Bryan Carmody, a freelance reporter in San Francisco, awoke Friday to the sounds of someone trying to break into his house. About 10 officers from the San Francisco Police Department were bashing the front gate of his home in the Outer Richmond neighborhood with a sledgehammer, he said. It was just after 8 o’clock in the morning.
Links
👓 What Do You Do with 11,000 Blogs? Preserving, Archiving, and Maintaining UMW Blogs—A Case Study | The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy
What do you do with 11,000 blogs on a platform that is over a decade old? That is the question that the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies (DTLT) and the UMW Libraries are trying to answer. This essay outlines the challenges of maintaining a large WordPress multisite installation and offers potential solutions for preserving institutional digital history. Using a combination of data mining, personal outreach, and available web archiving tools, we show the importance of a systematic, collaborative approach to the challenges we didn’t expect to face in 2007 when UMW Blogs launched. Complicating matters is the increased awareness of digital privacy and the importance of maintaining ownership and control over one’s data online; the collaborative nature of a multisite and the life cycle of a student or even faculty member within an institution blurs the lines of who owns or controls the data found on one of these sites. The answers may seem obvious, but as each test case emerges, the situation becomes more and more complex. As an increasing number of institutions are dealing with legacy digital platforms that are housing intellectual property and scholarship, we believe that this essay will outline one potential path forward for the long-term sustainability and preservation.
Some interesting things to consider for a DoOO project in terms of longevity and archiving.
👓 I.M. Pei, Master Architect Whose Buildings Dazzled the World, Dies at 102 | The New York Times
Mr. Pei, a committed modernist, was one of the few architects equally attractive to real estate developers, corporate chieftains and art museum boards.
I had the privilege of working in an I.M. Pei office building for about two years. It wasn’t a museum, but had so much modern art on its walls and Roy Lichtenstein’s massive “Bauhaus Stairway” in the lobby that it seemed like a museum.
👓 Easy IndieWeb Login with WP-Dimension Theme | CogDogBlog
Those big time motivational speakers who talk about starting to learn with a problem you want to solve have never really accounted for serendipitous learning. Is everything as simple as problem
❤️ RepKatiePorter on @SecretaryCarson, REOs, and OREOs
Rep. Katie Porter (Twitter)I asked @SecretaryCarson about REOs - a basic term related to foreclosure - at a hearing today. He thought I was referring to a chocolate sandwich cookie. No, really. pic.twitter.com/cYekJAkRag
— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) May 21, 2019
“The best people” indeed. I’m guessing we should have asked a few more questions like “the best people” at what? Screwing up the country? Carson may have been a half-decent pediatric neurosurgeon, but he obviously doesn’t seem to know anything else about anything else.
I’ll be he follows this up with something idiotic like, “I’m a big picture guy.”
👓 Scale and Scope | Jim Luke
Jim Luke (EconProph)I’ve been saying for awhile now in discussions of the commons, OER, and higher education that a “commons doesn’t scale, it scopes”. Before I explain why I think a commons doesn’t scale very well, I probably need to briefly clarify what’s meant by scale and scope. Like many terms in economics, they’re both commonly used terms in both business and everyday life, but in economics they may carry a subtly different, more precise, or richer meaning. Both terms refer to the production of an increasing volume of output of some kind. Enthusiasts of particular good(s), be they an entrepreneur producing the a product they hope will make them rich or an open educator advocating for more open licensed textbooks because it will improve education, generally want to see their ideas scale. And by scale, they generally mean “be produced in larger and larger volumes”. Larger volume of output, of course, brings a larger volume of benefits to more users. More output –> more users –> more benefits. But it’s the behavior of costs that really intrigues us when we think of “scaling” as a way to increase output. More benefits is nice, but if more benefits also means an equal increase in costs, then it’s not so attractive.
I can see a relation to the economies of scope that Jim Luke is talking about here in relation to the IndieWeb principle of plurality. For a long time the IndieWeb community has put economies of scope first and foremost over that of scale. Scale may not necessarily solve some of the problems we’re all looking at. In fact, scale may be directly responsible for many of the problems that social has caused in our lives and society.
I’m also reminded of a post I annotated the other day:
Data sharing and how it can benefit your scientific career (Nature)
Crowther offered everyone who shared at least a certain volume of data with his forest initiative the chance to be a co-author of a study that he and a colleague led. Published in Science in 2016, the paper used more than 770,000 data points from 44 countries to determine that forests with more tree species are more productive.
I suspect a similar hypothesis holds for shared specs, code, and the broader idea of plurality within the IndieWeb. More interoperable systems makes the IndieWeb more productive.
I also can’t help but think about a reply to a tweet by Chris Messina in relation to the IndieWeb related article in this week’s The New Yorker:
I’ve been tinkering with this again lately. Basically none of it is productized and much of the code is stale and/or only works for single user setups.
So yeah – classic car at best. What does a Model T assembly line look like for IndieWeb?
— Boris Mann (@bmann) May 20, 2019
Boris is asking a problematic question not remembering early issues with the Model T, which Jim Luke reminds us of in his article:
Remember Henry Ford’s famous quote about “the customer can get [the Model T] in any color they want as long as it’s black”?
We’ve already got the Model Ts of social media–it’s called Facebook. It’s Twitter. It’s Instagram. And they’re all standardized–black– but they all require their own custom (toxic and limited) roads to be able to drive them! I can’t drive my Model Twitter in Facebookville. My Instagramobile has long since broken down in Twittertown. Wouldn’t you rather “See The U.S.A. In Your [IndieWeb] Chevrolet“?!
The answer to Boris is that the IndieWeb has been working on the scope problem first knowing that once the interoperable kinks between systems can be worked out to a reasonable level that scale will be the easy part of the problem. Obviously micro.blog has been able to productize IndieWeb principles (with several thousands of users) and still work relatively flawlessly with a huge number of other platforms. There have been tremendous strides towards shoehorning IndieWeb principles into major CMSes like WordPress (~500+ active users currently) and Drupal (~50+ active users) not to mention several dozens of others including Known, Perch, Craft CMS, Hugo, Kirby, etc., etc.
I haven’t heard aggregate numbers recently, but I would guess that the current active IndieWeb user base is somewhere north of 10,000 people and individual websites. Once the UI/UX issues have all been ironed out even a single platform like WordPress, which could easily add the individual pieces into its core product in just a few hours, would create a sea-change overnight by making more than 30% of the web which runs on it IndieWeb friendly or IndieWeb compatible.
Yes, friends, scale is the easy part. Plurality and scope are the the far more difficult problems. Just ask Zuck or Jack. Or their users products.
👓 Where’s My XYZ Post? | Kicks Condor
Hey, Jack—just want you to know that your post showed up on Indieweb.xyz… but it showed up as a reply to the link on BoffoSocko. Here’s where it ended up.
I had wondered myself where his post went. Good to know the subtleties of the UI of the system.
👓 The “Free” Model | Geek&Poke
See David Dalka's post "Dear Facebook, Please Return Our Social Networking Space". Tweet
This is an awesome cartoon.
I’m reminded a bit of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s concept of the Thanksgiving Turkey in The Black Swan.
👓 Why novelist Mark Haddon lost faith in Twitter | Financial Times
The platform brought the writer closer to readers — but at a cost. Here he explains why he stepped back
👓 Wrap-Up and Coverage for Düsseldorf 2019 | beyond tellerrand
Where do I start? I mean, I run this event for nearly ten years now. Every time you think ”That’s it. It can’t get any better” and then you end the show and read, listen to and see all this wonderful and nice feedback. Wow, just incredible and fills me with a very warm and lovely feeling. Surely I am feeling exhausted. Empty. Tired. But the positive energy predominates. Energy that comes from people saying that they met many new friends, had exciting conversations and that my little event might have changed their life, or, at least, how they look at their day to day jobs and how they work. When I started beyond tellerrand, I never would have thought, that my event would have an impact for anyone. Honestly. I wanted to create a friendly and inspiring event, where people would feel welcome and spend two days with nice people. Two days, where they maybe could escape the daily routines and hectic. Two days, where phones and/or laptops mostly stay in their pockets and bags. Well, and now? I honestly feel like in a dream somehow. Thank you so, so much! With this wrap-up post, I want to give anyone who has been at the event a chance to look at everything that happened again as well as having a source for those who could not be there to watch all the videos, see blog posts by other people from the event and have a look at the many photos that had been taken. As usual I am going to update this blog post with new material as long as I find it or as long as people send stuff to me. If you have or find anything related to this event, that is not listed already, please let me know. Thanks. Kicking off the 2019 edition of beyond tellerrand. Photo: Juliane Schütz. Stats and Facts What I have recognised this year is, that many more people started using Instagram to document and talk about the event. Even though 2389 tweets had been made with the hashtag #btconf on Twitter, I had the feeling that more and more people use Instagram. Interesting also: we had less people using the wifi than ever before. Maybe also because people were following the talks more intensively. This year we had people from 24 countries in the house. Those countries, from A–Z, were: Argentina, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Gambia, Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States. Wow. Thanks to the volunteer-team. Photo: Andreas Dantz. 14 wonderful volunteers were amongst those people. The core team is coming back for many, many years already and the names of those who helped running the event are: Alex, Andreas, Andy, Bartek, Daniela, Ewa, Jana, Jessica, Lisa, Patrick, Sven, Tom with Tanja (my lovely wife) and Guido leading the team. Absolutely fantastic to have such a stunning team. Thanks a lot! Side Events Before and After On Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th, we already and as usual for the last five years met for the IndieWebCamp in Düsseldorf. Tantek and I organised this IWC and it once more was hosted by our friends at sipgate. Indie Web Camp no. 5 in Düsseldorf at sipgate. Photo: Juliane Schütz. For the very first time our friends at Wacom hosted our Pre-Conference Warm-Up. All 200 tickets were taken and Wacom did an amazingly wonderful job of creating a friendly environment for us to meet and greet at the evening before beyond tellerrand. Wacom gave us a home and too care of us with drink, snacks and a DJ. Thank you so much! We furthermore had four sessions between the regular schedule: a Breakfast Session with Liam Griffin for Shopify, one Lunch-Time Session by Christoph Reinartz for trivago, another Lunch-Time Session with Chris Heilmann and the Working Draft Podcast for Microsoft, and an Evening-Break Session with Fabien Benetou for Mozilla. Thanks everybody for the session! Joschi Kuphal organised another Accessibility Club around beyond tellerrand. The first one in Düsseldorf and smaller than his conference in Berlin, but with around 70 attendees a well attended one with presentations and bar camp like sessions during the whole day. Photos This year Norman Posselt, Florian Ziegler, Juliane Schütz and Andreas Dantz officially took photos at the event, but other people shot some amazing photos as well. Anything I got or found so far is listed below. Florian Ziegler was part of the beyond tellerrand family again and captured the atmosphere in lovely black and white photos during the days. Juliane Schütz comes to Düsseldorf for a while now. Always known for amazing photos at the Indie Web Camp as well as beyond tellerrand, she caught this year’s edition in a mix of black and white as well as color shots. Andreas Dantz captured the show on stage and in the exhibition in this great set of photos. Long time friend and supporter with sipgate Axel Topeters created this set of lovely photos from two days in Düsseldorf. Juliane Schütz also created photo sets of day 1 and day 2 at the
👓 Novelist Mark Haddon Quit Twitter. Not Because It’s Terrible, But Because It Prevents Him From Being Great | Cal Newport
Last week, the British novelist Mark Haddon wrote an essay for the Financial Times about his recent decision to take a break from Twitter. What I liked about this piece is that it unpacked a nuanced back-and-forth thought process about social media.
👓 Distributed content: The best ways to build sustainable platform strategies | American Press Institute
Social platforms have forever altered the way consumers consume content online, but it can be hard to find footing in this new era. After a recent summit in NYC on the rise of distributed content, we’ve developed a list of strategic tactics publishers of any size can benefit from employing.
Interesting whitepaper, but too much talk about should without any evidence-based material or pieces which touch and improve an outlet’s bottom line.
👓 Remark Development Log: Starting with the Kit | Eddie Hinkle
Eddie Hinkle (eddiehinkle.com)This is the first post about Remark, my upcoming Social Reader that is replacing my previous app, Indigenous. In my last log about Indigenous I talked about taking the lessons I’ve learned during Indigenous and structuring Remark better from the ground up. First things first, I have multiple apps ...
👓 Thanks to Facebook, Your Cellphone Company Is Watching You More Closely Than Ever | The Intercept
Sam Biddle (The Intercept)AMONG THE MEGA-CORPORATIONS that surveil you, your cellphone carrier has always been one of the keenest monitors, in constant contact with the one small device you keep on you at almost every moment. A confidential Facebook document reviewed by The Intercept shows that the social network courts carriers, along with phone makers — some 100 different companies in 50 countries — by offering the use of even more surveillance data, pulled straight from your smartphone by Facebook itself.
Offered to select Facebook partners, the data includes not just technical information about Facebook members’ devices and use of Wi-Fi and cellular networks, but also their past locations, interests, and even their social groups. This data is sourced not just from the company’s main iOS and Android apps, but from Instagram and Messenger as well. The data has been used by Facebook partners to assess their standing against competitors, including customers lost to and won from them, but also for more controversial uses like racially targeted ads.
📑 Thanks to Facebook, Your Cellphone Company Is Watching You More Closely Than Ever | The Intercept
Sam Biddle (The Intercept)>“If Facebook is providing a consumer’s data to be used for the purposes of credit screening by the third party, Facebook would be a credit reporting agency,” Reidenberg explained. “The [FCRA] statute applies when the data ‘is used or expected to be used or collected in whole or in part for the purpose of serving as a factor in establishing the consumer’s eligibility for … credit.'” If Facebook is providing data about you and your friends that eventually ends up in a corporate credit screening operation, “It’s no different from Equifax providing the data to Chase to determine whether or not to issue a credit card to the consumer,” according to Reidenberg. ❧