Category: Social Stream

I just automated my creating stars on Github to syndicate that intent and data (by PESOS) back to my website as bookmarks. Here’s an example on my site.

This is done using a variation of Using IFTTT to syndicate (PESOS) content from social services to WordPress using Micropub.

As part of this I used the feed pattern https://github.com/{{username}}.atom to input a feed which I’m filtering with my username and the word “starred” to pull out the correct items to syndicate.

I couldn’t find a permalink URL for the star itself, so I’m adding a syndication link that points to the page of “stargazers” for the individual repo that I’m bookmarking. 

While GitHub calls these stars and I might have mapped them to “likes” on my website, I’ve always thought of my intent as more of a bookmark. In practice I often use my stars as bookmarks for things I want to come back to visit on their site anyway. Since it’s my website and I have the control, I get to choose.  Of course I also have the facility to create a star post kind on the site too, but the semantic difference just doesn’t warrant the work.

Now to figure out how I might extract out all of my prior data to backfill old bookmarks like this…

I’ve now got about 20 webhooks set up to pull back data out of silos like this including ones for GoodReads, GitHub, Hypothes.is, Last.fm, Spotify, Untappd, Twitter, Letterboxd, Diigo, Reading.am, Huffduffer, Google Calendar, Meetup.com, YouTube and Pocket.

Filed an Issue Introducing: Quotebacks by Tom Critchlow (tomcritchlow.com)
A chrome extension to quote the web
Tom, first off, this looks awesome! 

My first question is: is there a list of CSS features for styling the way quotes look on one’s site? Your defaults are pretty solid, but I’m sure folks will want to tinker. Is there a way to contribute different styles to a list of a handful that the extension could make select-able on my site?

Second, I haven’t actually been able to use the functionality at all. It took a few minutes to find the pop up window that I ignored on install to figure out the ctrl-shift-s command. Once that was sorted, I’ve got another browser extension (The Great Suspender) that uses this same key sequence which then triggers that and not Quotebacks. Perhaps having the ability to custom configure the key sequence would be useful as would the ability to click on the browser extension icon as a means of triggering the quote save (a common pattern for extensions).

I’ll also note that even after disabling the other conflicting extension and refreshing, the ctrl-shift-s still doesn’t work, but I’m not sure what the conflict or issue may be. Having a few methods for triggering save would definitely be a benefit.

Finally, in addition to some of the other discussion I’ve seen which may nudge you to support fragmentions, Google just released highlight and scroll across the web from search this past week. Like fragmention, it provides an alternate method for a link to go to a webpage, scroll to and highlight the quoted portion(s). Perhaps a nice additional feature? (I suspect that fragmention may be easier and simpler to support.)

Replied to RSS Everywhere, Blogging as Social Media, and More by Cheri BakerCheri Baker (Cheri Baker)
Today’s post is about blog tinkering. Some people tinker with their cars. Others customize their home automation systems or fiddle with the designs of their flower beds. As an urbanite I don’t have…
This is awesome Cherie! I love having the ability to pick and choose exactly what content I get from people’s websites like this. Few know that it’s even a possibility.

I did some explorations a while back because a few people complained when I went from posting to my site a few times a month to posting sometimes 20-60 times a day for every tiny little thing. 

Aside: I just looked and my site is putting out almost 10,000 posts a year, so maybe I need something more severe sounding than firehose? :O

You may have run across it in some of your research, but I’ve written a few tidbits that might help you refine some bits as you tinker. I’ll look forward to seeing what else your site does that mine can copy as well.

One thing I’ve been wanting to do as well is to provide some SubToMe buttons to help make it easier for people to subscribe to feeds from my site on my subscribe page. Perhaps that’s better than the page of crazy code people get when they click on RSS feed pages, especially if they don’t know what to do with those links?

One day I’d love to create a dashboard of all the feeds my site offers as checkboxes or something to let people create their own custom feeds using and/or/not operators using WordPress’ built in feed URLs, but it seems like an awfully big project.

Since you’re on micro.blog as well, I’ll mention that the concatenation of feeds using the Post Kinds plugins also allows me more direct control of what I pipe into micro.blog. I’m currently using the following feed in my account settings to post to m.b.:

https://boffosocko.com/kind/article,note,photo,read,watch,listen,bookmark,favorite/feed/

For your reply tests, feel free to use this post as a test ground if you like. For sites that support Webmention, you should be able to reply to my post directly from the webmention/comment in the comments section of your original post. But you could also try to create a completely new post that is a reply to this one as well. Both should work.

If you use Twitter along with Brid.gy I’ve also found an interesting “secret” there for creating nested threading: 

https://boffosocko.com/2018/07/02/threaded-conversations-between-wordpress-and-twitter/

Liked a thread by michaelharriot (Twitter)
Listened to 166: Ambient Struggles (feat. May-Li Khoe & Andy Matuschak) from Design Details
Today's show is a rare two-person episode featuring previous-guest May-Li Khoe and newcomer Andy Matuschak. In this episode we do things a bit different, digging into tough topics like fear, learning how to learn, designing with convictions, working on the right problems, and so much more.

Some interesting broad philosophy, but nothing significant for what I was hoping for on learning or memory.
Listened to Designing and Developing New Tools For Thought with Andy Matuschak from Village Global's Venture Stories

Andy Matuschak (@andy_matuschak), joins Erik on this episode. He is a technologist, designer and researcher. They discuss:
- The key thread throughout his work and what he’s trying to accomplish.
- Why people read books despite remembering little of what they read.
- What books should look like and the features they should have in the digital age.
- Why spaced repetition is so powerful.- His requests for startups in the space.

Liked a tweet by michaeljswalker (Twitter)