Ben Werdmuller werd.io/profile/benwerd

The blog is back

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    "published": "2022-10-31T23:33:22+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2022/the-blog-is-back",
    "name": "The blog is back",
    "content": {
        "text": "I\u2019m really heartened to see old-school blogging have a mini-resurgence. I\u2019ve got no idea if it\u2019ll stick, but for now, my feed reader is aglow with posts that run the gamut from quick thoughts to long-form essays, often illustrated with personal photographs. More of this, please. Much more of this.My favorite social network ever, by a long shot, is LiveJournal. Not only did Brad and co establish many of the norms that we now take for granted, but it was built around blogging: every post was a written piece. The comments were excellent, and everyone was contributing their own original work instead of reposting memes.Blogs + readers approximates this, although the commenting situation is too fragmented. Commenting isn\u2019t quite right in the indieweb, either: I\u2019m hankering for long threaded discussions rather than Twitter-style replies. I think we\u2019ll get there, though, and this is so much of a step forward from the social media morass.More! More! More!",
        "html": "<p>I\u2019m really heartened to see old-school blogging have a mini-resurgence. I\u2019ve got no idea if it\u2019ll stick, but for now, my feed reader is aglow with posts that run the gamut from quick thoughts to long-form essays, often illustrated with personal photographs. More of this, please. Much more of this.</p><p>My favorite social network ever, by a long shot, is LiveJournal. Not only did Brad and co establish many of the norms that we now take for granted, but it was built around blogging: every post was a written piece. The comments were excellent, and everyone was contributing their own original work instead of reposting memes.</p><p>Blogs + readers approximates this, although the commenting situation is too fragmented. Commenting isn\u2019t quite right in the indieweb, either: I\u2019m hankering for long threaded discussions rather than Twitter-style replies. I think we\u2019ll get there, though, and this is so much of a step forward from the social media morass.</p><p>More! More! More!</p>"
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Ben Werdmuller werd.io/profile/benwerd

Substack and Medium

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    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-30T17:25:37+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2022/substack-and-medium",
    "name": "Substack and Medium",
    "content": {
        "text": "If you receive my posts via email, you\u2019re now getting them through Substack. Nothing should substantially change, but they\u2019ll look a little different.This is the fourth newsletter platform I\u2019ve used for my writing: MailChimp, ConvertKit, and Buttondown all preceded it. This new change - which, let\u2019s be clear, is an experiment - is already a little different. That\u2019s because, unlike the others, Substack is more of a social network than a newsletter platform whose main competitor is very clearly Medium.(Worth declaring: I worked at Medium from 2016-2017 and consider its current CEO Tony Stubblebine to be a friend. I\u2019ve also been publicly critical of Substack\u2019s laissez-faire editorial strategy.)Substack\u2019s main draws are very similar to Medium\u2019s: you can make money from your writing; it will provide a beautiful, easy-to-use interface; it will find you readers. The mechanics of how it does that are different, though, and worth thinking about in the context of social network design.First, the money.This is the big carrot for new writers. (Content from my website will remain free, by the way.) Medium sets you up with the partner network: subscribers pay a flat $5 a month through its site. Funds are then allocated based on the fraction of each paying user\u2019s attention you attract.That means you can work on a big piece of writing that you think will attract a lot of attention and get paid for it without a lot of business preparation. Medium\u2019s paywall is leaky, so non-members will be able to read and help to promote it.While Medium\u2019s financial model is content-centric, Substack\u2019s is personality-based. Readers opt in to subscribe to a publisher, just as they would any newsletter. But publishers can opt to establish payment tiers that give subscribers access to premium posts if they pay more money. Attention doesn\u2019t come into it: a subscriber either believes you\u2019re worth paying a monthly fee for or they don\u2019t.The other trick is that, on Substack, publishers have to sign up separately to Stripe in order to gather payments. That means Stripe handles Know Your Customer requirements on behalf of Substack. Between Stripe fees and Substack\u2019s 10% take, the publisher is left with a little over 85% of subscription fees - which is a significantly better deal than many places on the web.Using revenue as a lens, then, whether you choose Medium or Substack depends on whether you have a following who might pay for your work. If you do great work, or are working on a single, amazing piece of writing, but don\u2019t have a following, Medium is clearly the better choice. If you already have a community or want to put in the work of building a following, Substack might have the edge right now.Second, the interface.Medium\u2019s writing interface is still the best, hands down. The attention to detail is superb, from font kerning through to embedding.Substack\u2019s is more utilitarian, but is still cleanly designed and distraction-free. Because of its email origins, there\u2019s no way it can possibly do some of the fancy embedding tricks that Medium is able to.I\u2019ve long written using iA Writer no matter where it\u2019s going, but Medium\u2019s interface remains much more enticing to me. There\u2019s also an API and - crucially, excitingly - a way to import posts from your personal blog and have the canonical link set to your blog\u2019s URL. That feature feels specifically built for me, and I love it.Finally, the community.Both platforms will find you readers, albeit in different ways.Again, Medium\u2019s model is content-centric: it will show you posts it thinks you\u2019ll find useful or interesting, no matter who they\u2019re by. The algorithm automatically promotes content inside implicit communities of interest. It will also try and show you content by people you know, however, partially by connecting to your Twitter network.Substack\u2019s is very personality-focused. It does the same Twitter trick as Medium: your followers from elsewhere who are already on Substack will know about your Substack feed. But it also operates using a system of direct recommendations; every Substack publisher directly suggests other publishers to follow. It\u2019s relationship-based rather than algorithmic: one can imagine asking a publisher if they\u2019d consider recommending you. Medium\u2019s algorithm is more of a black box (because it\u2019s likely being tweaked every day).Both services now offer a feed. Medium\u2019s, as discussed, is algorithmically-ordered so as to optimize for serendipity: you\u2019ll discover new content you didn\u2019t know you wanted to read. Substack\u2019s is much more like a traditional feed reader, in that you\u2019ll read the latest content from people you\u2019re subscribed to. (In fact, beautifully, it is a feed reader: you can bring your own RSS feeds from elsewhere.) Substack has traditional blog-style comments and hearts; Medium has claps to indicate attention and the concept of stories that follow stories rather than threaded comments. Both have merit, although Substack\u2019s approach is considerably more straightforward.Why choose?I don\u2019t: I\u2019m a happy user of both, while also publishing on my own site first in the indieweb tradition. I am, if you\u2019re interested, experimenting with a unique, native Substack about my work writing a book. And you can follow me on Medium.Moving to a community-based newsletter is strategic for me. I want to continue to build a following so I can share the work I\u2019m doing. Moving away from a straight newsletter platform is also financially beneficial: services like ConvertKit cost real money every month to operate. You can get started on both Medium and Substack for free.",
        "html": "<p>If you receive my posts via email, you\u2019re now getting them through <a href=\"https://substack.com\">Substack</a>. Nothing should substantially change, but they\u2019ll look a little different.</p><p>This is the fourth newsletter platform I\u2019ve used for my writing: <a href=\"https://mailchimp.com\">MailChimp</a>, <a href=\"https://convertkit.com\">ConvertKit</a>, and <a href=\"https://buttondown.email\">Buttondown</a> all preceded it. This new change - which, let\u2019s be clear, is an experiment - is already a little different. That\u2019s because, unlike the others, Substack is more of a social network than a newsletter platform whose main competitor is very clearly <a href=\"https://medium.com\">Medium</a>.</p><p>(Worth declaring: I worked at Medium from 2016-2017 and consider its current CEO Tony Stubblebine to be a friend. I\u2019ve also been publicly critical of Substack\u2019s laissez-faire editorial strategy.)</p><p>Substack\u2019s main draws are very similar to Medium\u2019s: you can make money from your writing; it will provide a beautiful, easy-to-use interface; it will find you readers. The mechanics of how it does that are different, though, and worth thinking about in the context of social network design.</p><p><strong>First, the money.</strong></p><p>This is the big carrot for new writers. (Content from my website will remain free, by the way.) Medium sets you up with the partner network: subscribers pay a flat $5 a month through its site. Funds are then allocated based on the fraction of each paying user\u2019s attention you attract.</p><p>That means you can work on a big piece of writing that you think will attract a lot of attention and get paid for it without a lot of business preparation. Medium\u2019s paywall is leaky, so non-members will be able to read and help to promote it.</p><p>While Medium\u2019s financial model is content-centric, Substack\u2019s is personality-based. Readers opt in to subscribe to a publisher, just as they would any newsletter. But publishers can opt to establish payment tiers that give subscribers access to premium posts if they pay more money. Attention doesn\u2019t come into it: a subscriber either believes you\u2019re worth paying a monthly fee for or they don\u2019t.</p><p>The other trick is that, on Substack, publishers have to sign up separately to Stripe in order to gather payments. That means Stripe handles Know Your Customer requirements on behalf of Substack. Between Stripe fees and Substack\u2019s 10% take, the publisher is left with a little over 85% of subscription fees - which is a significantly better deal than many places on the web.</p><p>Using revenue as a lens, then, whether you choose Medium or Substack depends on whether you have a following who might pay for your work. If you do great work, or are working on a single, amazing piece of writing, but don\u2019t have a following, Medium is clearly the better choice. If you already have a community or want to put in the work of building a following, Substack might have the edge right now.</p><p><strong>Second, the interface.</strong></p><p>Medium\u2019s writing interface is still the best, hands down. The attention to detail is superb, from font kerning through to embedding.</p><p>Substack\u2019s is more utilitarian, but is still cleanly designed and distraction-free. Because of its email origins, there\u2019s no way it can possibly do some of the fancy embedding tricks that Medium is able to.</p><p>I\u2019ve long written using <a href=\"https://ia.net/writer\">iA Writer</a> no matter where it\u2019s going, but Medium\u2019s interface remains much more enticing to me. There\u2019s also an API and - crucially, excitingly - a way to import posts from your personal blog and have the canonical link set to your blog\u2019s URL. That feature feels specifically built for me, and I love it.</p><p><strong>Finally, the community.</strong></p><p>Both platforms will find you readers, albeit in different ways.</p><p>Again, Medium\u2019s model is content-centric: it will show you posts it thinks you\u2019ll find useful or interesting, no matter who they\u2019re by. The algorithm automatically promotes content inside implicit communities of interest. It <em>will</em> also try and show you content by people you know, however, partially by connecting to your Twitter network.</p><p>Substack\u2019s is very personality-focused. It does the same Twitter trick as Medium: your followers from elsewhere who are already on Substack will know about your Substack feed. But it also operates using a system of direct recommendations; every Substack publisher directly suggests other publishers to follow. It\u2019s relationship-based rather than algorithmic: one can imagine asking a publisher if they\u2019d consider recommending you. Medium\u2019s algorithm is more of a black box (because it\u2019s likely being tweaked every day).</p><p>Both services now offer a feed. Medium\u2019s, as discussed, is algorithmically-ordered so as to optimize for serendipity: you\u2019ll discover new content you didn\u2019t know you wanted to read. Substack\u2019s is much more like a traditional feed reader, in that you\u2019ll read the latest content from people you\u2019re subscribed to. (In fact, beautifully, it <em>is</em> a feed reader: you can bring your own RSS feeds from elsewhere.) Substack has traditional blog-style comments and hearts; Medium has claps to indicate attention and the concept of stories that follow stories rather than threaded comments. Both have merit, although Substack\u2019s approach is considerably more straightforward.</p><p><strong>Why choose?</strong></p><p>I don\u2019t: I\u2019m a happy user of both, while also publishing on my own site first in the <a href=\"https://indieweb.org\">indieweb</a> tradition. I am, if you\u2019re interested, experimenting with <a href=\"https://benwerd.substack.com\">a unique, native Substack about my work writing a book</a>. And <a href=\"https://benwerd.medium.com\">you can follow me on Medium</a>.</p><p>Moving to a community-based newsletter is strategic for me. I want to continue to build a following so I can share the work I\u2019m doing. Moving away from a straight newsletter platform is also financially beneficial: services like ConvertKit cost real money every month to operate. You can get started on both Medium and Substack for free.</p>"
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Jeremy Keith adactio.com

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    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-30T09:23:07Z",
    "url": "https://adactio.com/links/19559",
    "category": [
        "blogs",
        "blogging",
        "indieweb",
        "personal",
        "publishing",
        "sharing",
        "websites",
        "blogroll",
        "rss",
        "feeds"
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    "bookmark-of": [
        "https://mxb.dev/blogroll/"
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        "text": "Blogroll | Max B\u00f6ck\n\n\n\nA lovely collection of blogs (and RSS feeds) that you can follow.\n\n(Just in case, y\u2019know, you might decide that following people on their own websites is better than following them on a website controlled by one immature manbaby who\u2019s down with the racists.)",
        "html": "<h3>\n<a class=\"p-name u-bookmark-of\" href=\"https://mxb.dev/blogroll/\">\nBlogroll | Max B\u00f6ck\n</a>\n</h3>\n\n<p>A lovely collection of blogs (and RSS feeds) that you can follow.</p>\n\n<p>(Just in case, y\u2019know, you might decide that following people on their own websites is better than following them on a website controlled by one immature manbaby who\u2019s down with the racists.)</p>"
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    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Jeremy Keith",
        "url": "https://adactio.com/",
        "photo": "https://adactio.com/images/photo-150.jpg"
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Manton Reece www.manton.org

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        "name": "Manton Reece",
        "url": "https://www.manton.org/",
        "photo": "https://micro.blog/manton/avatar.jpg"
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    "url": "https://www.manton.org/2022/10/29/skimming-some-tweets.html",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>Skimming some tweets about Jack Dorsey, there is a lot of confusion about what <a href=\"https://blueskyweb.org\">Bluesky</a> is. Most people are stuck into thinking about social network silos, where you jump from platform to platform. As Facebook and Twitter stumble, the future is more distributed and IndieWeb-ified.</p>",
        "text": "Skimming some tweets about Jack Dorsey, there is a lot of confusion about what Bluesky is. Most people are stuck into thinking about social network silos, where you jump from platform to platform. As Facebook and Twitter stumble, the future is more distributed and IndieWeb-ified."
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    "published": "2022-10-29T08:54:15-05:00",
    "post-type": "note",
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Manton Reece manton.org

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    "url": "https://manton.org/2022/10/29/skimming-some-tweets.html",
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        "html": "<p>Skimming some tweets about Jack Dorsey, there is a lot of confusion about what <a href=\"https://blueskyweb.org\">Bluesky</a> is. Most people are stuck into thinking about social network silos, where you jump from platform to platform. As Facebook and Twitter stumble, the future is more distributed and IndieWeb-ified.</p>",
        "text": "Skimming some tweets about Jack Dorsey, there is a lot of confusion about what Bluesky is. Most people are stuck into thinking about social network silos, where you jump from platform to platform. As Facebook and Twitter stumble, the future is more distributed and IndieWeb-ified."
    },
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    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "33379993",
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@ash@acegiak.net acegiak.net

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    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-29T11:21:30",
    "url": "https://acegiak.net/o/6aa3a3be7c7a4a5ba5f2df0a679bbfbb",
    "content": {
        "text": "One of the fascinating problems with trying to create non-corporate social media, alternatives to Twitter etc, and online life in general is that eventually someone has to decide who gets an account. Who gets a username, a domain name, etc. That has to be controlled by someone at some level to manage bad actors. For services like twitter, masto, etc, it's the person who runs the server. For domain names, which is the basis for identity on #indieweb that's done by registrars who use the fiscal cost of registration to manage who gets what, so then it's pay-to-play or piggyback off someone else's domain and thus you're beholden to someone else again. There's no equitable technical solution. A social solution is required.",
        "html": "<p>One of the fascinating problems with trying to create non-corporate social media, alternatives to Twitter etc, and online life in general is that eventually <em>someone</em> has to decide who gets an account. Who gets a username, a domain name, etc. That has to be controlled by someone at some level to manage bad actors. For services like twitter, masto, etc, it's the person who runs the server. For domain names, which is the basis for identity on <a href=\"https://acegiak.net/t/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a> that's done by registrars who use the fiscal cost of registration to manage who gets what, so then it's pay-to-play or piggyback off someone else's domain and thus you're beholden to someone else again. There's no equitable technical solution. A social solution is required.</p>"
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    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "@ash@acegiak.net",
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Jeremy Keith adactio.com

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    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-29T10:17:51Z",
    "url": "https://adactio.com/links/19558",
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        "text": "Suspension \u00b7 Matthias Ott \u2013 User Experience Designer\n\n\n\n\n  But most importantly, always write your most important thoughts on your own site. You can share the link on as many platforms as you like and have conversations with anyone who wants to connect with you and your work. But nobody can take it from you. You are in control. Forever.",
        "html": "<h3>\n<a class=\"p-name u-bookmark-of\" href=\"https://matthiasott.com/notes/suspension\">\nSuspension \u00b7 Matthias Ott \u2013 User Experience Designer\n</a>\n</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>But most importantly, always write your most important thoughts on your own site. You can share the link on as many platforms as you like and have conversations with anyone who wants to connect with you and your work. But nobody can take it from you. You are in control. Forever.</p>\n</blockquote>"
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        "url": "https://adactio.com/",
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Jeremy Keith adactio.com

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    "published": "2022-10-29T10:15:08Z",
    "url": "https://adactio.com/links/19557",
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        "twitter",
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        "https://werd.io/view/63595bfc6e65cc5f8156d9b2"
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        "text": "Thinking about leaving Twitter\n\n\n\nThis is how I feel when I open up my feed reader\u2014it feels like the opposite of opening Twitter:\n\n\n  The web remains a sea of interconnected ideas, across a kaleidoscope of forms and sources. Spending most of my time on just a handful of billion dollar sites squanders the possibilities and runs contrary to my values. There\u2019s so much to be said for diversifying inputs, but there are only so many hours. It makes sense to economize.",
        "html": "<h3>\n<a class=\"p-name u-bookmark-of\" href=\"https://werd.io/view/63595bfc6e65cc5f8156d9b2\">\nThinking about leaving Twitter\n</a>\n</h3>\n\n<p>This is how I feel <a href=\"https://adactio.com/journal/18322\">when I open up my feed reader</a>\u2014it feels like the opposite of opening Twitter:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>The web remains a sea of interconnected ideas, across a kaleidoscope of forms and sources. Spending most of my time on just a handful of billion dollar sites squanders the possibilities and runs contrary to my values. There\u2019s so much to be said for diversifying inputs, but there are only so many hours. It makes sense to economize.</p>\n</blockquote>"
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        "type": "card",
        "name": "Jeremy Keith",
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Tantek Çelik tantek.com

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-28 22:01-0700",
    "url": "http://tantek.com/2022/301/t1/twittermigration-bridgyfed-mastodon-indieweb",
    "category": [
        "TwitterMigration",
        "AtomFeed",
        "BridgyFed",
        "Mastodon",
        "IndieWeb"
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        "text": "#TwitterMigration, first time?\n\nHave posted notes at https://tantek.com/ since 2010, syndicated tweets & an #AtomFeed.\n\nAdded one .htaccess line, thanks to #BridgyFed, if you use #Mastodon, you can follow my #IndieWeb site:\n\n@tantek.com@tantek.com\n\nWhich demonstrates both the redundancy & awkwardness (it\u2019s not a clickable URL) of such @-@ (AT-AT) usernames.\n\nLike why make me type or show \u201c@tantek.com\u201d twice like that?\n\nWhy can\u2019t Mastodon follow a username of \u201c@tantek.com\u201d? Or just \u201ctantek.com\u201d?\nAnd either way expanding it internally if need be to the AT-AT syntax.\n\nWhy this regression from what we had with classic feed readers where a domain was enough to discover & follow a feed?\n\nAlso, why does following show a blank result?\n\nContrast that with classic feed readers which immediately show you the most recent items in a feed you subscribed to.\n\nLastly (for now), I asked around and no one knew of a simple public way to \u201cpreview\u201d or \u201cvalidate\u201d that @tantek.com@tantek.com actually \u201cworked\u201d. You have to be *logged-in* to a Mastodon instance and search for a username to check to see if it works.\n\nContrast that with https://validator.w3.org/feed/ which you can use without any log-in to validate that your classic feed file works.\n\nWhy these regressions from the days of feed readers?",
        "html": "#<span class=\"p-category\">TwitterMigration</span>, first time?<br /><br />Have posted notes at <a href=\"https://tantek.com/\">https://tantek.com/</a> since 2010, syndicated tweets &amp; an #<span class=\"p-category\">AtomFeed</span>.<br /><br />Added one .htaccess line, thanks to #<span class=\"p-category\">BridgyFed</span>, if you use #<span class=\"p-category\">Mastodon</span>, you can follow my #<span class=\"p-category\">IndieWeb</span> site:<br /><br /><a href=\"http://tantek.com\">@tantek.com@tantek.com</a><br /><br />Which demonstrates both the redundancy &amp; awkwardness (it\u2019s not a clickable URL) of such @-@ (AT-AT) usernames.<br /><br />Like why make me type or show \u201c<a href=\"http://tantek.com\">@tantek.com</a>\u201d twice like that?<br /><br />Why can\u2019t Mastodon follow a username of \u201c<a href=\"http://tantek.com\">@tantek.com</a>\u201d? Or just \u201c<a href=\"http://tantek.com\">tantek.com</a>\u201d?<br />And either way expanding it internally if need be to the AT-AT syntax.<br /><br />Why this regression from what we had with classic feed readers where a domain was enough to discover &amp; follow a feed?<br /><br />Also, why does following show a blank result?<br /><br />Contrast that with classic feed readers which immediately show you the most recent items in a feed you subscribed to.<br /><br />Lastly (for now), I asked around and no one knew of a simple public way to \u201cpreview\u201d or \u201cvalidate\u201d that <a href=\"http://tantek.com\">@tantek.com@tantek.com</a> actually \u201cworked\u201d. You have to be *logged-in* to a Mastodon instance and search for a username to check to see if it works.<br /><br />Contrast that with <a href=\"https://validator.w3.org/feed/\">https://validator.w3.org/feed/</a> which you can use without any log-in to validate that your classic feed file works.<br /><br />Why these regressions from the days of feed readers?"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Tantek \u00c7elik",
        "url": "http://tantek.com/",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/tantek.com/acfddd7d8b2c8cf8aa163651432cc1ec7eb8ec2f881942dca963d305eeaaa6b8.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "32431350",
    "_source": "1",
    "_is_read": true
}

Aaron Parecki aaronparecki.com

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-28T14:09:17-07:00",
    "url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2022/10/28/21/follow",
    "category": [
        "indieweb"
    ],
    "syndication": [
        "https://twitter.com/aaronpk/status/1586102839192932352"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "I have no reason to leave twitter because my twitter is already just a shadow copy of my website, but if you want to find me elsewhere, you can follow me from Mastodon and micro.blog and others:  \n\nhttps://aaronparecki.com/aaronpk  \n\nhttps://micro.blog/aaronpk",
        "html": "I have no reason to leave twitter because my twitter is already just a shadow copy of my website, but if you want to find me elsewhere, you can follow me from Mastodon and micro.blog and others:  <br /><br /><a href=\"https://aaronparecki.com/aaronpk\"><span>https://</span>aaronparecki.com/aaronpk</a>  <br /><br /><a href=\"https://micro.blog/aaronpk\"><span>https://</span>micro.blog/aaronpk</a>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Aaron Parecki",
        "url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "32423246",
    "_source": "16",
    "_is_read": true
}

Jeremy Keith adactio.com

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-25T12:55:18Z",
    "url": "https://adactio.com/links/19546",
    "category": [
        "blogging",
        "writing",
        "sharing",
        "personal",
        "publishing",
        "indieweb",
        "blogs",
        "rss",
        "syndication",
        "cms",
        "platforms",
        "tools"
    ],
    "bookmark-of": [
        "https://getblogging.org/"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "Get Blogging!\n\n\n\n\n  Your easy guide to starting a new blog.\n  \n  A blog is an easy way to get started writing on the web. Your voice is important: it deserves its own site. The more people add their unique perspectives to the web, the more valuable it becomes.",
        "html": "<h3>\n<a class=\"p-name u-bookmark-of\" href=\"https://getblogging.org/\">\nGet Blogging!\n</a>\n</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>Your easy guide to starting a new blog.</p>\n  \n  <p>A blog is an easy way to get started writing on the web. Your voice is important: it deserves its own site. The more people add their unique perspectives to the web, the more valuable it becomes. </p>\n</blockquote>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Jeremy Keith",
        "url": "https://adactio.com/",
        "photo": "https://adactio.com/images/photo-150.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "bookmark",
    "_id": "32327512",
    "_source": "2",
    "_is_read": true
}

Jeremy Keith adactio.com

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-25T10:05:38Z",
    "url": "https://adactio.com/links/19544",
    "category": [
        "twitter",
        "suspension",
        "indieweb",
        "silos"
    ],
    "bookmark-of": [
        "https://www.matuzo.at/blog/2022/twitter-ban/"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "I broke the rules. - Manuel Matuzovi\u0107\n\n\n\nA reminder that silos like Twitter can suspend your account without warning for no reason.\n\nHaving your own website is good.",
        "html": "<h3>\n<a class=\"p-name u-bookmark-of\" href=\"https://www.matuzo.at/blog/2022/twitter-ban/\">\nI broke the rules. - Manuel Matuzovi\u0107\n</a>\n</h3>\n\n<p>A reminder that silos like Twitter can suspend your account without warning for no reason.</p>\n\n<p>Having your own website is good.</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Jeremy Keith",
        "url": "https://adactio.com/",
        "photo": "https://adactio.com/images/photo-150.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "bookmark",
    "_id": "32325153",
    "_source": "2",
    "_is_read": true
}

Ben Werdmuller werd.io/profile/benwerd

The end of Twitter

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-21T21:25:17+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2022/the-end-of-twitter",
    "name": "The end of Twitter",
    "content": {
        "text": "Elon Musk needs to complete his acquisition of Twitter by October 28 if he wants to avoid the company\u2019s lawsuit against him. That\u2019s really soon - a week from today as I write this post.The network has been a part of my life more or less since it launched. I\u2019ve been hopelessly addicted since my Elgg days, back when you could post via SMS and hashtags were but an IRC-style gleam in Chris Messina\u2019s eye. Unlike blogging, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s done anything positive for my career, but it\u2019s certainly informed my view of the world, both for better and worse.For a few years, it was tradition that I\u2019d go offline for the year at around Thanksgiving, to give myself some time to recover from the cognitive load of all those notifications. I don\u2019t think the constant dopamine rush is in any way good for you, but the site\u2019s function as a de facto town square has also helped me learn and grow. It\u2019s a health hazard and an information firehose; a community and an attack vector for democracy. More than even Facebook, I think it\u2019s defined the internet\u2019s role in democratic society during the 21st century.But all things must come to an end. Musk has suggested that he\u2019ll reinstate Donald Trump\u2019s account in time for the 2024 election and gut 75% of Twitter\u2019s workforce, impacting user security and content moderation. It turns out, though, that even without Musk\u2019s involvement, at least a quarter of the workforce would still face layoffs that the Washington Post reported would have \u201cpossibly crippled the service\u2019s ability to combat misinformation, hate speech and spam\u201d. There was no good way out. Twitter as we know it is sunsetting.So where do we go next?The answer is almost certainly not one single place. There\u2019s certainly the indieweb and the fediverse, as well as newcomers like DeSo and the work Bluesky is doing. But those are all technical solutions to the problem of a missing platform; focusing there misses the point that what will really be missing is a community space. The answer to that is more community spaces, each with their own governance and interaction models. The solution will be an ecosystem of loosely-joined communities, not a single software platform or website - and certainly not a service run by a single company.Facebook is also in decline. As big tech silos diminish in stature, the all-in-one town squares we\u2019ve enjoyed on the internet are going to start to fade from view. In some ways, it\u2019s akin to the decline of the broadcast television networks: whereas there used to be a handful of channels that entire nations tuned into together, we now enjoy content that\u2019s fragmented over hundreds. The same will be true of our community hangouts and conversations. In the same way that broadcast television didn\u2019t really capture the needs of the breadth of its audience but instead enjoyed its popularity because that\u2019s what was there at the time, we\u2019ll find that fragmented communities better fit the needs of the breadth of diverse society. It\u2019s a natural evolution.It\u2019s also one that demands better community platforms. We\u2019re still torn between 1994-era websites, 1996-era Internet forums, and 2002-era social networks, with some video sharing platforms in-between. We could use more innovation in this space: better spaces for different kinds of conversations (and particularly asynchronous ones), better applications of distributed identities, better ways to follow conversations across all the places we\u2019re having them. This is a time for new ideas and experimentation.As for the near-term future of Twitter? I\u2019m pouring one out for it. I\u2019m grateful for its own experimentation and for the backchannel it provided to everyday life. But let\u2019s move on.\u00a0Photo by Daddy Mohlala on Unsplash",
        "html": "<p><img src=\"https://werd.io/file/63530e9d3787e409d060a4f2/thumb.jpg\" alt=\"Illustration of a handheld cellphone showing the Twitter app.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" /></p><p>Elon Musk <a href=\"https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/elon-musk-seeks-stay-twitter-litigation-oct-28-deal-close-2022-10-06/\">needs to complete his acquisition of Twitter by October 28 if he wants to avoid the company\u2019s lawsuit against him</a>. That\u2019s really soon - a week from today as I write this post.</p><p>The network has been a part of my life more or less since it launched. I\u2019ve been hopelessly addicted since my Elgg days, back when you could post via SMS and hashtags were but <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/09/how-chris-messina-got-twitter-to-use-the-hashtag.html\">an IRC-style gleam in Chris Messina\u2019s eye</a>. Unlike blogging, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s done anything positive for my career, but it\u2019s certainly informed my view of the world, both for better and worse.</p><p>For a few years, it was tradition that I\u2019d go offline for the year at around Thanksgiving, to give myself some time to recover from the cognitive load of all those notifications. I don\u2019t think the constant dopamine rush is in any way good for you, but the site\u2019s function as a de facto town square has also helped me learn and grow. It\u2019s a health hazard and an information firehose; a community and an attack vector for democracy. More than even Facebook, I think it\u2019s defined the internet\u2019s role in democratic society during the 21st century.</p><p>But all things must come to an end. Musk has suggested that <a href=\"https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/10/elon-musk-twitter-deal-donald-trump-right-wing-hate\">he\u2019ll reinstate Donald Trump\u2019s account in time for the 2024 election</a> and <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/20/musk-twitter-acquisition-staff-cuts/\">gut 75% of Twitter\u2019s workforce, impacting user security and content moderation</a>. It turns out, though, that even without Musk\u2019s involvement, <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/20/musk-twitter-acquisition-staff-cuts/\">at least a quarter of the workforce would still face layoffs</a> that the Washington Post reported would have \u201cpossibly crippled the service\u2019s ability to combat misinformation, hate speech and spam\u201d. There was no good way out. Twitter as we know it is sunsetting.</p><p>So where do we go next?</p><p>The answer is almost certainly not one single place. There\u2019s certainly <a>the indieweb</a> and <a href=\"https://fediverse.party/\">the fediverse</a>, as well as newcomers like <a href=\"https://www.deso.com/\">DeSo</a> and <a href=\"https://atproto.com/\">the work Bluesky is doing</a>. But those are all <em>technical</em> solutions to the problem of a missing platform; focusing there misses the point that what will really be missing is a <em>community space</em>. The answer to that is more community spaces, each with their own governance and interaction models. The solution will be an ecosystem of loosely-joined communities, not a single software platform or website - and certainly not a service run by a single company.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/06/first-time-history-facebook-decline-has-tech-giant-begun-crumble\">Facebook is also in decline.</a> As big tech silos diminish in stature, the all-in-one town squares we\u2019ve enjoyed on the internet are going to start to fade from view. In some ways, it\u2019s akin to the decline of the broadcast television networks: whereas there used to be a handful of channels that entire nations tuned into together, we now enjoy content that\u2019s fragmented over hundreds. The same will be true of our community hangouts and conversations. In the same way that broadcast television didn\u2019t really capture the needs of the breadth of its audience but instead enjoyed its popularity because that\u2019s what was there at the time, we\u2019ll find that fragmented communities better fit the needs of the breadth of diverse society. It\u2019s a natural evolution.</p><p>It\u2019s also one that demands better community platforms. We\u2019re still torn between 1994-era websites, 1996-era Internet forums, and 2002-era social networks, with some video sharing platforms in-between. We could use more innovation in this space: better spaces for different kinds of conversations (and particularly asynchronous ones), better applications of distributed identities, better ways to follow conversations across all the places we\u2019re having them. This is a time for new ideas and experimentation.</p><p>As for the near-term future of Twitter? I\u2019m pouring one out for it. I\u2019m grateful for its own experimentation and for the backchannel it provided to everyday life. But let\u2019s move on.</p><p>\u00a0</p><p><em>Photo by <a href=\"https://unsplash.com/@daddymohlala?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Daddy Mohlala</a> on <a href=\"https://unsplash.com/s/photos/twitter?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash</a></em></p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ben Werdmuller",
        "url": "https://werd.io/profile/benwerd",
        "photo": "https://werd.io/file/5d388c5fb16ea14aac640912/thumb.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "32247558",
    "_source": "191",
    "_is_read": true
}

Ben Werdmüller werd.io/profile/benwerd

My bookmarks process

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-18T15:48:43+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2022/my-bookmarks-process",
    "name": "My bookmarks process",
    "content": {
        "text": "I tend to get my links from three sources: my feed subscriptions, links I find on social media (particularly using Twitter Blue\u2019s excellent \u201ctop articles from people you follow\u201d feature), and stuff that people send me directly.If I read something and find it particularly interesting, I\u2019ll save it to a Notion database I\u2019ve got set up. Mostly I do this because the Notion web clipper and iOS app makes life really easy for me.Then the bookmarks get synced in a few different ways:To my website using Micropub\n\nTo Buffer for scheduled sending to Twitter\nThe sync itself is via Zapier right now, but when I get time I\u2019ll replace with my own script.I used to post directly to Twitter, but I realized that there\u2019s no need to post there at the same time I save to my site. Because I tend to read my feeds in batches, Buffer helps me avoid posting floods of links to my Twitter account at once. It also gives me a little wiggle room if something goes wrong (eg if the sync accidentally triggers when I\u2019m halfway through writing a description).At the end of the month, I take my links from the Notion database and use a simple script to turn them into a formatted post, which I edit in iA Writer before publishing to my site using its micropub feature.The end result:I have a searchable database of my bookmarks\nI reliably share them to my website\nI get to publish a round-up post at the end of the month, which is one of my favorite things\nIt sounds like a lot, but I really enjoy the process I\u2019ve set up: it\u2019s easy for me, and does everything I need it to.",
        "html": "<p>I tend to get my links from three sources: <a href=\"https://sources.werd.io\">my feed subscriptions</a>, links I find on social media (particularly using Twitter Blue\u2019s excellent \u201ctop articles from people you follow\u201d feature), and stuff that people send me directly.</p><p>If I read something and find it particularly interesting, I\u2019ll save it to a <a href=\"https://notion.so\">Notion</a> database I\u2019ve got set up. Mostly I do this because the <a href=\"https://www.notion.so/web-clipper\">Notion web clipper</a> and iOS app makes life really easy for me.</p><p>Then the bookmarks get synced in a few different ways:</p><ul><li>To my website using <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/Micropub\">Micropub</a>\n</li>\n<li>To <a href=\"https://buffer.com\">Buffer</a> for scheduled sending to Twitter</li>\n</ul><p>The sync itself is via <a href=\"https://zapier.com\">Zapier</a> right now, but when I get time I\u2019ll replace with my own script.</p><p>I used to post directly to Twitter, but I realized that there\u2019s no need to post there at the same time I save to my site. Because I tend to read my feeds in batches, Buffer helps me avoid posting floods of links to my Twitter account at once. It also gives me a little wiggle room if something goes wrong (eg if the sync accidentally triggers when I\u2019m halfway through writing a description).</p><p>At the end of the month, I take my links from the Notion database and use a <a href=\"https://github.com/benwerd/notion-links-to-blog-post\">simple script</a> to turn them into a formatted post, which I edit in <a href=\"https://ia.net/writer\">iA Writer</a> before publishing to my site using its micropub feature.</p><p>The end result:</p><ul><li>I have a searchable database of my bookmarks</li>\n<li>I reliably share them to my website</li>\n<li>I get to publish a round-up post at the end of the month, which is one of my favorite things</li>\n</ul><p>It sounds like a lot, but I really enjoy the process I\u2019ve set up: it\u2019s easy for me, and does everything I need it to.</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ben Werdm\u00fcller",
        "url": "https://werd.io/profile/benwerd",
        "photo": "https://werd.io/file/5d388c5fb16ea14aac640912/thumb.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "32157354",
    "_source": "191",
    "_is_read": true
}

Ryan Barrett snarfed.org

Micropub for Bridgy Publish

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-07T22:05:58-07:00",
    "url": "https://snarfed.org/2022-10-07_micropub-for-bridgy-publish",
    "syndication": [
        "https://news.indieweb.org/en"
    ],
    "name": "Micropub for Bridgy Publish",
    "content": {
        "text": "I\u2019ve added a significant new Bridgy Publish feature: Micropub support! Up until now, Bridgy Publish offered two ways to post to silos: interactively from user pages and via webmention trigger. Now there\u2019s a third way: Micropub.\nYou can now connect a Micropub client to Bridgy and use it to publish posts to any supported silo. Bridgy publishes the exact contents of the Micropub request; it doesn\u2019t depend on or use any original post on your web site. Otherwise, it behaves exactly the same as normal Bridgy Publish, and supports the exact same microformats2 input. It just gets that input from the Micropub request, not from a post on your site.\nTo use it, go to your Bridgy user page for a given silo, click the Get token button, and copy and paste the token into your Micropub token. Bridgy\u2019s Micropub endpoint is https://brid.gy/micropub; it supports create and delete and photo/video URLs but not update or file upload. (It doesn\u2019t directly require an original post on your web site, but we expect that will still be the common case, and photos and videos will generally already be online.)\nFeel free to try it out, let us know what you think, and happy hacking!",
        "html": "<p><a href=\"https://brid.gy/\">\n<img src=\"https://snarfed.org/bridgy_logo.png\" alt=\"bridgy_logo.png\" /></a></p><img src=\"https://snarfed.org/bridgy_logo.png\" alt=\"bridgy_logo.png\" />\n<p>I\u2019ve added a significant new <a href=\"https://brid.gy/about#publishing\">Bridgy Publish</a> feature: <a href=\"https://brid.gy/about#micropub\">Micropub support</a>! Up until now, Bridgy Publish offered two ways to post to silos: interactively from user pages and via <a href=\"https://brid.gy/about#webmentions\">webmention trigger</a>. Now there\u2019s a third way: <a href=\"https://micropub.net/\">Micropub</a>.</p>\n<p>You can now connect a Micropub client to Bridgy and use it to publish posts to <a href=\"https://brid.gy/about#publish-types\">any supported silo</a>. Bridgy publishes the exact contents of the Micropub request; it doesn\u2019t depend on or use any original post on your web site. Otherwise, it <a href=\"https://brid.gy/about#microformats\">behaves exactly the same as normal Bridgy Publish, and supports the exact same microformats2 input</a>. It just gets that input from the Micropub request, not from a post on your site.</p>\n<p>To use it, go to your Bridgy user page for a given silo, click the <em>Get token</em> button, and copy and paste the token into your Micropub token. Bridgy\u2019s Micropub endpoint is <code>https://brid.gy/micropub</code>; it supports create and delete and photo/video URLs but not update or file upload. (It doesn\u2019t directly require an original post on your web site, but we expect that will still be the common case, and photos and videos will generally already be online.)</p>\n<p>Feel free to try it out, <a href=\"https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy/issues\">let us know what you think</a>, and happy hacking!</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ryan Barrett",
        "url": "https://snarfed.org/",
        "photo": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/947b5f3f323da0ef785b6f02d9c265d6?s=96&d=blank&r=g"
    },
    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "32142872",
    "_source": "3",
    "_is_read": true
}

Andrés Cárdenas kandr3s.co

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Andr\u00e9s C\u00e1rdenas",
        "url": "https://kandr3s.co",
        "photo": "https://avatars.micro.blog/avatars/2021/91265.jpg"
    },
    "url": "https://kandr3s.co/notes/2022-10-12-ybpmv",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>It seems that with the recent improvements to ActivityPub support one can use Micro.blog as a Fediverse instance, Micropub client and Feed reader. How cool is that?! It\u2019s certainly the most convenient \u201cIndieWeb timeline\u201d on mobile.</p>",
        "text": "It seems that with the recent improvements to ActivityPub support one can use Micro.blog as a Fediverse instance, Micropub client and Feed reader. How cool is that?! It\u2019s certainly the most convenient \u201cIndieWeb timeline\u201d on mobile."
    },
    "published": "2022-10-12T15:56:26+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "33379994",
    "_source": "7224",
    "_is_read": true
}

Manton Reece www.manton.org

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Manton Reece",
        "url": "https://www.manton.org/",
        "photo": "https://micro.blog/manton/avatar.jpg"
    },
    "url": "https://www.manton.org/2022/10/12/continuing-to-finetune.html",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>Continuing to fine-tune our Mastodon integration, but should be running more smoothly. My biggest fear with all the pieces \u2014 feeds, ActivityPub, Webmention, cross-posting from M.b to Mastodon to wherever! \u2014\u00a0is that I will create a posting infinite loop and destroy everything.</p>",
        "text": "Continuing to fine-tune our Mastodon integration, but should be running more smoothly. My biggest fear with all the pieces \u2014 feeds, ActivityPub, Webmention, cross-posting from M.b to Mastodon to wherever! \u2014\u00a0is that I will create a posting infinite loop and destroy everything."
    },
    "published": "2022-10-12T09:07:14-05:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "32009099",
    "_source": "12",
    "_is_read": true
}

Vika fireburn.ru

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-12T01:05:11.388894196+03:00",
    "url": "https://fireburn.ru/posts/agso6Vo",
    "category": [
        "programming"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "Acquiring random bits of knowledge and experience allows one to comprehend concepts one would be unable to ordinarily comprehend and utilize due to lack of perceived usefulness.\n\nFor example, actor frameworks in asynchronous systems. I thought that actors were extraneous entities that aren\u2019t relevant to the problem space; and yet this concept has a use!\n\nBy segregating responsibilities of the app and allowing actors to communicate in strictly predefined messages, one can improve the separation of the application modules and ease refactoring.\n\nMaybe I should try using this in a project to feel out the concept. Actually, I do have a pet project: I always wanted to write my own Microsub server...",
        "html": "<p>Acquiring random bits of knowledge and experience allows one to comprehend concepts one would be unable to ordinarily comprehend and utilize due to lack of perceived usefulness.</p>\n\n<p>For example, actor frameworks in asynchronous systems. I thought that actors were extraneous entities that aren\u2019t relevant to the problem space; and yet this concept has a use!</p>\n\n<p>By segregating responsibilities of the app and allowing actors to communicate in strictly predefined messages, one can improve the separation of the application modules and ease refactoring.</p>\n\n<p>Maybe I should try using this in a project to feel out the concept. Actually, I do have a pet project: I always wanted to write my own Microsub server...</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Vika",
        "url": "https://fireburn.ru/",
        "photo": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/7953163?v=4"
    },
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "31994660",
    "_source": "1371",
    "_is_read": true
}

Manton Reece www.manton.org

Big improvements to ActivityPub on Micro.blog

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Manton Reece",
        "url": "https://www.manton.org/",
        "photo": "https://micro.blog/manton/avatar.jpg"
    },
    "url": "https://www.manton.org/2022/10/10/big-improvements-to.html",
    "name": "Big improvements to ActivityPub on Micro.blog",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>Can\u2019t believe it, but it has been <a href=\"https://www.manton.org/2018/11/07/microblog-mastodon.html\">nearly 4 years</a> since we added ActivityPub support to Micro.blog. In that time, we\u2019ve made some tweaks and bug fixes to it, but it has remained largely unchanged until today. If you were using a custom domain name for your blog, anyone on Mastodon could follow you, and you could follow anyone on other Mastodon servers.</p>\n<p>Back then I blogged about why using custom domain names was important:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Sometimes in the Mastodon world your identity can get fragmented across multiple instances. You might start on mastodon.social but then move to another instance, effectively breaking the link between your readers and your posts each time you move, with no way to migrate posts between instances. By supporting Mastodon and ActivityPub in Micro.blog, you can consolidate your identity and posts back to your own blog at your own domain name.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>There is a downside to this approach, though, and it has become more clear over the years. Because not everyone on Micro.blog has ActivityPub enabled, following users and replying often felt incomplete. To fix this, we are moving to enable ActivityPub by default for new Micro.blog users, and allowing it even if you aren\u2019t using your own custom domain. We\u2019re also improving conversations so they aren\u2019t so disjointed, with Micro.blog now pulling in additional replies from Mastodon if needed.</p>\n<p>If there\u2019s no custom domain, what does the Mastodon-compatible username look like? @username@micro.blog of course! In this way, Micro.blog looks a lot more like another Mastodon instance, but an instance that also has a full suite of blogging features, IndieWeb protocols, and everything else we\u2019ve been building for years.</p>\n<p>It\u2019s now easier to reset your Mastodon-compatible username too, for example when changing your domain name, or when moving from @username@micro.blog to @username@yourdomain.com. Mastodon itself has also added features to ease migration, and that\u2019s something we\u2019ll be looking at supporting.</p>\n<p>In the future, we may do more to encourage everyone to enable ActivityPub on their Micro.blog account. For now, if you\u2019d like to enable it, just head over to the Account page and click the \u201cSet Mastodon-compatible Username\u201d button.</p>",
        "text": "Can\u2019t believe it, but it has been nearly 4 years since we added ActivityPub support to Micro.blog. In that time, we\u2019ve made some tweaks and bug fixes to it, but it has remained largely unchanged until today. If you were using a custom domain name for your blog, anyone on Mastodon could follow you, and you could follow anyone on other Mastodon servers.\nBack then I blogged about why using custom domain names was important:\n\nSometimes in the Mastodon world your identity can get fragmented across multiple instances. You might start on mastodon.social but then move to another instance, effectively breaking the link between your readers and your posts each time you move, with no way to migrate posts between instances. By supporting Mastodon and ActivityPub in Micro.blog, you can consolidate your identity and posts back to your own blog at your own domain name.\n\nThere is a downside to this approach, though, and it has become more clear over the years. Because not everyone on Micro.blog has ActivityPub enabled, following users and replying often felt incomplete. To fix this, we are moving to enable ActivityPub by default for new Micro.blog users, and allowing it even if you aren\u2019t using your own custom domain. We\u2019re also improving conversations so they aren\u2019t so disjointed, with Micro.blog now pulling in additional replies from Mastodon if needed.\nIf there\u2019s no custom domain, what does the Mastodon-compatible username look like? @username@micro.blog of course! In this way, Micro.blog looks a lot more like another Mastodon instance, but an instance that also has a full suite of blogging features, IndieWeb protocols, and everything else we\u2019ve been building for years.\nIt\u2019s now easier to reset your Mastodon-compatible username too, for example when changing your domain name, or when moving from @username@micro.blog to @username@yourdomain.com. Mastodon itself has also added features to ease migration, and that\u2019s something we\u2019ll be looking at supporting.\nIn the future, we may do more to encourage everyone to enable ActivityPub on their Micro.blog account. For now, if you\u2019d like to enable it, just head over to the Account page and click the \u201cSet Mastodon-compatible Username\u201d button."
    },
    "published": "2022-10-10T10:35:16-05:00",
    "category": [
        "Essays"
    ],
    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "31960544",
    "_source": "12",
    "_is_read": true
}

Ben Werdmüller werd.io/profile/benwerd

Reading, watching, playing, using: September, 2022

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-10-01T17:32:10+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2022/reading-watching-playing-using-september-2022",
    "name": "Reading, watching, playing, using: September, 2022",
    "content": {
        "text": "This is my monthly roundup of the books, articles, and streaming media I found interesting. Here's my list for September, 2022.Apps + WebsitesAIHave I Been Trained? I plugged my own face into the site, and sure enough, I\u2019m part of the training set. It also showed me pictures of my friends. Feels weird. See if you can generate something involving me?GamesReturn to Monkey Island. A splendid, absolutely fitting sequel. Nostalgic, funny, fresh, engrossing: everything I wanted it to be.IndiewebMeridian. Meridian is a developer platform that finds places based on a user\u2019s latitude and longitude - and is open source and distributed, so doesn't leak user location to a third party.BooksNonfictionWake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Mart\u00ednez. A very personal exploration of a facet of history that still has so many unheard stories. The portion set in England pulls no punches, in a way that makes me want to force all my friends there to read this. I learned so much, and felt so much: it does its job and more.Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe. A heartfelt memoir that I wish more kids had access to. Its place to the top of banned book lists is a travesty. I was surprised how emotional I found it; the last few pages brought me to tears unexpectedly. I find this kind of raw honesty to be very inspiring.StreamingRadioThe Liz Truss BBC Local Radio Interviews. Fantastic job by BBC local radio interviewers. Terrifying listening, straight out of The Thick of It.MusicKat White - In the Eye of the Owl. Years ago, I commissioned a song about capybara for this lovely animal-themed children\u2019s album. And now I get to listen to it with my actual child. Magic.PodcastsBook Exploder. A podcast that could have been made just for me. What I found most striking in all of these author accounts is how personal these book projects all are. Writing is a detailed exercise in craft, but also a phenomenal act of empathy.Notable ArticlesBusinesseBay exec sentenced in cyberstalking attack on Natick couple. \u201cThe couple said they were sent disturbing items, including live bugs, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath and a book about coping with the loss of a spouse.\u201dOne of the Hottest Trends in the World of Investing Is a Sham. On ESGs: \u201cInstead of measuring the risks that environmental and social developments pose to companies, raters and investors should measure the risks to humanity posed by companies.\u201dClimateClimate change is turning the trees into gluttons. \u201cAlthough other factors like climate and pests can somewhat affect a tree\u2019s volume, the study found that elevated carbon levels consistently led to an increase of wood volume in 10 different temperate forest groups across the country. This suggests that trees are helping to shield Earth\u2019s ecosystem from the impacts of global warming through their rapid growth.\u201dPatagonia Founder Gives Away the Company to Fight Climate Change. \u201cRather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company\u2019s independence and ensure that all of its profits \u2014 some $100 million a year \u2014 are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.\u201dNew technique shows old temperatures were much hotter than thought. \u201cMeckler\u2019s warmer temperatures suggest that CO2\u2019s capacity to warm during that time in Earth\u2019s past was higher than was found in earlier studies. \u201cThis would lead to a higher climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2,\u201d the paper says.\u201dCultureHundreds Of Authors Ask Publishers To Stop Attacking Libraries. \u201cTons of authors, including some very big names like Neil Gaiman, saying that the publishers need to not just stop going after libraries, but especially that they need to stop doing so in the name of authors.\u201d\u2018We can continue Pratchett\u2019s efforts\u2019: the gamers keeping Discworld alive. \u201cNot only does it feature most of the key locations, from the city of Ankh-Morpork to areas such as Klatch and the Ramtops, it has seven guilds, player-run shops, and countless quests and adventures featuring many of the Discworld\u2019s most notable characters. It even has its own newspaper.\u201dArtist receives first known US copyright registration for latent diffusion AI art. \u201cIn what might be a first, a New York-based artist named Kris Kashtanova has received US copyright registration on their graphic novel that features AI-generated artwork created by latent diffusion AI.\u201dBanned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools. \u201cSome groups appear to feed off work to promote diverse books, contorting those efforts to further their own censorious ends. They have inverted the purpose of lists compiled for teachers and librarians interested in introducing a more diverse set of reading materials into the classroom or library.\u201d Despicable.How \u2018Star Trek: The Motion Picture\u2019 Finally, After 43 Years, Got Completed. \u201cThe problem with the theatrical cut was, simply, it wasn\u2019t done. It feels long and slow because the movie hadn\u2019t been edited properly. Scenes that may only last two or three seconds too long, or literally one frame, add up over the course of a movie to make it feel long. Now, after 1500 or so edits, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a film that finally feels properly paced, looks stunning, and, after long last, no longer keeps the viewer at arm\u2019s length.\u201dHuman Capital. \u201cTED was for bearing hearts, not souls.\u201d A fun short story from the world of Reap3r.Food Means Home. A recipe book collated by 30 unaccompanied minor asylum seekers. Just completely lovely.The Reactionary Geeks Are Mad About 'Rings of Power'. \u201cThe refrain \u201cGo woke, go broke\u201d offers a tidy summary of this argument, wokeness gone mad being a useful euphemism for a demand like \u201cresegregate popular entertainment,\u201d which might turn people off.\u201dDemocracyMaggie Haberman: A Reckoning With Donald Trump. \u201cI was curious when Trump said he had kept in touch with other world leaders since leaving office. I asked whether that included Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin and China\u2019s Xi Jinping, and he said no. But when I mentioned North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong-un, he responded, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t want to say exactly, but \u2026\u201d before trailing off. I learned after the interview that he had been telling people at Mar-a-Lago that he was still in contact with North Korea\u2019s supreme leader, whose picture with Trump hung on the wall of his new office at his club.\u201dMost Republicans Support Declaring the United States a Christian Nation. \u201cFully 61 percent of Republicans supported declaring the United States a Christian nation. In other words, even though over half of Republicans previously said such a move would be unconstitutional, a majority of GOP voters would still support this declaration.\u201dThe smoking gun in Martha's Vineyard. \u201cMigrants from Venezuela were provided with false information to convince them to board flights chartered by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R). The documents suggest that the flights were not just a callous political stunt but potentially a crime.\u201dDHS built huge database from cellphones, computers seized at border. \u201cThe rapid expansion of the database and the ability of 2,700 CBP officers to access it without a warrant \u2014 two details not previously known about the database \u2014 have raised alarms in Congress about what use the government has made of the information, much of which is captured from people not suspected of any crime. CBP officials told congressional staff the data is maintained for 15 years.\u201dAmerican Democracy doesn\u2019t need saving \u2014 it needs creating. \u201cBut when we shift our perspective and begin to see our task as creating and cultivating democracy, more accessible and meaningful options become available to ordinary people and the institutions that represent them and are meant to serve them.\u201dI was arrested after asking \"who elected him?\" at the proclamation of King Charles. \u201cWhat other freedoms can be suppressed in the name of monarchy? Who else will be arrested under the vile Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act?\u201dA Black protester voiced anger at police in South Carolina. She got 4 years in prison. \u201cYou have people who stormed the Capitol, who led to the death of law enforcement, who tried to overturn an election and fracture democracy. And they\u2019re getting two months, three months, six months. And Brittany Martin gets four years.\u201dHealthI\u2019m a psychologist \u2013 and I believe we\u2019ve been told devastating lies about mental health. \u201cIf a plant were wilting we wouldn\u2019t diagnose it with \u201cwilting-plant-syndrome\u201d \u2013 we would change its conditions. Yet when humans are suffering under unliveable conditions, we\u2019re told something is wrong with us, and expected to keep pushing through. To keep working and producing, without acknowledging our hurt.\u201dMediaAxios's 'Smart Brevity' and Questionable Book-Selling Tactics. \u201cThe intrigue: An internal Axios memo encouraged each employee to buy six copies of the trio\u2019s new book. Workers could then get those purchases expensed by the company\u2014a practice that could cost Axios more than $70,000, according to Defector.\u201d Savage.Inside podcasters' explosive audience growth.\u00a0\u201cEach time a player taps on one of these fleeting in-game ads\u2014and wins some virtual loot for doing so\u2014a podcast episode begins downloading on their device. The podcast company, in turn, can claim the gamer as a new listener to its program and add another coveted download to its overall tally.\u201dAmericans see media as critical to democracy, 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll says. \u201cAn increasingly diverse country does not see itself reflected in the media. Communities of color, LGBTQ+ people and marginalized groups are still underrepresented in both who covers the news and what news is covered.\u201dHow we know journalism is good for democracy. \u201cWhen respondents have the least information, candidates of color\u2014particularly Black candidates\u2014are disadvantaged, among respondents across party, ideological, and racial attitude lines.\u201dWelcome to the new Verge. \u201cWe also thought about where we came from and how we built The Verge into what it is today. And we landed on: well shit, we just need to blog more.\u201d Love.Make Your Voter Guide ICONIC. \u201cThis kind of user-friendly experience is something we keep dreaming that more newsroom voter guides will feature.\u201dScienceScientists Have Bad News About All These Energy Efficient LEDs. \u201cFocusing on the suppression of melatonin \u2014 the hormone that regulates sleep cycles \u2014 star visibility, and insects\u2019 response to light, the researchers found that all categories were negatively affected. The level of melatonin suppression in humans has gone up since 2013, stars are less visible, and the insects\u2019 response to light was unnaturally altered.\u201dSocietyCapitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century. \u201cThe rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality. [\u2026] Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began only around the 20th century. These gains coincide with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements.\u201dCalifornia's dead will have a new burial option: Human composting. \u201cThis new law will provide California\u2019s 39 million residents with a meaningful funeral option that offers significant savings in carbon emissions, water and land usage over conventional burial or cremation.\u201dMore US Employers Are Trapping Workers in a New Form of Indentured Servitude. \u201cBosses in industries such as retail, health care and logistics are reverting to an old tactic and trapping people in miserable jobs by threatening to saddle them with debt if they quit. Workers across the United States in fields ranging from nursing to trucking have been discouraged from leaving jobs they hate or can\u2019t afford to keep because employers vow to charge them for training costs if they quit before an arbitrary deadline.\u201d\u2018Reverse Freedom Rides\u2019 echo DeSantis Martha\u2019s Vineyard migrant flights. Fascinating piece about the racist history of \u201creverse freedom rides\u201d to Cape Cod that are now echoed by Ron DeSantis\u2019s policies in Florida. I\u2019ve been going to the Cape my entire life and I\u2019m ashamed to say I had no idea.Britain and the US are poor societies with some very rich people. \u201cThe rich in the US are exceptionally rich \u2014 the top 10 per cent have the highest top-decile disposable incomes in the world, 50 per cent above their British counterparts. But the bottom decile struggle by with a standard of living that is worse than the poorest in 14 European countries including Slovenia.\u201dLindsey Graham's national abortion ban has exceptions that won't work, experts say. \u201cBut exceptions for the life of the pregnant person are notoriously difficult to receive; physicians have said the requirement of providing abortions only in an emergency can force them to wait until a patient is in dire condition before providing them needed care. And the rape and incest exceptions written into the bill \u2014 much like the ones that exist in a handful of state abortion bans \u2014 are nominal at best, sexual violence and abortion policy experts said. They require reporting and paperwork that does not occur in the majority of sexual assault cases.\u201dU.S. Approval of Labor Unions at Highest Point Since 1965. This feels like a sign of progress to me (and also a sign that ordinary workers need help).Netherlands Plans to Launch Slavery Apology Fund for Awareness Projects. \u201cThe fund will be announced after the nation officially apologizes for its role in slavery by the end of this year or the beginning of next year, according to people familiar with the matter. It may be as big as 200 million euros ($204 million), the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity.\u201dTechnologyElon Musk\u2019s Texts Shatter the Myth of the Tech Genius. \u201cIt\u2019s been a general Is this really how business is done? There\u2019s no real strategic thought or analysis. It\u2019s just emotional and done without any real care for consequence.\u201dRohingya seek reparations from Facebook for role in massacre. \u201cBut a new and comprehensive report by Amnesty International states that Facebook\u2019s preferred narrative is false. The platform, Amnesty says, wasn\u2019t merely a passive site with insufficient content moderation. Instead, Meta\u2019s algorithms \u201cproactively amplified and promoted content\u201d on Facebook, which incited violent hatred against the Rohingya beginning as early as 2012.\u201dFacebook Report: Censorship Violated Palestinian Rights. \u201cMeta deleted Arabic content relating to the violence at a far greater rate than Hebrew-language posts, confirming long-running complaints of disparate speech enforcement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The disparity, the report found, was perpetuated among posts reviewed both by human employees and automated software.\u201dUS Military Bought Mass Monitoring Tool That Includes Internet Browsing, Email Data. \u201cMultiple branches of the U.S. military have bought access to a powerful internet monitoring tool that claims to cover over 90 percent of the world\u2019s internet traffic.\u201dPentagon reviews psychological operations amid Facebook, Twitter complaints. \u201cThe Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms\u2019 rules.\u201dThe Internet We Could Have Had. \u201cThe internet we do have, however, is figured much differently. It is figured as a tool of political domination. It is the apotheosis of the forms of domination secretly hidden inside the stories of progress and liberation. It is capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and environmental destruction all rolled into one hideous hydra whose heads are Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, Cook, with Musk and Thiel at the ass end.\u201dGender differences and bias in open source: pull request acceptance of women versus men. \u201cSurprisingly, our results show that women\u2019s contributions tend to be accepted more often than men\u2019s. However, for contributors who are outsiders to a project and their gender is identifiable, men\u2019s acceptance rates are higher. Our results suggest that although women on GitHub may be more competent overall, bias against them exists nonetheless.\u201dHow a news investigation shed light on potential patient\u00a0privacy\u00a0violations. \u201cThe health system said the tracking tool was intended to help track the success of a promotional campaign to connect more patients to its MyChart patient portal, which involved Facebook advertisements. But it was configured improperly, which allowed Meta to obtain patient information such as email addresses, phone numbers, computer IP addresses, contact information and appointment details.\u201dWordPress+IndieWeb as the OS of the Open Social Web. Nice indieweb thoughts and presentation. As an aside, I\u2019ve added Hypothesis annotations to my site, inspired by Ton\u2019s site.5th Circuit Rewrites A Century Of 1st Amendment Law To Argue Internet Companies Have No Right To Moderate. \u201cIt effectively says that companies no longer have a 1st Amendment right to their own editorial policies. Under this ruling, any state in the 5th Circuit could, in theory, mandate that news organizations must cover certain politicians or certain other content. It could, in theory, allow a state to mandate that any news organization must publish opinion pieces by politicians. It completely flies in the face of the 1st Amendment\u2019s association rights and the right to editorial discretion.\u201dPrompt injection attacks against GPT-3. \u201cA surprising thing about working with GPT-3 in this way is that your prompt itself becomes important IP. It\u2019s not hard to imagine future startups for which the secret sauce of their product is a carefully crafted prompt.\u201dIt's hard to imagine better social media alternatives, but Scuttlebutt shows change is possible. \u201cBecause it\u2019s not a company, Scuttlebutt doesn\u2019t need to make a profit. There is no persuasive design trying to keep you hooked, no advertising, and it doesn\u2019t collect, process or sell users\u2019 personal data. Instead, data are stored and controlled on users\u2019 own devices.\u201dQuality Is Systemic. \u201cIf your team is producing defective code, consider that it may not be because they all suck at their jobs. It\u2019s probably because the environment isn\u2019t allowing them to produce quality software.\u201dLaunch House, a tech startup incubator, sold entrepreneurs on the promise of community. This is a cult.Take Care of Your Blog. \u201cThere are no rules to blogging except this one: always self-host your website because your URL, your own private domain, is the most valuable thing you can own. Your career will thank you for it later and no-one can take it away.\u201dJack Dorsey\u2019s Former Boss Is Building A Decentralized Twitter. \u201cIt\u2019s not about machine learning, or AI, generating the perfect viral media, it\u2019s about groups of people getting together and finding meaning with each other.\u201d Rabble is doing important work.",
        "html": "<p>This is my monthly roundup of the books, articles, and streaming media I found interesting. Here's my list for September, 2022.</p><h3>Apps + Websites</h3><h4>AI</h4><p><a href=\"https://haveibeentrained.com\">Have I Been Trained?</a> I plugged my own face into the site, and sure enough, I\u2019m part of the training set. It also showed me pictures of my friends. Feels weird. See if you can generate something involving me?</p><h4>Games</h4><p><a href=\"https://returntomonkeyisland.com\">Return to Monkey Island.</a> A splendid, absolutely fitting sequel. Nostalgic, funny, fresh, engrossing: everything I wanted it to be.</p><h4>Indieweb</h4><p><a href=\"https://latl.ong\">Meridian.</a> Meridian is a developer platform that finds places based on a user\u2019s latitude and longitude - and is open source and distributed, so doesn't leak user location to a third party.</p><h3>Books</h3><h4>Nonfiction</h4><p><a href=\"https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781982115197\">Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Mart\u00ednez.</a> A very personal exploration of a facet of history that still has so many unheard stories. The portion set in England pulls no punches, in a way that makes me want to force all my friends there to read this. I learned so much, and felt so much: it does its job and more.</p><p><a href=\"https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781549304002\">Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe.</a> A heartfelt memoir that I wish more kids had access to. Its place to the top of banned book lists is a travesty. I was surprised how emotional I found it; the last few pages brought me to tears unexpectedly. I find this kind of raw honesty to be very inspiring.</p><h3>Streaming</h3><h4>Radio</h4><p><a href=\"https://bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0d3flmh\">The Liz Truss BBC Local Radio Interviews.</a> Fantastic job by BBC local radio interviewers. Terrifying listening, straight out of The Thick of It.</p><h4>Music</h4><p><a href=\"https://katwhitekidsmusic.com/home#music\">Kat White - In the Eye of the Owl.</a> Years ago, I commissioned a song about capybara for this lovely animal-themed children\u2019s album. And now I get to listen to it with my actual child. Magic.</p><h4>Podcasts</h4><p><a href=\"https://bookexploder.com\">Book Exploder.</a> A podcast that could have been made just for me. What I found most striking in all of these author accounts is how personal these book projects all are. Writing is a detailed exercise in craft, but also a phenomenal act of empathy.</p><h3>Notable Articles</h3><h4>Business</h4><p><a href=\"https://wcvb.com/article/ebay-exec-sentenced-in-cyberstalking-attack-on-natick-couple/41444951\">eBay exec sentenced in cyberstalking attack on Natick couple.</a> \u201cThe couple said they were sent disturbing items, including live bugs, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath and a book about coping with the loss of a spouse.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://nytimes.com/2022/09/29/opinion/esg-investing-responsibility.html\">One of the Hottest Trends in the World of Investing Is a Sham.</a> On ESGs: \u201cInstead of measuring the risks that environmental and social developments pose to companies, raters and investors should measure the risks to humanity posed by companies.\u201d</p><h4>Climate</h4><p><a href=\"https://news.osu.edu/climate-change-is-turning-the-trees-into-gluttons\">Climate change is turning the trees into gluttons.</a> \u201cAlthough other factors like climate and pests can somewhat affect a tree\u2019s volume, the study found that elevated carbon levels consistently led to an increase of wood volume in 10 different temperate forest groups across the country. This suggests that trees are helping to shield Earth\u2019s ecosystem from the impacts of global warming through their rapid growth.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate-philanthropy-chouinard.html\">Patagonia Founder Gives Away the Company to Fight Climate Change.</a> \u201cRather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company\u2019s independence and ensure that all of its profits \u2014 some $100 million a year \u2014 are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/ancient-deep-ocean-may-have-been-hotter-than-we-thought/?fbclid=IwAR0udLvjTydWfmv4o9-BvFKtPPJJylguqj8J27uxv4hZS4wkzYpn31xof98\">New technique shows old temperatures were much hotter than thought.</a> \u201cMeckler\u2019s warmer temperatures suggest that CO2\u2019s capacity to warm during that time in Earth\u2019s past was higher than was found in earlier studies. \u201cThis would lead to a higher climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2,\u201d the paper says.\u201d</p><h4>Culture</h4><p><a href=\"https://techdirt.com/2022/09/30/hundreds-of-authors-ask-publishers-to-stop-attacking-libraries\">Hundreds Of Authors Ask Publishers To Stop Attacking Libraries.</a> \u201cTons of authors, including some very big names like Neil Gaiman, saying that the publishers need to not just stop going after libraries, but especially that they need to stop doing so in the name of authors.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://theguardian.com/games/2022/sep/28/we-can-continue-pratchetts-efforts-the-gamers-keeping-discworld-alive\">\u2018We can continue Pratchett\u2019s efforts\u2019: the gamers keeping Discworld alive.</a> \u201cNot only does it feature most of the key locations, from the city of Ankh-Morpork to areas such as Klatch and the Ramtops, it has seven guilds, player-run shops, and countless quests and adventures featuring many of the Discworld\u2019s most notable characters. It even has its own newspaper.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/artist-receives-first-known-us-copyright-registration-for-generative-ai-art\">Artist receives first known US copyright registration for latent diffusion AI art.</a> \u201cIn what might be a first, a New York-based artist named Kris Kashtanova has received US copyright registration on their graphic novel that features AI-generated artwork created by latent diffusion AI.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools\">Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools.</a> \u201cSome groups appear to feed off work to promote diverse books, contorting those efforts to further their own censorious ends. They have inverted the purpose of lists compiled for teachers and librarians interested in introducing a more diverse set of reading materials into the classroom or library.\u201d Despicable.</p><p><a href=\"https://uproxx.com/movies/star-trek-the-motion-picture-directors-cut\">How \u2018Star Trek: The Motion Picture\u2019 Finally, After 43 Years, Got Completed.</a> \u201cThe problem with the theatrical cut was, simply, it wasn\u2019t done. It feels long and slow because the movie hadn\u2019t been edited properly. Scenes that may only last two or three seconds too long, or literally one frame, add up over the course of a movie to make it feel long. Now, after 1500 or so edits, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a film that finally feels properly paced, looks stunning, and, after long last, no longer keeps the viewer at arm\u2019s length.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://vice.com/en/article/m7g94q/human-capital\">Human Capital.</a> \u201cTED was for bearing hearts, not souls.\u201d A fun short story from the world of Reap3r.</p><p><a href=\"https://bl.uk/projects/food-means-home\">Food Means Home.</a> A recipe book collated by 30 unaccompanied minor asylum seekers. Just completely lovely.</p><p><a href=\"https://theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/lord-of-the-rings-rings-of-power-fantasy-sci-fi-racist-criticism/671421\">The Reactionary Geeks Are Mad About 'Rings of Power'.</a> \u201cThe refrain \u201cGo woke, go broke\u201d offers a tidy summary of this argument, wokeness gone mad being a useful euphemism for a demand like \u201cresegregate popular entertainment,\u201d which might turn people off.\u201d</p><h4>Democracy</h4><p><a href=\"https://theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/donald-trump-maggie-haberman-mar-a-lago/671510\">Maggie Haberman: A Reckoning With Donald Trump.</a> \u201cI was curious when Trump said he had kept in touch with other world leaders since leaving office. I asked whether that included Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin and China\u2019s Xi Jinping, and he said no. But when I mentioned North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong-un, he responded, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t want to say exactly, but \u2026\u201d before trailing off. I learned after the interview that he had been telling people at Mar-a-Lago that he was still in contact with North Korea\u2019s supreme leader, whose picture with Trump hung on the wall of his new office at his club.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/21/most-republicans-support-declaring-the-united-states-a-christian-nation-00057736\">Most Republicans Support Declaring the United States a Christian Nation.</a> \u201cFully 61 percent of Republicans supported declaring the United States a Christian nation. In other words, even though over half of Republicans previously said such a move would be unconstitutional, a majority of GOP voters would still support this declaration.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://popular.info/p/the-smoking-gun-in-marthas-vineyard\">The smoking gun in Martha's Vineyard.</a> \u201cMigrants from Venezuela were provided with false information to convince them to board flights chartered by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R). The documents suggest that the flights were not just a callous political stunt but potentially a crime.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/15/government-surveillance-database-dhs\">DHS built huge database from cellphones, computers seized at border.</a> \u201cThe rapid expansion of the database and the ability of 2,700 CBP officers to access it without a warrant \u2014 two details not previously known about the database \u2014 have raised alarms in Congress about what use the government has made of the information, much of which is captured from people not suspected of any crime. CBP officials told congressional staff the data is maintained for 15 years.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://link.medium.com/Tr9mOAsWltb\">American Democracy doesn\u2019t need saving \u2014 it needs creating.</a> \u201cBut when we shift our perspective and begin to see our task as creating and cultivating democracy, more accessible and meaningful options become available to ordinary people and the institutions that represent them and are meant to serve them.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://bright-green.org/2022/09/11/i-was-arrested-after-asking-who-elected-him-at-the-proclamation-of-king-charles\">I was arrested after asking \"who elected him?\" at the proclamation of King Charles.</a> \u201cWhat other freedoms can be suppressed in the name of monarchy? Who else will be arrested under the vile Police, Crime, Sentencing &amp; Courts Act?\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://npr.org/2022/09/06/1121322520/a-black-protester-voiced-anger-at-police-in-south-carolina-she-got-4-years-in-pr\">A Black protester voiced anger at police in South Carolina. She got 4 years in prison.</a> \u201cYou have people who stormed the Capitol, who led to the death of law enforcement, who tried to overturn an election and fracture democracy. And they\u2019re getting two months, three months, six months. And Brittany Martin gets four years.\u201d</p><h4>Health</h4><p><a href=\"https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/06/psychologist-devastating-lies-mental-health-problems-politics?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other\">I\u2019m a psychologist \u2013 and I believe we\u2019ve been told devastating lies about mental health.</a> \u201cIf a plant were wilting we wouldn\u2019t diagnose it with \u201cwilting-plant-syndrome\u201d \u2013 we would change its conditions. Yet when humans are suffering under unliveable conditions, we\u2019re told something is wrong with us, and expected to keep pushing through. To keep working and producing, without acknowledging our hurt.\u201d</p><h4>Media</h4><p><a href=\"https://theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/09/axios-smart-brevity-best-seller-list/671577\">Axios's 'Smart Brevity' and Questionable Book-Selling Tactics.</a> \u201cThe intrigue: An internal Axios memo encouraged each employee to buy six copies of the trio\u2019s new book. Workers could then get those purchases expensed by the company\u2014a practice that could cost Axios more than $70,000, according to Defector.\u201d Savage.</p><p><a href=\"https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/inside-podcasters-explosive-audience-growth?leadSource=uverify\">Inside podcasters' explosive audience growth.</a>\u00a0\u201cEach time a player taps on one of these fleeting in-game ads\u2014and wins some virtual loot for doing so\u2014a podcast episode begins downloading on their device. The podcast company, in turn, can claim the gamer as a new listener to its program and add another coveted download to its overall tally.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://19thnews.org/2022/09/poll-analysis-americans-news-media-democracy\">Americans see media as critical to democracy, 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll says.</a> \u201cAn increasingly diverse country does not see itself reflected in the media. Communities of color, LGBTQ+ people and marginalized groups are still underrepresented in both who covers the news and what news is covered.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://democracyfund.org/idea/how-we-know-journalism-is-good-for-democracy\">How we know journalism is good for democracy.</a> \u201cWhen respondents have the least information, candidates of color\u2014particularly Black candidates\u2014are disadvantaged, among respondents across party, ideological, and racial attitude lines.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://theverge.com/2022/9/13/23349876/the-verge-website-redesign-new-newsfeed-blogs-logo\">Welcome to the new Verge.</a> \u201cWe also thought about where we came from and how we built The Verge into what it is today. And we landed on: well shit, we just need to blog more.\u201d Love.</p><p><a href=\"https://medium.com/we-are-hearken/make-your-voter-guide-iconic-54f481d99b34\">Make Your Voter Guide ICONIC.</a> \u201cThis kind of user-friendly experience is something we keep dreaming that more newsroom voter guides will feature.\u201d</p><h4>Science</h4><p><a href=\"https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-bad-news-leds\">Scientists Have Bad News About All These Energy Efficient LEDs.</a> \u201cFocusing on the suppression of melatonin \u2014 the hormone that regulates sleep cycles \u2014 star visibility, and insects\u2019 response to light, the researchers found that all categories were negatively affected. The level of melatonin suppression in humans has gone up since 2013, stars are less visible, and the insects\u2019 response to light was unnaturally altered.\u201d</p><h4>Society</h4><p><a href=\"https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169\">Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century.</a> \u201cThe rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality. [\u2026] Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began only around the 20th century. These gains coincide with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-18/will-california-allow-human-composting-the-decision-is-in\">California's dead will have a new burial option: Human composting.</a> \u201cThis new law will provide California\u2019s 39 million residents with a meaningful funeral option that offers significant savings in carbon emissions, water and land usage over conventional burial or cremation.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://truthout.org/articles/more-us-employers-are-trapping-workers-in-a-new-form-of-indentured-servitude\">More US Employers Are Trapping Workers in a New Form of Indentured Servitude.</a> \u201cBosses in industries such as retail, health care and logistics are reverting to an old tactic and trapping people in miserable jobs by threatening to saddle them with debt if they quit. Workers across the United States in fields ranging from nursing to trucking have been discouraged from leaving jobs they hate or can\u2019t afford to keep because employers vow to charge them for training costs if they quit before an arbitrary deadline.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/16/reverse-freedom-rides-marthas-vineyard-desantis\">\u2018Reverse Freedom Rides\u2019 echo DeSantis Martha\u2019s Vineyard migrant flights.</a> Fascinating piece about the racist history of \u201creverse freedom rides\u201d to Cape Cod that are now echoed by Ron DeSantis\u2019s policies in Florida. I\u2019ve been going to the Cape my entire life and I\u2019m ashamed to say I had no idea.</p><p><a href=\"https://ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945\">Britain and the US are poor societies with some very rich people.</a> \u201cThe rich in the US are exceptionally rich \u2014 the top 10 per cent have the highest top-decile disposable incomes in the world, 50 per cent above their British counterparts. But the bottom decile struggle by with a standard of living that is worse than the poorest in 14 European countries including Slovenia.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://19thnews.org/2022/09/lindsey-graham-national-abortion-ban-exceptions\">Lindsey Graham's national abortion ban has exceptions that won't work, experts say.</a> \u201cBut exceptions for the life of the pregnant person are notoriously difficult to receive; physicians have said the requirement of providing abortions only in an emergency can force them to wait until a patient is in dire condition before providing them needed care. And the rape and incest exceptions written into the bill \u2014 much like the ones that exist in a handful of state abortion bans \u2014 are nominal at best, sexual violence and abortion policy experts said. They require reporting and paperwork that does not occur in the majority of sexual assault cases.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx\">U.S. Approval of Labor Unions at Highest Point Since 1965.</a> This feels like a sign of progress to me (and also a sign that ordinary workers need help).</p><p><a href=\"https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-12/dutch-government-plans-to-launch-slavery-apology-fund\">Netherlands Plans to Launch Slavery Apology Fund for Awareness Projects.</a> \u201cThe fund will be announced after the nation officially apologizes for its role in slavery by the end of this year or the beginning of next year, according to people familiar with the matter. It may be as big as 200 million euros ($204 million), the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity.\u201d</p><h4>Technology</h4><p><a href=\"https://theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/09/elon-musk-texts-twitter-trial-jack-dorsey/671619\">Elon Musk\u2019s Texts Shatter the Myth of the Tech Genius.</a> \u201cIt\u2019s been a general Is this really how business is done? There\u2019s no real strategic thought or analysis. It\u2019s just emotional and done without any real care for consequence.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-bangladesh-myanmar-c5af9acec46a3042beed7f5e1bc71b8a\">Rohingya seek reparations from Facebook for role in massacre.</a> \u201cBut a new and comprehensive report by Amnesty International states that Facebook\u2019s preferred narrative is false. The platform, Amnesty says, wasn\u2019t merely a passive site with insufficient content moderation. Instead, Meta\u2019s algorithms \u201cproactively amplified and promoted content\u201d on Facebook, which incited violent hatred against the Rohingya beginning as early as 2012.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://theintercept.com/2022/09/21/facebook-censorship-palestine-israel-algorithm\">Facebook Report: Censorship Violated Palestinian Rights.</a> \u201cMeta deleted Arabic content relating to the violence at a far greater rate than Hebrew-language posts, confirming long-running complaints of disparate speech enforcement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The disparity, the report found, was perpetuated among posts reviewed both by human employees and automated software.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://vice.com/en/article/y3pnkw/us-military-bought-mass-monitoring-augury-team-cymru-browsing-email-data\">US Military Bought Mass Monitoring Tool That Includes Internet Browsing, Email Data.</a> \u201cMultiple branches of the U.S. military have bought access to a powerful internet monitoring tool that claims to cover over 90 percent of the world\u2019s internet traffic.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/19/pentagon-psychological-operations-facebook-twitter\">Pentagon reviews psychological operations amid Facebook, Twitter complaints.</a> \u201cThe Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms\u2019 rules.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://networkcultures.org/blog/2022/09/15/christopher-kelty-the-internet-we-could-have-had\">The Internet We Could Have Had.</a> \u201cThe internet we do have, however, is figured much differently. It is figured as a tool of political domination. It is the apotheosis of the forms of domination secretly hidden inside the stories of progress and liberation. It is capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and environmental destruction all rolled into one hideous hydra whose heads are Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, Cook, with Musk and Thiel at the ass end.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://peerj.com/articles/cs-111\">Gender differences and bias in open source: pull request acceptance of women versus men.</a> \u201cSurprisingly, our results show that women\u2019s contributions tend to be accepted more often than men\u2019s. However, for contributors who are outsiders to a project and their gender is identifiable, men\u2019s acceptance rates are higher. Our results suggest that although women on GitHub may be more competent overall, bias against them exists nonetheless.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2022/09/how-a-news-investigation-shed-light-on-potential-patient-privacy-violations\">How a news investigation shed light on potential patient\u00a0privacy\u00a0violations.</a> \u201cThe health system said the tracking tool was intended to help track the success of a promotional campaign to connect more patients to its MyChart patient portal, which involved Facebook advertisements. But it was configured improperly, which allowed Meta to obtain patient information such as email addresses, phone numbers, computer IP addresses, contact information and appointment details.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://zylstra.org/blog/2022/09/wordpressindieweb-as-the-os-of-the-open-social-web\">WordPress+IndieWeb as the OS of the Open Social Web.</a> Nice indieweb thoughts and presentation. As an aside, I\u2019ve added Hypothesis annotations to my site, inspired by Ton\u2019s site.</p><p><a href=\"https://techdirt.com/2022/09/16/5th-circuit-rewrites-a-century-of-1st-amendment-law-to-argue-internet-companies-have-no-right-to-moderate\">5th Circuit Rewrites A Century Of 1st Amendment Law To Argue Internet Companies Have No Right To Moderate.</a> \u201cIt effectively says that companies no longer have a 1st Amendment right to their own editorial policies. Under this ruling, any state in the 5th Circuit could, in theory, mandate that news organizations must cover certain politicians or certain other content. It could, in theory, allow a state to mandate that any news organization must publish opinion pieces by politicians. It completely flies in the face of the 1st Amendment\u2019s association rights and the right to editorial discretion.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://simonwillison.net/2022/Sep/12/prompt-injection\">Prompt injection attacks against GPT-3.</a> \u201cA surprising thing about working with GPT-3 in this way is that your prompt itself becomes important IP. It\u2019s not hard to imagine future startups for which the secret sauce of their product is a carefully crafted prompt.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://theconversation.com/its-hard-to-imagine-better-social-media-alternatives-but-scuttlebutt-shows-change-is-possible-190351\">It's hard to imagine better social media alternatives, but Scuttlebutt shows change is possible.</a> \u201cBecause it\u2019s not a company, Scuttlebutt doesn\u2019t need to make a profit. There is no persuasive design trying to keep you hooked, no advertising, and it doesn\u2019t collect, process or sell users\u2019 personal data. Instead, data are stored and controlled on users\u2019 own devices.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://jacobian.org/2022/sep/9/quality-is-systemic\">Quality Is Systemic.</a> \u201cIf your team is producing defective code, consider that it may not be because they all suck at their jobs. It\u2019s probably because the environment isn\u2019t allowing them to produce quality software.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://vox.com/the-goods/2022/9/11/23340917/launch-house-sexual-assault-web3-community\">Launch House, a tech startup incubator, sold entrepreneurs on the promise of community.</a> This is a cult.</p><p><a href=\"https://robinrendle.com/notes/take-care-of-your-blog-\">Take Care of Your Blog.</a> \u201cThere are no rules to blogging except this one: always self-host your website because your URL, your own private domain, is the most valuable thing you can own. Your career will thank you for it later and no-one can take it away.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2022/09/11/jack-dorseys-former-boss-is-building-a-decentralized-twitter/?fbclid=IwAR1XkbI3xQJC6gnbNUxpk4YHJWOdkD07ucL63hOgTzPUej03wR9Ia6v1c00&amp;sh=bc8b59f57c33\">Jack Dorsey\u2019s Former Boss Is Building A Decentralized Twitter.</a> \u201cIt\u2019s not about machine learning, or AI, generating the perfect viral media, it\u2019s about groups of people getting together and finding meaning with each other.\u201d Rabble is doing important work.</p>"
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    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ben Werdm\u00fcller",
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        "photo": "https://werd.io/file/5d388c5fb16ea14aac640912/thumb.jpg"
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