more stuff

content/_dump/fedi-threads-to-republish-as-articles/aspects-circles-audiences-vs-lists-vs-collections.md

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+2017-11-12 13:43 | https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/98991746572627131
+
+problem with diaspora*'s aspects (and by extension, Google+ circles which aped it) is that it's a bidirectional metaphor for a unidirectional relationship. you're supposed to pick who can see a post, but they might not even follow you. I would understand if instead it functioned and was advertised as a way to split your timeline into multiple timelines. As is, sharing to aspects/circles/etc. is needlessly confusing.
+
+although having a way to tag/categorize your own toots could come in handy as well, if you post about multiple disparate topics. it's a nightmare to maintain one Twitter account per interest/community.
+
+---
+
+2017-12-17 09:55 | https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/99189033326279405
+
+unrelated thought: been trying to hash out a solution to the "multiple accounts" issue with social media. namely: why/when do people use multiple accounts, and what features can be implemented to reduce the friction in using just one account? would appreciate feedback.
+
+off the top of my head:
+
+- private vs public accounts for trusted people (answered by privacy options on toots)
+- multiple interests (not really solved currently; perhaps implementing a tag system and letting people mute certain tags? Diaspora*-style aspects can get complicated)
+- separate identity (unsolvable and would be insecure to attempt with one account)
+
+wrt multiple interests, this really is my biggest pain point with ANY social media (coming from someone who has had like 15 birdsite accounts at once)
+
+perhaps not exactly tags, but having a category system like google+ would be nice and perhaps easiest to manage when considering tootboosts. but this also might complicate the issue? nevertheless, it could be optional (default behavior would be to boost to your profile, no categorization involved)
+
+the tag approach would be easiest for your own toots, but the categories wouldn't be too bad and would also allow for separating different boosts

content/_dump/fedi-threads-to-republish-as-articles/deactivating-twitter.md

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+2017-12-20 10:53 | https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/99206247716252048
+
+I just deactivated some really old accounts I had on birdsite, ones I'd stopped using years ago, but had left up as a sort of archive... The last relics of a bygone era, of a personality long dead... A mark of my former selves.
+
+Makes me think about the fact that nothing is truly forever, not even the internet and the data we think will last forever. At some point, the final copy of any given data will be deleted. Or it will lose relevance. Or it will slip into obscurity.
+
+Of course, it was already not as I had left it. Accounts I had once conversed with, deleted. Maybe some of those people met the same fate as their accounts. Who knows? A lot changes in three years.
+
+I can't back up the DMs that have been deleted, and the only copy of the replies are in the notification emails sent out to an inbox of a Gmail I'd long forgotten I had.
+
+Kind of a heavy feeling.
+
+The pictures will be gone in 30 days, but I can't help but think of the pictures lost forever from Twitpic or Yfrog or all of those other image hosts we all used before image hosting became a standard part of any web app.
+
+---
+
+2018-03-07 04:05 | https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/99640641359436224
+
+twitter's culture since 2014 has been so machine-oriented, they probably trust machines more than actual people. like "i don't want to hear what's wrong, i want to know what The Algorithm says is wrong"
+
+essentially, right around the time twitter decided it wanted to be a media company instead of a conversational platform. it cracked down on third party API usage, put in absurd 100,000-user limits, and started breaking everything that was good pre-2014.

content/_dump/fedi-threads-to-republish-as-articles/fcc-repeals-net-neutrality.md

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+2017-12-15 01:35
+
+Hey, remember when Comcast filtered P2P traffic including BitTorrent, Skype, and Spotify?
+
+Remember when AT&T blocked FaceTime and Google Voice on their network?
+
+Remember when Verizon throttled all video except mysteriously for their subsidiary go90?
+
+Because I remember.
+
+If you're celebrating today, then what you're saying is, it's a GOOD thing to have no legal authority to challenge ISPs when they pull the shit they clearly already did.
+
+Because that's literally all that happened in 2015, w/ forbearance
+
+In fact, Wheeler ONLY pursued the clauses of Title II that dealt with nondiscrimination (common carrier status), and didn't apply rate regulation or taxes or last-mile unbundling.
+
+He did this because Verizon successfully sued to prevent the FCC from using Section 706, and the judge told Wheeler he needed to reclassify as Title II.
+
+It should be obvious that the "free market" will not solve a problem created by the market. This is market failure, plain and simple.
+
+---
+
+Which rules "allow" ISPs to monopolize regions? ISPs collude to not enter markets, renege on coverage expansion contracts, and prevent competition by claiming ownership of the backbone.
+
+In fact, I would support taking it out of the FCC's hands entirely, so that people like Pai can't take us backwards at their whims as the political winds change. The Open Internet Order of 2015 which was just repealed was not too much. It was not enough. There needs to be an act specifically protecting the free and open internet, and repealing the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Among other acts...
+
+So pardon me for thinking the decision today was not great. There's an overwhelming pile of evidence that Pai ignored wholesale in order to push an agenda that benefits the ISPs who simply want to profit more, users be damned.

content/_dump/fedi-threads-to-republish-as-articles/making-better-stuff-is-unprofitable.md

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+2017-12-22 12:06 | https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/99217860566004390
+
+Only to a certain extent. There will inevitably be a point where it is unprofitable to improve a product any further.
+
+i.e., if Apple's primary goal was to make useful products, it would make choices that result in a better product even if it was slightly more expensive. But their primary goal is profit, as it is for every corporation under capitalism. Making better stuff is unprofitable.

content/_dump/fedi-threads-to-republish-as-articles/stop-using-crossposters.md

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+2017-11-26 08:20 | https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/99069749589979672
+
+Stop using crossposters.
+
+Not to, like, force y'all to do something, but crossposters are self-defeating.
+
+It's far better to commit to a network rather than just make a carbon copy of yourself, because if you're posting exactly the same things, then what even is the point of having two networks?
+
+That's just unnecessarily redundant.
+
+I've been through this kinda rigmarole before when I tried using diaspora*, and the end result was that I completely abandoned it because I wasn't getting any meaningful interactions out of it compared to Twitter. Which was a shame, because I really liked diaspora*.
+
+The problem, of course, is that you will inevitably gravitate to whichever platform nets you more interaction. And crossposts really don't engender organic engagement. They feel robotic and distant, largely because they're just that
+
+---
+
+2017-11-30 13:36 | https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/99093644445157168
+
+ugh i really hope crossposters don't slowly choke mastodon like they did to diaspora*
+
+if you're just crossposting everything you tweet on birdsite then what even is the point of making a mastodon account? that's glorified spam at worst, and a recipe for abandonment.

content/_dump/fedi-threads-to-republish-as-articles/why-read-theory.md

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+2018-01-27 08:44 | https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/99420908783601966
+
+the point of reading theory is to see what ideas other people already came up with, so you don't have to spend time formulating them yourselves. like... you start out with political beliefs and experiences, but they can always be solidified if you have a framework to contextualize them.
+
+and that doesn't really require discussion unless you want to or need more understanding, and it doesn't require organizing if you're not capable of it, and it really doesn't require voting since many people can't vote and many voting systems are designed to minimize choice. it feels wrong to say one *can't* be politically engaged unless one does these things

content/politics/neoliberalism.md

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++++
+title = "Neoliberalism"
++++
+
+neoliberalism is just largely a return to liberalism; the idea that govt's role is to help business, that markets can be used as a force for good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
+
+maybe best exemplified by thatcher, reagan, greenspan, clinton; the support of "free trade" agreements like NAFTA and TPP or organizations like the IMF or WTO; opposition to people like ralph nader in the 1970s; concepts like "the marketplace of ideas" or "soft power"; in short, everything is a market and the experts should decide the best policies to help the market

content/politics/voluntarism.md

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++++
+title = "Voluntarism"
++++
+
+## criticisms
+
+pursuing pure voluntarism as an ideology (and not simply an ideal) tends to ignore the realities of power imbalances. If two people are inequal, then they can never come to a voluntary agreement -- the power of one will coerce the other, even if subconsciously.
+
+Consider whether one can "voluntarily" become a slave. Or, more relevant today, consider the wage labor system. Is it truly "voluntary" if your food, shelter, and very survival depends on such a "voluntary" arrangement?
+
+The cold reality is that voluntarism is merely idealism so long as any social class or hierarchy exists. Maybe some prefigurative politics are necessary, but you have to push for progress without 100% support or you'll wait forever.

content/tech/spec/activitypub/confusion/Link-as-qualified-indirect-reference.md

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++++
++++
+
+<https://github.com/w3c/activitystreams/issues/572>
+
+what does it mean to address a Link? why are Link nodes allowed for collection paging properties...?

content/tech/spec/activitypub/confusion/disambiguating-activity-by-shape-not-id.md

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++++
++++
+
+## what this affects
+
+whenever you embed a Follow, Block, Like, or some other activity where the original id isn't easily on hand, you can embed it as the `object` without an id. in such a case, the shape of the activity becomes semantically significant.
+
+for example, say you want to remove a follower. you typically do this with Reject Follow. but what do you do if you never stored the original Follow id? you embed it like so
+
+```yaml
+id: <some-activity>
+actor: <you>
+type: Reject
+object:
+  - type: Follow  # this has no id
+    object: <someone>
+```
+
+now ideally you probably *should* be storing the ids for everything... but eh, what can ya do.
+
+<https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues/384>

content/tech/spec/activitypub/confusion/public-addressing.md

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++++
++++
+
+<https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues/404>
+
+the Public == as:Public thing doesn't actually work unless you redefine all the addressing properties from `@type: @id` to `@type: @vocab` (which may have other consequences?) but in any case, `Public` is defined in a way that it does nothing
+
+furthermore because `as` is defined as a prefix, you will NEVER encounter `https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public` in a properly compacted document
+
+so the only correct way to do public addressing currently is `as:Public`
+
+## tangent: why are we doing pseudo-addressing anyway?
+
+why isn't this some other property or flag somewhere on the object? what is *really* being signaled by the public addressing? spec-wise, it's just that it's available to anyone without auth. so why not have some kinda `accessControl` property or `scope` or whatever, and have that explicitly be type:vocab, and define your scopes in there?

content/tech/spec/activitypub/ideas/closedBy.md

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++++
++++
+
+<https://github.com/w3c/activitystreams/issues/542>
+
+as:closed is defined as Object | Link | xsd:boolean | xsd:datetime
+
+the normative context explicitly types the value to a datetime
+
+solution: define `closedBy` as a term definition for as:closed but with `@type: @id`
+
+```json
+  "as": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#",
+  // ...
+  "closedBy": {
+    "@id": "as:closed",
+	 "@type": "@id"
+  },
+  // ...
+```

content/tech/spec/activitypub/ideas/orderedAttachment.md

@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
++++
++++
+
+<https://github.com/w3c/activitystreams/issues/537>
+
 problem: sometimes you want to have attachments in a certain order, but `attachment` is an unordered set by default
 
 solution: define `orderedAttachment` similar to `orderedItems`
@@ -7,7 +12,7 @@ solution: define `orderedAttachment` similar to `orderedItems`
 	"@context": [
 		{
 			"orderedAttachment": {
-				"@id": "https://...",
+				"@id": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#attachment",
 				"@type": "@id",
 				"@container": "@list"
 			}
@@ -17,4 +22,24 @@ solution: define `orderedAttachment` similar to `orderedItems`
 }
 ```
 
-you could maybe do the same for `orderedTag` but idk if that makes full sense bc `tag` is not really used for categorization so much... but if tumblr or a tumblr-like implementation wanted to order their tags then they have no way of doing so
+you could maybe do the same for `orderedTag` but idk if that makes full sense bc `tag` is not really used for categorization so much... but if tumblr or a tumblr-like implementation wanted to order their tags then they have no way of doing so
+
+if you don't do this, you can technically do this instead
+
+```json
+{
+  "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
+  "id": "https://example.com/object",
+  "type": "Note",
+  "content": "hello world, see attached in order",
+  "attachment": {
+    "@list": [
+	   "https://example.com/1",
+		"https://example.com/2",
+		"https://example.com/3"
+    ]
+  }
+}
+```
+
+this is basically just having the expanded jsonld left as-is

content/tech/spec/activitypub/shortcomings/resource-vs-procedure-call.md

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++++
++++
+
+> is there any idempotency in processing activities, either from a C2S or S2S perspective? I have seen it proposed (albeit semi-unseriously) that you could send multiple Follow or Like activities in order to represent a “super follow” or a “super like”. The only explicitly idempotent bit is the side effect of adding the object to an unordered Collection, which is technically a set and therefore theoretically can’t contain duplicates. A more “common usage” interpretation would hold that follows and likes should be idempotent, but there’s nothing actually establishing this one way or the other. The most naive implementation of, say, C2S or S2S Like, is to handle each Like separately if each activity uses a different id. It then follows that you could post 10 likes of the same object and subsequently undo 3 of those specific activities. And for what it’s worth, adding each activity to either a Collection or an OrderedCollection will not be deduplicated, because each of those activities has a different id. You’ll effectively need to add an implementation quirk that tries to dedupe activities by their shape rather than by their id, in which case… of what purpose is the id? Why bother looking up the original id at all?
+
+> I bring the previous paragraph/point as an example because I assume blocks are idempotent in “common usage”. If this is indeed the case, then perhaps this should be stated as explicit guidance, and all such “idempotent activities” should be identified clearly. But I can also foresee challenges in trying to establish a conclusive judgement on this. Look no further than Announce – on Twitter and Twitter-like systems, the “retweet” can only be performed once, but on Tumblr and Tumblr-like systems, the “reblog” can be performed any number of times, including in direct succession. Similar reasoning can be extended to pretty much any other activity type. In fact, if you treat all activities as generic posts or items in the “activity stream”, you might not care if someone does a Follow of the same person multiple times in a row. **There is a disconnect between each activity as a resource and each activity as a procedure call. I’m not entirely sure that this disconnect can be fully reconciled.**
+
+basically you are sending a resource and expecting it to be interpreted in such a way that it has side effects... but the side effects are underspecified. kinda makes you appreciate XRPC from atproto, huh