Month: December 2020

Replied to Various Updates by Christine DodrillChristine Dodrill (christine.website)
One of the major new features I have in this rewrite is WebMention support. WebMentions allow compatible websites to "mention" my articles or other pages on my main domains by sending a specially formatted HTTP request to mi. I am still in the early stages of integrating mi into my site code, but eventually I hope to have a list of places that articles are mentioned in each post. The WebMention endpoint for my site is https://mi.within.website/api/webmention/accept. I have added WebMention metadata into the HTML source of the blog pages as well as in the Link header as the W3 spec demands. If you encounter any issues with this feature, please let me know so I can get it fixed as soon as possible.
Congratulations on getting Webmentions working! (I love your site btw!) 

There are a bunch of us out here that can send and receive them, you just have to poke around a bit to find the (ever-growing) community. Services like micro.blog and those involved in the IndieWeb will (often, though not always) have support for it. Here’s a short Twitter list of people whose personal sites likely have the ability to send and receive webmentions as well.

One of the largest senders is Brid.gy which sends Webmentions on behalf of services like Twitter, Mastodon, Instagram, etc. If you set your site up to syndicate content to those sources and register with Brid.gy, it will send likes, replies, comments, etc. to your site as webmentions. Ideally this is meant to aggregate all the conversation around your posts to your own site.

Are you displaying them on your site as well?

As a visual indicator on posts, I took an extra step to add a Webmention button/badge and a URL field to my posts with a note about webmentions so that people could send them manually even if their platform/CMS isn’t capable of doing it automatically yet. (I don’t have a lot of direct evidence yet that these things help except for edge cases, or when I want to force mentions of my website from my referral logs.)

Oprah meme photo of her pointing at audience members with the overlaid text: You get a webmention, and you get a webmention! Everybody gets a webmention!

 

Watched December 1, 2020 - PBS NewsHour full episode from PBS NewsHour
Tuesday on the NewsHour, a look at what President-elect Joe Biden and his team say about their plan to revive the economy, a CDC committee recommends who should receive the earliest doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, and why the pandemic is forcing millennials to move in with their parents.
Read China sends a message with Australian crackdown by Richard McGregor (ft.com)
Pressure by Beijing offers a glimpse of the road map for a more illiberal order
For a glimpse of the future in a world dominated by China, a good starting point is Australia. Beijing’s embassy in Canberra last week handed the local media a short document detailing 14 grievances that China says are the cause of its rapidly deteriorating relations with Australia.
Read George F Kennan by Gideon Rachman (ft.com)
John Lewis Gaddis’ biography of the US diplomat works brilliantly as a piece of intellectual history
George Kennan is a rare example of a diplomat who changed history through the power of his ideas and the clarity of his writing. In February 1946, Kennan, the number two at the US embassy in Moscow, sent a “long telegram” to his superiors in Washington DC. At a time when many Americans still regarded the Soviet Union as an ally, Kennan explained, in limpid prose, why there could never be a normal peacetime relationship with the USSR.
This looks like an interesting read.
Bookmarked On the Media | Breaking News Consumer's Handbook | WNYC Studios (WNYC Studios)
Breaking news reporting often gets essential facts wrong. In fact, the rampant misreporting can be so common as to be predictable. And so, On the Media has developed formulas (with the help of experts) for how to spot spotty coverage. Rather than counting on news outlets to get it right, we're looking at the other end. We have some tips for how to sort good information from bad -- whether the breaking news is about a tragic mass shooting or a stock market crash, an epidemic or a rash of election polls. Below is our collection of Breaking News Consumer's Handbooks, and it's growing all the time. Each one comes with a printable PDF that you can tape to your wall the next time you encounter a big news event.
I’ve listened to many in this series over time, but there are a few I’ve missed and would like to revisit. 

IndieWeb Inspirational Cards

I’ve been tinkering with and test driving some various image creation tools.  To test them and simultaneously have some fun, I made a series of creative inspirational cards/inspirational posters/postcards for the IndieWeb. All the images are royalty free from Pixabay, and I’m releasing the text and additional work with a CC0 license. Feel free to download and use them to your hearts’ content. They should hopefully all be relatively well-sided for sharing on social media.

I’d love to hear folks’ thoughts about them in general.

Click any of the images below for a slideshow presentation view.

an orange Riviera typewriter angled on a black leather couch superimposed with the text "Your words. Your way. indieweb.org"
jar of thin paint spotted paintbrushes superimposed with the text "The web is your canvas. Which brush will you choose? indieweb.org"
tubes of acrylic paint and a paint brush superimposed with the text "The web is your canvas. Don't let a corporation limit you. indieweb.org"
blueprints superimposed with the text "The home you've always wanted on the internet. indeiweb.org"
fresh tomatoes, spaghetti, and basil on a wooden table superimposed with the text "Slow Social: Try eating what you cook on your own website. Rely less on the unhealthy fast food of corporate social media. indieweb.org"
a dilapidated barn and grain silo with the superimposed text "Don't let your content rot in the dilapidated corporate social media silos. indieweb.org"
view of a sunny green vineyard in a valley superimposed with the words "Reap what you sow. Plant your content into the field of your own website. indieweb.org"
two hands knitting a green swatch superimposed with the words "Knit your own web identity. indieweb.org"
a sheep's head looks condescendingly down at the viewer superimposed with the text "Why are you posting your content to social media instead of your own website? indieweb.org"
sun shining down on a person in front of a vibrant forest superimposed with the text "The IndieWeb is a people-focused alternative to the 'corporate web'. indieweb.org"
dreamy view of grass and a forest through which the sun is rising superimposed with the text "Happy Newww.Year! indieweb.org"
a black audio soundboard with various controls superimposed with the text "All our amps go to eleven. indieweb.org"
a person with a rainbow umbrella stands in the midst of a structured tunnel looking out at blue sky and trees superimposed with the text "Figure out how you want to fit into the network. indieweb.org"
black and white image of floating umbrellas with a single yellow umbrella in the center superimposed with the words "Do your own thing. indieweb.org"
View of a desk with a typewriter, notebook, glasses, a book, a decorative pinecone, a slide box with superimposed text "All the tools you need to create your own space. indieweb.org"
Hundreds of knobs on a control board superimposed with text "Control you don't typically find in social media. indieweb.org"
View over the shoulder of a female architect working on blueprints superimposed with the text "Build the internet home you've always wanted. indieweb.org"
a bare, but somehow lit lightbulb on a wooden table superimposed with "The bright idea corporate social media missed. indieweb.org"
close up of the type arms in a typewriter with the superimposed text "Who needs a billion dollar typewriter? Type it for your website. indieweb.org"
black and white photo of apples with the one in the middle being red. Overlaid texts reads "Not all social media is the same. indieweb.org"
Background image of a forest and mountains covered in haze superimposed with the words "Once the haze of 2020 lifts, consider a healthier way to manage your online identity and social media. indieweb.org"
Read It Wasn’t Just Trump Who Got It Wrong by Zeynep Tufekci (The Atlantic)
America’s coronavirus response failed because we didn’t understand the complexity of the problem.
Nice piece about some of the complexity surrounding the pandemic that we’re all missing out on. Good to see some complexity theory being considered in the public sphere.
Read The Pandemic Heroes Who Gave us the Gift of Time and Gift of Information by Zeynep Tufekci (zeynep.substack.com)
As safe and effective vaccines make news, let's remember the heroism of China's scientists and medical workers
Some great early history from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. A great read about some of the early and unsung heros.
Read Will the coronavirus help mRNA and DNA vaccines prove their worth? by Ryan Cross (Chemical & Engineering News)
As gene-based vaccines are being designed and tested at unprecedented speeds to fight COVID-19, scientists wonder if this will be the technology’s make-or-break moment.
Great overview of what is going on in the designer vaccine space.