Fresh Fusion: Recent Episodes
Jared White
A weekly show where we discuss the business, the art, the ethics of content creation on the open web. Hosted by Jared White.
I’m a ramblin’ guy, I’m ramblin’ ramblin’ ram…BLIN’!
Just like Steve Martin apparently, I’ll be ramblin’ around a lot this year, so it’s time to take my mobile workspace seriously and bid adeiu to being tethered to a desktop Mac (and, well, macOS in general). How will I get things done while I’m on the road? Who knows—I mean, yes, this episode will explain everything!
Update: the original published MP3 was missing chapter markers. Had to wrangle with Ferrite a bit more, but this version should be working now! 😅
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Creator Class 41: Your Sacred Obligation to Speak Truth to Power * Focusrite Scarlett Solo * iPad launched 15 years ago (Apple) * My Shifting Computing Habits in 2025 (Thanks…Tim Cook?) * Framework * GNOME
(Note: I want to provide a Trigger Warning as this episode contains examples of hate speech targeted at LGBTQ+ people and women. Take care of yourselves, and proceed with understanding.)
It’s 2025 y’all, and everything’s going great so far! 😜 But seriously, I have some good news to report (really, I do!) even while expressing my supreme frustration that yet another commercial social media platform has proven itself to be absolutely terrible, the broligarchy is in full swing, and there are no good billionaires. Thankfully, we can exercise our freedom of association by refusing to entertain these clowns or have anything to do with their gross and unsafe platforms.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * My First Four Weeks of Daily Blogging * Bridgetown 2024: Year in Review * ‘It’s Total Chaos Internally at Meta Right Now’: Employees Protest Zuckerberg’s Anti LGBTQ Changes * Meta Deletes Trans and Nonbinary Messenger Themes * Elon Musk agrees that we’ve exhausted AI training data * My Experience Biohacking (Declan Chidlow) * Clive Thompson (@clive@saturation.social) writes: The secret to a better city is a two-wheeler * RealJournalism (@RealJournalism@mastodon.social) shares: Tribes celebrate Klamath dam removal: “More successful than we ever imagined”
It’s that time of year again in the U.S. of A.—time to take stock of where we’ve been and find all of the silver linings. And it’s time for this podcaster to geek out over some very special blessings, from weird quirky indie horror films to weird quirky indie web browsers as well as weird quirky indie…OK, I think you get the idea. 😄 Also some thoughts on why there’s value in staying engaged in local politics even when national elections are a source of undying gloom. And guess what? Yearly intentions work! But enough about me. What are you thankful for this holiday season?
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon & Threads * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Social Web Foundation + Our Discussion on Just a Spec Podcast * My Review of Vivaldi Web Browser * Bridgetown 2.0 * Newsletters: + Creator Class + Cycles Hyped No More by The Internet Review + That HTML Blog + Fullstack Ruby * Portland Vortex Creative Club
Why has the mood changed so suddenly on Threads? How has Meta dropped the ball at this pivotal moment for the nascent social network? Meanwhile, other social networks and the Fediverse as a whole are kicking some serious ass. It’s a real shift in a short amount of time from just earlier in the summer, and I’m here to talk all about it…and how much I just love Mastodon 4.3 + Tangerine UI 2.0. 😍
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon & Threads * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * The Social Web Foundation + Just a Spec episode about the foundation * Flipboard federation blog * My profile on Pixelfed + Impressia for Pixelfed (Apple App Store) + My profile on Vernissage * Mastodon 4.3 + Tangerine UI 2.0
It’s the summer of our content, as we take time to enjoy the great outdoors and spend quality moments IRL with friends and family.
At least, that’s what I’ve been doing, as well as making structural changes in my day-to-day such as a studio move and an email newsletter move from ConvertKit to Buttondown. But even as the sun is shining and the birds are singing, what’s happening on social media right now is…weird. And I’m not sure how to feel about it.
Like, what IS going on with the Fediverse anyway? And should we all just hold our Meta-scarred noses and embrace Threads now? Hmm. Let’s talk about that.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared on Mastodon & Threads * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Fresh Fusion is 6 years old*, y’all! 🎉 * Cycles Hyped No More (tech news-focused newsletter) * That HTML Blog (newsletter for web developers) * Fullstack Ruby (newsletter for Ruby developers) * “Best of LinkedIn” (CEO goes off the rails 😂)
Some people say that RIVEN: The Sequel to MYST is the greatest computer game of all time. (That’s me. I say that.)
Perhaps YMMV. But there’s no doubt that Riven is the G.O.A.T. of puzzle adventure games as pioneered in the 1990s, and this year we’re blessed with the tremendous opportunity to fall in love with Riven all over again, as Cyan has developed and published a modern remake in glorious real-time 3D. I am, quite simply, obsessed. Here’s why you should be too.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Cycles Hyped No More (my new tech-focused newsletter) + First issue: Hype Cycles, Come Again No More * Riven (2024 Remake) + Launch Trailer (YouTube) * Riven (Wikipedia)
I’ve often found that most of the people out there who have genuine talent and real success are more than happy to pass their well-founded wisdom on to others. Unfortunately, those experts who have a proven track record, having made predictive claims grounded in reality over time, are often not the popular figures in our society. With alarming frequency, many “influencers” with high follower counts are fairly good at one thing: influencing…not the actual topics they claim to understand based on real-world expertise. Let’s discuss.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * European Commission sends preliminary DMA findings to Apple * My Apple DMA commentary on Mastodon * Riven 2024 (Steam store)
Generative art, aka artistic output that’s produced by a sophisticated set of parameters, cycles, connections, and yes, even algorithms, has been around for decades—especially in music—and has a prestigious and invigorating history. More importantly, generative art tools have helped usher in countless new art forms.
Contrast that with…well…y’know. 😂
In this so-called “Age of AI” we find ourselves in, it’s helpful to take a step back and remember that new generative artistic capabilities have typically given rise to vast new worlds of creative expression. Augmentation if you will, not substitution. Alas, Silicon Valley seems to have lost the plot. We should stop trusting they’re seeing something we’re not, and instead trust our own judgement in choosing tools which elevate (not badly approximate) human ingenuity and artistry.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * My essay: They Forgot It’s “Bicycle for the Mind”—not “Jet Airplane” * Also my essay: I Am Terrified of WWDC24. But Perhaps I Shouldn’t Be * The Art of Noises by Luigi Russolo * “Ansel Adams-style AI art” 🤢 Threads thread / Follow-up * Horrifying monster people 😱 (just zoom in!) * WSJ: The AI Revolution is Already Losing Steam * Adam Conover: How Google RUINED the Internet / Mastodon thread * Google’s bad AI search results went viral. It’s since made improvements
A tale of two Threads: one—the Threadiverse—is a subportion of the Fediverse dedicated to replicating the kind of experiences we’re familiar with on Reddit, Hacker News, and the like; the other is Meta’s fast-growing competitor to X. Not confusing at all! 😂
In this episode I break down what the Threadiverse is and how I’ve been using and enjoying Lemmy, and then cover the latest developments with Threads having entered the Fediverse (in a partial solution) and what’s coming next—and how it’s being impacted by the Fedipact. I also cover a range of exciting news on the growth of the open social web.
And in the Fusion+ segment this week: my spoiler-light review of Alex Garland’s heady movie Civil War and the fascinating metanarrative it offers on the nature of journalism, activism, and the quest for Truth.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Ghost Embraces the Fediverse, Collaborating with Buttondown * Dot Social: Threads Has Entered the Fediverse, with Meta’s Rachel Lambert and Peter Cottle * Flipboard Magazine Federation + Happy Cities (my magazine on urbanism and micromobility) * Digiday: As TikTok ban threatens stability in social media ecosystem, some brands settle into the fediverse + The Verge is working on federation!
Sigh. It’s frustrating to still feel like an early adopter of open web technology. How many years has it been? 25? 30? But here we are, trying to convince the masses that you can use open protocols, networks, and software to build lasting publishing businesses and outlets for your creativity. And who better to show us the way than…Donald Trump? Perish the thought! 😱 (But seriously, it’s amazing to recall everyone once scoffed at his fledgling social network once he was booted off Facebook and Twitter and…well, it was hardly the kiss of death.)
He proved Big Social just ain’t so powerful anymore. Can people who aren’t batshit crazy please take inspiration from this and use the open web for good?? TIA! 🙏
Say it with me: Own Your Own Platform.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Updates from Jared’s Publishing Empire: * JaredWhite.com: + Video: Midsummer Adventures at Mt. Hood + Fresh Fusion Episode 107 (thoughts on PeerTube) * The Spicy Web: writing of the next course is underway! “DIY UI That Scales”…vanilla or mostly-vanilla JS solutions to common architectural problems. Also enjoying link-blogging at That HTML Blog. * Bridgetown: version 2 of this Ruby web framework is on the way! * Just a Spec: new podcast episodes coming soon with my buddy Ayush! * Fullstack Ruby: yep, a redesign and relaunch! * The Internet Review: oh my gawd, it’s finally here!!* 🎉
Microblogging is an artform, just like any other creative endeavor people publish on the web. In this episode, I talk about one of the subtle techniques I sometimes use to microblog which increases the likelihood of engagement and boosting—but beware! You can definitely overdo it, and you can also manipulate people with it if you’re a bad actor. Use responsibly. 😅
And in the Fusion+ segment: it’s been six years since the acquisition of GitHub by Microsoft. How has that corporate overlordship gone? It’s difficult to deny Microsoft’s stewardship of GitHub has been a success, but there are dark clouds on the horizon…
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * 404 Media * Inside the World of TikTok Spammers and the AI Tools That Enable Them * Mastodon: @404mediaco * The Internet Review* * Mastodon: @theinternet
In this episode, I dive deep into how I might be willing to acknowledge an ethical approach to using generative AI tools, and why virtually all tools in widespread use today fall wildly short in the morality department—which makes the embrace of these tools by corporations incredibly disappointing. But can we thread this needle? Is there a viable path forward? Let’s discuss.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Shared Links: * The Subversive Hyperlink - Jim Nielsen’s Blog * RMTransit on PeerTube — 698 videos on public transit & urbanism! * Reece Martin’s Blog * Kickoff Toots: * I don’t think many folks who primarily spend time on Mastodon as their social network of choice realize how absolutely bonkers it is elsewhere… * Just so we’re super-duper-crystal-clear here, there is no AI, none whatsoever, that anyone anywhere has invented which actually thinks…actually reasons… * Crazy Stat:* * According to a 2021 Georgetown University poll of gun owners in the US, 24.6 million persons have an AR-15 or a comparable firearm in their possession. –Wikipedia
Folks have been talking about different terminology and ways of describing this brave new world of decentralized social networking. But with Threads’ staggering growth to 150 million MAU (Monthly Active Users), combined with its embrace of the colloquial term “fediverse”, I make the case that fediverse is here to stay. I also touch on the recent news around Google’s flailing leadership causing Googlers to get real grumpy real fast.
And in the Fusion+ segment: after a long period of time where microblogging (aka text-focused social media) and blogging seemed at odds with each other, we finally have an opportunity to go back to what made the web great, where both blogging and microblogging can not only co-exist but thrive together. Yay!
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Google’s CEO Responded to Intense Criticism at the Company’s All-Hands Meeting. It Didn’t Go Well * Adam Mosseri on Threads reaching 130m MAU * Alessandro Paluzz on Threads’ Fediverse sharing UI * Fusion+*: Blogging and “microblogging” can now evolve and thrive in tandem! + It’s hard to look back fondly on the Twitter algorithm in the days when it was still considered cool…
People will remember the “browser wars” of the 1990s, but they may not remember the “webtop wars” — that is, the battle for who will control the Push Technology which transforms your OS desktop into a tuner for live web channels. Learn about this fascinating blip in early internet history which eventually gave rise to a much simpler technology still in use today…one might even call it Really Simple (Syndication). 😁
Also in this episode: celebrating the 6th anniversary of ActivityPub becoming an official W3C recommendation, looking at a breakdown of the 100 most popular fediverse accounts, and some initial thoughts on Apple Vision Pro.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Happy Fediverse Day! 🎉 * Instance distribution of the top 100 fediverse accounts * Fediverse Network Statistics * Vision Pro Review: 24 Hours With Apple’s Mixed-Reality Headset (WSJ)
90s Push Technology* My archived reporting on Marimba Castanet * WIRED reporting on Marimba (and a BONKERS quote from Microsoft!) * Wikipedia: PointCast * Netscape Constellation (interview with Mike McCue) * Netcaster may change the future of push * Wikipedia: Active Desktop * Wikipedia: Channel Definition Format (CDF) * Wikipedia: Push Technology * Wikipedia: History of Web Syndication Technology
It’s a new year, I’m moving my business away from HEY (to Fastmail) & Basecamp (to GitHub & Email), and I’m listening to a lot of podcasts! I talk about all of that in this episode as well as my latest blogging kick due to a small but mighty design tweak on my website.
And in the Fusion+ segment: Is podcasting still as great as it ever was? For the “big shows” with major sponsorships, probably not. BUT…for the long tail of creators out there, it’s a totally different story!
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * New short-form “thoughts” format on my website * Fastmail
Podcasts: Urbanism* The War on Cars * The Urbanist Agenda * Ride On! * City Cast Portland * BikePortland Podcast
Podcasts: Politics & Religion* Apple News In Conversation with Shumita Basu * IndoctriNation * The Lincoln Project * Rick Wilson’s The Enemies List
Podcasts: Entertainment* The John Campea Show (also YouTube) * The Incomparable * Downstream
Podcasts: Business & Tech* Business Movers * On with Kara Swisher * Pivot * Dot Social * Shop Talk Show * Just a Spec (of course!) * Upgrade * Connected * Accidental Tech Podcast * Fusion+ Segment: Justin Jackson on Podcasting (YouTube)
After some follow up around switching from Glass to Pixelfed and importing new photos into my site from there, I dive into the heart of the episode: how do we deal with YouTube? As fediverse-aware content creators, YouTube remains a major hurdle, but there are still ways to route around it—either partially or completely. I walk through some of the possible solutions in this episode, and then wrap up with a challenge to “long tail” content creators: what have you got to lose? The time to experiment in this space is now!
And in the Fusion+ segment: Rumor has it that Apple is working on LLM technology to integrate into Siri. Will it be any good? And will I use it?
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon & Pixelfed * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Nikon Z fc + Nikkor 40mm f/2 * Let’s build a bright future for PeerTube! (design improvements coming) * Bunny Stream (Video CDN) + Video experiment: Bunny with 299 views + Video experiment: YouTube with 160 views
Call it a reboot, a resurrection if you will. A new chapter in my history as a blogger. And—literally for the first time ever—a mostly-complete chronicle of all my tech blogging during a span of almost 30 years. Get ready for The Internet Review.
I haven’t been a general “tech blogger” in some time. This year, that all changes. I regret I never had the discipline in the 2000s to become a John Gruber, or in the 2010s to become a Jason Snell. Perhaps I don’t now. But it’s now or never. If I don’t get started on this soon, it ain’t never gonna happen.
Also, get ready for The Internet, Reviewed — an exclusive podcast for Intuitive+ members! Each episode I will be looking back at a fascinating tech story from the past, a moment in the annals of internet history as presented by my past self. This is definitely a show you won’t want to miss!
And on Fresh Fusion+: commentary on Anil Dash’s piece for Rolling Stone about how the internet is about to get weird, and the new relationship we’ll begin to see from “big box” corporate web services and the “indie web”.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * The Year Was 1994 (Fresh Fusion #6) * Apple’s iReview (ha, I was first!) * Fusion+ segment: The Internet Is About to Get Weird Again * My photography on Pixelfed
Despite ch-ch-ch-changes every minute it seems, Jared attempts to analyze the shocking power struggle going on at OpenAI and what the this all means for Microsoft—because let’s face it, they’re really the ones in charge. In addition, some conversation regarding Apple’s incredible speed gains over the past several iterations of Apple Silicon and the appeal of M3 MacBookPros. And for Fresh Fusion+ members: a look at the transition from producer to educator and how careers may shift over the years.
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Sam Altman to return as OpenAI CEO after his tumultuous ouster - Reuters * Reaction to Sam Altman’s return as OpenAI CEO * OpenAI boardroom coup defeated, Sam Altman returning as CEO - 9to5Mac * Mastodon thread by Dare Obasanjo (@carnage4life@mas.to) * Fusion+ segment: CSS Nouveau
Jared is feeling a wee bit down in the mouth that his career is nearly over, apparently, due to AI coming for us all. The programmers. The musicians. The designers. The this, and the that. Or…is all of that largely utter nonsense and the artists are fighting back? (Hello WGA & SAG-AFTRA!) Let’s talk about AI and how true AGI is probably centuries away and OpenAI is trying to pull a fast one. And on today’s very exciting new Fresh Fusion+ segment: how to write and publish content on the web that is successful in search engines and social media, without giving too hoots about the snake oil that is SEO!
Links & Show Notes Sign Up for Intuitive+ to listen to Fresh Fusion+ * Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Mastodon thread about AI taking over programming * Cloud of a Thousand Talking Cats: An Essay * Why self-regulation is best for artificial intelligence (LOL) * Andreessen Horowitz would like everyone to stop talking about AI’s copyright issues, please (again, LOL)
I’m a die-hard Ivory for Mastodon user and “ambassador” of the Fediverse. So then, why am I on Threads? Well, it’s all about who you follow, and you can follow many interesting sorts of accounts there which aren’t all on Mastodon. Once Threads enables ActivityPub, I intend to follow all these accounts from Mastodon, but in the meantime, I must be on Threads. In this episode, I break down the various categories of accounts I follow, as well as talk about some of the other social media news of the day. There’s also a poetry reading and some soundboard shenanigans. As Eddy Cue might say, I can’t wait to do it!
Links & Show Notes Leave a review on Apple Podcasts * Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) * Follow Jared* on Mastodon * See the comments on this very episode, and add your own! * Thwip: Soundboard for iOS and watchOS * Poem: Alone by Edgar Allan Poe * X Monthly Fees Coming! * WordPress blogs can now be followed in the fediverse, including Mastodon
Some reflections after a year of podcasting since the “reboot” of Fresh Fusion, growing success in blogging and the importance of owning your own domain name and platform, the joys of belonging to a local creative community and feeling inspired by your locale, and more. All the feelz in this episode!
Like 'em or hate 'em, the BBC is here and has joined the fediverse. In this episode I talk about what this means and more broadly why it's a good thing to see another large news organization launch their own Mastodon instance. And on the Fusion+ segment I talk all about Elon's new social network called X. Pour one out for Twitter folks. The bird is gone.
We made it folks. ONE HUNDRED EPISODES! 🎉 On this 100th installment of Fresh Fusion, it is my extreme pleasure to welcome writer, founder, and marketing expert Mariya Delano to the show for a lively conversation about the growth of the internet and social media, when things started to go terribly awry, the cultural shift that's happening RIGHT NOW, and where she believes this is all headed. (Spoiler alert: there really is lots to be hopeful about!)
We’re here to herald the return of the aggregator-style link blog—at least for me. Listen while I break down the recent launch of That HTML Blog, the rise and fall and rise again of the blogosphere, and the occasional value of moving quickly and not overthinking new creative projects.
The episode wherein I opine on all the latest news on Threads by way of highlighting others of interest who are talking about Threads and have stood out to me during my time scrolling through my Mastodon feed. Am I excited about Threads? Do I dread the rise of Threads? Has the trajectory of the Fediverse changed forevermore? Well…yes! Let’s dive in.
Countdown to 100! 💯 We only have a few episodes left until the 100th episode of Fresh Fusion. Today, I muse on what I might do if my efforts to accelerate a career in content creation come to naught because the Fediverse doesn’t go anywhere. Will I…gasp…embrace Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram once again? 🤡
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
Wherein I share my thoughts having tried out Bluesky, the performative nature of (some) social media, the trail of questionable decision-making regarding this platform, good art isn’t always popular, cheerleader buses, and why when it comes to the Fediverse, I’m not going anywhere.
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- See the comments on this very episode, and add your own!
- New podcast! Just a Spec
- I’m now on Bluesky: @jaredwhite.bsky.social
- Prior reporting on Bluesky:
- What’s the deal with missing hashtags?
- ATP #534: On the Cheerleader Bus
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
Is the end game of the internet really that a bunch of algorithms slurped up a subset of popular human-created & curated content and then can regurgitate it out as if the AI is clever enough to think for itself? Meanwhile, folks in the fediverse are up in arms over the “rise” of Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky (even though Bluesky’s been around for years) as well as Mastodon’s mobile apps nudging people to onboard via the Mastodon.social instance. Should we be concerned about imminent centralization of decentralized social networking? Is Jack Dorsey a mastermind who simultaneously helped out his buddy Elon Musk while competing directly with Twitter? LOL nope. All this and more in today’s thrilling installment of Fresh Fusion.
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- See the comments on this very episode, and add your own!
- More on generative AI news:
- Prior reporting on Bluesky:
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
In this episode, I comment on recent links—articles, news, toots—I’ve posed on my blog and on Mastodon. From the iPad celebrating its 13th birthday to dreaming of a better metaverse, from ethnic stereotyping to A.I. B.S., there’s never a dull moment here on Fresh Fusion.
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- See the comments on this very episode, and add your own!
- Happy Birthday iPad! First Impressions from 2010
- The Dream of a Better Metaverse
- Ke Huy Quan, Ethnic Stereotypes, and Bagpipes
- Recent toots regarding generative AI:
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
Everything Everywhere All at Once won big at the Oscars, but it’s not the only ’verse-spanning creation making it big this year. ActivityPub is having a moment, and we’re here to chronicle the rise of numerous new instances, applications, and networks—including the very WEIRD and wacky news that Meta (of all companies!) is exploring an ActivityPub-powered decentralized social networking platform of its own!
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- See the comments on this very episode, and add your own!
- Medium launches a ‘premium’ Mastodon instance as a membership perk - TechCrunch
- Flipboard joins the Fediverse with a Mastodon integration and community, plans for ActivityPub - TechCrunch
- Mozilla to explore healthy social media alternative
- Moth.social (companion server to Mammoth)
- Make your mark in the fediverse with Buffer’s Mastodon scheduler
- Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network - Platformer
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
As Arnold would say, I’m back, baby! Yes, I am rebooting my first blog ever, and this new daily weblog all about tech and nerd culture news with a dash of fun 90s nostalgia on the side will feature archives reaching all the way back to 1996. Are you excited yet? You should be! This site best viewed with Netscape Navigator! (Just kidding.) …But that would be hilarious!
Links & Show Notes
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
How can one feel like an intellectually fulfilled citizen of the open web & fediverse and still consume regular YouTube content? Here’s what I have done to corral this monster into a cage…and in the process unlocked a whole new environment for computing & entertainment. Life after Big Social can be so much better.
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- See the comments on this very episode, and add your own!
- God Did the World a Favor by Destroying Twitter - WIRED
- Twitter is just showing everyone all of Elon’s tweets now - The Verge
- There’s No Free Hot Tub
- Blockalicious for Safari on iOS/macOS
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
Blog comments are BACK, and this time it’s not about software people have to use on your blog or on their blog or even over on corporate social media…it’s all about the fediverse. Using Mastodon’s API, it’s possible to find the right “toot” (that is, published status) and display all replies—from Mastodon as well as the wider range of fediverse software—as blog comments. Woo hoo! Let’s dive in.
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- Follow Up:
- Prior art for Mastodon comments:
- Adding comments to your static blog with Mastodon (Carl Schwan)
- See the comments on this very episode, and add your own!
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
Or in French, une réflexion intéressante sur la nature du podcast. Yes, a très intéressante discussion ensued on Mastodon over the past few days: what is a podcast? What is the medium of podcasting? What is the format of podcasting? What is the history of podcasting? Why is a podcast called a podcast? Oddly enough, responses are all over the map, and my attempt on Mastodon to pin down a definitive definition of podcast proved rather controversial! Why?! Let’s break it all down—and ask my 2005-self from the dawn of the podcast age to weigh in on the controversy! (For the impatient, skip to 16:00.) And of course…since this is the 88th episode of Fresh Fusion, I can’t help but pepper in a few references to Back to the Future along the way…
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- Viral toot! “A podcast is an RSS feed with enclosures of audio files which are playable across the whole ecosystem of podcast players.” (read more)
- Podcast - Wikipedia
- History of podcasting - Wikipedia
- Melodious Synth Podcast (2005)
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
Where do you put the stuff that you write? Where do you post your posts? How do you publish things online now that Twitter is imploding and the Fediverse is rising? Has blogging made a comeback? What’s the different between a blog and an email newsletter that’s available via the web? Questions abound, and I’m here to talk about all of it and my thoughts around smart growth of a healthier, more open web.
Links & Show Notes
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
In this episode, I recap all my “3 words” in previous years which helped set the tone for what I hoped to accomplish throughout the year and the values to focus on most. And then I share with you my yearly theme and “3 words” for 2023, why I chose those words, and what my overarching goals are for the new year. I hope this episode inspires you to join me in choosing your own words for 2023!
Links & Show Notes
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
Happy New Year everybody! I meant to record this show last week, but I was sick for most of the holidays. Oh well. I’m just glad I have a top ten list like this because honestly, I thought a lot of geek entertainment fare earlier this year rather sucked (quite a few disappointments coming from Disney in particular). Thankfully, things picked up as the year progressed, and we were able to finish out 2022 with an excellent list of some of my favorite properties not just in 2022 but ever. Let’s dive in!
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- Tony Stubblebine (@coachtony@medium.social) (Medium joining the Fediverse?)
- My Top 5 Non-Sci-Fi Films of 2022
- Link: ‘Andor’ Is the Best ‘Star Wars’ Since ‘The Last Jedi’
- My Review of Nope on YouTube
- What’s Old Star Trek is New Star Trek (Again)
- Disenchanted with Disenchanted:
- Strange Multiverse
- The Scene That Broke Thor 4 - Nebula
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
Today, we are all John Mastodon. And in this episode, I talk about the explosive docuseries concerning Prince Harry & Meghan Markle and the outrageous, toxic relationship between the British tabloids and the Royal Family, and the even BIGGER story about how online mobs form to target victims whether they be celebrities or journalists or creators and how we need to push the reset button on online discourse because the vitriol has gotten completely out of control!
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- Mastodon users embrace columnist’s funny error about a fictitious “John Mastodon” - Boing Boing
- Harry and Meghan haters: time to face facts, you are being played
- Violent misogynistic fantasies like Jeremy Clarkson’s are not new – but the Sun gleefully publishing them is - The Guardian
- Jeremy Clarkson “horrified to have caused so much hurt” following backlash to scathing column about Meghan Markle - CBS News
- Amber Heard, Johnny Depp Settle Defamation Lawsuit – Rolling Stone
- James Gunn Responds To “Disrespectful Outcry” From Fans Over DC Changes - Deadline
- You Can’t Cancel Taylor Lorenz - What Future with Joshua Topolsky
- Washington Post Journalist Taylor Lorenz Suspended From Twitter – Deadline
- Within Cells Interlinked: Blade Runner 2049 - Nebula
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
In this episode, I follow up on some of the continuing Mastodon/Twitter zaniness as well as some interesting takes around the web on “generative AI”, then dive right into my review of the Anyhill UM-2 e-scooter and an initial look at FeedBin for managing and reading news feeds. As Captain Pike would say, hit it!
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- Follow Up:
- Masto-Redirect, a Mastodon Shortcut to Redirect Profiles and Posts to Your Own Instance - MacStories
- Q-witter 🙄
- More on AI
- Attention, trust and GPT3 – Seth’s Blog
- The Truth About AI Getting “Creative” – MKBHD
- Upgrade #436: I Bend So Many Spoons (Jason Snell & John Siracusa)
- White Lotus on HBO (Spoilers in Links)
- Review of the Anyhill UM-2
- FeedBin
- Orion Browser
Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee!
In this episode I take a deep dive into (my) history of playing podcasts over the decades, and how I eventually arrived at using Pocket Casts as my preferred podcast player of choice. Pocket Casts is chock-full of great features, not the least of which is support for playing videos (apparently not a universal feature of third-party podcast players). Listen to how I use Pocket Casts from day-to-day, as well as my thoughts on the UI design of this multi-platform (and now partially open source!) software.
CORRECTION: in the episode I talked about Nebula offering RSS feeds for their video channels, but unfortunately these are just standard “news” feeds to let people know about new releases. They are not true video podcasts (aka you can’t subscribe to them in your own podcast player). Bummer!
Links & Show Notes
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
- Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter)
- Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube
- Apple Podcasts — remember that original version which looked like a reel-to-reel tape deck? 😅
- Overcast
- Castro
- Pocket Casts
You won’t want to miss this episode wherein I pull back the curtain into major new developments for the future of this show, follow up on my 2019 social media predictions and compare with how current events are playing out, share specific thoughts on how to think about Mastodon instances and the health of the network, and challenge the veracity of the claim that Americans are growing more and more lonely. It’s an action-packed episode, so let’s get started!
In this episode of Fresh Fusion, I share some of my raw and unfiltered feelings about the meltdown of Twitter, how there’s never been a time like right now to focus squarely on “the business, the art, the ethics of content creation on the open web” (which is the tagline of this show!), my minimalism bent and desire for a Star Trek-like post-money future, reluctantly taking steps to build a “paywall” to house some of my content, and more. Buckle up folks and enjoy the ride!
Alternate title: How to Be Productive and Successful as a Content Creator. (Yeah, I know…it's cringey…but I have a bunch of pent-up thoughts and some helpful tools/workflows to share with you all and figured now is as good a time as any to dive into all that. Also feeling all the feelz after a tweet actually went viral. Imagine that!)
Could it be? Maybe? Yes! Fresh Fusion is BACK, and in this episode I catch you up on the last couple of months as I recovered from Covid and moved across town to a new home! And not just Fresh Fusion, but the vlog (Essential Life with Jared) is also in the process of making a comeback. Listen for the inside scoop.
In this possibly final episode of the show, I candidly share my struggles with creative identity and finding success in the "wrong" genre. I contemplate whether I should cancel Fresh Fusion and put greater effort behind other projects. And I wonder what makes sense as a creator in a year when I expect to be on the road more often than not. Should I stay or should I go?
A fireside chat about my off-the-charts excitement level at entering back into the world of The Matrix—my favorite movie of all time—and how much the real world has changed over the past 20+ years. Will The Matrix Resurrections live up to the hype?
My kids are obsessed with "Squid Game" — even though they've (obviously!) never seen the show. "You" has taken over Netflix Top 10. Twitter vs. Meta: I'm amazed at the shockingly different trajectory these two companies are taking. The social media landscape is fracturing and it's no longer Facebook/Twitter as a monolithic duo. Let's do a deep dive into just how much Twitter has grown and changed since Jack Dorsey become CEO. Episode 75—here we go!
Apple's latest and greatest M1-powered MacBooks (MaxBooks?) are here, and Jared wonders if there's anything left for Mac nerds to be upset about when it seems like Apple has fulfilled all their wishes. (For a hefty price of course!) Plus a special rundown of all of Jared's favorite podcasts he frequently listens to and why they're worthy of your attention. Hmm, sounds like…a Fresh Fusion Reaction! 🤓
Yes my friends, it’s time to pull back the curtain and share about some events which have transpired in my personal life—things which have been among the most challenging moments of my life. But first, an announcement: I have a newly redesigned website! Woo hoo! =)
In today's episode, I step through some follow-up and a few items of note I've been tracking (such as the gorgeous Nikon Z fc retro-style camera!) before kicking off a rant about the ways algorithms privilege the already privileged instead of favoring content off the beaten path. Apparently you're likely to do quite well on YouTube if you're young, white, cis, "attractive", and so forth…but what about the rest of us?
Jared returns with a brilliant solution to the woes of maintaining a deep podcast content pipeline: read tweets! 😅
Join me for a dive into my design notes! What is a "personal website" in 2021? How do we evolve from the mental model of the "blog" circa 2005? And how does that all integrate with social media, newsletters, and the like?
The last two weeks have been devastating for me—on multiple fronts, both as a huge fan of the #VanLife community as well as a figure in the Ruby programming community. This podcast episode is my catharsis, as I try to work through the heartache and find something meaningful to hold on to at the end of the day.
Creator Class is my new newsletter all about the challenges and rewards of being an underpaid content creator building an audience one connection at a time. In today's episode of Fresh Fusion, I talk about why I decided to rebrand and refocus my newsletter and why it's so important to highlight conversations around motivation and ethics in content creation. (Also why I'm ditching YouTube and going back to an audio-only format!)
I opened the Patreon mobile app on my iPhone. I looked at the feed. Suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, POOF! A bunch of the creators I follow vanished. Gone. Out of this world. Did they suddenly shut down all their accounts? Was there a rapture and I wasn’t notified? No, it was none of those things. Patreon just had a temporary snafu billing my debit card, and because of that, I was unceremoniously placed in fan purgatory with little elucidation of my crimes. This wasn’t a temporary user experience glitch. This was a UX disaster. And yet, buried in their help center, Patreon states this is exactly how they handle such matters. Boo! Creators and fans deserve better.
This is me stumbling my way through an episode all about systemic racism in zoning laws and white supremacist policies harming disenfranchised minorities, and how I was raised to believe affluent suburban neighborhoods are the American Dream. While the global pandemic has been horrifying and so very hard to stomach, perhaps we can also see it as a much-needed opportunity to accept just how much work remains to be done to bring liberty and justice to all. We shouldn't ever want to go "back to normal" if the new normal could be oh so much better.
This is a deeply personal episode. I spent most of my life within a 60 miles radius of where I was born. That all changed when I relocated to the Portland, Oregon metro area. I came here on a fact-finding mission in 2017 and fell head-over-heels in love with the place. It's no accident in the slightest that the most creative period in my entire life has transpired right here in Portland. I guess that's why it's a real sore spot for me when I see Portland dragged through the mud in the press—not to mention the whole concept of living in a dense urban environment. Are moving to the suburbs really the answer to the challenges of pandemic living? Does living in a "hip" city really have any influence on high-level creativity and artistic scope? Tune in to hear my story and my take.
Tumblr is a social media platform heralding from a different time…the era of “Web 2.0”, when oodles of visual customization features were a given and open functionality like RSS feeds were compulsory. Yahoo! and Verizon nearly drove Tumblr to an early grave, but with the acquisition by Automattic, there is hope yet. Can Tumblr survive—nay—thrive in 2021? Jared White investigates.
The vital necessity of competence in leadership and governance, life imitating art imitating life, and a megadose of fascinating news regarding Twitter’s forays into decentralization and open moderation tools…all on the latest installment of Fresh Fusion.
In the wake of last week's horrific events at the United States Capitol where domestic terrorists stormed into the building and nearly toppled a duly-elected Congress, one of the top questions on everyone's mind is: what is the role of Big Tech in the face of extremism and anti-democratic conspiracy theories? What should Twitter, or Facebook, or Amazon, or Google, etc., be doing about all this? Do we even want them making unilateral descisions at such fundamental levels which affect policy making and political discourse? And just where did this violent strain of conservative evangelicalism come from anyway? All this and more right here on the Fresh Fusion podcast.
This is it! Tune in for all the juicy details of why I walked away from Mastodon and the “Fediverse” after a year of fanboyism, and what needs to change in open social networking protocols before I let go of Twitter and Discord.
My year in review episode. What a year! What a review! Ooo boy. Tune in to hear how my "3 Words for 2020" went and what I'm looking forward to in 2021. Surely everything's going to get better, right? RIGHT??!!
I just came back from a retreat. Wow! The saying is true: change of pace + change of place = change of perspective. As creators, we're always working in one of two modes: the nose to the grindstone, going through the motions of daily output mode; and the 20,000 feet, blue sky thinking mode. It's difficult, if not impossible, to get into that second mode in the same physical environment as where you're typically heads down making incremental progress. Let's dive into the vital importance of getting away in order to reinvent everything.
Do you ever find yourself watching a video on YouTube from your favorite creator, only to find that—as the video plays—it slowly dawns on you that the whole story arc of the video was simply a pretense for a sponsored product promotion? Sucks right? Because as a content creator, if you lose the trust of your audience, what do you have? Nothing. Let's talk about that. Also: I only use Rollings Reliable Baking Powder.
You can enjoy the process, and optionally you can enjoy the outcome of that enjoyable process, but you can't enjoy the outcome if you hate the process. The ends never justify the means. Also on today's episode: my spoiler-free review of "Seduced", the shocking sex cult documentary now playing on Starz.
It's the first official new episode of Fresh Fusion, and it's a doozy! There's an oft-expressed notion rooted in misguided pragmatism that says your users/customers/audience don't care about the tools you use behind the scenes. They only care about the final product. I fundamentally reject such a notion, and I'm here to tell you why. Users DO care about the tools you use, because you MAKE them care. That's your job as a creator. That's your job as a marketer. Let's dive in!
As the Year from Hell heads towards its inevitable conclusion, Jared is back from a retreat born from desperation, fully recharged, and ready to (gasp!) reboot the podcast in a new form. And so a hearty hello and welcome to Fresh Fusion, the new weekly show by Jared focused squarely on the business and art of content creation. Whether you write, record, code, produce, teach, or perform, this is your show. This is your time. This is…well, you get the idea!
Greetings, fellow citizens of the internet refuge from the global pandemic! How are you surviving Crisis? I am, to echo the words of Morpheus, STILL HERE! In this episode I bring you up to speed on what I've been up to…some fun things, some rewarding things, and one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing I've been battling with for a couple of months now (predating the coronavirus lockdown!).
What a strange and frightening time to be alive! But I'm here and I'm back to try to lighten the mood a bit with talk of the brand-new cursor and trackpad support for iPad in iPadOS 13.4, as well as speculation on how the sudden transition to remote work might change the business landscape for good as we look ahead. I also convey my impressions using Photoshop for iPad now that the new cursor-based input brings the user experience closer to the Mac and even surpasses it in many ways.
Kicking off our Creator Series, Nathan joins Jared to talk about his journey from software developer to YouTube content creator, the challenges and rewards of presenting your authentic self, ups and downs in entrepreneurship, what's the deal with privacy and the tech industry, centralized vs. decentralized social media, diversity in startup culture, and introducing children to an engineer's mindset. There's also something about tampons in there…it makes sense in context, I swear!
I haven't talked much about the general state of social media on the show in a while, so it's high time we revisit this topic! Here are my latest thoughts on all the top contenders large and small—what they're getting right, or wrong, and what is coming down the pike. You might be surprised where my head is at these days…
A very special day here at The Jared White Show…we’ve arrived at the 50th episode! So let us take some time out of our normal schedule to celebrate the journey so far and what will propel us towards the next 100th episode milestone.
John Gruber’s feeling grumpy on the 10th anniversary of the iPad, but we’re here to revel in geek iPad fandom and—despite any lingering limitations—reflect on the importance and success of the iPad product category and muse on where the iPadOS software can go from here. Past, present, and future…all coming together here in this latest episode of The Jared White Show.
This week's special topic is all about…writing tools! Which apps I use to write and for organizing research, the environment and context in which I write, and what I like to do for inspiration to become a better writer. If you're looking to shake things up this year and adopt new workflows or technology to jumpstart your writing career, this is the show for you.
In today's episode, Jared dives into the swirl of consternation over what Twitter's new reply controls might mean for the platform, product anniversaries of note in Apple history, all the wacky new cyberpunk and brutalist designs of phones, pianos, trucks, websites, etc., and tons of TV fandom followup. And we're just getting started!
Hello and welcome to 2020! We're kickin' into high gear on The Jared White show this year with a fresh new format where I answer listener questions each week, as well as a bonus episode exclusively for Patreon members. I go into all these changes on today's show, plus a slew of topics and commentary around geek fandom, content creation, OS upgrades, YouTube meltdowns, and more.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey dropped a bombshell announcement yesterday about the decentralized, open-protocol-based future of Twitter, and The Jared White Show is here to talk about what it means for the "fediverse" (the existing federated social networking world of Mastodon, etc.), why Twitter is even doing this, how Dorsey has never been a clone of Zuckerberg, and much more. This just might be one of the most important episodes of the show to date!
Welcome to this very special BONUS episode of The Jared White Show where we talk about the most exciting topic in all of computing: file storage! But seriously, this episode is a deep dive into my very specific photography and videography workflows, and especially how I get it all done on my iPad Pro with Lightroom CC and LumaFusion. In addition, I cover the pros and cons of iCloud Drive, Nextcloud, and Dropbox, and make some recommendations for what you might want to choose for your cloud storage needs.
The collective Apple pro laptop userbase can finally breath a huge sigh of relief, as the brand-new MacBook Pro 16” with Magic Keyboard is HERE!!! (Now when's that keyboard coming to the rest of the lineup??!!) Also in the episode: Disney+ has landed (much to delight of children everywhere and, yes, many adults too), as well as Apple TV+, and Jared has to eat some crow because The Morning Show is FANTASTIC. All this and more…right here on The Jared White Show.
Hindsight is 2020, but that won’t stop us from talking about what kind of company and what kind of social network Facebook will be as we head into 2020 and the height of the U.S. political season. Will regulation force Facebook, Twitter, and other massive networks to interoperate with newer, smaller networks? Will the values of free expression online prevail? Will the specter of Chinese censorship change the debate on what we expect from social networks here in America? All in a day’s conversation here at The Jared White Show.
A few years ago I realized I was suffering from acute depression. It was affecting my work and my quality of life. Today, I am doing much better, but I must remain vigilant not to slide back into old patterns and negative mindsets. As a creative freelancer, there are certain pitfalls which can have an adverse effect on my mental health, and that's what I talk about in today's episode. NOTE: you don't have to be a freelancer to appreciate today's conversation! There's a little something here for everybody. :)
Not even trypophobia could keep me from discussing what's new with iPhone 11, Watch Series 5, and the rest of Apple's September extravaganza. Also my thoughts on the landmark California ruling which reclassifies Uber drivers (and other "gig economy" workers) as employees.
What rights do we as visitors of websites have when it comes to privacy? What measure of control should we be able to exert over the executing of website code served to our browsers? Are some tracking scripts benign or are all suspect? I do a deep dive into these timely topics as well as the latest news on 4K video in Canon DSLR cameras.
Jared has returned from his summer excursion into the wilderness of Central Oregon, and he's ready to talk Tumblr. Automattic, the folks behind WordPress.com, have purchased the long-suffering Web 2.0 stalwart and promise to usher in a new microblogging renaissance. That, plus a bonus topic on how to track daily progress in popular journaling app Day One. Enjoy the show!
The latest Q3 2019 earnings results are in from Apple, and—depending on who you talk to—they're either surprisingly stellar or dreadfully terrible. Welcome to the world of news media spin. Also, a new ruling from the EU makes website operators responsible for what Facebook does with user data, a U.S. Senate bill called the SMART Act would ban dark UX patterns from popular social apps, and so much more.
Jared's feeling under the weather, but The Show Must Go On! In this episode, he talks about Apple funding exclusive podcast content, the demise of Google's secret Chinese search engine, whether iPadOS's "desktop class" Safari ushers in a new app-less era, and, of course, this week's BIGGEST NEWS STORY: Snoppy goes to outer space. That, and oh so much more…
It's the end of an era as famed head of industrial design at Apple, Jony Ive, is leaving the company. In this episode I break down two Apple products I believe embody Jony's formidable design leadership and which truly set the stage for both Apple's preset and future: iOS 7 and iPad Pro. I also get to touch on a couple of odd Apple-related news items as well as the new streaming service from WarnerMedia to rival Netflix.
Well this is something I've never done before! My video show Essential Life with Jared and my podcast The Jared White Show have joined forces today to bring you a special video edition of the podcast!
It's that time of year again, when the wizards of Cupertino descend upon San Jose, CA with their magic potions, and spellbind us all with their latest and greatest. Of personal interest is the laser-focused and very welcome attention Apple paid to the unique role of the iPad and its place in the broader world of computerdom, leading to the the rip-roaring announcement of iPadOS. Let's dive right in.
It's the 1-year anniversary of The Jared White Show! We'll be celebrating today by a look back at Steve Jobs' fascinating perspective on the future of the open web and the dangers of proprietary runtimes like Java and Flash, how old tech can be repurposed for new uses in fun ways, WebGL fluid simulations, the joys of seeing your kids get hooked on games YOU loved as a kid, and a whole lot more.
Spring fashion is all around us, and this podcast is no exception! The Jared White Show and JaredWhite.com have a fresh, funky new design for spring, and it all started…because of an Apple Watch band. Also a throwback to the internet of 1996, depressed superheroes, and gender-swapping cosplay. Never a dull moment!
Ol’ Vladimir is up to his tricks again over in Mother Russia, but that won’t stop us from talking about the open web and geek culture—from Avengers: Endgame to Veronica Mars to the website typography choices of candidates running for President of these United States. I also play jungle music and read toots. You just can’t get this kind of content anywhere else, folks.
A deep dive into the greatest aspects of Instagram and what alternative services will need to build in order to provide compelling experiences. Also: is 2019 going to be The Year of the iPad Pro? Will iOS 13 push the envelope of what's possible in iPad software? And, of course, the Pasta PC. You're welcome.
There's been a ton of news in the world of media & entertainment, and Jared is here to dive right in. Also: trolls, awesome people, a book on Cook, working in Portland, and a whole lot more.
In this episode, Jared gives a detailed rundown of all of the big commercial internet services he's replaced with open source, self-hosted software that he controls himself. Why would anyone want to do this? Three words: privacy, security, and network health. Just as biologists know that an ecosystem with a large amount of organism diversity is more resilient to environmental pressures, the internet is more resilient to negative forces when software and content is distributed and spread across the network (instead of consolidated under the thumb of a few big corporations or governments). Save the open web by switching to your own "personal cloud."
The first 1 hour long episode of The Jared White Show ever! From computer meltdowns to Dongletown, from dreaming of WWDC 2019 goodies to pontificating on the coming iOS app invasion for the Mac, this is one Apple extravaganza you won’t want to miss. Oh so much good stuff inside, so pour yourself a cuppa and let’s get started.
In today's episode, Jared gives his spoiler-free review of Alita: Battle Angel, both the pros and the cons (but mostly pros!). Plus the challenges of living in San Francisco and why Kevin moved to Paris, Emma Thompson takes down The Man (Mr. Lasseter), the Heretic Happy Hour, and we're just getting started!
At long last it's here: Jared's bold predictions of what will move and shake the world of social media in 2019. Will the fediverse last? Will Facebook implode? Will our brains all get uploaded to the Matrix? (Just kidding, there's nothing in here about the Matrix. What do you think this is, 1999?) Also, the era of the foldable smartphone is upon us, the WorldWideWeb is back baby, and a whole lot more.
Jared was sick…but at long last he's been told he'll make a full recovery, so enjoy this latest episode of the show: recorded, edited, produced, and published exclusively on iPad Pro! Yes, Jared has a brand-new tablet with Ferrite installed, which means it's totally possible to record a podcast anywhere, anytime. Also in this episode: thoughts on _Zucked_, the new book by Facebook cheerleader-turned-critic Roger McNamee, how it could be possible to live as a web developer and creator without using any Apple tools, and a whole lot more.
Everyone’s talking about the Fyre festival documentary, so of course Jared does too…along with NSA dragnet busting Edward Snowden. What does one have to do with the other? Listen to the show and find out! Also: HAPPY 9th BIRTHDAY iPAD! Plus what normal people understand about how Facebook's ad tech works (hint: they don't), and a whole lot more.
What an action-packed show to kick off 2019! In this episode, Jared talks about the launch of his new Patreon subscription package, the positive response he got from friends and loved ones about his private family photo gallery powered by SmugMug, the greatly exaggerated death of RSS, Apple is doomed (again?), and more. Time to hit that play button!
LAST EPISODE OF 2018! Herein our intrepid host pontificates on the virtues of forming habits (not resolutions) in the coming year, and talks about the latest otherworldly developments on the web—including deepfakes, Doctor Strange 2, Facebook security breaches (I'm shocked, shocked! to find this sort of thing is going on here), and a whole lot more.
In this week's post-Thanksgiving extravaganza, host Jared presents a video of great planetary significance, dribbles a ball over to the fine purveyors of podcast player Castro, drops a Chinese dragonfly on Google, and talks YET AGAIN about weird religion!
Jared talks about his latest journey into the world of microblogging, the problems of live news analysis and skewed U.S. election coverage, the wild cultish world of Wild Wild Country, social media's effect on depression, and more.
Jared was sick last week and so he did what comes naturally: binge watch Nazis. Yes, and not just Nazis but Japanese imperialists as well as the rebels who fight them to bring freedom to America in The Man in the High Castle—a “what if” scenario presented by Amazon Prime’s hit show. And if that weren’t crazy enough, while Jared was sick he attempted to install macOS Mojave on his iMac with less than stellar results (but there is a happy ending to the story). Plus Tim Cook’s tough talk on privacy rights, Helm fighting Google, and more. Never a dull moment here on The Jared White Show!
In today's episode, Jared dives right into the latest Apple iPad Pro rumors, muses on the applicability of Universal Basic Income, throws shade on Google's Pixel 3 XL and Pixel Slate, and shares a couple of projects he's been working on. Just another fine day here on The Jared White Show.
In today's episode, Jared talks about essentialism and why he's starting (er, rebooting, technically speaking) a new YouTube channel all about it—as well as travel vlogs in and around the Portland, Oregon area.
In this episode of the show, Jared lounges by the pool and stays out of the rain to dive right into such heady topics as the new Nike ad featuring Colin Kaepernick, racist reviews of Crazy Rich Asians, the mobbing of Wil Wheaton, the release of Mastodon 2.5, and more. Also, you should believe people. Just sayin'.
Never fear, Professor Jared is here! You will learn all about Mastodon, the hot new social networking platform that is exploding in popularity and giving Twitter a run for its money. What makes Mastodon so exciting is it's not a single commercial service run by a corporation—it's simply open source software using open protocols that anyone can install on their own server. Just like email isn't owned by any one company (you can email me and I can email you and we're not all forced to use Gmail for example), federated social networks allow online messaging and following/follower relationships to work much like Twitter but using the beauty and power of the open web.
In today's episode, Jared is excited to announce Posture: a Better Way to Engage the News—a software product he's been developing since the beginning of the year. It's currently in beta testing, and you can sign up now to try it out for free! Also: how to reach 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, the cosmic balance between work and rest, the Summer of Marvel, and so much more!
In this episode, Jared talks about his first experience using Apple laptops in the early days of Mac OS X, and what Apple needs to do now to simplify its consumer laptop product line and offer a "Mac for the masses" just like the original iBook. Also, Star Trek's Captain Jean-Luc Picard will return, Patreon buys a Memberful, and the origin of the hashtag. All this and more on The Jared White Show.
The first annual summer book giveaway is here! Enter to win your choice of So Good They Can't Ignore You or Deep Work, both by Cal Newport. Details in the show (just a minute or so in). Also in this episode, Apple iBooks is changing to just Apple Books in iOS 12, even tech workers can't afford to buy now in San Francisco, letting go of past regrets, and more!
Nothing is too impossible here on The Jared White Show as we tirelessly embark on the mission of recording new episodes every week! That's right—on today's show, Jared reviews the blockbuster hit Mission: Impossible - Fallout and comments on the epic score by Lorne Balfe. Plus a close look at "van life" YouTubers, e-scooters on the streets of Portland, Millenials' obsession with plants (who knew?), and more!
Jared’s ready to do nothing, and we have to wait for the leaf blower to stop! Also, remembering the life of comic book movie pundit Jon Schnepp (may he rest in peace), a look at historical studio gear that came to define modern music, WebVR, and a whole lot more.
In this episode, Jared explains why the show almost never happened in the first place and why excuses are the enemy of action. Plus a hands-on overview of the new MacBook Pros from Apple with improved butterfly mechanism keyboards, how news curation on major media platforms is threatening the open web, the brutalism movement in design, and more!
The year was 1994. Dial-up modems ruled. Netscape Navigator had not even been released yet. The only browser anyone had heard of was called Mosaic. Trumpet Winsock was how people got online with Windows 3.1. 1994: the year Jared White first logged on to the internet.
Somehow on today's show we end up waxing nostalgic about the Sci-Fi of youth: namely, Babylon 5 and Star Trek: The Next Generation. But don't worry, there's also plenty to look forward to, such as throwing off the shackles of our corporate web overlords and embracing the scrappy technology of the IndieWeb. (Recent rebel activity was spotted on the surface of the planet Earth, in the city known as Portland in the state of Oregon.)
A man of rituals (but not the kind that involve funny hats and long robes), Jared in this episode talks about identifying and honoring daily routines that make us happy, how to create digital experiences that are ethical and respect users, minimalism, freedom from slavery, and the opposite of that—aka Jeff Sessions' un-Christian separation of children from their familes. Just another day on The Jared White Show!
In this episode, it's all Apple all the time! Its big annual developer conference, WWDC 2018, just kicked off and we get to talk about all the goodies and exciting announcements from Apple and third party app creators around the world. Join me as we dive into yesterday's keynote and discover what's new for iOS, macOS, and all the rest.
In this episode, Jared questions the morality of working in tech, Alexa proves too helpful, Wikipedia puts on a new suit, Patagonia wows with web campaign to save Europe's wild waterways, and much more.
The inaugural episode of The Jared White Show is here! We talk about the history of the web, Myst's 25th anniversary, the growth of podcasting, and so much more.