One day I realized that, since I spent a huge amount of time in front of a computer because of my job and my courses, I encounter all the times stimulating hints, ideas and basic facts, that is tips, that in my opinion everybody should know, just to be able to make his or her own mind on some specific topic. Tips that:
- pften aren’t in my line of work, that is things on which I have no specific competence, on which I could write something original as I already do at the Stop!
- and/or are too short to make a full article out of them, but too long to fit into a tweet or a Facebook status update.
So I decided to collect these tips all here in full sight, with very short explanations of why they seem important to me, in order to make them visible to as many people as possible, but without any claim to have complete answers, or positions, about them (sometimes I’ll even post stuff to ask advice about it). If you feel like it, let’s discuss them here together, and criticize them as much as you want, without ever forgetting good manners or expect to agree on everything. As far as this website is concerned, what matters is not which conclusion you’ll reach after reading something, but the fact that you think about it and leave wishing to know more about some topic!
Why I am not just doing this on Twitter or Facebook
For lots of valid reasons, but the most important ones are these three. First, I like to have more peace of mind and control about what I write than what is possible on those or any other website of the same kind. If an external social network, not to mention services like Gmail, decides to terminate your account, they are not required to give you real explanations, refunds or a complete copy of all the data that you had put into them: you’ll just lose everything, thank you very much, also because making offline copies of all the content isn’t so simple. Why risk?
Another reason, similar to the first one, is that even when nothing bad happens, time passes and sooner or later it carries all websites and online fads away. Whereas I like to always have a copy of everything I put online in formats that are surely complete and 100% technically reusable. If Facebook and/or Twitter look eternal or stable now just because they fill the whole landscape today, just think to MySpace or America Online.
Much better to put everything, since the begining, on an independent website running on “Free as in Freedom” software and formats, one where I can put or take away stuff as much as I like, even automatically. And only after something is there, announce it also on Twitter and Facebook as long as they’re around, or on whatever will replace them some day.
The final reason to put things in an independent website is that, even if it may seem different, not everybody uses Twitter and Facebook. What you put outside more or less walled gardens like those is much more visible online, to everybody.
I hope you’ll find this website interesting. If you wish to contact me, please write me an email!
M. Fioretti.
