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Open source startup founder, technology leader, mission-driven investor, and engineer. I just want to help.

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HAHAHHAHA BURRRRRN 2017

That is all.

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Happy New Year to all my friends who made it to 2018 already! You’re the advance guard. How does it look?

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Idea I’ve been talking about today: what if everyone with the ability could contribute to a central account, with a regular amount that made sense to them, that could then be withdrawn from using a special neighborhood ATM and card by low income and homeless people?

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The only way to prevent mass surveillance and censorship - and therefore ensure that democracy can continue to function - is to make it systemically impossible.

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Should academics get involved in social justice issues, even if their research helped uncover the problem in the first place? (Spoiler alert: of course they should.) http://flintwaterstudy.org/2016/10/engineers-shall-hold-paramount-the-safety-health-and-welfare-of-t...

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This is a super-interesting spreadsheet of tech’s “notable” (here, sizeable) exits in 2017.
http://blog.semilshah.com/2017/12/29/an-imperfect-glance-at-techs-notable-exits-in-2017/

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This is a great - and a little bit daunting - summary of what happened in front-end web development in 2017. https://blog.logrocket.com/frontend-in-2017-the-important-parts-4548d085977f

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In just over a week I’ll turn 39. They say that your thirties are like your twenties but better; there’s been some truth to that. But what should I definitely do over the next year to close out this arbitrary decade of my life?

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This is a technical piece, but summary: letting your web browser remember passwords for you allows websites to track you in ways you don’t expect. Disable that function and use something like 1password instead. https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/12/27/no-boundaries-for-user-identities-web-trackers-exploit-brow...

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Nationalism and exceptionalism divide us far more than Trump’s idiot wall. Everyone is connected. Every person has value and should have the right to live well. Being proud to be an American, or British, or Swiss, or Dutch, is arbitrary. We’re all a global family: proudly human.

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A powerful story of immigration, empathy, and love in today’s Daily. Real-life parable. https://play.radiopublic.com/the-daily-GMB3yp/ep/s1!9816091c347f86b20a98bad7a09fec5a67a65eb9

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Roast lamb
Goat cheese soufflé with a filo crust
Tofurkey roast [non-homemade]
Vegetarian stuffing
Roast potatoes and parsnips
Cranberry sauce
Vegetarian + lamb gravies
Mince pies + cream

In our low-key way, with everyone making something, happily chatting in the kitchen. 👍👍

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“Merry Christmas” was, once upon a time, a drunken snub to the church, while “happy holidays” was the more Christian salutation. Merry Christmas! http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-young-merry-christmas-origins-20171222-story.html

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Meanwhile, over at Modern Farmer, it’s Sheep Week. https://modernfarmer.com/tag/sheep-week/

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Happy Solstice! It only gets brighter from here.

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In so many cases, "targeting" is really discrimination. The law still applies on the internet. https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-ads-age-discrimination-targeting

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The next new software project I create will absolutely, 100% for real, use this versioning syntax. http://drone-ver.org/

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The subtext here: making money (which is an unfortunate necessity) while staying in line with open web principles is really, really hard if you’re focusing on consumers. https://www.howtogeek.com/336493/despite-firefox-quantums-success-mozilla-has-lost-its-way/

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Sound advice from Andrew Chen. I've been blogging since 1998, but I haven't kept up a continuous site or domain name. I really wish I had. http://andrewchen.co/professional-blogging/

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I feel privileged and grateful to be able to do this job every day. Today more so than most. Big day.

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The nice thing about taking a left turn from engineering is that I’ll probably never have to whiteboard another algorithm.

The trick is making sure I still can.

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Email me: ben@werd.io

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Werd I/O © Ben Werdmuller. The text (without images) of this site is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.