John Spurlock
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johnspurlock.com
John Spurlock
@johnspurlock.com
Working on stuff 👨‍💻

Check out Firesky to watch the Bluesky firehose:
👉 https://firesky.tv

🐦 https://twitter.com/johnspurlock
🐘 https://podcastindex.social/@js
Pinned
for new #rss people coming in:

you can follow any #bluesky profile in your feed reader, just tack on "/rss" to the end of the profile url

e.g. bsky.app/profile/john...
and today's archive (of yesterday's firesky.tv) hit 9.0gb for the first time in I can't remember when ↗️↗️↗️
all I know is that I archive everything firesky.tv sees every calendar day, and its usually less than 8gb, but its been breaking north of that recently, starting about a week ago

checking bskycharts.edavis.dev/bluesky-year... and it looks like there has been a noticeable recent bump
January 16, 2026 at 10:14 PM
‘Of the third-party platforms included in the survey, Youtube is the place most publishers plan to invest most extra effort in 2026, up from a net score of 52 last year to 74.’

(even more than 🅰🅸)

pressgazette.co.uk/media-audien...
January 16, 2026 at 10:02 PM
‘There has long been a disconnect between the people who develop ActivityPub software and the people who maintain the ActivityPub protocol, with only a few notable exceptions.’

connectedplaces.online/reports/fedi...
Fediverse Report – #149 – On Protocol Governance
On the complexities of protocol governance.
connectedplaces.online
January 16, 2026 at 9:43 PM
Reposted by John Spurlock
January 15, 2026 at 11:14 PM
‘The moral of this story is…. nonexistent. Every step along the way was logical, leading inexorably from a cheap and easy piece of regular content to a highly-produced, expensive, and ultimately unsustainable outcome.’

chethaase.medium.com/once-upon-a-...
Once Upon a Time, there was a podcast
A parable about podcasting and bureaucracy
chethaase.medium.com
January 15, 2026 at 10:35 PM
‘A 10 percent reduction in passenger weight could save top U.S. airlines such as United and Delta up to 1.5 percent in jet fuel costs and boost earning per share by 4 percent, according to the analysis.’

www.independent.co.uk/us/travel/ai...
The latest winner from weight-loss drugs? Airlines
One in eight U.S adults have used GLP-1s for weight loss or chronic conditions, according to a recent survey
www.independent.co.uk
January 15, 2026 at 8:54 PM
anyone have a contact at acast?

someone stuck the OP3 prefix on their website link somehow instead of the enclosure urls

... and now I'm getting guest-pitch emails multiple times a day by people trying first.last@showlinkdomain as a contact address

must be a popular show!
January 15, 2026 at 8:44 PM
@dholms.at mind taking a look at a tiny PR to the indigo .gitignore?

github.com/bluesky-soci...
Add tap executable to .gitignore by johnspurlock-skymethod · Pull Request #1272 · bluesky-social/indigo
github.com
January 15, 2026 at 4:28 PM
‘What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.’

kevinmunger.substack.com/p/things-wil...
things will have to change
Social Science in the age of AI
kevinmunger.substack.com
January 15, 2026 at 3:03 PM
January 14, 2026 at 2:41 PM
‘So in the end, the most reliable way to resize a window in Tahoe is to grab it outside the corner – a gesture that feels unnatural and unintuitive, and is therefore inevitably error-prone.’

noheger.at/blog/2026/01...
January 14, 2026 at 2:28 PM
‘It’s been really exciting, we have a hundred sixty-eight hours a week that we’re free to program the way we want. I’m taking calls on at least three different things that we’re working on that we wouldn’t have had space for if we had been an affiliate.’

www.cjr.org/analysis/una...
Some TV news stations are breaking their national network affiliations, and leaning into local programming.
Some TV news stations are breaking their national network affiliations, and leaning into local programming.
www.cjr.org
January 14, 2026 at 1:47 PM
‘In an unprecedented moment, YouTube passed the BBC in monthly audience reach figures published by Barb, the UK’s official ratings body. In each of the final three months of 2025, its reach was higher than that of all BBC television channels combined.’

deadline.com/2026/01/yout...
YouTube Makes UK Ratings History By Beating BBC On Audience Reach
YouTube continues to upend the natural order of television in the UK, officially unseating the BBC as the nation's most-watched service, per Barb.
deadline.com
January 13, 2026 at 10:56 PM
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 335.97
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 331.86
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 328.57
January 13, 2026 at 9:02 PM
‘After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models’

blog.google/company-news...
Joint statement from Google and Apple
Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and clou…
blog.google
January 12, 2026 at 9:52 PM
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 331.86
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 328.57
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 325.44
January 12, 2026 at 9:03 PM
good job everyone
January 10, 2026 at 3:44 PM
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 328.57
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 325.44
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 323.44
January 9, 2026 at 9:07 PM
cursed
January 9, 2026 at 12:44 PM
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 325.44
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 323.44
New record $GOOGL eod price today: 318.58
January 8, 2026 at 9:00 PM
Reposted by John Spurlock
The AI-generated podcast stuff truly confounds me. I guess there are people who enjoy asking Alexa or Siri things and expand that into: What if my robot friend could tell me a story about the news?

These people have wrinkle-free brains.
Storied newspaper chain McClatchy recently shuttered its Washington bureau and laid off staff. Now its told union leaders it wants to publish AI-generated stories without human review and create AI impersonations of reporters for podcasts.

The scoop in @status.news www.status.news/p/mcclatchy-...
McClatchy’s Machine Mindset
A recent meeting with McClatchy executives left union leaders stunned and deeply alarmed about how the company wishes to implement A.I. in the newsroom, Status has learned.
www.status.news
January 8, 2026 at 1:53 PM
podcasting at its best imo, a sort of polar opposite to linked-in culture

grateful that @adamwathan.com is letting others know what real life looks like

adams-morning-walk.transistor.fm/episodes/we-...
Adam's Morning Walk | We had six months left
I just had to lay off some of the most talented people I've ever worked with and it fucking sucks.
adams-morning-walk.transistor.fm
January 7, 2026 at 6:34 PM