Read Public media found its answer to Spotify in Pocket Casts (The Verge)
More investment in the podcasting open ecosystem

Pocket Casts is instead committed to podcasting’s open ecosystem of freely available RSS feeds, CEO Owen Grover says.

I wish their app allowed one to actually use the podcast’s native URL(s) when sharing instead of providing a pca.st shortened URL.

Annotated on March 02, 2020 at 12:21PM

Read Pocket Casts acquired by NPR, other public radio stations, and This American Life (The Verge)
One of the best podcast apps just got bought by some of the biggest podcast producers
Owning their own pieces of distribution is going to be key to their long term interests. This is a brilliant move.
Read a post by gRegor MorrillgRegor Morrill (gregorlove.com)
I was watching the beginning of Bang Bang Con (!!Con) and they talked about their code of conduct. I liked these three tips they gave to stay in line with their values: “Avoid feigning surprise.” When someone says something like “I’ve never heard that you can do x,” instead of replying “...
Some excellent examples and advice here. Good find.
Read Manifold Version 4.0 Overview | Building Manifold (blog.manifoldapp.org)
The Manifold team is delighted to announce the release of Manifold version 4.0. The hallmark features for this release are the addition of reading groups, which allow readers to annotate texts publicly, privately, or anonymously, and standalone mode, which allows creators to set up projects that appear without the library. We’ve also made notable strides in improving Manifold’s accessibility and are now publishing docker images to Docker Hub.

What is your creative dream for the web?

Often the IndieWeb is re-creating functionality from traditional media or the social spaces to our own sites. Who is going to innovate and turn the tide in the other direction?

Where is the avant guarde? Who is going to be the next Stan Brakhage, George Antheil, Luis Buñuel, or Walter Murch of the web?

burger lol GIF by Robbie Cobb

How can we push corporate social media back onto their heels?

I can’t wait for someone to create the next social media craze because it’s something they’re creatively posting on their own website as a media format that social silos don’t allow.

Who is experimenting with quirky multimedia posts on their websites? Who’s going to have the next meme generator/Tik Tok/SnapChat stories/inventive new functionality first? I’m imagining something in the vein of Marty’s Kapowski, Aaron’s emoji avatars, or Jeremy’s Indy maps, but I’m sure we could go crazier and push the envelope even further.

Bonus points if it’s done in the form of a micropub client! 🙂

Read Be careful what you copy: Invisibly inserting usernames into text with Zero-Width Characters by Tom Ross (Medium)
Zero-width characters are invisible, ‘non-printing’ characters that are not displayed by the majority of applications. F​or exam​ple, I’ve ins​erted 10 ze​ro-width spa​ces in​to thi​s sentence, c​an you tel​​l? (Hint: paste the sentence into Diff Checker to see the locations of the characters!). These characters can be used to ‘fingerprint’ text for certain users.

A cool little trick with text for embedded steganography, security, or other communication purposes. 

This could also be used for pseudo-private communication via Webmention even. Just hide your messages inside of public messages.

Aaron Parecki bookmark Be careful what you copy: Invisibly inserting usernames into text with Zero-Width Characters (medium.com) ()

Watched Memory Games (2018) from Netflix

Directed by Janet Tobias, Claus Wehlisch. With Yanjaa Wintersoul, Nelson Dellis, Johannes Mallow, Simon Reinhard. Glimpse into the brain's vast potential for memorization through the eyes of four competitive memory athletes as they share techniques and insights.

Great overview of some basic memory techniques, the personalities of several big names in the space, and a bit about the competitions themselves.

Rating: ★★★★