Welcome to volume twenty-six of Scrolls, a newsletter for sharing cool stuff from the IndieWeb, Fediverse & Cybersecurity realms. This week we talk about what it means to be a part of the IndieWeb, we ask ourselves “can we build a better social network?”, and we mess with Claude.
Shoutout to atomicker for the steady stream of awesome Japanese art, and specifically this beautiful snowy piece that spoke to me most recently while I’ve been snowed in ❄️.
IndieWeb
Quick pulse check here for the Internet. Is it dead? Not yet—and thanks to efforts such as the collective IndieWeb movement, the Internet does in fact live. We all have our own ideas, our own vision for what a better web would look like. We see the things that exist today that make us sad and we imagine a better way. Everyone uses the Internet in some fashion, and of that group, an overwhelming majority probably uses some form of social media and other large corporate sites. What percentage of that group in-turn has any concept of what the IndieWeb is? Do they realize there is an alternative to doom scrolling? A place where the AI slop machines have yet to take root? A truly open web, unique and designed by humans, for humans? The IndieWeb is small, you might even describe it as fledgling. But it’s been around for as long as the Internet has been a thing, and it will continue to exist, at least on the fringes of the larger Internet no matter what happens with the corporate leviathans of the modern Internet age. So go get yourself a blog and help us keep the Internet alive and beautiful!
It’s one thing to wax poetic about the IndieWeb (as I often do), and another thing to actually do it, to be a part of it, to help build it, to join the community as it were. A lot of people have different ideas of what it means to be a “part” of the IndieWeb. I’ve written about it, but honestly I feel it can be simplified even further. For me, the ultimate distillation of what it means to be “part of the IndieWeb”, is to have your own site (at a domain that you own), and to publish your own content there in some way. That’s it. Now, this doesn’t solve for issues regarding technology, or onboarding, or community, or discovery, etc… But it atleast opens the scope to be as inclusive as possible in my mind. Beyond having your own site and putting some stuff there, I think the next best thing you can do to help promote and strengthen the IndieWeb is to just read other people’s stuff, share it, link to it, and contact the respective creators and let them know you read it, or that you liked it, or that it inspired you, etc… We’re better together—in real life, and on the web!
Looking for more to do on your site? Here’s some ideas! Create a save button, add your favorite sites to a blogroll, give your site a new coat of paint (your site design is a constant evolution), turn your site into a feed reader, publish your citation preferences (kinda like I did), and/or answer the 100 webmaster questions. Just remember, it’s always a good time to blog!
Small Web Finds and Features
Here’s a couple cool things I’ve found on the ‘net recently that you too can check out!
- TechConf.Directory is a new place to find your next tech conference!
- A Poem of the Day is probably a healthier way to spend a few seconds you might otherwise spend doom scrolling…
Fediverse
Can we build a better social network? Of course! The bar isn’t exactly high though given the traditional options. I’m here to tell ya though that a better social network is already here. We call it the “Fediverse”. This “social web” can be hard to explain though. What makes Mastodon and the Fediverse better? Control and community (to name some of the basic benefits). Not to mention innovation! Fedi brings the control of single-user instances, community-crafted security, and plenty of beauty to go around.
Cybersecurity
Perfectly normal week in cyberworld—we got a new threat intelligence repo, a huge list of web app payloads, a path out from the sisyphean cycle of vulnerability management, and a fun way to DoS Claude…
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Stay safe out there.
Thanks for reading Scrolls! Have a nice night!
