#cupofteasocial — Public Fediverse posts

Update to COTS with more collection stuff being implemented and design updates for 4.6.0

#cupofteasocial

Found out the reason for the recent surge in European account sign ups to COTS is from Fedi.garden as we appear to be top of the lists.

#cupofteasocial

We are £50 away from getting the goal for this months server bills.

Ive just done anther update and keeping an eye on a possible spam wave so its not as though im not earning this week.
If you can donate and have not yet please do.
It is very much appreciated.

#cupofteasocial

https://ko-fi.com/cupofteasocial

Restarted to fix explore

#Cupofteasocial

Did a late late night update to COTS to fix a few things and deleted 30GB of useless media either left over from over 14 days or just orphaned all together. Mastodon really doesnt clean it self up to well

#Cupofteasocial

Updated cots for the last 2 updates mostly a bunch of fixes and translation updates.

Im still struggling to make ends meet in terms of the rather hefty server bills that came out last week. Its been really busy on here so of course usage bills are up

If you can donate please do. I always appreciate it.

https://ko-fi.com/cupofteasocial

#cupofteasocial

Just added another 5952 Temp email domains to the blocklist

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/disposable-email-domains/disposable-email-domains/refs/heads/main/disposable_email_blocklist.conf

#cupofteasocial

Do you ever find yourself going down a rabbit hole just to do something simple ? Putty wouldnt allow a large amount of text being pasted so gone in directly to the server and now add 123 email domains the AI Slop used to sign up to the block list.

#cupofteasocial

Discovered this morning that the spam AI Slop had a human signing up and then inviting the AI Slop as a way to circumvent the Approval sign ups.

Finally managed to ban outright the main culprit email system smtp.oneb.net

Someone is spending an entire data centres output into getting AI accounts singing up to Mastodon. Really i could do with white list options for email domains instead at this point

#cupofteasocial #mastoadmin

Just absentmindedly put 2 spoons of sugar in my tea instead of 1. ☕️

It was delicious.

That is all.

#CupOfTeaSocial #tea

Seems like the server provider is resolving the overcharge of last months invoice FINALLY. Cloudflare media bill went out yesterday.

Not many updates on the run up to 4.6.0 stable but COTS is in approval only mode due to the same AI spam having a go. Nothing I can do can mitigate as they seem to sign up with a different IP and email domain every time. Makes me wonder how many MX servers they're using up with this rubbish.

Anyway if you can do donate i'd appreciate it as always and thank you to those that already do.

https://ko-fi.com/cupofteasocial

#cupofteasocial

Updated COTS with a few front and backend changes. More with collection to followers and new compose method.
Patch notes are only available on version differences.

#cupofteasocial

Updated COTS. Follow Collections are in. Better translations and alot of backend stuff updated.

#cupofteasocial

Started a goal for May's Bills if you can please donate.

May's Bills look to be a little higher with extra hosting costs. Im having to deal with slow customer support from a recent overcharge which I hope is resolved before the next months invoice is sent to me.

Other than that its the usual work of updates. The main server seems to handling the work load well of COTS since I personally moved to linux leaving the 2 sidekiq VMs behind.
Still dealing with spam accounts but alot less now

https://ko-fi.com/cupofteasocial

#cupofteasocial

Updated COTS to 4.6.0 Alpha 7

Changelog

Security

Insufficient verification of email addresses (GHSA-5r37-qpwq-2jhh)
Updated dependencies

Added

Add trademark warning to mastodon:setup task (mastodon#38548 by @ClearlyClaire)

Fixed

Fix definition for quote in JSON-LD context (mastodon#38686 by @ClearlyClaire)
Fix being unable to disable sound for quote update notification (mastodon#38537 by @ClearlyClaire)
Fix being able to quote someone you blocked (mastodon#38608 by @ClearlyClaire)

#cupofteasocial

Late night update to improve things.
I have removed the goal for April since we met already but of course any donations towards COTS is greatly appreciated.

We didnt get anything from the pledge drive the other day.

https://ko-fi.com/cupofteasocial

#Cupofteasocial

Updated COTS again but its mostly updates to backend stuff

#Cupofteasocial

Quick update to COTS to fix a few things

#cupofteasocial

Does anyone have plans for Easter Sunday? I've no real plans -- when I was a child, sometimes my grandma or mom would help me and my cousins decorate real eggs which would then be hidden all over the yard for us to find. I've also experienced plastic eggs filled with candy hidden around a playground. Children would carry around baskets or bags they would fill with whatever eggs they found & they got to keep the candy. Any children who found none, would be gifted several from the event staff. No one was left out. What are your traditions?

:teacupbunny:

#culture #eastersunday #eastertraditions #cupofteasocial

Big update to profiles on cupoftea.social now with the latest update Hashtags that the user posts are at the top to show what they are into.

#cupofteasocial

Started a new goal as I need to have this met by the 18th of April so im asking on payday today to help get this sorted as its Record Store Day then and these bills already come out at the start of the month.

March was a tough time for me with the sheer amount of AI Slop trying to sign up and having to mitigate it in both IP and email filters. Every time you'd think you'd block an IP range and Email domain they'd just make a new one.

Server costs are the same however we're coming to the end of 1 servers commitment with the hosting company so I need to look at that.
So please help keep the lights on at COTS

Thanks !

https://ko-fi.com/cupofteasocial

#cupofteasocial

Seemed it just needed a restart. Feed fixed. #Cupofteasocial

Seems we're back with the bug that stops new posts showing in Advanced UI. ill try and fix ASAP

#Cupofteasocial

Nice fresh update on COTS to 4.6.0 Alpha 6 which brings in all the changes and updates with 4.5.8

Changelog can be found here
https://github.com/glitch-soc/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.5.8

#cupofteasocial

Whilst adding the servers to my new linux desktop still using putty as its ubuntu > arch so it would be confusing otherwise. Ive also done an update to the servers. Im also stopping the 2 local Virtual machines that helped with sidekiq because I dont think its needed with the high end main server we're running now.

Ill see how it goes. I can always spin up a local sidekiq now if i want now im running Linux

#Cupofteasocial

For #caturday, Fiction & I would like to share this memory from his first year with us, back in 2017. Fiction can "talk" in that he knows how to tone his meows to sound like English words. One of his favorite things back then was our bathroom mirror. He'd stand at the sink, stare into the mirror, and make meows that sounded all the world like, "Who's that!!??" followed by a shocked, "It's me?!?!" and then he'd start watching himself in the mirror, clearly impressed with his reflection, as he should be. We're living in a different home now, and he's no longer the only cat, but still so inquisitive and a very special part of our lives.

#caturday #cat #cupofteasocial

I've saved this one for a couple weeks -- I think it's hilarious. The cat is Jean Grey & the dog is Pepper Pawtts.

#dog #cat #catsofmastodon #dogsofmastodon #cupofteasocial

Updated Cupoftea.social to the latest merge. Fixes and updates to many things https://github.com/glitch-soc/mastodon/commits/main/

#cupofteasocial

Another quiet month. March bills were £177 this month. Still doing updates to the servers and doing alot of spam mitigation.

So its whatever you want to donate as the servers bills are already sorted thanks to last months generous donations.

https://ko-fi.com/cupofteasocial

#cupofteasocial

Lifted the limit on mstdn.party as the admins been in touch and now has rules in place to stop the spam

#cupofteasocial

Going to end up with 530 Tea bags of various ones from Tea-and-coffee.com for £36 !

Enough Tea to sink a ship in Boston Harbour that.

#TeaTalk
#Cupofteasocial

I really went through the 80 Yorkshire gold since surgery a month ago. 80 box i bought on the Thursday before now gone. 40 mugs of tea.

Might try some other tea. Any recommendations ?

#Cupofteasocial #TeaTalk

Wow the bills really increased with the amount of activity on COTS now. The hardware upgrade needed to handle the traffic was more than I thought at £100 so ive adjust the goal

https://ko-fi.com/cupofteasocial

#COTS #Cupofteasocial

We just sold our first Pride month T-shirt

https://www.ko-fi.com/s/67c8104f51

#Pride #COTS #Cupofteasocial

Yay I’m in the club! #NowPlaying a nice cup of tea #COTS #CupOfTeaSocial

I'd like to do a bit of charity drive to be honest. So im not giving the Manchester Dogs Home £10 each time.

Lets see if we can get £100 in this week for the doggos that need a home.

https://ko-fi.com/cupofteasocial/shop

Please help and boost.

The charity does good work and is local to me.

https://dogshome.net/

#Charity #charitydrive #Cupofteasocial

Been on here a while now so about time I posted about a cup of tea!

Yorkshire Tea for Hard Water (I live in The Cotswolds) is a game changer. Lovely tea bags. I usually only get a good cuppa from loose tea but these really do make a difference to our stupid water.

#CupOfTea #CupOfTeaSocial

Happy #NationalTeaDay #Cupofteasocial

I drunk my own weight in tea queuing for vinyl Friday night. I keep forgetting about this every year and we should have done something. But I was awake for 40 hours in the end yesterday. So I'm just going to rest with a cuppa today.

I’m stealing the shelves from the fridge. What are you stealing?

Text reads: You're a burglar. But you can only steal things that mildly inconvenience your victim's. What are you taking? I'm stealing the plate that goes in the microwave.

Please boost for more suggestions.

#thief #playalong #mastoGame #burglar #PlayByMail #game #CupOfTeaSocial

Time for a #CupOfTeaSocial #QuizQuestion! Only 4 cities in #Germany have a population of more than 1 million people*. Berlin, Hamburg and Munich are 3 of them, which of the options in the #poll below is the 4th?

* Note that this only refers to residents of the cities themselves, not their wider conurbations.

Some disappointing news to report to the #Cupofteasocial family...

We've lost @Clare_Dawn_09 to The Bad Place! :blobcatpensive:​

She didn't quite make a full week here despite my best efforts to show her the ropes - as far as I'd learnt them myself - and encourage her to get involved, tagging her in this & that, pointing her in the direction of stuff I know she likes, brightening up her bio for her etc etc...

She boosted one of my posts, liked a few others, found a couple of accounts to follow and her #WhatThreeWords single toot from her first day is above this. Three words in one solitary toot. Done. :blobcatwhat:​

She'd rather argue with trolls🧌& get drowned by adbots🤖- some addictions just too tough to kick, I guess...🤷​

I have failed the #fediverse and for that I shall hang my :mastodon:​ trunk in shame... :blobCat_tear:​

:blob_tea:
8pm is cupofteao'clock round here, so I thought I'd do my #MugShot for the #CupOfTeaSocial especially as this & minestrone soup went down well after another evening of soaking wet #DogWalking

Black tea, no sugar in a 16oz enamel camping (aka everyday) mug that has lived a life of ahem 'thorough' cleaning after each use.

#KeepCalmAndCarryOn typically a personal mantra but feeling more like advice to survive the world's hellfire these days... :thisisfine:​

In the background is @Clare_Dawn_09 who's profile has had a glow-up thanks to yours truly last night...🦣🐘​

ps. my 1st effort at #AltText as I had been reading up on it since joining #Mastodon

The only #mugshot I care about today is this #MarsAttacks #mug from #SpiritHalloween

#Cupofteasocial
Sorry. Not tea tonight. I'm pretending it is cooler than it is and I made some #HotCocoa

It's #CupOfTeaSocial #QuizQuestion time! The surname Loomis pops up a lot in horror film franchises, including Halloween and Scream. In both those cases the name is an homage to a character in which classic Alfred Hitchcock movie?

#quiz #trivia #MovieQuiz

It's #CupOfTeaSocial #QuizQuestion time! Although I'm not great at solving them, I do enjoy a UK style cryptic crossword. According to the Guinness Book of World Records the first entirely cryptic crossword was published in the Saturday Westminster Gazette in 1925, written by Edward Powys Mathers. He's much better known by his pen name - what is it?

#quiz #trivia #crosswords #crossword #crypticCrossword

Morning all on #CupOfTeaSocial and beyond! Sorry I've been away for a while, lots going on. Will hopefully be restarting the daily #QuizQuestion properly shortly, but in the meantime here's a #scrabble #question for you:

Playing the official UK/US English language version (tiles and board), how much would you score in Scrabble if you started a game with the word “Quiz”?

#trivia #WordGames

It's #CupOfTeaSocial #QuizQuestion time! A surprising number of successful TV shows over the years have been spin offs from other shows. Three spin offs are listed in the #poll along with one original - which is it?

#quiz #trivia #TVShows #TVQuiz

It's #CupOfTeaSocial #QuizQuestion time! As well as both being president of the USA, Ulysses S Grant and Harry S Truman share a middle initial. What does it stand for?

#quiz #trivia

It's #CupOfTeaSocial #QuizQuestion time! Which letter links a star of Steptoe and Son, a member of Steps and a criminal mastermind from Line of Duty?

#quiz #trivia