read | Chris Aldrich

👓 The Sound of Silence | Numbers Were Burning

Ron Chester (numbers-were-burning.blogspot.com)

I just got back from the SF Symphony performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. It was a most amazing experience, in a most unexpected way. I'm writing this partly as my way of reliving and duplicating what occurred, and partly to keep myself from being stuck in the win of it for the rest of time.

A stunning story here. I love the concept of not only silence being a part of the performance, but the way in which the music and the conductor come together to create the space to make it happen. Storytellers should be aware of this type of direction.

Highlights, Quotes, Annotations, & Marginalia

The speaker made the point that Mahler gives the second violins their own voice, rather than merely having them give depth or support to the first violins. Because of this, he said the conductor (Herbert Blomstedt) had decided to use a placement of the performers that was becoming common in Europe for the Ninth.
Instead of having all the violins on the left of the conductor, with the 1st violins on the outside and the 2nd violins on the inside, he was placing the 1st violins in their usual position, but the second violins would be on the right side of the conductor. This would have the effect of separating the voices so they could be more easily heard. ❧

November 29, 2018 at 11:11AM

The conductor became frozen, with his arms in the air, just as when he was conducting.
And he was still conducting! Only now he was conducting the silence! No one moved, the concert hall was completely enveloped in peace. With the conductor’s arms still up, and the violin bows still poised above the strings, no one dared to applaud. If they were wrong and it was not the end, their clapping would be a rude interruption of the music. And I’m sure that was exactly what the conductor intended! ❧

November 29, 2018 at 11:15AM

Hat tip: Turning Points by Ron Chester

👓 Turning Points | Ron Chester

Read Turning Points by

Ron Chester (ronchester.org)

I’ve noticed a good thing about growing older. You begin to get some interesting perspectives about one’s own life. For me, turning points in my life began to stand out. When you’re young, you may not have had many turning points yet, or you haven’t yet recognized they were turning points, and you’re mostly looking forward, toward the future. Now I can look back over MANY decades and I recognize important turning points.

👓 Key | The Independent Variable

Read Key (The Independent Variable)

I like how the author creates a key to their posts here. Most are obvious based on the emojis, but if they’re not more obvious are they really as broadly useful from a UI perspective? I do wish they all had links to archives of each type however.

👓 Exploring Mastodon | Bryan Alexander

Read Exploring Mastodon by Bryan Alexander (Bryan Alexander)

I decided to explore the Mastodon social network after a great deal of suggestions and gentle prodding from many people. That’s Mastodon the software, not the very fine metal band. In this post I’ll share my experiences of getting to know the thing.

I joined Mastodon about two years ago this week. I’d written a bit about it as well as bookmarked several interesting early articles that help to explain it, what it is, and what it does, which can be found here and scrolling back a few pages: https://boffosocko.com/tag/mastodon/

While Mastodon is working to remedy some of the issues that large corporate and advertising supported social sites like Facebook and Twitter have, one ought to be careful jumping into just any instance as there is little, if any, guarantee that the instance you choose will still be around tomorrow.

indieweb movement. ❧

hooray!
November 28, 2018 at 08:02PM

What was that about crowdfunding instances? How much of an instance’s conversation was visible to the outside? How much of this is Google-spidered? What are those anti-abuse tools? Why can’t governments “completely block” Mastodon (as a whole, or just instances?)? Can one join more than a single instance? ❧

Managing an instance can come with a lot of work and maintenance, so some instances are crowdfunded to help defray the costs of full time management of a particular instance.

Anti-abuse tools give users the ability to better block people as well as instances have the ability to block incoming messages from entire instances. Thus an instance that serves as a haven for Nazis could be completely blocked by one or more other instances which prevent their users from seeing any content from all users on an instance that is a “bad actor.” One of the common anti-abuse tools is the CW or content warning functionality, which some instances mandate, which can be used to hide spoilers or controversial content. (As an example, some instances require content warnings on political related posts.)

Governments could block instances based on their IP addresses, but would have to do some work to block all instances (primarily by knowing where they all are).

One can join as many instances as they’d like, but it would likely become confusing after a while. Ideally one should be able to join just one instance and be able to follow or be followed by anyone from any other instance. Some communities have particular sets of rules they expect their users to abide by. Some may be centered on particular topics of discussion as well. Some instances are individually run and have only one user.
November 28, 2018 at 08:11PM

Is stability a problem in the Fediverse? ❧

Stability is typically an issue based on who is running the instance and what sort of server they’re doing it on. Is it fast or slow? Does it have 3 people or 300,000? Naturally the larger the instance, the more resources it requires. Some instances have popped up and shut themselves down because the maintainer was doing it as a hobby and just got tired of it. Often there isn’t much information about who is running the server and how long it may or may not be around or how well it’s maintained.
November 28, 2018 at 08:16PM

No other options presented themselves on the page ❧

This website has some reasonable set up for helping one determine an appropriate instance:
https://instances.social/
November 28, 2018 at 08:19PM

other routes in. ❧

http://www.unmung.com/mastoview will show content from random instances to give one an idea about the content within a particular instance before joining.

Most instances will have some general information about themselves. Usually the more thought out they are, the more likely they will be around for a while. Here’s an example of the instance maintained by the creator of the original platform, which is also one of the largest and most popular instances out there: https://mastodon.social/about/more
November 28, 2018 at 08:24PM

Any pointers or experiences to share? ❧

There are a couple of WordPress plugins for Mastodon that allow you to syndicate your content from your own website into your instance. You might find that somewhat useful.

The IndieWeb wiki has some generally useful information as well as some criticisms and related articles which might be helpful: https://indieweb.org/Mastodon

Mastodon runs on the Activity Pub specification for sending messages back and forth. As a result some people are looking into having their personal websites support these protocols so that people on Mastodon (or other parts of the Fediverse) can subscribe to one’s primary website. If you can do this then you don’t necessarily need “yet another social platform” for interacting with those online. The two biggest of these efforts within the WordPress community are Fed Bridgy and the Activity Pub plugin
November 28, 2018 at 08:50PM

👓 My book, Twitter and Tear Gas, is out! News and Details! | Zeynep Tufekci

Read My book, Twitter and Tear Gas, is out! News and Details! by Zeynep Tufekci (technosociology)

Dear Friends, My book, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, is officially out today, as of May 16th! It is published by Yale University Press, and it weaves stories w…

Some news: there will be a free creative commons copy of my book. It will be available as a free PDF download in addition to being sold as a bound book. This is with the hopes that anyone who wants to read it can do so without worrying about the cost. However, this also means that I need to ask that a few people who can afford to do so to please consider purchasing a copy. This is not just so that Yale University Press can do this for more authors, but also because if it is not sold (at least a little bit!) in the initial few weeks, bookstores will not stock it and online algorithms will show it to fewer people. No sales will mean less visibility, and less incentive for publishers to allow other authors creative commons copies. ❧

I negotiated the creative commons copy with my (wonderful!) publisher Yale University Press because I really wanted to do what I could to share my insights as broadly as I could about social movements and the networked public sphere. If I make a penny more from this book because it sells well by some miracle, I will donate every extra penny to groups supporting refugees, and if I ever meet you in person and you purchased a copy of the book in support, please let me know and I’ll buy the coffee or beer. 😀 This isn’t at all about money for me.

An excellent example of academic samizdat
November 28, 2018 at 11:24AM

🎧 ‘The Daily’: Letting Louis C.K. Back Onstage | New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: Letting Louis C.K. Back Onstage from New York Times

Nine months after admitting to sexual misconduct with multiple women, Louis C.K. dropped into a New York City comedy club unannounced and tried to make a comeback. And then he returned, again and again. We talk to the club owner who gave him that stage.

An interesting story that brings up an important philosophical question. It’s one thing for phenomenally rich people who could otherwise have retired and disappeared, but how this plays out will also inform how it will affect other lesser famous people going forward as well.

🎧 ‘The Daily’: Diplomacy and Deception From North Korea | New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: Diplomacy and Deception From North Korea from New York Times

President Trump says the nuclear threat from North Korea is over. But new satellite images of hidden missile bases suggest that the situation has only worsened since his meeting with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader.

🎧 ‘The Daily’: What Facebook Knew and Tried to Hide | New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: What Facebook Knew and Tried to Hide from New York Times

The story of Facebook in the past few years has been that of a company slow to understand how powerful it has become. But an investigation by The New York Times finds that once Facebook’s leaders understood the problems they faced, they sought to conceal them.