Okay this GDQ joke speedrun of a TI-83 game is sending me.
What fits your definition of a pillow during eternal Caturday?
Recent events online have been truly sucky, but as always the one shining light has been the #openweb (and by extension, the #fediverse—run by independent operators of course).
Virtually everything I hate, hate about the modern Internet has less to do with the design and featureset of the Web technically-speaking and much more to do with the fact that increasingly people are only accessing a mere handful of domain names as filtered through a mere handful of apps. I’ll go a step further: even while online spaces dominated by Big Tech slide further into hellscape territory, it’s never been easier for plucky individuals to build amazing experiences for the Web. The capabilities of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and a plethora of cheap/free hosting options are so incredible today, my brain would have melted 10 years ago—certainly 20 years ago—if I’d been shown this kind of raw power.
And therein lies the disconnect…never before has The Indie Web been such a glorious platform for building anything you might dream of and sharing it with anyone you like, yet never before has The Corporate Web been so awful and damaging to the body politic.
I wish I knew how to deal with this cognitive dissonance, and how to convey to mere mortals out there that The Indie Web is alive and kicking and that The Corporate Web doesn’t have to define their experience of being online. This seems to be the challenge of 2025, and not a single day goes by when I don’t think deeply about this problem. It’s mentally and emotionally taxing—but again, I’m grateful to know there are others out there in the same boat. We’ve got our work cut out for us, that’s for sure!
Finally deleted my Facebook (and Instagram and Messenger) accounts. It hurts to feel like I’m cutting off one of the few ways to find and be found by long-time family and friends, but I just cannot be part of these so-called social networks anymore.
Y’all can follow me on my website and places I can still syndicate like Mastodon and Bluesky. You can also converse with me via email, Signal, or IRL.
Weird to feel seen by Bruce Sterling!
Some Public Limits of Everyday Weirdness (2025)
hat-tip: https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/06/how-the-sausage-gets-made/#linkdump
I’m trying out the Pomodoro Technique for the first time in a while. I’m using tomatoi.st for the timers. It works pretty well, though doesn’t seem to keep track of which break length you should take next. That’s minor, though.
“So in the same way, the coming and going of things in the world is marvelous. They go. Where do they go? Don’t answer, because that would spoil the mystery.”
I have to disagree with Watts here.
Do ask and DO answer. Again and again. Embrace curiosity, explanation, understanding.
Any mystery you can explain will reveal another mystery underneath.
There is no spoiling the mystery, there is only the journey of one mystery after another.
#meditationThoughts #Kula #meditation #liveMeditation #groupMeditation #AlanWatts #mystery