Bowlich's Land of Links
This article, which Iâve seen shared almost too widely on the internet since it came out, could almost have been written any time in the past decade really. They did do a somewhat better job of getting quotes from some of the big feed readersâ leaders to help to differentiate their philosophical differences, but there wasnât much else here. Admittedly they did have a short snippet about Dave Winerâs new feedbase product, which I suspect, in combination with the recent spate of articles about Facebookâs Cambridge Analytica scandal, motivated the article. (By the way, I love OPML as much as anyone could, but feedbase doesnât even accept the OPML feeds out of my core WordPress install though most feed readers do, which makes me wonder how successful feedbase might be in the long run without better legacy spec support.)
Welcome to your 8-day data detox! In just half an hour or less per day, you'll be well on your way to a healthier and more in-control digital self. What are you waiting for?
For Adorno, popular culture is not just bad art â it enslaves us to repetition and robs us of our aesthetic freedom
Our histories, our sense of belonging to the narrative we create, is under constant revision. Facebook and Twitter took away linear history from us. We donât see our participation, we see our contributions, and only if theyâre popular enough with our peers (and therefore, advertisers) to generate traffic.
Facebook has created a centrally designed internet. Itâs a lamer, shittier looking internet. Itâs just not as cool as an internet that is a big, chaotic space filled with tons of independently operating websites who are able to make a living because they make something cool that people want to see.
The tech industry is having a moment of reflection. Even Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook are talking openly about the downsides of software and algorithms mediating our lives. And while calls for regulation have been met with increased lobbying to block or shape any rules, some people around the industry are entertaining forms of self regulation. One idea swirling around: Should the programmers and data scientists massaging our data sign a kind of digital Hippocratic oath?
Four companies dominate our daily lives unlike any other in human history: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. We love our nifty phones and just-a-click-away services, but these behemoths enjoy unfettered economic domination and hoard riches on a scale not seen since the monopolies of the gilded age. The only logical conclusion? We must bust up big tech.
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
We have provided a full walkthrough of how to get started on building your own private smart home using a Raspberry Pi. You can view the complete walkthrough here.
Today we are bombarded with information that has been created, ,managed, or manipulated by the unseen hand of corporations, people, governments, and cabals if you want to believe that. It is up to the consumer to do the leg work and discover what is truth, but unfortunately for the masses it seems, the truth is just subject to their own cognitive dissonance. In 2018 we are about to embark on a new roller coaster of disinformation and active measures not only perpetrated by Russia and other actors, but ourselves. How do we really fight that power?
âFederation issuesâ may look like a âbugâ, but they are really the result of an agreement, an implicit contract: to be part of a conversation on another node, I first have to have received the trust of someone who is taking part in it.
A large global change in data protection law is about to hit the tech industry, thanks to the EUâs General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). GDPR affects any company, wherever they are in the world, that handles data about European citizens. It becomes law on 25 May 2018, and as such includes UK citizens, since it precedes Brexit. Itâs no surprise the EU has chosen to tighten the data protection belt: Europe has long opposed the tech industryâs expansionist tendencies, particularly through antitrust suits, and is perhaps the only regulatory body with the inclination and power to challenge Silicon Valley in the coming years.
Having been on the service for nine months myself, I can confirm Mastodon is not a replacement for Twitter. Itâs much better. It is the first place on the internet where I have felt comfortable in a long time.
What allowed me to change and prosper was the freedom to grow apart and lose touch with people. Itâs hard to change yourself if youâre stuck in the same social orbit. Thereâs a gravitational force that pulls you into repeating the same circular pattern over and over again. Breaking out of that takes tremendous force.
Developers of platforms such as Facebook have admitted that they were designed to be addictive. Should we be following the executivesâ example and going cold turkey â and is it even possible for mere mortals?
We... we had ad-free social networking in 2004. It was called "one of your friends got a Dreamhost and put some forum software on it and everyone hung out there." If the website got really big and popular, maybe the owner would ask for donations from the users, and usually folks would give enough to keep the place afloat, because everyone wanted to keep hanging out there.
Something I've struggled with more and more these days is keeping up with all the stuff there is to read on the internet. Every day, there's an update from a friend's blog, or a cool article on a tech news site, or a post from my favorite blogger⊠I wind up letting myself get interrupted by all these irresistible information-trinkets, trying to skim each article quickly so I can move on to the next one, and searching for more once I've finished all my skimming, hungry for yet more little factoids.
POSSE is an abbreviation for Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere, a content publishing model that starts with posting content on your own domain first, then syndicating out copies to 3rd party services with permashortlinks back to the original on your site.
December 15, 2017 will be marked in history as the day AOL Instant Messenger finally died, and with it, a chapter of my online fandom lays to rest.