For people who want to use Dreamwidth, but are totally confused about how it works!
What is Dreamwidth?
Dreamwidth is a social media platform founded in 2009 after Strikethrough
It’s made out of a heavily-modified version of Livejournal code
It’s based around producing your own original content, and seeing original content other people post
The site is owned and run by fans and aims to provide creative people with an Internet home
Getting around your account
Your journal is like your “home”. It’s where you keep your stuff. It’s got different parts:
Recent Entries: View your posts in chronological order
(yourusername.dreamwidth.org)
Profile: Your “about” page
(yourusername.dreamwidth.org/profile)
Archive: See your posts as a calendar
(yourusername.dreamwidth.org/archive)
Tags: See all the tags you’ve used and go to their posts
(yourusername.dreamwidth.org/tag)
Memories: Like the “Likes” feature on Tumblr
You also have a “Reading” page (yourusername.dreamwidth.org/read)
This is like your Tumblr dash
It’s where you read entries from your “circle”, the people and communities you’re subscribed to
You can customize it a lot with filters and control who you see when
Finding new things
Listing an Interest in your profile is like getting listed in the phonebook. This is opt-in, choosing to say, “Yes! I’m really into this thing! Consider me a person who blogs about it!
Content Search is the more powerful way to search through the blog of everyone who’s opted into it, so you can look for everyone who’s posting about a certain thing right now. However, you’ll have to wade through a lot more junk.
Communities are Dreamwidth’s social hubs. They’re places where a lot of people can share content they’re interested in and talk to each other. Unlike Tumblr tags, they’re managed by specific people and have rules, so people behaving badly can get kicked out.
Paid members can see the Network page, which shows entries from everything everyone in your circle subscribes to. It’s a great way to discover new stuff and also learn what awful taste some of your circle members have
Latest Things is a direct firehose of EVERYTHING PUBLICLY POSTED TO THE SITE, HOMG
Privacy controls?! That’s a thing?!
You get to choose who sees your posts! You can make your posts public, private, or “locked”, which means only people you’ve added to your access list can read them
When you add a new person to your circle you can choose to subscribe to them, to make their posts show up on your Reading page, and/or to grant access, which lets them see your locked posts. You can do one, the other, or both!
Likewise, communities can make posts viewable to members only.
You can also create custom access filters, to allow only some of your access list to see a post.
Banning someone means they cannot leave you comments or send you messages. There are more advanced tweaks to make sure they never show up on your reading page if they post to a community you subscribe to, or remove them from the comments on a post.
Comments
The comments to a post are where the real fun happens.
Comments are sent to the email of whoever you’re replying to. They’re a real conversation. You’re not shouting into the void–you’re talking back directly to the post’s originator and other commenters.
You can edit your comment so long as it hasn’t been replied to, and you can delete your own comments.
The originator of the post, and administrators if it’s a community, can delete threads, or “freeze” them, leaving them intact but preventing anyone from replying to them.
You will add new skills to your resume
Dreamwidth leaves a lot more “backend” open so you can customize your experience to a huge degree. However, this means learning or using coding languages like HTML and CSS
The comment box on entries does not have a built-in text editor, so you will have to add your own HTML if you want to add <i>italic</i>, <b>bold</b>, or <a href=“http://websiteurl.com”>links</a>.
The majority of people have distorted perception of sexuality because it was suppressed for centuries by religious and ethical norms. We should liberate our minds to see things clearly.
A non-profit delivery service founded by Oakland resident Andrea Unsworth. In an interview with Dope Magazine, she passionately advocated for the moral necessity of expanding the workforce with those who know pot best: former inmates. “I want people who are felons working for me,” she said. “Funds specifically need to be appropriated to helping folks who have been convicted, not just for reparations, but to help them write a business plan.”
This Oakland dispensary’s success is thanks in part to Chief Operating Officer Amber Senter, founder of Leisure Life edibles. Senter was introduced to marijuana’s medicinal effects at 18 (she would be diagnosed with lupus at 33) and began teaching herself how to grow in 2007.
In May 2016, Sue Taylor was unanimously selected by Berkley city council to recieve a permit to open a dispensary, making the former Catholic school principal and grandmother the first black dispensary owner in the Bay Area city. Once a pot skeptic, she hopes to bring pot’s healing properties to other seniors, pot’s fastest growing demographic. “I want to bring awareness that there are alternatives to pharmaceutical drugs, and to empower people, whatever their age, so they can experience a meaningful, high quality of life,” Taylor told Jezebel.
StashTwist’s Andrea Unsworth and Amber Senter of Magnolia Wellness are also cofounders of the collective Supernova Women, alongside attorney Tsion “Sunshine” Lencho, and Nina Parks of Mirage Medicinal cooperative and delivery. The seminars and safe space offered by Supernova are fertile ground to help diversify California’s weed boom, and shed light on obstacles marginalized entrepreneurs can face. These issues can range from the unremarkable — white people who don’t want to talk about privilege — to ones specific to the weed industry. “This whole thing of starting on a level playing field is ridiculous,” Unsworth told NPR. “[Nearly] 80 percent of the lock-ups are people of color. You’re locking up all of these people who are trying to be entrepreneurs, but now that it’s legal, you’re allowed to say, Oh, you can come into our industry, but you can’t have a criminal record. You can have a million dollars, but it can’t be from cannabis, it has to be from your 401(k), or investments, or from your daddy. I mean, who are these people? These are not people of color.”
Lanese Martin, Biseat Horning and Ebele Ifedigbo (a Yale MBA) started The Hood Incubator in 2017 with the goal of bringing black people in Oakland and across the country into the marijuana industry. To this end, the group delivers “community organizing, policy advocacy, and economic development” to help underserved communities profit from legal weed. It’s not just black-owned storefronts they’re after, but black leaders at the highest levels. “We envision a model where a pool of minorities can fund growers; manufacturers—whether it’s tinctures, oils or edibles; suppliers; and dispensaries,” Juell Stewart, the Incubator’s director of communications, told The Root. “We want to see a day when we have a group of people who invest in the entire cannabis industry.”
RAVENCLAW: “This is the eternal origin of art that a human being confronts a form that wants to become a work through him. Not a figment of his soul but something that appears to the soul and demands the soul’s creative power. What is required is a deed that a man does with his whole being.” –Martin Buber (I and Thou)
New ‘potato stamp’ technique combining silver and graphene may create cheaper, more flexible and eco-friendly screens
Scientists at the University of Sussex may have found a solution to the long-standing problem of brittle smart phone screens.
Professor Alan Dalton and his team have developed a new way to make smart phone touch screens that are cheaper, less brittle, and more environmentally friendly. On top of that, the new approach also promises devices that use less energy, are more responsive, and do not tarnish in the air.
The problem has been that indium tin oxide, which is currently used to make smart phone screens, is brittle and expensive. The primary constituent, indium, is also a rare metal and is ecologically damaging to extract. Silver, which has been shown to be the best alternative to indium tin oxide, is also expensive. The breakthrough from physicists at the University of Sussex has been to combine silver nanowires with graphene – a two dimensional carbon material. The new hybrid material matches the performance of the existing technologies at a fraction of the cost.
In particular, the way in which these materials are assembled is new. Graphene is a single layer of atoms, and can float on water. By creating a stamp – a bit like a potato stamp a child might make – the scientists can pick up the layer of atoms and lay it on top of the silver nanowire film in a pattern. The stamp itself is made from poly(dimethyl siloxane); the same kind of silicone rubber used in kitchen utensils and medical implants.
This is great. Also fits well with an article (I think I blogged it recently) about using graphene and nanotubes to replace rare, costly, and often environmentally damaging components.
