📗 Want to read Necropolitics by Achille Mbembe ISBN: 9781478006510
People and blogs involved with and about the IndieWeb community, the fediverse, and/or the open web in general.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
Massive VW Data Leak Exposed 800,000 EV Owners’ Movements, From Homes To Brothels
[Thanos Pappas at CarScoops]
There are a few different levels to this story about the VW Group's terrible cybersecurity:
"According to a new report from Germany, the VW Group stored sensitive information for 800,000 electric vehicles from various brands on a...
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
Stuff I loved in 2024
For many of us, myself included, it’s been .. a year. Rather than rehash all of that again, I thought I’d mark the end of the year by just listing some things I’ve loved. Here you go.
Books
Julia, by Sandra Newman
Not just a retelling but a complete recasting of 1984. It's ...
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
If You Don’t Like Sales, Don’t Start a Company
As Hunter points out, it's impossible to start a company without tackling sales, and you aren't absolved from it no matter which route you take:
"If you avoid sales or are poor at it, you are doing a disservice to your team, your cofounder and yourself. You are unintentionally lowering the ceiling on outcome or making it even harder to succeed."
I'm the least salesy person you know, but I started two companies, neither one of which would have lasted as long as they did if I hadn't got into the practice of selling. Here's a hint: it's far less heinous and there's far less friction if you know exactly who your product is for and you're laser-focused on making it great for them. It's not always a slog: often it's a beautiful relationship.
[Link]
CSS wants to be a system - daverupert.com
CSS wants you to build a system with it. It wants styles to build up, not flatten down.
Truth!
Books I read in 2024
I’ve been keeping track of the books I’m reading for about seven years now. I do that here on my own website, as well as on bookshop.org.
It has become something of a tradition for me to post an end-of-year summary of the books I’ve read in the previous twelve months. Maybe...
Another detail about Micro.one, especially for folks who want to share it with friends and family as soon as it launches: it will be limited to 3000 total subscribers. That’s a tiny number at the scale of big silos, but it’s a lot for us. Needs to be sustainable in the context of the whole platform.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
Secret Service Admits It Didn’t Check if People Really Consented to Being Tracked
[Joseph Cox at 404 Media]
The contracts and relationships that seemingly allow law enforcement and federal agencies to use private services and data brokers to monitor the activities of American citizens without obtaining a warrant seem to be based on a nudg...
Fleet Coffee on Manor. ☕️
“When ya ain’t got nothin', you got nothin' to lose
You’re invisible now, ya got no secrets to conceal
How does it feel?” — Bob Dylan
I'm playing with using Bluesky as a very simple feed reader. 1. Running up against its lack of style and formatting. Very bare bones. Not sure if people will like. 2. What's the rate limit? My app is getting rate-limited with not very many posts. (According to their docs on rate limits, I don't think my project is anywhere near the limit. It's creating posts. I'll start counting them, I guess.)
Braintrust query: Do you subscribe to one or more AI service?
Here's a list of all the feeds in my blogroll, with links to the XML version. I've wanted to have a nice non-XML way of viewing the feeds in an OPML subscription list. I took the time today to put one together. I had all the pieces, it was just a matter of putting them all in one place. You can use it if you want, if you want to show someone what feeds are in an OPML subscription list. Screen shot.
I can't get it out of my head that today is Monday. That's how it computes in my brain. This time of year is very confusing that way.
Sunday session
Sunday session
Found this first edition, signed copy of A Song for Arbonne at Half Price Books the other day and had to get it. Read it so long ago that it’ll be like reading it for the first time. I’m always on the lookout for old Kay books, they seem in short supply. 📚
Added a new blogging page to the Micro.blog website when you’re not signed in. This is the start of bringing back some more text and screenshots. Just a Mac screenshot for now. Also might reuse some of this for Micro.one.
It took me a long time to figure out that when people respond to you on twitter-like systems they aren't actually speaking to you, they're talking over your shoulder to the masses they imagine are reading what you posted. Three comments. 1. There are no masses. You can see this by looking at the stats for each tweet, available on most platforms. 2. Most users on the social web are trying to get attention for themselves, the only reason they read the posts is to see if there's a place for them to attach their message. 3. A simple tweak to the software would make it so that only the author of the post being responded to could see the replies. Then they could RT a reply if they thought everyone should see it. This would make the social web a lot more useful imho.
Reading Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.
Reading Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.
Idea: Pipe new posts from feeds in my blogroll list to Bluesky.