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Post On Your Own Site and Syndicate Everywhere Applied
Until the pandemic I used Facebook (FB), Twitter(TW) and Instagram(IG) daily. As pandemic solitude took its toll on me I dumped Facebook, and then I dumped Instagram. I started blogging again, and I continued to use Twitter for another two years, before finally dumping Twitter too.
For years I was a daily user of FB, TW and IG but as life became more solitary, and as trolling became more common, so it made sense to dump the social networks that made me suffer from Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO). When life was normal, and social, it made sense to be where all the normal people with normal lives were. It’s as my life derailed from the standard model life that you see in series, films and FB and IG that I needed to break away. I dumped the social media sites for the open web.
I came across the concept of [POSSE this morning. “Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere”](https://indieweb.org/POSSE). That is what I have been doing with the ActiveHub plugin for WordPress. I have written several posts about how I like to post on my blog, and see it appear across the Fediverse, natively.
In [this article](https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/23/23928550/posse-posting-activitypub-standard-twitter-tumblr-mastodon) the concept is discussed as being ten years old but it’s older than that. Think back to Geocities, AncientSites and other free personal website opportunities. Before social media became popular everyone had their own web page, or web pages, as well as a guest book and possibly even a web forum and more. With time people moved towards the place where everyone had gathered.
Imagine, you’re a uni student, surrounded by people, and everyone is part of Facebook. In such an environment it makes sense for individuals to join the site where everyone else is, and to forget their personal blogs. The Social network, or Social Graph, as utilitiarian people called it became centralised.
The paradox is that whilst our network became more concentrated around TW, IG, FB and other sites so the conversations between friends and social networks shrank, in favour of influencers and other sources of social media noise pollution.
I left IG because it stopped being a place to share nice photos from my daily life, and for IRL friends to enjoy them, and a place where I wasted time looking at content by strangers. That’s where the POSSE concept comes back in.
For years people said “I don’t blog because no one will follow the link from Twitter” but now things have changed. If I share photos and blog posts from my blog to the fediverse they are part of the fediverse. They are native to the platform. When people want to “read more” they click and the rest of the text appears. Instead of navigating to a new tab, you just unroll the blog post and read.
In the [Verge Posse article](https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/23/23928550/posse-posting-activitypub-standard-twitter-tumblr-mastodon) they discuss posting to a dozen different social networks, but in my opinion this misses the strength of the fediverse. As WordPress, Firefish and other networks connect to Mastodon, and as BlueSky and other apps develop their own system, so it becomes possible to aggregate everything together, without having to create a post per system.
The interest lies in combining BlueSky with ActivityPub, and other upcoming solutions. When all of them have interfaces that make them compatible with each other, so the need to post to six websites is reduced to the need to post to a single site, and for it to propagate everywhere.
Back in the day we had blog rings. For years now WordPress has had a form of syndication through Jetpack and WordPress.com. Although I see very few mentions of it, WordPress is already closely syndicated and integrated, to create a community of communities, that use WordPress, whether Self-hosted or shared to share blog posts, and everything that blogs cover.
With FB, IG and TW we forgot about personal websites because we could share photos, events and conversations in a simple to use, centralised location. With TW, IG and FB losing their moral compass so the age of decentralisation is back, except that although we might be writing for a website that has a single user, we are syndicated everywhere, thanks to ActivityPub and other solutions.
These days I spend more focused time writing blog posts than I do using social media. I prefer to invest my time in projects, rather than looking for superficial conversations on microblogging platforms like Twitter.
On the HDR-SR12
It’s no secret that I now own an HDR SR 12. It’s a small light weight video camera that shoots in high definition at 1920x1080i but I’ve been shooting at 1440×900 most of the time. Recently I went through the streets of Nyon filming people as they enjoyed the first real day of spring.
I filmed a diversity of things. The White Castle, couples sitting by a wall drinking cans of some fluid and people walking around. There’s even footage of a guy filming a girl presenting products for something. I have no idea of their goal.
As I watched the video back on a 40″ monitor I was really happy with the results. The picture was sharp, the colours were great and you really could look around the image to see every little detail.
Recently I lent my camera to a very knowledgable friend of mine, when it comes to broadcasting and he was happy with the results too. He was telling me about watching images with XV colour, which I hadn’t paid much attention. He told me that for certain natural colours, green for example when the light was just right the saturation was really nice. He was using a Samsung screen whilst I was experimenting with Sony.
What I feel is particularly gratifying is that this, by broadcast standards, is a really cheap camera and already it delivers top rate results. Of course with progressive imaging it would be better and it does lack when subjects are back lit. I wrote about some of the drawbacks in a recent post but it’s still an excellent camera.
I have a few documentary ideas I will need to get round to filming as summer approaches. I do want to take advantage of having such a light camera.
Riding a Foot Scooter Along My Ordinary Walk
The Old Scooter and Winter
Winter is coming, and with the arrival of winter comes the need to swap the tyres from summer to winter. In the process of getting the snow tyres out of the cave I pulled out my old scooter. The one that I used when I had a one month driving ban for speeding. I would not have been driving above the speed limit if I was not stuck behind someone driving below the speed limit.
At the time I was happy to lose my licence for a month because it meant that for a month I could commute by bus and train rather than by car. It meant that instead of being attentive for 45 minutes per commute I only needed to be attentive to get onto the bus, and to get on to the train. After that I could stare at my phone like a commuter, and relax.
Commuting by Foot Scooter
During this time I bought a foot scooter and I used it every single day that I had to commute. I found it quick and efficient. It’s better than a bike because it folds into a much smaller volume, but it’s also good because it’s lighter than a bike. This means that you can scoot from home to the bus, and from the bus to the train, and then from the train to work. You can reverse the journey to go home.
Small Wheels
The one drawback that I found with the foot scooter I have, is that the wheels are tiny so if I hit the wrong bit of pavement or pothole I will go flying, as others have done when playing with scooters. People forget that scooters are unstable. If the front wheel gets caught the user will be thrown forwards. In some cases people break their jaws, their arms, or badly wind themselves.
I never did, because I always keep my weight to the back of the scooter, and I almost always anticipate locations where the scooter could catapult me.
Quicker than Walking and Running
Yesterday I went for a ride with the scooter. I tried a 7.7km loop that I usually walk and run. Of course I didn’t ride it at full speed down the slopes I encountered, and I walked on the uphill bits. It’s on the flat bits and gradual descents that the scooter is at its best. That’s where we make minimal effort and yet still get from A to B with ease.
These days you spot a lot of people using electric foot scooters and I think they’re missing out. They’re missing out on exercise. They’re missing out on fitness. They’re missing out on endorphins. For me the entire reason for using foot scooters is to play and have fun, to get from A to B faster than by foot.
My average speed on the foot scooter yesterday was around 10 kilometres per hour but my peak was 26 kilometres per hour. If my foot scooter was newer, and I trusted it more, then I would have gone faster. That’s without an engine. That’s without large wheels. Imagine the freedom I would gain from a foot scooter with large wheels.
Use Case
If you’re working at the Palais Des Nations, or Grand Saconnex you have a very nice descent, from the airport to the lake and the train station. If and when you’re comfortable with long descents this is a perfect opportunity to skip the train from the airport, or waiting for buses. Just get on the scooter and ride it down that long descent.
Of course be cautious and obey traffic rules. No need for a motor here, gravity does the work.
The Desire for Bigger Wheels
For years now I have had an obsession with getting a foot scooter with larger wheels for one key reason. Safety. If you hit a stone, pebble, or if you go from one road surface to another you run less risk of being flipped over. I used it this morning to get from my home to the garage to pick up the car. The scooter feels fine on good road surfaces but as soon as I hit cobbled surfaces I feel the scooter almost getting stuck and slowing down by a lot. Bigger wheels would make me safer.
The one drawback is that it could be heavier to push on the flat, and to carry.
Learning Curve
The advantage of using a foot scooter, compared to a skateboard, is that with a scooter you’re standing on one foot whilst pushing with the other, and steering with your weight, and the steering column. With a skateboard you have to balance on the board and if you want to stop or turn you need to add weight either forwards or backwards, whilst keeping your balance. to stop you need to learn the techniques. With the foot scooter you press your rear foot on the wheel break and you slow down.
And Finally
A human powered foot scooter costs a quarter of what a powered scooter costs so it doesn’t make much sense to pay an extra five hundred or more francs. Walking the bits that are too steep to climb is easy. If the effort seems hard at first there is a simple solution. Ride it more. The more you use a foot scooter the easier it becomes to use. We gain experience, but our physique adapts. Our leg muscles get stronger. Our endurance increases, and our technique becomes more efficient.
Chindrieux Dives
Earlier today I was at Chindrieux, a lake side village looking out over the Lac du Bourget lake in France. It is a nice lake with good visibility. The dive site where my friends and I usually dive is a wall. You swim out for 300 meters before heading down the bank to a little gap in the cliff. At 9 meters depth you start going west along the wall. On this wall you can find lots of shells and the occasional fish hiding in one crack or other. There are overhangs and scree fields. The bottom of the wall is at 65m. From there it slopes gently off to 110m.
So far my dives have only taken me to 40 meters on this wall. Diving in this part of the world takes a certain character type. The water at depth is at a stable 5°-6°c but the water column varies from 21°c at the surface in Summer zo 6°c at the surface in winter. In summer you go from warm water to cold, and then you get back to warm. You’re sweating in your dry suit and to cool down is welcome. In winter the opposite is true. You’re cold. You’re happy to put your dry suit on, and gloves, and hood. The drawback is that you go from cold air to cold water and back. Friends of mine and I have come out of the water shivering in winter, unable to use our fingers anymore. This is all part of the fun.
Today for a change I went with my video camera. I am currently working on a diving documentary and I want to get footage of the surface as well as down below. The vista are nice. You can see parapentistes, the occasional boat, trains passing by and in the distance snow covered mountains. They serve as a backdrop to Aix Les Bains.
I will keep you informed about how this project progresses.
A Drone flying over Hong Kong at night.
I ate lunch as I watched the footage of a drone flying over Hong Kong at night and at first I was confused as to whether the images were real or not. As you watch more of the video you see that everything is real. The depth of field is good and so is the exposure. There is no or very little noise from this being shot at night.
You see buildings, cars, traffic and more. You see things from above, others from the side and yet more from eye level. There is an interesting flight by an office building where we can look into the lit offices.
Another beautiful shot is the shot of the shipping containers that are on a shipping container as it sails. There are plenty of shots in this video to show that you can give time for images to breath. People will enjoy watching this video.
There are some atmospheric shots of Budapest. We begin with a drone flying over a tram as it makes its way across a bridge. We then see the city and a variety of landmarks and more. It’s an interesting video to watch in 4K.
A timelapse from the top of an ice breaker as it breaks through the ice is familiar. Less familiar is the moment when two ships are next to each other. Even less familiar is when The Icebreaker attaches itself to the stuck ship and pulls it back to freedom. It’s a scene that is unfamiliar to many of us.