Category: internet culture

·

Blog More

A blogger I followed shared this post, Your words are wasted, this morning. It’s a 13-year old blog post about why you should own your own content, mostly likely on your own blog, with your own domain name and all that. Basically all the IndieWeb principles.

I know I go on about this topic a lot. I’m sure my friends are tired of hearing me talk about it, but this is my blog and so, well, here I go again.

Edit: I wrote a bunch of boring paragraphs under this line, which I just deleted, because good God they were just not needed.

OK, now that my edit is out of the way, here is what I have to say.

If you want a web presence, have a blog. If you don’t know how to do that, ask me. It’s really that simple. If you must use social media, use it sparingly. If you must use social media, consider using Mastodon, Pixelfed, and other Fediverse stuff and bringing your friends along. As soon as advertising, MAGAs or other kooks, or AI bots show up on a social media silo, stop participating.

That is all.

·

Banning the TikToks…

This article from starbreaker.org came across my radar today. It expresses what I think about the TikTok ban pretty completely. Now it looks like Trumpistan may try turn it into some form of state media. How fitting.

I’ve never used TikTok. As soon as someone showed it to me and I saw videos of teenagers dancing I formed a negative opinion of it, because I can be a dick that way.

The  ability to create your own website is what democratizes the internet. The ability to run your own email list, using your own software democratizes it, just like owning your own data and creative output that you can move around and shield from AI thieves (as best you can) democratizes the web.

What would REALLY democratize it would be the ability to fully and completely OWN your own domain name, rather than renting it. But that’s how it works.

I’ve read opinions that having your own site should be easier. I don’t really believe this. It is already just so easy. It’s easier than it’s ever been. What is missing is the awareness in the general population that it’s possible. Awareness and desire. Not everyone wants to have a website. They just want to share stuff. The Fediverse answers that need quite well, but it requires a tiny amount of effort to understand. Tiny. Frankly the ability to text a group of friends and include an image or short video pretty much covers the sharing part as well.

But there is nothing like having your own domain name and website. Or even just a page. Hosted on space that YOU rent or own. Nice and portable. Make yours site such that if one host closes are begins to suck you can just move it. Easy.

Problem solved. You’re welcome, America.

·

The Beauty of the Hyperlink

As I delve further into the movement back to personal webpages and blogs as the basis for the real internet, one thing that has become very clear is that you must use hyperlinks whenever you can!

The beauty of the web, and really its original intention, was the linking of one document to others, creating – GASP – a web of information and links!

It honestly feels absurd to be explaining this, even if hardly anyone is reading. This is such basic knowledge, but I’m sure that if you ask almost anyone who wasn’t in tech back at the beginning, a serious computer hobbyist, or a librarian, they won’t know why it’s called the World Wide Web.

Social media at best barely permits good linking habits, and at worst makes it impossible, since the owners of the silos don’t want you to leave. To them it is critically important that you stay on their site. This fact has gone a long way toward ruining the internet, but not quite! The old internet is still there, the old ways are easier than ever to learn and do.

Anyway, on this blog, when not simply composing some irrational screed, I try to hyperlink to relevant pages. I tend to link to Wikipedia a lot. When I heard that Musk apparently said bad things or some other shit about Wikipedia the other day I donated for the first time. Hey, I’m a reference librarian approaching my 30th year in the profession so I understand the limitations and problems of Wikipedia, but it’s pretty useful if you are just needing info on the first Godzilla movie you ever saw or something.

Here’s the thing. It isn’t a web if there are no connections. Linking to other interesting sites, pages, or whatever is what makes the World Wide Web a web. So LINK!!!!!!

·

Manifesto?

OK, I know it seems like I’m going off the deep end, and I may be, but I updated my “About” page. It’s not quite a manifesto – YET. I’m working on it.

I added my static skate clips site, which I generate with Jekyll, to the navigation menu up top. I don’t now if I’ll stick with Jekyll, but so far it is working. There are a few issues I want to work out, but I do love the art gallery look of it.

Honestly, if I can get the issues worked out with Jekyll, or find another static site generator that solves those few problems, I may work on moving this entire blog to a similar setup. WordPress has been good for many years, but it is becoming bloated. I feel like the complexity of the mySQL/PHP stuff makes it vulnerable to hacking. I mean, I know this is the case. Worst, the themes in WordPress are becoming very hard to customize, absurdly complex, and almost all of them suck. The complexity issue means it is really not a great use of my time to create my own.

I do love using micro.blog for my other skateboarding blog. It is based on Hugo, another static site generator. Micro.blog is really a pretty amazing blogging platform. Still, I’m increasingly drawn to building everything I need myself. The transition will take time though. I have lots of other things I’m working on. I think ActivityPub is very cool, but really, I’m getting to the point I’d rather just have people follow the site by RSS and email me if they have something to say. I’m feeling less need to share it everywhere.

I’d hand-code everything and use SSIs IF I could easily create an RSS feed for it. I’m just not there.