danyork

danyork, 11 months ago to ai

“SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?” It was 40 years ago today, on June 3, 1983, when “War Games” was released in the US, giving us all a taste then of the dangers of giving full control to #AI systems. Watching the trailer now, it’s fun to hear all the modem sounds and everything else:

https://youtu.be/TQUsLAAZuhU

(More about the film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames )

I was in high school at the time, and was dialing into BBS’s and services, so I absolutely loved the film. 40 years!!!

#WarGames

danyork, 5 months ago to fediverse

Advocates for #ActivityPub - IF YOU HAVE A #WORDPRESS SITE, have you installed the ActivityPub plugin? https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/

At the State of the Word address this week, Matt Mullenweg was asked about support for the plugin, and he commented that less than 5,000 sites had installed it. So he wasn't sure how interested people are in it.

So... if you have a WP site, let's start installing that plugin and making more sites available via ActivityPub! 😀

#StateOfTheWord #SotW

danyork, 10 months ago to Evernote

Given all that is going on with #Evernote laying off its US and Chile staff and moving all work to Europe (see https://www.techmeme.com/230709/p7#a230709p7 ), I'm SO glad that I moved my notes over to #Obsidian back in March!

If it helps anyone, here are my notes about what I did to migrate from Evernote to Obsidian: https://www.danyork.com/2023/03/after-almost-15-years-saying-goodbye-to-evernote-and-moving-to-obsidian.html

danyork, 5 months ago to threads

It's great to see that #Threads is getting serious about offering #ActivityPub integration so that communication can happen with #Mastodon and the broader #Fediverse.

We NEED open, interoperable protocols that for this kind of communication and interaction. It's a key way to unlock the walled gardens that control so much of messaging.

And it's great to see a company the size of Meta getting behind ActivityPub. Kudos to the teams involved.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/13/24000120/threads-meta-activitypub-test-mastodon

tip @Techmeme

danyork, 7 months ago to fediverse

So, anyone have tips for installing the #ActivityPub plugin on a #WordPress multisite installation?

I have it working fine on a single WordPress instance, but I'm having a challenge on a multisite setup.

On the multisite server, in the primary site, I've installed and activated the AP plugin, but it's not working, and in Site Health I see:

> WebFinger endpoint is not accessible

> Your WebFinger endpoint https://danyork.me/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:danyork@danyork.me does not return valid JSON for application/jrd+json.

Any ideas?

danyork, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago) to firefox

If for some reason you are still using #GoogleChrome, now is a really good time to look at using other web browsers!

I’m a very happy #Firefox user, and if you haven’t looked at FF for a while, I’d encourage you to give it another look. Newer versions are faster… and they actually respect your #privacy !

From: @malwaretech
https://infosec.exchange/@malwaretech@infosec.exchange/111019619190896517

danyork, 8 months ago to random

Anyone have pointers to good recent articles or papers about the “paywalling of the web”?

I’m increasingly concerned that many of the good, informative, factual news articles are being put behind paywalls (or at least “registration walls” / “regwalls” where you have to login to see it), while the articles that are less accurate or are actual misinformation / disinformation are freely available.

I’d like to do some writing on the topic, but don’t want to duplicate what others have said.

1/2

danyork, 9 months ago to internet

Two more questions that I would love to hear perspectives about (either or both):

1- what do you see as the biggest ways the #Internet potentially contributes to #ClimateChange ?

2- what do you see as the ways the Internet can help address #climate issues or find solutions?

For me I think for 1 it’s the general need for electricity, and specifically power(and water)-hungry data centers. For 2 it’s remote working, and the sharing of ideas, research, sensors.

#ClimateCrisis #ClimateSolutions

danyork, 7 months ago to random

Not a happy way to end an otherwise good day. I had many applications open and my iMac wasn’t being very responsive, not even to let me kill off apps. So eventually I gave up and held down the power button to force it to restart. Now when it restarts, the progress bar gets about halfway across… and just stays there. 🙁

I have tried restarting it again and.. same thing.

Any suggestions from other iMac or Mac users?

(It’s a 2017 iMac running IOS 13.something)

danyork, 1 year ago to fediverse

Very useful analysis from @mmasnick about #Mastodon, #BlueSky, and #nostr .. and #decentralized messaging in general.

#Decentralization is critical to prevent the kind of mess and chaos we are seeing with Twitter right now.. and have seen with other sites, too.

From: @mmasnick
https://mastodon.social/@mmasnick/110278258978335092

danyork, 9 months ago to Starlink

Good piece in the NY Times about Elon Musk’s #Starlink but it only lightly mentions WHY he is in this dominant position - #SpaceX is the only one reliably launching rockets at scale into #LEO right now!

• United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan Centaur is repeatedly delayed
• Arianespace’s Ariane 6 has been delayed for years now

Neither may first launch until 2024, & then they have to grow to launch at the scale needed.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/28/business/starlink.html

Tip @Techmeme
1/
#InternetAccess

danyork, 9 months ago to random

Random question - if you are involved with a community center, a recreation center, a senior center, or some kind of similar local center that offers programs, classes, etc…. do you know what software system/ package/ site/ service they use for managing their classes, registrations, members, online payments, etc?

Purely for my own interest (not work-related or anything else), I’m just curious to learn more about the landscape of what software is available in that space.

1/2

danyork, 3 months ago to random

Was amazed by the #Duolingo “league” that I wound up in yesterday. The leader did 4,280 “XP” (experience points) in ONE DAY. 🤯

To understand why this is amazing, each language lesson in Duolingo is typically worth 10-20 XP. With bonuses and rewards some can get to 40, 50, or 80 XP.

To get to 4,280 requires a HUGE number of lessons and investment of MANY HOURS of time!

A mind-blowing amount of work.. clearly someone is extremely focused on learning a new language! 😲

danyork, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to climate

A question: lately I've been giving some thought to the impact of #climate change on the #Internet 's actual infrastructure - and I'm curious... what do YOU see as some of the potential impacts to the Internet?

An obvious one is that rising sea levels could drown out landing stations for subsea cables. Another is that droughts can reduce the water available for cooling data centers.

What are some impacts that you see?

#ClimateChange #Environment

danyork, 9 months ago to Canada

This is one of those “DUH!” moments when the government of #Canada realizes that yes, indeed, imposing a TOLL on all news links means that there is no financial incentive for companies to allow those links! 🤦‍♂️

Meta and Google were both very clear that it would not make financial sense for them to continue offering news. The Canadian government thought they were bluffing.

Oops!

https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-starts-process-end-news-availability-canada-2023-08-01/

#OnlineNewsAct #CanadaOnlineNewsAct

danyork, 8 months ago to threads

So Meta's #Threads gets #search capability. Just tested it out and it works as you would expect.

Of course, implementing search on a centralized system should be a relatively simple matter.

Much harder in our decentralized Fediverse!

danyork, 1 year ago to internet

Because I always like to experiment.. and because someone gave me an invite code 🙂 ... I'm also over on #BlueSky as https://bsky.app/profile/danyork.bsky.social

I expect I will continue to focus my social activity here on Mastodon, but I always like to try out new services to see how they work. 😀

My immediate first reaction was that I felt constrained by only having 300 characters! 🤣

danyork, 2 months ago to internet

What's going with the Internet in western and southern Africa right now?

A lot of the region is currently experiencing Internet outages. @radar and IODA are both tracking the outages:

• https://radar.cloudflare.com/outage-center
• https://ioda.inetintel.cc.gatech.edu/dashboard/?from=1710340628&until=1710427028

(hat tip to @dbelson for his great CloudflareRadar work!)

There are multiple reports on Twitter/X about "subsea cable cuts" from telecom companies... but even they are not definitive.

Anyone seeing clear statements?

#Internet #InternetAccess #InternetOutages

danyork, 9 months ago to Canada

Regarding Canada's terrible #OnlineNewsAct. @mmasnick nails it over on TechDirt:

After Canada Starts Taxing News Links, Canadians Are Upset That They Can’t Follow News Of Wildfires On Facebook -

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/18/after-canada-starts-taxing-news-links-canadians-are-upset-that-they-cant-follow-news-of-wildfires-on-facebook/

#Canada #LinkToll #LinkTax #Meta

danyork, 6 months ago to random

That moment when you need to take the spark plug out of your snowblower… and you know that there is a special socket-thing to take out spark plugs… and you know you have one.. but you have NO IDEA where it is because you haven’t used it in many years… 🤦‍♂️😃

danyork, 11 months ago to random

Where are the flying cars that we were promised decades ago?

(Said after driving 5 hours to and from a family gathering in the pouring rain! (2.5 hours each way.))

danyork, 4 months ago to random

That moment when you finish writing a thread of 5+ long posts… and realize… that could have been a blog post! 🤦‍♂️

I mean… don’t get me wrong… I think long threads on Mastodon can be great. And there is value in telling stories that way.

But it is again putting your content on someone else’s platform, and even if it is a good platform like Mastodon, it still could go away.

I believe the answer is to do both. Publish it on your own site (i.e. POSSE) and then serialize it as a thread.

danyork, 7 months ago to random

When you need to be up at 3:30am to do a Zoom call into an #IGF2023 session in Japan about #LEOs , and your regular office (with its ceiling-mounted green screen) is right next to the bedrooms where family members will be sleeping… it’s time for … basement green screen setup! 😃

#LivingTheGlobalLife #Timezones #IGF

danyork, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago) to random

How do you all keep up with ALL the news about “AI” that is exploding every single day? (If you have sources you trust that work for you, could you please leave them as replies to this message?)

danyork, 4 months ago to random

Happy penultimate day of 2023!

🎉🎉🎉

(Saying that purely to use the word “penultimate” 🤣, which is a fascinating word to me… I mean… why did someone ages and ages ago decide that we needed a word for the “next to last” item in a series? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/penultimate )