Aral Balkan @aral@mastodon.ar.al

The Small Web isn’t about going back to the days of GeoCities. It’s about going forward differently, using modern tech in a non-colonial manner.

It’s not about building clones of Twitter, YouTube, etc. There’s no way anyone can self-host a dozen different services. Instead, it’s about having a single-tenant place on the Web that you own and control without technical knowhow; a place you can add Twitter, YouTube, etc., *features* to.

https://small-tech.org/research-and-development/

#SmallWeb #SmallTech #SingleTenant

… and maybe even thinking about building systems where other developers can review it and lend it their approval.

I feel there is a huge amount of potential in using the web to have decentralised app installations while also maintaining a high level of security. We don’t have to parrot what Apple does. Their system makes sense for a trillion-dollar corporation with thousands of reviewers and almost all closed-source apps.

… I mean, when you think about it, right now what this dialogue effectively says is “the app hasn’t been reviewed by Danielle, only by Aral so it’s untrusted” – you should trust Danielle and not Aral.

Now I agree that you should Danielle (not least of all because she makes the OS and if she was malicious, well, you’re screwed anyway) but I don’t see how “you should not trust Aral” follows from that.

Instead, given the source is free and open (a difference to Apple), we should be linking to it…

Also, this dialogue really needs a redesign. Again, we should not be parroting the design decisions of trillion-dollar corporations like Apple.

Sideloading (or otherwise known as installing) apps from the web should not be demonised. We should be looking at webs of trust, etc.

In the case of an OS like elementary OS, with a tiny team, there is no reason to put Developer X’s review/trust above Developer Y’s review/trust.

Going to have a think about how this can be made less scary…

Umm, I’m pretty sure it can’t.

A little reminder that teaching “anti-capitalism” has been banned in English schools for over a year now.

The dystopia is now.

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/english-schools-banned-from-using-anti-capitalist-material-in-teaching-203307/

PS. Here’s a nice extracurricular reading list: https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/50617/1/the-ultimate-anti-capitalist-reading-list-to-seize-the-means-of-production

I have seen “the invisible hand of the market” and it sure looks like the hairy, white, and otherwise unremarkable appendage of a mediocre middle-aged cisgender man to me.

Decentralisation is a post-capitalist concept. Capitalism cannot tolerate true decentralisation (although it will happily sell you the illusion of decentralisation) because true decentralisation cuts out the middleman. And capitalism is the religion of the middleman.

Interesting:

* {
box-sizing: border-box;
}

Doesn’t apply it to ::before and ::after pseudoelements. You have to specifically declare it again for those. e.g.,

.someClass::before {
box-sizing: border-box;
}

#css #dev