👓 Applied Category Theory Seminar | John Carlos Baez

Read Applied Category Theory Seminar by John Carlos Baez (Azimuth)

We’re going to have a seminar on applied category theory here at U. C. Riverside! My students have been thinking hard about category theory for a few years, but they’ve decided it’s time to get deeper into applications. Christian Williams, in particular, seems to have caught my zeal for trying to develop new math to help save the planet.

We’ll try to videotape the talks to make it easier for you to follow along. I’ll also start discussions here and/or on the Azimuth Forum. It’ll work best if you read the papers we’re talking about and then join these discussions. Ask questions, and answer any questions you can!

👓 Everything You Need to Know About Anal Sex | Teen Vogue

Read Everything You Need to Know About Anal Sex (Teen Vogue)
How to do it the RIGHT way.
Not quite as detailed as I might have expected given Teen Vogue’s growing coverage of just about everything, but a good and gentle introduction.

👓 Community is the Curriculum: Aligning Praxis, Pedagogy and Product on the IndieWeb| Greg McVerry

Read Community is the Curriculum: Aligning Praxis, Pedagogy and Product on the IndieWeb by J. Gregroy McVerry (jgmac1106homepage.glitch.me)
Join us on a story of a Commons of Knowledge unfolding, reinforcing and growing as we describe how the goals, practices, and tools used by the IndieWeb community interact as symbiotic building blocks.

👓 Blog Engines and Indieweb Controlling Upstream | Brad Enslen

Read Blog Engines and Indieweb Controlling Upstream by Brad EnslenBrad Enslen (Brad Enslen)

All this WordPress 5.0 Gutenberg stuff got me thinking.  With WordPress it seems like the Indieweb starts making serious and cool progress and the WordPress people come along and knock the game board and pieces off the table.  And it sounds like the disruption from WordPress is going to continue for a couple of years.

Why not take a page out of Apple’s playbook and take control higher up in the food chain? Why not come out with an Indieweb compatible blog engine of our own?  Either fork an existing open source project or build new?  This does not mean you have to make it exclusive but make it the way the Indieweb wants the Indieweb elven magic to function.  Also put in the standard blogging features most people expect.  Why keep trying to adapt the Indieweb stuff to blog or CMS platforms that are at best indifferent, never designed for or just that don’t want to play ball?

This isn’t a slam on the coders who are working so hard to make everything work on WordPress, I’m just asking if maybe it’s not time to find better terrain to fight from.

If the Indieweb really wants widespread adoption they need to come out with a turnkey solution.  It would act as a solution for many and a proof of concept for others to emulate. Something that can be put in hosting C-panels for one touch install. Something that just works, is easy to move to and move away from. Something supported, active, growing with enough polish that it inspires confidence in the user.

I’d really like to hear serious discussion on this.

👓 Writing documentation is a good thing | Andy Sylvester

Read Writing documentation is a good thing by Andy Sylvester (andysylvester.com)
Recently, I read a post on the Digital Ocean blog (Documentation As An Open Source Practice) talking about best practices for documenting open source project repos (like Github). The main focus of the post was on providing community-focused documentation (code of conduct, contributors, etc.). I agre...

👓 Making it easier to discover datasets | Google Blog

Read Making it easier to discover datasets by Natasha Noy (Google)
In today's world, scientists in many disciplines and a growing number of journalists live and breathe data. There are many thousands of data repositories on the web, providing access to millions of datasets; and local and national governments around the world publish their data as well. To enable easy access to this data, we launched Dataset Search, so that scientists, data journalists, data geeks, or anyone else can find the data required for their work and their stories, or simply to satisfy their intellectual curiosity.

👓 The Racial Dot Map | Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service

Read The Racial Dot Map: One Dot Per Person for the Entire United States (Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service)
This racial dot map is an American snapshot; it provides an accessible visualization of geographic distribution, population density, and racial diversity of the American people in every neighborhood in the entire country. The map displays 308,745,538 dots, one for each person residing in the United States at the location they were counted during the 2010 Census. Each dot is color-coded by the individual’s race and ethnicity. The map is presented in both black and white and full color versions. In the color version, each dot is color-coded by race.

👓 Useful and not-so-useful links | Selcan Mutgan

Read Useful and not-so-useful links by Selcan Mutgan (Selcan Mutgan)
Maps & spatial analysis: One-dot one-person map for the entire United States:  Introduction to geo-scripting in R & Python:  Awesome blog with cool maps and the codes behind them by James C…

👓 Digital Pedagogy Lab 2019 Fellowship Application | Clarissa Sorensen-Unruh

Read Digital Pedagogy Lab 2019 Fellowship Application by Clarissa Sorensen-Unruh (Reflective Teaching Evolution)
Yesterday morning I woke up to an email from the Digital Pedagogy Lab that announced the opening of the 2019 Digital Pedagogy Lab Fellows program: The Digital Pedagogy Lab (@DigPedLab) has its 2019 Fellows application available, folks. It’s due 1/10/19. Information about the Fellows program is her...
I love how she posts her application publicly.

👓 Save web pages straight to Inoreader | Inoreader blog

Read Save web pages straight to Inoreader (Inoreader blog)
Hopefully, by now you’ve recognized Inoreader as your go-to place for regular content consumption. But we know there are many more ways to come across great new content – and we want to help you with that, too. Now you can save pages from all over the web with our new feature, Saved web pages …

👓 Inoreader How-to: Do more with browser extensions | Inoreader blog

Read Inoreader How-to: Do more with browser extensions (Inoreader blog)
When you’re casually browsing the internet, there is nothing better than stumbling across a new source of excellent content – but nowadays you’re rushing so much that you might not put in the extra effort and fire up your Inoreader to add a feed to your subscriptions. Inoreader Companion, our dedicated browser extension, will save …

👓 How to Configure Your iPhone to Work for You, Not Against You | Better Humans

Read How to Configure Your iPhone to Work for You, Not Against You by Coach Tony (Better Humans | Medium)
The Very, Very Complete Guide to Productivity, Focus, and Your Own Longevity

Optimize First for Single Tasking
#1. Turn OFF (almost) all notifications
#2. Hide social media slot machines
#3. Hide messaging slot machines
#4. Disable app review requests
#5. Turn on Do Not Disturb
#6. Be strategic about your wallpaper
#7. Turn off Raise to Wake
#8. Add the Screen Time widget
#9. Add Content Restrictions
#10. (Optional) Use Restrictions to turn off Safari
#11. Organize your Apps and Folders alphabetically
Switch to Google Cloud to Work Faster
#12. Choose GMail
#13. Choose Google Calendar
#14. Replace Apple Maps with Google Maps
#15. Install the GBoard keyboard for faster typing
#16. Switch to Google Photos
Install These Apps for Productivity
#17. Use Evernote for all note taking, to-do lists, everything
#18. The Case for Calm as your go-to meditation app
#19. Install the right goal tracker for you
#20. Store all your passwords in a password manager, probably LastPass
#21. Use Numerical as your default calculator
#22. Put the Camera app in your toolbar
#23. Use this Doppler Radar app
#24. Use this Pomodoro app
#25. Use Brain.fm for background noise
Use These Apps and Configurations for Deep Learning
#26. Subscribe to these podcasts
#27. Install the Kindle app but never read it in bed
#28. Use Safari this way
#29. Organize your home screen for deep learning over shallow learning
Use These Apps and Configurations for Longevity
#30. Track steps this way
#31. Prefer Time Restricted Eating Over Calorie Counting
#32. Schedule Night Shift
#33. Set up Medical ID
Make The Finishing Touches with These Configurations
#34. Change Siri to a man
#35. Change your phone’s name
#36. Turn off advertising tracking
#37. Set auto-lock to the maximum time
#38. Set your personal hotspot password to a three word phrase
#39. Turn on control center everywhere
#40. Turn on Background App Refresh
#41. Delete Garage Band
#42. Develop verbal memory for talking to Siri
#43. Set up these text replacement shortcuts
#44. Set your address
#45. Backup this way
Appendix A: Principles
Appendix B: Budget & Costs
Appendix C: Case Study
Appendix D: Updates
A terrifically long post about improving one’s productivity (on many levels), but primarily focused on one’s mobile experience.

👓 A year in reading: letting the pile grow | Flashing Palely in the Margins

Read A year in reading: letting the pile grow by    (inthemargins.ca)
My year in reading has been marked by reflection on who I am and who I aspire to be, but mostly, it has been marked by a realization that I am okay, that even though I can be better, it's also okay to be who I am.