If you haven't heard, sadly, #ChirpSocial, one of the popular #ActivityPub “groups” platform, is shutting down “probably” on February 29th.
In an email they sent to admins, the owner and developer can no longer support https://chirp.social financially as they failed to find a new job after they were laid off by #Google last year.
This reminds us the importance of having a built-in groups feature, and one where the groups feature actually federates.
Back in 2008, when the #Fediverse was born, we did have a built-in federated groups in #Laconica / #StatusNet (today known as #GNUsocial). We used bang (!) instead of at (@). A built-in groups feature is more stable as established instances can host them.
Today, we have #Friendica and #Hubzilla (as well as #Streams-based instances) to fill in that, as groups is a built-in feature in those software products. It's just a matter of finding an instance that's open to hosting groups for any topic for the ActivityPub protocol.
That said, any Friendica, Hubzilla, Streams-based instances you suggest for groups?
Mike Macgirvin, the long-time developer that brought us #Friendica, #Hubzilla, #Streams, and the #Zot protocol, is bringing his most powerful concept to the rest of the #Fediverse: Nomadic Identity.
I love #trains ! & I love #InterRail !! These are impressions from today’s trip to #ripe88 : tea ceremony in the Dutch train, German clouds (with #music notation electricity lines! ), #Polish brunch with additional Indonesian snacks, while reading a book about Native #American language: collectivist culture & animism grammer ! (There is no word for please: food is meant to be shared )
So… welcome to new users in the #Fediverse network!
If you are exploring the fediverse through the #Mastodon software, feel free to explore other platforms like #Streams#Calckey#Hubzilla#Friendica#Akkoma to mention a few, for your usual “status updates” (and more) UI/UX.
If you want a platform more focused on photos and images, then there is #Pixelfed. Or, you want bookshelves and tracking what you've read, or leaving #book reviews, there is #BookWyrm.
But the beauty of it all, all of these are connected to the fediverse. You can follow any user regardless of which software they are using; AND regardless which server (domain name) they signed-up for.
Our names come in all shapes! Both #fediverse projects #Streams and #Kitsune now support Unicode usernames! This is something I have been talking about since I first joined the fedi in 2017 so I am very excited about this. I can't wait till I get a mention from someone with a username like @王李 or @դմիտրիԹբիլիսի@ժայռեր
Scientists have found a ‘sleeping giant’ of environmental problems: Earth is getting saltier
#Salt used to de-ice roads is the single biggest source of salt in the U.S.
By Kasha Patel
October 31, 2023
"Human activities are making the globe saltier, specifically in our soils, fresh water and air, according to a study released Tuesday in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.
"The excess salt has already caused serious issues in freshwater supplies in recent decades. Saltier water led to brown tap water for months in Montgomery County, #Maryland. It also played a part in creating the #toxic lead-laden water in #FlintMichigan.
"Salt pollution isn’t some flashy threat to our existence — like, say, a meteor hitting Earth — but the issue is gravely overlooked and is a 'sleeping giant,' said Sujay Kaushal, lead author of the study. He said it might be the 'most boring but contemporary problem that we have.'
"Most people think of salt as the white specks we put in our food or the salt in oceans, chemically known as sodium chloride (NaCl). That sodium salt can also be found in detergents, other household products and more, but there are many different salts, including calcium, magnesium and other ions used in additional products — and they’re all increasing in places where they don’t normally occur.
"Over the past 50 years, salt ions have increased in #streams and #rivers as people have begun using and producing more salts, the study says. The team found that across the globe, about 2.5 billion acres of soil — an area about the size of the United States — have become saltier. Salt lakes are also drying up and sending saline dust into the air.
“'We use water for everything from growing crops to drinking to industrial processes to heating and cooling,' said Kaushal, a geologist at the University of Maryland. 'But when you have salt in the water, it affects all of those things … and it’s increasing.'"
"Mike Macgirvin, former dev lead on Friendica and Hubzilla, is taking a proactive stance on the new changes [to the Privacy Policy of Meta's new fediverse-facing DataFarm] with an update to his new project, Streams.
...The new enhancement examines remote fetch requests against a list of who should be allowed to access a resource. It may prove to be a viable protection against excessive data harvesting."