Longer hair than you.
Got the ⏻ symbol into #Unicode.
Open Standards / Source / Data geek.
Known as @Edent on most social platforms.
Did an MSc in using the Metaverse for analytics.
Bit obsessed with #SolarPower but not quite a #SolarPunk.
I went for a spelunk through an ancient codebase a few weeks ago which contained a curious regex that I just couldn't grok.
{<((https?|ftp|dict|tel):[^\'">\s]+)>}i
I'm familiar with HTTP and FTP. I worked in the mobile industry, so knew that tel:+44... could be used to launch a dialer. But DICT?!?!?! It turns out that, lurking on […]
I went for a spelunk through an ancient codebase a few weeks ago which contained a curious regex that I just couldn't grok.
{<((https?|ftp|dict|tel):[^\'">\s]+)>}i
I'm familiar with HTTP and FTP. I worked in the mobile industry, so knew that tel:+44... could be used to launch a dialer. But DICT?!?!?! It turns out that, lurking on […]
@Edent Oh, interesting! Sticking a dict:// url into Safari on my Mac makes it want to open the Dictionary app.
But it falls apart after that... with your example it tries to up the ‘dict.org’ directly after the :// and gets no entries found, instead of connecting to the dict.org server :/
I.e. the con is calling you up, then initializing a password restore interaction with your bank, timed so that you accept the verification, giving him access.
I only ever accept that sort of verification on calls that I have initialized myself.
You receive a call on your phone. The caller says they're from your bank. You hang up and call back to the bank yourself. End of story. If the caller objects to you doing that, that by itself is an enormous red flag. You never, EVER take incoming calls from "your bank" seriously.
I myself have an additional rule that I always reject calls from unknown numbers, unless I expect one (delivery, taxi, etc).
🆕 blog! “A (tiny, incomplete, single user, write-only) ActivityPub server in PHP”
I've written an ActivityPub server which only allows you to post messages to your followers. That's all it does. It won't record favourites or reposts. There's no support for following other accounts or receiving replies. It cannot delete o…
🆕 blog! “A (tiny, incomplete, single user, write-only) ActivityPub server in PHP”
I've written an ActivityPub server which only allows you to post messages to your followers. That's all it does. It won't record favourites or reposts. There's no support for following other accounts or receiving replies. It cannot delete o…
🆕 blog! “Rebuilding FourSquare for ActivityPub using OpenStreetMap”
I used to like the original FourSquare. The "mayor" stuff was a bit silly, and my friends never left that many reviews, but I loved being able to signal to my friends "I am at this cool museum" or "We're at this pub if you want to meet" or "Spendi…
🆕 blog! “Rebuilding FourSquare for ActivityPub using OpenStreetMap”
I used to like the original FourSquare. The "mayor" stuff was a bit silly, and my friends never left that many reviews, but I loved being able to signal to my friends "I am at this cool museum" or "We're at this pub if you want to meet" or "Spendi…
@Edent the whole idea that Mastodon doesn’t support something and PixelFed does is frustrating.
ActivityPub servers should host all our vocabularies and apps show what they understand, but sadly Mastodon and every other app decided to forgo the Client to Server API and use something bespoke 😞
I've been working on my own ActivityPub site (this one, socialsoup).
I want to allow user to add a location to their status / notes. Mastodon allows you to Mention users, and stores this in the tags property, as well as hashtags. Maybe this is a good place to attach a location too?
I'm definitely going to follow along with what you're doing here :)
@Edent The article makes clear to me something I hadn't really formed into words before: this natural fluidity of names and anonymity in general is a leveller for the poor and disadvantaged. The idea that everyone has just one name (and should not be able to avoid using it) only helps the haves, not the have-nots.
@Edent It’s an interesting area. Even in the U.K. you can change your namely freely as many times if you like and without anything other than a signed statutory declaration of your new name. The power to change your name is an important right imho
@Edent This is great. And it’s another recommendation that everyone go and read “Seeing Like A State”.
In this case: standardized names have the effect of handing power over individuals to the government.
By maintaining the casual attitude to names the article describes, Nigerians are keeping out of their lives a state that may not always be benevolent, or even particularly competent.
The latest version of Mastodon includes search functionality. It's early days, but seems to work pretty well. Here are some of the interesting things I found when using it. Search is complex - expectations I don't mean the act of searching a database - that's routine - but I mean it is socially complex. Lots […]
The latest version of Mastodon includes search functionality. It's early days, but seems to work pretty well. Here are some of the interesting things I found when using it. Search is complex - expectations I don't mean the act of searching a database - that's routine - but I mean it is socially complex. Lots […]
> Nor can you find people who are talking about a specific page on the web.
Is this accurate? Searching for exact URLs of news articles to find people talking about them is exactly the use case I was looking forward to the most 😞
@Edent I've been having thoughts on search for a LONG time (decades... https://drunkdna.livejournal.com/69280.html ... this is probably my favourite thing ever said about me ever online and I'm impressed it's still there!) and it's safe to say I am VERY pro-search, but also pro-consent and individuals having granular choices around privacy everywhere.
I think the ability to make private posts OR public posts from the same account already solves the biggest and clearest divide there, but further granularity is not a bad thing, though the more complex, the more daunting for many in trying to navigate using any new app or site. It's tricky.
While it's obvious that it's impossible to search /eberything/ (but Google sure used to do a good job a decade or two ago, and we still have the Wayback Engine...) I'm very interested to see how search develops in Fedi. I think hashtags are doing an ok job at making things discoverable by topic, and it's been interesting to see how different sites have tackled discoverability. You gave a really good overview in your post. Kudos!
@Edent I've been having thoughts on search for a LONG time (decades... https://drunkdna.livejournal.com/69280.html ... this is probably my favourite thing ever said about me ever online and I'm impressed it's still there!) and it's safe to say I am VERY pro-search, but also pro-consent and individuals having granular choices around privacy everywhere.
@Edent I recently bought a .social domain of the username I've been using in various places for nearly a decade, really just my initials, I just found out yesterday that it's the same username one of the columbine shooters used online apparently. I guess I need to bank on people not knowing just the same as I didn't.
The Brothers Grimm recorded the story "Der süße Brei" about a magic porridge pot.
When instructed, it produces food until told to stop. One day, the owner forgets the magic word and the village is engulfed in porridge.
If you are NOT German or English-speaking, does your culture have a similar cautionary tale?
If so, what foodstuff is it about?
Thanks gang, boosts appreciated.
Could you please help me find some folklore?
The Brothers Grimm recorded the story "Der süße Brei" about a magic porridge pot.
When instructed, it produces food until told to stop. One day, the owner forgets the magic word and the village is engulfed in porridge.
If you are NOT German or English-speaking, does your culture have a similar cautionary tale?
If so, what foodstuff is it about?
A five year old Reddit post just helped me solve a knotty problem.
I hate to think how much useful info is being lost in ephemeral services like Discord, Slack, and IRC.
This is probably me being a bit dense. I'm on a video call with two other people. Alice is on the left of my screen, Bob is on the right. Why isn't the audio in stereo?
(Zoom lets you send stereo audio - but only of you have a stereo microphone. Whereas I'm talking abound individuals sending mono and receiving to stereo.)
The new version of Firefox for Android is brilliant.
I recommend switching to it. I've been using FF as my daily browser for years and it works flawlessly.
Thinking about this further… I would like your advice and wisdom on how I should self-host my many bots.
All one one sub-domain?
@bot1@bots.edent.tel
@bot2@bots.edent.tel
Separate sub-domain for each?
@bot@bot1.edent.tel
@bot@bot2.edent.tel
Buy a new domain for each?
(LOL nope!)
Something else?
(What?)