going to IndieWebCamp MIT2 2016-11-16, Cambridge, MA!
Register! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/indiewebcamp-mit-2016-2-tickets-28675852246
Wiki: https://indieweb.org/2016/MIT2
Reminder to self & friends:
Be kind, be respectful, be the grown-up.
It was a bad week. Things will get considerably worse before they will get better.
Ok to criticize (punch) upwards, the powerful, and power structures.
Not ok to punch each other, physically or verbally, and especially not ok, toward those less privileged than you (which also means be more accepting and sympathetic of frustrations from those less privileged).
For unknowns with a pattern of rude posts, and especially with default (egg), fake, cartoon, or otherwise anon icons, it’s ok to be direct & curt with them, without dropping to their level of rudeness.
And it’s ok (good) to block those that consistently behave abusively.
Your time is better spent on real people trying to be real, instead of those taking potshots from silos. There’s too much important work to be done ASAP to get distracted.
That being said, take the time to be patient and extra kind to people in person. Lots of people are hurting deeply, many perhaps more than you personally.
Take the time to look people in the eyes and ask them how are they doing, wait, listen, and acknowledge their answers. Treat service people extra kindly in this regard, as they’re likely getting the brunt of people’s frustrations this week.
@shofey you say “like a decent human” then ask to “get over” sexism, racism. None of that is decent. Got principles?
@christi3k @Withknown is quite usable, more than @WordPress, nice mobile UX. Great design & code by @erinjo @benwerd.
Ok @Google, organizer of world’s information, where’s the list of all of Donald Trump’s campaign speeches and transcripts so we can document, quote, cite, count, tabulate, and clearly show the pattern of sexist, racist, xenophobic, and otherwise bigoted statements, not to mention anti-science e.g. anti-vax & climate-change-denying claptrap?
@BradleyHolt @heathr unfortunately agreed, today.
@kevinmarks advocating POSSE is more effective when POSSEd like this
Worst events I’ve seen happen in US:
1 Sep11
2 Trump election by Electoral College
3 GeorgeW election by Supreme Court
@christi3k I think that’s a false dichotomy.
#indieweb tools are more usable to more people every year.
A plurality of projects is more sustainable and resilient than silos^1 or monocultures^2.
^1 indieweb.org/silos, e.g. ello.co and before that identi.ca
^2 indieweb.org/monoculture, e.g. tent.io
All had hopeful surges of interest, followed by disappointment, shrinking, and eventual abandonment.
All such efforts are unsustainable and doomed.
No one new site or open source project will solve this. We need to move beyond such “panacea” assumptions, and accept the hard work of a plurality of indieweb/decentralized approaches and solutions that interoperate with open standards.
That hard work starts with each one of us who can do it today, not waiting for someone else to build something tomorrow.
Help make a difference *today* by starting with yourself, your site, your posting behavior.
Set an example, like by posting all your tweets/notes to christiekoehler.com instead of or before posting them to Twitter. And at the same time, help document and raise awareness of what could be better, easier, friendlier, for you, for all users.
The https://indieweb.org/ community actively makes user experience a priority for all and is here to help you do all of that (including openly documenting all opportunities for improvement).
https://indieweb.org/principles
There are already tens of thousands of such indieweb sites that federate with each other today. That number has grown >10x each year since the small handful of us that got federating working among our personal sites in 2013. We are dedicated to continuing to grow, with more projects and better usability across the board, which is how we will reach and empower more people, incrementally, sustainably, each year.
https://indieweb.org/generations
@shofey #doublestandard: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/stop-pretending-you-dont-_b_12191766.html
Nothing clean/decent about Trump’s words about women, minorities, etc
Day after #Brexit I posted:
tantek.com/2016/177/t1/brexit-shroud-dark-side-fallen
Losing so many states, it’s not clear what any one individual outside the campaign could have done differently to alter the outcome.
However, one individual may have altered the outcome: James Comey
History here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/opinion/the-question-for-james-comey.html
Summary timeline:
2016-301 (October 27th) Polls showed an 8%+ lead for Clinton, enough to win the election if not potentially in a landslide.
2016-302 (October 28th) Comey informed Congress of new emails “that ‘appear to be pertinent’”, which the media gleefully reported across the board, fanning the #doublestandard against Clinton.
Within days, Clinton’s lead in the polls dropped to 3% (where they remained til the election), with no other new information about the candidates. That drop can only be attributed to Comey’s announcement.
2016-311 (November 6th) Comey informed Congress that the new emails added no new information.
For NINE of the remaining ELEVEN days before the election early voters went to the polls with doubts about Clinton, doubts amplified by a double standard^1.
2016-314 (November 9th) Clinton wins popular vote by ~1%, loses Electoral College^2, despite polls up to the last minute showing she had a ~3% edge.
If we conclude from that outcome that the polls had an error of ~2% towards Clinton, then before Comey raised doubts with new emails, Clinton would have had an error adjusted lead of ~6%, more than enough to swing many if not all of the rust belt states she lost by maybe ~1%.
Comey’s premature announcement on October 28th, so close to election day, very likely singlehandedly swung the election, given all other factors in play.
But let's not let that ~2% apparent error in the polls slide.
For more on the problems with the polls, and what is to be done with them, see danah boyd’s essays:
* “Reality check: I blame the media.” https://points.datasociety.net/reality-check-de447f2131a3
* “Media: End Reporting on Polls” https://points.datasociety.net/media-end-reporting-on-polls-c9b5df705b7f
Lastly, that underestimation of the rust belt states support for Trump is something that film-maker Michael Moore warned us about.
Watch this clip from his recent film Michael Moore in TrumpLand, and read the transcript as well:
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/11/7/michael_moore_if_elected_donald_trump
Was there anything any one individual (besides Comey) could have done to alter any of these? No, I don't think so. All of these point to larger, longer term problems that left us vulnerable to the same forces that brought about Brexit, with a similar outcome.
^1 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/stop-pretending-you-dont-_b_12191766.html
^2 http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president
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