Mike Ammerlaan

@StarkTMA_ Timgad seems amazing, I had no idea but now I want to visit!

@mikeamm Today's story is Timgad, a city a few hundred kilometers away from where I live. Breathtakingly preserved

1/10 The first of some side projects: announcing the launch of Qualla - qualla.com - a stories-about-history website. I believe we can all grow from a deeper appreciation of all cultures, and I believe every place has a story that can connect us to those cultures.

10/10 qual.la/attack-on-squa… - a story about anti-Chinese racial violence and a nuanced story of how the perpetrators were acquitted. Right near where my local Target is. It is good to know the history of the towns in which I live. Follow @QuallaExplores for more!

9/10 qual.la/kamp-sint-mich… - A story about an obscure seminary-turned-German-prison-camp where my grandfather was held hostage, in a case of mistaken identity, during World War 2.

8/10 qual.la/angel-island-i… - everyone knows about Ellis Island, but I never knew about Angel Island immigration station. Relevant for today.

7/10 qual.la/battle-of-para… and qual.la/battle-of-gabi… - Two ancient battles fought in Iran, hinging on the prowess of the Silver Shields, a legendary fighting force of 50 year old+ men who were respected -- not turned away -- for their age and experience. LOL.

6/10 Some articles I love: qual.la/hibbing-memori… and qual.la/redmond-town-c… - Maybe not the worlds most interesting stories, but I love the idea that even buildings that are interesting to a community, but unknown outside of it, can have their story told.

5/10 So, Qualla is a free "no BS" website. No accounts, no ads, no tracking, no comment section so no trolls, no gotchas. The content is all open source at github.com/bendyline/qual…. At some point, I might need to do more "revenue things" to cover hosting and AI costs.

4/10 Regarding the tragedies of history: I'm not gonna lie - there are a lot of stories about people being horrible to one another on Qualla. But IMHO, we need to see how other groups can be cruel to one another based on the arbitrary labels, so I/we can grow.

3/10 Within Qualla, importantly, I don't want things to be clickbaited or sugar-coated or Disney-ified. I want a pure view of the triumphs and the tragedies of history, told in a manner that is foundationally and equally empathetic to all the common people of the world.

2/10 Qualla features 25,000+ stories from around the world. Each story is sourced from a Wikipedia article, but "story-ified" and told in a more condensed, engaging, and readable manner. See more at #about" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">qualla.com/#about

Big news for DwarfStar users: I got DeepSeek v4 Flash and GLM 5.2 working with Tensor Parallelism across 2 M5Max 128GB MacBooks via RDMA. It is especially interesting for GLM since otherwise, fully resident, can't fit a machine that money today can buy... Now it can.

After 27 years, I'm no longer at Microsoft/Mojang, and I've entered free agency. Looking to put together some fun open source projects and explore AI while I look for a new role. It should be fun ;) Stay tuned!

Hi there. I don't really plan to post here any more. Please see more updates at mikeamm.bsky.social! Thanks!

Check out a tour of four API areas that the Chill Dreams Add-On for Minecraft Bedrock Addition uses, at: youtube.com/watch?v=WVT3UH… Input permissions, ModalFormData, Spectator Mode, and more - that you can use in your own creations!

(article equivalent: learn.microsoft.com/minecraft/crea…)

Want to add your pets to Minecraft? You can! Follow this tutorial for how I added our cat, Eliza, into Minecraft Bedrock youtube.com/watch?v=Z27h1O… Let me know if you have questions/feedback! I'll do a follow up pt 2 w/ more in a couple months.

Join me and @kaylasara and @bryhaw as we cover improvements for creators in the 1.21.50 version of Minecraft: Editor, /schedule delay, biome client improvements, and more fun stuff. Also, blood red rivers. youtube.com/watch?v=jjVYnM…

Happy (upcoming) Thanksgiving! You can make your own (digital) turkey in Minecraft - find out how in Part 1 of how the Thanksgiving themed, automated flyover, Chill Dreams Add-On was built: youtube.com/watch?v=24l6iK… Corresponding article is at learn.microsoft.com/minecraft/crea…

Ever wanted to make your own Minecraft NPC? Now you can, with the @blockbench Entity Wizard and the NPC Dialogue Designer! Learn how here: aka.ms/npcdialogues