👓 Zen and the Art of Blog Maintenance | Aaron Davis

Read Zen and the Art of Blog Maintenance by Aaron Davis (Read Write Respond)
This is a reflection on my recent challenges associated with maintaining a blog and an explanation of why I persist in doing it.

🎧 This Week in Google: #432 Life of Pai | TWiT.TV

Listened to This Week in Google: #432 Life of Pai from TWiT.TV
Pixel Buds are "like spiders clawing in your ears." Net Neutrality will die on December 14th, no matter what you do to protest. DOJ blocks AT&T/Time Warner merger. Peter Thiel sells most of his Facebook stock, splits with Y Combinator, might buy Gawker.com assets. Google tracks Android locations. Tesla's big new truck. Stacey's Thing: CleverPet Jeff's Number: 9 Ways Twitter can punish miscreants, but usually doesn't. Leo's Tool: Radio3.io

This episode has a great discussion of net neutrality. (28m52s to roughly 1h06m00s) While it does cut a few corners for this particular audience, it has some useful and interesting history surrounding the topic. The three participants are all well versed in the issue and give it some excellent coverage.

There is also an interesting section talking about Facebook and discrimination. While they talk about dark ads and the targeting Russia did during the 2016 election as well as racist targeting, they don’t take into account data that is often used as a proxy for race. While many may be looking at the proximal problem, they’re missing the longer term problems that will ultimately surface at a later date. If not designed properly, the data is highly likely to be misused in the future, just in more subtle and harder to detect ways.

🔖 Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism by Bhu Srinivasan

Bookmarked Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism (Penguin Press)
“A delightful tour through the businesses and industries that turned America into the biggest economy in the world. . . . An excellent book.”—The Economist From the days of the Mayflower and the Virginia Company, America has been a place for people to dream, invent, build, tinker, and bet the farm in pursuit of a better life. Americana takes us on a four-hundred-year journey of this spirit of innovation and ambition through a series of Next Big Things -- the inventions, techniques, and industries that drove American history forward: from the telegraph, the railroad, guns, radio, and banking to flight, suburbia, and sneakers, culminating with the Internet and mobile technology at the turn of the twenty-first century. The result is a thrilling alternative history of modern America that reframes events, trends, and people we thought we knew through the prism of the value that, for better or for worse, this nation holds dearest: capitalism. In a winning, accessible style, Bhu Srinivasan boldly takes on four centuries of American enterprise, revealing the unexpected connections that link them. We learn how Andrew Carnegie's early job as a telegraph messenger boy paved the way for his leadership of the steel empire that would make him one of the nation's richest men; how the gunmaker Remington reinvented itself in the postwar years to sell typewriters; how the inner workings of the Mafia mirrored the trend of consolidation and regulation in more traditional business; and how a 1950s infrastructure bill triggered a series of events that produced one of America's most enduring brands: KFC. Reliving the heady early days of Silicon Valley, we are reminded that the start-up is an idea as old as America itself.
Jeff Jarvis made this book sound interesting on the latest episode of This Week in Google. The referenced snippet starts at 1:51:30 into the show.

I suspect it’s similar in flavor to American Amnesia which I’ve been reading and enjoying lately–and need to get around to finishing.

 

📺 Jeremy Keith – Building Blocks of the Indie Web

Bookmarked Building Blocks of the Indie Web by Jeremy Keith (View Source London)
In these times of centralised services like Facebook, Twitter, and Medium, having your own website is downright disruptive. If you care about the longevity of your online presence, independent publishing is the way to go. But how can you get all the benefits of those third-party services while still owning your own data? By using the building blocks of the Indie Web, that's how!
Based solely on what I know from just the title of the talk, this wasn’t quite at all what I was expecting. It was far more interesting and philosophical than I expected, but I suppose that’s the extra magical bit that you get for a something presented by Jeremy.

Approaching the subject from a more architectural standpoint was quite refreshing and a great way to frame the subject for this audience. I found myself wishing he’d had twice the amount of time to expand on his ideas. Often when I’m explaining IndieWeb building blocks, I’ll touch on webmention prior to micropub, but I like the way he turned my usual thinking on it’s head by putting micropub first in his presentation.

Thanks, Jeremy (and Mozilla for the conference). This was great fun! 🎉 ​​​​​

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYK-K0jWng

👓 My company is pushing me to give up my car, which I need — Ask a Manager

Read my company is pushing me to give up my car, which I need (Ask a Manager)
The company I work for encourages environmentalism and recycling. They started an initiative where they want everyone who works here to live environmentally friendly lifestyles. Every single person I work for has given up car ownership, as part of this initiative, except for me. I’m getting pressure because I’m the only one not participating and I’m keeping the company from a 100 percent participation rate.

👓 Who Owns L.A. Weekly? | L.A. Weekly

Read Who Owns L.A. Weekly? by Keith Plocek (L.A. Weekly)
Who owns the publication you’re reading right now? It’s a question you should ask no matter what you’re reading. In Latin there’s a phrase cui bono, which roughly translates as “who is benefiting?” It’s a good idea to know who is profiting in any situation. Why? So you can make educated decisions.
If things are as potentially as nefarious as they sound here, I’m archiving a copy of this article to the Internet Archive now, just in case the new owners notice and it disappears.

Virtual Homebrew Website Club Meetup on December 13, 2017

This is a Virtual HWC for IndieWebbers who either can’t make a regular meeting or don’t yet have critical mass to host one in their area. Everyone is welcome to participate remotely!

Virtual Homebrew Website Club Meetup on December 13, 2017
Time:  to
Location: Online via Google Hangouts (link is posted and live)

Details

Join a community with like-minded interests. Invite friends that want a personal site.

  • Work on your IndieWeb Resolutions for 2018
  • Finish that blog post you’ve been working on
  • Demos of recent IndieWeb breakthroughs
  • Share what you’ve gotten working
  • Ask the experts questions

A link to virtual meetup on Google Hangouts will be posted on the day of the event. Check back before the meeting to get the link: https://hangouts.google.com/call/0JCH5b875C2UNseSnfkxAAEE

Optional quiet writing hour: 19:30–20:30 ET (16:30-17:30 PT)
Meetup: 20:30–21:30 ET (17:30-18:30 PT)

The IndieWeb is a growing people-focused alternative to the ‘corporate web’.

Skill levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

Keep in mind that there is often a European virtual meetup if those times work better for your schedule.

Any questions? Need help? Ask in chat: http://indiewebcamp.com/irc/today#bottom

RSVP

Add your RSVP in the comments below; by adding your indie RSVP via webmention to this post; or by RSVPing yes to one of the syndicated posts below
Indieweb.org event: https://indieweb.org/events/2017-12-13-homebrew-website-club#Virtual_Americas
Facebook.com: https://www.facebook.com/events/169650146961455/
Meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/IndieWeb-Homebrew-Website-Club-Los-Angeles/events/245539015/

If your site doesn’t support sending webmentions yet, you should be able to create a post on your website with the following HTML:

<div class="h-entry">
RSVP <span class="p-rsvp">yes</span>
to <a href="http://boffosocko.com/2017/11/30/virtual-homebrew-website-club-meetup-on-december-13-2017/" class="u-in-reply-to">Virtual Homebrew Website Club Meetup on December 13, 2017</a>
</div>

Then put the permalink URL for your post into the webmentions box in the comments section. My site should be able to parse your URL and display the response. (Naturally, you can also change your response to “no” or “maybe” depending on your ability to attend.)

(I think this may be my first indie event that I’ve posted to my WordPress site.)

Reply to Aggregating the Decentralized Social Web by Jason Green

Replied to Aggregating the Decentralized Social Web by Jason Green (þoht-hord)
There are actually three problems to solve, reading, which is relatively easy, posting, which is harder, and social graph management, which is quite complex.
Some brief thoughts:

There are actually three problems to solve, reading, which is relatively easy, posting, which is harder, and social graph management, which is quite complex.

I might submit that posting is possibly the easiest of the three and that the reader problem is the most difficult. This is based on the tremendous number of platforms and CMSs on which one can post, but the dearth of feed readers in existence.

Managing your social graph

Something akin to a following list could help this. Or a modified version of OPML subscription lists could work. They just need to be opened up a tad. Some are working on the idea of an open microsub spec which could be transformative as well: https://indieweb.org/Microsub-spec


How do we decentralize the web without so decentralizing our own social presence that it becomes unmanageable?

You’ve already got a huge headstart in doing this with your own website. Why bother to have thousands of accounts (trust me when I say this) when you could have one? Then, as you suggest, password protected RSS (or other) feeds out to others could allow you to control which audiences get to see which content on your own site.


It looks as if Withknown has made some progress in this area with syndication plugins.

WordPress has lots of ways to syndicate content too. Ideally if everyone had their own website as a central hub, the idea of syndication would ultimately die out altogether. At best syndication is really just a stopgap until that point.


Subscribing to my personal timeline(s) with my favorite RSS reader would bring everything together,

I’ve written some thoughts about how feed readers could continue to evolve for the open web here: http://boffosocko.com/2017/06/09/how-feed-readers-can-grow-market-share-and-take-over-social-media/


listed items chronologically independent of source

Having a variety of ways to chop and dice up content are really required. We need more means of filtering content, not less. I know many who have given up on chronological feed reading. While it can be nice, there are many other useful means as well.