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1955 Jaguar XKSS

1 min read

Season two of Amazon’s The Grand Tour has been a huge improvement over the lackluster debut season. The latest episode featured the Jaguar XKSS, which was originally released in 1955, and is being rereleased this year by Jaguar. The XKSS is easily one of the best looking cars of all time.

 

Baptism and Political Resistance ✊

3 min read

In today's church service, our pastor delivered a message about the biblical sacrament of baptism. After the message, the congregation was invited to the front of the church to participate in what the United Methodist Church refers to as the "Congressional Reaffirmation of the Baptismal Covenant." Following the process outlined in the UMC Book of Worship, I reaffirmed my baptism in Christ today. Before approaching the baptismal font, I read the following:

Renunciation of Sin and Profession of Faith

On behalf of the whole church, I ask you: Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?

I do.

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?

I do.

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?

I do.

According the to grace given to you, will you remain faithful members of Christ’s holy church and serve as Christ’s representatives to the world?

I will.

This past year has been extremely trying for me in my faith in the wake of the 2016 Presidential election. Each passing day, I watch as many evangelicals enable injustice and oppression, and fail to reject the evil powers of this world, as the President of the United States spouts overtly racist, isolationist, and sexist words. I watch as many churches and Christians say nothing as the President pushes policies that harm the poor and deepen racial and gender inequality. Evangelicals, especially white evangelicals, voted hugely in favor of this man, and are enabling him every step of the way. I'm personally sick of it.

As I walked through the process of reaffirming my baptism today, I also am renewing my commitment to resist this despicible administration. I have made a promise to God to serve as Christ’s representative, to reject the evil forces of this world, to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, and to do it all together with the church, which is open to all ages, nations, and races. Therefore I choose to resist this President, his hateful and isolationist agenda, and all who support him. I wish to do this together with the church, just as I am called. I encourage you to join me.

Note: I am not advocating that the Church should be "democrat" or "republican," or even political. I'm advocating that Christians, as Christ's representatives in the world, are called to fight injustice, oppression, and evil, no matter what form it takes. Right now, one of the most pressing forms of oppression and injustice in the world is Donald Trump, and his administration. Resist.

 

Here's to what's next

1 min read

Last week, I shared that I have decided to move on from DreamHost, and its been a crazy week tying up loose ends, meeting with colleagues to remember our time together, and reflecting on the past. 

Now, its time to focus on what's next.

On January 16th, I start as Chief Technology Officer at Reliam, a managed cloud service provider based out of Los Angeles, CA. Reliam has just secured up to $75 Million of investment from Great Hill Partners to drive growth. Simon Anderson, former CEO of DreamHost, and my ex-boss, has joined Reliam as CEO. I am thrilled by the possibilities that are ahead of us!

Why does this opportunity excite me? Well, that requires some storytelling that will come later. Suffice it to say, the tectonic shift to public cloud is a huge opportunity, and I believe that this team and company have what it takes to help businesses of all shapes and sizes make the move.

Looking forward to an amazing 2018!

 

Micro Monday: Eddie Hinkle

1 min read

Its our first ever Micro Monday, people! Thanks to @manton and @macgenie for deciding to make this happen. I think its a great way to grow the community of Indie Bloggers and Micro.blog itself. My first recommendation for my followers is @eddiehinkle.

Eddie is a fellow IndieWeb developer that I've enjoyed getting to know over the past year or two. Eddie works on an iOS app called Indigenous:

Indigenous is an iOS app that is in development. It’s goal is to provide a native iOS interface to the indieweb movement.

Indigenous is open source, written in Apple's Swift programming language. If you're an IndieWeb-curious developer on Apple platforms, I'd encourage you to get involved with Eddie, and help him with Indigenous!

In addition to his work on the IndieWeb, I also appreciate following Eddie because he writes thoughtful posts about, you know, being a human. Its always refreshing to see someone share how their faith informs their life in an open and honest, accepting way.

Thanks for being awesome, Eddie!

 

Farewell, DreamHost

2 min read

Late in December, I tendered my resignation to the founders of DreamHost. My last day is Friday, January 12th. After over six years, it’s time to move on to my next adventure. But, before I do, I want to spend some time reflecting on my time at DreamHost.

DreamHost is the reason I moved my wife and infant daughter from Atlanta to Los Angeles. We spent our first year in the heart of Venice Beach, in a little condo on Abbot Kinney Blvd., the trendiest street in the trendiest neighborhood in LA. We now have settled into a lovely home in a great family neighborhood in South Redondo Beach, and couldn’t be happier.

In my six years at DreamHost, I’ve held five different positions, covering a huge variety of disciplines and responsibilities – software development, product management, operations, and even managing an entire business unit. I’ve had the pleasure of helping DreamHost become a company with disciplined engineering, product, and marketing teams. I’ve helped guide the company to embrace modern cloud infrastructure, and been part of releasing some of our fastest growing products on top of that infrastructure. We launched two spinoff companies based on open source technology we created, one of which became one of the greatest commercial open source successes ever.

In my six year run, DreamHost has also gone through a major reorganization, redefined our core values, and defined a Noble Cause, Vision, and Mission. We even stood up for the freedom of our customers in a landmark battle with the Department of Justice! We’ve become a company that knows who we are, what we stand for, and how we fit into the world. I’m immensely proud and gratified to have been a part of it.

Today’s DreamHost has an incredible culture, a caring leadership team, and a bright future. It’s been a joy. Keep on dreaming, DreamHost! I’ll miss you all!

 

What’s next for me? Well, that’s a different story...

 

Cord-Cutting Experiments: Part 2

4 min read

Earlier this month, I began experimenting with cutting the cord, starting by evaluating over-the-air options. Early indications had me optimistic that between a solid indoor antenna, an HDHomeRun Connect tuner, and Live TV and DVR functionality from Plex, I'd at least have my problems solved when it comes to the major networks. Sadly, that's turned out not to be true.

Plex + HDHomeRun: Not Ready for Prime Time

As I mentioned before, the HDHomeRun is great, and the antenna does pull in many channels, but its not nearly as reliable as I had hoped, with my local NBC and CBS affiliates being far too spotty. In addition, Plex's DVR and Live TV functionality is extremely unreliable, with recordings going hours over time, hanging completely, or causing my Plex Media Server to crash. I could certainly continue down the rabbit hole by investing in a more powerful outdoor antenna, but they're costly, and there's still the matter of Plex's buggy support for DVR and Live TV. At this point, I don't recommend this path for most people.

Evaluating Streaming Services

With OTA off the table, it was time to start investigating streaming services that offer live TV functionality and cloud DVR. My priorities were:

  1. Local affiliates for the major networks: NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox.
  2. Full access to ESPN and its associated networks, including access to WatchESPN.
  3. Access to Disney networks for the kids.
  4. More cost effective than DirecTV, my current service provider.

First, I took a look at Sling TV, which provides a highly-recommended a-la-carte service that meets many of my criteria. Many, but not all, unfortunately, as Sling hasn't managed to strike a deal with every local affiliate in my area.

Next, I signed up for PlayStation Vue, which on the surface, ticked all of the boxes. However, my free trial of the service was a total disaster. It took days for my account to activate, and my attempts to contact support resulted in announced hold times measured in hours. When I finally was able to get things working, the quality was pretty low, and the app experience left a lot to be desired. Once my trial was up, moved on.

A New Contender Emerges

Enter Hulu with Live TV, a new offering now in beta from one of the oldest and most respected names in streaming entertainment. Hulu with Live TV met all of my requirements on paper, so I decided to dive right in and put it to the test. Hulu

At this point, I'd love to tell you that Hulu is a perfect solution. The truth is, it isn't. That said, it meets all of my requirements, and its shortcomings are tolerable enough that I've officially cut the cord, and cancelled my DirecTV service. Overall, Hulu is great, with an extensive streaming catalog that is, in essence, like a massive "on-demand" library from a traditional provider. The client app is available on every platform that I use, and works well enough.

My wishlist for Hulu, however, is long:

  • Client apps, as far as I can tell, don't support anything but stereo sound. Why no 5.1 audio, Hulu?
  • The DVR functionality is odd, and takes some getting used to. In addition, if you want to fast forward through the commercials of your recordings, you have to pay extra. This very nearly caused me to cancel and continue my search, but even with the additional charge, the service is a massive cost savings over traditional cable.
  • Weird content restrictions, especially with sports. Want to watch the NFL game that's on your local CBS affiliate? Well, I hope you want to watch it on your TV, because you're not allowed to watch the game on your phone, tablet, or computer. I know that, strictly speaking, this isn't Hulu's fault, but its still annoying as hell.
  • The client app, while very consistent from platform to platform, is a bit difficult to navigate.

The good news is that most of these problems are fixable with software updates, and even with these shortcomings, its still "good enough."

Next Steps

I'm going to keep my eye on Plex and its DVR functionality. If it ever manages to stabilize, I'll spend the time and money to set up a more powerful antenna, so I'll have the highest possible quality option for things like NFL and NCAA football games on the major broadcast networks. This would also give me a chance to re-evaluate Sling, and cut my costs even further. But, for now, I'm going to enjoy being free of AT&T/DirecTV.

 

 

Cord-Cutting Experiments: Part 1

3 min read

Giving hundreds of dollars a month to AT&T / DirecTV has been on my list of expenses to shave for years, now. The kids mostly watch shows from Netflix or my family Plex server, and occasionally will want to watch Disney Channel. Lacey doesn't watch much TV anymore, but when she does, its largely shows on the national broadcast networks. That's pretty true for me, as well, but I have two main vices that I can't shake: sports and HBO.

HDHomeRun Logo

I've decided to experiment with cutting the cord, starting with the option that has the lowest ongoing cost: over the air programming. Thankfully, my aforementioned Plex server supports Live TV and DVR functionality through the use of a network-connected tuner and an antenna. I purchased an inexpensive HDHomeRun Connect tuner off of eBay for about $75, and bought a $10 antenna from Amazon, the Channel Master Flatenna, which was the recommended "cheap" antenna from the Wirecutter. Here are my quick takeaways so far:

The HDHomeRun is great. It was easy to set up, is compact, and responsive. The client application for macOS is barebones, but works really well. I recommend it without hesitation, especially at the price. Just make sure to get a good antenna.

That brings me to the cheap antenna I bought. How'd it go? Well, you get what you pay for. It picked up some channels, but completely failed to pull in ABC and Fox. After spending far too much time moving the antenna around the house trying to get it to work, I broke down and did what I should have done from the beginning, and bought the more expensive, amplified antenna recommendation from the Wirecutter, the ClearStream Eclipse from Antennas Direct. Now, I pull in every available channel with a strong, reliable signal.

Plex Logo

Plex Live TV and DVR shows a lot of promise, but also needs a lot of work. Live TV and DVR are only supported in a few of their client apps right now. Sadly, support doesn't yet exist in Fire TV or Plex Media Player, both of which we use in our house. The Apple TV support is pretty good, as is the iOS client. The user experience is a mixed bag, as well, with Plex choosing to eschew the traditional "grid" approach to presenting live TV content, instead breaking things down to a more Netflix-like experience. I see what they're trying to do, and it sort of works, but frankly they need a grid guide in addition to the more Netflix-like experience. Overall, its fine, not amazing, but I'm optimistic that it will continue to evolve.

With the addition of an Apple TV or two, I think this solution will work well enough to cut the cord, at least for local broadcast content. Apple is rumored to be releasing an updated Apple TV with 4K support, which would work great for us in our great room, where we currently use a Fire TV for our 4K TV. Its entirely possible that Apple will also still offer a 1080p version for cheaper, which we could then place into our home theater, which uses a 1080p native projector.

I'm going to continue tinkering with this setup for the next week or two, and then I will be exploring a solutuion for the rest of our content – sports and HBO. I've chosen Sling TV as the first service to test. That'll be part two, so keep your eye out for my post on that in a few weeks.

 

 

Todoodoo list

1 min read

 

The New Colossus ❤️

1 min read

By Emma Lazarus, 1883

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

 
 

IndieWeb Summit 2017 Recap

3 min read

On June 24-25, I attended my first ever IndieWeb Summit in Portland, Oregon. IWS is:

...an annual gathering for independent web creators of all kinds, from graphic artists, to designers, UX engineers, coders, hackers, to share ideas, actively work on creating for their own personal websites, and build upon each others creations.

IWS 2017 was graciously hosted by Mozilla in their very cool Portland office, which provided fantastic video conferencing gear enabling people from around the world to join in. Day one kicked off with keynotes providing an overview of the IndieWeb, the state of the IndieWeb, and real-world examples of IndieWeb sites. Following the keynotes, attendees had an opportunity to introduce themselves and show a demo of their own personal websites. In my introduction, I showed off my On This Day implementation, along with a live demo of my website automatically logging when I watch media on my Plex server.

The group then adjourns for lunch, followed by a Barcamp-style scheduling session, where individuals can propose topics of conversation, where we quickly filled four tracks with amazing hour-long sessions for the day. Topics included WordPress, specialized Micropub clients, personal website designs, voice and the IndieWeb, and a session that I proposed on creating a timeline for the open web. Every session was fun, engaging, and thought-provoking. In the evening, I joined a group of attendees for dinner and drinks, and then headed over to Ground Kontrol for some classic arcade games before calling it a night.

Day two gave attendees some time for hands-on assistance with their personal websites. I joined David Shanske and Ryan Barrett in leading a session to help people interesting in IndieWeb-ifying their WordPress websites. The afternoon was all about personal hack time and projects before we wrapped the day up with demos. I contributed a Micropub Media endpoint implementation to Known and then started working on a new Indie-reader called "together" with Grant Richmond and a few others. To wrap up, there was an afterparty at Voicebox Karaoke sponsored by DreamHost, which was an absolute blast.

I have attended many conferences over the years, and IndieWeb Summit 2017 was one of my all time favorites. Kudos to organizers Tantek Çelik and Aaron Parecki for doing an incredible job putting the event together. Everything was top notch!

Probably the best news of all is that nearly every moment of the event was recorded and posted online, along with detailed notes of each session. I've been catching up on sessions that I missed over the last few days, and my appreciation for the event is only growing.

Can't wait for next year!

 

 

On HomePod

5 min read

 

I've recently been thinking about the smart-speaker category, musing about Amazon's recently announced Echo Show, and speculating about if and when Apple would get into the game. Earlier this week, I got an answer when Apple announced the HomePod, a smart speaker with voice control powered by Siri. So, has the announcement of HomePod made my choice clear? Will I buy a HomePod, an Echo Show, or another smart-speaker?

Well. Its complicated.

Smart Speakers in Theory

In theory, smart speakers have several appealing features for me:

  • Convenient access to cloud-based music services like Apple Music, Pandora, and Spotify. Being able to whisper an incantation into thin air, and have the speaker play pretty much any song I've ever heard means that I'll spend more time listening to and enjoying music.
  • High quality audio in my great room, which is excellent for hosting parties, or just enjoying in the evenings after the kids have been put to bed.
  • An always-on assistant for my home, with a massive library of integrations and home automation support. I can imagine bringing up recipes on a screen for reference in the kitchen while I cook, only by using my voice, or setting multiple cook timers, asking for conversions, etc.

On the other hand, there are some significant theoretical drawbacks, the most significant of which is security and privacy. Having an internet-connected microphone in my house that is always listening is a bit scary. Is my information safe? Is the company that I am sharing it with a good steward of my data?

HomePod Tradeoffs

HomePod has really muddied the waters for me. I absolutely love the convenience, integrations, features, developer story, and screen on the Echo Show, but the dismal audio quality and significant concerns with privacy and security give me pause. The Echo Show is also not particularly well integrated with Apple's ecosystem, in which I am thoroughly entrenched, though that seems to be changing.

The HomePod has addressed my privacy concern very effectively. Apple made it abundantly clear that they don't send any audio up to their servers until you say "Hey, Siri," and that all information is encrypted in transit, and is anonymized to protect its users. I trust Apple more than I trust Amazon, Google, or pretty much any other major technology and services company. They're interested in selling me their products to improve my life, not in sharing my information with advertisers, or more effectively mining my information to enhance its retail offerings.

Audio quality is also huge focus for Apple with the HomePod. In fact, their marketing site introduces it as "the new sound of home," and spends significant time and effort discussing the internal speakers and adaptive audio features that use its onboard processing to optimize the sound to the room. While there's no way to beat, or even match, a properly tuned multi-speaker audio system, I am betting that Apple's engineers can make the HomePod sound pretty great. Certainly, much better than the Echo. In addition, Apple has built in multi-room audio features that put competitors like Sonos to shame, thanks to tight integration with iOS.

So, HomePod addresses my two main concerns of Smart Speakers with ease! Yet, the HomePod leaves me very conflicted. Why? Because, frankly, its not particularly smart. I was expecting to hear about a total overhaul of Siri, focused on improving accuracy, opening up the platform to developers, and closing the gap with Alexa. Yet, the HomePod has, in many ways, delivered the "same old Siri," which has no developer story to speak of. The only integrations you'll find are those with HomeKit, which thus far hasn't really taken off. Meanwhile, the Alexa Skills library is growing at a massive clip.

Finally, the HomePod clocks in at $349. Ouch. The Echo series ranges from $49 for the Echo Dot, $179 for the full size Echo, and $229 for the Echo Show, which features a touch screen and an integrated HD video camera. Now, Apple can always demand a premium price point, and I have no doubt that the industrial design and engineering quality of the HomePod will put the Echo to shame, but given the feature disparity, I am a bit disappointed in the price.

What's Next?

Given the tradeoffs and price point of the HomePod, I am almost certain to pass on the first generation. If Apple puts significant time and effort into Siri and the developer story, that may change. Early signs from WWDC are that they're interested in opening up HomeKit more, so I'm optimistic. I'm also hopeful that Apple will eventually release a HomePod with a screen with integrated Facetime support, which would be ideal for my kitchen.

Conclusion? Well, I think that the smart speaker category is pretty nascent, and its going to take a few more years to shake out. Amazon has the early lead, and both Google and Apple now have entrants that are playing catch up with varying degrees of success. As of now, I'm sitting 2017 out to see how things change before committing to a platform.

 

Micro.blog, JSON Feed, and Evergreen Give Me Hope for the Open Web

3 min read

I've long been a believer in the power of the open web, but my passion for saving it has been ignited by the IndieWeb movement, as of late. More and more people are discovering their distaste for creepy, ad-driven content silos like Facebook. Today's post by Dave Winer on the evils of Facebook, and John Gruber's hilariously sardonic "Fuck Facebook" reply do an excellent job of encapsulating my own frustrations. That said, there are reasons for hope.

The IndieWeb movement itself has been chipping away at the problem for years, but I've been particularly encouraged over the past few weeks by a few new developments.

First is the successful launch of Manton Reece's Micro.blog project to his Kickstarter backers. I'm a backer myself, as is my employer, and I've had the pleasure of using the platform for a few weeks now. Its early, but the project is already bearing fruit, with a rapid development pace, a vibrant community, and lots of excellent people to follow. Micro.blog is built on the notion of independence and respects your ownership of your data.

Next is the announcement and early success of the JSON Feed format created by Manton and Brent Simmons. JSON Feed is a new format designed for content syndication, similar to RSS and Atom, but based upon the JSON serialization format, which is popular with developers these days for being extremely easy to properly generate and parse. Since its announcement, there's been a flurry of activity around JSON Feed, including outcry about "yet another standard," and those who are upset that JSON Feed was created at all when there are other JSON-based syndication formats in existence. Over all of the noise, though, the adoption rate has been impressive. Many projects have been updated or created to generate and parse JSON Feed, and consumers are starting to adopt the format as well, including Feedbin, News Explorer, NewsBlur, Inoreader, and a few podcast apps. I've even jumped into the fray, creating an initial implementation of JSON Feed for the Known CMS that runs this website, and a second pass that aims to build in additional information through JSON Feed extensions. Regardless of competing standards, shortcomings in the format itself, etc., its undeniable that JSON Feed is generating real, palpable excitement for the open web, and that's undoubtedly a good thing.

Finally, in the midst of all of this, Brent Simmons has announced that he's working on a new, open source feed reader for macOS called Evergreen. Brent was the original creator of NetNewsWire, which was at one time my favorite app. In fact, I created several themes for NetNewsWire back in the day, and was a member of the beta testing and feedback group that Brent set up. Evergreen has a chance to take a fresh look at the problem of consuming feeds, and with JSON Feed and the new capabilities it could support through extensions, I am hoping that Brent takes a crack at solving the bigger picture that I blogged about in March. Imagine an open source app that bundles consumption (through feeds, including JSON Feed) with content creation and interaction (leveraging Micropub, a newly minted W3C recommendation, and Webmention). I'm looking forward to seeing what Brent produces!

So, yes, I lament the state of the web, thanks to walled gardens like Facebook, but I'm optimistic about the future.

 

 

Kentucky Derby Party Tomorrow!

1 min read

In the kitchen tonight, I am prepping:

  • Angel biscuits, to be served with butter and country ham
  • Black eyed peas, with ham hocks and onions
  • Pimento cheese sandwiches
  • Cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches
  • Smoked, pulled pork shoulder
  • Deviled eggs
  • Chess pie
  • Derby pie
  • Kentucky Maid cocktails
  • Mint Julep cocktails
  • Bourbon flights

Tomorrow should be big fun! I'll take pictures.

 

Tim Bray on Blogging in 2017

1 min read

Replied to a post on tbray.org:

Thank you, Tim, for still blogging, and owning your own identity on the web. Your presence makes it more vibrant, unique, and diverse.

The great dan­ger is that the Web’s fu­ture is mall-like: No space re­al­ly pub­lic, no store­fronts but na­tion­al brands’, no vi­su­als com­posed by am­a­teurs, noth­ing that’s on of­fer just for its own sake, and for love.

This sentence in particular resonated with me. I want the web to be a massive, interconnected network of independant thinkers, businesses, artists, communicators, individuals, etc., not just a collection of brands shouting into the void, hoping to attract consumers.

 

 
 

Disqus, Self-Hosting, and Owning Your Interactions

3 min read

This morning, I read an interesting post by Don Williamson about how he removed Disqus comments from his site and moved to hosting his comments on GitHub, using some very creative hacks. Learning about the hacks he used is pretty fun, but I actually found his exploration of Disqus and its aggressive tracking more interesting. On the impact of performance on his site from using Disqus, Don pointed out:

Load-time goes from 6 seconds to 2 seconds.

There are 105 network requests vs. 16.

There are a lot of non-relevant requests going through to networks that will be tracking your movements.

He then goes into detail listing all of the ad networks and trackers that are pulled into a site when Disqus is enabled, and its terrifying:

disqus.com - Obviously!

google-analytics.com - Multiple requests; no idea who’s capturing your movements.

connect.facebook.net - If you’re logged into Facebook, they know you visit this site.

accounts.google.com - Google will also map your visits to this site with any of your Google accounts.

pippio.com - LiveRamp identify mapping for harvesting your details for commercial gain.

bluekai.com - Identity tracking for marketing campaigns.

crwdcntrl.net - Pretty suspect site listed as referenced by viruses and spyware.

exelator.com - More identity and movement tracking site which even has a virus named after it!

doubleclick.net - We all know this one: ad services and movement tracking, owned by Google.

tag.apxlv.net - Very shady and tricky to pin-point an owner as they obsfuscate their domain (I didn’t even know this was a thing!). Adds a tracking pixel to your site.

adnxs.com - More tracking garbage, albeit slightly more prolific.

adsymptotic.com - Advertising and tracking that suppposedly uses machine learning.

rlcdn.com - Obsfuscated advertising/tracking from Rapleaf.

adbrn.com - “Deliver a personalized customer journey across devices, channels and platforms with Adbrain customer ID mapping technology.”

nexac.com - Oracle’s Datalogix, their own tracking and behavioural pattern rubbish.

tapad.com - OK, I cant’t be bothered to search to look this up anymore.

liadm.com - More? Oh, ok, then…

sohern.com - Yup. Tracking.

demdex.net - Tracking. From Adobe.

bidswitch.net - I’ll give you one guess…

agkn.com - …

mathtag.com - Curious name, maybe it’s… no. It’s tracking you.

 

Including third-party JavaScript libraries on my site like choosing a sexual partner: you better know who that third party has been in bed with, or you'll be in for a nasty surprise.

Comments and comment spam are hard. But, that doesn't mean we should turn over control of our interactions to companies that choose to leverage your audience and your data for their own profit. Own your interactions!

 

 

Owning My Memories

1 min read

My quest to own more of my digital identity continues, as I continue to search for ways in which I depend on social media silos like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. One feature of Facebook that I actually find quite delightful is On This Day, which shows you content and interactions over the years on the current day of the month. I like this feature so much, I felt like I should have it for my website, in the spirit of the IndieWeb. I'm happy to say, I've got an initial implementation in place on my site!

I've created a plugin for Known, the CMS for this site, that collects a few of my own customizations, including my On This Day implementation, and its available on my GitHub. Currently, the On This Day functionality requires a patch to Known core that isn't yet open source, but I'm hoping to polish that up and attempt to get it into Known sometime in the next few weeks.

Three cheers to owning my own memories!

 

Sharing what I watch...

1 min read

As I get deeper into the IndieWeb, I've been loving exploring more ways to share and publish my activities. Having a timeline that includes where I have been, what I've been eating and drinking, my recipes and reviews, along with photos, and social interactions helps me remember where I was and what I was doing on any given day.

Last night, I had trouble sleeping, so I decided to attack a new problem. I'm a big movie enthusiast, and enjoy collecting and watching great films. I decided that tracking what I'm watching would be a fun and useful way to enrich my activity stream.

I'd like to introduce Watching, a plugin for the Known CMS that I use for running this site. Using the plugin, I can publish a record of which movie or TV show I just watched. Earlier this evening, I watched a few minutes of Mad Max: Fury Road, which I absolutely adored, and it's been logged on my site.

Better yet? I've written experimental support for Plex webhooks, which create these records automatically on my site whenever I click or tap "play." How fun is that?

 
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