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Asides

Articles and publications tagged Asides across the Atmosphere.

86articles2publications
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerSep 16, 2026
Buy my house!
My 1925 Tudor on half an acre in Elkins Park, PA is up for sale. Here's why I loved living in it
PersonalAsides
jeffpaul
jeffpaulSep 7, 2026
Liked “Home ownership and the world wide web”
Liked "Home ownership and the world wide web"
Asides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerJul 9, 2026
IndieWeb Fiction Carnival: May 2026 Roundup
Three short fiction pieces
fictionAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerJul 4, 2026
Happy 250th birthday, America
Let's keep building.
DemocracyAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerJun 28, 2026
Two posts about writing
Ideas that spoke to me
AsidesNotable links
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerMay 1, 2026
IndieWeb Fiction Carnival: May 2026
This month's prompt is "sticks and stones will break my bones".
FictionIndieweb
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerApr 27, 2026
All You Fascists (Bound to Lose)
A collection of Woody Guthrie covers
MusicAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerApr 7, 2026
When the President threatens to commit a genocide
This cannot continue.
DemocracyAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerFeb 17, 2026
An increasingly dangerous world
My underlying model for everything that's happening
DemocracyAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerFeb 16, 2026
Growing the open social web
A position statement for FediForum's unworkshop
FediverseTechnology
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerFeb 11, 2026
A note about personal security
I made a mistake last month that hopefully others can learn from. There are rumors that ICE is turning its attention to the Philadelphia area, where I live. I’m a natural-born American citizen, but based on accounts from Minneapolis, I’m not excited to run into them, and I’m worried about the health and well-being of my child. So I briefly joined a local Signal group that reports ICE sightings. I have been using my full name on Signal — and I’m the only Ben Werdmuller in the world. In the less
DemocracyAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerJan 19, 2026
Remembering Beyond Vietnam on MLK Day
A good friend introduced me to Martin Luther King Jr's Beyond Vietnam speech some time ago. It was not well-received by the mainstream press at the time (more about that in a moment) but I think it's prescient and, unfortunately, timely. At the Riverside Church in New York City, he delivered a blistering response to America's war in Vietnam that went beyond the war itself to discuss the values of the nation and its impact at home and abroad: We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriente
DemocracyAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerDec 31, 2025
A 2026 checklist
A way to build a habit out of what's important.
lifeAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerNov 30, 2025
Knowing when to leave
I wrote this in my blog drafts well over a decade ago (exact date unclear). I thought I'd publish it as-is as an aside. I'm sure it was going to be an excellent full post, but clearly this is just the intro. I still agree though: knowing when to go is important! Some years ago, someone I worked with closely on a project that was failing had a mini-meltdown. He unfriended the rest of the team across social media, including the official accounts, which he took over unilaterally; he refused to eve
Asides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerOct 4, 2025
Telomeres, my son, and me
I bawled my way through Nowhere Special, a 2020 movie about a terminally ill man who needs to find a new family for his four year old son. I’ll be thinking about it for years. It’s the story of a window cleaner with a terminal illness who needs to find a new family for his four year old son. The whole thing is perfectly understated, beautiful in its portrayal of a particular kind of love, but completely devastating. The film sits at the intersection of a lot of things for me. Daniel Lamont, wh
Asides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerAug 6, 2025
What I owe to August 6
It was a war crime. And my relationship to it is complicated.
Asides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerAug 3, 2025
Small repairs
Drinking Sunday coffee in the hyper-normal
Asides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerJul 4, 2025
America is a myth
We have to decide which story we believe in.
DemocracyAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerJun 14, 2025
Just another Saturday in June.
At the time of writing, the world looks pretty hopeless.
DemocracyAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerJun 4, 2025
The Darkest Day: A fantasy Doctor Who season
I can’t help myself. I’ve loved every moment of the rebooted Doctor Who on Disney+, but it appears to have hit a bit of a pause while Disney considers whether to renew its co-production. With its future unclear (although I’m certain it’s coming back before too long), I’ve been thinking about what I’d do if I was show-runner. (To be clear, I think about what I’d do if I was show-runner … a lot. Whovian first, everything else second. I make no apologies.) Like I said, I loved every moment. But if
Doctor WhoAsides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerApr 23, 2025
Grumpy morning thoughts
I earn 5-10X what I did when I lived in the UK, but my quality of life is markedly worse. My whole thing boils down to: how can America have the same standard of living I grew up with? For a lot of people, the idea of prosperity boils down to, “I can buy what I want,” not, “I can live how I want.” The latter is the one that matters: that’s what freedom actually is. National healthcare works (or does when it’s not being dismantled for profit). Integrated public transit works. Welfare works. Gun
Asides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerApr 16, 2025
Where we're at
A quick aside: I now believe it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better (if it gets better). I’m not going to enumerate what’s been going on; you’re either paying attention or you’re not, but we’re less than one hundred days in and the lurch towards real fascism has been notable. 24 years ago, we experienced a lurch towards a surveillance state in the wake of 9/11. George W Bush, through the PATRIOT Act among other instruments, didn’t just establish new ways for people on American soi
Asides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerMar 24, 2025
Baby's first blog post
Fp9ootron ABCXXZXCFDSESW4ZXDAWEQ!QWZ fwwqqqqwwQsxXSQWSASXC XDΩSXEDRTY7U8I9 Editor's note: does toddler input have sufficient entropy to be used as a random number generator?
Asides
Ben Werdmuller
Ben WerdmullerMar 9, 2025
Fediverse House
If you're in Austin, visiting Fediverse House at 412 Congress Ave today and tomorrow is what you need to be doing. You don’t need a SXSW ticket - just show up and meet some of the key people building and thinking about the most important thing happening on the web right now. Unfortunately, I’m preparing for a team summit in New York this week, so I’m unable to attend. The good news for me (and you, if you’re also not able to make it there) is that I hear the conversations are going to make it
FediverseAsides