feed reader. He then pointed to a post by James Gallagher about how he publishes h-feed and uses the Granary tool to convert to RSS and other feed formats.

This is an interesting topic. I have looked at microformats before, to me it seems to be a way of adding to HTML to make it machine-readable without the construction of a separate feed. I have nothing against innovation in feeds, but I am not sure how popular the use of microformats is within the feed reader ecosystem.

Remembrance of the 5th anniversary of the January 6th Insurrection

Here we are, five years later…some people would say that the insurrectionists won (Trump is back in office, Jan6 insurrectionists were pardoned). We still have a democracy, but it is heading towards authoritarianism. I hope the results will eventually head back towards democracy.

Previously on this weblog:

Other coverage:

EmacsConf2025: Zettelkasten for regular Emacs hackers

EmacsConf had their 2025 online conference in early December 2025, and I am listening to conference presentations from their YouTube playlist. I thought that the presentation “Zettelkasten for regular Emacs hackers” was a good one. The presenter, Christian Tietze, one of the people behind zettelkasten.de, talked about some zettelkasten principles, and used the Denote package in Emacs for creating new “notes” in Emacs. In addition to the 25 minute talk, he did a Q&A session for almost an hour and a half, which was very illuminating about his zettelkasten process/skills. I have embedded the videos for the talk and the Q&A session in this post – enjoy!

The end of podcasting, chapter 65

Well, well, well….my last chapter on this topic was written almost one year ago (one year ago tomorrow!)! Why bring this up again? Reason: a recent article from TheVerge.com on the name “podcast”, and a rationale for why this should be dropped (“end the use of the word “podcast””). Some pull quotes:

“But in 2025, with almost every major podcast now having a video component, the definition of the word “podcast” has become pretty meaningless.”

“So in 2026, instead of trying to define what a podcast is, I think we need to stop using the word altogether. “Podcast” is becoming an outdated or even a potentially cringe internet relic, similar to how the phrase “web series” faded from use online.”

Ah – I see where this person is coming from. As mentioned in chapter 64, many audio programs that are being created now are really videos. Also, instead of using the above pay-walled link about defining a podcast, we need to turn to this definition by Dave Winer:

“A podcast is a series of digital media files made available over the open web through an RSS feed with enclosures. Podcasts usually are audio, but you can distribute any media object this way.”

Here is a clear definition of a podcast. Admittedly, it is a “technology-based” definition (need to use a RSS feed to distribute the content), but still, a good, clear definition. For videos, go ahead and call them “videos” or “shows”. For audio that is controlled via apps and not using RSS, those media creations should use some other word (I suggested “appcast” back in 2019).

My final beef – is this “genre” of article needed or wanted? Audio programs are branching into video programs – so what? Podcasts and the creation of podcasts (podcasting) will continue, because no one can stop people from creating or publishing podcasts. Some quotes from Dave Winer on why podcasting is not dominated by a single company (although some might think Apple Podcasts dominates podcasting):

“There is no gatekeeper that can turn down your podcast, make you not cover topics they don’t want covered or use language or images they don’t think are acceptable, or compete with them.”

“Why is podcasting still open after over 20 years? Drumroll please. The answer: there are enough users who understand how it is supposed to work. They expect to be able to listen to any podcast anywhere they want.”

As long as the above two statements are true, there will be podcasts, along with shows, appcasts, or other names for media content that people want to consume using various tools/apps/web sites. I end with a quote of my own:

However, I think the thing to do is to make great things and find ways to innovate. Let’s get out there and compete people – come on!