@computersandblues@post.lurk.org
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

computersandblues

@computersandblues@post.lurk.org

I am a software developer interested in the weird and surprising bits of it, the stuff that sometimes brings everything to a halt or helps you out. More generally, I'm interested in how we construct, convey and care for communal spaces. Maps, architecture, language, and many other things. Always antifascist.

I appreciate if you interact with me before you follow me.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

computersandblues, (edited ) to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

this is really a cool: a font that throws a shadow depending on the time of day

https://indestructibletype.com/Gnomon.html

computersandblues, to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

one must imagine the user happy

computersandblues, to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

rewrote a deno websocket server in lua and saw its memory usage drop from 400MB to 20MB 🪶

paupowpow, to random
@paupowpow@post.lurk.org avatar

exactly 3 years ago today the EVER GIVEN got stuck in the suez canal 🌈

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@paupowpow there's a small tear of joy in the corner of my eye when i think of all the memes it brought us

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@paupowpow it blocked global trade, but it delivered its message straight to our hearts

malteengeler, to random
@malteengeler@legal.social avatar

„I believe that artificial intelligence has three quarters to prove itself before the apocalypse comes, and when it does, it will be that much worse, savaging the revenues of the biggest companies in tech. Once usage drops, so will the remarkable amounts of revenue that have flowed into big tech, and so will acres of data centers sit unused, the cloud equivalent of the massive overhiring we saw in post-lockdown Silicon Valley.“

  • Ed Zitron on „peak AI“

https://www.wheresyoured.at/peakai/

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@malteengeler i'm eagerly awaiting raves in old abandoned data centers

thisisaaronland, to random
@thisisaaronland@orthis.social avatar

"Importantly, these means (ActvityPub) can serve as a kind of vehicle by which we are able to guarantee that the objects in our collection, which by virtue of their inclusion we argue means they are worthy of repeated consideration, can enjoy a kind of repeat visitation. Even if that revisitation is virtual it fosters the practice of seeing, and re-seeing, the objects in our collections more than once." – https://millsfield.sfomuseum.org/blog/2024/03/12/activitypub/

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@thisisaaronland i think you may find this interesting @liaizon

computersandblues, to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

do other people ssh into remote servers and unsubscribe from e-mail newsletters via curl? or do i have to thank only myself for this?

computersandblues, (edited )
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

on a positive note: my network's ad blocker is still working very well

computersandblues, to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

my cat has the most nietzschean whiskers 〰️

drewdevault, (edited ) to random
@drewdevault@fosstodon.org avatar

The massive rise in fraud, spam, DoS attacks, and malicious traffic generally across the entire internet in 2024 alone is of such a scale and variety that I cannot help but wonder if there is a nation state behind it

Reply to this thread with references to incidents in 2024 that you know of. I have: fediverse spam, sourcehut DDoS and spam, codeberg DDoS and spam, spam on gitea/forgejo instances generally, and the latest malware flood on GitHub. What else is going on?

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@drewdevault hit a new case: at $work we're running quite a large mediawiki. every once in a while resource usage spiked drastically. today i was able to inspect the log, and it looks like a scraper is identifying with a range of different user agent headers (both browser headers and different bot headers, like bytedance / amazonbot / gptbot /…). it uses different ip addresses from google's address space and doesn't care if it brings down the wiki repeatedly

avdi, to random
@avdi@hachyderm.io avatar

Seen in a 10 year old Reddit comment. Still valid.

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@avdi i feel like widespread adoption of codes of conduct did improve the situation a bit 🤏

computersandblues, to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

and if you gaze long enough into a meme, the meme will gaze back into you

computersandblues, to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

github has a new feature that displays a small toast message "✅ copied!" whenever i select some source code and press ctrl+c but does not, in fact, copy anything to my clipboard

blog, to fediverse
@blog@shkspr.mobi avatar

Internationalise The Fediverse
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/internationalise-the-fediverse/

We live in the future now. It is OK to use Unicode everywhere.

It seems bizarre to me that modern Internet services sometimes "forget" that there's a world outside the Anglosphere. Some people have the temerity to speak foreign languages! And some of those languages have accents on their letters!! Even worse, some don't use English letters at all!!!

A decade ago, I was miffed that GitHub only supported some ASCII characters in its project names. There's no technical reason why your repo can't be called "ഹലോ വേൾഡ്".

Similarly, I'm frustrated that Mastodon (the largest ActivityPub service) doesn't allow Unicode usernames and has resisted efforts to change.

So I built a small ActivityPub server which publishes content from an Actor called @你好@i18n.viii.fi - it is only a demo account, but it works!

Some ActivityPub clients report that they are able to follow it and receive messages from it. Others - like Mastodon - simply can't see anything from it. Take a look at the replies on Mastodon to see which services work. You can also see some of its posts on the Fediverse.

What Does The Fox Spec Say?

The ActivityPub specification says:

Building an international base of users is important in a federated network.
Internationalization

I can't find anything in the specifications which limits what languages a username can be written in. But there are a few clues scattered about.

The user's @ name is defined by preferredUsername which is:

A short username which may be used to refer to the actor, with no uniqueness guarantees.
4.1 Actor objects

There's nothing in there about what scripts it can contain. However, later on, the spec says:

Properties containing natural language values, such as name, preferredUsername, or summary, make use of natural language support defined in ActivityStreams.
4. Actors

So it is expected that a preferred username could be written in multiple scripts. Which implies that the default need not be limited to A-Z0-9.

The ActivityStreams specification talks about language mapping.

Finally, the ActivityPub specification has some examples on non-Latin text in names.

So, I think that it is acceptable for usernames to be written in a variety of non-Latin scripts.

But What About...?

There are usually a few objections to "Unicode Everywhere" zealots like me. I'd like to forestall any arguments.

What about homograph attacks?

Well, what about them? ASCII has plenty of similar looking characters. I doubt most people would notice when a capital i is replaced by a lower L - and vice-versa. Similarly the kerning issue of an r and n looking like an m is well known. Are mixed language homographs more dangerous? I don't think so.

What if people make names that can't be typed?

Well, what if they do? Maybe not being found by people who can't type your language is a feature, not a bug. But, anyway, clients can let users search for other people, or copy and paste their names.

What about weird "Zalgo" text?

It is up to a client to decide how they want to render text input. The "problems" of strange Unicode combinations are well known. This is not a hard computer-science problem.

What about bi-directional text?

The spec makes clear this is allowed.

Do people even want a username in their own script?

I have no evidence for this. But I bet you'd get pretty frustrated if you had to switch keyboard just to type your own name, wouldn't you? In any case, why can't I have a username of @😉

What's Next?

If you build ActivityPub software, give some thought to the billions of people who don't have names which easily fit into ASCII.

If your software can see @你好@i18n.viii.fi and its posts, please let me know.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/internationalise-the-fediverse/

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@blog pachli via hometown doesn't find the account :/

computersandblues, (edited ) to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

i'm not sure where i found this but

https://piped.video/watch?v=RhSwBgF-g4I

computersandblues, to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

i want to sign something from my clipboard, and copy the result into my clipboard again.

wl-paste | gpg --sign -u … --armor --output - 2>&1 | wl-copy

does not work. it doesn't print anything, but it doesn't copy either. leaving out wl-copy prints the signed message it to the terminal, all the extra stuff (--output - 2>&1) is added to tell gpg to please just use stdout, and i can pipe other command output into my clipboard. any idea why this fails?

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@jboy oh, this puts something into my clipboard! but it loses linebreaks

and man wl-copy says:

> wl-copy [--primary] [--type mime/type] [text...]
> wl-copy copies the given text to the Wayland clipboard. If no text is given, wl-copy copies data from its standard input.

is this just a bug?

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@jboy thanks :)

raf, to random
@raf@babka.social avatar

I'm continuing to do translation work and realising I could really use some UI/UX help. This would be a small paid project

:boost_requested:​

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@paupowpow ?

hungry_joe, to random
@hungry_joe@mas.to avatar

"Miyazaki absolutely eviscerating an AI art demonstration" is my new standard for measuring how badly my presentation went

image/png
image/png
image/png

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@hungry_joe ALT text: All four images are screengrabs from a video, set in a small room, with a small crowd gathered around a screen showing a video game.

Image 1: Facing the screen, looking over the shoulder of Miyazaki. The caption reads: "Nobuo kawakami, Chairman, DWANGO, Co., Ltd. (Japanese telecommunications and media company): This is a presentation of an artificial intelligence model which learned certain movements."

Image 2: The camera moved away from the screen, now showing Miyazaki's face, captioned: "I am utterly disgusted."

Image 3: Still showing Miyazaki's face: "I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all."

Image 4: Still Miyazaki: "I strongly feel this is an insult to life itself"

hisham_hm, to random
@hisham_hm@mastodon.social avatar

testing whether Air France's free "messaging" wifi includes Mastodon

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@hisham_hm hu… mastodon dot social only then? or do they check server headers?

computersandblues, to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@gwil heya! i see you use deno quite a lot. i like it, too, it feels like it's betting on web standards quite a lot, so maybe targeting deno means writing software that is by default quite portable. that would be nice! however, it's pushed by a vc-backed company that tries to make money using deno-kv and deno-deploy, so i'm a bit worried the next rugpull is right around the corner. any thoughts on that?

computersandblues, to random
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

i never knew the illustrations of "crafting interpreters" were so beautiful and cute (https://craftinginterpreters.com/a-map-of-the-territory.html#compilers-and-interpreters)

liaizon, to random
@liaizon@wake.st avatar

Been listening to internet radio lately with URL Radio (https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.jamal2367.urlradio) from @IzzyOnDroid via @fdroidorg

What are your favorite stations? Other then @radiofreefedi of course.

computersandblues,
@computersandblues@post.lurk.org avatar

@liaizon i like https://gds.fm https://cashmereradio.com/ and https://callshopradio.com/ as well :)

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