Ranted on the new fediverse symbol proposal: Thoughts on symbols ā Manu
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New blog post! Amongst other things I found a cool new podcast, shared some neat links and did some adult coloring.
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I bashed this out tonight instead of sleeping like a sensible person.
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I have such a great example from just this weekend of what youāre talking about here when it comes to sticking to RSS + Email.
In my most recent blog post I wrote:
Iām no astrophysicist, and if what Iām saying is wrong Iām sure Brian will correct me, but Iām pretty sure galaxies do have a centre.
I donāt have webmentions set up or any of that stuff and I didnāt email Brian. Thatās literally just a link on my website.
The next day I got a great email from him with some thoughts on the subject. And I mentioned to him how much I like the fact that I can just mention him in passing and then an email lands in my inbox and he replied:
Yeah, your post popped up in my morning RSS feed, I saw I was mentioned and sent an email. No federation needed.
Which just shows you how the system works perfectly without all the extra nonsense people are trying to build these days.
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I enjoyed reading this and agree with your points. I think a lot of tech people focus on tools and workflow rather than actually doing the work of writing for your website (why spend 15 minutes on a task when you could spend 8 hours automating it). The indieweb protocols seem to be another example of that. Webmentions are a neat concept but are too difficult for non-tech people to implement to be useful outside of developer circles. Iāve toyed around with it but the amount of genuine interactions Iāve had with Webmentions is 0. Meanwhile I interact with people via RSS and email all the time.
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I dont really have a lot to talk about other than the thoughts that have been plaguing my mind. This post has more rambling than I anticipated and doesnāt really have a main point, itās just me talking about my insecurities in regards to my place in the Indie Web. I kinda got inspired by a Charli XCX song while writing it.
Also technically a new post on my new main site yay
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As harsh as this might sound, @Sunny_Velvet_Luxe, Iām saying this with the kindest intentions I can manage:
Your identity is yours to construct, and not anybody elseās. Likewise, nobody gets to dictate to you your proper place. You decide that for yourself where you claim space for yourself and make a stand.
Rather than do consecutive posts Iāll just drop this here. I bashed out another post about teh internet, but this oneās about email instead of IndieWeb bullshit.
I had noticed that this morning, @manuelmoreale, along with your entry in my guestbook. I never expected you to sign it when you had already been emailing me, but I appreciate it.
But youāve mistaken me: I put on a brave front, but I am afraid to be myself. I know thereās likely to be a price to pay. But I burn my dread and do it anyway because I donāt know who else to be.
@yequari, Iāve noticed the same thing, and while I have the technical skill to implement webmentions because I build web apps for a living, I just canāt be bothered to do so for the same reason I canāt be bothered to use node.js or React to build a personal website.
Some techies get so obsessed with their tooling that they lose sight of what theyāre trying to accomplish with their tools. They let their means become ends in themselves. This is what Iāve observed with the IndieWeb. Theyāve implemented microformats and IndieAuth and Webmentions and written about their process, but thatās all they write because otherwise theyāve got nothing to say.
I sometimes want to shake these people and ask, āWhat are you trying to accomplish, and who are you trying to impress?ā Maybe Iām getting too old for this shit, but whenever I see a techie propose a technological solution to a social or political problem I want to tell them, āThey tried to solve human problems with tech in eighteenth century France, and all they did was make matters worse.ā
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Itās not harsh at all. Thank you for giving me that reminder, you are right that my own self will always be mine.
ā
Iām still reading your recent blog post about IndieWeb and although I am not very familiar with the service, hearing about your thoughts also reminds me why I felt quite alienated from tech-focused spaces. It does feel like a high wall designed to keep away people with features that are over-engineered or hard to understand for arbritrary reasons, to keep most people that arenāt in the loop out. Itās nice to hear that you and a handful of people that are the target audience for this type of interest, do not engage in the elitism that the IndieWeb movement seems to foster.
Itās a subject for another rant, but IndieWeb feels to me like something made by and for people who grew up with computers at home and got into programming around the same time they learned to read. Itās not for people like me, who didnāt get their own computers until they were 18 and had to buy them secondhand with money they saved from doing scutwork in a supermarket.
IndieWeb and similar āelitistā tech projects arenāt for people who got into tech because it pays better than sweeping floors and scrubbing toilets. Itās for people who say that theyāre passionate about coding not because it impresses people who might pay them nice salaries to play with computers, but because they honestly mean it.
Me, Iām not passionate about tech. Iām passionate about getting paid. Also, I think that UNIX is heavy metal, and that heavy metal should be for anybody who wants it, with none of this āwimps and posers, leave the hallā gatekeeping bullshit.
I honestly think more people would be more empowered around tech if they came out of school knowing how to work with UNIX-like systems and could navigate a command-line interface or even do some basic shell scripting. It might make it harder for tech corporations and techbros to bullshit people into thinking that they need to leave computing to the priesthood of the Temples of Syrinx.
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Loved this one. Reply more later.
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Writing a blog post on this so Iāll answer that way
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I had seen that you had bookmarked it. Thanks, BTW.
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I clearly need a vacation: Yelling at the web clouds ā Manu
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I recently had a vacation, and it didnāt help much. Probably because I spent it either doing housework, swimming at the YMCA, or playing Final Fantasy XIV.
Iām 35, I started freelancing when I was 22 and I never had an actual, proper vacation. One where you shut the work part of your brain off and just enjoy the time off. I probably need one of those 
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Iām 45, and my wife constantly tells me to relax because I canāt seem to turn off my brain unless I go full meathead because Iām in the pool swimming laps.
Even as a kid this lyric from the Blue Oyster Cultās āFlaming Telepathsā made me feel seen:
Is it any wonder that my mindās on fire
Imprisoned by the thought of what to do
Is it any wonder that my jokeās in ire
And the jokeās on you
And I had blogged about this song last year.
Yes, I know the secrets of the iron and mind
Theyāre trinity acts, a mineral fire
Yes, I know the secrets of the circuitry mind
Itās a flaming wonder telepath
The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond IT specialists and hobbyists.
That my friend, is a beautiful quote to pull
Dropped this tonight to get away from talking about the web.
Quite a bit different to me a decade later Millennial Energy
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I was born in '92. I dont remember movies having intermissions, but I wish they still did.