Fresh Fusion

New year, new grumpy cat (!!), new recording setup (hint: not using an Apple OS!), and so much more. Welcome to the soft-reboot of Fresh Fusion, and a state of the [fill in the blank] rundown: from social networking to desktops to music streamers along with some praise for a software ecosystem I never expected to be this jazzed about in 2026…Ruby. All that and a bag o' chips (different chips than the ones I'm using to bet with, obviously).Links & Show Notes📢 Hosted by Jared White💬 Chat with me! Discord / Signal / Mastodon🤌 Produced by Intuitive Future // Join Intuitive+ Today and support the show for only $5 a month📥 Subscribe to the Cycles Hyped No More newsletter🎶 Theme music by YARRED----Gem.coop Gem Fellowship GrantArdourQobuz

As folks may know, I try to avoid deep-dives into "programming" topics here on Fresh Fusion. But as many recent events have proven, the slow creep of edgelord dank meme cosplay-fascist culture online has affected all kinds of communities, and unfortunately the world of open source technology is not immune. This episode is in part about Ruby, Ruby Central, Rails and the various players thereof, but it's really about a larger question: is this kind of behavior OK? Will we just continue to tolerate bullies running online communities? When is it time to speak up? How can we demonstrate to people of marginalized backgrounds that they are safe around us? Simply remaining silent is no longer an option. As the saying goes, if you walk into a bar and you see nazis hanging out freely without push back, then congratulations! You're in a Nazi Bar. 😬Does talking like this make me a woke scold? Then so be it. I'm woke.😎❤️💛💚💙💜☮️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️✌️Links & Show NotesHosted by Jared WhiteProduced by Intuitive Future // Join Intuitive+ Today and support the show for only $5 a monthSubscribe to the Cycles Hyped No More newsletter & the Vibe Coded podcastTheme music by YARREDMain topic: Ruby Central is Not Behaving in Good Faith, and I’ve Got ReceiptsHow Ruby Went Off the Rails (404 Media)Trigger warning for DHH's appalling rhetoric:The beauty of idealsYou expect principles but should wish for noneBuilding competency is better than therapyAs I remember LondonWe've all had enough of this nonsenseCalling someone a "nazi" is a permission slip for violenceFramework flame war erupts over support of politically polarizing Linux projects

In what has apparently become an ongoing series, this installment of Living in Portland has our intrepid hero (me, that's me!) sharing all about the journey of personal discovery he went on as part of his real-world journey through the Pacific Northwest as a digital nomad. In addition, time to spill the beans and talk about what it's like to move into a new place as a Portlander once more; only this time, with newfound intentionality and a design sense better than "raised by wolves". Also lots about the joys of white linens. What is even happening here?? 😂Hosted by Jared WhiteProduced by Intuitive Future // Join Intuitive+ Today and support the show for only $5 a monthSubscribe to the Cycles Hyped No More newsletter & the Vibe Coded podcastTheme music by YARRED

Props if you know that very Millennial reference! We’re here to talk about Gen-Z and what it’s like to be a teenager in this screwy world. And by “we”, I mean me and my very special guest: Mike. Like all pundits worth their salt, when I want people to know more about the plight of today’s youth, I ask the only youth I know well. Yes that’s right: today I’ve put on my Mr. Dad hat. Enjoy the interview! (Note: if you think you hear knuckles cracking at one point, you are not imagining things! Sorry I wasn’t able to clean up in post… 😄) 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! Mike’s YouTube channel Mike’s favorite political (and other stuff) creator: Danny Phantom exe Danny on the the importance of Due Process

We need better stories. The “Hero’s Journey” isn’t going to help us. No plucky band of rebels is going to land a blow and take the fascists out in one punch. The cycle of Republic vs Evil Empire will continue forever—unless we break that cycle. Our imaginations and our ideas must expand. Deep thoughts as I watch through the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale and ruminate on the ever provocative words of Jessie Gender on the nature of modern storytelling. 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! MAGA Ladies’ Fashion 🙄 Torment Nexus meme Jessie Gender: The Stories Fascism Fears Most The “Ludds” of Upload (not a great show overall, but this aspect of it was fascinating) Joseph Campbell, History, and Antisemitism: Critiquing the Hero’s Journey (I don’t claim to completely agree with all points in this article, but it’s a good overview of criticism of the Monomyth in storytelling)

As Fern, the protagonist of Nomadland (an incredible award-winning film), says: I’m not homeless, I’m houseless. There is a difference! So, I said in the last episode of Fresh Fusion that I was getting ready to move, and also travel a lot. When I didn’t say was that my traveling a lot would be happening after moving out…and before moving in! 😅 Listen as I explain my four reasons why I’ve made this major lifestyle change to downsize, cram a bunch o’ things into storage, and hit the road. 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! Nomadland My review in 2021 Eamon & Bec FnA Van Life Nikki Delventhal Bad Trend: Why America is turning into a nation of homebodies

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 (@[email protected]) writes: The secret to a better city is a two-wheeler RealJournalism (@[email protected]) 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 (@[email protected]) 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! 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! Essential Life with Jared (Vlog) Just a Spec Podcast The Spicy Web That HTML Blog Creator Class: Recent “Intuitive Future” News and Creators IRL

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—even while I fully defend other instance admins’ right to defederate due to content moderation policies. And on the Fusion+ segment—available for free today!—I talk all about Elon’s new social network called X. Pour one out for Twitter folks. The bird is gone. 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! The BBC on Mastodon: experimenting with distributed and decentralised social media Just a Spec Episode #6: TIL About gTLDs, FTW! Apple greenlights Twitter app’s rebrand to X Blaze Your Glory!! The Elon-gate’d Man Oh great! Elon boosting white nationalists in South Africa 😵‍💫

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!) Note: we recorded this before Twitter’s sudden rebrand to “X”. That…will have to wait for another day! 😂 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! Connect with Mariya Delano: Attention Deficit Marketing Disorder newsletter Kalyna Marketing @mariyadelano on Mastodon

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. Also: Countdown to 100! Don’t miss the very next episode which will be rather special, celebrating the 100th episode of the show! 🎉 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! new blog, who dis? That HTML Blog

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. 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! Sarah Silverman Sues Maker Of ChatGPT For Copyright Infringement – HuffPost Threads readies handy explainer of Mastodon and the fediverse Many toots courtesy of: @[email protected] (and also here) @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

Countdown to 100! 💯 We only have a few episodes left until the 100th episode of Fresh Fusion…and in addition, we’re also celebrating the 5th anniversary of the launch of the show! In this episode, 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? 🤡 The answer may surprise you! (Or…perhaps not.) 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! Episode 1: The Moment I Fell Into the Fissure Jared White: “Treating Mastodon/Fediverse like “another social platform” is going to backfire.” On the Blog: Support Structures for the Extremely Online Just a Spec Podcast: ActivityPub, the Fediverse, and You Evan Prodromou: “How big should the fediverse be? #poll”

We are witnessing the total meltdown of the commercial internet. Enshittification (thanks Cory Doctorow!) of social media and other large Silicon Valley-style products & services, combined with the specter of “AI” (ChatGPT, etc.) infecting every company’s efforts, has led to a rather scary inflection point. It’s getting harder and harder to work with corporations and use internet services without feeling fundamentally ethically compromised. On the positive side, there’s a real opportunity here to rebuild an internet actually based on the values we care about—values like sustainability over the long term, avoiding the “fast growth” hype cycle mentality at the cost of a healthy ecosystem, and putting people over tech-infused greed. We can vote with our time, money, and energy by rejecting outrageous claims which do damage to the community and by supporting and contributing to projects and protocols which further a humane, creative, and safe digital world. 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! On Mastodon: The block list for Safari has grown. 😎 On Mastodon: ”It’s his data, you see. His. Not yours.” DUDE: the only reason you have that data set is because we, the humans, gave you all that content for free!! Eric Carroll: ”We are the DATA BORG.” 9to5Mac: Reddit usage metrics fall thanks to CEO’s plan to boost revenue Eight days later: Kbin, Lemmy, the landed gentry, and the rise of the “threadiverse” Jared Norman: “The “tech guy thinks tech will solve a problem he doesn’t understand” trope has been taken to its logical conclusion.” On Mastodon: “Good grief, now I’m getting chided by a software company for calling out their B.S. marketing on ChatGPT integration” The Future is Intuitive Announcing the next several years of my journey publishing educational content for the marvel that is the open web.

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 @[email protected] I’m now on Bluesky: @jaredwhite.bsky.social Prior reporting on Bluesky: Fresh Fusion #74: Federation Wars Fresh Fusion #63: bluesky’s Smiling at Me Fresh Fusion #45: Twitter is Like a Decentralized Twitter 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: “the secret list of websites” ShopTalk Show #563 Prior reporting on Bluesky: Fresh Fusion #63: bluesky’s Smiling at Me Fresh Fusion #45: Twitter is Like a Decentralized Twitter

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: “Cigarettes are inevitable!” A.I. is B.S. — incredible video by Adam Conover a “gray goo” takedown of the internet

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 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!

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: Spotify Shifts Podcast Strategy After Layoffs - Bloomberg Podcast Exclusivity Is Quickly Becoming an Outdated Strategy - Variety (free Internet Archive cache) Obamas Sign Audible First-Look Deal After Ending Spotify Pact - Variety (June 2022) 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 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube New podcast creation has fallen off a cliff - The Verge

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 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube

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 (@[email protected]) (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: let’s talk about the enchanted sequel 🐿🪄💐 - YouTube Disenchanted doesn’t make any sense… - YouTube 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 Fresh Fusion #81: Who Gives a Toot? Q-witter 🙄 Twitter is Going Great! Watch Elon Musk Get Booed at Dave Chappelle Show Onstage 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) The White Lotus Season 2 Penultimate Episode Scores Record Viewership ‘White Lotus’ Actor Knew He Had to Fool the Audience Jennifer Coolidge Begged to Do ‘White Lotus’ Finale Stunt Herself: ‘I Get Why Tom Cruise Wants to Do His Own’ White Lotus Season 3 Location: Mike White Hints Asia Season Review of the Anyhill UM-2 Freshly Charged Review Detachable Battery for UM-2 Anyhill UM-2 Electric Scooter at Best Buy 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? 😅 Apple’s New Podcast App: First Look Overcast Castro Pocket Casts

Hello my friend! Are you enjoying this podcast? You can now support the show and share your appreciation with ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee! 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! Links & Show Notes Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube P.S. Follow my music making at @[email protected] Follow Up: My 2019 predictions are at last coming true! Five Predictions for Social Media in 2019 (recorded February 2019) Fediverse in 2019 “Tumblr has already promised to implement ActivityPub…and Flickr is also considering it!” New essay up on the site: The Elon-gate’d Man “Having now been on Mastodon for 1 month, a few observations…” Hachyderm.io “Ok so, I’m running an Icelandic Mastodon instance…” Mastodon.scot “Normalize Black people coming to this app being safe to speak their minds…” What’s New in the News: Americans are choosing to be alone. Here’s why we should reverse that How to Raise the Next Scott Galloway How 35+ Countries Are Leaving the Global Internet

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 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! Links & Show Notes Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to Creator Class (a Newsletter) Follow Jared on Mastodon / YouTube