#internet-tech — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #internet-tech, aggregated by home.social.
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Why you can’t link to a podcast episode
The other morning I was spun off on a tangent. I was writing a blog post about a Godin/Koppelman podcast episode. I know full well you cannot link to episodes, so I just said the usual “go search…”
I sometimes give my blog post drafts to Claude.ai for critique. For this piece, it pointed out I should just link to the episode… cue my frustration. It’s a valid critique, and I don’t fault that Claude instance for not understanding the reality . . .
So we talked about it until it did understand. Then I told it to write me a prompt (because I didn’t want my writing critic going farther afield) for a Claude-code instance. It took Claude-code about 10 minutes to do the work, which I posted publicly for discussion:
Why you can’t link to a podcast episode
I particularly LOVE its list of sources; There’s so much great reading in there.
Its analysis actually surprised me. I had assumed this was a technical problem. It’s not.
There was a time when I’d make a web site, email people (eg James Cridland), and start trying to rally people into fixing something. But those days need to be behind me, I simply cannot take on another new thing.
My hope? Someone somewhere sees that topic over on the Podtalk Community. Learns something about the problem and gets energized to do something about it.
I love podcasting, but this isn’t a fight I can lead.
Maybe you can?
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#Claude #InternetTech -
Sometimes I consult for large corporations
So Verizon’s new CEO sent me an email…
Where shall I begin?
First — You can’t simply reply. I get it. It’s hard to have a mailbox on the Internet these days. So many bounces, to deal with (I’m serious.)
Second — So when you go to drag-select, copy and paste that “[email protected]” email address, you discover it’s not what it seems.
Pasting into your email client’s “To” field, you actually create a list of multiple recipients: The first recipient is “s”, then the second is “sampath”, etc—none of which are the email address you meant to copy and paste. So you have to type it into your email client. Not a big deal, but probably enough to stop most people. If they really cared, they’d just give us an
<a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>and let us just click or touch it, et voila!
Okay, but why can’t we copy and paste? Because in the HTML source in their email, it’s actually:
If you can read HTML, you see there are HTML entities jammed in various places in that email address. I had to lookup the entity
‌— that’s a Zero Width Non-Joining space. Meaning it’s not visible (“zero-width”) and it’s job is to keep whatever is left and right from “joining”… in the sense that complex characters can join to make a glyph— For example: An ‘a’ and ‘e’ can join to make the single character ‘æ’ if your language supports that. (But, of course, English does not have any joining characters at all.) I’m confident this is just an artifact of their bulk-email-sending composer software; it’s common for such things to “defend” an email address in the middle of text from harvesting looking for emails. So this wasn’t maliciousness on Verizon’s part.Third — …but it’s ironic that, in a message that contains, “It’s not just better service — we are setting a new standard, beginning today,” I have to flip between windows as I retype that email address.
Fourth — Because I’m a level-39 nerd wizard, I do reply to these things. (I mean, I start a new email message addressed to that email address.) And because we (said wizards) are quick to anger and regular Internet users (ie, Sampath) are tasty with ketchup, I send things like this…
I’ll followup when I get my 17.5%.
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#InternetTech #Snark #Verizon -
Long live the indie web, indeed
So, here’s something of a little manifesto or rallying cry:
- If you only spend your time on Facebook/Twitter/Medium then stream in, stream out – you’re going to get what you ask for. A fleeting set of stories loosely bound.
- So, spend time in the corners of the web. Subscribe to some newsletters. Bookmark some forums and blogs in your browser and show up regularly. It’s hard, there’s no stream. But you’ll start to find the mom & pop internet not the shopping mall internet.
- Dabble with your own space. Dabble with your own voice. Own your own platform.
- But don’t stop there – own your own distribution too! Build a newsletter. Build a messenger bot to alert people to new posts. Build your own stream. Create a shared delusion of showing up regularly.
Long live the indie web.
slip:4utoii1.
I was a frequent user of the Internet before the web. Today is vastly better than then. The web straight up kicks ass, and the web is not just alive and well, it’s flourishing. If you aren’t seeing great content, you simply haven’t yet figured out where to look for it. Go look. (Right after you go read the above, of course.)
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It makes no sense
Whenever anyone tells me that some platform is great, I always nod and think to myself … for now. For now.
slip:4uwobu1.
I don’t understand why no one else is saying this: Until I see anyone else running separate federation instances, it’s still just another monolithic platform. This again? If the AT Protocol (what Bluesky is built upon) is really great, how do I run my own instance to join the federation?
If you see only one instance, then it’s a platform. When you see multiple instances talking to each other, then it’s a protocol.
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#ActivityPubProtocol #ATProtocol #Bluesky #BobSassone #InternetTech #Mastodon
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Publishing while maintaining perspective
This is perhaps the greatest conundrum of our current technological era: the desperate need to connect with one another, because it is our only hope of survival; combined with the fact that nearly all the means of connection available to us are deeply—possibly irredeemably—fucked. Syndication, as I am currently experimenting with it, is then an effort to try and navigate that terrain, to find some productive way to play in the outskirts, to let the work out into the world while (hopefully) minimizing the misery that is reflected back.
~ Mandy Brown, from A peasant woodland
slip:4uaowi9.
Yes, to everything from Brown (and not just this particular piece.) Beautiful thoughts therein around why one should “publish own site, syndicate elsewhere (POSSE)”—my methodology since the beginning.
Unfortunately, the Internet went from “publishing your own stuff is difficult”, straight to “it’s easy to publish on platforms other people control.” To this day, it is still quite difficult to get your own domain name and begin publishing in a way that you control your own content. Worse, we went from people discovered and read your stuff (back in the “publishing your own stuff is difficult” era) to the now where no one can find or read your stuff regardless where you publish it (unless you pay money to the platform brunch-lords.)
Fortunately, if you have a little bit of time and a little bit of curiosity, you can still find everything that people are publishing.
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#InternetTech #MandyBrown #PublishingPlatforms #RSS #SocialNetworks
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#Technology #Tech #FutureTech #MobileDevices #Mobility Cardiff schools turn PSTN switch-off into opportunity for improved agility https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366603140/Cardiff-schools-turn-PSTN-switch-off-into-opportunity-for-improved-agility?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #InternetOfThings #InternetTech #IoT
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#Technology #Tech #FutureTech #MobileDevices #Mobility Project Gigabit continues pace with £190m broadband build contracts https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366598934/Project-Gigabit-continues-pace-with-190m-broadband-build-contracts?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #InternetOfThings #InternetTech #IoT
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#Technology #Tech #FutureTech #MobileDevices #Mobility Project Gigabit continues pace with £190m broadband build contracts https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366598934/Project-Gigabit-continues-pace-with-190m-broadband-build-contracts?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #InternetOfThings #InternetTech #IoT
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#Technology #Tech #FutureTech #MobileDevices #Mobility Lawyers and journalists seeking ‘payback’ over police phone surveillance, claims former detective https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366596018/Lawyers-and-journalists-seeking-payback-over-police-phone-surveillance-claims-former-detective?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #InternetOfThings #InternetTech #IoT
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#Technology #Tech #FutureTech #MobileDevices #Mobility Lawyers and journalists seeking ‘payback’ over police phone surveillance, claims former detective https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366596018/Lawyers-and-journalists-seeking-payback-over-police-phone-surveillance-claims-former-detective?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #InternetOfThings #InternetTech #IoT
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Back in my day
I think I’m doing better work than ever, and it is getting noticed, it just doesn’t tip the needle anymore. I’m not suffering for traffic, but “new” traffic is definitely coming from unusual and unpredictable places that are nearly impossible to capitalize on.
~ Brett Terpstra, from Back in my day…
slip:4utali1.
The root of the problem is simply that the pendulum swings. Back in my day (me saying that, although the “day” is the same as Terpstra’s) it took a bit of technical chops to really be using the internet. Those with the chops, also tended to build things; not necessarily build from scratch, but at least use the tools others built from scratch to build things. The big thing we all built was the Web. Today, people don’t much use the Web, and precious few still build the Web.
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#TECHSPO #TECHSPO2024 #TECHSPOSiliconValley #SiliconValleyTech #TechExpo #SiliconValley #CaliforniaTech #BayAreaTech #InternetTech #MobileTech #AdTech #MarTech #SaaSTech #EmergingTech #TechInnovation #TechTrends #RELIANOID #TechShowcase #TechNetworking #TechConference
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#Technology #Tech #FutureTech #MobileDevices #Mobility Parliamentarians warn of UK election threat from Russia, China and North Korea https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366586177/Parliamentarians-warn-of-UK-election-threat-from-Russia-China-and-North-Korea?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #InternetOfThings #InternetTech #IoT
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#Technology #Tech #FutureTech #MobileDevices #Mobility Parliamentarians warn of UK election threat from Russia, China and North Korea https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366586177/Parliamentarians-warn-of-UK-election-threat-from-Russia-China-and-North-Korea?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #InternetOfThings #InternetTech #IoT
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Dependency
So how can we develop more mindful use of our phones, and become less dependent on them?
~ Leo Babauta from, How to Break Dependence on the Phone – Zen Habits Website
slip:4uzebe1.
What do you want to do instead? …not just in terms of phone use, but in one’s life generally.
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In the beginning
Perspective is endlessly fascinating to me. What is it like to look back on decades of one’s own efforts? What’s it like to look back on one’s efforts if they’ve shifted the world?
Three and a half decades ago, when I invented the web […]
~ Tim Berners-Lee from, Marking the Web’s 35th Birthday: An Open Letter – World Wide Web Foundation
slip:4uwema1.
Well, that’s an ‘I’ statement with a little punch.
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A vast con
I’m frequently, acutely aware of the ephemeral nature of everything I create. As I’m writing—right this moment—I’m sitting outside. The notebook computer I’m typing upon has a display—the “lid”—which is maybe one quarter inch thick. It even feels thin when I reach out and grasp it on both sides between my thumbs and forefingers; Thin, like grabbing a pinch of salt feels thin. Visually, around the display I see the table, the lawn, a tree, a garden, a shed, then other trees, houses… an entire, real world that I could, in but a moment, stand up and move into. Then I grasp this little display… everything I create is “within” the pinch of my fingers… then I tip the display towards me, and glance behind the display… nothing I create is behind the display either… from the other side—say, a passer-by’s perspective—I’m just a person, hyper-fixedly staring into the other side of the small, opaque, grey rectangle they see.
We’re at the end of a vast, multi-faceted con of internet users, where ultra-rich technologists tricked their customers into building their companies for free. And while the trade once seemed fair, it’s become apparent that these executives see users not as willing participants in some sort of fair exchange, but as veins of data to be exploitatively mined as many times as possible, given nothing in return other than access to a platform that may or may not work properly.
slip:4uweae1.
But, boy howdy! what a universe is pinched into that thin, living, little square that I see, from my point of view.
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Personal liberation
I often remind myself that there’s nothing new under the sun. Of course, that’s not actually true, but it reminds me to temper my insanity. Enthusiasm is wonderful fuel for getting things done, but I’m too often sprinting up in the insanity range, rather than gleefully skipping along in the enthusiastic range. I digress.
Xanadu, the ultimate hypertext information system, began as Ted Nelson’s quest for personal liberation. The inventor’s hummingbird mind and his inability to keep track of anything left him relatively helpless. He wanted to be a writer and a filmmaker, but he needed a way to avoid getting lost in the frantic multiplication of associations his brain produced. His great inspiration was to imagine a computer program that could keep track of all the divergent paths of his thinking and writing. To this concept of branching, nonlinear writing, Nelson gave the name hypertext.
~ Gary Wolf from, The Curse of Xanadu
slip:4uwixa1.
I’ve spent a lot of time learning about, and tinkering with, personal knowledge systems. To my embarrassment, I don’t actually recall ever learning about Xanadu. I vaguely knew that the “hypertext” of the HyperText Transfer Protocol—the HT in the HTTP and HTTPS—wasn’t a fresh invention; The Web as we saw it invented did not also invent hyptertext. But I’d never seen this Wired article by Wolf.
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Technical debt
Everything goes in cycles, right? Back in the 90s, we became excited about “4th generation” programming languages. In short, programming is very difficult and so people write programs, and they write tools to help them write programs. Eventually, those tools are really just new programming languages… and the rising tide (lifting all the boats) has gone up a generation.
Today, with a few commands and a couple of lines of code, we can prototype almost any idea. All the tools that we now have available make it easier than ever to start something new. But the upfront cost that these frameworks may save in initial delivery eventually comes due as upgrading and maintaining them becomes a part of our technical debt.
slip:4uaiai2.
Keep in mind that the rising tide does not move the foundation layers at the beginning/bottom. There’s ever-increasing distance between the hardware at the bottom, and the “surface” of the rising tide at the top. Yes, sure, we refer to the increasing complexity of keeping all the stuff (from foundation to surface) maintained and working as technical debt.
The part that bends my mind is this: There’s more and more room (from the foundations to the surface) for an increasing number of people to find things (places in the layers, particular technologies) that they love. Yes, the technical debt increases… Yes, non-human intelligence is coming… But there’s more—every day—space in those layers for so many people (and non-humans) to find their passion and craft and art!
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#Technology #Tech #FutureTech #MobileDevices #Mobility How to optimise cloud security without budget blowout https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/How-to-optimise-cloud-security-without-budget-blowout?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #InternetOfThings #InternetTech #IoT
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#Technology #Tech #FutureTech #MobileDevices #Mobility Vonage boosts conversational commerce with GenAI https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366575793/Vonage-boosts-conversational-commerce-with-GenAI?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #InternetOfThings #InternetTech #IoT
