read | Chris Aldrich

👓 Walt Mossberg, Veteran Technology Journalist, Quits Facebook | The New York Times

Read Walt Mossberg, Veteran Technology Journalist, Quits Facebook by Daniel Victor (New York Times)

Mr. Mossberg has spent decades chronicling the privacy implications of Facebook’s policies. On Monday, he opted out.

Walt Mossberg is far from alone in giving up on Facebook. But as a leading technology journalist who has spent decades chronicling the impact of Silicon Valley’s policies, his exit from the social network speaks louder than most.

This is a HUGE silo quit! There are few who watch the technology sector so closely as Walt Mossberg has for the past several decades.

Since it will be gone soon, I’ve archived a copy of his Facebook post.

🎧 This Week in Google 481 Stoned on Cheese | TWIG.tv

Listened to This Week in Google 481 Stoned on Cheese by Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Stacey Higginbotham from TWiT.tv

Foldable Phone, Online Civility

The Samsung Developers Conference Keynote features a foldable phone, SmartThings IoT, and Bixby innovations.

Android will support foldable phones.

Google employees stage a walkout over sexual harassment

Tim Berners-Lee's Contract for the Web

How to encourage civility online

YouTube Content ID

Facebook and "White Genocide"

Young people are deleting Facebook in droves

Facebook's holiday pop-up store

Everybody gets free Amazon shipping

Amazon's new HQ2(s)

8 new Chromebook features

Google Home Hub teams up with Sephora

Ajit Pai's FCC is hopping mad about robocalls

Picks of the Week

Jeff's Number: Black Friday home tech deals

Stacey's Thing: Extinct cables, Alexa Christmas Lights

Leo Laporte doesn’t talk about it directly within an IndieWeb specific framework, but he’s got an interesting discussion about YouTube Content ID that touches on the ideas of Journalism and IndieWeb and particularly as they relate to video, streaming video, and YouTube Live.

While most people are forced to rely on Google as their silo of choice for video and specifically live streaming video, he points out a painful single point of failure in their system with regard to copyright rules and Google’s automatic filters that could get a user/content creator permanently banned. Worse, as Leo indicates, this ban could also extend to related Google accounts (YouTube, Gmail, etc.) One is thus open to potential chilling effects of intimidation, censorship, and deplatforming.

Leo discusses the fact that he’s not as beholden to YouTube because he streams and hosts all of his content on his own website and only utilizes silos like YouTube as ancillary distribution. In IndieWeb parlance what he does is known as POSSE or Post to your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere and this prevents his journalism, commentary, and even his business from being ravaged by the whims of corporate entities whose rules he can’t control directly.

The discussion starts at 1:05:11 into the episode and goes for about 10 minutes for those who are interested in this particular sub-topic.

This idea also impinges on Cal Newport’s recent article Is YouTube Fundamental or Trivial? which I read the other day.

🎧 Episode 085 How Networks Learn An Interview with Cesar Hidalgo | Human Current

Listened to Episode 085 How Networks Learn An Interview with Cesar Hidalgo by

Haley Campbell-Gross from HumanCurrent

In this episode, Haley talks with physicist, complexity scientist, and MIT professor, Cesar Hidalgo. Hidalgo discusses his interest in the physics of networks and complex system science and shares why he believes these fields are so important. He talks about his book, Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies, which takes a scientific look at global economic complexity. Hidalgo also shares how economic development is linked to making networks more knowledgeable.

Quotes from this episode:

“Thinking about complexity is important because people have a tendency to jump into micro explanations for macro phenomenon.” — Cesar Hidalgo

“I think complex systems give you not only some practical tools to think about the world, but also some sort of humbleness because you have to understand that your knowledge and understanding of how the systems work is always very limited and that humbleness gives you a different attitude and perspective and gives you some peace.” — Cesar Hidalgo

“The way that we think about entropy in physics and information theory come from different traditions and sometimes that causes a little bit of confusion, but at the end of the day it’s the number of different ways in which you can arrange something.” — Cesar Hidalgo

“To learn more complex activities you need more social reinforcement.” — Cesar Hidalgo

“When we lead groups we have to be clear about the goals and the main goal to keep in mind is that of learning.” — Cesar Hidalgo

“Everybody fails, but not everyone learns from their failures.” — Cesar Hidalgo

“Learning is not just something that is interesting to study, it is actually a goal.” — Cesar Hidalgo

A solid interview here with Cesar Hidalgo. His book has been incredibly influential on my thoughts for the past two years, so I obviously highly recommend it. He’s got a great description of entropy here. I was most surprised by his conversation about loneliness, but I have a gut feeling that’s he’s really caught onto something with his thesis.

I also appreciated about some of how he expanded on learning in the last portion of the interview. Definitely worth revisiting.

👓 Beyond #DeleteFacebook: More Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media | Cal Newport

Read Beyond #DeleteFacebook: More Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media by Cal Newport (Study Hacks)

Last week, I wrote a blog post emphasizing the distinction between the social internetand social media. The former describes the internet’s ability to enable connection, learning, and expression. The latter describes the attempt of a small number of large companies to monetize these capabilities inside walled-garden, monopoly platforms.

My argument is that you can embrace the social internet without having to become a “gadget” inside the algorithmic attention economy machinations of the social media conglomerates. As noted previously, I think this is the right answer for those who are fed up with the dehumanizing aspects of social media, but are reluctant to give up altogether on the potential of the internet to bring people together.