When Rudy Giuliani went to Twitter over the weekend to whine about
the Mueller investigation, he somehow, accidentally, created a website
link in his post.
And of course a prankster couldn’t help but have some fun with it,
creating this simple but spot-on message about Trump that people reading
Giuliani’s tweet would be linked to:
Just kidding. In fact, Tumblr may actually emerge from this better off…
Tumblings, Have No Fear
I’ve been playing around with iOS apps lately, which unfortunately means constantly refreshing the gorgeous but godforsaken Apple App Store app-wide. Yesterday evening, I happened to tap by the Social category’s top charts and spy a sort of application I didn’t know existed: a third-party client for the Tumblr dashboard called “TBR for Tumblr.” Not only did it exist – it was (and is currently) the #1 Paid Social App on iOS. I found this a bit odd because I remembered specifically going out of my way to write up a very positive review on their native app over the summer. After having gone months without even setting eyes on its icon, I’d opened it and plodded around enough to see that its UI’s animations and image display was far far better than it’d been the last time I opened the app. I never actually write app reviews for the store, but I legitimately thought we might bring back and convert some loyal users (and I do genuinely believe that good design needs to be verbally, intellectually, emotionally and financially more compensated, of course.)
I’m assuming that none of these events have any actual correlation at all, but I’m sure you’ve heard that Apple pulled the Tumblr app from the App Store sometime before Friday night and has yet to restore it. Last night, they explained that they’d found child pornography somewhere on the platform, for which it’s very hard to decide whom is to blame. A first positive I have to offer you: right now, lets appreciate that more of this content does not make it past our complex safeguards and on to the open web. Let us also take a moment to explain to any unfamiliar (or perhaps extremely elderly) readers that it was not the company who made the service and software called Tumblr that was “serving child pornography,” but rather an assortment of their individual users.
“Every image uploaded to Tumblr is scanned against an industry database of known child sexual abuse material, and images that are detected never reach the platform. A routine audit discovered content on our platform that had not yet been included in the industry database. We immediately removed this content.”
–Tumblr’s live ticket for the November 16th issue.
It’s completely understandable that Tumblr users are disappointed, frightened, and/or angry, but I’d like to briefly touch on just a few reasons why none of these events need be the end of Tumblr. if anything, there’s an opportunity here for a serious rework of its fundamental structure.
There is a third-party software development scene for Tumblr, which could likely be redesigned or slightly tweaked to circumvent any further law and/or policy-violating content – gourd forbid – and just interact with the stuff you want.
Tumblr was built on The Open Web first and it will still be there when it ticks on its last 60 seconds of uptime (which doesn’t have to come anytime soon.) This means that you will always be able to access Tumblr with a web browser. If an account of yours happened to be misbanned with the rest, you can apparently request that it be looked back over and reinstated.
God may have forsaken us, but we can have faith in Open Source: a federated Tumblr alternative is almost certainly manifesting right now in the mind of a genius web developer which will no doubt be way faster, more secure, better looking, and ETHICAL AS FUCK.
If fucking Lookbook is still around, I can’t imagine Tumblr will ever actually have a truly swift death forced upon it, for better or worse. The key of course is that we all have to stop panicking and attempting to archive our entire Tumblr histories – yes, it will die without any users.
I’m sorry I’ve been third wheeling you into other shit instead of just saying hi. I’m #newhere, more or less, but I’ve been interested in the Fediverse since I interviewed Eugen Rochko last April on Mastodon’s Big Day. I really dove in after I suddenly (read: finally) realized that I hadn’t been getting what I was seeking from Twitter for years, but that it was right there… here… everywhere… to be had, thanks to this community. I’m just returning to a slightly more balanced life after spending three years at full-throttle trying to launch an independent online magazine and have been “feeling things out,” as those who have absolutely no idea what to do next say.
For the moment, the task I’ve set for myself is to do my absolute best to find the same magic in computers and technology again that I felt so strongly as a preteen, ten years ago, when the future seemed like it was surely bound to be the most wonderous expansion the human intellect had ever seen. This year, I’ve enjoyed freely writing and blogging from within this journey on My Very Own Web Site after punishing myself for doing the same thing anyway and publishing it on the magazine since 2016. Said another way: I’ve been fuckin around locally and on the web, yet learning more than ever in the process about the first Texan steps toward open source, the extended, dramatic saga of word processing software, the origin of digital publishing, and especiallythe history of streaming music. Whether or not my perspective on technology will grow to be a truly worthwhile voice remains to be seen, but I’m clinging on to the dream of the 80s and 90s for now – though I won’t be carrying it on a plane ever again.
If you ever need a petty, pretentious ear for a good old rabble about UX design, I’m always down to talk about the things we use and what makes them good or bad. If you ever find yourself wanting to review an electronic music record or live experience, please pitch me because I might just pay you.
I enjoy communicating with people about virtually any subject except food, which bores the crap out of me, sorry. It should also be made clear that any engagement regarding the Compaq Computer Corporation will be met with extreme jubilation.
A comprehensive, regularly-updated directory of my other accounts across the fediverse can be found on *BILGE.WORD * and Dropbox Paper; links on the plain old megablasted hulk of the second web can be found below.
If you’d like, please suggest a name for my new computer. I appreciate you and sincerely look forward to our future I N T E R A C T I O N.
I’ve been using this Surface Laptop 2 for several days now, but I’ve yet to come up with a proper name for it, which is distressing in its own right but now also a tremendous breach of The Sacred Process. I’m not sure what happened, but I seem to be plum out of original ideas, so I’m now going to commence a formal contest in which you can submit your suggestion in order to compete for a very special prize…
For as long as I own the machine, I shall shout the winner’s first name loudly and clearly before every boot up, regardless of the setting or the company. This is especially significant because I tend to reboot my computer a lot.
There are no other rules of the competition, per se, but I would advise you not submit something undignified, as I think I like this machine very much. Libel was the name I gave to my late last machine, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top that, personally.
If you’ve been keeping up with the web at all in the past two years, you’re no doubt at least somewhat familiar with the terms “Mastodon,” “Diaspora,” or “federated social.” Extratone readers may remember my interview with Eugen Rochko last April — the day when his federated social “clone” made its way around the front pages of the major technology and tech media websites. Though the piece itself was designed and written quite disastrously (genuinely sorry about that — it was easy for me to get carried away when I had no idea what I was carrying,) Eugen is a great communicator of his ideal, which you’ll find to be as aligned with a FOSS future as you’d think it would be.
I signed up for mastodon.social in the February of last year, yet I suppose year sof o find myself going back to Twitter looking for what I only get on Mastodon, these days: diverse, sincere, talented, and extremely curious users from all over the world backed and deeply co-habitated with an inclusive developer culture filled with smart problem solvers who just want to contribute something grand. It’s not exactly easy, yet instances and variations on the ActivityHub project, itself have begun springing up at a pace I can’t keep up with. There’s the open-source federated blogging CMS Plume, along with the gorgeous and very promising Instagram-esque PixelFed. Additionally, Diaspora is gorgeous and fully-functional now.
Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I Estate Car, 1959, by H.J. Mulliner & Radford. Just 4 long-roof versions of the Silver Cloud 1 were built, 2 on the standard wheelbase (including this one) and 2 on the longer wheelbase chassis. The car pictured sold at auction in 2017 for $583,000
Hours after I published my ramble about digital photography and the COOLPIX, I took it to a house show, where it was raided of its batteries by one of the performers who also tried to take its CF card. I’m sure they have a Tumblr, so let me address them now:
The batteries were dead – shut the fuck up and take your ass to church.
