read | Chris Aldrich

👓 Wavelength for Micro.blog | Manton.org

Read Wavelength for Micro.blog by Manton Reece (manton.org)

We have something really big to announce today. Micro.blog now supports hosting short-form podcasts, also known as microcasts, with a companion iPhone app called Wavelength for recording, editing, and publishing episodes.

Micro.blog is about making short-form content you own as simple to post as a tweet because we believe blogging should be easier. Podcasting should be easier too.

Wavelength looks like a cool new app in the podcasting space. While meant for growing category of microcasts, it portends some interesting things. I suspect this is just the start for something that will likely continue getting better over time.

Congrats Manton!

👓 Export your Facebook posts to WordPress | Chris Finke

Read Export your Facebook posts to WordPress by Christopher Finke (chrisfinke.com)

I’m a big proponent of owning the data that you create. I use WordPress (of course) wherever I blog, and I use the Keyring Social Importers plugin to make backup copies of my Twitter updates and Foursquare checkins. And as of today, I am also syncing my Facebook updates back to a private WordPress blog using Keyring Social Importers. Not familiar with Keyring Social Importers? That’s too bad, it’s amazing. Install it, and within minutes, you can be importing data from any one of a dozen sites to your blog. Remember all of that data you put into Myspace/Jaiku/Bebo/Pownce and how it disappeared when the site shut down? Wouldn’t it have been nice to be able to save a copy of all of that? That’s what Keyring Social Importers makes possible.

I was kind of hoping for something slightly different when I searched for something and found this, but it is interesting for those who don’t know about Keyring Social Importers and it had an interesting comments section.

I was looking for something in the range of a bulk Facebook Importer to exit Facebook altogether whereas this solution keeps you addicted to it. I would classify it more of a PESOS solution than a POSSE solution.

🎧 This Week in Google 452 The Mormon Bartender Problem | TWiT.TV

Listened to This Week in Google 452 The Mormon Bartender Problem | TWiT.TV by Leo Laporte, Stacey Higginbotham, Mike Elgan, Kevin Marks from TWiT.tv

Mr. Zuck Goes to Washington
Hosted by Leo Laporte, Stacey Higginbotham
Guests: Mike Elgan, Kevin Marks

Mark Zuckerberg answers Congress' questions. Is YouTube for kids? Google Photos automatically generates cat videos. Alexa for Business. Questionable fireplace placement.

Kevin's Stuff: indieweb.org

Stacey's Things: Nest Hello and Are We Already Living in Virtual Reality?

Mike's Joint: Taskade

The discussion about the Facebook hearings in congress makes me feel a tad better, but still they’re very unsettling, and they’re on a relatively simple and easy topic.

👓 Site Building with WordPress and Elementor | Throw Out The Manual

Read Site Building with WordPress and Elementor by Tim Owens (Throw Out The Manual)

One of the biggest challenges for folks new to building a website with WordPress is that it feels very much like writing/blogging software out of the box. Yes, you can create pages, but as soon as you want to structure information in columns or do anything more complex than images and text you will quickly find you need to find a theme or a handful of plugins to get the job done (and if you don't know what you don't know, that's a huge hurdle). "Site Builder" plugins are becoming more and more popular and you even see more themes integrating them into their frameworks these days. Some are pretty good, some suck really badly. One I really like and wanted to demonstrate as a way to quickly get up and running with a WordPress site is Elementor which is both free (there's a Pro version that has more features I'll discuss in a bit) and incredibly user-friendly with a lot of great options.

While I know more than the average WordPress bear, I’ve never really seen the value of any of these site builders myself.

I am curious how some of these site builders will do with the upcoming release of Gutenberg, however.

👓 Someone Photoshopped Mark Zuckerberg as Data from ‘Star Trek’ and it’s incredible | Mashable

Read Someone Photoshopped Mark Zuckerberg as Data from 'Star Trek' and it's incredible by Brian Koerber (Mashable)

Wow.

This photo is just too awesome for words. It almost makes up for the pitiful excuse for what these hearings actually represented. I’m hoping that they’re more politics than actual substance at the end of the day. The hearings are another great example of how completely disconnected our representation is to the actual world in which we live. The saddest part is that Mr. Data actually has some pre-programmed in morality while it seems that Zuckerberg doesn’t even have a shred.

👓 Fed up with Facebook, activists find new ways to defend their movements | Tech Crunch

Read Fed up with Facebook, activists find new ways to defend their movements (TechCrunch)

Malkia Cyril Contributor Share on Twitter Malkia Cyril is founder and executive director of the Center for Media Justice (CMJ) and co-founder of the Media Action Grassroots Network. More posts by this contributor The benefits of police body cams are a myth In the wake of revelations that the person…

🎧 ‘The Daily’: Trump’s Personal Lawyer Under Scrutiny | The New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: Trump’s Personal Lawyer Under Scrutiny by Michael Barbaro from nytimes.com

The F.B.I. has raided the home of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen — the same man who acknowledged paying $130,000 to a pornographic film actress who said she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.

What are investigators looking for?

On today’s episode:

• Matt Apuzzo, who covers law enforcement for The New York Times.

Background reading:

• The F.B.I. raid against President Trump’s longtime personal lawyeropens a new front for the Justice Department in its scrutiny of Mr. Trump and his associates.

• Mr. Trump angrily denounced the raids as “disgraceful” and “an attack on our country.” Read an annotated transcript of his remarks.

It kills me that we don’t have the morality and common sense people had in the 1990’s even. Thank goodness there are some solid institutions in the country left to handle these things.

🎧 ‘The Daily’: A ‘Big Price to Pay’ in Syria | The New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: A ‘Big Price to Pay’ in Syria by Michael Barbaro from nytimes.com

After a suspected chemical attack in Syria, President Trump said Iran and Russia were responsible for backing “Animal Assad.” But Damascus may view the United States as being focused on a different fight.

President Trump has warned that there will be a “big price to pay” after yet another suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria.

But the suspicion that Syria continues to use those weapons suggests it views the United States as being focused on a different fight.

On today’s episode:

• Ben Hubbard, who covers the Middle East for The New York Times.

Background reading:

• Dozens suffocated in Syria after a reported chemical attack on a rebel-held suburb of Damascus.

• Trump sought a way out of Syria, but the latest attack is pulling him back in.

• There have been similar deadly assaults for years, including one in 2013 that killed more than 1,400.

Listening to this a few days on it sounds more like Trump has even more bluster than Obama, but he’s doing roughly the same thing. Yet again, small countries that should know far better are continuing to trod on their own people. Sadly, America is doing it to, just with far more sophisticated weapons. If we can’t figure out the right and wrong at the big obvious scale, how can we have proper morality at the smaller and more subtle scales?

🎧 ‘The Daily’: Taking Over Local News | The New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: Taking Over Local News by Michael Barbaro from nytimes.com

On local TV stations across the United States, news anchors have been delivering the exact same message to their viewers. “Our greatest responsibility,” they begin by saying, “is to serve our communities.”

But what they are being forced to say next has left many questioning whom those stations are really being asked to serve.

On today’s episode:

• Sydney Ember, a New York Times business reporter who covers print and digital media.

• Aaron Weiss, who worked several years ago as a news director for Sinclair in Sioux City, Iowa.

Background reading:

• Anchors at local news stations across the country made identical comments about media bias. The script came from their owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group.

• David D. Smith, the chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, said his stations were no different from network news outlets.

• The largest owner of local TV stations, Sinclair has a history of supporting Republican causes.

🎧 ‘The Daily’: From Fox to Twitter to the National Guard | The New York Times

Listened to Listen to ‘The Daily’: From Fox to Twitter to the National Guard by Michael Barbaro from nytimes.com

It started with a report on Fox News, and ended with calls for troops at the border with Mexico. We look at how President Trump’s approach to immigration transformed over 72 hours.

We look at how President Trump’s approach to immigration transformed over just 72 hours.

On today’s episode:

• Julie Hirschfeld Davis, who covers the White House for The New York Times.

Background reading:

• President Trump said on Tuesday that he planned to deploy the National Guard to the border with Mexico to confront what the White House calls the growing threat posed by illegal immigrants and crime.

• Three days of presidential tweets contained many false and misleading accusations. Here’s a fact-check.

Another data point in the story that we have a System 1 only President who completely lacks any System 2 capabilities.

👓 All my Instagrams are MINE | Spitot Design

Read All my Instagrams are MINE by Bryan Hoffman (Spigot Design)

There was a time in the early days of social media that I signed up for every service that came out. The username @spigot is mine across most services you can find. By the time Instagram started, I’d started to grow weary and standoffish to new services. I’m sure you know what I mean. So I held ...

🎧 This Week in the IndieWeb Audio Edition • March 31st – April 6th, 2018 | Marty McGuire

Listened to This Week in the IndieWeb Audio Edition • March 31st - April 6th, 2018 by Marty McGuire from martymcgui.re

IndieWeb for Drupal, IndieWeb for Businesses, and Foodspotting going under. It’s the audio edition for This Week in the IndieWeb for March 31st - April 6th, 2018.