I got caught in another discussion about ‘lookup tables‘ today. There are some people I work with who get really caught up with what they are and how they work. Another colleague pointed out to me afterwards that most applications have lookup tables it is just that our application actually allows users to easily edit the various tables.

This had me wondering if a way of thinking about ‘lookup tables’ is the collection of ideas and values that we reference each and every day? As with different applications, maybe there are those whose foundations are more visible and obvious that others? As Ben Werdmuller suggests,

We’ve all got red lines. They’re ours alone to draw.

Bookmarked Why Reputation? by Mike Caulfield (Hapgood)
I have a reputation, which is the trace of past events and current relationships in a social system. But that reputation isn’t really separate from the techniques others use to decode and utilize my reputation for decision-making. This relationship is synergistic.
Responding to Xiao Mina’s reflection on dissensus, Mike Caulfield discusses the challenge of reputation.
Replied to Windchimes by Chris Beckstrom
This is a generative piece I built just before my daughter was born. I envisioned something that would soothe a baby, like a mobile but with sound. Like wind chimes but smoother. As it turns out, once she was born I forgot about most everything, including this project. Much later I rediscovered it and found it soothing myself!
Chris, this reminds me of Brian Eno’s iOS app Bloom.
Filed an Issue dshanske/parse-this (GitHub)
Parse This Parsing Library for WordPress- Can Act as a Standalone Plugin - dshanske/parse-this
For the last week or so I have been having issues with parsing sites. Where I was getting some information in the past, I am not getting very little.

For example:

https://wiobyrne.com/the-case-for-anonymity-online/ produces
{“type”:”entry”,”syndication”:”https:\/\/medium.com\/@wiobyrne\/how-to-respond-to-trolling-behaviors-c27d269330e4″,”post-type”:”note”}

Organizational Agility
{“type”:”feed”,”uid”:”https:\/\/dculberh.wordpress.com\/2019\/01\/13\/organizational-agility\/#page”}

Weeknote 02/2019


{“category”:[“weeknotes”,”weeknote”,”work”],”type”:”entry”,”post-type”:”note”}

I have this strange feeling that it is not Parse This that is the problem, but it is where I am noticing the issue.

Liked The case for anonymity online by Ian O'Byrne

Morio & Buchholz (2009) separated this into three levels (visual anonymity, disassociation with real and online identities, and lack of identifiability.

  • Visual anonymity – When individuals communicate without seeing each other. A good example of that is using text-based chatting programs over the Internet. People’s physical appearances are obscured in that scenario.
  • Dissociation of real and online identities – A single individual can create more than one online identity using more than one screen name & avatars. Individuals then have the ability to become more than one person with dissimilar personalities. They also have the ability to adopt new genders & races.
  • Lack of identifiability – This is the level closest to true anonymity online. When individuals cannot be identified, their behaviors are not distinguishable from others. An example would be an online forum in which people can post anonymous comments without attaching usernames to that post.
Liked The Mapping of Massacres by Ceridwen Dovey (The New Yorker)
Place names can be damning evidence of colonial history. On a map of Australia, you’ll see Murderers Flat, Massacre Inlet, Haunted Creek, and Slaughterhouse Gully.
Colonial Frontier Massacres in Eastern Australia 1788-1872 – A project by Lyndall Ryan and her team at Newcastle University are digitally documenting the frontier massacres that occurred in the settlement of Australia. There have been calls to have these conflicts recognised in the War Memorial in Canberra as an example of frontier warfare. For a history of maps themselves, Clive Thompson’s has written a post for the Smithsonian.
Bookmarked Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me by Cory Doctorow (Locus Mag)
And Uber and Lyft’s apps are encrypted on your phone, so to reverse-engineer them, you’d have to decrypt them (probably by capturing an image of their decrypted code while it was running in a virtual phone simulated on a desktop computer). Decrypting an app without permission is “bypassing an effective means of access control” for a copyrighted work (the app is made up of copyrighted code).
Uber and Lyft can use DMCA 1201 to stop you from figuring out how to use them to locate co-op drivers, and they can use the CFAA to stop you from flipping your booking from Uber to Meta-Uber.
This reminds me of the conversation between Douglas Rushkoff and Nathan Schneider on platform cooperatives.
Liked The Wrong Choice by Stephen Downes (Half an Hour)
Just remember - the degree isn't the goal. It's the pathway. You are the goal. And even if you find yourself still in debt at 28 like Keri Savoca, keep working, keep developing skills and experience, and don't give up. Make of yourself everything you can, don't look back, and savour the experience. Life - even when it is hard - is beautiful.
Replied to A Plugin For Your Blogged Past by Alan Levine (CogDogBlog)
I rolled up my sleeves and coded my own, now available as the Posted Today plugin. It provides a shortcode that could be used anywhere in your WordPress site (post, page, widget?) but mainly the intent is for a Page.
I love this Alan. I have been thinking about adding a ‘Today’ page to my Collect site for a while. Here it is, thank you. It really adds impetus to collect everything from around the web in one place, such as Facebook and Twitter. Now to work on that.