Replied to Dave Cormier (@davecormier@mastodon.social) (Mastodon)

Does anyone have something they like to use to explain affordances. I’ve been working on it for weeks, but i’d love to send my keener students another perspective if i could

Dave, you might was to have a look at Ian Guest’s post on affordances  related to his PhD.
Replied to https://www.laurahilliger.com/?mailpoet_router&endpoint=view_in_browser&action=view&data=WzIzNSwiMGY2MWZkMzA2MzE0Iiw2MDIsIjYwMjY3MDYwMzc4OTNhMmJkZmM0NWYzNDMyMWYyM2ZkIiwzMTksMF0 (laurahilliger.com)

Let me ask you a question. Do you remember having water when you were a kid? You went out and fiddled around out in the world, but did you have a water bottle with you? You followed streams and went into the wild, but how long were you gone and did you have a water bottle with you?

Laura, that is a great question about water. I vaguely remember actually getting random drinks from taps on people’s front lawns, but I don’t remember carrying around a bottle much. I actually do not remember there being many public water bubblers, especially not like parks today in Australia. (Wonder if this is a global phenomenon?)

Associated with the water debate, I cannot remember drinking water or actually anything at all when I went to music festivals, like the Big Day Out.

Replied to semantic-linkbacks by Matthias Pfefferle (wordpress.org)

“Semantic-Linkbacks” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Wordfence told me that there was issues with semantic-linkbacks, so I disconnected it after seeing that Matthias Pfefferle had archived the app. However, I agree with Khürt Williams, it made my site “feel like an 8-track cassette player.” So I am reactivating it. I guess we will see.
Replied to

Thanks Ben for sharing this explanation about the difference between QUERY and CHOOSECOL. It was the first thing I though when reading your newsletter.
Replied to Technology in education – friend or foe? by Gill (macgirl19.wordpress.com)

I can absolutely appreciate the validity of the arguments the authors raised particularly the big one – for young people (and actually, many adults as well) the primary function of technology is entertainment so attempting to change this to a learning focus (and expecting it to easily translate) is far from ideal. Technology provides an endless menu of distractions. Even as I’m writing this blog post, there are other tabs in my browser tempting me and my attention does flit from time to time. And that’s on a task that was self-initiated.

I find this such an intriguing topic Gill, especially in a post-COVID world. Your discussion of technology and distractions has me thinking about the challenge to justify the impact many years ago. I feel that the biggest challenge is actually being mindful about the choices, too often if feels like choices are made out of convenience, rather than some deliberate consideration.
Replied to Why I Haven’t Embraced WordPress Blocks by David ShanskeDavid Shanske (david.shanske.com)

Indieweb Post Kinds actually does a few different things. It creates a taxonomy to classify posts, similar to the old post formats options. This just allows for automatic creation of archives. I also use the selector to change the interface, but this could be done differently. It also uses Parse This to create rich embeds of linked content. But it adds the microformats for different types of Indieweb posts outside of the traditional content block using WordPress filters. That is something I never particularly liked, and wouldn’t mind replacing with something integrated into content.

I have long been intrigued by this David, so thank you for sharing. I have tinkered with blocks in my long form site, but still see it as overkill most things.

For my two cents worth, I really like the idea of integrating the response box into the content.

Replied to The Downsides of Generalism by Wouter GroeneveldWouter Groeneveld (brainbaking.com)

The path to generalism is indeed more challenging, yet the reward at the end of the rainbow is genuine satisfaction. Generalists are much more creative. Generalists are more curious. Generalists as system-thinkers are better at solving high-level problems.

I am not sure if I am really a generalist with various pokers in the fire as you seem to have Wouter, but I am always willing to dive into new areas of learning. I wonder if the biggest challenge with this is the narrative, something you touch upon. This week I was asked to step into a different position, one more technical. It is not necessarily my background, but it is what is needed for the project I am a part of. I plough on, connecting the dots, making new pictures, remaking old ones.
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Ben, I love the use of grouping columns, but found it problematic when sharing a Google Sheet as it is not unique to the user.
Replied to https://johnjohnston.info/blog/dave-winer-rss-is-federation/ (johnjohnston.info)
John, I somewhat agree with your preference for RSS over the social feed. Personally, I use Granary to actually bring Mastodon into my feed. For me, this allows me to become less of a slave to the ever current stream. I sometimes wonder though if this is bad faith as I assume I am not nessecarily following the rules on the packet, this can mean engaging in conversations out of time.
Replied to bavachromatosis by ReverendReverend (bavatuesdays.com)

We’ll see how much I can reflect on 2022 in the next few days, I still feel like I have to blog about what’s happening now so thinking about 12 months of time might have to happen after the new … Continue reading

Jim, you might be interested in Tony Martin’s reflection ‘Any Old Iron’ included in his book Lolly Scramble. He discusses his own experience of hemochromatosis with wit and humour.
Replied to Posting a Message Nobody Reads by Kin Lane (Kin Lane)

Why do we post messages with text, images, and video online? Do we do it for attention? Do we do it to help educate and inform others? There are many positive and not so positive reasons we post messages online. I do not think many people publish text, images, or video online without intending to influence and communicate with one or many other human beings. I do it to get my ideas out of my head. I do it because I like crafting stories, and having a real or perceived audience helps with this process.

My choice to change my habits in regards to social media and sharing has really led me to reflect why I do what I do. What I have come to realise is that at the heart of it, I share in my own space for me. With this in mind, I like your point about ‘getting things out of your head’.
Replied to Considering the Post-COVID Classroom by wiobyrnewiobyrne (wiobyrne.com)

Each week I write a love letter to the Internet. You can subscribe here. Spoiler alert!!! It’s not all good.

I really like your description of your newsletters as a ‘love letter to the internet’. I am not exactly sure what description I would give to mine. It sometimes feels like a habit without purpose at times.
Replied to #FeedReaderFriday: A Suggestion for Changing our Social Media Patterns by Chris AldrichChris Aldrich (boffosocko.com)

In the recent Twitter Migration, in addition to trying out Mastodon, I’ve been seeing some people go back to blogs or platforms like Micro.blog, WordPress, Tumblr, WriteFreely (like Mastodon it’s a part of the Fediverse, but built for blogging instead of short posts) and variety of others. They?…

Sorry, late to getting to this piece Chris, as I get to my feeds in my own time. I have long lived a feed first existence. Even when engaging with Twitter, I have been consuming via my feed reader. I just realised that I can also produce a feed for Mastodon too using Granary.io. I sometimes feel like I am late to the conversation, however on the flip side I feel that the conversation is more in hand. I feel that if it is worth having then waiting is fine.
Replied to https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/herzog-and-zizek-become-uncanny-ai-bots-trapped-in-endless-conversation/ (arstechnica.com)

Upon visiting the site—which is unaffiliated with either person—you’ll see AI-generated charcoal portraits of the two men in profile. Between them, a transcript of AI-generated text is highlighted in yellow as AI-generated voices simulating those of Herzog or Žižek read through it. The conversation goes back and forth between them, complete with distinct accents, and you can skip between each segment by clicking the arrows beneath the portraits.

Benj Edwards talks about the AI generated Infinite Conversation site which involves an ongoing conversation between German director Werner Herzog and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek.
Replied to The Week in Review: What’s Good (Audrey Watters)

It’s time to pull out Tools for Conviviality, perhaps, for a re-read, because I’m loathe to make the argument that email is, in fact, where we find technological conviviality these days. But that’s the direction I’m considering taking the argument. If I were to write about it and think about it more, that is.

Maybe I’ll just go for a run instead.

Audrey on the money again. I think I found my problem, I really need to run more.
Replied to What IndieBlocks Does, and Why by Jan BoddezJan Boddez (jan.boddez.net)

I want my microformats “baked into” my posts, so that if I were to ever disable this plugin, all of my existing content stays untouched. Current microformats plugins rely on PHP “front-end” hooks and such, which I wanted to avoid.

Jan, this looks interesting. I am intrigued in an alternative to Post Kinds. I fear that I am going to hit a wall at some point if or when the classic plugin is no longer supported. I like what it does, but agree with your concern about it being outside of the post. One of the things that I am coming to realise though is that unless I were to roll out my own solution (which seems well beyond me) that I am always at the whim of somebody else’s design principles.
Replied to Creating a Catalogue in Google Sheets by Aaron DavisAaron Davis (readwriterespond.com)

To create the SWITCH, I created a UNIQUE list of all the folders and then pasted them as values so that I could delete those not required to be displayed in the directory. After culling the list, I then added the area in the cell next to each folder. Once I had these two columns complete, I used this formula to add quotation marks to them all:

=ArrayFormula(“”””&Sheet1!A:D&””””)

I then copied this list into the SWITCH formula and added in the commas

I have found a cleaner method for adding in the commas and quotations required for the SWITCH formula:

=char(34)&join(“””,”””,ARRAYFORMULA(QUERY(A1:A,”SELECT A WHERE A IS NOT NULL”)&”””,”””&QUERY(B1:B,”SELECT B WHERE B IS NOT NULL”)))&char(34)

Replied to

We recently purchased an air fryer and have not looked back. Soak the potatoes in water before.  Can do spuds, wedges, fries … all awesome.