Author: Chris Aldrich

I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.

🎞 Silk (2007)

Watched Silk (2007) from Picturehouse
Directed by François Girard. With Michael Pitt, Keira Knightley, Kôji Yakusho, Sei Ashina.

The story of a married silkworm merchant-turned-smuggler in 19th century France traveling to Japan for his town's supply of silkworms after a disease wipes out their African supply. During his stay in Japan, he becomes obsessed with the concubine of a local baron.
It’s taken me 4 tries over nearly 8 months, but I’ve finally finished this. I worried about its almost painfully slow pace, but the gut punch in the final act was amazing.

Watched on widescreen television via DirecTV and cable.

Rating:

👓 Cathy Fisher on fixing Fb: Go back to your 2001 fan site | Kimberly Hirsh

Read Cathy Fisher on fixing Fb: Go back to your 2001 fan site by Kimberly HirshKimberly Hirsh (Kimberly Hirsh)
Cathy Fisher, a Business Professional on Twitter (Twitter) “My idea for fixing Facebook: shut down Facebook and everyone goes back to the weird niche fan site forum they were on in 2001, where they then form a really deep friendship with a teen who lives in Poland” This is basically what I’m ...

👓 Sean Hannity Is Named as Client of Michael Cohen, Trump’s Lawyer | New York Times

Read Sean Hannity Is Named as Client of Michael Cohen, Trump’s Lawyer by Alan Feuer (nytimes.com)
Lawyers for Mr. Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer, had sought to keep Mr. Hannity’s identity a secret in a court challenge of an F.B.I. search of Mr. Cohen’s office.
 

🎞 Smokey and the Bandit II (1980)

Watched Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) from Universal Pictures
Directed by Hal Needham. With Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Dom DeLuise.

The Bandit goes on another cross-country run, transporting an elephant from Florida to Texas. And, once again, Sheriff Buford T. Justice is on his tail.
Not as good as the first, but stupidly entertaining all the way through. An interesting viewpoint into popular culture of the time certainly.

I’ve taken about 3 sittings to manage to get through this. Watched on DirecTV via cable.

Rating:

👓 What Makes a Vowel a Vowel and a Consonant a Consonant | Today I Found Out

Read What Makes a Vowel a Vowel and a Consonant a Consonant by Emily Upton
ou already know that vowels in the English alphabet are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y, while the rest of the letters are called consonants. But did you ever ask yourself why the letters were divided into two separate groups?

An IndieWeb Podcast: Episode 1 “Leaving Facebook”

Episode 1 Leaving Facebook
This first half of the episode was originally recorded in March, abruptly ended, and then was not completed until April due to scheduling.

It’s been reported that Cambridge Analytica has improperly taken and used data from Facebook users in an improper manner, an event which has called into question the way that Facebook handles data. David Shanske and I discuss some of the implications from an IndieWeb perspective and where you might go if you decide to leave Facebook.

Show Notes

Articles

The originating articles that kicked off the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica issue:

Related articles and pages

Recent Documented Facebook Quitters

Jonathan LaCour, Eddie Hinkle, Natalie Wolchover, Cher, Tea Leoni, Adam McKay, Leo Laporte,and Jim Carrey

New York Times Profile of multiple quitters: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/technology/users-abandon-facebook.html

IndieWeb Wiki related pages of interest

Potential places to move to when leaving Facebook

You’ve made the decision to leave Facebook? Your next question is likely to be: to move where? Along with the links above, we’ve compiled a short list of IndieWeb-related places that might make solid options.

👓 Privacy sentences to ponder | Marginal Revolution

Read Privacy sentences to ponder by Tyler Cowen (Marginal REVOLUTION)
The increasing difficulty in managing one’s online personal data leads to individuals feeling a loss of control. Additionally, repeated consumer data breaches have given people a sense of futility, ultimately making them weary of having to think about online privacy. This phenomenon is called “privacy fatigue.” Although privacy fatigue is prevalent and has been discussed by scholars, there is little empirical research on the phenomenon. A new study published in the journal Computers and Human Behavior aimed not only to conceptualize privacy fatigue but also to examine its role in online privacy behavior. Based on literature on burnout, we developed measurement items for privacy fatigue, which has two key dimensions —emotional exhaustion and cynicism. Data analyzed from a survey of 324 Internet users showed that privacy fatigue has a stronger impact on privacy behavior than privacy concerns do, although the latter is widely regarded as the dominant factor in explaining online privacy behavior.
Emphasis added by me.  That is by Hanbyl Choi, Jonghwa Park, and Yoonhyuk Jung, via Michelle Dawson.
Better control of online privacy is certainly something that the IndieWeb can help to remedy.

The past weeks have indicated that we really do need some regulations. It’s not just Facebook, but major, unpunished leaks from data brokers like Experian (which seemingly actually profited from it’s data leak) or even those of companies like Target. Many have been analogizing data as the “new oil”, but people shouldn’t be treated like dying sea birds trapped in oil slicks.

I’m bookmarking this journal article to read: The role of privacy fatigue in online privacy behavior. 1

References

1.
Choi H, Park J, Jung Y. The role of privacy fatigue in online privacy behavior. Comput Human Behav. 2018;81:42-51. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.12.001

👓 Fox’s Hannity, named as a client of Michael Cohen, spent days attacking FBI raid | Politico

Read Fox’s Hannity, named as a client of Michael Cohen, spent days attacking FBI raid (POLITICO)
The host cited the seizure of Michael Cohen’s documents to blast Mueller’s Russia investigation.

🔖 BBC Sound Effects Archive

Bookmarked BBC Sound Effects Archive Resource • Research & Education Space (bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk)

These 16,000 BBC Sound Effects are made available by the BBC in WAV format to download for use under the terms of the RemArc Licence. The Sound Effects are BBC copyright, but they may be used for personal, educational or research purposes, as detailed in the license.

Access dataset metadata by visiting our dedicated LOD site. If you have any queries regarding usage, please contact jake.berger at bbc.co.uk

Because everyone should be able to hear what a Creed tape-printing telegraph sounds like when it’s operating (c.1928-1952).

 

h/t to @BBCArchive

Today I updated the IndieAuth plugin for WordPress, and I can now use my own website as an IndieAuth authorization endpoint (including provisioning and revoking tokens) for a multitude of things including a huge number of micropub clients.

Special thanks to David Shanske and Aaron Parecki for all their work in getting this to happen!

👓 Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom | Times Open (Medium)

Read Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom by Sophia Ciocca (Times Open | Medium)
An inside look at the inner workings of a technology you may take for granted
A topic which is tremendously overlooked in the CMS world, but which can provide a lot of power.

h/t Jorge Spinoza

👓 Climate Change Is Messing With Your Dinner | Bloomberg

Read Climate Change Is Messing With Your Dinner by Agnieszka de Sousa and Hayley Warren (Bloomberg.com)
The future of food looks like lots of lobsters, Polish chardonnay and California coffee.
This is a difficult story to tell, though the timelapse imagery here is relatively useful. If one had some extra money lying around, it certainly indicates which crops one could be shorting in the markets over the next few decades.

I can imagine Jeremy Cherfas doing something interesting and more personalizing with this type of story via his fantastic interviews on Eat This Podcast.

h/t Jorge Spinoza

👓 Mathematicians Explore Mirror Link Between Two Geometric Worlds | Quanta Magazine

Read Mathematicians Explore Mirror Link Between Two Geometric Worlds by Kevin Hartnett (Quanta Magazine)
Decades after physicists happened upon a stunning mathematical coincidence, researchers are getting close to understanding the link between two seemingly unrelated geometric universes.
An interesting story in that physicists found the connection first and mathematicians are tying the two areas together after the fact. More often it’s the case that mathematicians come up with the theory and then physicists are applying it to something. I’m not sure I like some of the naming conventions laid out, but it’ll be another decade or two after it’s all settled before things have more logical sounding names. I’m a bit curious if any category theorists are playing around in either of these areas.

After having spent the last couple of months working through some of the “rigidity” (not the best descriptor in the article as it shows some inherent bias in my opinion) of algebraic geometry, now I’m feeling like symplectic geometry could be fun.

🎧 A visit to Hummustown | Eat This Podcast

Listened to A visit to Hummustown: Doing good by eating well by Jeremy Cherfas from Eat This Podcast
Refugees selling the food of their homeland to get a start in a new life is, by now, a cliché. Khaled (in the photo) joined their ranks a year ago. But cliché or not, selling food is an important way to give people work to do, wages, and hope. If it’s happening on your doorstep, which it is, and the food is good, which it is, what’s a hungry podcaster to do? Go there, obviously, and report back. Which is why, a couple of weeks ago, I found myself, microphone in hand, waiting patiently in line for a falafel wrap.



Truth be told, there aren’t that many Syrian refugees in Italy. The most recent official statistics put the total at around 5000 with a little over 600 in Rome. Hummustown is helping a few of them.

Notes

  1. The Hummustown website tells more of the story and has a link to the GoFundMe campaign.

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Somewhat different than the usual episode here, but in the best of ways. Still a wonderful look at food, culture, and humanity wrapped up in a fantastic story.