By @edent · ActivityPub mastodon Social Media · 19 comments · 250 words
Vague thoughts as they enter my brainbox. The BlueSky social network has introduced "Reply Gating" - it looks like this: You can write your hot take on Taylor Swift and not be inundated by weirdos replying to you. Nifty! This is nothing new. Twitter has it. Facebook has the concept of "audiences" to restrict who […]
Continue reading →By @edent · MastodonAPI Social Media Social Networks · 5 comments · 350 words · read ~282 times.
One of the reasons I'm still on the original Mastodon.social instance is that I am vain. I joined shortly after the project was announced and, as a consequence, I have a "joined" date of 2016 and a user ID of under 10,0001. This doesn't make me an "elder statesman" and is rarely useful beyond bragging […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Auth0 OpenBenches Social Media · 7 comments · 750 words · read ~383 times.
The inimitable Simon Willison has a brilliant presentation all about managing side projects: It is all good advice. But I gently disagree with the slide which says: Avoid side projects with user accounts If it has user accounts it’s not a side-project, it’s an unpaid job I get the sentiment. Storing passwords securely is hard. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · HowTo mastodon Social Media · 4 comments · 450 words · read ~907 times.
I do not care for the game of Rugby. After many wet and cold days on the school sports field, I had any latent enthusiasm for it beaten out of me. There is nothing you or anyone else can say which will convince me to take an interest in it. You may feel the same […]
Continue reading →By @edent · academia MSc Social Media yak shaving · 4 comments · 800 words · read ~3,094 times.
About a million years ago, I was discussing the FOAF (Friend of a Friend) ontology with its early proponents. It allowed you to define a machine-readable semantic relationship like "Alice is married to Bill" and "Bill is Carol's child" and "Carol works for David". That sort of thing. At the time, all the FOAF relationships […]
Continue reading →By @edent · arg Social Media twitter · 4 comments · 1,100 words · read ~331 times.
If you hang around on a social network long enough, you'll find the same tropes being repeated again and again. So, I thought I'd document some of the ones that I personally find annoying. This blog post is an extension of my moderately popular Twitter thread - with a bit more detail about why they […]
Continue reading →By @edent · linkedin Social Media · 6 comments · 400 words · read ~2,952 times.
Several years ago, I applied for my dream job. Not quite ice-cream tester on the International Space Station, but pretty close. I was astounded to get a first interview, and crushed to flame out at the second round. That's the way it goes sometimes. Better to have tried and failed than never to have tried […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Social Media · 3 comments · 700 words · read ~148 times.
All humans can be divided in two groups - those that love categorising things, and those that like criticising other people's categorisations. It seems that humans have an in-built desire to put things in firm categories. This causes a great deal of arguments. Let's have an argument today! Here's an excerpt from a recent IOPC […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Social Media twitter · 8 comments · 350 words · read ~347 times.
I received a rather distraught DM from a Twitter friend last week. They were upset that I was following an account which did nothing but spew out racist bile all day long. Did this mean that I endorsed their hateful views. I was confused. I didn't recognise the specific account, and didn't recall seeing any […]
Continue reading →By @edent · contacts Social Media Social Networks · 16 comments · 250 words · read ~340 times.
I don't have a great memory. I often meet people who remember me, but I don't remember them. I've had whole conversations with people who clearly know me, but on whom I've drawn a blank. My phone's address book has a "notes" field, and mine is peppered with little aide memoirs about the people I've […]
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