Showing all posts about trends
That’s not a knife: iconic Australian film Crocodile Dundee gets recut
3 February 2025
The knife, the editing room knife, has recently been taken to ocker Australian film Crocodile Dundee.
Producers deemed the slapstick comedy — that swept the once Sydney Harbour Bridge rigger, and television personalty Paul Hogan, to big screen fame in 1986 — to be out of touch with the expectations of contemporary movie audiences. This necessitated a number of “considered edits”, says Garry Maddox, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald:
Updating classic films can sometimes upset fans — there was a ruckus when George Lucas had Han Solo defending himself from bounty hunter Greedo rather than firing the first shot in a 1997 special edition of Star Wars — but the long tradition of creating new versions includes Francis Ford Coppola with both Apocalypse Now and The Godfather Part III and Ridley Scott with Blade Runner.
Scenes from the film — set between the Australian outback and New York City — where Mick Dundee, AKA Crocodile Dundee, gropes a cross-dresser in a bar, and later a woman at a party, have been removed, while others have been extended. The re-edited version of the film is to be called Crocodile Dundee: The Encore Cut, and will henceforth become the standard edition of the story.
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Australia, Australian film, film, Paul Hogan, trends
Jump scares will keep you away from websites you want to avoid
29 January 2025
TabBoo is, I think, a Chrome only extension that helps deter you from visiting websites you don’t want to see, but can’t help looking at nonetheless.
Load the desired (or undesired, as the case may be) URLs into TabBoo, and each time you go to one of the included sites, a horror movie like jump scare image will appear at random.
I don’t know about anyone, else but after looking at the demo, it struck me TabBoo might actually make seeing some websites more fun, with a jump scare image appearing unexpectedly.
Something like this is also needed for social media, to help those trying to wean themselves off doomscrolling the socials day in and day out.
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RSS as a W3C standard? Now there’s an idea
28 January 2025
If the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) can adopt ActivityPub as a recommendation, something they did eight years ago, you have to wonder why they didn’t do the same for RSS.
The W3C should’ve gotten behind RSS long before they endorsed ActivityPub. They’re controlled by big companies who are truly scared of interop, explains why most of their proposed standards go nowhere.
One of the functions of web standards, published by the W3C, is interoperability:
W3C web standards are optimized for interoperability, security, privacy, web accessibility, and internationalization.
Interoperability, however, is also a tenet of the ActivityPub recommendation:
W3C’s role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This enhances the functionality and interoperability of the Web.
We can have the ActivtyPub protocol, which has interoperability at it’s core, but not RSS, which is the same.
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RSS, social media, social networks, technology, trends
Group blogs as social network alternatives? A thought experiment
22 January 2025
The Verge recently published a list of social network alternatives for people disillusioned with the likes of X, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram, to consider moving to. Having built-up a network of acquaintances and followers on these channels though, I’m not sure how many people would really consider migrating. Starting over, persuading contacts to relocate, might be a step too far for some. Still, there’ll be people determined to leave certain social network platforms.
But where will they go?
The Verge list includes many of the usual suspects. Bluesky, Mastodon, Snapchat, and Discord. There’s also a few that are new to me: Spill, Trust Cafe, Spoutible, and CounterSocial. Tumblr is also suggested, and might be one of the easier-to-adopt options, as the experience is somewhat similar to that of a micro-blogging platform. But you’d still have your work cut out getting your followers to join you there. Reddit is also listed, but be aware, your content might be used to train AI bots.
Conspicuous through absence from the list though are blogs. But aren’t blogs only for one person, I hear you asking. What use then are blogs as an alternative sort of social network? While it’s true many blogs are maintained by one person, some blogging platforms, including WordPress (WP), allow individual blogs to have multiple users. These are group blogs. Someone sets themselves up as an administrator, and then invites acquaintances to join. Blog-based social networks would be similar.
Here, a member’s user page would serve as their profile page, where biographical information can be added. From there someone would be able to post content — blog posts — as if they were doing so on Facebook or Instagram. As far as I know, there’s no limit to how many users (being admins, editors, authors, or contributors) a WP blog can have. This WP Website Tools post suggests millions. I’m not sure a blog-based social network would have millions of users, but it could have a lot.
Such a setup would need to be hosted on a robust web server, capable of handling what might be heavy user traffic. This would entail cost, but if this were shared among members, it may not be onerous. It might be a small price to pay. Members of a blog-based (private) social network would no longer need to concern themselves with the whims, and rules and regulations, of a billionaire tech-bro. Nor would algorithms be a problem. Sure, it would be different. But it would be independent.
To be clear, this sort of idea is not going to be for everyone, in fact it’s not going to be for most people. Certainly not influencers (but you never know). And probably not anyone not comfortable with setting up a self-hosted blogging application (such as WP), on a web server. But on the plus side, members would be part of a social network they controlled under their own terms. These networks might need “community” guidelines of some sort, but I doubt these would need to be expansive.
Of course, anyone hoping to escape from the mainstream social networks, to a blog-based social network, would still have to convince their acquaintances to follow them over. There’s probably more questions than answers. There would be a learning curve for some people. So maybe we’re back to square one. And yes, this thought experiment of mine is WordPress-centric (since I use WP), but no doubt there are other blogging platforms with similar functionality. Still, this might be an option.
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blogs, IndieWeb, social media, social networks, trends
Will the good old, friendly web, of twenty years ago, stand up
21 January 2025
Enrique Rey, writing at EL PAÍS:
Like all nostalgic escapism, the myth about a world wide web before the age of sarcasm (and the dominance of big companies) where everything was more sincere and simpler is a melancholic trap. The Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann wrote that when you turn 30 you discover the ability to remember, and those who were teenagers when broadband was installed in most homes are now that age. That is why the internet has filled up with memories of itself, although, with some effort, it is still possible to find new things full of a collaborative spirit. “There is still a lot of kindness on the internet. You just have to go to YouTube and watch those videos about how to fix a specific washing machine,” says Gómez. “A lot of content is a sign of goodwill; the real Youtuber is the one who has 10 views on each video. There are a lot of sweet, practical, erratic, very strange things there, and also a lot of people helping others selflessly,” she notes.
Even though I sometimes think the web of the late 1990’s was a friendly online world.
One difference (of many) between the web of today, and that “simpler, less complicated” web of twenty-plus years ago, is the bloated noise to signal ratio, and, and, social media (and social media influencers), which are combining to choke out this friendly web, which is very much still there.
If only you know where to find it.
Rey makes no mention of indie web/small web, but if you’re seeking out that old, friendly online world of decades passed, then indie web/small web is one place where you’ll find, or rediscover, it.
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Time to replace the BMI as a measure, or otherwise, of obesity
20 January 2025
The Body Mass Index (BMI), may, at last, be about to be shown the door. Health care experts from across the world have been calling for a new means of defining obesity, according to research published by The Lancet:
We recommend that BMI should be used only as a surrogate measure of health risk at a population level, for epidemiological studies, or for screening purposes, rather than as an individual measure of health. Excess adiposity should be confirmed by either direct measurement of body fat, where available, or at least one anthropometric criterion (eg, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, or waist-to-height ratio) in addition to BMI, using validated methods and cutoff points appropriate to age, gender, and ethnicity.
It’s always struck me as an odd way to determine whether a person is of a healthy, or otherwise, weight, simply by dividing their height by their weight.
My BMI has always been in the OK zone, but I often wondered how it could useful for people who are, say, professional athletes, or front-rowers of the Wallabies. Surely their height to weight ratios would send the BMI into meltdown. I queried a past GP about this, who told me the BMI was but one tool available to medical professionals, but did not elaborate further.
I made me immediately think if there are other such measures, why aren’t they used more widely.
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current affairs, health, trends
Free Our Feeds with Bluesky and AT Protocol. But not Mastodon, ActivityPub?
17 January 2025
The Free Our Feeds project launched a few days, prompted in part by changes to fact checking and content moderation policies across Meta properties, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. The goal of Free Our Feeds seems admirable, to prevent one person/entity having full control of a social media platform:
Bluesky is an opportunity to shake up the status quo. They have built scaffolding for a new kind of social web. One where we all have more say, choice and control.
Is this desirable. While it remains to be seen what the actual outcome of the changes at Meta will be exactly, members of their social media platforms, plus those of other companies, have been ceding ever more autonomy over their user experience in recent years. But is Free Our Feeds, who seem intent only devoting resources to Bluesky, the solution?
But it will take independent funding and governance to turn Bluesky’s underlying tech — the AT Protocol — into something more powerful than a single app. We want to create an entire ecosystem of interconnected apps and different companies that have people’s interests at heart.
The AT (Authenticated Transfer) Protocol was created by the Bluesky Public Benefit Corporation, just for Bluesky. Mastodon, on the other hand, is built on ActivityPub, a protocol allowing different, separate, social media channels to “talk to”, and share information with each other. And unlike AT Protocol, ActivityPub is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation.
Free Our Feeds is hoping to raise thirty-million (US) dollars over the next three years to fund further development of AT Protocol. So, should you contribute? You might want to do your homework first. Jürgen Geuter, AKA tante, is concerned about the lack of details:
It feels weird to go to the community asking for so much money without any specifics. Just vibes. Sure, Bluesky is hot-ish right now, but asking for that kind of cash should maybe come with a bit more details and plan? Thoughts about how that new entity will be governed. What the actual mission is (and “outsourcing ATProto development so Bluesky no longer has to pay for it” shouldn’t be it).
Ruben Schade, meanwhile, points to the elephant in the room:
Why is there no mention of ActivityPub, or Mastodon, at all? You know, the protocol that isn’t tied to one app? At best, this reads like not-invented-here syndrome. At worst, it’s obfuscation.
Mastodon, and ActivityPub, are mentioned by Free Our Feeds, but you have open the concealed notes at the foot of their webpage to see this.
Talking of Mastodon though, a few days ago CEO Eugen Rochko announced the transfer of “key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components to a new nonprofit organization.” This, says Rochko, will ensure the decentralised micro-blogging platform is never under the control of any single person or entity.
It could be Mastodon is the place to stay for the time being.
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social media, social networks, technology, trends
The 2025 Banished Words List has recently dropped
16 January 2025
Lake Superior State University’s annual list of words and phrases we should cease using, was published recently. Among inclusions are game changer, era (you know why…), IYKYK (If You Know, You Know), and sorry, not sorry, which I can’t stand. Another term is dropped, but I don’t really take any notice off it, though maybe I should.
Once edgy and cool, “dropped” has become more of a letdown. Whether it is an album, a trend, or a product, this term has fallen flat. “Books, music, and all kinds of unnecessary things are currently being ‘dropped’ rather than introduced, released, or offered for sale. Banished for overuse, misuse, abuse, and hurting my head when all that “dropping” stuff lands on me!,” laments Susan of Littleton, CO.
Swedish House Mafia have dropped a new album. I’ve dropped a new blog post. But the image that usually forms in my mind is the item in question has ended up on the floor, rather than landing in a bookshop shelf, or a play-list, or whatever.
Also, reach-out is absent from the list. Or did the term feature in a previous year? Please feel free to contact, or message me, if you know.
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Prolonged use of social media may make you short tempered
13 January 2025
Research from Massachusetts General Hospital, I believe, in the United States, possibly underscores what many of us already suspect: that prolonged use of social media may not be the best:
This kind of study cannot prove that your hours of doomscrolling is directly making you Tik’d off, but in light of known associations of irritability and mental health issues, maybe we should put down our phones just a little more.
While I have a few social media accounts, I’m no power user, as some of you may know. Does that not make me short tempered? Maybe that’s not for me to say…
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psychology, social media, social networks, trends
IndieWeb makes all of us property owners online
6 January 2025
American engineer and product manager Den Delimarsky offers another way of looking at the core IndieWeb tenets of owning your own website domain, and owning your own content. See yourself as a property owner, rather than a renter.
If any of your online presence is on social media channels, you’re leasing the space, you don’t own it. The property owner could give you your marching orders at any time.
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