Exploring digital citizenry as a creator and a consumer.
I let my lifelong reading habit lapse and only recently made real progress recovering that practice. I owe that progress to my hobby of self hosting and learning from earlier projects how the right software can create a helpful, positive feedback loop. When I was maybe seven or eight, I struggled with the first book my mom gave me, The Dragonriders of Pern . I wanted to like it, it was important…
I try to live into my values. I've long assumed openness, especially in knowledge and technology, was a core value of mine. Inspired by the vow I wrote about at the start of this year, I examined that assumption. Upon reflection I don't think I do have openness as a core value. Let me explain why I think that realization may be more helpful than I expected. My vow was about this space and the…
When that version of ChatGPT dropped a few years ago, I was rattled for the first time in my career. Even before I learned about all the terrible externalities that surround this technology, I wondered if I would need a plan B for the final chapters of my working life. I put on a good face for my team at the time and had the privilege of too much priority work to stop and figure out what this…
I have wanted to write here more and even podcast again for some time. I have struggled with motivation and practice so that my results have been inconsistent. I have an idea I want to explain and try out to see if it helps. I wish to make a vow but not about writing or recording here more. That isn't a very good promise to make, I already tried that in any number of forms with little success. I…
I started exploring what I learned from an interview with Guo Gu , a teacher of Chan Buddhism , in my meditation practice. I have been cultivating equanimity as a centering focus. Chan seems to favor what he called contentment, expressed with the phase, "It's all good". To me, I thought that could be a blending of the stable abodes , a bit each of equanimity, loving kindness, compassion, and…
This week I reached the finish line of a project I've been working on for my $dayjob for a little over a year. I've worked on a handful of projects like this in my career, few of them were successful. I thought writing about my experience would help consolidate what I've learned. I've been wanting to write more. My strongest inspiration over the years has been my own experience. Reflecting on this…
At the end of my last post, I mentioned my new home server opening up more possibilities. There are some projects I would have liked to run in the past but hosting them at Digital Ocean felt like too much. These are quality of life ideas that would help me work more coherently across several different machines. Not anything that would benefit from public hosting either. I would need to be on top…
Encouraged by my success so far with my home server, Lovelace, I wondered what I might add next. I enjoyed getting single sign-on working using my forge as the identity provider. I am proud that I found a way to have usable hostnames on an entirely private network with full TLS support . I first learned about CryptPad when Chris, who is a close friend, and I contemplated a joint venture a couple…
I have continued to work on my new home server. Since my last post a few months back I've actually upgraded the hardware because the next service I added was a media server, Jellyfin . The idea started out of a concern that media we enjoy and would like to continue to enjoy might be taken offline because of actions the Trump administration has taken since January. I found a source of community…
I am catching up on some news drafts, including ones from the end of last year, like this one. Justine Calma, The Verge, wrote about an environmental protection bill in New York state. https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/30/24332241/climate-change-superfund-act-new-york-state-trump Modeled after superfunds, the law would require oil and gas companies to pay into a fund that will be used to increase…
I rely on the bundled file sync service on my network attached storage (NAS) appliance to work across my devices. I recently added a MNT Pocket Reform to the set of devices I use regularly. The Pocket Reform is a lovingly hand built and supremely open mini laptop with a seven inch display and a clacky, ortholinear keyboard. The sync service on my NAS has clients for the rest of my devices. The…
I've had a security key for a few years now. I've always been fascinated by these kinds of devices, a supremely minimal computer hardened for use in an intricate cryptographic exchange that promises simpler, stronger security than a mere password. I didn't realize at first that the latest evolution of password free authentication, passkey, wasn't device dependent. My security key is capable of…
The blockhead post I wrote the other day reminded me of my interest in the question of how creators can find their own ways to sustain their art. Late stage capitalism is evolving through chokepoint capitalism into something else entirely. The question of what else could work for independent creators is more important than ever. A couple of stories caught my mind this week relevant to the…
A year ago I was burning out. I had been on the edge of burnout for several years. When I left that job, a very chaotic early startup that hid its dysfunctions better than most, I consciously worked on processing the experience, restoring my well being, and preparing for my next steps more thoroughly than I have ever done so before. As a result, I am ending this year feeling far better than I…
Cory wrote another post at Pluralistic that resonated with some of my own recent thoughts. He was exploring the intersection of the creative urge with the increasingly exploitative intermediaries standing between creators and their potential audiences. Well worth a read on its own if you are interested in any of these topics. One thing he admitted in particular stood out to me, that like may…
Another theme I am returning to is copyright. I have been paying less attention in recent years but the fight continues. Even more market consolidation has emboldened copyright maximalists. They have continued to ratchet up their efforts to defend their preferred business models at the expense of any others and even the very open nature of the internet itself. I caught up with an old favorite…
I recently finished restoring all the posts I wanted to retain from the archive I exported from the previous incarnation of this website. In the process I reminded myself of why I have followed many of the themes that I do, like privacy. I admit to not paying as much attention to the details of the Salt Typhoon story as I could have. Revisiting my old episodes and posts reminded me of how I used…
Whatever you think of the outgoing Biden administration, I enjoyed watching his appointees who've worked on antitrust these past few years. I worked at New America when Lina Khan wrote her seminal paper on Amazon. She was impressive then and has lived up to the expectations many of her fellow wonks at the time had of her. With the incoming administration, the future of this trend of actual…
Jay Peters at The Verge wrote this week about another non-profit forming to support the open social web. This one was started by a couple of developers, one of whom has created several projects that help glue disparate systems together in interesting ways. I've used snarfed's projects before, a video to audio converter that can be used with huffduffer . Currently they've built bridges that…
I starred another piece by Karl Bode at Techdirt to continue to learn more about the details of the recent Salt Typhoon attacks. The details Karl covers a helpful context on a story I shared yesterday, about Senator Wyden advancing a new cybercrime bill specifically in response to these attacks. Disclosure requirements are relative new here in the US but these seems pretty unacceptable to me. I'm…
I starred this story from EFF by Karen Gullo to learn more about a treaty being considered by the UN. Since I first saw the post, thankfully the vote on the treaty has been delayed but not to address potential overreach. The updated mentions budget considerations. Regardless of the reason, there is some traction civil society groups can hopefully build on. Thanks to the work of a coalition of…
I've been hanging out in the Fediverse, or the open social web, for a while. The vibe reminds me strongly of the early open web and the first experiments with social media. That includes trying to figure out how to bring some for of sustainable commerce to it, hopefully without full on late stage capitalism attached. I've seen a few new ideas and a lot of retreads on old ones that keep…
In amidst the seemingly ever deepening enshittification of the net, there are some causes for optimism. One continues to be Senator Wyden who for years has truly worked on issues of access to communications and knowledge in a far less partisan way than others in his party. This time he has introduced a bill to grant the FCC more regulatory authority in the wake of breaches and online attacks. Karl…
I continue to work on restoring my current web-site from the exported archive from the last version running on an entirely different stack. I've been making incremental improvements to a hacky, cobbled together process. I was migrating posts from today's date across all years. I am realizing thanks to the improvements I've been making, I can do more and might even be able to finish the restoration…
I struggle with my attraction to tech gadgets. I oscillate between simply avoiding opportunities to be tempted and experimenting with ways to indulge more responsibly. A few years ago, starting with some Pine64 gear, I unleashed my interest but decided to indulge it with more open gear. There have been many new great projects recently, two in particular I am interested in. I've written about open…
Kevin Purdy has the story at Ars Technica as well as a bit of historical context. DNT emerged out of privacy advocacy work I remember well. Like P3P before it, the enforcement mechanism was never very clear. As Purdy explains, that was true for regulators as well, leading quickly to a stale mate which meant that the spec never grew in any meaningful way. In the meantime, the need for privacy and…
I've shared before about my online reading habits . For years I have grazed on RSS with an evolving practice of capturing longer reads for offline enjoyment. A few years ago, I moved my long reading to an eink tablet and was able to use existing services, starting with Mozilla's Pocket, to get articles of interest onto my preferred device. The most recent service I was using has gone away,…
The past few weeks I have been thinking about how to respond to a world that now seems highly uncertain except for the strong probability of increased threats and harms to the people and communities I care about. Some ideas have taken root and at least one has already sent forth its first tentative shoot. I identify as a builder. No matter what happens around me, I am calmest and most helpful when…
The essay I shared yesterday hopefully represented a breakthrough. I've been wanting to write more, in particular to share causes for hope. I had been struggling with motivation and focus. Nothing like expanding the ongoing polycrisis to galvanize one into action. To encourage myself forward, I've also finally fixed a few paper cuts with the new website. Remembering Why I Write I am excited to…
I've been processing a lot this week, mostly worried about the future. Honestly I have no idea what is going to happen. We never do, no matter how real our fears or hopes may seem. The last time I processed this much was after I left my previous $dayjob. The last stretch of that job was highly chaotic. I learned and tried a lot to deal with the maelstrom. I intentionally spent a month reflecting…
An update is long overdue, at least to share progress on restoring this website from the archive of its previous incarnation. I am also testing a new feature of my recently upgraded Mastodon server. I've enjoyed revisiting my past writing while restoring posts and am grateful I exited the WordPress ecosystem several years ago. The work has helped me work on other projects that benefit from…
A few months ago, in between my last day job and my current one, I read Cal Newport's Slow Productivity . I enjoyed the book and found the three core lessons he describes to be super helpful. I have been thinking a lot in particular about his idea of working at a natural pace. He doesn't offer a precise enough definition to simply implement the idea and start working. He illustrates it with…
I decided to try to simplify my self hosting, starting with migrating my single user instance of Mastodon to a dedicated hosting provider. I enjoyed running a couple of servers myself but lately am more interested in having my own Mastodon instance rather than spending the time to keep it up and secure. Thankfully, I already use a dedicated hosting provider for a community instance I administer…
I have resumed restoring posts from my archive. I am prioritizing essays and podcasts. I also am looking back at posts from today's date that I posted in years past. In addition to fix inbound link rot, I am hoping that re-familiarizing myself with my past writing might lead to me writing here more than I have been regularly. I switched off of WordPress a few years ago. I have an export of the old…
After reading yesterday's Pluralistic , I realized a few parallels with Cory's reflection on the past three years of his current web-writing setup. I've experimented with many similar tools and concepts. I'm inspired to take that experimentation back up and reminded that writing for myself, however rough it ends up, is still worthwhile. More interestingly I realized that how I read the web has…
I continue to work on this site, either migrating old content or re-writing it to be more up to date. I added a page about the forge I self host. The page also explains why I host my own source control and how I chose what I am currently using. I used to link to the commercial forge I abandoned, like many people do. I added a link directly to my forge down in the footer for people expecting the…
One reason I was eager to use Kubernetes with my recent self-hosting upgrade was how much faster it will make experimenting with new services. Unlike my older docker-compose based setup there is an ecosystem of pre-packaged resources to add to a cluster with minimal configuration. For any custom configuration not from a package, jsonnet and kubecfg help me abstract over the often repetitive syntax…
I was chatting with my good friend, Chris, recently. He had asked for my advice and help. He wanted to brush up on and add to his programming skills. I recommended a language to consider, a couple of books that have helped me gain a working fluency with it, and a newsletter on the same. We scheduled a time for a video chat where he had many excellent questions from his reading so far. Our chat…
I have been self hosting my own services for years. I originally started doing so to practice new skills early in my career, then increasingly for privacy by definitively owning my own data. Since I started I have added more services to enrich and control my online experience. I recently overhauled and upgraded how I self host after a few years of inertia. I am pretty happy with where my efforts…
I am enjoying a week off, to celebrate fifty years so far on this planet. I thought I'd write as part of this time I made for myself. I have been self hosting my own services for a while--email, web sites, shared contacts and calendars, RSS aggregator, and others. I recently upgraded and expanded my fleet. I now host a couple of instances of Mastodon. One of them is the social outlet of this site,…
You may have noticed more content showing up here on the new site. Some of it, like this post, is new, part of my effort to get back into regular posts. The rest is content from the old site that I have started migrating over to the new site. I don't have a clear plan on how, what, and when I will migrate. Today I wanted to get the last post I wrote about a career transition onto the new site. I…
Over the last few months, I have been working on my private servers to update them to more modern tools and to make them easier to manage. For this site, I decided to migrate off of WordPress and onto a static site generator. I chose Zola as my generator, almost entirely because it is written in Rust. The documentation is pretty good, there are tons of examples and a decent set of themes. If I…
Most of my career, I have been a software developer. Occasionally I have tried my hand at managing people. Up until my current job, my attempts at management have met with mixed success. There are a variety of reasons behind this and I want to share one of them. Motivation is important to my success. As a technologist, I had a good grasp on what motivated me and was able to consistently lean into…
This article from Stanford has helped me understand why some of my colleagues when I worked directly on public policy were consistently more effective. My own insights about coalition building and using connections well really snapped into much clearer focus after reading this article. A growing number of philanthropists and nonprofits are embracing the principles of systems change as an effective…
Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica as ever explains clearly how using the CRA to undo the FCC vote could work as well as the political likelihood of such an action succeeding. Part of me likes open internet supporters in Congress using the same act to preserve existing neutrality rules that was also used to undo consumer privacy protections earlier in the year. Another part of me wishes legislators would…
Technology policy is hard to follow for the interested and invested. It is harder for a blogger and podcaster like me who wants in some way to make the legitimately complex issues in some way more understandable, to hopefully increase the number of people engaged in the very important, public discourse around these policy matters. Mike Masnick at Techdirt unpacks a bit of Internet outrage around…
I had the great pleasure to see Tim O'Reilly speak in person at an open government event I attended years ago. Everything Cory relates in his expansive and glowing review of O'Reilly's new book both rings true and makes for a compelling endorsement. This seems like a book that is both a bit overdue and very much primed for this particular moment. Source: Tim O'Reilly's WTF? A book that tells us…
The change, to curtail access to the Canvas API, is incremental and likely to be limited in how it is visible to regular users. However it signals some progress in a collaboration with the Tor project to incorporate code and ideas that benefit the privacy features of Firefox and Tor Browser. The Register's write up includes a pretty good explainer on fingerprinting and why finding ways to mitigate…
A couple of important points here. What was theoretically broken was the audio alternative option in reCaptcha. Bad but not as bad as it could be. What is probably worse, though, is that an exploit has been previously published of this same option, in fact using Google's own voice processing API's against it. Nothing about how Google can or will shore up this vulnerability. Google's reCaptcha…
According to The Register, the US Deputy Attorney General is now saying that technology companies don't need to install back doors in their encryption--provided they can reveal plain text of all secure communications on demand. Entirely misses the point. Sure, that won’t go wrong at all Source: Fine, OK, no backdoors, says Deputy AG. Just keep PLAINTEXT copies of everyone's messages • The Register
