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ian-pvd.bsky.social
ian-pvd
@ian-pvd.bsky.social
Web Developer. Building tools for artists, writers & creators to own, distribute, and fund their work. Labor is entitled to all it creates.

pvdindustrial.com
https://ian-pvd.github.io
Brooklyn, NY | he/him
Reposted by ian-pvd
If you have an extra $10 a month to spare, here's a list of worker-owned cooperative news sites you might want to support:

• 404 Media
• Defector
• The Flytrap
• Flaming Hydra
• The Appeal
• Aftermath
• Racket
• Hell Gate
• The 51st
• The Colorado Sun
• Range Media
• Discourse Blog
• Pop Heist
September 19, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Extremely disappointed to have downloaded my Pocket data, only to find that the scraped article text is not included. So I have hundreds, if not a thousand links form the past 15 years I can't actually read anymore. Cool, thanks.
September 15, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Notion keeps adding AI features and all I want is the type-ahead search to know that I’m probably looking for the page I just created and not the one from two years ago with a similar name
i love how Adobe is constantly adding new AI gimmicks at the same time we're going on like year 20 of Premiere's multicamera editing mode being a buggy mess.
August 29, 2025 at 10:49 PM
New fear unlocked
my current thinking is that if any of your upstream dependencies has a .cursor folder, they're frickin' morons and you need to remove that dependency pronto
August 29, 2025 at 4:46 PM
People used to have whole careers building good websites so they wouldn’t have these kinds of problems.
The fact that americabydesign.gov and its companion site ndstudio.gov, both one-page sites, have zero heading tags but at least ten javascript files and a dozen accessibility issues each...

We're entering the "Powered by Squarespace Dot Gov" era.
August 25, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by ian-pvd
This tracks. New York City tech leaders I've spoken to care about whether the city is a well run, thriving place where talent wants to be. Unlike Silicon Valley pod-venturists, they live here, and their questions for Mamdani are on policy details, rather than broad ideological warfare.
“The tech industry actually doesn't need any tax breaks. What we do need is a city where all kinds of super smart people who are between the age of 20 and 40 want to come work.”
Silicon Valley Is Panicking About Zohran Mamdani. NYC’s Tech Scene Is Not
New York City tech leaders aren’t rattled by the prospect of a Mayor Mamdani. In fact, many of them welcome it.
www.wired.com
August 19, 2025 at 1:47 PM
⏰ time 2 switch 2 ghost ⏰
Attention chumps: If you, despite all our dire warnings, decided to put your newsletter on Substack, the untrustworthy asses who run the company just did what we all knew they would, and made it impossible to take your subscribers with you if you want to leave. support.substack.com/hc/en-us/art...
Can my subscribers pay on the Substack iOS app?
Substack now includes external links in the iOS app that take readers to the web to complete their purchase. Subscriptions made this way are treated like standard web purchases—creators receive the...
support.substack.com
August 18, 2025 at 10:52 PM
I have been shopping for an 11x17 toner printer, probably used. I'm trying to find either old or cheap model codes, but Google and product searches keep pushing inkjets, 8x11s & expensive business stations with color at me. Web search feels super broken when I can't find a thing to spend money on.
August 12, 2025 at 3:10 AM
If you have been thinking about migrating off Substack to Ghost or a self-hosted WordPress site, I want to help you do that! Just get in touch!
The Substack app apparently push alert promoted a Nazi newsletter to several users. Users have complained about it on Substack Notes but the company hasn’t responded. Generally push alert promos are for content a user is likely to interact with
July 29, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by ian-pvd
Am I stealing Jason's kicker? Yes, but it's such a crucial end to a long, impassioned contemplation on AI and journalism.
July 14, 2025 at 6:23 PM
I am incredibly impressed with this campaign
This @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social video is absolutely INCREDIBLE. The numbers he cites, the strategy and results they produced — it’s the future. When have you heard *any* campaign talk about this, ever? (Video split in 2 to fit in Bluesky’s limits)
July 1, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Reposted by ian-pvd
In my last job we did an experiment: we stopped fiddling with the homepage constantly and only updated it twice a day. This way we could layout the stories more like you would in print. Every user metric we tracked improved significantly.
June 15, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Extremely cool webpage UX and design from @wired.com on this feature about some pretty unnerving stuff.
You're Not Ready
Seems bad out there. Unfortunately, it can always get worse. From evil hacker AI to world-changing cyberattacks, WIRED envisions the future you haven't prepared for.
www.wired.com
June 4, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Linotype: 100 years of mass communication.
Linotype | How One Machine Shaped History | The Real OG of Mass Communication
YouTube video by Moconomy
youtu.be
May 26, 2025 at 2:23 AM
Reposted by ian-pvd
On days like this I obviously appreciate the calls to support independent media, especially bc it's so important to me that our sites aren't just pulling the rope up after us. But the gulf between what we can do and a real ecosystem that gives everyone jobs is... so frighteningly wide
May 1, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by ian-pvd
feels like a good time to tap the sign: please consider supporting local newsrooms - ideally the worker run and reader funded, independent sort
This is the specific problem for which the lack of a solution sinks all electoral options: the means by which most Americans get information about the world and evaluate reality is wholly owned & controlled by rich liars seeking to perpetuate the current status quo.

So, how do we overcome that?
Deeply sobering stuff from @schaller67.bsky.social about how hard it is for Dems to gain ground in rural areas:

newrepublic.com/article/1936...
April 7, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by ian-pvd
i,also, have seen much guidance:

blueskydirectory.com
The Ultimate Directory of tools and applications for Bluesky
A curated collection of all things relating to the Blue Sky social media platform.
blueskydirectory.com
January 15, 2025 at 12:07 AM
it's not "just the internet"
we live and work here
March 23, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Reposted by ian-pvd
If you're breaking up with Substack, I recommend Ghost.
February 19, 2025 at 6:25 AM
Reposted by ian-pvd
I am begging you: if you are writing a thread of more than a couple posts, get a blog. I don’t mean this in a mean way. I mean: allow this thought to continue to exist, outside of this platform, in an actually coherent, readable format that sticks around for longer than 20 minutes. You deserve it!
January 31, 2025 at 12:43 AM
Reposted by ian-pvd
Start your own website. Run your own blog. Use decentralized and open-sourced platforms

@ghost.org is a great open-sourced blogging platform and website builder
Pixelfed is doing great work for images and runs on the social web

Support open social projects so your homes on the web don't fall apart
January 20, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by ian-pvd
Happy Friday, y'all!

Not gonna lie: I'm getting nervous 😬 about reaching our goal for 2,000 paying members @51st.news by year's end.

We're 287 people away. That means recruiting just over 50 new supporters a day, including today, through New Year's Eve.

Can you help? A 🧵 of *some* why+how:
December 27, 2024 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by ian-pvd
You could stand up a muscular, progressive competitor to the NYT/WSJ/WaPo for less than a half-day's worth of advertising for the the Kamala Harris campaign.
December 12, 2024 at 6:18 PM
It's ok, I'll just build another Notion database about it.
December 5, 2024 at 10:43 PM
Independent publishing increases citizen empowerment, creating safer & more inclusive spaces, algorithmic manipulation, and supporting data privacy & autonomy. But developers need to think about solutions for user challenges around growing thriving, participatory communities, and content moderation.
Decentralised social media ‘increases citizen empowerment’, says…
Researchers from the Oxford Martin School find decentralised social media such as Mastodon offer potential for increased citizen empowerment
www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk
November 26, 2024 at 10:30 PM