8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

  • 8sided About
  • memora8ilia

what’s all this then?

February 14, 2021 · Leave a Comment

What’s all this then? I took a few months off from micro-blogging while I contemplated what I wanted to get out of it — and to develop a better system. As for the first bit, I want a rolling log of what I’m doing and things I find interesting which I can easily search and reference. These micro-posts might become topics that I expand upon in the blog proper and my email newsletter. As for the system, it’s important that this log exists on a platform that’s semi-permanent and that I own. I was in the process of creating a separate WordPress install on the blog’s sub-domain (which would’ve added a layer of resistance to my process) when I discovered this post. Violà! After some simple PHP tweaks, I now have a ‘status’ feed that’s separate from the main blog feed. This status feed auto-magically posts on micro.blog. I set it up yesterday — relatively painless with only a couple of easily squashed bugs — and it seems like it’s working fine. That means I’m back to micro-blogging. I look forward to using this as a tool to capture what’s happening and inspire more long-form blogging action. It’ll also be nice to re-enter the micro-blogging community and contribute to the exchange of ideas. 

BTW – these status updates are on a separate RSS feed than the main blog. So, if you want to follow this in your handy RSS reader then you’ll want to follow this feed.

it's me — calling from the grave

Filed Under: MEMORA8ILIA Tagged With: micro.blog, Wordpress

Incendiary and Extraordinary

June 18, 2020 · Leave a Comment

• Tomorrow is Juneteenth, and it’s the first Juneteenth that Bandcamp is donating all of its 15% sales take to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. They’ll also allocate “an additional $30,000 per year to partner with organizations that fight for racial justice and create opportunities for people of color.” I say it’s the first as Bandcamp pledges to make this an annual thing. Many artists and labels are following suit, promising their sales shares to civil rights organizations, too. So, hey — let’s grab some music. This event is an excellent opportunity to revisit this Reddit discussion on Black ambient and experimental artists to support and this searchable site of Bandcamp’s Black-owned labels and artists. 

• Here are a couple of quick links to incendiary and extraordinary examples of Black art: the 1986 film Handsworth Songs is experimental documentary filmmaking at its best, via John Akomfrah and the Black Audio Film Collective; and this NY Times article from Marcus J. Moore compiling ’15 Essential Black Liberation Jazz Tracks.’ [LINK] + [LINK]

• Twenty Thousand Hertz is an informative podcast that delves into the “world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds.” The latest episode is about a topic near-and-dear to my heart: music copyright lawsuits. The host, Dallas Taylor, examines the ‘theft or inspiration?’ dilemma and lucidly explains the legalities. The podcast episode serves as a good explainer for those who want to know more about the topic and has a few interesting new perspectives for been-down-that-road folks like me. For what it’s worth, I don’t think any of the cases brought up in the episode should have gone to court. I do understand the potential dangers of broadly loosening our parameters on copyright, but letting experts decide on music theft disputes rather than a jury is a better idea. I wrote more about this topic here. [LINK]

• As you know from previous ramblings, I’m thinking a lot these days about how I use the online medium and the digital footprint I’m leaving. I’m playing around more with micro.blog and this site’s connected ‘micro-8sided’ blog. I’m trying out an idea of the microsite as an idea repository — a placeholder for things I’m reading, listening to, and thinking. It looks like this: short ideas and notes jotted down in the microblog, longer and better thought-out pieces on this ‘main’ blog and the email newsletter. I can use the micro to access things that grabbed my interest, expanding on some of those topics here and in the newsletter. That means the microblog provides a peek at what I’m thinking about as a preview to topics appearing here. At least, that’s how it works in theory. I may chuck it all later this week, depending on how time-consuming a labyrinth of thought this turns out to be. Oh, and as I’m lessening my presence on targeted-ad-fueled social media, micro.blog now crossposts to Twitter, and I’ll aim to visit that place less and less. Bye-bye to Facebook, too.

• Here’s a gorgeous ambient track from Dedekind Cut, an artist (and song) recommended in the Reddit thread I mentioned above.

• Lake Holden held a surprise this morning at dawn. Spot the moon. [LINK]

Filed Under: From The Notebook Tagged With: Bandcamp, Copyright, Dedekind Cut, Facebook, Film, Jazz, Juneteenth, Lake Holden, Legal Matters, micro.blog, Podcast, Twenty Thousand Hertz, Twitter

Brightening the Forest

June 15, 2020 · 2 Comments

I’m testing out the platform micro.blog. At first glance, this looks like a Twitter alternative, as Twitter falls under the same ‘micro-blogging’ genre. The user types in a short update — 280 characters on micro.blog, links and Markdown code not included — and followers will see it. But on micro.blog you can go over the character limit. Then your full post moves over to a personal blog while a truncated version — linking to your post — appears in the feed. So, it’s like a combination of Twitter and a blogging platform.

The differences are more substantial than that. There are no targeted ads, or any advertising, on micro.blog. Instead, users pay $5 a month for an account. This fee not only means the platform doesn’t need ads but also keeps out the bots and most of the trouble-makers. This factor gives micro.blog a different feel than other social media places we’re used to. And as you may have guessed, the downside (?) is that there are also a lot fewer people there.

I haven’t touched on the most remarkable thing about micro.blog yet. When you post, there’s not a lot of opportunity for adrenaline-rush feedback. There are no ‘likes’ or hearts to click — you won’t receive the warm fuzzies of a tweet that’s hearted dozens of times. And, even more alien, you don’t know who follows you. You don’t even know how many people follow you. No one could be following you. Or hundreds. No way to know. You can see who other people are following — this helps with discovering who is on micro.blog. But if they follow you? That’s a mystery.

The only tap on the wall you’ll get from the cell next door is when someone responds to your post. And, being the only option, this seems to encourage people to interact. So far, in my limited experience, the users on this platform are friendly as can be. I’ve peeped in on a couple of disagreements, which were some of the nicest, most civil disputes I’ve seen. That’s jarring when you’re used to the discourse on Facebook or Twitter.

I signed up to experience a subscription-supported social media platform. That is, one that doesn’t do things like suck up personal data, use algorithms to hide posts, tolerate bots and unsavories to strengthen user numbers, or amplify contentious posts to increase angered engagement. I intended to give it a go for a couple of weeks solely for research and then move on. It’s educational, and I’m enjoying myself. It’s like I’ve stepped into an alternate timeline (no pun intended). I might stay.

Sometimes I wonder why I even need social media or an outlet like micro.blog. There is the ‘social’ in social media — keeping touch with friends. I would hope we could stay in touch with each other regardless. Then there’s the town-crier aspect. We want to tell others about the cool things we’ve found, like that hilarious video or the article that totally captures how we feel. I also like using social platforms as a notepad to keep track of things I might want to remember later (like those hilarious videos and spot-on articles).

——————

The cry to ‘delete Facebook’ is particularly loud at the moment. It’s always been in the background — remember six years ago when everyone was going to ditch Facebook for Ello? But with all the recent infuriating activities of Zuckcorp, many have reached a tipping point. And rather than a threat of ‘we’re leaving for someone else,’ the voices are simply saying, “We’re leaving.”

Here are one blogger’s reasons for leaving. And here’s a zeitgeist-y piece in Wired with instructions for deleting social media accounts. Writer and investor Om Malik is vocal about this, too, writing, “If you believe that Facebook is causing long-term damage to our society, and you don’t agree with their values or their approach to doing business, you can choose to leave.” But it’s author Alan Jacobs who really speaks to the punk rock kid living inside my brain:

When you use the big social media platforms you contribute to their power and influence, and you deplete the energy and value of the open web. You make things worse for everyone. I truly believe that. Which is why I’m so obnoxiously repetitive on this point.

——————

Kickstarter founder Yancey Strickler has written about what he calls The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet. He bases his thesis on the metaphor of wandering through a forest at night, which seems quiet and empty. But the forest is teeming with life — everything’s just hiding.

Strickler believes this is what the internet will become as people go off into their private groups and corners of the ‘indie web.’ Then Facebook, Twitter, and corporate social media will get left with the users who are screaming, antagonizing, and spreading untruths. Strickler fears that rather than isolating ugly voices, the ‘dark forest’ might increase their influence:

It’s possible, I suppose, that a shift away from the mainstream internet and into the dark forests could permanently limit the mainstream’s influence. It could delegitimize it. In some ways that’s the story of the internet’s effect on broadcast television. But we forget how powerful television still is. And those of us building dark forests risk underestimating how powerful the mainstream channels will continue to be, and how minor our havens are compared to their immensity.

I’m doubtful. I think there’s a difference between what Strickler calls ‘the mainstream internet’ and the manipulative, corporate, and closed internet we’re escaping. The screamers and the antagonizers are already doing a great job influencing powerful media, and they do it partly by influencing us. We talk about this ugliness on social media, we argue and engage with it, we even ‘retweet’ or share its messages with or without commentary. Then our reactions are amplified by an algorithm that feeds on conflict and anger. Often we spread the awfulness by merely being alongside it.

I don’t think it’s their forest we’re hiding in. If any part of the internet is ‘mainstream’, then it’s the part that’s not closed-off, disagreeable to our values, and sucking our personal data like mosquitos in a rank swamp. Inverting Strickler’s analogy, we should aspire for a forest where we can walk freely in the daylight. Let’s push the screamers to hide in the darkness.

This post was adapted from Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care, a weekly newsletter loosely about music-making, music-listening, and how technology changes the culture around those things. Click here to check out the latest issue and subscribe.

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured Tagged With: Alan Jacobs, Facebook, micro.blog, Om Malik, Social Media, Twitter, Yancey Strickler

8sided.blog

 
 
 
 
 
 
8sided.blog is a digital zine about sound, culture, and what Andrew Weatherall once referred to as 'the punk rock dream'.

It's also the online home of Michael Donaldson, a slightly jaded but surprisingly optimistic fellow who's haunted the music industry for longer than he cares to admit. A former Q-Burns Abstract Message.

"More than machinery, we need humanity."
 
  Learn More →

Mastodon

Mastodon logo

Exploring

Roll The Dice

For a random blog post

Click here

or for something cool to listen to
(refresh this page for another selection)

Linking

Blogroll

A Closer Listen
Austin Kleon
Atlas Minor
blissblog
Craig Mod
Disquiet
feuilleton
Headpone Commute
Hissy Tapes
Jay Springett
Kottke
Metafilter
One Foot Tsunami
1000 Cuts
Parenthetical Recluse
Poke In The Ear
Robin Sloan
Seth Godin
The Creative Independent
The Red Hand Files
Things Magazine
Warren Ellis LTD

 

TRANSLATE with x
English
Arabic Hebrew Polish
Bulgarian Hindi Portuguese
Catalan Hmong Daw Romanian
Chinese Simplified Hungarian Russian
Chinese Traditional Indonesian Slovak
Czech Italian Slovenian
Danish Japanese Spanish
Dutch Klingon Swedish
English Korean Thai
Estonian Latvian Turkish
Finnish Lithuanian Ukrainian
French Malay Urdu
German Maltese Vietnamese
Greek Norwegian Welsh
Haitian Creole Persian

TRANSLATE with
COPY THE URL BELOW
Back

EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE
Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal
Back

Newsroll

Dada Drummer
Dense Discovery
Dirt
Erratic Aesthetic
First Floor
Garbage Day
Kneeling Bus
Lorem Ipsum
Midrange
MusicREDEF
Orbital Operations
Sasha Frere-Jones
The Browser
The Honest Broker
The Maven Game
Today In Tabs
Tone Glow
Why Is This Interesting?

 

TRANSLATE with x
English
Arabic Hebrew Polish
Bulgarian Hindi Portuguese
Catalan Hmong Daw Romanian
Chinese Simplified Hungarian Russian
Chinese Traditional Indonesian Slovak
Czech Italian Slovenian
Danish Japanese Spanish
Dutch Klingon Swedish
English Korean Thai
Estonian Latvian Turkish
Finnish Lithuanian Ukrainian
French Malay Urdu
German Maltese Vietnamese
Greek Norwegian Welsh
Haitian Creole Persian

TRANSLATE with
COPY THE URL BELOW
Back

EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE
Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal
Back

ACT

Climate Action Resources
+
Carbon Dots
+
LGBTQ+ Education Resources
+
Roe v. Wade: What You Can Do
+
Union of Musicians and Allied Workers

Copyright © 2023 · 8D Industries, LLC · Log in