In Defence of Servers
Why pure peer-to-peer networks aren't always better than federated ones
Latest
Happy December Solstice
The best plaid plans of mice and me. Seasons greetings to anyone who happens to read this. Hope you all have a fantastic break over the solstice period, whether you're entering the depths of winter or, like us, sweating through the early summer. As for me, in a
Crowdsourcing or Outsourcing: Who Benefits?
As promised, here's another one from the archives, originally posted in November 2015 on the original version of this blog (on CoActivate), and then republished on The Daily Blog. This one explores the differences between the 'crowdsourcing' of genuine digital commons (Wikipedia, couchsurfing platforms, etc), and
A Four Paragraph Update
Because I'm a long-former, and what some people consider blog length is my idea of a quick memo. It's been almost a third of a year since I got Ghost installed here, and posted my 95 theses on leaving SS (SubStack). During most of that time
A Bridge Too Far
Every startup story has a beginning, and an end TL;DR the Bridge Seat Cooperative experiment is over, at least in its current form. I (Strypey) am done with SubStack, due to its escalating lock-in, promotion of actual Neo-nazis, and overall enshittification. If you want to keep receiving posts about
Ghosting SubStack
Why I finally decided to leave, and where I'm going next
Farcebook: One Thing To Rule Them All
The challenges of developing a privacy-enhancing everything app.
Resting Comfortably
Combining chronic emergency conditions and a nasty illness, not a great plan.
Indymedia Stores #4: Valuing Our Contributions
This is what imposter syndrome looks like. Maybe. Is it? Maybe it isn't ...
Get a Room
The challenges of having reliably-private conversations in decentralised networks
Indymedia Stories #3: Rob and Me
The tightrope between tinfoil-hat paranoia and rose-tinted naivety
Guess Who's Back, Tell a Friend
A quick update on future prospects for the Disintermedia blog
indymedia
Indymedia Stories #2: Another Anniversary, Looking to the Future
25 Years of Indymedia.org and the Independent Media Centres
funding
Open Letter: The European Union must keep funding free software
Open letter initially published in French by Petites Singularités
open source
Invasion of the MOLE Trainers
Why I use "MOLE" to describe what most people are calling "AI"
freaks and geeks
In Space No One Can Hear You Screen
When social skills work differently in online and offline social situations
e-day
Internalising the Costs of Waste Management
Paying for the ecologically wise disposal of products at end-of-life, is the responsibility of the people who make and sell them.
public media
A Future for Television in Aotearoa?
If it has one, the future of television lies in live broadcasting.
community networks
(Re-)Democratising the Internet
The Challenges of Building Digital Network Infrastructure as Commons
id
A Free Online Birth Certificate
A modest proposal to liberate us all from second-class citizenship online
satire
SATIRE: Taylor Swift Generated by AI
Please note: this piece is satire, intended to be laughed at or ignored, not taken seriously. It was definitely written by an actual human and *not* an AI. Seriously.
Newsletter
Happy Solstice!
One happy return for Disintermedia, peace and goodwill to all
social media
Introducing the Bridge Seat Cooperative
Or what Strypey has been doing with his days this year
humour
Short Story: You people think you have good security on your websites, don't you. Don't you?
A tongue-in-cheek original short story