boris

boris, 29 days ago to random

I’m heading to the Oregon coast for a getaway.

Reading, beach walks, some drives along the coast, maybe some forest walks.

Got any recommendations for the area? Will be staying in Lincoln City, but have a car rented.

boris, 1 month ago to random

I now have the power to make my own espresso tonics in the office. Dangerous!

luis_in_brief, 2 months ago to random

Had a conversation two weeks ago with a member of the Navajo tribe who very solidly dropped her mic by telling me that the goal of southwestern tribes for gathering data about water was not efficiency, but usage. It was a good firm slap to my assumptions.

Hopefully I handled it better than these people:
https://social.ridetrans.it/@owen/112087429501002171

boris, 2 months ago to art

My partner Rachael just added her Multi Family Dream Home to her portfolio

https://rachaelashe.com/paperart/multi-family-dream-home

It's up at Walrus Design on Cambie Street as part of the Be Longing show until the end of March if you'd like to go see it in person, details on the exhibit here https://rachaelashe.com/news/exhibition-be-longing

#art #papercraft #vancouver

boris, 3 months ago to random

Today is my birthday.

This picture is from 49 years ago. 1975, summer, Eagle Cliff Beach on Bowen Island. That’s me being held by my mom.

devnull, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

On multiple occasions I've listened to instance admins speak about high S3 costs. The sheer amount of data absolutely balloons the more activity your server sees, I get it.

What I don't get is whether there's some unknown fedi ethical reason everybody insists on setting up an S3 cache (followed immediately by complaining about it).

Y'all want to know what the rest of the web does? Hosts their own uploaded media, and links out to the rest...

#fediadmin #s3 #devops #sysadmin

jacob, 3 months ago to random

I'm now jacobian.01 on Signal, woop woop. Thanks to @glyph for the tip of installing the desktop beta and letting me swoop a good username :)

Jeremiah, 3 months ago to random

Signal user name landrush guide for iPhone users: get the macOS beta app, link it, tap on your profile photo in lower left, and then you can pick your username and 2-digit number.

https://mastodon.world/@signalapp/111965175189276824

timbray, 3 months ago to Signal

Joined the Signal username land grab, got the usual handle. Question arises: Best practices on posting/sharing. At the moment you have to know my phone # to Signal me, but that’s very easy to figure out. So, initially inclined to just post the username. Hmmmmmm…

#signalapp #signal

sean, 3 months ago to random

Google Maps is now on google.com/maps instead of maps.google.com/ .

Cynical-me has to wonder if this is related to their cookie siloing market capture play…

maegul, 3 months ago to lemmy

#Lemmy wants to have private communities!

See https://lemmy.ml/post/12014733

> Private spaces are a fundamental aspect of human communication. They allow discussing sensitive topics without interruption from outsiders. Supporting private communities in Lemmy gives a major new use case for talking among friends or within organizations. This use case is currently not covered by major Fediverse projects.

Novel for the #fediverse it seems.

boris, 3 months ago to random

There’s quite a few people saying truly horribly things about Ryan Barrett, developer of Bridgy, who builds bridges between many different protocols, including now between ActivityPub and ATProtocol, the latter being what Bluesky runs.

I don’t fight about protocols on this account, but you can read my explanation on how to think about “bridge instances” on my other account.

https://toolsforthought.social/@boris/111922137223915413

boris, 3 months ago to random

@timbray found this pretty thorough takedown of C2PA that you might be interested in https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/1010-C2PAs-Butterfly-Effect.html

jacob, 3 months ago to random

“We believe that open source should be sustainable and open source maintainers should get paid!”

Maintainer: introduces commercial features
“Not like that”

Maintainer: works for a large tech co
“Not like that”

Maintainer: takes investment
“Not like that”

danny, 3 months ago to random

Because I live in the strange intersectional space where I can simultaneously be pining for fosdem and willing to stay in the US and fork over for a Apple Vision Pro, here's my first weekend impressions of the latter:

blog, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to fediverse

A (tiny, incomplete, single user, write-only) ActivityPub server in PHP
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/a-tiny-incomplete-single-user-write-only-activitypub-server-in-php/

I've written an ActivityPub server which . 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 or update posts nor can it verify signatures. It doesn't have a database or any storage beyond flat files.

But it will happily send messages and allow itself to be followed.

This shows that it is totally possible to broadcast fully-featured ActivityPub messages to the Fediverse with minimal coding skills and modest resources.

Why

I wanted to create a service a bit like FourSquare. For this, I needed an ActivityPub server which allows posting geotagged locations to the Fediverse.

I didn't want to install a fully-featured server with lots of complex parts. So I (foolishly) decided to write my own. I had a lot of trouble with HTTP Signatures. Because they are cursed and I cannot read documentation. But mostly the cursed thing.

How

Creating a minimum viable Mastodon instance can be done with half a dozen static files. That gets you an account that people can see. They can't follow it or receive any posts though.

I wanted to use PHP to build an interactive server. PHP is supported everywhere and is simple to deploy. Luckily, Robb Knight has written an excellent tutorial, so I ripped off his code and rewrote it for Symfony.

The structure is relatively straightforward.

• /.well-known/webfinger is a static file which gives information about where to find details of the account.
• /[username] is a static file which has the user's metadata, public key, and links to avatar images.
• /following and /followers are also static files which say how many users are being followed / are following.
• /posts/[GUID] a directory with JSON files saved to disk - each ones contains the published ActivityPub note.
• /photos/ is a directory with any uploaded media in it.
• /outbox is a list of all the posts which have been published.
• /inbox is an external API endpoint. An ActivityPub server sends it a follow request, the endpoint then POSTs a cryptographically signed Accept message to the follower's inbox. The follower's inbox address is saved to disk.
• /logs is a listing of all the messages received by the inbox.
• /new is a password protected page which lets you write a message. This is then sent to...
• /send is an internal API endpoint. It constructs an ActivityPub note, with attached location metadata, and POSTs it to each follower's inbox with a cryptographic signature.

That's it.

The front-end grabs my phone's geolocation and shows the 25 nearest places within 100 metres. One click and the page posts to the /send endpoint which then publishes a message saying I'm checked in. It is also possible to attach to the post a short message and a single photo with alt text.

There's no database. Posts are saved as JSON documents. Images are uploaded to a directory. It is single-user, so there is no account management.

What Works

• Users can find the account.
• Users can follow the account and receive updates.
• Posts contain geotag metadata.
• Posts contain a description of the place.
• Posts contain an OSM link to the place.
• Posts contain a custom message.
• Posts autolink #Hashtags (sort of).
• Posts can have an image attached to them.
• Messages to the inbox are recorded (but not yet integrated).

ToDo

• My account only has a few dozen followers, some of whom share the same sever. Even with cURL multi handle, it takes time to post to several servers.
• It posts plain text. It doesn't autolink websites
• Hashtags are linked when viewed remotely, but they don't go anywhere locally.
• There's no language selection - it is hard-coded to English.
• The outbox isn't paginated.
• The UI looks crap - but it is only me using it.
• There's only a basic front-page showing a map of all my check-ins.
• Replies are logged, but there's no easy way to see them.
• Doesn't show any metadata about the place being checked-in to. It could use the item's website (if any) or hashtags for the type of amenity it is.
• No way to handle being unfollowed.
• No way to remove servers which have died.
• Probably lots more.

Other Resources

I found these resources helpful while creating this project:

• MVP ActivityPub in Python on Glitch
• Understanding ActivityPub Part 1: Protocol Fundamentals
• Activity Notes
• Federating with GoToSocial

What's Next?

I've raised an issue on Mastodon to see if they can support showing locations in posts. Hopefully, one day, they'll allow adding locations and then I can shut this down.

The code needs tidying up - it is very much a scratch-my-own-itch development. Probably riddled with bugs and security holes.

World domination?

Where

You can laugh at my code on GitHub.

You can look at my check-ins on a map.

You can follow my location on the Fediverse at @edent_location@location.edent.tel

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/a-tiny-incomplete-single-user-write-only-activitypub-server-in-php/

#ActivityPub #fediverse #mastodon #php #Symfony

boris, 3 months ago to random

OK! Looks like @cowg #CoSocialCastopod first episode auto-published as scheduled this morning. Woo hoo!

Posts are authored in Markdown and show as rich text (see screenshot for what this looks like in Mastodon web interface)

Still learning, looks like posts can't be edited.

https://podcasts.cosocial.ca/@cowg/posts/4a6790c5-68fd-475e-8267-a0c274634183

virtuous_sloth, 3 months ago to random

Hey @coop, has anyone seen anything like this?

I decided to see what Googling my handle would return and after hitting a few on our server I got this URL which seems to be an imperfect mirror of my profile here.

https://atomicpoet.org/users/$AUnO2tvWcP1nsQHDRg