Mastodon has been my mental model for social media federation, so I thought of federation in terms of instances. This enlightening blog post explains why the concept doesn’t make sense in the Atmosphere.

https://overreacted.io/there-are-no-instances-in-atproto/

We just hung a 12-foot silver screen at Roost, and on June 18 we’re debuting it the right way.

We’re showing Linotype: The Film, by local design legend @onpaperwings, a documentary about the machine Thomas Edison called the “Eighth Wonder of the World.”

And Doug will be joining us! Hang around afterward to ask him anything about the film, the machines, or the people who ran them.

June 18 at Roost in Boulder. Free, as always — just grab a spot so we know you’re coming:

https://luma.com/xrsfvqas

This past weekend, I built a local MCP server in PHP and wrote about the process. If you’re a PHP developer curious about MCP, this might be the simple example you’re looking for.

https://shiflett.org/blog/2026/building-an-mcp-server

I turn 50 today, so I wrote something for you.

It’s a story about the 50 years I got to be here for, the part of technology that made me fall in love with it, the years I lost that feeling, and what brought it back.

I hope you like it.

https://shiflett.org/blog/2026/just-you-wait

Yesterday, I launched the first redesign of Faculty in a while, and this one was especially meaningful for two reasons:

- I did the design, so it risked never launching. :-)
- I’m repositioning Faculty to focus on products and specifically 0→1.

I put a few Easter eggs in there, too. Let me know if you find any.

https://faculty.com/

Hello Dark Sky, my old friend.

https://acmeweather.com/blog/introducing-acme-weather

“I’ve written about this before, but every child is born loving to draw. They draw on everything. They demand crayons in restaurants. They draw on your walls. You should let them do so. Fuck your walls. It’s easier to eventually paint over a wall, than to rebuild a child’s confidence.”

https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-raise-children/

Here’s a fun thing we made.

The Studioworks Library is a collection of free interactive tools and resources for everything from bookkeeping and tax prep to writing tricky client emails. It’s your small business spirit guide.

Go play → https://library.studioworks.app

Here’s a fun one: Nick was quoted in Apple’s latest What’s New in Swift.

We chose Swift for Studioworks because it’s fast, stable, and a good long-term platform for what we’re building.

I’m proud of the quiet, solid work @nick and @sean have been doing behind the scenes, and grateful to Apple for noticing.

https://www.swift.org/blog/whats-new-in-swift-january-2026/