Month: May 2020

Read The 2010s and alternative Social Media: A decade full of work, hope, and disappointment by Dennis Schubert (schub.wtf)
Looking back at the decade of 2010 and developments in the internet, in Social Media, and inside alternative Social Media projects.

It feels a lot like the reason we are unable to offer real alternative social networks is not that we cannot do so. It is because most people with the abilities to do so spend their time working on things that only work for the tiny audience that is the tech sector, while happily ignoring the needs of all those billions of non-technical humans out there. This is something that frustrates me more than I want to admit. ❧

Annotated on May 06, 2020 at 08:17AM

He’s definitely got some interesting and insightful ideas here on why alternative social media efforts may not have the desired effect. I’ve also heard some of his technical issues with Activity Pub by other developers (and implementers). Many find it not only difficult to implement, but find it difficult to actually federate properly. 

Listened to Playing The Hero from On the Media | WNYC Studios

Elected officials offer a flood of facts and spin in daily coronavirus briefings. On this week’s On the Media, hear how the press could do a better job separating vital information from messaging. Plus, a look at the unintended consequences of armchair epidemiology. And, how one watchdog journalist has won paid sick leave for thousands of workers during the pandemic. 

1. Bob [@bobosphere] on the challenges of covering the pandemic amidst a swirl of political messaging. Listen. 

2. Ivan Oransky [@ivanoransky], professor of medical journalism at New York University, on the rapidly-changing ways that medical scientists are communicating with each other. Listen. 

3. Ryan Broderick [@broderick], senior reporter at Buzzfeed News, on "coronavirus influencers." Listen. 

4. Judd Legum [@JuddLegum], author of the Popular Information newsletter, on pressing large corporations to offer paid sick leave. Listen. 

5. Brooke [@OTMBrooke] on the cost-benefit analysis being performed with human lives. Listen. 

Wish I had been able to attend the WithKnown Collective meeting this morning. Somehow between the conversation in the chat room last week, the meeting time chooser, and the posting in events.indieweb.org, nothing sent me a notification to know when the actual meeting was finally set. Total user interface fail on so many levels. Hopefully there are some good notes for catching up.
RSVPed Attending ONLINE: Homebrew Website Club West Coast
Homebrew Website Club is a meetup for anyone interested in personal websites and a distributed web. Whether you’re a blogger, coder, designer, or just someone who wants to improve their presence on the web, this meetup is for you.
6:00pm–7:30pm IndieWeb Meetup
I’m hoping we’ll have some conversation about read, listen, and watch posts.

ONLINE: Homebrew Website Club West Coast on May 13, 2020

Working on your website? Want some camaraderie? Need ideas about what you could build next? Want to share what you’ve built with others? I’m hosting next week’s meetup on Wednesday. Come and join the fun!

May 13, 2020
Wed 6:00 – 7:30pm (America/Los_Angeles)
Code of Conduct indieweb.org/code-of-conduct

Join the Zoom call

We will provide a Zoom video conference link 20-30 minutes before the meetup here and in the IndieWeb chat. Here’s the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85315852710?pwd=OGlSSTQxV1A3blVmR2Y3R21XOW1FZz09

Homebrew Website Club is a meetup for anyone interested in personal websites and a distributed web. Whether you’re a blogger, coder, designer, or just someone who wants to improve their presence on the web, this meetup is for you.

  • Demos of personal website breakthroughs
  • Discussion around the independent web
  • Get to know other members of the IndieWeb!
  • Create or update your personal web site!
  • Finish that blog post you’ve been working on!

Join a community with like-minded interests. Bring friends that want a personal site, or are interested in a healthy, independent web!

RSVP (optional)

If your website supports it, post an indie RSVP. Or simply post a comment below. If none of that means anything to you, don’t worry about it; just show up!

Now weekly!

Check https://events.indieweb.org for next week’s meetup! There are some meetups in European and US Eastern timezones as well.

Read A garden with a water feature by Jeremy CherfasJeremy Cherfas (jeremycherfas.net)
People have written some interesting things following on from the pop-up IndieWebCamp that Chris Aldrich organised a couple of weeks ago. The Garden and the Stream set out to compare and contrast wikis and weblogs and how the two might be used. It was a terrific success, and I’m sorry I wasn’t a...

Nevertheless, the very fact that I am going through my notes reflects a new habit I am trying to build, of setting time aside every week, and sometimes more often, deliberately to tend the oldest notes I have and the notes I created or edited in the past week. Old notes take longer, because I have to check old links and decide what to do if they have rotted away. Those notes also need to be reshaped in line with zettelkasten principles. That means deciding on primary tags, considering internal links, splitting the atoms of long notes and so on. At times it frustrates me, but when it goes well I do see structure emerging and with it new thoughts and new directions to follow. ❧

This is reminiscent of the idea that indigenous peoples regularly met at annual feasts to not only celebrate, but to review over their memory palaces and perform their rituals as a means of reviewing and strengthening their memories and ideas.
Annotated on May 09, 2020 at 07:17AM

Liked Tits update by Jeremy CherfasJeremy Cherfas (jeremycherfas.net)
Lovely morning for just sitting quietly in the sun waiting for the birds. And what a difference a bit of sun makes, because these were shot at 1/2000, which certainly helps. Blue tit with a bug in its mouth just before entering its nest Blue tit in flight after leaving its nest in a hollow terracott...