Book thirty-two of 2018: Moving Mars, by Greg Bear. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Actually finished a couple weeks ago, but was vacationing and not posting photos.)
Geekery
Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.
“Author NK Jemisin has scooped her third Hugo award for best science-fiction novel and, in doing so, has become the standard-bearer for a sea change in the genre’s diversity, as women – especially women of colour – swept the boards at last night’s ceremony.” Excellent.
Leaning ever closer to closing down my Twitter account once I’ve passed on the keys to the Norwescon social media accounts. Between their inconsistent application of rules and their neutering of third-party clients, it’s harder to care about staying.
First Facebook cuts off posts from external sources, and now Twitter’s crippled any third-party clients. Even after years of talk of how social media is adversely affecting our culture, I didn’t really expect the platforms themselves to be so invested in driving users away.
Interesting side effect to Facebook killing the ability to mirror content from outside and my mirroring not just my blog, but also (not all but) many random links and tweets to Tumblr: my Tumblr is probably my most comprehensive online presence right now.
‘Jaws’ mystery: Did long unknown ‘Lady of the Dunes’ Cape Cod murder victim appear in movie scene? Very cool theory — and even if it’s far-fetched, how neat would it be if this panned out?
Book thirty-one of 2018: The Stepsister Scheme, by Jim C. Hines. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Gloria Would Probably Laugh Too
So we’re watching a really neat documentary on PBS (Wonders of Mexico), and not terribly surprisingly, there are parts of it that are spoken in another language and subtitled. Well, most people understand that translation is sometimes as much art as science, with a lot of room for the interpreter in choosing the exact words and phrasing.
So when a Mayan farmer is discussing feeling nervous and apprehensive about his first childhood climb down into a cave and underground lake, what do the subtitles say?
“At first, I was afraid. I was petrified.”
And both Prairie and I snicker. I hope whoever did the translation or programmed the subtitles got a bonus for that.
And yes, in case you’re wondering, he did survive.
Things that amuse me: sitting at an outdoor concert, wearing a My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult t-shirt and my Mercury hoodie…singing along to all the songs the Abba cover band is playing. 🎶🎵😆
Another move away from Facebook
Well, crud. Just got an email from WordPress with notification that Facebook has notified them that “starting August 1, 2018, third-party tools can no longer share posts automatically to Facebook Profiles.”
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve been working (not always successfully, but it’s been the goal) on reducing how much content I post directly to Facebook’s walled garden. Instead, I’ve been using various services to automatically pipe text and link posts from Twitter and my blog and photo posts from Instagram (which, as it’s owned by Facebook, I’ve been scaling back on) and my blog to Facebook. That way, I own my content, but all of my Facebook contacts can still see it.
With this change, though, it looks like that’s not going to be an option as of Wednesday. My options will likely be:
- Post things to Facebook. Pro: Facebook contacts can see everything. Con: Posts don’t exist outside of Facebook.
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Manually cross-post anything I post outside of Facebook to Facebook, either by copy-and-pasting everything, or manually posting links to the outside source. Pro: Posts exist in both places. Con: Takes longer to post anything, royal pain in the butt.
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Post things to the non-Facebook sources as I have been, and they just don’t show up here. Pro: Easiest and means I have control over my content. Con: Facebook contacts won’t see it unless they actually follow me on Twitter and/or check my blog (either manually or through an RSS reader of some sort) (and unfortunately, for many or most people, learning how to follow people outside of Facebook just isn’t a priority; if it’s not on Facebook in some way, it doesn’t exist).
Right now, I’m thinking there’s a non-zero chance that my Facebook contacts may start seeing less from me on here because of this change. I’m sure I’ll still be reading through, liking, and commenting (for the near future, at least), because the reality is that, for good and for ill, this is where most of my connections to many of my friends near and far exist. Posts from me may be increasingly rare, though.
Some reminder links:
My blog is my primary online home.
The easiest way to follow my blog (and many other blogs and news sources) is through an RSS reader; for ease-of-use and low cost (it’s free to start and offers mobile apps), I recommend Feedly.
I’m on Twitter.
I’m also on micro.blog (a “microblogging” site that conceptually is somewhere between Twitter and traditional blogging, with the focus on short-form posts, but also with the ability to include long-form posts and optionally mirror them to WordPress blogs, which is how I have mine set up).
And with this, I’m once again putting out a call: Do you exist online outside of the Facebook walled garden? Give me your non-Facebook links (blog, Twitter, Tumblr, whatever) so I can keep up with you there!