Maha Bali (Reflecting Allowed)Multi-USB/Plug power hub Power strip/hub that I use when I need to work outside the house I have a personal experience that I think can be used as a metaphor for privilege and power, but I need to brush up on my reading on power. All I remember from readings back during my PhD, was there are multipl...
What's been happening in the IndieWeb community May 14-21, 2021
First and foremost, I want to thank the hard working staff for keeping freenode running during these challenging times. Without you, this wouldn't be possible.
From the release of the page experience algorithm, there is no longer any preferential treatment for AMP in Google’s search results, Top Stories carousel and the Google News.
Everyone has a bone to pick with existing social networks. There are plenty of legitimate concerns, but the fact is that social media has also been incredibly valuable for many people. If your business depends in large part on connecting with others or engaging with an audience, it’s hard to simpl...
Improvements Update Electron to v12.0.6.
Shiny new things Command palette can now be configured to have “pinned” commands that appear at the top. Obsidian Publish now has a search filter in the upload dialog. Improvements Obsidian Sync no longer runs into a possible race condition which sometimes causes file to be recognized as deleted. This has only been observed happening on Obsidian Mobile so far. Vastly improved Obsidian Sync boot up speed. It will now also avoid re-scans of attachments when they haven’t been changed. Obsidian S...
Improvements On initial loading of the vault, the cache indexing notification will now contain the indexing progress. Improvements to the font size adjustment annoyance: Ctrl+Scroll now only activates if you hold Ctrl before starting to scroll. This option can also now be disabled in Settings > Appearance. No longer broken Obsidian Sync: setting custom device names now persists properly. Obsidian Sync: viewing version history of images and other media files no longer freeze the app trying...
Shiny new things You can now search for tasks using task: similar to block:. There is also task-todo: and task-done: which will match only the tasks that are incomplete or complete, respectively. Use task:"" to match all tasks. Search and backlink results has been significantly reworked: Search results are now always expanded, instead of showing “… and x more matches”. “Show more context” will now show the markdown block, instead of a fixed number of lines before and after the match. There are...
Task lists [x] can now contain any character to indicate a completed task, instead of just x. This value can be used by custom CSS to change the appearance of the check mark, and is also available for plugins to use.❧
I’ll need to create some custom CSS for these in the past as I’ve used:
* - [>] to indicate that an item was pushed forward
* - [?] to indicate something I’m not sure was done in retrospect (typically for a particular day)
* - [~] to indicate something that didn’t occur, but is “done” anyway
* others?
Annotated on May 20, 2021 at 01:00PM
You can now search for tasks using task: similar to
block:. There is alsotask-todo:andtask-done:which will match only the tasks that are incomplete or complete, respectively. Usetask:""to match all tasks.❧
This will be incredibly useful to create as a view.
Annotated on May 20, 2021 at 01:03PM
Andrew Lee (realrasengan) (Gist)Hey Andrew. I’ve now been able to speak to Christel about your lawyer's letter and to get legal advice on it. I should say that the reason for taking legal advice was not because I want to have a dispute with you, but because I simply did not know what to do when I got your letter – I have no experience with these things personally, having never received anything like a lawyer’s letter before.
A previous copy of this was a draft. This one isn't - its the real thing. Some time ago, Christel, the former head of freenode staff sold `freenode ltd` (a holding company) to a third party, Andrew Lee[1], under terms that were not disclosed to the staff body. It turns out that this contract did indeed intend to sell the entire network and it's holdings, a fact hidden from the of staff. Mr Lee at the time had promised to never exercise any operational control over freenode. In the past few weeks, we began to realise this had changed[2][3], and Mr Lee has sought to assert total legal control over the network, including user data. Despite our best efforts, the legal advice the freenode staff has obtained is that the contract signed by the previous head of staff cannot be fought with a reasonable likelyhood of success. As a result, Mr Lee will shortly have operational control over the freenode IRC network. I cannot stand by such a (hostile[4]) takeover of the freenode network, and I am resigning along with most other freenode staff. We know that many of our users and communities also do not want this, as you have made clear directly to Mr Lee in #freenode and through letters[5].
Posted on Freenode Limited on the morning of May 12, 2021 US PST: ❧
For context, here’s the other side: https://gist.github.com/joepie91/df80d8d36cd9d1bde46ba018af497409
Annotated on May 20, 2021 at 09:12AM
I simply want freenode to keep on being a great IRC network, and to support it financially and legally as I have for a long time now. ❧
Simply?
What’s the long term plan/goal here in owning and controlling it? If it’ out of the goodness of your heart, why not set up a foundation and donate the money to that? Why need/have corporate ownership or control unless there’s some other motivation?
Annotated on May 20, 2021 at 09:11AM
Jim Groom (bavatuesdays.com)It’s the day before OERxDomains21 and I am blogging, that’s a good sign, I think….regardless, it’s happening! And, given I still have a blog, I have the distinct pleasure to share with you my favorite part of the conference thus far—the TV Guide -inspired program.
to re-phrase a famous line from Zach Davis, “Behind every EDUPUNK is a frazzled web developer.” ❧
Annotated on April 20, 2021 at 11:17AM
Dan Allosso (History4Today.com)I got a note from the senior executive editor at Yale, who has been my main contact throughout the process of getting my book published. Peppermint Kings has not been flying out of the warehouse so…
These days the idea of bestseller means selling in the range of 10,000 books. The average book released these days sells only 250 copies, so if you’re over that, you’re doing well.
It’s also incredibly uncommon for any publishers to put any serious money behind promoting their titles unless PR opportunities are falling off the trees for them. (This means that unless you’ve been selling a million copies of everything you write, they probably don’t care.) Many publishers will assign you a pro-forma publicist to help when they can, but don’t expect much from them. Most publishers will tell you to hire your own book publicist (usually for about $1,500-3,000 a month).
My guess is that the first run of your book was probably 1,000 to 2,000 books, which will bring the cost of raw printing down to $2 a copy. If you need copies of your book and they’re remaindering them, you might offer the publisher $1-2 a copy plus shipping to get 50 or 100 copies for yourself for hand sales over the next decade (for speaking engagements, etc.) or selling a few copies from your own stash on platforms like Amazon, Abebooks, Alibris, etc. The cost of keeping a book in print these days is usually around $12 a year and then they print them on demand.
Some of the methods you mentioned, talks, online readings, etc. can be useful marketing for both you and your book(s). Look around your local community/state for book events, fairs, bookstores that invite authors, etc to supplement this.
Depending on your next title, it might be worth hiring a publicist if you’re going the route of a text accessible to a broader public.Often this can be a reasonable risk but getting copies into reviewers’ hands can be helpful, as can radio or print appearances. Another option is to pay for adds in appropriate print magazine outlets related to your material.
It’s an uphill slog, but getting a publisher to take most of the risk and offering you all the free amenities of editing, proofreading, typesetting and distribution can be worth it in the end to get your material out.
When choosing your next publisher/editor, have a bit of this conversation with them at the outset to see what expectations they have for themselves. Don’t tip your hand though by letting them know prior sales numbers.
Since you’ve got your own website/newsletter/social media presence, you should also look into affiliate accounts with the bigger online platforms. Chances are you’re actually selling most of your own copies, you may as well get a 4% or larger cut of the referrals you’re giving. Your link on this page alone could give you a reasonable little return on top of the boilerplate 7% you’re probably getting from the publisher.
Michael Mignano (Medium)In the coming months and years, we’ll be working to further enable choice for creators, including giving them the power to choose not only how someone wants to create or monetize audio, but also where specific content is able to be consumed, ensuring creators have an opportunity to decide if they are aligned with the platforms distributing their content.
The open RSS standard has provided immense value to the growth of the podcasting ecosystem over the past few decades. ❧
Why do I get the sinking feeling that the remainder of this article will be maniacally saying, “and all of that ends today!”
Annotated on April 19, 2021 at 09:34AM
We also believe that in order to democratize audio and achieve Spotify’s mission of enabling a million creators to live off of their art, we must work to enable greater choice for creators. This choice becomes increasingly important as audio becomes even easier to create and share. ❧
Dear Anchor/Spotify, please remember that “democratize” DOES NOT equal surveillance capitalism. In fact, Facebook and others have shown that doing what you’re probably currently planning for the podcasting space will most likely work against democracy.
Annotated on April 19, 2021 at 09:13AM
In the coming months and years, we’ll be working to further enable choice for creators, including giving them the power to choose not only how someone wants to create or monetize audio, but also where specific content is able to be consumed, ensuring creators have an opportunity to decide if they are aligned with the platforms distributing their content. ❧
So this means you’re going to use simple, open standards and tooling so that not only Anchor and Spotify will benefit?
Or are you going to build closed systems that require the use of proprietary software and thus force subscriptions?
Are you going to Balkanize the audio space to force consumers into your product and only your product? Or will producers be able to have a broad selection of platforms to which they could easily export and distribute their content?
Annotated on April 19, 2021 at 08:57AM
Thus, the creative freedom of creators is limited. ❧
And thus draconian methods for making the distribution unnecessarily complicated, siloed, surveillance capitalized, and over-monitized beyond all comprehension are beyond the reach of one or two for profit companies who want to own the entire market like monopolistic giants are similarly limited. (But let’s just stick with the creators we’re pretending to champion, shall we?)
Annotated on April 19, 2021 at 09:07AM
tl;dr: Anchor: We’re doing this not so much because creators say they want it, but because we really, really want it. P.S.: We don’t care at all what our listeners think, and so have nothing to say about their freedom.
