Tag Archives: Warren Ellis

On This Return To WordPress — WARREN ELLIS LTD

What a bummer. A decade ago when I first started properly blogging over at Blogger after having done the whole micro-blogging/social media thing with LiveJournal>Friendster>MySpace>Facebook and the beginnings of Twitter, it was mostly inspired, influenced and guided by “Internet Jesus” Warren Ellis.

I’ve swapped out the theme here a couple of times. The first time, it was because a theme update (Meks Typology) fucked itself up in a handful of ways, and because Jetpack updates would fail catastrophically and take the whole website offline, requiring me to FTP into the site and manually delete the Jetpack plugin and the thousands of busted files it would litter into the system. I went to a simple theme called Uncluttered. Jetpack seemed to behave, but the theme was broken and would only display images on the first page of posts. So I went to another simple theme that did not do this. And then the next Jetpack update busted the whole site.

(Later): I like WordPress. I’ve used it for many things for many years. I like the mobile app and the flexibility it gives me in posting from my phone in my preferred formats. But I am starting to regret not trying to make a blot.im instance work for my needs.

I’ve liked being here and doing this. But I may have to shut it off and start again. Or? If it really does require hours a week of deleting exploded files and sacrificing something to Satan every time I click a button? Just shutting it off. I came back to blogging too late, and shit stopped working.

via On This Return To WordPress — WARREN ELLIS LTD

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Fuck You, Blog — WARREN ELLIS LTD

Apparently WordPress + plug-ins + jetpack and theme updates = batshit crazy results. Uncle Warren is nonplussed about it.

So, my WordPress install grinds exceedingly slow. Jetpack breaks every time I update the plug-in, to the point where I’ve had to go into FTP and basically scoop all its shit out by hand. Because when it breaks, it takes out the entire site, including WordPress admin. So now, whenever it tells me it has…

via Fuck You, Blog — WARREN ELLIS LTD8551231835_3c4c9ec04a_o1

Warren Ellis on Fear – The Parental Kind

Warren Ellis was recently interviewed by THE COMICS JOURNAL via Q & A. It’s a great interview of the writer whose weekly newsletter ORBITAL OPERATIONS I read regularly. This particular excerpt I relate to rather well.

TCJ: What is one thing, in spite of all the energy you have in the face of everything being terrible, that you’re afraid of?

WE: Cancer. Climate change. Economic collapse. The rise of the nationalist right. And so on. You know, the same list as most other people. My daughter turns 23 this week, and I would like her to have a long life that doesn’t involve selling her organs for grain. Have a kid! You’ll be afraid of everything for the rest of your life.

‘Nuff said.

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DARK SOCIAL | Warren Ellis

“Dark Social” is the notion that people share “content” via private/secure messaging apps, one-to-one or one-to-select-group.  That social sharing activity can’t be measured in any useful way.  There is no freely-available prosumer tool to quantify the sharing of a link.  Hence, they call it “dark social.”  When you hear someone say “dark social,” they’re bemoaning the inability to get click reports off of actual conversation.  Because when you see someone on the street head-down in their phone and dabbing away at the screen, they’re not cut off from the outside world.  They’re talking to people. Fuck your Black Mirror narrative – they’re just more interested in a window to their friends and family than they are in you peering at them in judgement.  And all that action of being engaged in a life of having your loved ones in your hand all the time and being able to show them things and talk about it?  That’s Dark Social now.

— Warren Ellis on today’s MORNING, COMPUTER post.

Advice from Warren Ellis, Internet Jesus

In this week’s edition of his newsletter, Orbital Operations, writer of all trades and legendary Internet Jesus Warren Ellis offered the following bits of sage advice for us all to perform our own lifehack in these unprecedented times. Take heed, if you want to survive.

“If you’re on social media, make your account private, and use it to be social. Use it with your friends. 

If you rely on social media for news, do this. 1) Don’t use Facebook for news. I mean, just don’t. Facebook’s values are not your own, and they have their own rules for what you get to see. So just don’t. 2) Twitter has a function called Lists. So go to a Twitter account, press the little cog icon on the right, and select Add Or Remove From Lists. Create a list, and you can add people to it without actually following them.

The term “attention economy” seems to be making a comeback in 2017. Your attention is valuable. Also, the confusing and scattering of your attention is valuable. Overwhelming you into making bad or unfocused choices is valuable. Take back your attention.

And for god’s sake, stick a passcode on your phone this week. Six is okay, I’m told eleven is better. And turn off Touch ID before you go through an airport – that’s a thing I keep hearing.

(Addition to last week’s notes: favcleaner will wipe out your entire Twitter likes history, slowly. It will post to your account once – just delete the tweet.)

Find your news. I read The Guardian, BBC News and Foreign Policy every morning, as well as Politico and Axios daily newsletters, and I recently bought access to The Washington Post and put Reuters on my home screen.

Find your people. Do it offline. If you’re worried, turn your phone off before you leave the house to go to a meeting, and don’t turn it back on until you’re well away from the meeting place. Or leave it at home entirely, and carry a burner with a removeable battery.

Change your goddamn passwords and don’t buy any of that IoT shit.

Also, this.

“Trump administration officials are discussing the possibility of asking foreign visitors to disclose all websites and social media sites they visit, and to share the contacts in their cell phones. If the foreign visitor declines to share such information, he or she could be denied entry”

This isn’t unexpected, and the ground has already been laid for it, in the updated ESTA and in the questioning of journalists at customs in the US over their LinkedIn accounts last year.

Sorry to be such a huge downer, but these are times for protection.

Come and sit by me. I have whisky, and I like fires.”

Do yourself a favor and subscribe to the Orbital Operations newsletter here.

Warren Ellis is the award-winning writer of graphic novels like TRANSMETROPOLITAN, FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE and PLANETARY, and the author of the NYT-bestselling GUN MACHINE and the “underground classic” novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, as well as the digital short-story single DEAD PIG COLLECTOR.  His newest book is the novella NORMAL, from FSG Originals.

The movie RED is based on his graphic novel of the same name, its sequel having been released in summer 2013.  IRON MAN 3 is based on his Marvel Comics graphic novel IRON MAN: EXTREMIS.   He is currently developing his graphic novel sequence with Jason Howard, TREES, for television, in concert with HardySonBaker and NBCU, and continues to work as a screenwriter and producer in film and television, represented by Angela Cheng Caplan and Cheng Caplan Company.

He’s written extensively for VICE, WIRED UK and Reuters on technological and cultural matters, and given keynote speeches and lectures at events like dConstruct, ThingsCon, Improving Reality, SxSW, How The Light Gets In and Cognitive Cities.

Warren Ellis is currently working on a non-fiction book about the future of the city for FSG Originals, serialising new graphic novel works like TREES and INJECTION at Image Comics, and developing and curating the revival of the Wildstorm creative library for DC Entertainment.

A documentary about his work, CAPTURED GHOSTS, was released in 2012.

Recognitions include the NUIG Literary and Debating Society’s President’s Medal for service to freedom of speech, the EAGLE AWARDS Roll Of Honour for lifetime achievement in the field of comics & graphic novels, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire 2010, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and the International Horror Guild Award for illustrated narrative.  He is a Patron of the British Humanist Association, an Associate of the Institute of Atemporal Studies, and the literary editor of EDICT magazine.

Warren Ellis lives outside London, on the south-east coast of England, in case he needs to make a quick getaway.

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via Warrenellis.com