A metaphorical view of tech and society

The data soup

Mobs do not have minds, but they do have lots of tasty cultural bits bubbling and stirring that make a good humane soup we feed and grow on.

Experts/individuals have small minds and little/narrow incite into wider social truths they build single view expert solutions to universal mob swirling problems. These are cold bowl of moldy soup in no time, #fashernistas see steaming bowl for a moment tasty and nice to eat before moving onto the next leaving it forgotten cold and then decaying into dry mold.

Facebook is a expert created system for feeding/off mobs and privatizing there energy into private profit and social (mob) control. Its about taking all the tasty bit out of the data soup and feeding them to a tiny minority of “experts”.
Archive.org is a out of date fragile (#geekproblem) expert system for holding/keeping “mobish” data into the open future. Its the right project done in the wrong way but fine as a handle for the iron cauldron that contains the OMN data soup we need to build.
OMN is a non expert system to empower a diversity of expert/ish that bubbles out of mobs. Its a diversity of ladle in the never ending data soup cooked in a big iron cauldron. It’s Jesus and the fishes and wine, the “religious” power of #4opens.

#KISS and #4opens

The Witches Cauldron open activist archive

Published Date 12/23/16 1:26 PM

The Witches Cauldron

The open activist archive is a data “commons” based on the #4opens and motivated by the #PGA hallmarks.

We are aiming to create a data soup of metadata enriched digital items hosted on redundant federated network of hosts/servers around the world. The project will start by hosting the majority of the content from the expo on http://archive.org

Anyone can be part of this federated network which will be built out using the tools of the Open Media Network #OMN and #KISS to facilitate DIY is at the core of the project.

In this as a general statement we REJECT arrogant “expert’s” and “better” technological solutions that move us away from this core #KISS and #DIY ethos of The Witches Cauldron project. Simple and human scale or we will #FAIL should be in our minds as new people grow the project.

Rebooting the openweb

Published Date 9/20/16 2:42 PM

The OMN is based on a simple understanding that the last 10 years have been wasted on #dotcons and #encryptionists delusions. In this time #NGO’s, activists and at-geeks have wasted the #openwebs potential to shift society to a more humane path.

To move beyond this decaying circle, we need to #reboot the basic infrastructure that has been allowed to decay. Early “#web02” was based on open features that crossed website boundary’s in a way unthinkable today. A partial list of has been complied here https://medium.com/@anildash/the-lost-infrastructure-of-social-media-d2b95662ccd3#.rcs7irbas

To take this needed path the #OMN project can be built out to overlap many of the projects listed, at its core it is aggregation, linking and metadata. This is one of the steps for the needed #reboot

Publishing – we have no problem with this though technically (though phones are becoming more of an isolation issue) there are lots of existing CMS and tools outside the #dotcons that can be used, many of them are kinda #4opens though most miss the #KISS part.

Search – this is lost and hard to regain, but the is space for a clever use of “adblocking” browser plug-ins replacing adverts with native #openweb content (like the #OMN flows) while obscuring the data mining that the #dotcons are cash powered by.

Comments – this is a hard one to solve, but the problem is meditated by linking back to the source of articles. To OMN this part could be done with a few open standards – but pushing this out would be hard. A back burner issue.

Responses – can use the existing “open standards” maybe choosing a KISS implementation to #reboot

Likes/Favourites – we build a back end version of this as core to the OMN, how to front end this is an interesting avant-garde project that we should implement in different “standard” ways after OMN boot up.

Updates – is core to what the OMN is.

Identity – try #rebooting a KISS implementation of the existing open standards to use this in the OMN roll out, use it, but don’t push it hard as It’s going to be hard to overcome the #dotcons on this one.

Friends list – half core to the OMN, can attempt to #reboot this as part of the #RSS “object” aggregation your identity is an object to be aggregated.

Following – is a core part of the RSS OMN project.

Syndication – this is the core of the project, using existing tools based on RSS

API – a #reboot of Atom pub is a likely useful part of the OMN for the synchronisation of content.

Metadata – in the OMN this is a KISS fockonermy that a more systematic labelling rules can be built on. A KISS roll-out of the semantic web is what the OMN is about. Creative commons will be at its core.

Discovery and tagging – is what the OMN is, and it allows easy uptake by alt-media producers, who wonts content to be seen by more people and traffic driven to their sites.

Analytics – can be built up as the project expands, the current #dotcons tools will work fine on roll-out as it’s just the #openweb.

Advertising – is up to the individual sites (with reference to the CC licensing of content) the tools of the OMN could be used to roll out a #4opens advertising network if someone was interested. The creative use of “adblockers” has a role here?

Aggregation – is what is core to the OMN the back end of this is no more than a “small number” of people. The output is as wide as the openweb allows and can be feed as links into the #dotcons

Time shifting & reading – can be added to the OMN tools using basic user RSS lists.

The Lessons – “there’s (almost) nothing new under the sun.” this is at its core a #reboot of existing projects/standards rolled out as KISS as possible with in the small existing network of alt/grassroots media. From there…

Is the OMN tech complex

Published Date 8/14/16 7:46 PM

There is a hard-to-understand idea that the technology behind the OMN (open media network) is complex. At a base level it is not, it’s the same tech that has been written 1000s of times in the past and uses nearly 20-year-old technology.

What is complex is the ideas and social understandings behind the ideas of using this “stupidly simple” technology in the OMN.

Firstly, it’s needed to understand that Alt-media and the open web in general is F**cked. Once past this point, it becomes easier. Secondly an understanding of the forces that F**cked is both on their side: the #dotcons, Facebook, uber, Amazon etc and on our-side, our encryptionist geeks, NGO social media gurus, process vampires etc.

We don’t currently have power to affect their side, so let’s look at our side, in the sense of understanding the OMN. It’s based on the #4opens and none of our guys like this combination for different reasons. It’s based on KISS – our geeks don’t like building on the old and our politicos are pushing the #fashionista of the vapours avant-garde, so both reject the “old” foundation ideas/tech of the #OMN.

The idea is very simple – that we get alt-media groups and sites to be part of a network so they become bigger than their parts. And a very basic issue is solved, they link to each other, which currently the isolated silos do not consistently do. The link is the currency of the web, in this we all become richer and have wider outreach on the “#openweb”.

The “innovation” of the OMN is the use of RSS articles as a database exchange format. We thus create a redundant, distributed network of databases holding and displaying (linking) to our collective history. Why RSS? Without it, we have to get agreement and write custom code for every site that wants to join. With RSS, it’s copy/paste and go on 98% of existing sites on the open web. The first is self limiting and impossible to grow, the second just works. There is no complexity at all at this basic level and no need for site agreements etc.

Troubleshooting this rollout there are issues, but nothing that can’t be solved by tweaking and bodging. The next stage is a little more complex, synchronising these databases and keeping articles up-to-date and exchanging tagged metadata so that the “curating of the flows works”. This will need thinking and programming for real, but nothing that throwing some bandwidth and processing power can’t solve in an “inefficient way” – again, #KISS.

Build it first, scale it second. We are running this out in the small world of alt-media, so geeks keep it KISS. There is a philosophical and design issue that will cause bottlenecks, the CMS’s we will be using are designed as portals/silos not data rivers/media flow sites. Some creative thought can help here. And there is the opening for innovation and new CMS’s at a later time.

To conclude, the blocks on building out the OMN are within our own geeks and politicos and have to be overcome. That is the tech is relatively easy, the social side is complex, Ideas for this? My idea is to form a wide;y skilled affinity group and go for it, lead by example. Other paths, ideas, welcome.

Technology and Social Change Working with the Facebook Generation

This generation is a complete mess, no surprise after 20 years of submission to the #deathcult:

#Neoliberalism hollowing out economies, replacing solidarity with consumerism.

#Postmodernism fragmenting identity politics into a battlefield of individualism over collective action.
#Dotcons centralizing control, turning the internet into a corporate surveillance machine.

Stepping away from the mess, the real question is: How do we break free?

Our #fashernistas still dodge this conversation, stuck in cycles of performative activism, corporate co-option, and distraction. Instead of chasing the next trendy tech or ideological bandwagon, we need to refocus a #KISS path:

#OMN (Open Media Network) – Building grassroots, independent media outside corporate control.
#4opens – Prioritizing transparency, collaboration, and openness in our tools and governance.
Reclaiming #DIY activism – Moving beyond digital spectacle to real-world action and organizing.

The path isn’t more #geekproblem tech fixes or empty branding exercises, it’s a radical grassroots step to collective agency. Time to move.