Re: [autonomo.us] potential topics for a "Make for Autonomy"

[RhinoKitty]

On 04/15/2011 07:18 PM, Luis Villa wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Luis Villa<address@hidden>  wrote:
> > If you want to move the needle a bit, one potential direction to go is
> > to become the Lifehacker or Make for autonomy-interested people:
> > regular blog posts on how to live a more autonomous lifestyle.
> > Document the middle ground between "be a digital hermit" or "step 1:
> > touch index.php step 2: emacs index.php&"  Give instructions that say
> > "to help your autonomy, install X, do Y, and then talk to your friends
> > via Z." Or could sometimes be "I installed X, did Y, and found that I
> > still needed Z, I hope some folks will start hacking on Z."
> Overriding theme: how do you make being autonomous *possible* with the
> tools already around us? How do you make it maximally interactive with
> the non-autonomous world? Where the tools around us aren't enough, how
> can motivated hackers actually engage with right now without being
> quite Evan-level awesome (i.e., without starting a new service from
> the ground up)?
>
> Some potential topics:
>
> 1) How do I do offsite backups in a maximally autonomous way (ideally
> without being a 1337 sysadmin?)
> 2) How do I migrate from identi.ca to a self-hosted statusnet server?
> Not just show me how to install, but show me how to (socially?
> technically?) move my old subscribers/subscriptions over.
> 3) What's the best setup for hosting my pictures autonomously? (not
> just technical- what social hacks will get your facebook-addicted
> family to actually see self-hosted pictures once you post them?) (The
> more philosophically inclined could do a separate post to riff off
> this on the ethics of reposting from identica/gallery to facebook.)
The social engineering here would be to play up the "geek cred" that 
comes with being the person in your group of friends that runs 
autonomous services for a small circle of friends.  The appeal is that 
it is truly exclusive, in the way Facebook only claims to be.  You have 
to target the right "vanguard" group, but activists come to mind first.  
What is IndyMedia doing these days?  The "use case"?  Imagine "Mark."  
Mark sets up a Diaspora pod that is running on a server in his 
livingroom.  His friends can login from their phones or their homes.  
The Wireless at Mark's house is running on 510pen, a community wireless 
mesh.  Mark runs location based services that aren't creepy, because he 
knows that all of the data is on his server at home, and without a 
warrant or some really good hacking skills, no one can get his friend's 
data.  People feel more connected to friends.  The circle of friends 
comes up with a name for themselves and a secret handshake.  Its like 
being a kid in a fort again.  Fun, safe and a way to hang out with your 
friends without the "authorities" looking over your every move.  Heck, 
you could even call the software bundle "TreeFort."
> 4) What tips and tricks are there to make an Android phone or a Linux
> desktop autonomous-friendly? (e.g., http://www.whispersys.com/ for
> Android; self-hosted Firefox Sync for desktop + Fennec?)
> 5) What's the latest news from Freedombox? From diaspora? Review their
> new releases, tell me when it's something I could usefully host at
> home.
>
> If I were editor-in-chief, no posts would be allowed that concluded
> with "well, not all your friends will speak to you anymore, but.." and
> ideally none would be allowed that *required* opening a text editor
> (though of course you could always close with recommendations on where
> someone with an IDE could be helpful.) We should admit that this is
> hard; we can be critical of our friends; but we should strive to be
> constructive.
>
> It'd be nice if it were easy to publish posts to the wiki afterwards
> for later third-party updates and edits, but that's icing.
>
> Luis
>
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