Replied to Walled gardens in disguise by Felix PleşoianuFelix Pleşoianu (Felix Rambles)
At the end of June, I subscribed to micro.blog with some amount of hope. Nine weeks later, I canceled my account. Yeah, isn't that public timeline gorgeous? All pretty photos and thoughtful posts. Surprise! It's heavily curated. To the point of being suffocating in fact. You'll never going to see th...
Wow! I feel like Felix somehow missed and misunderstands a lot of the value of micro.blog and how it really works. Perhaps they haven’t read the documentation or explored it enough? 

This reads like Felix thinks the discover feed is the entire point of the platform and not simply a tangential discovery mechanism for new users. It feels like they didn’t realize they could subscribe to anyone they wanted and that feed is the one that most people find more valuable and use regularly.

It also reads like they weren’t getting any interaction at all in terms of replies/comments. Not sure if they had a paid account (and were just using micro.blog) or if they’re using their own site and just don’t have webmentions which means they have to manually go to find interactions.

On the other hand, micro.blog is doing a tremendous amount compared to simple silos like Twitter, Facebook, and Mastodon, so I’m not surprised that some people can misconstrue what is going on or even why. A lot of how you use it depends on what resources you have when you come to it. If anything though, micro.blog is the last thing out there that’s a walled garden in the social space.

Read Privilege and websites by Felix PleşoianuFelix Pleşoianu (Felix Rambles)
Let's make one thing clear: if you can afford to have even one internet domain to your name, let alone more, you're incredibly privileged. You have the money to pay for it, your country isn't subject to some embargo, and no government has decided to silence you. Yet. Because you don't own any domain...
Not sure I agree with the entirety of the argument here. Yes there is some privilege at play and there’s the eternal argument over ownership versus renting, but in the long span of history, we’re making some exceptional strides. Compare domain ownership and hosting to the cost of having a phone number and cell phone service. I get far more value out of my self-hosted website.
Read Convert copy-and-pasted rich text (italic, bold, etc) to markdown instead of or in addition to HTML (Obsidian Forum)
When copying a chunk of text that contains rich text formatting and pasting into most apps, the rich text formatting is preserved. When pasting the same chunk into Obsidian, the rich text formatting seems to be converted into HTML tags by default. Because Obsidian uses markdown, I think it would be more useful to have it converted to markdown by default (or at least given the option). If that’s not clear, then I hope the following is helpful. When pasting text into Google Docs, Text Edit, etc....
Read Incremental progress by fluffyfluffy (beesbuzz.biz)
Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of criticism about the IndieWeb movement based on the notion that everything that comes out of it is biased towards people with technology privilege; that it’s all well and good for people who know how to run a website to build their own thing, but that the vast majority of the Internet is made up of people who’d have nowhere to begin. And that it follows that the IndieWeb movement is inherently flawed.
Great piece; highly recommend. I always appreciate fluffy’s perspective.
Read - Reading: Behavioral Economics When Psychology and Economics Collide by Scott Huettel (The Great Courses)
Lectue 9: Temporal Discounting—Now or Later?
Now consider a fundamental challenge in decisions involving time: temporal discounting, or the human tendency to view rewards as worth less in the future than they are in the present. Study real-life examples of this phenomenon, three explanations for why it occurs, and key approaches to making better time-related decisions.
Finished lecture 9. This is a pretty dense lecture, I’ll circle back around on it at least one more time for notes.

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Replied to What does your operating system say about you? Spoiler - probably nothing by Olu Olu (olu online)
Operating systems, elitism, and everything (okay, only a few other things).
It sounded like you needed some webmentions, potentially for testing, so I thought I’d send you one. If you need any help troubleshooting or ideas for display, you’ll find lots of resources in the IndieWeb chat channels

If you need more, you can probably add lots quickly by connecting your site with Brid.gy to get reactions backfed from Twitter and other sites.

Replied to Joining the Indie Web, One Step at a Time by Tracy DurnellTracy Durnell (Cascadia Inspired)
There are lots of things to be excited about in joining the Indie Web, like supporting a more human-centered version of the web and connecting better with others across the web. Joining the Indie Web involves a few steps to … Continue reading →

Could I also use Indie Web tools for a persona, or is that not in keeping with the community? 

The community is all about websites and identity, so having a website for a pen name is exactly the sort of thing you should definitely do! I’m sure there are a few who have done it, but I’m unaware of any documenting it yet. Starting a stub page on the wiki for pen name could be a good start if you do.
Annotated on August 27, 2020 at 03:25PM

I haven’t committed to the philosophy of completely owning all the data I post online. I feel like this is something else I can take step by step, getting used to the change as I go. 

This can be a daunting task. I often ask people “How do you eat an entire whale?”

The only plausible answer is “One bite at a time”, so I suggest you do the same thing with your social media presences and other data. One step at a time.
Annotated on August 27, 2020 at 03:28PM

As someone who writes social media for work, I am deeply rooted in the practice of writing a unique intro when I share a post to Twitter, not directly syndicating it with whatever text I started the article with. For me that feels good enough (not saving that unique share to my site) since including the link means any likes and comments about the article come back to my blog thanks to Bridgy, but maybe someone will convince me otherwise 😉 

I’ll often share articles to Twitter and don’t necessarily do a 1-to-1 match of the syndicated copy on Twitter. Usually I’ll excerpt a piece that ends up appearing on Twitter with a link back to the article. I generally presuppose that if they’re interested, they’ll click through and read otherwise they’re bookmarking it or sharing the link with others, so those interactions coming back to the original are always fine with me.
Annotated on August 27, 2020 at 03:30PM

Read - Want to Read: Dysgu Cymraeg ( Y Ganolfan Dysgu Cymraeg Genedlaethol)
Hwn yw'r cwrs cenedlaethol ar gyfer oedolion sy'n dysgu'r Gymraeg ar lefel Mynediad (A1). Mae'r llyfr i'w ddefnyddio mewn dosbarth. Mae pob uned yn cyflwyno thema wahanol, ynghyd a geirfa a phatrymau iaith newydd. Mae'r cwrs yn datblygu'r pedair sgil iaith - siarad, darllen, ysgrifennu a gwrando. Mae adran Gwaith Cartref ym mhob uned. This is the national Welsh for Adults course book for learners at Entry level (A1). The book is intended for use in a classroom. Each unit looks at a different theme and introduces new vocabulary and language patterns. The course will provide practice for developing all four language skills - speaking, reading, writing and listening. There is a homework section in each unit.
Read Autonomy Online: A Case For The IndieWeb by Ana RodriguesAna Rodrigues (Smashing Magazine)
There is an alternative to corporate bubbles online — it’s called the IndieWeb. Build your own personal websites, control your online presence, and learn on your own terms. Web 2.0 celebrated the idea of everyone being able to contribute to the web regardless of their technical skill and knowledge. Its major features include self-publishing platforms, social networking websites, “tagging”, “liking”, and bookmarking.
A great overview of the IndieWeb for developers and why one should delve into it deeply. 

Way to go Ana!