@julian@fietkau.social
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

julian

@julian@fietkau.social

Human-computer interaction #HCI, computer science & programming, home server & self-hosting, games and other fun stuff.

Increasingly into making tools for the fediverse: FediRoster, Pinhole, more to come(?). See https://fietkau.software/tag/fediverse for project info and downloads. If you do HCI-related research, check out https://directory.hci.social.

He/him. Posting mostly in English, but you might see the occasional German boost.

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

Edent, to fediverse
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

🆕 blog! “ActivityPub Server in a Single PHP File”

Any computer program can be designed to run from a single file if you architect it wrong enough! I wanted to create the simplest possible Fediverse server which can be used as an educational tool to show how ActivityPub / Mastodon works. The design goals were: Upload a single PHP file to the server. No […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/activitypub-server-in-a-single-file/
⸻

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@Edent Nice work! It looks similar to my own self-study one-file ActivityPub server in Python. I think the structure of the protocols lends itself to implementing single-actor servers as a learning experience.

I know you're saying it's quick & dirty in some ways, but if it's intended as a learning tool for others, do you want feedback on it? There's one bad assumption in there that I think would be better if it was cleaned up.

eniko, to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

hello i need people to link me to videos from video essayists talking at length about very old games. the more obscure the channel the better, since i watch a lot of these. it's for my mental health. thank you

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@eniko This one's pretty well-known and you may have already watched it, but for that prompt I can't not link it:

Ahoy – The First Video Game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHQ4WCU1WQc

jwildeboer, (edited ) to random
@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net avatar

PSA: Dear @snarfed.org@snarfed.org @snarfed - I hereby request that you remove my account @jwildeboer and any other account at social.wildeboer.net from your bridge. Please confirm. Thx. (not sent as DM, as I wish to make it public that I do not agree to your opt-out approach but have to do it this way.)

EDIT: context at https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/111921365604965429 and https://snarfed.org/2024-02-12_52106 also: I have now fediblocked everything brid.gy

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@jwildeboer Update on this: the bridge is now planned to be opt-in.

https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/835#issuecomment-1942046208

CerstinMahlow, to iOS
@CerstinMahlow@mastodon.acm.org avatar

Is it possible to text with other people using different messengers? You can use iOS iMessage with SMS and iMessage. But here I’m looking for communicating with a friend like this: he would use Signal and I stick with iMessage?

Reason: I don’t own a smartphone, my iPad has no SIM card, so Signal isn’t possible on my side. We already agreed on not using WhatsApp. Any other suggestions for iOS?

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@CerstinMahlow You're basically almost right on time with that question! 😉 When the Digital Markets Act goes into effect soon (May I think?), it will be mandatory for large messengers to be interoperable. https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/6/24063705/whatsapp-interoperability-plans-eu-dma

I run a Matrix server that I'm planning to use to talk to people on Signal and WhatsApp. Last I heard, Apple was still trying to weasel out of it for iMessage.

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@wuethrich I'm guessing you were typing this before you got my first reply. Again, I'm not going to be using bridges and I'm not going to have a Signal or WhatsApp account. I'm going to be using the native messenger interoperability mandated by the DMA, and Signal/WhatsApp are going to send their messages to my Matrix server knowing that it is a Matrix server. How they explain that to their users is up to them, maybe there'll be a popup warning.

Danc, to random
@Danc@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I think about this a lot whenever a new platform comes out. The modern UX paradigm seems to be about reducing the toolset and cognitive load of input and expression to the point of mere billable consumption.

Diversity and resilience comes from an ecosystem that embraces depth and flexibility.

Yes, I'm looking at you, Apple. Ex: Fingers are not the peak of human tool usage unless you are a toddler.

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@mhoye@mastodon.social/111890843048277464

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@scottjenson @Danc @edk Around 2006 some German HCI researchers investigated what makes an interactive system intuitive to use, concluding that it has more to do with familiarity (= ability to transfer existing domain knowledge into it) than simplicity. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.5555/1784197.1784212

One of the authors later taught HCI in Hamburg. It's where I picked up the notion that systems for professionals (of any kind) often look more like airplane cockpits than stove panels. Complex tasks beget complex tools.

Screenshot of the Bitwig 2 audio production software showing tracks, track groups, playback controls, equalizers, effect layers, synth controls, and more all on the same screen.

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@scottjenson @Danc @edk Their writing alludes to the responsibility of designers to foster capability growth instead of only aiming for the lowest common denominator, but stops short of making process suggestions.

I brought up the parallels to game design to Kindsmüller then. Somewhere I've got slides connecting the Mohs et al. IUUI model to @Danc's layers of mastery (https://lostgarden.home.blog/2007/02/04/one-billion-buttons-please-should-we-build-features-for-experts-or-newbies/). But he mostly waved me off. The guy never could find any room for games in his conception of design. 😄

Techaltar, to random
@Techaltar@mas.to avatar

My video about the Fediverse is finally live on Nebula & coming soon to YouTube!

A new internet is forming (&Meta wants to control it)

https://nebula.tv/videos/techaltar-a-new-internet-is-forming-meta-wants-to-control-it

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@Techaltar I enjoyed that, it seemed well-researched. Thanks for sharing from a first time watcher!

julian, to fediverse
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

I made a thing and it's public now: @DailyRucks And the corresponding web page: https://dailyrucks.fietkau.software

If you like the game Bastion or you enjoy what you find on the account, consider following and/or boosting it! I'm curious how well it'll perform in the wild.

This is a fully homegrown standalone implementation. 🙂 And hopefully a nice example for an ActivityPub learning project, as well as a stepping stone towards bigger things.

Blog post: :fietkau_blog: https://fietkau.blog/2024/daily_rucks

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@jenniferplusplus I'm not smart enough to offer ideas for solutions, but I did run into a few surprisingly specific oddities in other people's ActivityPub parsers while trying to achieve interop.

Come to think of it, I completely forgot to talk about this one in the blog post: https://iceshrimp.dev/iceshrimp/iceshrimp/issues/500 I thought that one was kind of emblematic for the type of stuff you run into. Lots of layers of syntax and validity for bugs to sneak in.

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

This is not my fault. Don't put this on me

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@mcc Unironically one of the worst error messages I've seen, and I've ranted against it before. Error messages have an emotional component. Whoever designed this one must never have done tech support for less computer-savvy people who genuinely get worried that they'd “broken” something.

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@mcc Unless things at reddit changed a lot since I reduced my time on it, it's a plain old server outage. It'd be a 500 or a 503 if it's honest, but I've never checked either.

flancian, to fediverse
@flancian@social.coop avatar

I'm surprised there seems to be very scant [[error reporting]] in the (meaning ActivityPub). I expected 'wrong'/misshapen activities to result in some kind of error reporting activity coming back to the source, but nope. Mastodon at least seems to just accept the activity and drop it silently on the floor later (unless you have access to its logs, which you don't for the vast majority of instances out there).

Does anyone out there do better?

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@flancian I've found the error responses I've gotten from Mastodon to be relatively good and specific for the most part. Although the interop part I struggled the most with was message signing moreso than AP. What do you mean by wrong or misshapen activities?

julian, to UI
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

This is a fun video by Mark Brown @gmtk on difficulty in Mario games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkvyYTSKTQY

Saying that interaction designers should learn from game designers is hopefully less controversial now than it was a decade ago when I started saying it. 😏 But if you've ever puzzled over points like

  • designing for people at different skill levels
  • facilitating growth
  • fostering motivation

and you don't know much about video games, try giving this a watch.

#HCI #InteractionDesign #UI #GameDesign

shauna, to random
@shauna@social.coop avatar

My biggest complaint about mastodon these days is how easy it is to miss things in the flood of posts. A good problem to have! But has anybody solved it?

A while back I made a list of accounts that I especially wanted to see updates from, but there's no way to filter out boosts from those accounts so it's still pretty unmanageable. You can filter out boosts from your home timeline, but not a list timeline, I'm pretty sure.

Any advice?

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@shauna @mcc I'm like... 75% certain I've seen someone work on a Mastodon client that looks pretty much exactly like that, but I don't remember who it was or how far along it is. I think it was brought up in a context of a conversation on what if a social media client looked more like an RSS reader. Maybe it was more of a concept.

@box464 @Damon Did either of you also see what I'm remembering, and perhaps know where to find it?

pieceofthepie, to fediverse
@pieceofthepie@n8e.dev avatar

Is anyone aware of any OSS project that enables Disqus like commenting on static file blogs powered by ActivityPub?

I've found https://github.com/oom-components/mastodon-comments and https://github.com/dpecos/mastodon-comments which are really close to what I envision.

What I really want is something more akin to the Wordpress plugin. i.e. a full integration with the protocol. A blog author that can be followed by a Mastodon user etc.

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@pieceofthepie Have you seen this one? https://blog.mauve.moe/posts/distributed-press-social-inbox I don't think it's plug and play for what you need, but I think it goes into the right direction.

jonny, (edited ) to random
@jonny@neuromatch.social avatar

so we have been batting around the idea of some kinda paper bot for awhile re: the question "how do we track discussions around scholarly work" and I am starting to think this paper-feeds project is the way to do it.

So say it is an AP instance and it has one primary bot user, you follow it and it follows you back. When you make a post with something that resolves to a DOI, then that post is linked to that work. Any hashtags used in that post are added to that papers keywords (assuming some basic moderation and word ban lists). Then keyword feeds are also represented as AP actors that can be followed and make a post per paper. I wonder if we can spoof the "in reply to" field to present all those posts as being replies to that paper.

So say the bot also has some simple microsyntax for linking your account to an ORCID - either directly in a profile field, or by @'ing the bot and checking a rel=me, or hell even oauth. Then you could also relate when the authors of given works talk about other works and use that as another proximity measure. Then you could make an author RSS feed/AP actor that is just the works someone publishes and optionally that they talk mention - so eg I could make an aggregate feed for the papers my friends are reading.

Then you could have instances of this feed generator follow one another and broadcast aggregated similarity information at a paper level not linked to personal information, and also opt-in info like the fedi account <-> ORCID link. Since youre on AP already you basically get that for free.

Thinking about what would be useful for social discovery of scholarly works, and there are a lot of really interesting ideas once you start actually yno doing it starting from a place of not having a product to sell or a platform to run so you avoid some of the scale and liability probs.

Edit: prior post here: https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/111688727690129033
And repo here: https://github.com/sneakers-the-rat/paper-feeds/
And ill start tagging these with but that last post has too many interactions to edit now

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@jonny Potentially pertinent re ORCID: it's possible to add various profile links to one's ORCID record, but they're a bit difficult to access programmatically.

It seems that when they built their site, they bet on one of those 2010s client side JavaScript frameworks that don't let you serve web pages with information already on them. So to access an ORCID record's data, you can't just fetch the page, you also need to run a virtual browser and execute their JavaScript: https://github.com/ORCID/ORCID-Source/issues/6668

julian, to Futurology
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

PSA for my colleagues returning back to work after the winter break: @mucConf, the biggest European HCI conference, has started a Mastodon account and will no doubt have plenty of interesting things to post over the course of the year. 🙂

They are also on https://directory.hci.social already. 👍 Remember to follow @directory_bot and enable notifications if you don't want to miss any new arrivals! 😀

PepperTheVixen, to firefox
@PepperTheVixen@meow.social avatar

There is one thing keeping me from switching to Firefox full time: the Chrome UI sounds extension. It makes a sound every time a new page loads or content updates. It's super helpful as a screen reader user when navigating very complex web apps. I tried repacking it for Firefox, but it won't run without some work. I'm looking at the sourcecode to see if I can make it work, but this is well outside my comfort zone. Anybody have resources for porting extensions from Chrome to Firefox?

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@FreakyFwoof @PepperTheVixen (Sorry, late reply due to parent comment boost by @kristinHenry)

Firefox and Chrome have an almost identical extension API. I just downloaded this extension from GitHub at https://github.com/LordLuceus/chrome-ui-sounds/ and plugged it into my Firefox - it works right away here, no changes to the code necessary.

Do you remember what problems you ran into, @PepperTheVixen? I think they should be quickly fixable. Maybe was just something about how Mozilla wants add-ons packaged.

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@FreakyFwoof @PepperTheVixen @kristinHenry Sadly the Git repository has no open source license specified, so as I read the situation the original author's permission would be needed to republish the code.

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@FreakyFwoof Are you adding it to addons.mozilla.org? If you download the zip file directly from GitHub, it has all the files inside of a subdirectory, so you need to extract and repack the contents so that manifest.json and all other files are directly in the root of the zip file. After that, the upload should work. 🙂

What I did earlier for testing was I added it to my Firefox as a temporary add-on via the debugging view, but that's a developer feature. Real installations gotta go through AMO.

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@FreakyFwoof Hm, strange! The zip file I repacked is at https://stuff.jfietkau.me/ui-sounds.zip if you wanna try that.

Another possible way would be to use the web-ext packaging tool, but unless you already know a lot about programming browser add-ons, that may be more complicated than it's worth.

There's packaging instructions by Mozilla here: https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/publish/package-your-extension/ on the off chance they'll tell you something you don't know yet.

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@FreakyFwoof Ah okay! Sadly no, it's not that simple. 🙂 Mozilla had trouble with malware distributed as browser add-ons for a while, so in current Firefox versions (outside of the developer channel) you can't just install an add-on locally, it has to go through https://addons.mozilla.org.

So you'd need an account there, upload the zip file, specify whether you want it to be public or not, and then download the resulting add-on. Which is kind of a gray area without the programmer's permission...

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@FreakyFwoof I went ahead and asked LordLuceus on GitHub: https://github.com/LordLuceus/chrome-ui-sounds/issues/2

They seem to still be active there, so that'll probably be a more fruitful path long-term. 🙂 If they don't feel like publishing a Firefox version, I'm hoping they'll at least give it an open source license so I can do it.

/cc @PepperTheVixen

davelester, to random
@davelester@fosstodon.org avatar

What are the best ways to discover Mastodon accounts that I may want to follow? Remember on the bird site?

Also: follow recommendations are welcome for all things open source software, developer communities, software supply chain security, and San Francisco!

julian,
@julian@fietkau.social avatar

@davelester Hi! I'm working on software for this. 🙂 Project description here: https://fietkau.software/fediroster

It's conceptually based on the "Sociologists on Mastodon" web app, but adds self-service opt-in list membership. It is used by https://directory.hci.social and https://fediverse.fans.

You can deploy it now, but if you're not in a hurry, I'm planning to make it much better over the next few months: https://fietkau.social/@julian/111674347300497688 Learning ActivityPub is a heck of a stepping stone, but I'm getting there. 😀

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