read | Chris Aldrich

Read Trying out Micro.blog by Jeremy Felt (jeremyfelt.com)

Services like Micro.blog should spend more time telling everyone about features like “oh, by the way, we have a dedicated discovery page for posts about pizza“. That kind of pitch and I would have signed up for an account 2 years ago. Here I am discovering new things though. I got here beca...

Micro.blog is indeed doing some great things.

I feel so nostalgic for Posterous after reading this. It was a nice little platform.

Read How I did a Twitter giveaway, got 10K+ new followers and discovered you can hack most giveaways to win them (levels.io)

It was almost New Year's Eve and I wanted to do something special on Twitter. I had 69,800 followers and because I admittedly am an imperfect and superficial human addicted to vanity metrics, I wanted to get to 70,000 followers before midnight and it becoming 2020. To celebrate

My friend Marc again to the rescue. He suggested that since there was 10,000+ people RT’ing and following, I could just pick a random follower from my current total follower list (78,000 at this point), then go to their profile to check if they RT’d it and see. If they didn’t, get another random follower and repeat, until you find someone. With 78,000 followers this should take about ~8 tries. ❧

Technically he said it would be random among those who retweeted, but he’s chosen a much smaller subset of people who are BOTH following him and who retweeted it. Oops!
Annotated on January 13, 2020 at 01:10PM

So, based on your write up it sounds like you’re saying that if one retweeted, but wasn’t following you, one had no chance of winning. This means a few thousand people still got lost in the shuffle. Keep in mind that some states have laws regarding lotteries, giveaways, games like this. Hopefully they don’t apply to you or your jurisdiction.

Read Converting Webmentions to Push Notifications by

Jamie Tanna (jvt.me)

Automagically sending push notifications to my mobile phone when I receive a Webmention.

I hadn’t thought about it before, but this seems like a nice real-time feature. Since I have an RSS feed for comments on my website, I’ve just thrown that into IFTTT with workflow that takes new feed items and then sends me a Pushbullet notification.

Listened to Hurtling Toward Catastrophe from On the Media | WNYC Studios

After the US military assassinated an Iranian military general, war propaganda kicked into overdrive. On this week’s On the Media, how news consumers can cut through the misleading claims and dangerous frames. Plus, how Generation Z is interpreting the geopolitical crisis through memes. And, how apocalyptic thinking is a near-constant through history.

1. Nathan Robinson [@NathanJRobinson], editor of Current Affairs, on the most suspect tropes in war coverage. Listen.

2. Lee Fang [@lhfang], investigative journalist at The Intercept, on the pundits with unacknowledged conflicts of interest. Listen.

3. Ian Bogost [@ibogost], contributing writer at The Atlantic, on #WorldWar3 memes. Listen.

4. Dan Carlin [@HardcoreHistory], host of "Hardcore History," on apocalyptic moments throughout human history. Listen.

Brooke Gladstone speaking with Ian Bogost [@ibogost], contributing writer at The Atlantic, on #WorldWar3 memes:

34:29 IB: That’s the pattern that we will see recur. Not necessarily with respect to warfare. But whatever the next thing is. And there certainly will be a next thing.
34:37 BG: You wrote that the end of the world could be a “dark but deviously appealing fantasy”, and you were talking about your own experience as a GenX-er during the cold war. What seems soothing about the apocalypse back then?
34:54 IB: The idea that you live at the end of history is incredibly comforting. Even if you don’t know everything that happened in the past. There will be none who follow you. You’ve seen it all either personally or historically. You haven’t missed anything in the project that is human kind.
35:12 BG: That’s FOMO taken to the n-degree, isn’t it?
35:15 IB: Right, I mean the fear of annihilation is a particularly piquant version of the fear of death. It’s about not seeing what comes next for your progeny–for humanity at large. It makes sense to me that there would be some comfort even if it’s a perverse comfort in everyone being together at the end.

Sounds exactly like the same sort of historical apocalyptic “Repent now for the end is at hand” sort of philosophy that a 30 year old Jesus was espousing two millennia ago. And look what happened to that idea.

Makes me wonder who the Paul of ~~Tarsus~~ TikTok is going to be for the next two millennia?

Read Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories. (nytimes.com)

We analyzed some of the most popular social studies textbooks used in California and Texas. Here’s how political divides shape what students learn about the nation’s history.

📑 Highlights and Annotations

Conservatives have fought for schools to promote patriotism, highlight the influence of Christianity and celebrate the founding fathers. In a September speech, President Trump warned against a “radical left” that wants to “erase American history, crush religious liberty, indoctrinate our students with left-wing ideology.” ❧

I can’t help but think here about a recent “On The Media” episode A Civilization As Great As Ours which highlighted changes in how history is taught in India. This issue obviously isn’t just relegated to populist India.
Annotated on January 12, 2020 at 11:22AM

Pearson, the publisher whose Texas textbook raises questions about the quality of Harlem Renaissance literature, said such language “adds more depth and nuance.” ❧

If they wanted to add more “depth and nuance” wouldn’t they actually go into greater depth on the topic by adding pages instead of subtly painting it such a discouraging light?

But Texas students will read that some critics “dismissed the quality of literature produced.”

Annotated on January 12, 2020 at 11:27AM

Publishers are eager to please state policymakers of both parties, during a challenging time for the business. Schools are transitioning to digital materials. And with the ease of internet research, many teachers say they prefer to curate their own primary-source materials online. ❧

Here’s where OER textbooks might help to make some change. If free materials with less input from politicians and more input from educators were available. But then this pushes the onus down to a different level with different political aspirations. I have to think that taking the politicization of these decisions at a state level would have to help.
Annotated on January 12, 2020 at 11:30AM

How Textbooks are Produced

Authors, often academics, write a national version of each text.

Publishers customize the books for states and large districts to meet local standards, often without input from the original authors.

State or district textbook reviewers go over each book and ask publishers for further changes.

Publishers revise their books and sell them to districts and schools. ❧

This is an abominable process for history textbooks to be produced, particularly at mass scale. I get the need for broad standards, but for textbook companies to revise their books without the original authors is atrocious. Here again, individual teachers and schools should be able to pick their own texts if they’re not going to–ideally–allow their students to pick their own books.
Annotated on January 12, 2020 at 11:33AM

“The textbook companies are not gearing their textbooks toward teachers; they’re gearing their textbooks toward states,” she said. ❧

And even at this they should be gearing them honestly and truthfully toward the students.
Annotated on January 12, 2020 at 11:39AM

Listened to The Weinstein Trial Begins from On the Media | WNYC Studios

As Harvey Weinstein faces trial, we discuss the essential role of gossip and whisper networks in protecting the vulnerable and spreading news that threaten the powerful.

In New York this week, jury selection began in the trial of former Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein. News of his alleged sexual predations launched the #MeToo movement in October 2017, through investigative reporting from both The New York Times and The New Yorker. Even as he prepares to stand trial in New York, sexual assault charges were filed against him in Los Angeles. To date, over eighty women in the film industry have accused him of rape and sexual assault and abuse. Weinstein claims they were all consensual acts.

The reporting has been groundbreaking in its detail, laying out the allegations for the public. But in Hollywood, Weinstein’s abuses already were an open secret. In 2017, Brooke spoke with Buzzfeed senior culture writer Anne Helen Petersen about the essential role of gossip and whisper networks in protecting the vulnerable and spreading news that threatens the powerful.

Read Microblogging by Benjamin Esham (https://esham.io)

Why bother posting on my own site?

I read this a while back, but it popped up on my radar again. Solid.