This was just a place for me to vent to the world. Now it is a place where I can try to carry a message of anti-racism, anti-homophobia, anti-sexism and anti-idiot. Unfortunately there are plenty these people in this world. This is my corner of the world where I can say what is right. That gives me the power to say it and live it in real life too.
Here’s the thing, though. WordPress isn’t like the other products I just mentioned, and Mullenweg, who told me late last year he has no intention of selling out, is a different kind of founder. I consider WordPress to be the most important platform around because it is a) open and b) controlled by a young man and team whose hearts and minds, from my perspective, are precisely in the right place at the right time. I admire them enormously.
It’s not that Mullenweg is against making money. In fact, he and Automattic make a lot of it (though he doesn’t say how much) via WordPress.com, which offers free, hosted blogs and a variety of for-pay services, including major corporate and media customers such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and CNN. The revenues are enough that the company has sunk “tens of millions” of dollars into WordPress development, to improve it and support its millions of users, individual and corporate.
That’s WordPress.com, the commercial arm of Mullenweg’s operations. But more important, in the long run, is WordPress.org, which offers the software for free, open-source. This means anyone can download it at no charge, modify it at will and use it on his or her own server. I’m among the countless people who have done that, and I’ve come to rely on it for several blogs I maintain. (I also have several WordPress.com blogs, such as a place for some classroom work).
The WordPress community is enormous in part because, like other major open-source projects, it has become the center of an ecosystem. There are tens of thousands of extensions available for WordPress – software add-ons that do everything from curb comment spam to create online stores to you name it, plus vast numbers of “themes” that give users flexiblity in how the site will look and feel for the user. Automattic has created a few of the plug-ins, but third-party developers have done the vast majority. Some are free to use, like the core software, while others come with a charge.
Contrast this with all of the other major for-profit platform operations, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al. To a greater or lesser degree, they allow developers to create applications to run on or alongside their platforms, but they are absolutely in control. The third-party developers and their products live essentially at the whim of the platform owners, and so does the content that we (you and I) put into their computers. We get convenience in return, but we need to always keep in mind who’s running things. With WordPress.org sites, we are in control.
(via cactustreemotel)
Proud to Be Indigenous? Hash Tag It and Photograph It
Are you ready to express indigenous pride? Photos for Proud to Be Indigenous Week are rolling in, and the organizers are encouraging everyone to submit pictures of their Native traditions and regalia throughout Indigenous Week, leading up to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
(via cactustreemotel)
Fringe
Rebecca Belmore (Anishnaabe)
Rebecca Belmore often uses the body to address violence against First Nations people, especially women. The woman in Fringe assumes the same reclining pose as the beautiful odalisques depicted by nineteenth- and twentieth-century European artists, but bears an ugly slash from shoulder to hip. The thin rivulets of blood that run from the gash are composed of small red beads, a detail that evokes both Belmore’s Anishinabe heritage and the trauma inflicted on indigenous peoples. Despite the graveness of the woman’s injury, Belmore’s Fringe is also about healing. The wound is not fatal; she has the strength to recover. But the scar will never disappear.
(via cactustreemotel)
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simon pegg really wants to make the reboot whale movie happen
fuck o mg
Can we not just rehash the old ones? Maybe some new explorations?
Cutest.
Are you kidding me?
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stxii recast: indira varma as khan
!!!
Do want
Now THIS would have been cool.
(via cactustreemotel)
