Here’s my submission to lazybea.rs series Over/Under. The idea is simple, Hyde gives me some topics and I state whether those things are overrated or underrated, with some text about why. Here were my chosen topics…
Go read this post over at lazybea.rs!
By most, the IndieWeb is severely underrated—by the enlightened few, consider it adequately-rated. It’s probably of no surprise to anyone who has followed my writing for the last two-ish years—I love the IndieWeb, and personal blogging in general. I frequently write on the subject, have built many-a-reference dedicated to collecting resources and educating others, and I somewhat recently started a “newsletter”-type thingy dubbed “Scrolls”, which heavily features content and personalities from across the IndieWeb. I love me some IndieWeb.
Though I have to give all credit to Robb for the creation and maintenance of the venerable Slashpages.net, I can give myself a tiny nod as Robb did consult me prior to the site going live on what my thoughts were on how they should be defined and what pages should/could be included. He was even nice enough to give me a named credit on the site and include my silly /chipotle slash-page 🌶️ 😆.
Slash Pages are just fun. They are an emodiment of the IndieWeb experiment. They are meant to share something about you, the individual behind the site. They exist in a place (the root of your site) that should be relatively common across other IndieWeb sites—which leads to improved discoverability and a greater sense of community. They are also just quirky, silly and very human—something the web, and the world, desperately need more of.
In the weeks and months since Robb launched the site, I’ve noticed a really promising level of adoption across my own IndieWeb circles. I hope to see more people have fun with this idea, add Slash Pages to their site, come up with new ones, etc… For now, I believe it is still vastly underrated!
I maintain a healthy respect for all wild animals. They deserve as much if you ask me. They are also all equipped with a dizzying assortment of defensive capabilities. So for your own protection, I suggest everyone maintain safe distances and treat all life with respect. This is doubly-true concerning creatures that are of-the-sea.
I’m a land-walker. On-land, I feel like I can hold my own well-enough. I can see things that approach me, I can hear them, I can run pretty fast for a human, I can even pick up something to defend myself if I needed to. Not saying I could tussle with, and win, against any manner of land-faring beast, but I can do something. When it comes to the water though? I’m completely defenseless. I can swim, yeah—but that’s about it. I can’t really see underwater, I have no means to really detect if something is about to “get me”. I don’t think my futile punches or kicks would amount to much, especially against something like a shark.
All this to say, I do think Sharks are dangerous—or rather they can be. If you don’t have that healthy respect for them. They are apex predators afterall, and they dominate in a world that humans, just naturally don’t. You’ve probably seen that statistically, sharks aren’t particularly harmful to humans. This is probably true. As such, I think the danger of sharks is probably properly rated. Humans aren’t natural prey for sharks (thankfully), and we as humans do some things to avoid sharks where we can. Sharks are innately curious, and infinitely cool. I mean, I have a lot of shark-themed stuff on my site, so you know I have somewhat of an affinity.
I’m (professionally) in infosec, so I have an appreciation and technical understanding of Ransomware—how it can happen, how to defend against it, and the impacts of an incident. Ransomware is consistently placed at the top of “things to worry about” lists (e.g. Verizon’s DBIR) and yet, remains inadequately defended against time after time, across all observable sectors. I think it’s impossible to overrate the financial impact of a serious ransomware-related breach. Entire companies have been snuffed out of existence thanks to them—and ransomware-as-a-business in and of itself is measured in the billions, if not trillions, yearly.
Fried, and then dipped in some sort of sauce? Sure. Otherwise? Ehhhh, not really my thing. Not a big tentacle guy I suppose. I gotta say overrated.