Status – Page 496 – Chris Aldrich

📺 Watched Broadchurch (2013) Season 1 Episodes 1-8

Watched Broadchurch (Season 1) from ITV/BBC America

A seemingly calm and friendly seaside town becomes a town wrapped in secrets when the death of an eleven year old boy sparks an unwanted media frenzy. As the town's locals start to open up about what they do and don't know, it falls upon the police to catch the supposed killer. Creator: Chris Chibnall Starring: David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Andrew Buchan

I’m not sure exactly how I came across this, but I’ve just binged watched the first season (2013) of this great series. The second season from 2015 is also on Netflix already, and I’m thrilled to see that there’s already a season three from 2017 which hopefully will be available soon too.

In the same vein as the series Shetland, which I loved, this is a brooding small town, sea-side police drama. I suspect that many who appreciated Shetland as much as I did will love this. Those who haven’t seen either are recommended to do so if they’re drama/crime/mystery fans.

While generally good, the cinematography here wasn’t as solid as it was in Shetland, but it certainly goes a long way toward creating the real character of the series. This particular season was much more like the last season of Shetland in that it’s an extended episode focusing on one case while many of the early episodes of Shetland were one or two-parters rather than an eight episode arc. The other big differentiator was that Shetland has a stronger focus on character amidst the case while this one is a tad weaker.

The casting was very solid and varied. Fans of the Harry Potter films will recognize several members of the cast passing through including lead David Tennant, who is probably best known by sci-fi fans from his decade long turn in Dr. Who. The acting was generally good, though there were a few missteps that could have been better. One small flaw revealed the ending to me in one of the middle episodes. It seemed a bit off to me that Tennant’s hair was an affected brassy color rather than a more darker natural color–it was definitely a choice.

The plot was pretty solid overall despite one or two pieces which were a bit too convenient (and far too coincidental), particularly in retrospective. The Jack Marshall story line outcome was painfully under-motivated and didn’t play as realistic to me, but the rest was well done including the gut punch ending in the final episode of season one. Given the complexity and nuance of as many characters interacting in such a small town, the overall arc is incredibly well done.

I can’t wait to power through the next season, and hope the third is available soon. Knowing the casting stays much the same, I’m really curious how the next two seasons are plotted.

I watched this on the 40″ Samsung in high def with Netflix routed through my Google Chromecast.

Drutopia’s mission sounds a little to me like Drupal with Indieweb philosophy baked in from the start. It’s also not too different from Backdrop CMS’s mission as a Drupal fork.

🎧 The Contrafabulists Episode 52: Annotations

Listened to The Contrafabulists Episode 52: Marginalia

In this episode, we talk about Audrey's decision to block annotations from her websites.

A great little episode that talks about annotations, but impinges on a lot of issues relating to ownership and running of a (personal) website. It discusses a lot of things that folks on the web often take for granted, but which should really be done with a lot more civility and care for others.

While I have been seeing some really great and thoughtful conversations, particularly in the last 6 months or more, as a result of people posting on their own websites and using open standards like webmentions to carry on conversations, the rest of the internet still needs to take great strides to improve itself. A lot of these issues are ones of bias, and particularly of the white male sort, but I think that the ideas encapsulated in this short podcast will help to open people’s eyes. While it’s sad that Audrey had these experiences on Twitter, I’m glad that she and Kin took the time to discuss them here in hopes of improving the space in the future for others.

https://soundcloud.com/contrafabulists/episode-52

Un-Annotated by Audrey Watters

Read Un-Annotated by Audrey Watters (Hack Education)

Why Audrey Watters has blocked annotations from News Genius and Hypothes.is from her website.

I thought Audrey Watters’ post on why (and how) she prevents others from annotating her website was so important that I needed to highlight and annotate a few sections for myself for future use on my own site cum commonplace book. Her comments about ownership, control, and even harassment are all incredibly germane to the Indieweb movement as well.

I also wanted to use this post as an experiment of sorts to see how sound her script actually is with respect to people using both of the annotation services she mentions.

The text of her post appears below in full and unaltered (as it did on 2017-05-17 aside from my obvious annotations and highlights). It (and my commentary and highlights) is (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) as she originally licensed it.

I’ve spent some time thinking about this type of blocking in the past and written about a potential solution. Kevin Marks had created a script to help prevent this type of abuse as well; his solution and some additional variants are freely available. — {cja}

I have added a script to my websites today that will block annotations – namely those from Genius and those from Hypothes.is. I have been meaning to do this for a while now, so it’s mostly a project that comes as I procrastinate doing something else rather than one that comes in response to any recent event.

I took comments off my websites in 2013 because I was sick of having to wade through threats of sexualized violence in order to host conversations on my ideas.

My blog. My rules. No comments.

The article linked at the bottom of the paragraph is a must read in my opinion and sparked some of my original thoughts last year about this same phenomenon. I suspect that Ms. Watters has been wanting to do this since this article was posted and/or she read it subsequently. — {cja}

I’ve made this position fairly well known – if you have something to say in response, go ahead and write your own blog post on your own damn site. So I find the idea that someone would use a service like Hypothes.is to annotate my work on my websites particularly frustrating. I don’t want comments – not in the margins and not at the foot of an article. Mostly, I don’t want to have to moderate them. I have neither the time nor the emotional bandwidth. And if I don’t want to moderate comments, that means I definitely do not want comments to appear here (or that appear to be here) that are outside my control or even my sight.

This isn’t simply about trolls and bigots threatening me (although yes, that is a huge part of it); it’s also about extracting value from my work and shifting it to another company which then gets to control (and even monetize) the conversation.

Does the script Audrey Watters is using really stop people from annotating her site directly?

Based on my quick test, one can still (carefully) use Hypothes.is to highlight and annotate her site, but the script at least prevents Hypothes.is from showing that annotation. When visiting her site with Hypothes.is’ Chrome browser extension on, it does show that there is one annotation on the page. It then requires some hunting to find this comment.

And this particular post is proof of the fact that it can still be annotated, but without impinging on the sovereignty of the original author or her site. — {cja}

Blocking annotation tools does not stop you from annotating my work. I’m a fan of marginalia; I am. I write all over the books I’ve bought, for example. Blocking annotations in this case merely stops you from writing in the margins here on this website.

Source: Un-Annotated by Audrey Watters (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)