tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45132361345650369192024-03-16T08:59:45.835+00:00PopzazzleExploration of the social web, with tips, tricks and in-depth assessment of the culture.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-21272685152462126182023-09-23T13:35:00.002+01:002023-10-29T16:42:40.491+00:00Internet History: The Rise of the BlogCharting the weblog's rise to global significance, from the primordial soup of the early net to the big league platforms of the mid to late noughties.
The humble blog eventually became one of the world's key information-sources.
In terms of the public attention it’s managed to grab, blogging has arguably upstaged some of the most powerful forms of entertainment on Earth. But its beginnings wereUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-72151889973610843702023-08-19T17:04:00.024+01:002023-10-29T16:42:26.722+00:00Writers: Take the Web Offline With Lit.OTGPre-Released as Free Software on the AGPL, Lit.OTG could herald a new type of fightback against a surveillance industry that doesn't know when to stop.
Our trust, hope and optimism strategy has failed. It's time those door-slamming gatekeepers had a taste of their own medicine. The ingredients? One browser, one offline app, one firewall…
A page in an offline Lit.OTG Distribution, using Poplit -Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-48037432714567751152023-07-02T18:30:00.004+01:002023-10-29T16:42:48.978+00:00Web Non-Standards and Other 2020s Headaches
Big Tech's grip on developer resources is so unthinkably tight that simply, new devs do not know how to build websites and apps that won't violate their users' privacy. But yeah, let's all wave our arms and spread the "Privacy is not Dead" meme.
The forthcoming content-packager app after reorganisation of the interface. In general aura it feels a bit like posting on an old-school forum, exceptUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-31022540112095436942023-06-20T20:01:00.005+01:002023-10-29T16:43:01.160+00:00Content-Packager Update
Take things offline and the dynamics totally change. The overheads disappear. No one needs to pay for anything. The subjugation stops, and it's Big Tech who are locked out of the party - not you.
Cyberquotes will provide a flexible means to cite interesting and funny people from ANY online platform.
In early June I documented a forthcoming content-packaging system, designed to run offline, Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-40957640856516494992023-06-06T19:46:00.005+01:002023-10-29T16:43:09.755+00:00Coming Soon: A Free, Serverless, Hyper-Private Content-Packager for Writers
"No installations, no server, no logins, no network connections, no command-line configurations, no technical knowledge required. Click one icon and the editor fires up in your browser - OFFLINE.
The forthcoming packager in dark mode. Write to the left-hand pane in simple Markdown, and the fully-formatted post is built as a live preview in the right-hand pane as you type. Save when you're doneUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBirmingham, UK52.486242999999988 -1.89040124.176009163821142 -37.046651 80.79647683617884 33.265849tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-31563746925926166052023-02-20T20:15:00.011+00:002023-10-29T16:43:19.332+00:00The Deep-Dig History of WordPress Blog Themes
The very first WordPress theme header-tagged the post dates with greater importance than the titles. SEO killed that quaint little idiosyncrasy in one blow.
Ah, the Vertigo theme. 'Twas a rebel's choice in the landmark year of 2011. The "Hitchcock 500" font was rendered via three separate JavaScript files. They don't make 'em like that anymore!
Do you remember when WordPress.com stood high Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-42108071978559684552023-01-22T13:41:00.003+00:002023-10-29T16:49:35.091+00:00Disciple Syndrome: Why We Worship Brands And How To Stop It
We need to abandon the idea of role models altogether and find new routes to personal development. The notion that here in the 2020s, you could put a savvy entrepreneur in front of a large group of naive hopefuls, and NOT end up with one billionaire and a queue outside a food-bank, is, frankly, ridiculous.
If social media has accomplished any useful Darwinian purpose, it's been to educate us Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-62877569076406237042022-12-26T18:57:00.002+00:002023-10-29T17:03:49.046+00:00View Count Hell: Twitter Users Slam the Platform's New Weapon of Psychological Abuse
They're calling it cruel, evil, cancerous, offensive, violent, humiliation, torture, psychologcal warfare, an assault on mental health... Never seen a public view count referenced with this kind of language before? That'll be anatomical censorship at work.
As a multi-instrumentalist and producer with a home studio and a lifelong love of creating music, I recently found myself wondering why Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-70963111022984837302022-12-08T17:49:00.002+00:002023-10-29T17:03:41.240+00:00ChatGPT and the Onset of Late-Stage Anti-Humanism
If that's true, we're now unavoidably heading for a full-on AI wipeout, in which there is no incentive for humans to provide any non-commercial information or valuable imagery, and everything henceforth is just a rehash of pre-existing material.
As the Disgruntled Souls of Twitter were stressing enthusiastically over which scroll-zombified, digital-credit-scoring, transactional labour-mill Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-13791041667691145322022-11-21T18:15:00.010+00:002023-10-29T17:03:32.663+00:00How Long Can Mastodon Resist Centralisation?
The "legacy" Mastodon network is unsafe and overly restrictive, and the mainstream will not force itself to unsee this in the way that the FOSS community has. If Eugen Rochko won't accommodate a centralised and consumer-focused mindset, he will ultimately be usurped as primary steward of the project.
It's the doorstep of summer, you wanna get fit for hols, and the media are recommending a new Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-84039756200326351912022-11-12T15:12:00.001+00:002023-10-30T07:13:11.213+00:00No Choice For Twitter: It's Paywalls or Bust
In mid 2016, when OnlyFans set up as a simple, paywalled Twitter clone and invited its handful of initial entertainers to "earn money doing what you do already", it was really saying: "come and monetise what Twitter is too stupid to realise has value". Six and a half years later, Twitter still hasn't joined those dots...
If you haven't been riveted to Twitter this week, you've been missing theUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-31499362029451800142022-11-08T00:32:00.004+00:002023-10-30T07:13:52.341+00:00Musk's Twitter Crisis Deepens, But There's Still Hope
If Twitter began a smooth but rapid evolution towards customisable paywalling, with drastic improvements to the search interface, it could absolutely batter Google as an ecosystem.
When Elon Musk declared, on 28th October, that "Comedy is now legal on Twitter", he evidently meant the "now" very literally indeed. Less than a week later his moderation nervecentre would embark on a run of Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-57064002990455696552022-11-05T12:50:00.002+00:002023-10-30T07:14:23.028+00:00The Benny Test: The Value of Twitter Laid Bare
As Elon persists with his mission to persuade Twitter that $96 per annum is a good deal, research suggests he's lucky to be getting $0...
How much is Twitter worth? I don't mean to its owners. I mean to us, the general public who feed it. Why do I ask? Well, because in the wake of Elon Musk's $8 saga, we're seeing committed subscribers calling for their hero to roll out a charge across the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-50246066980219514642022-11-04T17:24:00.004+00:002023-10-30T07:15:05.735+00:00Can Twitter Survive Elon Musk?
Few people appear to have recognised that Musk's intention to "prioritise paying users in replies, mentions and search" would equate to a soft shadowban for everyone else.
Who would have imagined, this time last year, that the latest global crisis in autumn 2022 would be a bitter bleating match over who gets to have a ball-bearing-sized blue badge next to their name on an Internet forum? The Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-37035302809288290802022-10-29T13:48:00.001+01:002023-10-30T07:16:35.828+00:00The Truth About Open Source Software
Tor, Mastodon and the like are closed source for anyone who isn't running the servers on which the software is located. Don't let anyone hit you with the "open source!" chant and convince you that these resources, as typically consumed, have verified integrity.
Most of the people who passionately loathe technology corporations are strong advocates of open source software. Namely, software Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-13811603539861381142022-10-23T16:39:00.008+01:002023-10-30T07:17:07.682+00:00Ten Important Things You Should Tell Your Friends About Two-Factor Authentication
It was never about security. It was always about collecting and selling high-value personal data. Here comes the proof...
It's hard to believe, in a world where tech platforms increasingly mandate two-factor authentication, that there could still be people in this world who believe it's all about our "security protection" rather than the tech industry's bank balance. Sadly, however, the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-70855060840235858182022-10-20T19:37:00.002+01:002023-10-30T07:18:15.480+00:00The Privacy Implications of Google's Switch to First-Party Behavioural Targeting
With this sly regime going into the wild next month, the phasing out of third-party cookies will be no loss to Google. In fact, it will be a net gain.
Have you been puzzled by Google's casual resignation to the dwindling life of third-party cookies? What about the brand's shrug at anti-tracking initiatives like Mozilla's Total Cookie Protection? I mean, Google is Mozilla's primary funder. So Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-69089650271459562782022-10-18T19:04:00.004+01:002023-10-30T07:19:38.493+00:00The Search Engine is Dying and There is No Cure
Google has locked itself into a range of self-threatening behaviours, which correlate closely with behaviours exhibited by other huge brands whose fortunes took a nosedive.
When Google recently determined that approaching half of Generation Z think websearch sucks and use social discovery instead, it reached for the panic button.
Naturally, the primary solution it came up with was "more Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-88493295423738166452022-10-13T18:15:00.006+01:002023-10-30T07:23:05.521+00:00Babylon by Laptop: The Tech Service Supergrass
Tech giants still insist that this is about marketing, but clearly, you do not need someone's retina-scans, fingerprints or digital forensics to sell them a food mixer. When corporations start angling for this kind of data its intended destination is a police database.
If you know your reggae history, you'll surely have noted the sly twist on the Bob Marley album title Babylon By Bus. Just Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-63996992928345903032022-10-08T18:15:00.007+01:002023-10-30T07:24:12.501+00:00The DIY Superguide to Blocking Email Trackers
Get your inbox officially a-rockin', and tell email trackers not to bother knockin'.
Data is worth a mint, and unsurprisingly, there's now a very long line of companies dreaming up sly ways to get their sweaty fingers on it. One of the more recent additions to the ever-growing list of data-ruses is the "email protection service". In summary, you give a self-styled and completely unaudited "Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-52940186656466756002022-10-05T18:31:00.008+01:002023-10-30T07:26:31.900+00:00Shill City: The Dark World of Privacy Tech Marketing
Privacytests.org - a performance table site which ranks Brave as its best-performing browser - is maintained by the Senior Research and Privacy Engineer at Brave Software. But sure, let's all take this quagmire of shilling and sockvertising seriously.
There should never be any trust where brands are concerned - especially in the tech genre. But after it was revealed that the self-styled Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-21189136509641583732022-09-16T18:38:00.004+01:002023-10-30T07:27:29.083+00:00Google's Content Crisis
Google's ultimate undoing will not be some grassroots Web3 uprising, but something we can sum up in one word: content. And the content crisis has already begun.
Are you watching? If you've blinked at all since the summer you might have missed at least part of Google's desperate, ongoing quest to recover some semblance of quality in its search results. In recent weeks we've seen an Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-32376078439057219282022-07-26T21:08:00.002+01:002023-10-30T07:27:59.379+00:00Is the Fediverse Just Big Tech Subjugation in a Richard Stallman Wig?
"On inspection, the Fediverse showed itself to have most of the same problems as mainstream social media, and its mistreatment of users was both widespread and historically-ingrained. Some elements of the Fediverse were in fact worse than mainstream social."
It's hailed as the hero's arrow that might one day slay the monster of mainstream social media. Could it? I'll leave that one for others Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBirmingham, UK52.486242999999988 -1.89040124.176009163821142 -37.046651 80.79647683617884 33.265849tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-33416417297838474762022-07-13T21:54:00.005+01:002023-10-30T07:29:15.739+00:00Death by MMC: How Wikipedia Strangled The Information Highway
"It would not be an exaggeration to say that Wikipedia has done everything it could possibly get away with doing to deny the prosperity of its sources."
DEATH BY MM-WHAT?
If you web-search the acronym MMC, I'm sure you'll find every trivial meaning you could possibly conceive. What you almost certainly won't find, is the meaning that resonates above all others within the cybertech cartel.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBirmingham, UK52.486242999999988 -1.89040111.28158873588589 -72.202901 90 68.422099tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4513236134565036919.post-77539464100786756342022-06-07T22:04:00.006+01:002023-10-30T07:35:35.585+00:00Lynx Browser: The Land That Time Revived
"If you don't perceive using the Internet in the 2020s to be a constant fight, you have absolutely no online privacy whatsoever."
Lynx browser, browsing the post Cyber Freedom: No Gain Without Pain, from my Neocities site Backlit.
It might look scarily primitive at first glance, but Lynx browser - a product as old as the World Wide Web itself - could not be more of a friend. And neither couldUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBirmingham, UK52.486242999999988 -1.8904012.8700053650080903 -72.202901 90 68.422099