Domains Cost More, Blogs Disappear

I have been noticing a couple of disturbing trends this year outside of the AI/LLM bubble. Has anyone else noticed them? First, domain registrars seem to be raising domain name prices like never before. Every couple of months, I get an email from Porkbun or Cloudflare saying that the registry controlling a domain's TLD is raising prices on such-and-such a date. I can't remember the last time I saw domain name prices decrease. They only seem to go up. That is why I try to renew domains for more than one or two years whenever I can. If my budget...

Share Buttons: Yay or Nay?

“Nobody clicks your share buttons By Derek Hanson Read original post →” I saw this blog post on bubbles.town, and the title caught my attention, so I clicked through to read it. It was also timely because just a few days earlier I had added share buttons to my own site. I don't know if I agree with the conclusion of the post. If share buttons are done tastefully, selectively, and with privacy in mind, I think they're perfectly okay. We're seeing a trend toward making websites personal again, a little like they were in the late 1990s and early...

WordPress Drama: Is It Worth It?

“Automattic confirms Mullenweg has returned as CEO after attempted ouster by board By Sarah Perez Read original post →” I have been holding off on writing about Matt Mullenweg and everything happening around WordPress because I wanted to make sure I wasn't just reacting to the latest round of drama. I don't know Mullenweg personally, just like I don't know Elon Musk. But the more I watch his public actions and statements, the more I see a similar pattern. That pattern is what bothers me. It is the attitude of: I built this, I know what is best, and if...

Beavers built dams that outlasted 130 engineered flood barriers, study finds

Read on thecooldown.com · View original Mastodon post I thought this was interesting when I saw it pop up in my social media feed. In this study, beaver dams outlasted 130 engineered flood barriers. Maybe computers and human engineers should learn a thing or two from them. Nature does seem to do some things better than we do, and we can learn from it and use that knowledge to make better versions of things ourselves. After all, God did give man dominion over the animals and much of nature. Just a thought. It was an interesting read.

Okay, let me tell you about my day. I took today and tomorrow off because I am almost maxed out on my vacation time. That is a separate story and not really important to this one. I went to Costco to get a new pair of glasses. Once I get them, I will finally be finished with everything related to my cataract surgery. I already have a pair of frames from Costco, so I just need new lenses. When I got to the optical department, I had to sign in using the app. There were plenty of workers there, and...

I'm Guilty of Bad Titles Too. Are You?

“Bloggers, can we make better titles for our posts? michaelharley.net By Michael Harley Read original post →” I came across this blog post by Michael Harley. I started following him after I came across some of his blog posts on bubbles.town (I want to call it button.town every time I type it, and I don't know why 😀). But he does have a point, and I am guilty of making bad titles too. In fact, if it were up to me, I probably wouldn't have any titles. But I think most things in writing do deserve titles and subjects. Even...

Another Home for My Writing: Introducing Inkwell.social

I found another independent blogging service in the same general vein as Micro.blog, Scribbles.page, Pika.page and Pagecord.com. It is called Inkwell.social. Inkwell is inspired by the old LiveJournal. I never used LiveJournal myself, but I certainly heard of it. After looking around Inkwell, it feels very much in the spirit of the IndieWeb to me. It is open source, supports ActivityPub, lets you use your own domain, and gives you ways to export your writing. It also has a Founding Member special offering Inkwell Plus for $99 for as long as the service continues to operate. I love being able...

📺 Watched Silo (2023) on Apple TV+

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: FULL SPOILERS In "Silo" (2023), a gripping psychological thriller, a woman unravels deep secrets within a mysterious government facility, spiraling into a maze of power and truth. My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ (4.5/5 stars)** Episodes: 10 | Aired: 07-02-2026 The whole season was fantastic. I was worried about the series after Season 2. Season 2 was necessary, but it was a little slow. Again, Season 3 was fantastic. There are full spoilers below, so if you don't want to know more, please stop reading. You were forewarned. I don't understand why they keep killing people who leave the Silo,...

Star Trek at 60

Celebrating 60 years of Star Trek with a nostalgic view of the USS Enterprise model, an open book, and a themed drink, blending classic sci-fi adventure with modern fandom. Star Trek aired three years before I was born, yet it has had a significant influence on my life. The only thing more profound and more influential has been my faith and salvation in Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. To me, Star Trek has long served as an earthly role model. It is more than a story or a television show. It is an aspiration for how a fallen world...

🍿 Watched The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) on Disney+

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: FULL SPOILERS In a galaxy far, far away, The Mandalorian and Grogu embark on a thrilling new adventure filled with danger, loyalty, and the enduring bond of the Force. My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ (4.5/5 stars)** Overall, I liked it a lot. I think Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau do the Star Wars Universe justice. My favorite moments were probably the little guys and Grogu. I love their good baby, bad baby thing. I also liked seeing Sigourney Weaver in it. My only negative is that it felt a little too long. I think some things would have had...

TiVo Charging for Skips?

“TiVo Plans to End Free Automatic Commercial Skipping in November, Tests Paid Premium Replacement Service By Luke Bouma · via Cord Cutters News Read original post →” TiVo, there is a name I haven't heard or thought about in a while. I used to love the hardware and platform. I thought I was the coolest tech-savvy person, and that TiVo was the way to watch TV. The tech was just so cool. At one point, I had three of them. Most were the OTA version, though I had the cable version once with a CableCARD. That was an adventure to...

🍿 Watched Slingshot (2024) on Prime Video

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: FULL SPOILERS In "Slingshot" (2024), two determined men face a cosmic divide, caught between duty and destiny in a high-stakes space thriller. My Rating: ½ (0.5/5 stars) Don't waste your time. It looked interesting and had some big-name actors and actresses, but it wasn't worth it. The movie was too long for the ending it had, and the plot was weak. This product uses the TMDb API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDb

This has been some week for hardware and appliance problems in my household. Thursday, I had a silent hard drive crash. It could have happened before then, but I didn't notice it until Thursday. The drive was there last week, but Windows 11 would not recognize it. I tried it in two different computers to rule out bad cables or a motherboard issue. I didn't realize the drive was 10 years and 3 months old until I removed it and looked at it. It is kind of like a washer, you don't think about how old it is until something...

Took Them Long Enough, Huh?

Read on ign.com · View original Mastodon post Here is another example of what I was talking about in a recent blog post TV Isn't What It Used to Be. According to IGN, the first season came out 3.5 years ago. That is a long time to wait for a second season. I will watch it because the first season was good. But if I miss it, I won't really care. By this point, I would have to rewatch Season 1 just to remember what happened before starting Season 2. You're telling me it took them 3.5 years to make...

🍿 Watched Altered (2025) on Prime Video

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: FULL SPOILERS My Rating: ⭐ (1/5 stars) Not worth watching there were several times I wondered why I was watching this. Plot was kind of a mix of Giver, Enders Game, The Allegiant and Hunger Games all in one but not done very well. But I was tired and lazy so let it go on. Please don't buy this free is how this one should be. This product uses the TMDb API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDb

No Man's Sky 10th Anniversary

Celebrating 10 years of exploration, discovery, and adventure in the vast, ever-expanding universe of No Man's Sky. Happy Anniversary to Hello Games, No Man's Sky. It is 10 years, and hopefully another 10. A sequel would be great. Thanks, Sean Murray, for a great game that started rough but has grown into a masterpiece, and all free after initial purchase. I don't play as much as I used to. When I do jump back in, I am there just to explore. I don't really care if I never reach the center of the universe. Game companies can take lessons from...

TV Isn't What It Used to Be

Read on ign.com · View original Mastodon post I don't watch this series, though it has interested me. Still, its general theme fits what I want to talk about here. People wonder why TV viewing and TV series are dying. Well, when you have to wait a couple of years for 8 to 10 episodes, maybe 12 if you are really lucky, that is ridiculous. From an outsider's point of view, something is clearly wrong with the TV industry. I have said this a hundred times, and I will keep saying it: when I was growing up, TV had an...

Happy Blogiversary to Me, 25 Years!

Celebrating 25 years of blogging with gratitude, reflection, and a sweet slice of success surrounded by creativity and joy. August 6, 2001, 25 years ago. I started blogging. I had a website made by Microsoft FrontPage and hosted on GTE (now Verizon) in the homepages they offered back in those days for residential customers. In fact, your ISP provided everything for you. You had so much website space and an ISP-provided email, which you lost if you changed providers. That's foreign today. But I started on Blogger before it was owned by Google on this date in 2001. Hard to...

Learning to Live Without My Glasses

I saw the title of Antonio’s post the other day on bubbles.town, “I Couldn’t Live Without My Glasses”, and it intrigued me. “The first thing I do when I wake up isn’t checking my phone or making coffee. It’s putting on my glasses.” This was never me. I was the opposite. I could see my phone and other things up close, such as the alarm clock. Putting on my glasses was usually the second or third thing I did because I needed them to see at a distance. Before cataract surgery, I was nearsighted and also had astigmatism. I could...

Do you ever have a bunch of blog post ideas bouncing around in your head but no idea where to start, what would actually be interesting, or how to flesh them out? That's been me lately. My vision is improving, but my eyes aren't fully healed. My right eye, the first to be operated on, just hit the one-month mark. The left is about two weeks behind. I have one more doctor visit to get a prescription for reading glasses and maybe fine-tune my distance vision. Distance seems okay, but reading and intermediate vision are tricky. The intermediate could use...