Cory Doctorow succinctly explains how Facebook and other large, democracy-destroying, trust-eroding, hate-filled tech companies work.
Category: Video
The future of knowledge is yours to protect. #Wikipedia25
I am really proud of this video my colleagues made to celebrate the 25th birthday of #Wikipedia. It’s a really stressful time in the free knowledge world and this celebration is a much needed reminder that there are amazing people behind all this and it’s stunning what they have accomplished over the last quarter century. Here’s to another 25 and beyond!
Fun behind-the-scenes fact. All media in the video is under a free license. As such, we have to provide attribution. For all 650+ assets. Here it is as one honking table. 🤯
Wikimedia Commons Vanity Stats
I made a thing. It allows you to see how many media requests your files have received on Wikimedia Commons. It’s a vanity project and the numbers don’t mean much without more context. 🙂
It’s a small python script that allows you to provide a username, date range, and a number of files to check. It then uses the MedaiWiki and mediarequests APIs to create a .csv file of how many media requests those files have received. I did this for my own ego, so a literal vanity project!
If this sounds interesting, I’d appreciate any constructive feedback. Not sure I’ll work on it more than I have, but thought I’d share.
Conan O’Brien on Mark Twain
And perhaps a little on the current government as well. 🙂
24 Karat Case of Love
As the credits rolled on Kevin Smith’s latest flick “The 4:30 Movie“1, this song came on. It was so catchy and perfect for the period the film takes place in. As I listened, I thought I had missed some great song from the 80s, but no it was written for the movie! Bear McCreary wrote the music and his brother Brendan sings. The little affectations after many words is just :chefs kiss: perfect. And a killer sax solo. 🤘