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Jeremy Cherfas

The value of explaining yourself

2 min read

My father was devoted to cryptic crossword puzzles. He was good, too, but every now and then a clue would stump him. If I was around, he would read the clue aloud to me and, more often than not, before I'd even had time to think about it, he had solved it.

There's something about the act of saying it aloud that makes a different kind of thinking possible.

So it was last night, during the Homebrew Web Club virtual meeting in Europe. There was only me and Zegnat, much of the time, and first we explored further his comment, during the recent Indieweb Summit talk about Events, that "most of the things discussed are already available and possible with the current IndieWeb building blocks". So I fired up WithKnown and created an event for the virtual HWC and he replied and the reply was received and published. Just like that. Of course there are some things that could be improved, but it does Just Work.

Thinking more about improving things, I shamelessly took advantage by asking a lot of ill-informed questions about how to move further in the indiewebification of my presence on the web. Martijn was so helpful and patient with me, and I learned a lot. But the truth is also that just by asking the questions out loud, and having to think clearly about how to do so, I was able to see more clearly how things might work.

It's still pretty cryptic, but I'm getting there.

Jeremy Cherfas

Jeremy Cherfas

Checked into a cold Guinness.

One of the better spots if you prefer to avoid the crowds. As I do. 

Jeremy Cherfas

Virtual HWC Europe

Chatting about indieweb

Location: In cyberspace

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Jeremy Cherfas

@shosh_yossef Whatever platform you choose, you might also want to consider being more http://indieweb.org

Jeremy Cherfas

Jeremy Cherfas

Of sandwiches and cultural exclusion – scatterplot

[T]oday’s highbrow signifier is tomorrow’s Beanie Baby.

And vice versa, of course.

Jeremy Cherfas

Why the Price of Food has Nothing to do with the Price of Food – and why science has been corrupted, by Colin Tudge

My old mucker in fine form. To whit:

For in truth, the reasons why so many people in Britain cannot afford food that’s good and fresh has almost nothing to do with the cost of production; and the reasons farmers go bust has almost nothing to do with their supposed “inefficiency”; and the current obsession in high places with robots and GMOs and industrial chemistry is a horrible perversion of science and a huge waste of money which, in the end, is public money. Food is too expensive for more and more people in well-heeled Britain for three main reasons, none of which has anything directly to do with the cost of production, and none of which is alleviated by attempts to make production more “efficient” by sacking people, joining big farms into big estates, or festooning the whole exercize with high-tech. Attempts to mitigate rising prices in the short term by buying more from the world at large will only transfer misery elsewhere, as indigenous agricultures everywhere that evolved to serve the needs of their people are replaced by industrialized monocultures owned by corporates, to provide commodity crops for export.

Not that anyone who needs to is listening.

Jeremy Cherfas

Calling Bullshit — Syllabus

I know this is all over the place. I want it here, for reference.

Jeremy Cherfas

The Lake District’s world heritage site status is a betrayal of the living world | George Monbiot | Opinion | The Guardian

George Monbiot in scathing good form. The Lake District is a fantasy that would be much better off with a lot fewer sheep.