Ben Ramsey @ramsey@phpc.social

I don’t discuss lots of coding or tech challenges because they don’t interest me. I’m interested in people and using tech to make our world a better place.

As a result, politics are a necessary part of the discussion.

I had contemplated leaving politics out of my feed and trying to stick purely to tech, but that feels disingenuous and also does not help accomplish my goal of trying to make the world a better place.

I’m Ben, a web dev, author, & speaker. I’ve been at this for >20 years, & I’m always eager to help. If you have questions about the Web, FOSS, PHP, or APIs, ask.

I advocate for decentralization, open source, open standards, & the Commons; I believe good UX is the key to mass adoption.

I’m active in the PHP community. I founded Atlanta PHP & co-organize @nashvillephp, & I authored the popular ramsey/uuid library.

I’ve spoken at many conferences. If you see me at one, say “hi.”

#introductions

I’m hanging out on https://phpc.chat today, in case you need some socialization and want to join me there.

What’s up, #phpc fediverse? How are things?

“according to a survey by Berners-Lee’s Web Foundation, more than half of young women have experienced violence online, including sexual harassment, threatening messages and having private images shared without consent.”

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2020/mar/12/internet-not-working-women-girls-tim-berners-lee

It is proven! I am ramsey on Keybase: https://keybase.io/ramsey/sigchain#d67201e172f166fc9d275fab8e1990492f5f6d890c99ffa4cd179afa8d6fa9e50f

Seen on #birdsite and posting here for @saramg’s benefit.

“[Jack] Poulson has started Tech Inquiry, a non-profit that aims to make it easier for coders with a conscience to speak out inside their companies when they feel ethical boundaries are being crossed.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/13/google-whistleblower-launches-project-to-keep-tech-ethical

“Generalise, don't specialise: why focusing too narrowly is bad for us” http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/12/generalise-dont-specialise-why-focusing-too-narrowly-is-bad-for-us

I don’t even understand how this made it passed peer review.

“The study has limitations: only [20] participants were involved, and the experiments only involved responses from white people.”

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/01/other-racial-groups-look-alike-because-of-visual-and-neural-processes-study

Tim Cook: “If we accept as normal and unavoidable that everything in our lives can be aggregated, sold, or even leaked in the event of a hack, then we lose so much more than data. We lose the freedom to be human.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/19/tim-cook-if-youve-built-a-chaos-factory-you-cant-dodge-responsibility-for-the-chaos

“There is no one right way to do APIs. Sure, there are many different processes, practices, & tools that can help you optimize your API operations, but despite popular belief, there is no single ‘right way’ to define, design, provide, or consume APIs.”

https://apievangelist.com/2019/06/16/there-is-no-single-right-way-to-do-apis/

Mostly just lurking.

‪RIP Vonda N. McIntyre. Her Nebula Award winning Dreamsnake is one of my favorite novels.‬