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Milwaukee Critical Mass Web Site

Milwaukee Critical Mass Web Site

Milwaukee Critical Mass Web Site

Disclaimer: I used to build web sites, by writing code… by hand. I started in 1995 and probably stopped around 2012 or so.

Hey, Milwaukee Critical Mass (bike riding event) has a web site at mkecriticalmass.com and that’s awesome! I’m going to (lightly) critique a few things but before I do I’d like to say that this is all my own personal opinion. I used to be a community organizer, I used to be a volunteer, I know that when you take on extra unpaid work you do the best you can with the time and resources available. I do not expect perfection, and anything I say can be completely ignored. On with the show!

I am extremely grateful that Milwaukee Critical Mass has a web site. It’s 2025 and now more than ever we need web sites that convey information and don’t lock it up behind a corporate wall of accounts and logins and having to use some terrible platform just to get basic information. We built the web to provide open and public sharing of information and we should never forget that.

I have no issue at all with the (lack of) design of the web site. It provides information. It’s simple HTML! It does use Milligram
“A minimalist CSS framework” but I have no idea why as it seems like it’s not needed. But maybe the site will change over time and require it?

You’ll notice the screen shot above shows a date in April, yet I captured it on May 30th, which was the date of the May ride, so someone forgot to update the web site. (It’s updated now, for the June ride.)

If you don’t know where Red Arrow Park is in Milwaukee can you find it? Go on, try right now! I was able to but not without going to another web site and searching for it. Missed opportunity there to just provide the address, cross streets, landmarks, etc.

There are links to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. I can’t see any of the Twitter posts because I deleted my account a few years ago when fascists took it over. For Instagram it tries to force a login and without one all you can see is “MKE Critical Mass rides start from Red Arrow Park at 6 p.m. on the last Friday of the month. Slow roll / no drop”. You cannot view any posts without an account. This might be fine if no additional information exists there that does not exist on the web site… which brings us to Facebook.

If you visit Facebook it tries to get you to log in, but you can skip than and get some information. The event is listed and if you click “More” you get more information, which is not on the web site: “We’re ending at Zillman Park for the Bay View Gallery Night Makers Market (2168 S Kinnickinnic Ave), and the tentative route is about 10 miles through downtown, Walkers Point, and Bay View.” There are a few more notes about the group ride, rules, reminders, etc… (This info is also in the Instagram posts but you cannot see it without logging in.)

But what we’ve just learned is that if you only use the web site, you are missing out on information. (We also get a link via Facebook to linktr.ee/mkecriticalmass which mostly links to things we already know about but adds two more links.)

“Okay Mr.Critic, how would you do it differently!?”

As I mentioned, I am I no position to tell anyone what to do, but I do have ideas about how I would do things…

I’m a huge fan of POSSE (which is Post (on) Own Site Syndicate Elsewhere) so that the primary source of all information is your own web site, on a domain you control, and can be free of ads, tracking, required accounts, etc.

The “Syndicate Elsewhere” part of it then allows you to share info across social media sites. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, etc. I’m a bit hardline on not wanting to use corporate social media myself so I’d probably choose the Fediverse in some way. There’s also RSS, one of the most important technologies of the web. Using RSS allows people to subscribe to updates and do neat things with the information you are providing.

A calendar (in iCalendar format that can be subscribed to) is another great thing. Not a “Google Calendar” but a URL that you can plug into anything that can take iCalendar data. This could put every ride or event onto someone’s calendar with very little effort.

An email address might also be useful, as a means of contacting someone. Right now there the web site has no way of contacting the organizer(s).

For Milwaukee Critical Mass I may be overthinking things… Plenty of people probably just need to know “Rides start from Red Arrow Park at 6 p.m. on the last Friday of the month” and that’s enough. I don’t know if rides get canceled due to weather, or what the route is, or how long the route is, or whatever, but I’ve been thinking more about how we can make the web better for people so this post is the result of that.

I wonder how difficult it would be to assemble the tools or build a platform to make these things easier. (A platform free of corporate social media of course, so open source tools that can be self-hosted would be ideal.) I should check back in on how Scrappy Hour is doing things now.

Thanks for reading! See you on the streets!

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Hello CryptPad, Goodbye Google Docs!

CryptPad

In my continuing effort to get away from Google (and most large US-based tech companies in general) I found CryptPad. I should note that everyone uses software and web-based services differently, and for me specifically there is one spreadsheet I constantly use for my small business. I never really use the documents or presentations that Google Docs offer, and I almost never use Google Drive. Still, CryptPad does offer all of those things, so if you need them, they are there.

There’s a lot to love about CryptPad and people seem to like it. CryptPad is an end-to-end encrypted and open-source collaboration suite and there are all sorts of options for using it, and I’m pretty sure your data won’t be used to train AI models since, you know, your data is encrypted and not even viewable by the system admins.

I am using CryptPad.fr (specifically) right now, and I make a small donation every month for the space and resources I am using. I do not mind paying some small fee for what I get, and for helping support an alternative to Google.

Public Money = Public code? Funded by and for users? Yeah, more software like this, please!

But is it as good as Google Docs? Again, it depends on your needs and expectations and what you are willing to compromise on. At first I found it “not as good” as Google Docs, but after using it a bit more and just getting used to it, I really like it, and I’ve quit Google Docs, hopefully permanently.

Eventually I’d like to self-host CryptPad. Oh, I should mention this weirdness around OnlyOffice, because some code from OnlyOffice runs within CryptPad. See this Shady Moves post. I am not concerned about any shady stuff because it’s actually being discussed in the open with CryptPad developers. This is very different than the closed-source model where you never even know what shady shit might be happening.

Do I trust open source developers in France more than closed-source developers at Google or Microsoft? Hell Yes. I expect large US tech companies to cave under pressure from a compromised administration, and you should too.

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Rose Ferreira and NASA

I saw a post about Rose Ferreira being deleted from the NASA web site because the article about her was a story about “Women in STEM” and with the current (oppressive) administration trying to erase certain people I figured I would cite the original article here.

You can also see the article on Archive.org, but that too is under attack, so the more mirrors of important stories we have, the better.

NASA Intern Found Hope in the Moon

When Rose Ferreira first saw an image of a field of galaxies and galaxy clusters from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in July, she “went into the restroom and broke down a little,” she said. This “Deep Field” image showed galaxies not only sharper, but deeper into the universe than a similar image she loved from the Hubble Space Telescope.

“Being able to contribute in any way to the efforts of the team within NASA that released this new Deep Field just felt like such a profound thing for me,” said Ferreira, a student at Arizona State University who interned with NASA this summer. “I was just a little bit in shock for, like, a week.”

Rose Ferreira estudia ciencias planetarias y astronomía en la Universidad Estatal de Arizona.
Credits: James Mayer

Webb, the largest space science telescope ever, which launched in December 2021, played a big role in Ferreira’s internship at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. She also supported a series of live news interviews for Webb’s first images and multimedia tasks for NASA’s Spanish-language communications program.

Growing up in the Dominican Republic, Ferreira said she didn’t have access to science education. She was taught skills like cooking and cleaning; she didn’t know NASA existed at that time.

But during the frequent blackouts in her village, when the Moon provided the only light, Rose Ferreira often wondered – what is the Moon all about? “The moonlight is a lot of what I used to see, and I was always so curious about that,” she said. “That obsession is what made me start asking questions.”

When she came to New York, she was placed in an underserved high school that sent her back multiple grades because they weren’t satisfied with her English language skills. She left and earned a GED diploma instead, hoping to go to college faster.

At age 18, Ferreira became homeless in New York and lived in train stations. By working as a home health aide, she was able to earn enough to rent an apartment in Queens and, eventually, get an associate degree.

Life threw other major challenges at her, including getting hit by a car and a cancer diagnosis.

Ferreira ultimately enrolled in a planetary science and astronomy degree program at Arizona State University. She received a “great birthday present” in the spring of 2022: her official acceptance to NASA’s internship program.

Among the highlights of her NASA experience was recording a voice-over in Spanish for a This Week at NASA video. She also served as a panelist at an event for the Minority University Research and Education Project, organized by NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement.

Ferreira dreams of becoming an astronaut and has a shorter-term goal of earning a doctorate. But the internship also fueled her passion for sharing space science with the public. Chatting with Goddard astrophysicist Dr. Michelle Thaller, host of the Webb broadcasts, was especially meaningful to her.

Rose Ferreira, foreground, in the broadcast control room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in July 2022.
Credits: NASA

She has this advice for young people who are also interested in pursuing space science: “Coming from a person who had it a bit harder to get there, I think: first, figure out if it is really what you love. And if it is really what you love, then literally find a way to do it no matter who says what.”

Besides Webb, Ferreira is excited about NASA’s Artemis program, which connects with her passion for the Moon. Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to establish a long-term presence on and around the Moon. She’s looking forward to what Artemis will uncover about the Moon’s geology and history while the agency uses the Moon to get ready for human exploration of Mars.

“Even when I was living on the streets, the Moon used to be the thing I looked at to calm myself. It’s my sense of comfort, even today when I’m overwhelmed by things,” she said. “It’s like a driving force.”

Written by Elizabeth Landau
NASA Headquarters

Rose does have a web site! You can find it at www.rosedf.space. Hopefully she can maintain her web presence, as we have no control over social media companies owned by Billionaires and corporations, and we’re seeing that elected officials cannot be trusted and can turn against the people they are supposed to serve and do them great harm.

It looks like dowsingfordivinity.com also mirrored the original article. Awesome. We need to keep doing things like this.

Update: Another good post – The Attacks on Science.

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macOS Web Launcher

Here’s a niche one… If you use the “Launchpad Key” on a keyboard while using macOS you know it’s a handy way to launch an application. I use it constantly. But if you want a similar experience for going to a web site (as in, visiting a web site in your preferred browser) and you don’t have Keyboard Maestro or a Stream Deck, I have another solution that uses Apple’s Automator.

Launch Automator and create a new application…

On the left Library should be selected, if not, select it…

Click on “Get Specified URLs”…

It will load up on the right side with Apple’s web site specified…

I changed it to mastodon.social in this example…

Now select “Display Webpages” from the second column…

It will get added to the right panel…

If you click the Run button you might get this warning… it will probably work just fine anyway. Test it out!

If everything worked you can Export it…

Give it a name (I chose “Mastodon”) and save it as an application in the Applications folder…

Okay, it should be ready! Hit the Launchpad Key…

…and start typing the name of the Application/web site and it should pop up… Hit the return key to open it and you should go right to the web site in a new tab in your preferred browser!

I’ve made a few of these for sites I need to visit and it saves me the time of switching to my browser and opening the site in the usual/classic ways. Keyboard Maestro can make this even faster by just using a system wide unique key combo of course.

Note: This post contains an Affiliate Link. Read More.

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Your Recipe is Killing Me…

I like to bake and make in the kitchen and while I have my own recipe collection I still look up recipes online all the time, which I think is a common thing to do. There are a lot of “food bloggers” or recipe sites and the old joke is that you have to read someone’s life story before you can read the recipe. “I’m a busy mom with three active kids and a husband who works a lot of hours” or however it goes before a long story about how a quick and easy recipe is just the ticket for a weeknight with soccer practice and swim lessons…

Where was I? Oh yes, I’m a busy maker who just wants the damn recipe. I often use an old iPad in the kitchen and I’ve noticed that some of these food/recipe blogs are so overrun with ads… popup ads, video ads, and lots of faff, that my iPad sometimes can’t even render or properly load the page.

Now I know these bloggers are trying to make a living (or at least extra money) by “posting content” that will get clicks and views and all that but I hate it. I hate it. So I will visit your site one time, I will copy and paste your recipe into my digital notebook and use that, and add my own notes, and keep the URL in case I ever want to visit again, and if I make changes I may even share it on my own blog.

You can find all of the recipes I’ve shared (free of ads and tracking) by following the recipe tag.

(And yes, I do know about ad blockers, I run uBlock Origin on my desktop browsers, etc. I should probably just stick to using the laptop in the kitchen to keep things clean.)

Update: Check out cooked.wiki!