The first-party premier Simplenote native apps for Android, iOS, and macOS are now fully open source. I’m very proud of the team for this, and excited that the broader Simplenote community can now see behind the scenes of how things are developing with the app, which remains one of my personal favorites across every platform. What’s Simplenote? It’s the easiest way to have your plain text notes synced instantly across every device and browser you use.

Jenna Wortham has a good piece on How an Archive of the Internet Could Change History, bringing together some interesting threads from Keith Haring to quantum mechanics. This is part of the reason I’ve been fascinated by the inter-planetary file system, which I mentioned on stage at WordCamp Europe on Friday.

Anker has come out with a pretty cool new USB charger that also supports USB PD, which is the USB-C power delivery standard which means it can fully power a Macbook. So you can take the USB-C cable that came with your Macbook and use this instead of the white brick that Apple makes and other things as well, so fewer things to travel with. It will of course charge any USB-C devices like your Nexus phone super fast as well. I really hope everything uses USB-C PD in the future

Marco Arment has a great take on how the decentralized nature of podcasting is a feature, not a bug, and Apple being more proactive there would be harmful to the ecosystem. As an aside, since I’ve been in Houston more recently, which means driving a lot, I’ve been really loving his app Overcast and I opted in to the optional paid subscription for it. I just need to get in more of a habit of listening to podcasts outside of Houston.

Today the Jetpack plugin turns five years old. Who woulda thunk it? It’s one of the most popular plugins in WP history, and sites that include it as part of their WordPress install are more likely to to have engaged and active users — we’ve even seen it reduce churn on major web hosts. While there’s been a lot that’s happened in the Jetpack plugin so far, what’s around the corner has me even more excited. 😀 🚀 P.S. Check out that new domain.

One of my favorite movies is Thank You for Smoking, the Jason Reitman’s film that looks at the world through the lens of a tobacco lobbyist. It’s fiction, though. This real-life Rolling Stone look at what is going on with rooftop solar in Florida and the big utilities has quotes that could have easily been in the movie.

Facing an amendment that would open up one of the sunniest states to solar power, the utilities created a competing amendment called “Rights of Electricity Consumers Regarding Solar Energy Choice,” which, as you might imagine, is extraordinarily unfriendly to anyone who wants solar panels on their home. Why the confusing title?

Bascom insisted there was no intention to mislead. “It would defy all logic,” she tells Rolling Stone. “Why would we confuse ours with one that does not have public support?”

When we chose Philadelphia to host the first ever WordCamp US, it was actually for two years, they’ll be hosting again this year December 2-4. We’re going to pick the host city and group for 2017 and 2018 in the next few months, though, and in fact the applications are open and closing in a few weeks. If you think your city and team have what it takes to wow the world with the best WordPress event, please put your hat in the ring!

The Atlantic does an in-depth look on why it’s much less pleasant to have phone calls than it used to be. It’s true, but there are also some great alternatives that I’ve been having luck with recently. Facebook Messenger has a built-in audio (and video!) calling system that is okay. Facetime isn’t just for video, you can also make audio calls with it and they sound amazing (something I learned from Kanye, true story). Many times I’ll try a phone number in Facetime first just in case the person uses an iPhone. And finally Skype still works pretty well even if its clients are a bit heavy. If I’m able to be at a computer (all of these work on computer as well as apps), this Sennheiser USB headset sounds great, blocks background noise, and people say that I sound clear.

One of the areas where Automattic and its products like WordPress.com have the most room for growth is in the area of marketing. It’s also an area our competitors are spending heavily in, with Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, Web.com, and to a lesser extent EIG and Godaddy, spending over $350M this year in advertising. (Of course marketing is much more than just advertising, but their spend is still significant.) We’re hiring for a number of positions in this area to build up our team, including a CMO, a performance marketing specialist, marketing-oriented designer, and a role focused on events. If you know of anyone who would be ideal for these roles, or if that person is you, please read about Automattic on that page and follow the guidelines for the role to apply.

Very sad to hear that Marvin Minsky has passed. Here are some notes I took at a talk of his in 2007. See also: Philip Greenspun’s remembrence of Minsky.

One area that’s been unloved for a bit on WordPress.org is the testimonials page, it was almost funny because they were so old they talked about things people don’t even know what they are any more. Well today is a new day, on the new page we’ll be embedding snippets from WordPress, Twitter, and Facebook of people saying what WordPress has meant for them. Post with the tag #ilovewp and it might show up there. 🙂 Think of something that you love about WP that would make someone who hasn’t heard of it or is on the fence about using it compelled to try it out.

LetsEncrypt is available as a beta so everyone can have free SSL, and PHP7 is released which will double the speed of many PHP apps, including WordPress. And it was the first day of WordCamp US, if you missed it definitely livestream tomorrow. (I’m doing the State of the Word at 5pm ET.) A pretty awesome day for the web.

George Lakoff is an academic whose books I came across in my college years, and he’s been very influential on me, especially his approach to language through metaphors. He has an updated version of a classic book, Don’t Think of an Elephant, which is a great read if you’re interested in progressive politics. I noticed a link to a PDF to a WordPress-sounding address, and it turns out his entire site is on WordPress.com!

Last week I did two podcasts around the Calypso news that are both now up, and show very different sides of the announcement. The first was with Brian Krogsgard of the WordPress-focused site Post Status and we talked a lot about the Calypso launch in the context of the WordPress community. The second was the always-fun video group the Gillmor Gang which ranged quite a bit but mostly focused on Calypso in the context of the wider tech world and where we’re going.

What’s the coolest uses and applications built on top of WordPress APIs that you’ve seen? I’m looking for some examples to highlight in the State of the Word next month.

I was wondering the other day how many miles of road were in every state, and guessed that Texas must be the highest. It turns out it is, according to this list of the road mileage of every state. It’s about 70% more than the runner-up, California. After TX and CA, it’s Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, and Missouri.

Tech blog idea: A site that covers the top headlines on Techmeme 6, 12, or 18 months after they happened, and explores the delta between what people said was going to happen when they raised funding, or did an acquisition, and what actually happens after time has run its course. We keep covering announcements like they matter. Can also compare analyst and commentator predictions for claim chowder.