These days I read Timothy Snyder's essays as soon as they come in.
People and blogs involved with and about the IndieWeb community, the fediverse, and/or the open web in general.
New month. Last month's source code archived. Onward! 😄
Severance Is the Future Tech Bros Want - Reactor
The tech bros advocating for generative AI to take over art are at the same level of cultural refinement as the characters in Severance. They’re creating apps to summarize books to people, tweeting from accounts with Greek statue profile pictures.
GenAI would automate Lumon’s cultural mission, allowing humans to sever themselves from the production of art and culture.
The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences | The Verge
theverge.com/press-room/617654/internet-community-future-research
Good news for the fediverse, the indie web, and community sites like The Session:
People are abandoning massive platforms in favor of tight-knit groups where trust and shared values flourish and content is at the core. The future of community building is in going back to the basics.
The Sunshine by the Sea: S20E08 - Harsh Browns
Research by the Sea was one of the best conferences I’ve been to in yeeeeeears. So many good, useful, inspiring, thoughtful, provocative talks. Much more about ethics and power and possibility than I’d expected. None of the ‘utopian bullshit’ you usually get at a product or digital conference, to quote one of the speakers!
Werd I/O
• Ben Werdmuller
GSA eliminates 18F
[Natalie Alms at Nextgov/FCW]
I'd say this was an unbelievable own-goal. But, unfortunately, it's believable:
"The General Services Administration deleted 18F, a government tech consultancy that helps other agencies with their technology, early Saturday mor...
Through Lines 247 | Scott Boms
I miss being excited by technology. I wish I could see a way out of the endless hype cycles that continue to elicit little more than cynicism from me. The version of technology that we’re mostly being sold today has almost nothing to do with improving lives, but instead stuffing the pockets of those who already need for nothing. It’s not making us smarter. It’s not helping heal a damaged planet. It’s not making us happier or more generous towards each other. And it’s entrenched in everything — meaning a momentous challenge to re-wire or meticulously disconnect. I’m slowly finding my own ways of breaking free to regain a sense of self and purpose.
“What’s Up Doc?” IndieWeb Movie Club
Anchor position tool
This is a great little helper in understanding anchor positioning in CSS.
google webfonts helper
Google Fonts only lets you download .ttf files meaning that if you want to self-host your fonts (and you should), you have to first convert them to .woff2 files.
Luckily this tool has been online for over a decade, doing what Google Fonts should be doing by default.
Self-Expression - IndieWeb Carnival March 2025
lifeofpablo.com/blog/self-expression-indieweb-carnival-march-2025
Watched some of the video with Trump, Vance, and Zelenskyy. We are in a very dark place with American foreign policy. Europe will have to take the lead. We have lost our way here, led by a narcissist whose selfishness and cruelty is almost beyond belief. 🇺🇸
Chris Aldrich
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• Chris Aldrich
For those interested in writing methods, Peter Elbow’s work can be seen as an interesting shift in pedagogy from the 1970s. Interestingly it relies on pieces of practices pre-dating him which inform commonplace book and related zettelkasten methods. For my own files, from the obituary, it looks like he was using an IBM Selectric I … Continue reading
Untitled
📗 Want to read One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad ISBN: 9780593804148
New version of Micro Social is coming out, from Greg Morris:
Apple have approved a new version of Micro Social that includes posting to multiple blogs, managing and updating existing posts as well as a few other improvements.
I also fixed an issue on the Micro.blog side with push notifications.
Werd I/O
• Ben Werdmuller
Groups helping LGBTQ+ victims of violence could face loss of federal funds
[Mel Leonor Barclay and Jasmine Mithani at The 19th]
The impact of this will be severe:
"Organizations that provide services to LGBTQ+ victims of domestic and intimate partner violence expect much of the federal funding they rely on to dry up as the Trump a...
There’s such an increase in distrust of tech companies, we now have to be more explicit about super obvious things that we would never do. Users expect the worst because they’ve been burned. So it goes.
Skimming through some of the negative reaction to Mozilla’s new terms. I took a minute to update Micro.blog’s own privacy policy so that it’s current. Our terms of service has always said you own your data. Never even crossed my mind to sell data it’s such a foreign idea and counter to our mission.
Nice to see Doc Searls using WordLand. He's been an early user of every writing tool I've written for the web going back to the mid-late 90s.
Werd I/O
• Ben Werdmuller
Ex-Washington Post editor Marty Baron rebukes Bezos: ‘betrayal of free expression’
He's not wrong:
"Marty Baron, a highly regarded former editor of the Washington Post, has said that Jeff Bezos’s announcement that the newspaper’s opinion section would narrow its editorial focus was a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him “appalled”."
"Democracy dies in darkness" indeed:
"“If you’re trying to advance the cause of democracy, then you allow for public debate, which is what democracy is all about,” Baron said, adding that Bezos is sending a message that is “anything but democratic”."
Clearly Bezos's move to only host opinion pieces that further "free markets and individual liberties" is an attempt to curtail pieces that might be critical of Trump - and avoid reprisals for his own businesses. Baron is right to call him out on it.
[Link]