I just came back from a retreat. Wow! The saying is true: change of pace + change of place = change of perspective. As creators, we’re always working in one of two modes: the nose to the grindstone, going through the motions of daily output mode; and the 20,000 feet, blue sky thinking mode. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to get into that second mode in the same physical environment as where you’re typically heads down making incremental progress. Let’s dive into the vital importance of getting away in order to reinvent everything.
Everything Everywhere All at Once won big at the Oscars, but it's not the only ’verse-spanning creation making it big this year. ActivityPub is having a moment, and we're here to chronicle the rise of numerous new instances, applications, and networks—including the very WEIRD and wacky news that Meta (of all companies!) is exploring an ActivityPub-powered decentralized social networking platform of its own!
As Arnold would say, I’m back, baby! Yes, I am rebooting my first blog ever, and this new daily weblog all about tech and nerd culture news with a dash of fun 90s nostalgia on the side will feature archives reaching all the way back to 1996. Are you excited yet? You should be!
How can one feel like an intellectually fulfilled citizen of the open web & fediverse and still consume regular YouTube content? Here's what I have done to corral this monster into a cage…and in the process unlocked a whole new environment for computing & entertainment. Life after Big Social can be so much better.
Blog comments are BACK, and this time it’s not about software people have to use on your blog or on their blog or even over on corporate social media…it’s all about the fediverse. Using Mastodon’s API, it’s possible to find the right “toot” (that is, published status) and display all replies—from Mastodon as well as the wider range of fediverse software—as blog comments. Woo hoo! Let’s dive in.
Or in French, une réflexion intéressante sur la nature du podcast. Yes, a très intéressante discussion ensued on Mastodon over the past few days: what is a podcast? What is the medium of podcasting? What is the format of podcasting? What is the history of podcasting? Why is a podcast called a podcast? Oddly enough, responses are all over the map, and my attempt on Mastodon to pin down a definitive definition of podcast proved rather controversial! Why?! Let’s break it all down—and ask my 2005-self from the dawn of the podcast age to weigh in on the controversy! (For the impatient, skip to 16:00.) And of course…since this is the 88th episode of Fresh Fusion, I can’t help but pepper in a few references to Back to the Future along the way…
Where do you put the stuff that you write? Where do you post your posts? How do you publish things online now that Twitter is imploding and the Fediverse is rising? Has blogging made a comeback? What's the different between a blog and an email newsletter that's available via the web? Questions abound, and I'm here to talk about all of it and my thoughts around smart growth of a healthier, more open web.
In this episode, I recap all my “3 words” in previous years which helped set the tone for what I hoped to accomplish throughout the year and the values to focus on most. And then I share with you my yearly theme and “3 words” for 2023, why I chose those words, and what my overarching goals are for the new year. I hope this episode inspires you to join me in choosing your own words for 2023!
Happy New Year everybody! I meant to record this show last week, but I was sick for most of the holidays. Oh well. I'm just glad I *have* a top ten list like this because honestly, I thought a lot of geek entertainment fare earlier this year rather sucked (quite a few disappointments coming from Disney in particular). Thankfully, things picked up as the year progressed, and we were able to finish out 2022 with an excellent list of some of my favorite properties not just in 2022 but ever. Let's dive in!
Today, we are all John Mastodon. And in this episode, I talk about the explosive docuseries concerning Prince Harry & Meghan Markle and the outrageous, toxic relationship between the British tabloids and the Royal Family, and the even BIGGER story about how online mobs form to target victims whether they be celebrities or journalists or creators and how we need to push the reset button on online discourse because the vitriol has gotten completely out of control!
