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2022/4/1 #poetry Helpful as I might become I will always need help too None of us exist apart Together is how we make it through Even when I'm on my own I use the skills that I've been taught Without the things that I was shown Succeed in life I just would not

Every new year I commit to giving social networks other than Facebook a serious effort. I read my news feed on other networks before visiting FB. I cross post things to other networks in addition to FB.

This year I'm changing it up a bit. Due to the ongoing meltdown of Twitter, there have been massive migrations to other platforms, some newer than others. The demographic trends in those migrations make some of these more appealing to me than others.

I will be focusing almost all of my new social media interaction efforts on Mastodon for this year's resolution.

I am @[email protected] or http://mastodon.social/@sparr and I invite all my friends and acquaintances to follow and interact there. I may eventually create one or more additional profiles in the fediverse for specific sorts of content, TBD.

Mastodon is a federated service. It works kinda like email. You make an account on a server of your choice, the same way you choose gmail or hotmail or your own domain and server for email, but you can still interact with people on other servers. Most Mastodon servers talk to each other, but some block each other due to incompatible content and moderation policies, e.g. on an instance meant for kids you might have trouble following someone from an instance meant for porn. Learn more or just find a server to join at https://joinmastodon.org/

The way that Mastodon servers talk to each other isn't restricted to Mastodon servers. The language they speak (“ActivityPub”) is free and open to implement and use. Mastodon looks and works a lot like Twitter, with short mostly-text posts, sometimes small images or videos, presented in a feed/stream. There's another platform called Pixelfed that looks and works more like Instagram or Flickr, hosting mostly big images, presenting them in more of a gallery feed. There's another platform called Peertube that looks and works like Youtube, hosting large/long videos. There are also platforms for long form blogging, including Write Freely (where you'll find me as @[email protected] but you probably don't need to follow that since my Mastodon account will boost most of my Write Freely posts). All of these platforms can and do talk to each other. Users on them can interact with each other. You can reply to a Peertube video or follow a Write Freely author from your Mastodon account. You can boost Mastodon posts on your Pleroma account, etc.

And this isn't limited to “new” platforms. There is a Wordpress plugin so that your Wordpress site will send and receive content via ActivityPub, allowing users of Mastodon or Pleroma etc to directly follow your blog and boost your posts to their followers, rather than just copying and pasting links. Tumblr is working on support currently as well.

This system isn't perfect. It's experiencing growing pains as millions of people join a network that previously only had a few hundred thousand users. There's work being done on moderation and privacy and client features. New clients are being written almost daily. But it's getting better, and it was already good enough for me to use and love years ago. I strongly recommend you give it a try.

I'll close by mentioning that I intend to remain active in the following other places, although I'll be checking and posting to Mastodon and Write Freely first for a while:

https://facebook.com/sparr0 https://reddit.com/u/sparr https://fetlife.com/sparr https://sparr.substack.com

PS: My understanding is that significant chunks of the Twitter exodus are also headed for Tumblr.com, Post.news, and Hivesocial.app. While they mostly don't appeal to me, I include them here in case they are a better fit for you.

#NewYearNewNetworks #SocialMedia #SocialNetwork #Facebook #Reddit #Twitter #Mastodon #Substack #fediverse #ActivityPub

Vorratsdatenspeicherung, zensursula, ACTA, rechtsfreier Raum. Diese Schlagworte machten und machen im Netz und in den “Holzmedien” die Runde. Sie stehen für den Willen der “Internetausdrucker”, nach der realen nun auch die virtuelle Welt zu regulieren, zu kontrollieren. Die Mächtigen des Meatspace wollen ihren eisernen Griff endlich auch im #Cyberspace durchsetzen – mit allen Mitteln. Dieser Backlash, dieser “Angriff der Antimoderne auf selbstbestimmtes Leben” (Zeger 2008, S. 33) begann nicht erst mit 9/11 und der darauf folgenden Terrorismusangst. Seine Wurzeln liegen tiefer.

Throwback Thursday
Dieser Beitrag erschien ursprünglich vor Jahren in einem meiner mittlerweile offline genommenen Blogs. In loser Folge grabe ich tief in meinen archivierten SQL-Datenbanken und stosse manchmal auf sowas wie Gold. In diesem Fall auf wütendes Gold. Enjoy! #TBT

Schon immer war es das Ziel des Herrschaftsapparats, die Individualität mittels Identifikation zu zerstören. Die Reduktion auf eine Nummer, einen Datensatz macht das Individuum zur anonymen Manipuliermasse, mit der nach belieben verfahren werden kann. Moderne Informatikmittel erleichtern das Sammeln von und den Zugriff auf eben diese Datensätze. Fatal wirken sich dabei die vielfältigen Analyse- und Verknüpfungsmöglichkeiten aus: Bürger A hat zum Zeitpunkt Z mit “Terrorist” B kommuniziert, also ist A ebenfalls ein “Terrorist”. Dies ist die dunkle Seite der Informatik und des Cyberspace. Sie haben dem modernen Präventivstaat, der sich meist nur noch graduell von seinem totalitären Bruder unterscheidet, erst möglich gemacht.

Von der Unabhängigkeit des Cyberspace

Einer hat das schon früh erkannt. Der amerikanische Autor, Mitglied der Band The Grateful Dead, Bürgerrechtler und Mitbegründer der Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), John Perry Barlow [1]. Anlässlich des World Economic Forums [2] verlas er am 8. Februar 1996 seine “Unabhängigkeitserklärung des Cyberspace” (A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace). Darin antizipierte er viele der Entwicklungen bis heute und versuchte, diesen mit radikalen Forderungen entgegenzutreten:

“Regierungen der industriellen Welt, Ihr müden Giganten aus Fleisch und Stahl, ich komme aus dem Cyberspace, der neuen Heimat des Geistes. Im Namen der Zukunft bitte ich Euch, Vertreter einer vergangenen Zeit: Lasst uns in Ruhe! Ihr seid bei uns nicht willkommen. Wo wir uns versammeln, besitzt Ihr keine Macht mehr.

Wir besitzen keine gewählte Regierung, und wir werden wohl auch nie eine bekommen – und so wende ich mich mit keiner grösseren Autorität an Euch als der, mit der die Freiheit selber spricht. Ich erkläre den globalen sozialen Raum, den wir errichten, als gänzlich unabhängig von der Tyrannei, die Ihr über uns auszuüben anstrebt. Ihr habt hier kein moralisches Recht zu regieren noch besitzt Ihr Methoden, es zu erzwingen, die wir zu befürchten hätten.”

Es ist dieses “Kammerstück” (Telepolis), diese “Ursuppe, aus der alle löffeln, die immer wieder grosse Hoffnungen in das Internet setzen” (heise online). Barlow wurde mit diesem Text gewissermassen zum “Thomas Jefferson of cyberspace” (Reason). Lesebefehl, auch heute noch!

Ergänzend dazu hier noch ein Interview der BBC mit Barlow, welches im Rahmen der vierteiligen Doku-Serie “The Virtual Revolution” aufgezeichnet wurde.

Literatur

Zeger, Hans G. (2008): Mensch. Nummer. Datensatz. Unsere Lust an totaler Kontrolle. St. Pölten: Residenz Verlag.

(Erstveröffentlichung: 2010-04-20 16:01:43)

---

Fussnoten [1] Nachtrag 2022: John Perry Barlow, geboren 1947, verstarb im Februar 2017. [2] Bereits damals sorgten einige Geschäfte für Aufsehen, etwa der Einstieg von Bertelsmann bei AOL 1995. Konsequenterweise lud das WEF 1996 auch Risikokapitalgeber und einige Akteure aus dem Cyberspace ein.

Bildquelle 1. John Perry Barlow: Joi, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Topic #ThrowbackThursday

Now out of date: For my most current prompt listings, follow @[email protected] on Mastodon.

I have also scaled back to the prompts which are Mastodon-hosted, popular on Mastodon, or at least accessible to non-Twitter users.

**Update: (3 Dec. 2022) ** Once I did so, things went well for a few days, and then folks stopped boosting my posts, meaning that the lists became virtually invisible (except to my small set of followers and to people on my same instance). Not worth it for the effort, so I've stopped posting prompt lists.

I'm still maintaining the prompt info page after a fashion, but have moved it to my personal writing blog.

New prompt info page: https://paper.wf/codgertator/prompt-info

Cheers! ☕✍

(VSS: 96 words)

Jan looked fondly on her step-son's science project. The materials were of the simplest: a glass jar, water and alcohol in equal measure, and cooking oil. The oil had now coalesced into a suspended sphere of goldenrod—the dullest of lava lamps, but still fascinating in its way. It occupied pride of place on Erik's bookshelf. Perhaps she should have found him a square jar, to make the ball appear rounder, less squat. She called it his “dragon's eyeball.”

Three nights later, the sphere “spoke” to Erik. It whispered things like “my friend” and “imposters.”

#vss #FlashFiction

2022/3/31 #poetry Deep into a fantasy world sometimes it's nice to fall when things are really hectic I often feel the call To lose myself in story to let some fiction eat my time but leaving my life to imagination seems like such a crime but when I am creating, the opposite is true my own fabricating is very worthwhile to do

Bonjour tout le monde.

Si vous cherchez une solution gratuite pour autohébergement, parce que vous ne voulez rien faire tourner chez vous. Regarder du coté votre FAI qui peut proposer un hebergement mutualisé intégré à votre compte. C'est le cas par exemple chez Free. J'ai pu par exemple installer sur le même espace un dokuwiki et un shaarli (partage de notes, liens, etc) La preuve http://aerkan.free.fr En plus, pas de pubs, pas de trackers.

Bien sûr, il y a des inconvénients, les FAI ne sont pas top au niveau de sécurité, Mettre seulement ce que vous souhaitez vraiment partager en publique, comme dans la rue. ;–)

#selfhosted #autohebergement #dokuwiki #shaarli

-16 oktober 2020 Aku kayaknya harus mulai keluar lagi. Bukan kayaknya lagi, kalo gak keluar gimana hidupku bakalan berkembang?

Tapi aku takut kalo keluar, aku bakalan salah bertindak, jadinya aku dipojokin lagi. Akhirnya masuk, diem di dalem lagi.

Kalo di luar gak tau gimana caranya bikin lawan bicara betah ngobrol sama aku. 10 tahun yang lalu, aku pernah ngajak ngobrol seseorang, terus dia bilang “ternyata ngomong sama kamu gak asik ya”. Pernah aku tulis disini juga.

-19 september 2020 Hey, it's amazing how I become the person they told me not to be years ago...

Rebahan, males-malesan, gak ada pergaulan, gak ada kerjaan. :( Pengen keluar, tapi aku gak tau apa yang mereka omongin, terlalu lama di dalem...

-8 september 2020 Sebenernya apa lagi yang aku tunggu disini?

Tiba-tiba muncul pertanyaan itu belakangan ini di pikiranku. Yah. Rasanya nggak ada yang bisa aku lakuin lagi disini. Nggak ada semangat lagi buat ngerjain sesuatu. Nggak tau ke depan mau ngapain lagi.

Nggak tau apa alasan untuk ngelanjutin hidupku.

Mungkin orang lain akan bilang, “banyak banget kok yang bisa kamu kerjain. Banyak hal yang menunggu kamu ke depannya. Ada yang harus kamu jaga di masa depan. Masih ada yang butuh kamu di sini”... huuhh aku nggak tau harus gimana.

Aku ngerasa nggak sanggup. Masih banyak orang lain disini, harus ya aku ikut ke dalemnya juga? “Iya lah harus!” Aku dapet apa emangnya kalo ngejalanin ini? “Dapet pengalaman hidup! Kan kamu setahun yang lalu pernah bilang ke dirimu sendiri, uang bukan alasan kamu ngejalanin ini, kamu ke sini nyari pengalaman hidup, biar kamu pernah ada di posisi pernah ngejalanin hal-hal, biar nggak cuma jadi penonton hidup orang aja” oh iya aku pernah bilang gitu... Tapi entah kenapa aku nggak betah di lingkungan sini... Aku ngerasa nggak bisa nyesuaiin diri dengan keadaan ini. Waktu aku nyaman sama suatu hal, aku dipaksa keluar dari hal itu.

Mungkin iya bener kata orang, semua harus keluar dari zona nyaman mereka sendiri. Tapi kalo aku nggak nyaman, gimana aku bakal nikmatin hidupku? Kalo aku nggak nyaman, aku nggak bisa ngerjain semua dengan ikhlas. Ya ampun aku bimbang.

Aku ngerasa nggak punya siapa-siapa untuk curhat. Tapi liat orang-orang luar, kayaknya aku gak bisa berbaur sama mereka... Apalah aku ini di depan mereka yang lebih banyak pengalamannya. Yah nyesel banget kenapa dulu gak bisa bertemen. Kenapa nggak diajarin bertemen. Kenapa orang-orang di sekitar malah ngeledek aku pas aku keluar.

This hits me so hard... Imma bang myself right to the wall. Ah!

Jadi kemana-mana kan ini aku nulisnya.

-16 oktober 2020 Lagi ngerasain gak enaknya hidup sendirian.

Aku sering gak dihargain sama orang-orang yang mengelilingiku, akunya juga kayaknya dulu sering gak ngehargain orang. Udah kejawab kenapa orang gak seneng bergaul sama aku.

Saking sibuknya ngerjain kerjaan gak jelas, sampe-sampe lupa bergaul. Jarang ngeliat orang-orang di luar, sekali ngeliat orang di luar jadi pengen kayak mereka, bisa bergaul dengan seamless, bisa berinteraksi, like-able. Seketika pengen kayak mereka.

Tapi pas aku nyoba, nggak terlalu banyak kemungkinan aku berhasil bergaul. Sekalipun berhasil, besoknya pasti mereka bakal jauh lagi.

-21 agustus 2020 Hi 19.

Hey, I'm another year older.

Tapi rasanya aku nggak semangat lagi buat ngejalanin semua ini. Aku belum nemu apa yang aku suka disini, lalu semuanya dipaksa untuk berhenti waktu itu. Waktuku beradaptasi disini belum cukup.

Rasanya aku gak mood banget. Kesukaanku beda sama orang-orang lain, gak pernah bisa nemu orang yang punya kesukaan sama. Capek ngomong sama diriku sendiri terus. Capek ngehadepin semua sendirian. Nggak ada yang bisa diajak. Belum nemuin temen sama sekali disini. Aku udah setahun disini, tapi rasanya baru sempet ngerasain nginjek tempat ini beberapa minggu doang.

Nyesel banget nggak jadi orang yang gampang bergaul. Nyesel banget masa kecil malah cuma diem di rumah gak kenal orang yang selain keluarga. Seketika keinginan buat nge-reset hidupku muncul lagi.

I don't know what comes next...

it's a fair question, considering some of the circumstances:

in november 2019, eugen rochko, CEO of mastodon gmbh & administrator of mastodon's flagship instance, banned the assam police in india from mastodon.social, citing community saftey concerns. however, a dutch police account, registered in 2016, remains on the instance more than 3 years after the assam police account was suspended, despite user reports & public warnings.

on another level, eugen has been shown to have loose connections to the european policing apparatus through the #EUnomia project, which is conducting research for surveillance & social control online. he was paid €63,290.07 to work for this european union-supported initiative.

he also suspended the accounts [1, 2] of two revolutionary colombian organizations, the FARC-EP & the ELN, from the flagship instance without explanation. given that these groups have been internationally targeted & isolated as “criminal” organizations & suspended from other social media sites at police request, this also raises red flags.

it would be relatively straightforward for eugen to issue a statement denying—or if necessary, detailing—any past, present, or intended future collaboration between mastodon & law enforcement agencies. to date, however, no such statement has been made.

This story was originally written for the Quantum Shorts bi-annual flash fiction competition (unsuccessful), and later published in All Worlds Wayfarer.

The idea later developed into my as yet unpublished novel The Measurement Problem

Entangled

A pool of light from the cafe’s plate glass window spreads over the wet cobbles. It’s familiar territory but I still hesitate, disturbed by the memory of last week. My thumb runs along the folded edge of the note in my pocket.

I need to talk to you about a murder. Marek’s cafe. 7pm

Erica

I’m not homicide. And I don’t know any Erica. So why did I come? I curse my own foolishness and march through the puddles to the cafe door. It utters its usual piercing squeal as I push it open then I’m bathed in the smells of coffee and old leather and the muted sounds of light jazz.

My usual table is occupied by a lone female with her face buried in her phone. In the far corner another has her back to me but watches in the big mirror on the back wall.

Erica, no question. How do I know that?

I slip my coat off and weave my way between the empty tables. By the time I get to her she’s standing facing me. She reaches out, I think she’s about to pull me into an embrace, but she stops short. Her hands brush my sides as she leans forward to give me a light kiss on the cheek. I feel the weight of the Glock under my jacket shift with her touch. For all the ways this feels odd I’m not disturbed by the familiarity.

A faint smile crosses her face. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she says, and sits. I squeeze behind the low table to sit with my back to the mirrored wall.

Marek looms over us with his tray. ‘Capuccino,’ he says, placing the mug of froth in front of Erica, ‘and a macchiato.’ He’s gone before I can thank him.

Now I really look at her. Fair hair cut in a bob, green eyes, pert nose, wide mouth. Not a classic beauty, but compelling. And I have definitely never seen her before in my life. I would remember.

I drop the note on the table. ‘Who’s the victim?’

‘Mostly it was me,’ she says. A strand of fine pale hair falls across her cheek. ’Sometimes my lover, too.’

She’s Entangled. I’ve read about them, never met one. When Hugh Everett proposed the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory in 1957, no-one believed it, “untestable”, they said. Then Roger Penrose came up with the idea that consciousness itself was linked to the quantum world, not many people took that seriously, either. Ten years ago someone worked out how to break down the wall between realities, at least in the mind. All those different worlds are real to the Entangled, she lives every one of them, countless parallel lives.

‘Who was the victim in this world?’ I ask, and I’m wondering if there are a million different versions of this conversation happening out there. She would be a part of them all.

‘No-one, yet.’ She sips her coffee.

I ease back in my seat. ‘What can I do? No jurisdiction.’

‘I know.’

I don’t know where this is going, but I have to say something, just so I can keep looking at her. ‘How does it feel, living all those different lives?’

‘The Entanglement procedure opens a door that’s already ajar.’ She gestures as she talks, lively, graceful hands. Did you ever see a face for the first time, but it’s already familiar?’

I’m looking at one.

‘Or you wake up at 3am with an inexplicable feeling of loss?’

‘My sister’s flight was delayed because of a technical problem,’ I say. ‘I phoned, she was still at the airport.’ Did something happen in another reality? I don’t dare ask.

She folds her hands in her lap. ‘You haven’t been back to this cafe since last week.’

Last week. I hadn’t been able to breathe. My chest, my throat had tightened like steel bands. A panic attack? Me? I glance over to where I’d been sitting; phone lady is leaving, the cafe door squeals as she pulls it open. I take a deep breath.

Erica looks up at me. ‘Every world where I’ve had the procedure is part of me. I live so many lives. With such freedoms.’

Confusion shakes me from my fright. Freedoms? She glances at her watch, then up at the mirror behind me.

‘Freedoms,’ she says, though I never asked, ‘because there are no more hard decisions. Who do I want to be? I could become a nun, climb Everest, learn Sanskrit. I can do them all each in a different reality. Every possible future is real.’

She falls silent and looks down, flexing her fingers and studying her nails.

‘But?’ I say.

She sighs. ‘My ex was Entangled, too.’

‘What happened?’

She meets my eyes again. ‘It wasn’t working. I started seeing someone else, but he caught us. He’s crazy jealous, he’s hunting us down in every reality.’

I relax a little. ‘You need a safe place to hide.’

She reaches out and takes my hand, interlocking her fingers with mine. ‘You don’t understand. There are many, many more worlds than there are places where we might hide in any one. He could knock on every door of every house on Earth a million times over. And he will if he has to.’

I’m staring at the hand that’s holding mine. It feels like it belongs there. Pieces fall into place.

She reaches out to stroke my cheek. ‘He doesn’t care that you never met me before in this reality. If there’s one world where he knows we’re here today, then he knows in this one. He’s coming, you have to be ready.’

Tears form in the corners of her eyes. ‘Things used to be so simple.’

A shadow moves in the darkness beyond the window. It is simple. The Glock is in my hand before the cafe door squeals.

I remember her words: every possible future is real.