# Twtxt is an open, distributed microblogging platform that
# uses human-readable text files, common transport protocols,
# and free software.
#
# Learn more about twtxt at  https://github.com/buckket/twtxt
#
# This is an automated Yarn.social feed running feeds v0.1.0@72e53a9
# Learn more about Yarn.social at https://yarn.social
#
# nick        = @aral@mastodon.ar.al
# url         = https://feeds.twtxt.net/@aral@mastodon.ar.al/twtxt.txt
# type        = rss
# source      = https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral.rss
# avatar      = https://feeds.twtxt.net/@aral@mastodon.ar.al/avatar.png#adhtks6dfuyznp4bh2sbrsqbaf5zyn4wbabgij4rk3cjctxvr6ta
# description = Public posts from @aral@mastodon.ar.al
# updated_at  = 2023-03-25T14:59:05Z
#
2022-11-19T10:54:28Z	****
[@badgermind](https://mathstodon.xyz/@badgermind) Robin! :) How lovely to see you here. Welcome to the fediverse! Hope you’re keeping well :) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109370098874364508)
2022-11-19T10:48:47Z	****
I’m beginning to see quite a few “this is a positive space, there is no place for negativity here” style posts (especially by newer folks) so I want to hopefully clear something up:

This is also a space to be protected. From fascists, bigots, etc., and also from corporate capture (unless you want to watch it turn into what the greater web turned into. Some of us lived through that once. Would be nice not to again.) Opposing such things—and vocally if need be—is not a negative; it is a positive. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109370076509786642)
2022-11-18T18:53:18Z	****
BREAKING: [#Twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Twitter). Footage of [#ElonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ElonMusk) takeover leaks.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=usYvefDzOqQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=usYvefDzOqQ)

[#LeeroyJenkins](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/LeeroyJenkins) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109366319430387958)
2022-11-18T17:23:43Z	****
Welcome to the fediverse…

![:drake_dislike:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/010/715/original/ea422239911ae962.png) Corporations

![:drake_like:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/010/716/original/2509b6079b5e87f9.png) People

[#TwitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/TwitterMigration) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#corporations](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/corporations) [#people](https://mastodon.ar.al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109365967164071936)
2022-11-18T15:30:03Z	****
Funny when you think I was hanging out with Daniel ages ago without a clue who he was or what he’d done.

And to think how important his work is to the Small Web (and to privacy in general in the digital and networked age)…

PS. He also happens to be a lovely, humble guy and a very engaging and funny presenter. You can do far worse than to watch his talk from the conference we met at:

[https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html](https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html)

[#cryptog ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109365520184638161)
2022-11-18T15:16:05Z	****
Nice to see Node.js moving ahead with experimental ed25519 support in its implementation of the Web Crypto API without waiting for browser implementations. Can’t believe it‘s taken this long.

[https://nodejs.org/api/webcrypto.html#ed25519ed448x25519x448-key-pairs](https://nodejs.org/api/webcrypto.html#ed25519ed448x25519x448-key-pairs)

(Though it looks like it might be implemented in browsers sometime this decade too… [https://github.com/w3c/webcrypto/issues/196](https://github.com/w3c/webcrypto/issues/196))

Until th ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109365465269017803)
2022-11-18T11:04:07Z	****
I still think the talk I gave at The Conference in Malmö is one of my favourites, even though it was seven years ago.

If you want to understand why we do what we do and see how our work at Small Technology Foundation started and has evolved over the years, it’s well worth a watch (if I say so myself) :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbfvEBfHO-M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbfvEBfHO-M)

(Apologies for the YouTube link.)

TL; DR: a summary/review of it from Wired at the time: [https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ar ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109364474542694702)
2022-11-17T19:59:29Z	****
If you missed the live stream of Small is Beautiful today, you can now watch the recording:

[https://small-tech.org/videos/small-is-beautiful-24/](https://small-tech.org/videos/small-is-beautiful-24/)

(We talked about [#TwitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/TwitterMigration), the fediverse, and Small Web. We were also joined in the studio by [@erikkemp](https://tukkers.online/@erikkemp) who shared his experience in running a Mastodon instance in the Netherlands during the last few weeks.)

[#SmallIsBeautiful] ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109360917348063468)
2022-11-17T18:22:13Z	****
[@erikkemp](https://tukkers.online/@erikkemp) Oh, Erik, it’s you :) Sorry I didn’t recognise you in the stream when you joined :) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109360534863954579)
2022-11-17T15:36:31Z	****
We’re going to be live at 5PM Irish Time (UTC) with Small is Beautiful, discussing [#TwitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/TwitterMigration), fediverse, and Small Web. Join us! :)

Details: [https://small-tech.org/events/#next-stream](https://small-tech.org/events/#next-stream)

Watch live: [https://owncast.small-web.org](https://owncast.small-web.org)

You can also follow our Owncast instance from your Mastodon/fediverse account from the second link using the Follow button :)

[#SmallIsBeautiful](https://masto ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109359883297159716)
2022-11-17T14:29:31Z	****
[@ferreiros](https://mstdn.party/@ferreiros) May I just say that I love the hashtag in your bio. Welcome to the fediverse! :)

[#peopleNOTusers](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/peopleNOTusers) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109359619847492619)
2022-11-17T11:39:49Z	****
Note: I’m talking about design, not decoration.

What’s the difference? Have a watch: [https://vimeo.com/281704944](https://vimeo.com/281704944)

[#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design) [#decoration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/decoration) [#technology](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/technology) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#SmallTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallTech) [#BigWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigWeb) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109358952607827421)
2022-11-17T11:38:13Z	****
Simplicity in design is a revolutionary act.

[#technology](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/technology) [#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design) [#simplicity](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/simplicity) [#complexity](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/complexity) [#SmallTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallTech) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109358946277332572)
2022-11-16T15:01:17Z	****
OK, so the new edit feature in Mastodon 4 is really nifty :)

(It doesn’t lose replies, favourites, boost, etc. like delete + redraft did and you get a history of edits.)

[#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design) [#experience](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/experience) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109354082499281117)
2022-11-16T11:52:21Z	****
[@laura](https://mastodon.laurakalbag.com/@laura) (Also, if you want to, you can join us live in the studio tomorrow if you have questions or just want to chat. We’ll give out the studio URL during the stream. Just have your camera, microphone, and headphones ready.)

[https://owncast.small-web.org/](https://owncast.small-web.org/)

[#SmallIsBeautiful](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallIsBeautiful) [#liveStream](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/liveStream) [#SmallTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallTech) [#SmallWeb](https ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109353339518702627)
2022-11-16T11:50:27Z	****
Join [@laura](https://mastodon.laurakalbag.com/@laura) and me tomorrow at 5PM Irish Standard Time (UTC) for our monthly live stream, Small is Beautiful.

Topics: [#TwitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/TwitterMigration) and The Small Way: Authentication

Details: [https://small-tech.org/events/#next-stream](https://small-tech.org/events/#next-stream)

Watch live at: [https://owncast.small-web.org/](https://owncast.small-web.org/)

You can follow our Owncast server from your fediverse account to get updates when ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109353332051156942)
2022-11-16T11:01:26Z	****
Me: Ooh, Mastodon 4.x has translations.

Also, me: Ah, you have to edit a file on the server to enable them, which I can’t do with the managed hosting I have.

Another little smell that it’s designed for folks who run their own servers, not those who outsource that/smaller/single instances.

It’s not impossible to expose these things in the admin interface (also character count limit and even the flag to mark your instance as a single-person instance).

[#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#design](https: ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109353139359389613)
2022-11-16T10:58:01Z	****
I usually have Mastodon in the browser taking up one-half of my screen and since the 4.x updates, I’m having to run it at 67% in order to see the timelines and write a post at the same time. (Either that or expand it to fill the full width of my screen.)

Quite a regression (for me at least) in terms of the responsiveness implementation.

Also wondering why it doesn’t pick up my system colour scheme setting by default. 🤔

[#usability](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/usability) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastod ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109353125935681366)
2022-11-16T10:53:19Z	****
If you use GNOME and want a way to type emoji that works in all apps (not just those GTK apps that happen to implement the emoji picker), check out the Emoji Selector extension.

(Use <super><period> to invoke it from any app or use the top bar icon.)

[https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1162/emoji-selector/](https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1162/emoji-selector/)

[#GNOME](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GNOME) [#emoji](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/emoji) [#usability](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/usability) [#exper ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109353107421223264)
2022-11-15T20:05:20Z	****
“‘We are consulting closely with Poland and other allies. Estonia is ready to defend every inch of NATO territory. We’re in full solidarity with our close ally Poland,’ the foreign ministry said.“

[https://inkl.com/a/VPRnZVIMzxM](https://inkl.com/a/VPRnZVIMzxM)

This is not looking good.

[#russia](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/russia) [#ukraine](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ukraine) [#poland](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/poland) [#war](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/war) [#nato](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/nato) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109349615719237045)
2022-11-19T12:17:03Z	****
Ask not what the fediverse can do for you – ask what you can do for the fediverse.

(With apologies to JFK.)

[#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#TwitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/TwitterMigration) [#community](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/community) [#commons](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/commons) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109370423603288307)
2022-11-19T12:49:24Z	****
When I visit someone’s [@pixelfed](https://mastodon.social/@pixelfed) profile, I only see a “login” button, not a “follow” button that I can use to (remote) follow them from anywhere else on the fediverse.

Similarly, I don’t see any way to comment from my own fediverse instance (just “Login to like or comment.”)

Am I missing something?

(I know I can copy the URL into my instance’s search feature but that’s an entirely hidden gesture.)

[#federation](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/federation) [#fediverse](https://mastod ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109370550823605307)
2022-11-19T13:10:31Z	****
It feels like we need a standard remote follow flow for fediverse apps that exposes the functionality in profiles and replies, etc., to encourage federation and discourage the creation of app silos.

This might include standard copy/interface elements (a standard fediverse remote follow button and instructions that perhaps even mention browser extensions that make this seamless using intents).

CC [@dansup](https://mastodon.social/@dansup)[@Gargron](https://mastodon.social/@Gargron)

[#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109370633851917706)
2022-11-21T07:46:30Z	****
Ode to Not Watching the World Cup

[https://inkl.com/a/xoMGApHvVXv](https://inkl.com/a/xoMGApHvVXv)

[#Qatar](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Qatar) [#WorldCup](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/WorldCup) [#HumanRights](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/HumanRights) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109380684360899142)
2022-11-21T10:41:10Z	****
Today I learned you can show the git status for a specific directory simply by specifying it. e.g., for the current directory:

git status .

[#git](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/git) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#devTips](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/devTips) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109381371172938922)
2022-11-22T07:52:28Z	****
“Members of seven European teams, including England and Germany, wanted to wear them, but abandoned the plan after football’s world governing body said they could be punished with yellow cards.”

[https://inkl.com/a/oqBbNkUyXxy](https://inkl.com/a/oqBbNkUyXxy)

Goodness forbid you should suffer \*checks notes\* A WHOLE YELLOW CARD for standing up for human rights and social justice. May I just say, fuck these spineless teams and fuck FIFA.

[#fifa](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fifa) [#football](https://mastodon.ar.al/ta ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109386370131897988)
2022-11-22T08:14:16Z	****
We’re all for human rights, social justice, and democracy in the West unless, of course, it negatively impacts our wallets, comfort, or the enjoyment of our preferred leisure activities.

[#fifa](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fifa) [#football](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/football) [#lgbtq](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/lgbtq) [#equality](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/equality) [#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) [#corruption](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/corruption) [#worldCup](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/wo ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109386455882478515)
2022-11-22T08:24:08Z	****
“Every Iranian player risked something when they chose not to sing. The English FA, when they decided that Harry Kane would not wear the OneLove armband under pressure from FIFA, were not prepared to risk a booking for their principles. Compared to what the Iranian players have just done, it will rightfully be seen as a shameful and cowardly act.”

[https://inkl.com/a/avEXQpSAxrA](https://inkl.com/a/avEXQpSAxrA)

[#fifa](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fifa) [#football](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/football) [#lgbtq](https: ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109386494696242656)
2022-11-22T08:34:50Z	****
Can someone at Apple please tell the Safari team that their browser is broken?

[#rss](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/rss) [#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#browser](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/browser) [#apple](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/apple) [#safari](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/safari) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109386536728660815)
2022-11-23T12:48:03Z	****
May 2015: “…we’re not going to stay in a country where we might be forced to backdoor our products (and possibly not even be allowed to tell anyone about it)”

[https://ar.al/notes/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/](https://ar.al/notes/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/)

Nov 2022: “Internet services used every day by British consumers would be obligated to scan all public posts and private chats against government-specified criteria … If these services don’t want to do it, they could pack up and leave the UK.“

[ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109393194727354283)
2022-11-24T12:20:11Z	****
[@fedisearch](https://social.tchncs.de/@fedisearch) Hi there, how are you funded/what’s your business model? Is the code free and open or proprietary? Thanks. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109398747469165977)
2022-11-24T19:08:02Z	****
Hey, I have an idea, why don’t we make the keyboard shortcut to bookmark a page in a web browser the same as the shortcut to exit a terminal session. That won’t get confusing at all. After all, no one ever has the wrong app selected…

PS. Bonus points if you can pick a letter that doesn’t actually appear in the word “bookmark.”

[#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design) [#petPeeves](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/petPeeves) [#terminal](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/terminal) [#browser](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/browse ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109400351199722498)
2022-11-24T19:27:01Z	****
It’s pretty cool that you can play with the first ever web browser (Tim’s WorldWideWeb) on the CERN web site in your, umm, web browser.

[https://worldwideweb.cern.ch/browser/](https://worldwideweb.cern.ch/browser/)

[#www](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/www) [#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#browser](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/browser) [#WorldWideWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/WorldWideWeb) [#CERN](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/CERN) [#TimBernersLee](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/TimBernersLee) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109400425835710461)
2022-11-24T22:18:20Z	****
Seeing Big Tech folks jump into the fediverse and – without so much as a “how do you do, fellow kids?” – roll up their sleeves to write the rules, dream up commercial services, and pontificate about how advertising should run on it. 👀

[#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#corporateCapture](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/corporateCapture) [#warning](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/warning) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109401099531148797)
2022-11-25T08:24:42Z	****
Clinicians refuse to treat women associated with patient advocate group

[https://inkl.com/a/xoRQVGsvVXv](https://inkl.com/a/xoRQVGsvVXv)

How are these bastards not immediately stripped of their medical licenses?

[#ireland](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ireland) [#CervicalCheck](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/CervicalCheck) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109403483824210023)
2022-11-25T08:47:17Z	****
If you see a surveillance capitalist affiliation proudly displayed on someone’s profile here on the fediverse, ask “are you proud to work for them and why?” “Do you realise this space exists in reaction to the toxic, exploitative, and extractive spaces created by surveillance capitalists like your employer?”

[#surveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillanceCapitalism) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#corporateCapture](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/corporateCapture) [#activism](https ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109403572625268048)
2022-11-25T08:51:12Z	****
Everyone’s gotta eat (although the choice for most privileged folks with in-demand technical skills isn’t between a six figure salary and stock options at a surveillance capitalist or starvation – there are many other types of businesses and organisations) but being proud of perpetuating surveillance capitalism is another thing. Then you’re also doing PR and legitimising them.

[#surveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillanceCapitalism) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#corporateCa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109403588019327828)
2022-11-25T08:57:55Z	****
I remember seeing Halliburton employees hiding their badges at a tech conference because they were ashamed of it. (Not conjecture, by the way, I asked them why and that’s exactly what they told me.) And that’s exactly as it should be. They, at least, had some situational awareness. I can’t say the same thing for folks who proudly work at surveillance capitalists now parading themselves on the fediverse like prized peacocks.

3/n

[#surveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillanceCapitalism) [#fediverse] ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109403614450186172)
2022-11-25T09:05:15Z	****
To those folks proudly affiliated with surveillance capitalists, I say: Read the room. The room exists despite the best efforts of the corporations that employ you. Your affiliation to them affords you no legitimacy here. On the contrary, it’s a mark of shame. So perhaps do not be too proud of it. Perhaps don’t flaunt it. Perhaps approach this space in your capacity as individuals. Perhaps listen. Perhaps try a bit of humility.

4/4

[#surveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillanceCapitalism) [#fedive ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109403643295218379)
2022-11-25T18:42:15Z	****
![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png)

Meow! Kitten now has its own emoji.

(I’m so easily amused.)

(Here’s wishing you all a lovely weekend.)

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/kitten) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#customEmoji](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/customEmoji) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109405912131227690)
2022-11-25T19:03:33Z	****
Mastodon media storage graph for the past year. I wonder what happened in April and then again in November… 🤔

(I’ve still got media going to AWS from when I set up the server myself even though it’s with [@mastohost](https://mastodon.social/@mastohost) now… because, lazy.)

[#twitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitterMigration) [#scale](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/scale) [#storage](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/storage) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109405995884072763)
2022-11-25T19:07:51Z	****
…Forgot to write in the alt-text: the line goes from almost the horizontal axis – way under 60GB (zigzagging around the 15GB mark) – in December of last year to over 140GB now. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109406012816005090)
2022-11-27T08:28:44Z	****
Freedom of speech means you have the freedom to speak, not the freedom to compel anyone to listen to you.

[#freedomOfSpeech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/freedomOfSpeech) [#freeSpeech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/freeSpeech) [#humanRights](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/humanRights) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109414824331833201)
2022-11-27T08:51:18Z	****
If you’re setting up your own fediverse presence at your own domain, don’t make the same mistake I did and call it mastodon.my.domain. Give it a generic name like social.my.domain, activity.my.domain, fedi.my.domain or something similar. You don’t want to tie an endpoint for an open protocol to a single implementation or perpetuate the myth that [#Mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Mastodon) is the [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse).

(Yes, you can migrate to a different subdomain later but it’s not ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109414913051016081)
2022-11-27T10:18:31Z	****
Just made my follower and following lists private and wondering why that isn’t the default on [#Mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Mastodon) (and why I didn’t do it sooner). I actually wish it didn’t even show the counts. Why should anyone care how many people follow you? I know we’ve been conditioned into curating social graphs to be exploited by others (not to mention the potential for targeted abuse) and evaluating our self-worth based on a series of numbers but we don’t have to perpetuate those practices in our  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109415255986493319)
2022-11-27T10:48:08Z	****
If you don’t know what I mean when I say “surveillance capitalism” or “people farming”, here’s a quick overview I did for the BBC a little while ago:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/surveillance-capitalism-has-led-us-into-a-dystopia/p06p0tdy](https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/surveillance-capitalism-has-led-us-into-a-dystopia/p06p0tdy)

(Where we differ with Shoshana, who coined the former term, is that she sees it as a corruption of capitalism, whereas I see it as the natural evolution of capitalism in the digit ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109415372484947300)
2022-11-28T08:50:48Z	****
Post is a Marc “Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?”Andreessen et al. funded “Twitter alternative” by the ex-CEO of Waze.

It’s the same Silicon Valley bullshit that gave you Twitter.

Remember, the only time you can kill a VC-funded Silicon Valley startup is at the start, before it gains network effects. The way you kill it is to not use it and warn everyone you know not to use it.

[#post](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/post) [#twitter](https://mastodon.ar ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109420573408401991)
2022-11-29T11:00:23Z	****
In case you’re ever worried that programmers are cleverer than you, just remember that JSON.stringify(Infinity) === 'null'

[#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#JSON](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JSON) [#JavaScript](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JavaScript) [#wtf](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/wtf) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109426745222961668)
2022-11-29T11:13:02Z	****
Also quite loving the fact that Uint32Array.from([Infinity])[0] === Uint32Array.from([0])[0]

[#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#JavaScript](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JavaScript) [#numbers](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/numbers) [#wtf](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/wtf) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109426794972514152)
2022-11-29T11:19:19Z	****
The reason I’m running into these edge cases is because I’m adding TypedArray support to JSDB – my in-process Node.js database that writes to a JavaScript append-only log ( [https://codeberg.org/small-tech/jsdb](https://codeberg.org/small-tech/jsdb)) – and, given all the gotchas with float and BigInt arrays, I think I’m just going to limit it to Uint8Array support. My use case is to easily persist public cryptographic key material in its native form in Kitten ( [https://coderberg.org/kitten/app](https://coderberg.org/k ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109426819705397749)
2022-11-29T11:30:18Z	****
So this is a hilarious 4 minutes: wat

[https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat)

Thank you, [@kukrak](https://101010.pl/@kukrak) and [@faoluin](https://chitter.xyz/@faoluin) – how had I not seen this before? :)

[#wat](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/wat) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#wtf](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/wtf) [#JavaScript](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JavaScript) [#ruby](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ruby) [#video](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/video)  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109426862895705046)
2022-11-29T11:49:21Z	****
Well that was a reply fail\* but I think I’ll just leave it be :)

\\* Which I seem to find rather easy to do on the Mastodon web interface for some reason. Have to look into exactly why that is… ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109426937779019069)
2022-11-29T11:47:43Z	****
¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109426931361033322)
2022-11-29T14:38:53Z	****
[@Codeberg](https://social.anoxinon.de/@Codeberg) Heads up: looks like the site is down. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109427604420235446)
2022-11-29T14:41:37Z	****
I’m not saying developers shouldn’t be allowed to name things but developers shouldn’t be allowed to name things :)

[#forgejo](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/forgejo) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109427615147679197)
2022-11-29T14:46:09Z	****
[@Codeberg](https://social.anoxinon.de/@Codeberg) Looks like it’s back :) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109427632986110791)
2022-11-29T14:45:15Z	****
(Or, more precisely, you shouldn’t choose names or create logos/icons by committee. A discussion forum/online voting isn’t a substitute for practicing design. I’ve rarely – if ever – seen anything good come of out of one.)

[#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109427629433501502)
2022-11-29T16:33:09Z	****
**Content warning:** When’s a proxy not a proxy? #JavaScript

* * *

\> a = new Proxy(new Array(5), {})

Proxy [ [ <5 empty items> ], {} ]

\> a.fill(42)

Proxy [ [ 42, 42, 42, 42, 42 ], {} ]

\> b = new Proxy(new Uint8Array(5), {})

Proxy [ Uint8Array(5) [ 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 ], {} ]

\> b.fill(42)

Uncaught TypeError: this is not a typed array.

FML.

[#TypedArray](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/TypedArray) [#Proxy](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Proxy) [#JS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JS) [#JavaScript](https://mastodon.ar.al/t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109428053745571550)
2022-11-29T19:34:44Z	****
So my little Kitten\* moo cards also make very cute bookmarks :)

\\* [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/kitten) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#SmallTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallTech) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109428767746538536)
2022-11-29T20:27:19Z	****
Ok, so I just re-read what I wrote and… oh gawd

🤦‍♂️ ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109428974494740864)
2022-11-29T20:26:10Z	****
Having dinner at a restaurant and Obama’s Elf just came over the speakers.

I feel the interwebs has effected me more than I’d like to acknowledge. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109428969965508424)
2022-11-30T08:14:23Z	****
Remember the days when “conservative” just meant “hates poor people” not “full Nazi?” Ah, simpler times. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109431754814688844)
2022-11-30T09:03:23Z	****
A thing is as much what it is not as what it is.

[#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design) [#life](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/life) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109431947522708424)
2022-11-30T12:43:32Z	****
**Content warning:** JSDB, JavaScript, and TypedArrays

* * *

So after a deep dive into TypedArrays in JavaScript, I’ve decided I can’t really implement support for them in JSDB ( [https://codeberg.org/small-tech/jsdb](https://codeberg.org/small-tech/jsdb)), they’re just too inconsistent with every other data type in the language (can’t be proxied, etc.) If you need to persist them, serialise them to a hex string of some sort and persist that.

[#JSDB](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JSDB) [#TypedArray](https://mastodon.a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109432813187972499)
2022-11-30T15:58:40Z	****
Wait, what?… you don’t mean that your all-important secret for your Small Web site is going to be… A STRING OF EMOJI?!\*

(Why yes, yes it is…) ![:awesome:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/010/725/original/38dd73cee0f6cc9b.png)

\\* Or, if you want to take all the fun out of it, a base256 encoding of your ed25519 private key that is purposefully impractical to write down somewhere or type in so you’ll be forced to practice good security hygiene and store it in your password  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109433580433098303)
2022-12-01T12:20:24Z	****
Small Web sites will require JavaScript to sign in.

Why?

To protect your privacy.

We use public-key authentication (which I’m implementing as we speak) so your secret is never stored on the server and you only enter it in places you own and control.

(I can already see some folks up in arms about this because JavaScript Bad™ so I just checked in the initial copy for the page that gets displayed if JavaScript is off.)

[#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#S ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109438384515426960)
2022-12-01T12:28:33Z	****
(One of the reasons the sign-in page is a separate page is so that, in the future, we can use an external tool – say a browser extension – to verify its source for folks for whom supply-chain attacks, etc., might be part of their threat model. Although they should ideally not be relying on third-party hosting to begin with.) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109438416547252022)
2022-12-01T19:20:03Z	****
This little tangerine had an operation today so now we’re all cuddled close for emotional support. He just fell asleep, poor thing. Breaks my heart. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109440034661223788)
2022-12-02T10:12:07Z	****
You can’t spell fediverse without diverse. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109443542382762353)
2022-12-02T10:10:43Z	****
When posting stats about the number of people (not “users”) joining the fediverse (not “Mastodon”), please also post about the number of instances.

If 400,000,000 people join BigTech.social tomorrow, that’s not a win. That’s how you recreate Twitter.

So let’s focus on what matters. Sure it‘s great that the fediverse is becoming more popular but the character of that popularity matters. How it scales matters. Avoiding corporate capture matters.

[#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#fediverse](https://mast ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109443536903998072)
2022-12-03T10:57:16Z	****
If your [#Twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Twitter) handle is four or fewer characters, you don’t have to worry about someone registering your account and impersonating you, etc., if you deactivate your account. Since 2010, Twitter only accepts account handles longer than four characters.

So if you see a certain petroleum company in Germany (owned by bp) rocking my old handle at any point after tomorrow you’ll know they’ve done a special deal with Elon “Power To The People” Musk.

[#TwitterMigration](https://masto ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109449382199244897)
2022-12-03T17:02:20Z	****
So it looks like every Small Web site will have the identity\* of the person who owns it easily accessible from /id. In fact, it appears you can easily access your public SSH and PGP keys too (from /id/ssh and /id/pgp).

Seems these are just automatically generated for every Small Web site.

I wonder what sorts of uses folks will find for them?… I mean besides having signed and end-to-end encrypted messaging as basic primitives on the Small Web. ![:awesome:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_em ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109450817736609183)
2022-12-05T13:32:49Z	****
Y’all should be far more worried about Omni Consumer Products than Skynet is all I’m sayin’.

[#fearTheRightDystopia](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fearTheRightDystopia) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109461318473668066)
2022-12-05T17:12:45Z	****
You might see posts from me talking about the technical details of what I’m working on but what I’m building isn’t about tech for tech’s sake…

What is it for? To protect personhood and democracy in the digital network age.

Here’s a talk I gave six years ago – when I was working on the precursor to what has evolved into the Small Web project.

[https://yewtu.be/watch?v=BNuqzuDc48I](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=BNuqzuDc48I)

[#SmallTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallTech) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWe ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109462183300697349)
2022-12-05T17:19:04Z	****
(It’s also likely one of my favourite talks in terms of how I started it: “I must warn you that, in my talk, I will most probably offend some of you and I want to ask you to embrace those special moments…”) :)

[#privilege](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/privilege) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109462208181870904)
2022-12-06T11:29:15Z	****
(And yes, sometimes I’ll actually extract the text and write the image description in the thread for you but that actually takes me longer to do than it would take you – as I usually have to split it into several posts whereas alt-text has a much higher character limit – and it’s still not the same thing as it requires someone to read the thread in hopes of perhaps discovering what the mystery image is about.) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109466494925734620)
2022-12-06T11:25:42Z	****
Folks, I want to boost your lovely posts, I really do but I won’t if you don’t write image descriptions (alt text) so people who use screen readers can also experience them.

It doesn’t take long to write one.

And if you’re posting an image of text and you have an iPhone, you can select the text from the image with a long press and copy/paste it.

Even Linux has apps that do this (like Frog: [https://tenderowl.com/work/frog/](https://tenderowl.com/work/frog/))

[#accessibility](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/accessibilit ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109466480993807633)
2022-12-06T13:46:38Z	****
I feel I must apologise for calling Marc Andreessen a festering bum hole. It was acutely unfair to actual festering bum holes to be compared to that man. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109467035115482194)
2022-12-07T10:14:02Z	****
“There is a real possibility that we're basically walking around as virus-controlled meat bags," explained Dr. Travis Thomson, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who specializes in junk DNA and indirectly endogenous retrovirus control. "We are aware of ourselves, but the only reason why we're aware of ourselves is to help the viruses that control us by making up part of our genome."

[https://inkl.com/a/mqYnVESMxJM](https://inkl.com/a/mqYnVESMxJM)

[#biology](https://mastodon.ar.al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109471861472353509)
2022-12-07T10:58:53Z	****
**Content warning:** The weird and zany world of HTML links

* * *

Ran into this old friend yesterday:

Say you’re including a script in your page at /my-page:

<script src='./my.js'></script>

(Want another quirk? Try writing that as <script src='./my.js' />. Hint: don’t.)

If you hit the page at /my-page/, it’ll work.

If you hit it at /my-page, it won’t (the relative path will be calculated as /my.js instead of /my-page/my.js).

Anyway, so Kitten\* now adds a slash to all URLs that need them.

[https://codeberg.org ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109472037845472179)
2022-12-07T12:13:24Z	****
Twitter is violating Article 17 of the GDPR.

This is the form letter you receive if you submit a Data Erasure Request for your deactivated account.

It has been 33 days since I sent my request and Twitter has failed to comply with it. I have now escalated the issue to the Irish Data Protection Commission with a formal complaint against Twitter.

You can file your own Twitter Data Erasure Request and keep track of it at [https://yourdigitalrights.org/d/twitter.com](https://yourdigitalrights.org/d/twitter.com)

Heads up ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109472330825209307)
2022-12-07T13:09:21Z	****
Our local Dunnes store working hard to put the fear of god into folks this holiday season.

[#ireland](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ireland) [#kilkenny](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/kilkenny) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109472550816082580)
2022-12-08T11:20:21Z	****
In case you see your Linux system’s available entropy stuck at 256 bits and worry, it’s likely working as (recently re)designed.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/v75t5w/entropy\_of\_devrandom\_stuck\_at\_256/](https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/v75t5w/entropy_of_devrandom_stuck_at_256/)

[#cryptography](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/cryptography) [#entropy](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/entropy) [#random](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/random) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109477784524764659)
2022-12-08T12:20:26Z	****
Heads up, Intl.Segmenter doesn’t work in Firefox.

So that’s fun.

[https://github.com/mdn/content/issues/21259](https://github.com/mdn/content/issues/21259)

[#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#shtandards](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/shtandards) [#javascript](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/javascript) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109478020796786519)
2022-12-08T18:00:59Z	****
w00t! I just got public-key authentication for Kitten working:

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#project-specific-secret](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#project-specific-secret)

(I’ll demonstrate it next week during Small is Beautiful. You can follow our Owncast instance from your fediverse/Mastodon account to be notified when we’re live: [https://owncast.small-web.org](https://owncast.small-web.org)) :)

PS. Related: [https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109450817736609183](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109450817736609183)

 ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109479359916200887)
2022-12-08T18:45:45Z	****
Cool, cool.

[#raspberryBye](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/raspberryBye) [#raspberryPi](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/raspberryPi) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109479535914787661)
2022-12-08T19:39:27Z	****
![:drake_dislike:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/010/715/original/ea422239911ae962.png)[#raspberryPi](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/raspberryPi)

![:drake_like:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/010/716/original/2509b6079b5e87f9.png)[#raspberryBye](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/raspberryBye) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109479747078340035)
2022-12-09T09:34:18Z	****
The problem with Raspberry Pi proudly hiring an ex-spy cop and seeing nothing wrong with it isn’t that they were unprofessional in their replies to criticism on the fediverse. It was the fact that they proudly hired an ex-spy cop and see nothing wrong with it.

If what you want is corporations\* to be better at whitewashing what they do, be careful what you ask for because that’s all they want too.

\\* They’re an offshoot of Broadcom and their “foundation” has multiple for-profit companies. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109483029878490088)
2022-12-09T09:40:12Z	****
[#RaspberryPi](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/RaspberryPi) own the two main organisations teaching coding to children today (Code Club and CoderDojo). And they see absolutely nothing wrong with proudly hiring an ex-spy cop who brags about having built surveillance equipment using their boards.

I resigned from the board of directors of Code Club many years ago because they didn’t see anything wrong with legitimising Google (a surveillance capitalist) to children.

These people are creating curricula for your kids. You sho ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109483053030263814)
2022-12-09T10:03:11Z	****
If you’re thinking “but, Aral, what’re they going to do, teach kids to spy on people?”

No, of course not.

It’s not about what they teach kids. It’s about what they don’t.

They won’t be teaching them surveillance is bad. They won’t be teaching them there’s anything to fear from Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. They won’t be teaching them there’s anything wrong with surveillance capitalism.

Why should they when they exist to train the next generation of surveillance capitalists?

[#RaspberryPi](https://mastodon.ar.al/ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109483143415069971)
2022-12-09T10:44:35Z	****
Linux is great. I’m grateful Linux exists. I use Linux\* as my daily driver.

Linux by itself isn’t going to cure surveillance capitalism.

Think about it: Surveillance capitalism runs perfectly fine on Linux.

But we can use it as a base to build things that don’t.

\\* Fedora Silverblue, in case anyone’s interested. And, yes, it’s rock solid and an absolute joy.

[#linux](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/linux) [#SurveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SurveillanceCapitalism) [#FreeSoftware](https://mastodon.a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109483306241632162)
2022-12-09T11:02:48Z	****
It would be very nice to be able to translate the text of image/media alt-text as part of Mastodon’s new translation feature.

CC [@Gargron](https://mastodon.social/@Gargron)

[#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109483377863016348)
2022-12-09T11:56:04Z	****
If you’re here because you were fleeing Elon Musk’s Twitter and you’re playing with [#ChatGPT](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ChatGPT), guess what?

(Yep.)

(Guess who else is involved… did you say Peter Thiel? Uh-huh.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI)

[#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#peterThiel](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/peterThiel) [#openAI](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/openAI) [#billionaireDouchebags](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaireDouchebags) [# ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109483587288165121)
2022-12-09T12:02:47Z	****
If you think Elon Musk owning Twitter is a problem, just wait until the only cure for some disease is to implant a chip by Neuralink Corporation in your brain. \*

\\* Terms and conditions apply. We care about your privacy. Please see our Privacy Policy for full details.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuralink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuralink)

[#neuralink](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/neuralink) [#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#billionaireDouchebags](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaireD ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109483613718373688)
2022-12-09T17:58:13Z	****
Migrating all our mail from HEY back to Fastmail:

$515.20/yr in savings\*

Not giving DHH\*\* another cent:

priceless.

[#hey](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/hey) [#fastmail](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fastmail) [#email](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/email)

\\* From $595.20/yr for two personal accounts and two work accounts to $80/yr for the same, including not requiring a separate email forwarding service for two additional domains ($36/yr).

\\*\\* [https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-waning-days-of-dei-s-dominance-9a5b656c ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109485011352404593)
2022-12-10T19:28:17Z	****
**Content warning:** Fedora CoreOS or Rocky Linux…? 🤔

* * *

It looks like the effort to get [#Fedora](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Fedora) [#CoreOS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/CoreOS) on [#Hetzner](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Hetzner) has stalled\* so I’m considering using Rocky Linux 9 for Small Web servers instead; at least initially. (Hetzner supports it.) It also has long-term support until 2032 so, while I’d rather have CoreOS with its automatic transactional updates, I can probably live with 10 years of automat ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109491027794862645)
2022-12-12T08:49:55Z	****
So let me get this right, Canada is where the nice colonialists live? ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109499842296569727)
2022-12-12T19:06:37Z	****
“I’m rich, bitch!”

Congratulations, capitalism.

[https://yewtu.be/watch?v=J82ZE-4l\_3I](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=J82ZE-4l_3I)

[#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109502267214364103)
2022-12-13T07:40:24Z	****
I guess no one told these MEPs that old-school money-under-the-table corruption is a no-no at the European Parliament. They should have stuck to the perfectly legal lobbying and revolving doors variety like everyone else.

[https://www.inkl.com/a/avMwxrFAxrA](https://www.inkl.com/a/avMwxrFAxrA)

[#EU](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/EU) [#EuropeanParliament](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/EuropeanParliament) [#EuropeanCommission](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/EuropeanCommission) [#institutionalCorruption](https://mastodon.ar.al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109505231220787671)
2022-12-13T09:02:18Z	****
Capitalism breeds assholes.

[#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109505553275380274)
2022-12-13T08:59:52Z	****
If the most successful people in your system are the worst of humanity, your system is fundamentally broken.

[#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#peterThiel](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/peterThiel) [#marcAndreessen](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/marcAndreessen) [#markZuckerberg](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/markZuckerberg) [#ericSchmidt](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ericSchmidt) [#rupertMurdoch](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/rupertMurdoch) [#jeffBezos](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/jeffBezos) [#billionaires](ht ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109505543726004610)
2022-12-13T10:00:09Z	****
**Content warning:** Say you just pulled the latest changes from a #git remote and want to know what’s changed since your last pull…

* * *

git log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit <commit-hash>~1..HEAD

Where <commit-hash> is the commit you want the change list to start from.

1/2

[#git](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/git) [#tips](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tips) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109505780736454615)
2022-12-13T10:02:42Z	****
**Content warning:** Say you just pulled the latest changes from a #git remote and want to know what’s changed since your last pull…

* * *

If you’re using fish shell, you can create a simple function to make it easier to use. In my ~/.config/fish/config.fish file, I have:

function git-changes-since

git log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit $argv[1]~1..HEAD

end

So all I have to do is:

git-changes-since <commit-hash>

2/2

[#git](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/git) [#tips](https://mastodon.ar.al/tag ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109505790760411954)
2022-12-13T10:20:56Z	****
**Content warning:** Helix Editor

* * *

If you’re using Helix Editor, make sure you upgrade to the latest main branch (or the 22.12 tag) to get:

2077f5e2 Apply completion edits to all cursors (#4496)

That’s one I’ve been waiting for for a long time :)

[#helixEditor](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/helixEditor) [#editors](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/editors) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109505862481653812)
2022-12-13T12:36:25Z	****
**Content warning:** #Kitten design (#Hyperscript, #htmx, #AlpineJS, #SmallWeb)

* * *

Been playing with \_hyperscript ( [https://hyperscript.org/](https://hyperscript.org/); since I’m already using and loving htmx – [https://htmx.org/](https://htmx.org/)) in Kitten ( [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app) but lack of logical operator short-circuiting is going to be a deal breaker, I’m afraid. ( [https://github.com/bigskysoftware/\_hyperscript/issues/363](https://github.com/bigskysoftware/_ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109506395204205660)
2022-12-13T13:07:09Z	****
Normalise booing billionaires.

[#billionaires](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaires) [#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109506516082190270)
2022-12-14T08:14:00Z	****
This is a public service announcement for EU parliamentarians and commissioners.

Remember folks:

❌ Cash bribes

✅ Lobbying

✅ Revolving doors

Rule of thumb: old-school corruption BAD, institutional corruption GOOD.

[#institutionalCorruption](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/institutionalCorruption) [#eu](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/eu) [#parliament](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/parliament) [#commission](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/commission) [#lobbying](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/lobbying) [#revolvingDoors](https://mas ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109511025628149336)
2022-12-14T08:27:00Z	****
Silly Qatar, that’s not how you do it. This is how you do it.

[#institutionalCorruption](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/institutionalCorruption) [#eu](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/eu) [#EuropeanParliament](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/EuropeanParliament) [#EuropeanCommission](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/EuropeanCommission) [#google](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/google) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#corporateCapture](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/corporateCapture) [#qatar](https://mastodon.ar.al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109511076793520159)
2022-12-15T09:18:02Z	****
In light of the Dollar Store Sultan of New Ottomania’s latest move to jail his main democratic challenger and bar him from politics, here’s a little something I wrote about this time last year:

[https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/107518329604951361](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/107518329604951361)

[#erdoğan](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/erdo%C4%9Fan) [#türkiye](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/t%C3%BCrkiye) [#imamoğlu](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/imamo%C4%9Flu) [#firstTheyCameForTheKurds](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/firstTheyCam ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109516939732818370)
2022-12-15T11:39:00Z	****
If you’re using Polka (a lightweight Express alternative for Node.js), you might be surprised to find out (as I was) that it doesn’t support unicode in URIs.

Until this is fixed properly in Polka, you can implement the simple workaround I just posted here:

[https://github.com/lukeed/polka/issues/187](https://github.com/lukeed/polka/issues/187)

[#polka](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/polka) [#nodeJS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/nodeJS) [#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#uni ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109517494064424775)
2022-12-15T13:51:44Z	****
Small is Beautiful: join us for our last live stream of 2022.

Topic: Identity, privacy, communication, and personhood on the Small Web

A first look at identity and what it means for privacy, communication, and personhood on the Small Web\* with the recent addition of public-key authentication to Kitten\*\*.

When: Today (Dec 15, 2022) at 5PM Irish time (GMT/UTC).

Where: [https://owncast.small-web.org](https://owncast.small-web.org)

\\* [https://small-tech.org/research-and-development/](https://small-tech.org/resear ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109518015970309021)
2022-12-15T15:13:51Z	****
Wow, so unless there’s something wrong with my machine [#GNOME](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GNOME) Console (the successor to GNOME Terminal) is NOT accessible at all.

Can someone else on GNOME please confirm?

(GNOME Terminal works fine.)

[#accessibility](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/accessibility) [#a11y](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/a11y) [#linux](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/linux) [#GNOMEConsole](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GNOMEConsole) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109518338862751248)
2022-12-15T15:18:35Z	****
Our live stream, Small is Beautiful, is on in under two hours.

Since we stream using Owncast ( [https://owncast.online](https://owncast.online)), you can follow our live stream server from the fediverse (e.g., using Mastodon) using the Follow button at:

[https://owncast.small-web.org](https://owncast.small-web.org)

(And you’ll automatically see a post in your timeline when we’re going to go live.)

[#owncast](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/owncast) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#federation](https ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109518357518722517)
2022-12-15T16:54:37Z	****
Join [@laura](https://mastodon.laurakalbag.com/@laura) and me in five minutes for our last live steam of 2022.

[https://owncast.small-web.org](https://owncast.small-web.org)

[#SmallIsBeautiful](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallIsBeautiful) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#SmallTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallTech) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109518735138219949)
2022-12-15T18:07:34Z	****
A big thank you for everyone who joined our live stream just now and kept the chat lively. Appreciated your questions and suggestions. Here’s wishing you all a lovely end of year. We’ll be back in January.

(And I’ll get the video up tomorrow.)

If you missed it, you can follow our live stream straight from your fediverse (e.g., Mastodon) account by hitting the Federated Follow button at:

[https://owncast.small-web.org](https://owncast.small-web.org) to get notified next time we’re live.

[#SmallIsBeautiful](https://m ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109519021971574036)
2022-12-16T08:46:26Z	****
Every private space is owned by someone. That someone makes and enforces the rules according to their own interests.

You have no right to free speech in private spaces. If the owner of a shopping mall doesn’t like what your t-shirt says, they can have security escort you out.

“Social media” (Silicon Valley and venture capitalists) sold you the lie that shopping malls are parks.

They are not.

If you care about human rights and democracy, build and support parks not shopping malls.

[#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109522477823879133)
2022-12-16T09:14:33Z	****
“I am afraid that in GTK 4, which gnome-console uses, there's no way for gnome/vte to be accessible … GTK 3 was using libatk, which exposed everything needed, however GTK 4 implements everything internally, and, unfortunately, the a11y interfaces are all private.” – [https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/console/-/issues/244#note\_1610907](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/console/-/issues/244#note_1610907)

[@gnome](https://floss.social/@gnome), this is an institutional failure. Adopt a policy to make accessibility a design-tim ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109522588396740892)
2022-12-16T09:24:10Z	****
Freedom of speech, billionaire edition.

[#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) [#billionaires](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaires) [#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) [#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#twitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitterMigration) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#socialMedia](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/socialMedia) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109522626194094230)
2022-12-16T10:32:04Z	****
Small is Beautiful #25: Identity, privacy, communication and personhood on the Small Web

The recording of yesterday’s live stream is now available to watch at:

[https://small-tech.org/videos/small-is-beautiful-25/](https://small-tech.org/videos/small-is-beautiful-25/)

[#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#SmallTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallTech) [#personhood](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/personhood) [#identity](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/identity) [#privacy](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/privacy ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109522893149432695)
2022-12-16T10:56:26Z	****
There are thousands of instances in the world but only one can’t talk to any of the others and is run by a proto-fascist billionaire man-baby.

I think it’s pretty clear what everyone should do, don’t you? ;)

[#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) [#twitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitterMigration) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109522989008209684)
2022-12-16T11:32:55Z	****
The Irish Data Protection Commission – Not biting the hand that feeds since 1989™

[https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/ireland-is-worst-bottleneck-for-enforcing-eu-data-privacy-law-iccl-1.4672480](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/ireland-is-worst-bottleneck-for-enforcing-eu-data-privacy-law-iccl-1.4672480)

[https://www.businesspost.ie/tech/irish-data-protection-commission-overruled-on-meta-decisions/](https://www.businesspost.ie/tech/irish-data-protection-commission-overruled-on-meta-decision ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109523132460278500)
2022-12-16T12:25:32Z	****
Elon Musk’s most popular recent tweet: 227.9K retweets, 29.1K likes.

My most popular post recent fediverse post: 196 boosts, 244 favourites.

Elon’s followers on Twitter: 121.6M

My followers here: 28,661

Elon’s engagement rate\*: 0.187%, 0.024%

Mine: 0.68%, 0.85%

So I get ~3-35 times more engagement from my instance of one on the fediverse than Elon gets on a network he:

• Owns

• Spent $44B on

• Controls the algorithm on

\\* ratio of boosts/likes to followers

All I can say is… loo-hoo-ser-her! ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109523339348917172)
2022-12-16T12:29:16Z	****
Receipts:

\- Elon’s post: [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603659604906213376](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603659604906213376)

\- My post: [https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109522477823879133](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109522477823879133) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109523353999459212)
2022-12-16T13:15:21Z	****
Now imagine if Mastodon didn’t exist and this was happening.…

Aren’t we lucky that some guy in Germany decided to spend his own time, money, and effort to build it?

Hopefully we’ll get lucky again…

Or, you know, maybe we can finally consider supporting tech that’s in the common good from the common purse. And fund organisations and long-term development, not just ad-hoc academic “projects” that get abandoned the moment the money is gone.

[https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-pa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109523535257205781)
2022-12-17T14:58:42Z	****
Just discovered a great recipe for making naan cookies from leftover naan bread:

1\. Put naan bread in oven to reheat

2\. Forget it there

🤦‍♂️ ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109529603932189367)
2022-12-18T11:54:58Z	****
Journalists complaining about how “Elon Musk” banned them should perhaps ask themselves (and the institutions they work for) why they remain besotted with perpetuating a system wherein they’re beholden to the whims of a petulant proto-fascist billionaire man-baby and his ilk.

[#journalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/journalism) [#pr](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/pr) [#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) [#billionaires](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaires) [#corporatocracy](https://mastodon.ar.al/t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109534543775199511)
2022-12-18T13:33:13Z	****
Beware of billionaires peddling “decentralisation”.

Anyone seeking a decentralised world would never allow themselves to do the things it takes to become (or remain) a billionaire. Billionaires and trillion-dollar corporations are the epitome of centralisation.

Decentralisation begins at decentring yourself.

[#JackDorsey](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JackDorsey) [#BlueSky](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BlueSky) [#billionaires](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaires) [#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalis ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109534930102895538)
2022-12-18T18:29:44Z	****
Pathetic petulant proto-fascist man-baby.

[#MuskSocial](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/MuskSocial) [#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109536096042436897)
2022-12-19T08:26:07Z	****
“A town square, by definition, can’t be a business. It needs to be a space owned by the people. That’s what an Elon Musk Twitter can never be, and what Mastodon already is.”

[https://www.wired.com/story/mastodon-features-that-twitter-should-steal-but-wont/](https://www.wired.com/story/mastodon-features-that-twitter-should-steal-but-wont/)

An excellent article by [@jhpot](https://mastodon.social/@jhpot) (in Wired, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist hero worship and surveillance capitalism public relations rag, of a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109539384838113196)
2022-12-19T10:34:32Z	****
A billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist setting up a fediverse account isn’t the win you might think it is.

Who do you think funds and benefits from the Twitters and Facebooks of the world?

We can’t stop these folks from setting up their own servers but please don’t feel a need to federate with them or subsidise their existence on servers you pay for and maintain.

And remain vigilant against embrace, extend, and extinguish.

[#billionaires](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaires) [#vc](https://mastodon.ar. ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109539889799566202)
2022-12-19T12:01:52Z	****
**Content warning:** Kitten update: Alpine.js is the new \_hyperscript + a few more things…

* * *

Kitten now supports Alpine.js as a first-class citizen for progressively enhancing your Small Web apps with (alongside htmx).

Also, I’ve made the authenticated route indicator (🔒) a suffix instead of a prefix to make it easier to use tab-completion, as suggested by members of the community (thank you) during our last Small is Beautiful live stream ( [https://small-tech.org/videos/small-is-beautiful-25/](https://small-te ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109540233219143013)
2022-12-19T12:04:41Z	****
**Content warning:** Kitten update: Alpine.js is the new \_hyperscript + a few more things…

* * *

CC [@martijn](https://ieji.de/@martijn) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109540244310174704)
2022-12-19T12:41:40Z	****
The guy has the self-awareness of a gnat.

[#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109540389741497961)
2022-12-20T08:59:09Z	****
Are folks really pressuring independent artists, authors, etc., not to promote their work here?

Do you also picket your local independent cafe and mom and pop stores? What happens if you succeed in shutting them down? That’s right, you end up with a McDonald’s in their place.

Please learn to separate capitalists from folks trying to survive under capitalism. Independent people trying to pay their rent isn’t advertising, it’s existing. What Coca-Cola does is advertising.

[#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediv ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109545177077411263)
2022-12-20T09:11:39Z	****
When in doubt, remember… as in comedy, so too in life: always punch up, never down.

[#socialJustice](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/socialJustice) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109545226201838905)
2022-12-21T11:33:39Z	****
[#Mozilla](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Mozilla) is creating a fediverse instance. What is Mozilla?

• A “not-for-profit” that owns multiple for-profit businesses and pays its CEO $5.6M

• Gets ~83% of its revenue (~$500,000,000) every year from surveillance capitalist Google

• Makes a browser that protects your privacy (\*some configuration required)

• Is now a VC…

This is the best we can expect from Silicon Valley/capitalism. Question is: can we do better than that?

Sources: [https://assets.mozilla.net/annualrepor ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109551446861057410)
2022-12-21T11:42:03Z	****
… Perhaps the best way to understand Mozilla is in the words of their president on their new VC arm:

“We see a lot of startups who want to tackle things like privacy, trustworthy AI, and alternatives to Twitter… alternatives are not going to emerge unless there’s founders and companies who build them. And the founders are not going to build them unless there’s money aligned with their vision … So I think we need to still be about commerce and creating wealth”

[https://www.yahoo.com/video/mozilla-foundation-mark-surma ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109551479882015687)
2022-12-21T11:47:04Z	****
… Or, in what a previous head of public policy at Mozilla told me while we were chatting before our talks at a data protection conference:

“Aral, we’re just another Silicon Valley tech company, I don’t understand why you’re holding us to a such a higher standard.”

When I finally managed to pick my jaw off the floor the only retort I could manage was: “But that’s not what you tell people.”

3/3

[#Mozilla](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Mozilla) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#SiliconValley](https:/ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109551499671511513)
2022-12-21T11:51:42Z	****
PS. Please don‘t reply asking me which browser you should use :) This is not about that. It’s about understanding the nature of a thing so we can recognise what is a stopgap and where we (in the EU?) need to invest differently (e.g., using our taxes) in longer-term solutions. If you want to use Firefox, please do (I do & I’m glad Chrome isn‘t the only game in town\*). Just make sure you configure it to turn off Mozilla’s own data collection or try LibreWolf.

\\* the problem is the town is a sewer ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109551517831230396)
2022-12-21T12:03:39Z	****
PPS. Remember that the way you keep a system going is to control all sides of the narrative, not just your own. Be careful who you allow to shape the narrative around the alternatives. Ask yourselves whether they are part of the system that they purport to offer alternatives to. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109551564849268555)
2022-12-21T12:07:48Z	****
PPPS. (I know, sorry, last one, I swear) Finally, remember that a “startup” doesn’t just mean “a new business.” Startup is a Silicon Valley brand. It’s a very specific type of business: one that’s catalysed by venture capital to either fail quickly or grow large enough to be sold (either to a larger corporation or to the public in an IPO). Only when a startup is sold do the investors get (multiples of) their money back (this is that ROI or “return on investment” you always hear about).

[#startup](https://mastodon.ar.a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109551581159108646)
2022-12-21T16:34:00Z	****
Thanks to [@martijn](https://ieji.de/@martijn), we now know that Kitten also runs well (with a couple of caveats) under Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2).

The caveats are now documented here:

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#user-content-windows-subsystem-for-linux-wsl-notes](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#user-content-windows-subsystem-for-linux-wsl-notes)

(Kitten is not ready for production use yet but you can have a little play on your dev machine if you like.)

[#kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/kitten) [# ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109552627908310328)
2022-12-22T08:33:00Z	****
I’m seeing some about the fediverse along the lines of “we welcome our new venture capitalist and Big Tech overlords… what could possibly go wrong?”

What could possibly go wrong? Oh, I don’t know… take a look at the whole damn web. Take a look at email. Take a look at any resource that was part of the commons but was enclosed/captured by corporate interests. Read up on embrace, extend, and extinguish.

1/2

[#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#corporat ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109556398851916870)
2022-12-22T08:36:42Z	****
Look, I’m not saying we’ll be able to keep the fediverse from going down the same path. Architecturally, it’s compatible. Mastodon and nearly every other fediverse app is built on a traditional Big Tech stack and inherits its success criteria (and scaling characteristics). But there is value is resisting for as long as we can. Because the fediverse is a stopgap and it would help those of us working on longer-term solutions to have it around for as long as possible.

[https://ar.al/2022/11/09/is-the-fediverse-about-to-g ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109556413383058738)
2022-12-22T11:09:09Z	****
Darling is a translation layer for running macOS (10.15; command-line) apps on Linux. It’s built on Darwin and is similar to WINE.

Might be interesting if, say, you want to look into maybe supporting your command-line app on macOS without having to pay Apple a few grand every-so-many years or mess with setting up a virtual machine for an operating system that doesn’t want to run on any device Tim Cook doesn’t personally profit from.

[https://www.darlinghq.org/](https://www.darlinghq.org/)

[#darling](https://mastodon ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109557012879593636)
2022-12-22T11:13:16Z	****
The downside is you have to build it yourself. The upside of the downside is that the build instructions\* are actually really good and I didn’t run into any trouble even when building in a Distrobox container running Fedora 36 on my host system running Fedora Silverblue 37.

I did get a few warnings on launch\*\* but I was able to install homebrew and the Xcode command-line tools without problem.

\\* [https://docs.darlinghq.org/build-instructions.html](https://docs.darlinghq.org/build-instructions.html)

\\*\\* [http ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109557029042310065)
2022-12-23T13:32:12Z	****
Normalise keeping things under the Dunbar number.

[#smallIsBeautiful](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/smallIsBeautiful) [#SmallTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallTech) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109563237667665332)
2022-12-23T13:50:40Z	****
[@NL](https://mastodon.cisti.org/@NL) Almost like this is a microblog post and not a PhD thesis or something :) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109563310309296105)
2022-12-23T17:16:07Z	****
Kitten ( [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)) is Linux only but did you know you can easily run Linux containers on Windows and macOS?

• Windows (using WSL2): [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#run-kitten-on-windows-using-windows-subsystem-for-linux-wsl](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#run-kitten-on-windows-using-windows-subsystem-for-linux-wsl)

• macOS (using Lima): [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#run-kitten-on-macos-using-lima](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#run-kitten-on-macos-using- ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109564118145063540)
2022-12-23T18:54:59Z	****
Apparently some dickhead (or dickheads, as the case may be) uploaded malware into an issue on Codeberg and shared links to it and managed to get Codeberg onto a number of block lists so some folks can’t access the site now because their ISPs are blocking it.

If you know the folks who run these lists and can help remove Codeberg from them, I’d appreciate it.

More details: [https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/Community/issues/850](https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/Community/issues/850)

CC [@Codeberg](https://social.anoxinon.de/ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109564506875050697)
2022-12-23T19:54:25Z	****
Thanking the Kilkenny Yulefest organisers for scaring the absolute shit out of our husky with their fireworks display. I’m sure you made Jesus proud.

Cunts.

[#kilkenny](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/kilkenny) [#ireland](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ireland) [#fireworks](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fireworks) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109564740619549588)
2022-12-24T09:01:39Z	****
I don’t know who needs to hear this but the fediverse is not an app.

[#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#journalists](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/journalists) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109567836135970127)
2022-12-24T09:21:13Z	****
“Without a driving mission, journalism is guided by profit and, often, power. Without a theory of change, journalism resists it. Without a framework for measuring real-world impact, journalism counts what people click with little concern for what they do.”

[https://www.cjr.org/special\_report/journalism-power-public-good-community-infrastructure.php](https://www.cjr.org/special_report/journalism-power-public-good-community-infrastructure.php)

Entitled journalists threatening to “leave the app” unless they get “quote  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109567913036213344)
2022-12-24T12:28:46Z	****
If you’re trying to make Mastodon into pre-Elon Twitter, you haven’t learned a single damn thing.

[#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109568650530314262)
2022-12-24T14:03:53Z	****
Twitter was a shithole before Elon Musk. Twitter is a shithole during Elon Musk. And Twitter will be shithole after Elon Musk.

The goal of the fediverse has not been (nor should it be) to recreate some version or other of a shithole.

It can be (and is) so much more.

[#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) [#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109569024572154722)
2022-12-24T16:34:18Z	****
Oh my… there I am looking into replacing my use of mkcert for localhost certificates in Kitten ( [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)) with a native JavaScript solution (no external binaries, etc., which are a real pain) and I’m looking into using node-forge and I stumble on this module that already does the hard work and so I look into who made it and it‘s by guess who…

Not sure if I’ll end up using it but it’ll be rather ironic if I do, no?

[https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/MA ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109569616047685733)
2022-12-24T16:37:28Z	****
(Speaking of irony, it uses lodash.) 🤔 ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109569628499893912)
2022-12-25T11:06:35Z	****
Just got reminded of this talk I gave in 2011. Feels like a lifetime ago.

Watching it back, I cringe every time “ [#UX](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/UX)”—instead of just [#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design)—and “users”—instead of people—comes out of my mouth. That, and my naïve embrace of “ [#open](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/open)” and how mistaken I was to value it over free (as in freedom).

You can see I’m starting to question the business model of people farming but it’s so timid; almost an afterthought.  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109573989701001133)
2022-12-26T14:29:37Z	****
I feel it’s important for the future of our species that we understand the difference between “open” (as in “open for business) and “free” (as in freedom).

This isn’t some inconsequential bike-shedding over terminology. It is the difference between living in a corporatocracy and living in a world with individual sovereignty and a healthy commons.

[#open](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/open) [#free](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/free) [#foss](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/foss) [#freedom](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/freedom) ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109580450362156007)
2022-12-27T10:18:10Z	****
As of version 19.1.0, the Node.js fs module adds recursive watching on Linux.

Wondering if this means we can eventually stop using Chokidar…

[https://github.com/nodejs/node/commit/3770d3a450fb3b65808d312cc33bdda3de92f6d4](https://github.com/nodejs/node/commit/3770d3a450fb3b65808d312cc33bdda3de92f6d4)

[#nodeJS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/nodeJS) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#javascript](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/javascript) [#js](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/js) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109585123956713146)
2022-12-27T10:22:20Z	****
Can you imagine trusting a car made by the fool who runs Twitter?

[https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-driver-watched-in-horror-tesla-crashed-burst-into-flames-2022-12](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-driver-watched-in-horror-tesla-crashed-burst-into-flames-2022-12)

[#tesla](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tesla) [#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109585140330322545)
2022-12-27T10:27:08Z	****
[#fediblock](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediblock) [#mastinator](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastinator)

A site called Mastinator ( [https://mastinator.com](https://mastinator.com)) has started aggregating and republishing toots without permission. It creates accounts with your handle and follows you to get your toots (e.g., [@aral@mastinator.com](https://mastinator.com/u/aral), which, just to make clear, is not me). ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109585159213960986)
2022-12-27T16:59:39Z	****
To answer my own question, no.

It looks like the recursive watch in Node.js does 5 second polling. If you turn recursive off, you get instant notifications (although two of each for an edit on a file).

[#nodeJS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/nodeJS) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#fs](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fs) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109586702635727935)
2022-12-27T19:21:13Z	****
If you’re looking for an alternative to Chokidar that doesn’t use any native modules for file system watching in Node.js, take a look at Watcher:

[https://github.com/fabiospampinato/watcher](https://github.com/fabiospampinato/watcher)

[#NodeJS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/NodeJS) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#fs](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fs) [#Watcher](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Watcher) [#Chokidar](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Chokidar) [#js](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/js) [#JavaScript](https://masto ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109587259319370383)
2022-12-28T16:07:47Z	****
“We’re a team of founders who sold their last company, ex-Instagram engineers, former Heads of Design at Tesla and Medium, multiple Google Chrome alums, a founding engineer of Amazon S3, alumni from Snap, Slack and Pinterest, and so many other people who have done it before.”

Fuck no. No, thank you. Why do you think this would in any way make me want to use your browser?

[https://thebrowser.company/](https://thebrowser.company/)

[#arc](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/arc) [#theBrowserCompany](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109592160971501224)
2022-12-29T09:36:37Z	****
[#Ireland](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Ireland): [#Covid](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Covid) booster programme extended to 18-49 year olds

[https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1229/1344051-covid-ireland/](https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1229/1344051-covid-ireland/)

It looks like vaccination centres have lots of availability right now. Just booked mine for this afternoon. Having had (mild) Covid this June (was triple vaxed), I can tell you you want to avoid even a mild bout of it. (And repeat infections carry risks.)

Book your ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109596285199602030)
2022-12-29T10:39:29Z	****
White cis heterosexual middle-aged masculinity so fragile. Also, don’t report me to myself, it just makes you look like a tool.

[https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109595940958475543](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109595940958475543) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109596532368895179)
2022-12-29T13:34:21Z	****
Aw, shucks, now who did this? :)

💕 ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109597219971839780)
2022-12-29T14:36:04Z	****
Got my second booster. 💉🦠

(They seem to be administering the Pfizer bivalent; Comirnaty bivalent Original/Omicron – at least for my age bracket.)

Second boosters are now available for 18-49 year olds. Book yours here:

[https://covid19booster.healthservice.ie/hse-self-referral/?flow=booster](https://covid19booster.healthservice.ie/hse-self-referral/?flow=booster)

[#ireland](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ireland) [#covid](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/covid) [#covid19](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/covid19) [#vaccine](http ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109597462649430740)
2022-12-30T09:18:51Z	****
I guess when Tumblr joins the fediverse, Matt will replace Eugen as the CEO of Mastodon? ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109601877651782429)
2022-12-30T09:43:58Z	****
We need to talk about c.im…

According to reports by members and ex-members, the c.im instance doesn’t just ban racism, sexism, etc., but – in a warped reading of what otherwise appear to be boilerplate instance rules – any mention or discussion of racism, sexism, etc.

I’m not sure if [#fediblock](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediblock) is the right response here as a more effective approach might be to make folks on the instance aware of this first so they have a chance to migrate.

[https://oliphant.social/@Blackfist ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109601976352916458)
2022-12-30T19:51:41Z	****
Just added macOS support for Kitten.

Do let me know if you have any issues installing/running it.

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

(About to head out to dinner with friends but I’ll check your replies tomorrow.) :)

[#kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/kitten) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#SmallTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallTech) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109604366047781629)
2022-12-31T09:03:57Z	****
“Elon Musk Becomes First Person Ever to Lose $200 Billion”

Trailblazer.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-30/elon-musk-becomes-first-person-ever-to-lose-200-billion](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-30/elon-musk-becomes-first-person-ever-to-lose-200-billion)

[#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#trailblazer](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/trailblazer) via [@caseynewton](https://mastodon.social/@caseynewton) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109607481316124472)
2022-12-31T15:15:44Z	****
I’m a web developer and my main development machine runs…

[#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#os](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/os) [#linux](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/linux) [#mac](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mac) [#windows](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/windows)

Linux

macOS

Windows

Other ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109608943260251663)
2022-12-31T18:37:49Z	****
Buttoned down the hatches (well, closed all the curtains and blinds) and now blaring music and white noise so we’re settled in for the night to brave the fireworks with the puppy.

(Some asshat already set one off at 6PM but thankfully Osky didn’t hear it.)

[#fireworks](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fireworks) [#pets](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/pets) [#ptsd](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ptsd) [#kilkenny](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/kilkenny) [#ireland](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ireland) [#newYearsEve](https://mastodon ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109609737859538125)
2022-12-31T18:52:47Z	****
Here’s wishing all of you on the Gregorian calendar a Happy New Year!

(And here’s to building a smaller, kinder, more human-scale world in 2023 and beyond.)

2️⃣ 0️⃣ 2️⃣ 3️⃣ 🥂 🍾 💕

[#ThinkSmall](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ThinkSmall) [#HappyNewYear](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/HappyNewYear) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109609796747787601)
2022-12-31T23:04:09Z	****
“In general, authoritarian instincts and contempt for the little people are a lot more prevalent among the Silicon Valley elite than people realized when information technology still felt cool.”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/aApzpkUAxrA](https://www.inkl.com/a/aApzpkUAxrA)

[#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#oligarchs](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/oligarchs) [#billionaires](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaires) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109610785170091865)
2023-01-01T10:26:47Z	****
Remember that every day is the start of a new year. That’s not to say today isn’t special but that every day is special. Each one can be a new beginning, a chance to do things differently, the start of a new way of being.

💕

[#thereIsAlwaysHope](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/thereIsAlwaysHope) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109613469380783127)
2023-01-01T12:21:40Z	****
“You are not buying from a supplier, you are a raccoon digging through dumpsters for free code.”

[https://www.softwaremaxims.com/blog/not-a-supplier](https://www.softwaremaxims.com/blog/not-a-supplier)

Via [@stevelord](https://bladerunner.social/@stevelord) [#foss](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/foss) [#supplyChain](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/supplyChain) [#supplier](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/supplier) [#provider](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/provider) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109613921135556369)
2023-01-01T12:48:59Z	****
Is it just me or does Mastodon not know how percentages work? 🤓

[https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109608943260251663](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109608943260251663)

[#rounding](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/rounding) [#offByOneErrors](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/offByOneErrors) [#programming](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/programming) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109614028510033791)
2023-01-01T13:03:39Z	****
Nope. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109614086205489261)
2023-01-01T13:26:45Z	****
Web developers, one hour left to get your responses in on the poll on your primary operating system. (And thank you so much to the 1,200+ of you who have responded since yesterday. Your answers will have an effect on platform support for [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten)/#SmallWeb developer tools) :)

[https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109608943260251663](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109608943260251663)

[#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#operatingSystem](https://ma ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109614177041949912)
2023-01-01T15:28:28Z	****
Thank you to the 1,500+ web developers who took part in my fediverse poll from yesterday.

The results:

47% of you run Linux, 39% macOS, 12% Windows, and 2% some other operating system on your main development machine.

Also thanking all of you who replied with qualitative responses.

[https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109608943260251663](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109608943260251663)

[#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#os](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/os) [#poll](https://mas ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109614655661409811)
2023-01-01T20:58:55Z	****
Just released v4.0.0 of Auto Encrypt (Automatically-provisioned TLS certificates for Node.js servers using Let’s Encrypt.)

This is a semver major release that requires Node.js LTS 18.2+.

[https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt](https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt)

[#NodeJS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/NodeJS) [#AutoEncrypt](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/AutoEncrypt) [#TLS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/TLS) [#SSL](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SSL) [#LetsEncrypt](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/LetsEncrypt) [#J ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109615955023551923)
2023-01-02T10:11:13Z	****
Thinking more people are going to engage with you on mainstream social media “because everyone’s there” is like thinking people at a stadium concert are there to listen to you. It‘s only true if you’re one of the ones on stage. Not so much when you’re huddled in the nosebleeds.

Forget the numbers. Forget about “going viral” (leave it to the psychopaths in Silicon Valley to make virus-like behaviour aspirational). Embrace the joy of interacting with one another on a human scale.

[#ThinkSmall](https://mastodon.ar.al/ta ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109619070452556123)
2023-01-02T14:13:49Z	****
Kitten should now install and run on both Intel and ARM (M1, etc.)-based Macs, in addition to Linux (of course) and under WSL2 for Windows.

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

This is thanks to today’s v4.0.0 releases of Auto Encrypt Localhost ( [https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost](https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost)) & @small-tech/https ( [https://coderberg.org/small-tech/https](https://coderberg.org/small-tech/https)).

I only have [@laura](http ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109620024388913791)
2023-01-02T21:29:40Z	****
Just finished watching the fabulous 1899 (and the equally excellent making of) tonight only to hear Netflix hasn’t picked up the second season.

Muppets.

#1899 [#netflix](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/netflix) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109621738221207849)
2023-01-03T08:04:43Z	****
Someone just went to the trouble of performatively “quote tweeting” me by adding a screenshot of my post as well as a link back and a mention to their worst-faith interpretation of what I’d written.

I have zero desire to see that toxic behaviour here and if you go out of your way to “quote tweet” me, that’s an instant block.

Keep your toxic “haha, look @thisIdiot!” culture on hell-site where it belongs.

[@Gargron](https://mastodon.social/@Gargron) If you’re going to implement that crap here, please at least make it  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109624235356881862)
2023-01-03T11:45:54Z	****
Sign this petition if you enjoyed the series 1899 and want to tell [#netflix](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/netflix) to pick it up for its second season (they’ve cancelled it):

[https://www.change.org/p/renew-1899-on-netflix](https://www.change.org/p/renew-1899-on-netflix)

(Currently at 16,000+ votes and needs to get to at least 25,000.)

[#save1899](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/save1899) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109625105099072604)
2023-01-03T14:02:31Z	****
It’s mind-boggling to me the hoops we have to jump through to get https://localhost working for [#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#development](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/development).

Browsers should just show a pop-up: “Are you a web developer using https://localhost for testing? If so, we’ll treat it as trusted. If you don’t know what this means, answer No. [Yes, No]”

And boom. If you answer yes, you can test with https://localhost without requiring mkcert, certutil, etc.

(Until then, you can use [https:/ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109625642309380538)
2023-01-04T09:46:55Z	****
This is all there is.

[http://www.breakingthin.gs/this-is-all-there-is.html](http://www.breakingthin.gs/this-is-all-there-is.html)

Just stumbled on this short piece I wrote ten years ago, almost to the day.

[#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design) [#experiences](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/experiences) [#life](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/life) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109630299567310623)
2023-01-04T16:51:00Z	****
If you get [#SSL\_ERROR\_NO\_CYPHER\_OVERLAP](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP) (Firefox) or [#ERR\_SSL\_VERSION\_OR\_CIPHER\_MISMATCH](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH) (Chromium) errors when calling https.createServer() in Node.js, you’ve got your options and listener order reversed in your method call. It should be options first, listener second.

(I’m actually working on generating certificate authorities/certificates so I was frantically searching the X.509 code ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109631967104226179)
2023-01-05T08:03:42Z	****
Ice Age hunters used cave paintings to time life cycles of animals, study shows

[https://www.inkl.com/a/aAQPzMiAxrA](https://www.inkl.com/a/aAQPzMiAxrA) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109635556011467653)
2023-01-05T08:26:12Z	****
In case you’re wondering why Adobe turned evil overnight, they didn’t. They’ve been a major surveillance capitalist for a while now and make a chunk of their change from targeted advertising.

While maintaining Better, we documented and blocked a bunch of their trackers. Search for “adobe” on this page to see for yourself:

[https://better.fyi/trackers/](https://better.fyi/trackers/)

[#abode](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/abode) [#adtech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/adtech) [#surveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar. ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109635644455418291)
2023-01-05T09:53:55Z	****
I mean, when you think about it, is there really a world of difference between taking your orders from Rupert Murdoch or from Elon Musk?

Most journalism has been about journalism for ages. It’s not just a Twitter thing.

[#journalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/journalism) [#propaganda](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/propaganda) [#publicRelations](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/publicRelations) [#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109635989353804303)
2023-01-05T10:02:37Z	****
“Many browsers and anti-spyware applications are designed to reject and delete third-party cookies. Adobe ensures that cookies can always we set even if third-party cookies are blocked.”

That feeling when you admit you’re spyware.

[#Adobe](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Adobe) [#surveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillanceCapitalism) [#peopleFarming](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/peopleFarming) [#adtech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/adtech) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#B ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109636023561659578)
2023-01-05T10:21:21Z	****
What’s betting the only part of this Adobe corrects when they see it is the typo in the passage? ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109636097246989019)
2023-01-05T11:05:06Z	****
I’m not going to use bloody bugzilla, so if anyone from Mozilla sees this, your enterprise flow for adding certificate authorities (CAs) to Firefox on Linux fails on Fedora Silverblue.

Since Fedora Silverblue is seen as the possible future of Fedora/Red Hat, you folks might want to talk to the Fedora folks about it and come up with a solution.

[https://github.com/fedora-silverblue/issue-tracker/issues/397](https://github.com/fedora-silverblue/issue-tracker/issues/397)

[#mozilla](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mozilla)  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109636269296476675)
2023-01-05T13:28:32Z	****
Right, there is a way: Here’s how you can add a certificate authority (CA) to Firefox on Linux that also works on Fedora Silverblue: [https://github.com/fedora-silverblue/issue-tracker/issues/397#issuecomment-1372211636](https://github.com/fedora-silverblue/issue-tracker/issues/397#issuecomment-1372211636)

And with that, I don‘t think there’s any other blocker for my rewriting Auto Encrypt Localhost as a mkcert alternative in pure JavaScript for Node.js that doesn’t require certutil or any other binary dependency to b ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109636833262326259)
2023-01-05T19:32:12Z	****
10 PRINT "Lose vote"

20 GOTO 10

[#BASIC](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BASIC) [#republicans](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/republicans) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109638263246441436)
2023-01-05T22:18:04Z	****
So, anyone else going to OFFDEM in Brussels next month?

[https://ps.zoethical.org/pub/offdem-ozone-cfp](https://ps.zoethical.org/pub/offdem-ozone-cfp)

I’m going to hold a little Kitten\* workshop and take part in the roundtables on the Saturday. Looking forward to seeing some of you there.

\\* [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#OFFDEM](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/OFFDEM) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#SmallTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallTech) [#Kitten]( ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109638915479899057)
2023-01-06T06:45:44Z	****
Just to clarify, I’m not going to [#FOSDEM](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/FOSDEM), I’m going to [#OFFDEM](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/OFFDEM).

I don’t attend, speak at, or legitimise so-called “free software” (or “human rights”, etc.) conferences that let surveillance capitalists like Google launder their reputations by sponsoring them. I’m only taking part in OFFDEM, which was created in reaction to FOSDEM’s lack of principles and ethical backbone.

[https://ar.al/2019/01/11/i-was-wrong-about-google-and-facebook-theres ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109640911742706765)
2023-01-06T13:58:26Z	****
function serialNumber () {

return new Date().getTime().toString()

}

It’s a bit sad knowing the code you write will fail in just 273,737 years.

[#JavaScript](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JavaScript) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109642613177412220)
2023-01-06T14:02:14Z	****
But, hey, on the bright side, I know it’ll always remain under the 20 octet limit imposed on certificate serial numbers in RFC 5280.

So it’s swings and roundabouts, I guess.

¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109642628106455875)
2023-01-06T21:34:47Z	****
(Firefox has no trouble with the same certificates and neither does OpenSSL.) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109644407619974319)
2023-01-06T21:33:05Z	****
How very bizarre… Chrom(ium) chokes if your TLS server certificate has an @ symbol in the Common Name (CN) field. It also fails with an “unable to parse file” error if you try to import a certificate authority that has the same (but, if you add the same certificate authority to the system trust store, it imports it without issue when you next start the browser).

TL; DR: Do not use the @ symbol in the Common Name (CN) fields of your TLS certificates.

[#chrome](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/chrome) [#chromium](https://ma ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109644400915843384)
2023-01-07T10:26:59Z	****
w00t! Helix Editor is getting soft wrap thanks to Pascal Kuthe’s work :)

It’s a pull request at the moment but if you’re building Helix from source, here are quick instructions if you want to try it out:

[https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/5420#issuecomment-1374429350](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/5420#issuecomment-1374429350)

(Note that you have to configure Helix to use Rust 1.63+ – I have it building fine with latest 1.66.0.)

[#helix](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/helix) [#editor](https://mas ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109647444046654659)
2023-01-07T20:19:34Z	****
“A speaker election had not stretched on for this many ballots since 1859, when the nation careened into a civil war.”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/xaggjBHvVXv](https://www.inkl.com/a/xaggjBHvVXv)

[#usPol](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/usPol) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109649774150272226)
2023-01-08T07:18:35Z	****
“Seattle city school district filed a novel lawsuit blaming [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) for poisoning youth with social media addiction, saying schools can’t fulfill their educational mission while students are suffering from anxiety, depression and other psychological troubles.

[#Alphabet](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Alphabet) Inc., [#Meta](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Meta) Platforms Inc., [#Snap](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Snap) Inc. and [#ByteDance](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ByteDance) Ltd.,  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109652365476378141)
2023-01-08T09:27:02Z	****
[@noybeu](https://mastodon.social/@noybeu) This doesn’t look very GDPR-compliant to me… does it to you?

[#GDPR](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GDPR) [#skyNews](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/skyNews) [#consent](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/consent) [#cookies](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/cookies) [#tracking](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tracking) [#privacy](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/privacy) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109652870608363098)
2023-01-08T09:25:00Z	****
Think human beings are the top of the food chain? You clearly haven’t met corporations yet. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109652862601860781)
2023-01-08T09:43:59Z	****
Excuse me, where do I hand in my transfer request for a different planet? ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109652937235331040)
2023-01-08T13:56:08Z	****
Silicon Valley… or as I like to call it, a roach motel for psychopaths.

[#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#SurveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SurveillanceCapitalism) [#PeopleFarming](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/PeopleFarming) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109653928722467725)
2023-01-08T14:06:56Z	****
Me: Ah, this should only take a moment to implement…

Also me, many moments and refactorings later: Oh no, simply relying on inheritance here is too confusing, clearly I must make this an abstract class to clarify my intent…

PS. Jokes aside, things taking longer than you think isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It might just mean you care about how maintainable your code is. Future You will thank you one day for not rushing through it. (At least he fucking better.)

[#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#programming](h ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109653971208202721)
2023-01-08T19:52:26Z	****
Breaking news: fascists do fascist shit.

[https://www.inkl.com/a/mbpoyjuMxJM](https://www.inkl.com/a/mbpoyjuMxJM)

[#bolsonaro](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/bolsonaro) [#brazil](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/brazil) [#fascism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fascism) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109655329782414183)
2023-01-09T08:45:27Z	****
Today, you can choose not to drive a Tesla if you don’t want Elon Musk, Inc. knowing everywhere you go.

Tomorrow, you might have to limit where you live because you won’t live in a Google Home and reconsider having 20/20 vision again in exchange for the artificial lens company seeing everything you see.

Privacy is not something you can “vote with your wallet” on. We either protect it as a human right or we lose it altogether.

[#privacy](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/privacy) [#humanRights](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109658369370900545)
2023-01-09T08:51:11Z	****
By the way, if you think the artificial lens bit is hyperbole, think again. Quite a few years ago now I was sitting at dinner with some CEO of some startup that had developed a free tool they said helped people with dyslexia read more easily.

So, as I do, I asked him my favourite question: “how will you make money with this?”

He looked at me like I was rather daft before answering, matter of factly, “well, we know what you’re reading.”

Say no more, my friend. Say no more.

[#PeopleFarming](https://mastodon.ar.al/tag ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109658391907682121)
2023-01-09T12:46:01Z	****
“The great mystery of our times: Why does anyone take seriously people who are so obviously full of it?”

[https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/12/we-live-in-the-age-of-the-bullshitter](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/12/we-live-in-the-age-of-the-bullshitter)

Oh, I don’t know, maybe we should ask every pope, cleric, shaman, and other snake oil salesperson who has ever lived…

[#divineAuthority](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/divineAuthority) [#revealedTruth](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/revealedTruth) [#religion](https ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109659315342013442)
2023-01-09T13:16:37Z	****
Glad to see GNOME is working on making GtkAccessible a public interface which means GNOME Console can be made accessible once this work lands.

[https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/merge\_requests/5032](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/merge_requests/5032)

[#accessibility](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/accessibility) [#a11y](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/a11y) [#GNOME](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GNOME) [#gtk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/gtk) [#GNOMEConsole](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GNOMEConsole) [#terminal](https ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109659435663235702)
2023-01-09T15:14:19Z	****
“The whole ‘privacy is a human right’ nonsense that’s hard to argue with”

In case you’re wondering why things are fucked, it’s because of folks like Paul.

[#privacy](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/privacy) [#humanRights](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/humanRights) [#democracy](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/democracy) [#adtech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/adtech) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#surveillance](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillance) [#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) [#peo ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109659898482671133)
2023-01-09T16:17:02Z	****
My suggestion is that when forge federation is implemented, we at @Codeberg should decide on how many accounts is to be our limit and close off registrations at that number (and maybe implement a one-in one-out system).

Afterwards, the mission of Codeberg should evolve to focus on improving [@forgejo](https://floss.social/@forgejo) and supporting other organisations in setting up and running their own instances, while ensuring Codeberg runs smoothly for currently members.

[https://codeberg.org/Codeberg-e.V./Discussio ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109660145094767928)
2023-01-09T16:18:14Z	****
We have an opportunity here to deviate from Silicon Valley’s dogma of infinite growth and demonstrating a more sustainable and cooperative way of existing that limits the growth of individual instances in favour of nurturing a sustainable ecosystem.

[https://codeberg.org/Codeberg-e.V./Discussion/issues/76#issuecomment-763502](https://codeberg.org/Codeberg-e.V./Discussion/issues/76#issuecomment-763502)

[#codeberg](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/codeberg) [#forgejo](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/forgejo) [#federation](https ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109660149832246871)
2023-01-09T17:04:27Z	****
“‘Every bit of international law, every bit of the EU human rights convention requires that I do what I did,’ says Irish volunteer facing trial in Greece”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/NVAYWBCdJzd](https://www.inkl.com/a/NVAYWBCdJzd) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109660331543663335)
2023-01-10T12:00:07Z	****
Twitter is a microphone connected to a mixer owned and controlled by Elon Musk.

If you understand how microphones and mixers work, you also understand why you can’t “stay and fight.”

[#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#twitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitterMigration) [#algorithmicTimelines](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/algorithmicTimelines) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#socialMedia](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/socialMe ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109664797158893943)
2023-01-12T09:07:27Z	****
[#Medium](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Medium), the proprietary, [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) equivalent of free and open [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) app [#WriteFreely](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/WriteFreely), by the [#billionnaire](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionnaire) co-founder of [#Twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Twitter) now has a fediverse server.

Now might be a good time to take a look at WriteFreely ( [https://writefreely.org/](https://writefreely ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109675442828849969)
2023-01-12T11:03:16Z	****
Celebrating Silicon Valley billionaires and venture capitalists showing an interest in the fediverse is like celebrating wolves showing an interest in your chicken coop.

[#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#billionaires](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaires) [#vc](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/vc) [#ventureCapital](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ventureCapital) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#colonialism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/colonialism) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109675898217823824)
2023-01-12T17:21:58Z	****
**Content warning:** To fix Ubuntu 22.04/22.10 freezing at various intervals (and to get great performance) under virt-manager

* * *

1\. Goto Edit → Virtual Machine Details

2\. Select View → Details

3\. Under Display Spice set Listen type to None and check OpenGL.

4\. Under Video, select Virtio and check 3D acceleration.

5\. Ensure qemu-device-display-virtio-vga and qemu-ui-opengl packages are installed alongside virt-install, virt-manager, virt-viewer, and libvirt-daemon-config-network.

[#virtManager](https://m ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109677387362670299)
2023-01-12T17:27:36Z	****
**Content warning:** To fix Ubuntu 22.04/22.10 freezing at various intervals (and to get great performance) under virt-manager

* * *

PPPS. Ironically, a Windows 11 VM runs perfectly, no setup required, under GNOME Boxes. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109677409509265359)
2023-01-12T17:25:52Z	****
**Content warning:** To fix Ubuntu 22.04/22.10 freezing at various intervals (and to get great performance) under virt-manager

* * *

PS. If you’re running Fedora Silverblue, your best bet is to layer the mentioned packages using rpm-ostree.

PPS. I was initially running the Ubuntu VM under GNOME Boxes when I ran into the issue but I have no idea how to configure a VM to adjust those settings there. Editing the configuration in Boxes appears to be via an XML file and I just want this thing to work, not get a PhD in it ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109677402712314470)
2023-01-12T18:10:05Z	****
**Content warning:** To fix Ubuntu 22.04/22.10 freezing at various intervals (and to get great performance) under virt-manager

* * *

Oh, and I almost forgot, I also had my mouse cursor disappear after going to fullscreen on the default scale settings.

To fix it, I had to set View → Scale Display → Auto resize VM with window (under Edit → Virtual Machine Details).

[#cursor](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/cursor) [#disappear](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/disappear) [#virtManager](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/virtManager)  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109677576523758381)
2023-01-12T18:12:16Z	****
**Content warning:** To fix Ubuntu 22.04/22.10 freezing at various intervals (and to get great performance) under virt-manager

* * *

Oh, and I almost forgot, I also had my mouse cursor disappear after going to fullscreen on the default scale settings.

To fix it, I had to set View → Scale Display → Auto resize VM with window (under Edit → Virtual Machine Details).

[#cursor](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/cursor) [#disappear](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/disappear) [#virtManager](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/virtManager)  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109677585113640840)
2023-01-13T15:25:42Z	****
Consent, a quick guide for tech bros:

Opt-out: I just stuck my ice cream cone in your mouth, you can remove it if you don’t like it.

Opt-in: Would you like some ice cream?

[#consent](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/consent) [#tech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tech) [#technology](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/technology) [#techBros](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/techBros) [#optIn](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/optIn) [#optOut](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/optOut) [#iceCream](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/iceCream) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109682592453474831)
2023-01-13T16:11:45Z	****
Tech Bro Hypocrisy #451: Consent

“If you make something freely available on the web, we can take it and do whatever we like with it.”

– Oh, so I can just take your company’s logo and the copy from your site and use it? Download your app and redistribute it?…

“No, those are protected by trademarks, copyright, and licenses.”

🤔

[#consent](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/consent) [#tech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tech) [#technology](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/technology) [#techBros](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/techBros ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109682773534389982)
2023-01-13T16:15:09Z	****
Tech Bro Hypocrisy #451: Consent

“If you make something freely available on the web, we can take it and do whatever we like with it.”

– Oh, so I can just take your company’s logo and the copy from your site and use it? Download your app and redistribute it?…

“No, those are protected by trademarks, copyright, and licenses.”

🤔

[#consent](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/consent) [#tech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tech) [#technology](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/technology) [#techBros](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/techBros ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109682786904740501)
2023-01-14T07:42:02Z	****
“Menstruation and the week before menstruation have been identified by patients as triggers for relapses of long COVID symptoms.”

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2)

[#covid](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/covid) [#longCovid](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/longCovid) [#menstruation](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/menstruation) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109686431609251526)
2023-01-14T13:25:49Z	****
Why tech bro rules the world: How to become one of them

[https://www.skabash.com/why-tech-bro-rules-the-world/](https://www.skabash.com/why-tech-bro-rules-the-world/)

This is it, I’ve found the worst article on the Internet. I’m not even sure a shower is going to help. I might be permanently damaged. Read at your own risk. Oh gawd…

[#techBros](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/techBros) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#douchebagWorship](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/douchebagWorship) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109687783363485164)
2023-01-14T17:12:46Z	****
The Atem Mini Pro is an amazing device but:

1\. They don’t support Linux (thank goodness [@martijnbraam](https://fosstodon.org/@martijnbraam) made OpenSwitcher – [https://openswitcher.org/](https://openswitcher.org/) – which does).

2\. The dumbest thing about it is that it has just one quality setting for both live streaming and for recording. And while the quality is perfectly fine for streaming, it is unusable for local recordings. And that’s the default. By default you get unusable, pixelated recordings.

¯\\\_(ツ) ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109688675773896918)
2023-01-14T17:49:35Z	****
Been meaning to add a bio and a curated list of talks to my personal site for a while now and so I finally did (cobbler’s childrens’ shoes and all that):

• [https://ar.al/bio](https://ar.al/bio)

• [https://ar.al/talks](https://ar.al/talks)

Going to pop a headshot and a few more talks up there when I get a moment but this’ll have to do for now :)

PS. I don’t usually have a habit of talking about myself in the third person; the bio’s for conferences and such to easily copy/paste :)

[#bio](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109688820567057862)
2023-01-14T19:47:38Z	****
Dear conference organisers,

If you don’t want to limit your speakers to those who are fine with surveillance capitalism, please don’t make your call for proposals require an account with a surveillance capitalist.

[#conference](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/conference) [#callForProposal](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/callForProposal) [#CFP](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/CFP) [#google](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/google) [#surveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillanceCapitalism) [#peopleFarming](https://m ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109689284771679413)
2023-01-15T08:50:35Z	****
This makes me very angry.

These are anti-homeless benches designed to look pleasing. It’s called hostile architecture. They’re meant to be uncomfortable to discourage sleeping on.

The people who designed these are assholes. They’re decorators, not designers.

A designer makes things to improve the world for everyone. A decorator takes otherwise unpalatable injustices and disguises them with aesthetics in an attempt to make them inoffensive or even desirable.

Be a designer, not a decorator. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109692363471576140)
2023-01-15T09:02:29Z	****
…The benches are marketed as “Designer Book Benches” by a company called OverHertz in Bulgaria.

[https://www.overhertz.com/service-book-benches](https://www.overhertz.com/service-book-benches)

Hostile architecture doesn’t just exist in the physical world. Big Tech and the surveillance-based mainstream technology of Silicon Valley is concocted by decorators not designers.

I once gave a talk to a roomful of designers called “Design or Decoration” where I go into the distinction further: [https://ar.al/talks/#design-or ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109692410261354532)
2023-01-15T10:32:39Z	****
Given the number of sea lions some of my posts have begun to attract recently, I’m making my posts follower-only.

I’m here to share my thoughts and have conversations, not deflect drive-by douchebaggery like I’m goalkeeping at a game of fling-shit football. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109692764783746198)
2023-01-15T10:52:40Z	****
OK, fuck it, scratch that.

I hadn’t considered this:

[https://mastodon.ar.al/@m@thias.hellqui.st/109692789278422637](https://mastodon.ar.al/@m@thias.hellqui.st/109692789278422637)

(Thanks [@m](https://thias.hellqui.st/users/m))

I do enjoy reading and learning from the constructive conversations sparked by my posts and I don’t want to discourage that.

So, new plan: I’m going to keep my posts public but sea lions and anyone else wading into conversations with worst-faith assumptions will be blocked/suspended from my ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109692843487579779)
2023-01-15T14:28:48Z	****
A friend asked if I’d join their session at the World Summit on the Information Society Forum (“building back better and accelerating the achievement of the SDGs”).

I already had grave reservations about the UN after hearing a talk on the SDGs where they said “we should stand aside and let the tech companies solve big problems” but I thought, “let’s give it the benefit do the doubt.”

Guess who their main sponsor is? Yep, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Nope!

[#WSIS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/WSIS) [#UN](https://mast ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109693693385215443)
2023-01-15T17:27:56Z	****
How neat: browsh, a modern text-based browser for the terminal.

“It renders anything that a modern browser can; HTML5, CSS3, JS, video and even WebGL.”

[https://www.brow.sh/](https://www.brow.sh/)

[#browsh](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/browsh) [#geeky](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/geeky) [#terminal](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/terminal) [#webBrowser](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/webBrowser) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109694397748411944)
2023-01-15T18:55:58Z	****
PS. I wrote a bit more about what could be done instead in my feedback on GNOME’s discussion forum: [https://discourse.gnome.org/t/window-focus-call-for-testing/13277/65?u=aral](https://discourse.gnome.org/t/window-focus-call-for-testing/13277/65?u=aral) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109694743876210617)
2023-01-15T18:54:18Z	****
Looks like things are about to get more mysterious and bouncy in [#GNOME](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GNOME) and I don’t think that’s a good thing.

The GNOME folks are looking for feedback on removing app names from the top bar and adding a bounce animation when switching windows.

I feel both are regressions. The app name is an important landmark and the bounce animation made me queasy (I don’t have motion sensitivity)

Test it out with this extension: [https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/5612/focus-indicator/](ht ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109694737352991769)
2023-01-15T20:31:06Z	****
If you like to lick ze boots, s’il vous plaît, don’t follow me toots.

[#weWillBothBeHappierForIt](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/weWillBothBeHappierForIt) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109695118000533506)
2023-01-15T21:18:52Z	****
Like, seriously, fuck the UN.

[https://m.thewire.in/article/environment/uae-oil-company-adnoc-ceo-cop28-president](https://m.thewire.in/article/environment/uae-oil-company-adnoc-ceo-cop28-president)

[#UN](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/UN) [#whiteWashing](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/whiteWashing) [#BigOil](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigOil) [#cop28](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/cop28) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109695305812663707)
2023-01-15T21:56:54Z	****
This is what it looks like when a billionaire punches himself in the chicken tenders.

(A six-month view of the task queue on my personal Mastodon server.)

[#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#twitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitterMigration) [#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#sidekiq](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/sidekiq) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109695455354215366)
2023-01-16T08:20:40Z	****
[@Codeberg](https://social.anoxinon.de/@Codeberg) Heads up: site not loading.

(I’m getting this after light manual browsing.) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109697908120992860)
2023-01-16T10:42:33Z	****
Me: I’m going to offer you an interpretation that counters the mainstream understanding of a term to highlight the biases inherent within it that I’ve come to experience over the years. I hope it will nudge you to at least stop and think critically about it where you otherwise might not.

Folks: Let me explain the mainstream meaning of the term to you.

\*sigh\*

[#mainstreamplaining](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mainstreamplaining) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109698466030202703)
2023-01-16T11:44:07Z	****
I wouldn’t crush even a scary-looking spider but I did just hit suspend on the account of some random bigot who used the n-word in my replies after blocking his entire domain just to make sure he was really dead to me.

[#bigotry](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/bigotry) [#racism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/racism) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109698708119885659)
2023-01-16T12:15:20Z	****
John, why don’t people trust capitalism any more?

[#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) [#tooCleverByHalf](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tooCleverByHalf) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109698830833132549)
2023-01-17T08:55:16Z	****
If some [#FOSS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/FOSS) projects did brain surgery like they do [#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design)…

Bunch of plumbers: Right folks, here’s our plan for tomorrow’s operation: … thoughts?

Person who’s had brain surgery: Sounds good to me! 💯

Person who watched a medical drama on TV: the scalpel is all wrong, I recommend this bone saw

Actual brain surgeon: This is a very bad idea for the following reasons…

Person eating apricot: I tested this method to remove the pit. Works for me! ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109703706494740794)
2023-01-17T12:10:52Z	****
Microsoft folks: we’re not evil.

Also Microsoft folks: …

(Hey [@EU\_Commission](https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission), mind forwarding this to [@EC\_Commissioner\_Vestager](https://social.network.europa.eu/@EC_Commissioner_Vestager) for me? She doesn’t seem to be active here but something tells me this might interest her.)

[#competition](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/competition) [#antitrust](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/antitrust) [#eu](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/eu) [#microsoft](https://mastodon.ar.al/tag ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109704475608404103)
2023-01-18T07:04:50Z	****
EU: We’re so civilised and progressive and care deeply about fighting climate change.

Also EU: …

(Hope you’re all right, [@gretathunberg](https://mastodon.nu/@gretathunberg), and thank you.)

[#whiteMansHypocrisy](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/whiteMansHypocrisy) [#climateChange](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/climateChange) [#eu](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/eu) [#europe](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/europe) [#germany](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/germany) [#police](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/police) [#state](https://masto ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109708934514651061)
2023-01-18T08:44:07Z	****
Folks in Silicon Valley: We’re so glad some poor schmuck created Mastodon on his own dime and time while we were making mint festering the Twitters of the world. Isn’t it great? We’re really enjoying it… Now, how do we enclose, exploit, and monetise the shit out of this thing?

[#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#peopleFarmers](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/peopleFarmers) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#mastodon](https://masto ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109709324946024107)
2023-01-18T08:50:11Z	****
For the reply guys, to save you some trouble:

1\. I know Mastodon isn’t the fediverse

2\. I know Eugen didn’t create Mastodon all by himself (but he did start it)

3\. Of course everyone in Silicon Valley isn’t enjoying Mastodon.

4\. Of course everyone in Silicon Valley is not some cartoon villain. Some merely work for them. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109709348810756600)
2023-01-18T10:08:21Z	****
Working on getting the rewrite of Auto Encrypt Localhost (think mkcert but in Node.js and now in 100% JavaScript without using mkcert or certutil) complete today so I have time to test and prepare a demonstration for our first [#SmallIsBeautiful](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallIsBeautiful) live steam this Thursday.

You can follow our [#owncast](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/owncast) steaming server from your [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) / [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) account ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109709656137645304)
2023-01-18T10:20:32Z	****
Surveillance capitalism isn’t a corruption of capitalism.

Surveillance capitalism is capitalism working as intended.

Surveillance capitalism is capitalism.

[#surveillance](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillance) [#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) [#surveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillanceCapitalism) [#peopleFarming](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/peopleFarming) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109709704051064347)
2023-01-18T11:07:26Z	****
Developers, every one of your machines should have its own ssh key. Creating one is very simple. Here’s a handy one-liner by Ben McDonald that you can add as an alias to your dotfiles:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f $HOME/.ssh/id\_ed25519 -C "$(whoami)@$(hostname)-$(date +'%y%m%d')"

This will create those lovely tiny ed25519 keys that we all know and love (thanks, Daniel!)

[https://www.mebmc.uk/posts/creating\_ed25519\_ssh\_keys.html](https://www.mebmc.uk/posts/creating_ed25519_ssh_keys.html)

[#ssh](https://mastodon.ar.a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109709888502595732)
2023-01-18T13:05:21Z	****
“The algorithm is an asshole.”

Seeing the latest Musk brain-fart making the rounds reminds me why I wrote Hell Site…

[https://ar.al/2021/05/10/hell-site/](https://ar.al/2021/05/10/hell-site/)

[#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) [#algorithm](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/algorithm) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#PeopleFarming](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/PeopleFarming) [#capitalis ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109710352168183690)
2023-01-18T20:40:02Z	****
Just saw the Eleventy announcement and looked up WebC and found a different WebC which is actually C embedded in HTML – basically, think PHP but with C instead — and all I can think is… why? \*shudder\*

[http://webcprecompiler.com/](http://webcprecompiler.com/)

(I wrote my very first web app – for checking out books from my university’s library, which they didn’t understand or use – circa 1993 in C only because I had to. There was nothing else to use.)

[#webC](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/webC) [#notThatWebC](https:/ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109712140045213182)
2023-01-19T13:15:35Z	****
“Turkey could be on the brink of dictatorship” – The Economist

Could be?

[https://www.inkl.com/a/qVZJrohMLpM](https://www.inkl.com/a/qVZJrohMLpM)

[#turkey](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/turkey) [#türkiye](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/t%C3%BCrkiye) [#dictatorship](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dictatorship) [#erdogan](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/erdogan) [#erdoğan](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/erdo%C4%9Fan) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109716054727956515)
2023-01-19T13:28:23Z	****
Mmm, I believe that this afternoon needs is some Pu Erh tea…

😋☕️ ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109716105029111695)
2023-01-19T13:46:10Z	****
Live stream, 5PM today (Irish time, UTC/GMT): Small is Beautiful

[https://owncast.small-web.org](https://owncast.small-web.org)

I haven’t finished the rewrite of Auto Encrypt Localhost ( [https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost/src/branch/pure-javascript#auto-encrypt-localhost](https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost/src/branch/pure-javascript#auto-encrypt-localhost)) yet but all that’s left is getting it to work on Windows so I’ll demonstrate what I have by 5PM during the stream and tal ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109716174987567118)
2023-01-20T08:52:26Z	****
“The [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) is like [#email](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/email).”

Yes.

Now read this and understand it:

“I have been self-hosting my email since I got my first broadband connection at home in 1999 … But my emails are just not delivered anymore. I might as well not have an email server.

Email is now an oligopoly, a service gatekept by a few big companies which does not follow the principles of net neutrality … I lost. We lost. One cannot reliably deploy independent email  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109720682260738515)
2023-01-20T08:53:58Z	****
Context:

[#embraceExtendExtinguish](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/embraceExtendExtinguish) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#ventureCapital](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ventureCapital) [#vc](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/vc) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109720688293345125)
2023-01-20T10:51:24Z	****
Folks: Why don’t you use Debian.

Also folks: Why not xfce?

Me: Trying Debian out for the first time in a VM with xfce… \*enters password\*… \*presses tab\*… Oh! Oh…

(There are few absolutes in design but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this is the absolute worst way you can design a simple sign-in form.)

[#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design) [#debian](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/debian) [#xfce](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/xfce) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109721150034291145)
2023-01-20T11:03:30Z	****
The VM is deleted now and it just reminded me why I avoided Linux for so long. Thank goodness for GNOME and thank goodness for distributions like Fedora (especially Silverblue… very excited about both the present and the potential there). ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109721197671927087)
2023-01-20T13:35:08Z	****
If you’re used to typing with a Macintosh keyboard layout and enjoy being able to enter typographical quotes anywhere using alt-[, alt-shift-] for “…” and and alt-shift-[ and alt-shift-] for ‘…’ and alt-; to enter a proper ellipsis (…), etc., download and install the us-mac.zip file from [https://github.com/adunning/Mac-Keyboard-Layouts-for-Windows](https://github.com/adunning/Mac-Keyboard-Layouts-for-Windows) and then choose it from Settings > Time & Language > Language > Keyboard.

(Because I’m testing on Windows at  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109721793860897438)
2023-01-20T13:40:22Z	****
…And yet it’s still nowhere as expressive for me as using a Mac keyboard layout on Linux, where I also have the superpowers of my compose key, which I have mapped to Caps Lock (CL). Where, for example, I can do CL + dash + dash = en dash, CL + dash + dash + dash = em dash, CL + e + equal sign = €, CL + tm = ™, etc. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109721814469082819)
2023-01-20T14:49:40Z	****
Argh, Microsoft! Doesn't work in Windows 11. Apparently they've removed the keyboard section altogether and everything is lumped in under Settings > Time & language > Language & region > Preferred languages and they've likely changed the format or something.

So the above works for Windows 10 but not 11 at the moment. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109722086984765211)
2023-01-20T14:56:33Z	****
Scratch that, they hid it really well in Windows 11. \*sigh\*

So, after installing the Mac keyboard layout (I had to use the msi directly, setup.exe gave me an error) go to Settings > Time & language > Language & region > English (United States)

\> (… menu) > Language Options > Keyboards and make sure the Mac keyboard exists.

You can move English (United States) to the top of the keyboards list and use the keyboard switcher in the task bar or Windows Key + spacebar to switch to it. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109722114012461489)
2023-01-21T09:51:55Z	****
I don’t know who needs to hear this but you’re a person, not a user. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109726578487141361)
2023-01-21T10:08:18Z	****
It’s been 0 days since a reply guy explained the mainstream interpretation of a thing to me.

[#mainsplaining](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mainsplaining) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109726642922203152)
2023-01-21T12:41:05Z	****
“Since this is a demo, it is fine to hardcode some of it, since we will backfill with production code later in an OTA update”

– Elon Musk on the self-driving feature of [#Tesla](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Tesla) cars.

[https://www.inkl.com/a/xaQMkpTvVXv](https://www.inkl.com/a/xaQMkpTvVXv)

Someone remind me what gross negligence is again…

[#ElonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ElonMusk) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109727243672652174)
2023-01-22T10:32:01Z	****
I’m just a boy, standing in front of a corporation, telling it to go fuck itself. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109732398445095126)
2023-01-22T17:12:46Z	****
Wow, so the other day I shared what [#Microsoft](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Microsoft) does when you search to download [#Firefox](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Firefox) from [#Edge](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Edge)\\* but they go one step further for [#Chrome](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Chrome).

(I have zero love for either surveillance capitalist but, my goodness, what absolute asshattery. Having spent more time than I’d like testing in [#Windows](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Windows) these past two days, I constant ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109733974272711607)
2023-01-22T17:25:39Z	**** ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109734024911899297)
2023-01-22T21:49:39Z	****
Bloody hell, \*finally\* got certificate authorities installing properly in Windows for [https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost](https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost)

The hardest bit? Windows paths with spaces in them + a likely a bug in PowerShell’s command parser when nesting single and double quotes.

Long story short:

safeDirectoryPathForWindows (directoryPath) {

return execSync(\`Powershell (New-Object -ComObject Scripting.FileSystemObject).GetFolder('${directoryPath}').ShortPa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109735063005490481)
2023-01-23T07:38:00Z	****
Corporate apologists are not your friends. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109737376512025427)
2023-01-23T16:15:05Z	****
Daddy, how does fascism start?

Like this, dear: [https://mastodon.ar.al/@juddlegum@journa.host/109738825927179112](https://mastodon.ar.al/@juddlegum@journa.host/109738825927179112)

[#fascism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fascism) [#usa](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/usa) [#florida](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/florida) [#conservatives](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/conservatives) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109739409793913088)
2023-01-23T17:33:41Z	****
Me, in a toot: This thing here that’s happening is horrible.

Some random reply person: Oh, what about this other thing there you didn’t mention in your toot? I guess you’re fine with that injustice then, you bigot!

What the fuck is wrong with some of you? You’re manufacturing minutiae to rage at each other with instead of banding together to form bulwarks against the wave of fascism headed our way. There’s enough to be furious about without having to invent outrage from out of thin air, FFS! ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109739718849061295)
2023-01-24T18:13:53Z	****
Auto-Encrypt Localhost v.8 released (complete rewrite)

There’s now a 100% JavaScript (no native dependencies) Node.js tool for creating locally-trusted development certificates on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Heck, it’ll even create your https server for you, if you like, and serve the CA certificate at <your ip>/.ca and even forward HTTP traffic to HTTPS.

(I’m going to whip up a separate command-line client next.)

Enjoy!

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost](https://www.npmjs.com/packag ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109745539246245397)
2023-01-24T20:30:41Z	****
Auto-Encrypt Localhost version 8.1.0 released

Now with 100% more Command-Line Interface (CLI).

To create your local development certificates:

npm install --global @small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost

auto-encrypt-localhost

That’s it!

Enjoy ![:awesome:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/010/725/original/38dd73cee0f6cc9b.png)

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost)

[#SmallWeb](http ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109746077160892397)
2023-01-25T14:25:52Z	****
Nice… dog gets through the fence (again) and while I’m there to get him, next door neighbour lets slip that our landlord is apparently looking to sell the place.

“Oh, he didn’t mention it to us.”

“He’s looking privately.”

“That’s nice.”

Fucking landlords and this whole fucking system, really.

Lost count how many times we’ve had to move in the past few years alone. Just when you’re getting productive, some dickhead decides he wants to sell or move in himself (what happened last time).

FFS! ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109750304917852346)
2023-01-25T16:18:01Z	****
Just released version 8.2.0 of Auto-Encrypt Localhost

All status changes are now communicated via events instead of console messages.

Think I’m pretty much done with v8 now.

Next: update https ( [https://codeberg.org/small-tech/https](https://codeberg.org/small-tech/https)) to use it and then update Kitten ( [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)) to use the updated https. (Which should make Kitten cross-platform, including on ARM.)

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/auto-encrypt ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109750745939882694)
2023-01-25T18:00:11Z	****
Right, wrote to the landlord, apparently he spoke to the neighbour “a few years ago” about “possibly” selling it back then. Has no plans to do so now.

Bloody hell, Mr. Neighbour!

The damn precariousness of it all is the worst bit. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109751147658831403)
2023-01-25T19:24:09Z	****
Attempting to install Fedora Silverblue on my Pinebook Pro…

🤞🤓

[#pinebookPro](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/pinebookPro) [#fedora](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fedora) [#fedoraSilverblue](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fedoraSilverblue) [#towBoot](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/towBoot) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109751477799922934)
2023-01-25T19:35:21Z	****
Hmm, it installed\* and is running, and GNOME 43 seems rather snappy on it but no wifi :(

\\* with Tow-Boot. During installation it says something like “your system won’t be able to boot… EFI… blah, blah.” Just ignore that and keep installing.

[#pinebookPro](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/pinebookPro) [#fedora](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fedora) [#fedoraSilverblue](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fedoraSilverblue) [#towBoot](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/towBoot) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109751521866633190)
2023-01-25T19:47:54Z	****
Looks like this might help: [https://github.com/bengtfredh/pinebook-pro-copr](https://github.com/bengtfredh/pinebook-pro-copr) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109751571207570969)
2023-01-25T22:11:09Z	****
Unfortunately, can’t install the third-party WiFi/Bluetooth driver to test due to this issue with rpm-ostree:

[https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/third-party-repo-error/20037/10](https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/third-party-repo-error/20037/10)

But posting this from Fedora Silverblue through ethernet via a USB dongle.

It runs amazingly well on it (and I have it installed on the stock drive, not an NVMe.) Even Firefox is snappy.

Would be amazing to have Fedora Silverblue install and run without issue on the Pinebook Pro ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109752134527322561)
2023-01-26T13:29:58Z	****
To be able to install the third-party WiFi/Bluetooth driver on [#Fedora](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Fedora) [#Silverblue](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Silverblue) the [#PinebookPro](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/PinebookPro), you have to remove two rpm repositories that come preinstalled that don’t have ARM (aarch64) support and thus make the rpm-ostree install command fail.

You can’t do this using rpm-ostree (you’d win the game too fast, where’s the fun in that, amirite?) so you have to edit the \_copr\_phracek\_PyChar ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109755747409240019)
2023-01-26T13:34:46Z	****
… then download ap6256-firmware-2020.02-5.fc37.aarch64.rpm from [https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/aptupdate/pinebook-pro/build/3813654/](https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/aptupdate/pinebook-pro/build/3813654/) and run the rpm-ostree command to install it:

sudo rpm-ostree ./ap6256-firmware-2020.02-5.fc37.aarch64.rpm

(I couldn’t get remote install from a COPR repo to work.)

When done, reboot. And your WiFi and Bluetooth should be working. If WiFi isn’t working press Pine Key + F11 until it blinks only two ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109755766308004766)
2023-01-26T13:59:43Z	****
I’m done with my [#FedoraSilverblue](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/FedoraSilverblue) on the [#PinebookPro](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/PinebookPro) experiment (see thread).

It mostly works (& well).

I don’t have audio from the speakers (layering pinebookpro-audio-2-1.fc37.aarch64.rpm via rpm-ostree didn’t help) but, most importantly, I don’t have HDMI out via USB-C so I can’t use the laptop to present at [#OFFDEM](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/OFFDEM) as I was planning to (to show Kitten\* running on a $200 laptop).

Loo ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109755864402028654)
2023-01-26T15:57:47Z	****
Just released version 5.0.0 of @small-tech/https: A batteries-included version of the standard Node.js https module.

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/https](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/https)

Replace https with @small-tech/https to get:

\- Automatically-provisioned trusted local development TLS certificates.

\- Automatically-provisioned Let’s Encrypt TLS certificates.

\- Automatic HTTP to HTTPS forwarding.

Version 5 includes this week’s new Auto Encrypt Localhost version 8 and is 100% Java ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109756328695765309)
2023-01-27T10:12:59Z	****
BuzzFeed To Use ChatGPT’s AI For Content Creation, Stock Up 200%+

“More shit, faster.” – capitalism, circa 2023.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2023/01/26/buzzfeed-to-use-chatgpts-ai-for-content-creation-stock-up-200/?sh=3715c2c67eae](https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2023/01/26/buzzfeed-to-use-chatgpts-ai-for-content-creation-stock-up-200/?sh=3715c2c67eae)

[#ai](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ai) [#chatGPT](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/chatGPT) [#buzzfeed](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/buzzfeed) [#c ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109760635149652911)
2023-01-27T10:39:11Z	****
I’ll probably run out of air before folks get this but, hey, one more time for those in the back:

If you’re creating “alternatives to [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech)” that scale vertically, you’re doing it wrong. You’ll never beat Big Tech at vertical scale. They invented the game. They’ll destroy you at it every time. And say you somehow do manage it… congratulations, you’ve just become \*checks notes\* Big Tech. \*golf claps\*

So what do you do?

You limit vertical scale and [#design](https://mastod ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109760738206725198)
2023-01-27T10:42:25Z	****
What does it mean to design for horizontal scale?

It means limiting the growth of individual instances of a service (e.g., number of accounts, etc.) and investing in ensuring that as many different people and organisations can run their own and that they can all talk to one another and interoperate.

It means keeping the power relationships between instances as level as possible.

Take it to its logical conclusion and you get the [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb): instances of one.

[https://ar.al/2020 ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109760750919773692)
2023-01-27T14:46:02Z	****
**Content warning:** touch in #Windows #PowerShell

* * *

Since I’m back in Windows (goodness help me\*) writing a PowerShell installer for Kitten\*\*, I thought I’d share this little piece of home (Linux). If you want to use the touch command in Windows, add this to your $PROFILE:

function createFile {New-Item -Path $args -ItemType File}

New-Alias -Name touch -Value createFile

\\* With oh-my-posh, PSReadLine (with PredictionViewStyle set to ListView), Terminal-Icons, and z, it’s \*almost\* bearable.

\\*\\* [https ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109761708829539315)
2023-01-27T15:01:42Z	****
In case you’re having trouble launching Helix Editor (https://helix-editor) on Windows, the workaround is to install the Microsoft C++ redistributable from [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170)

More info: [https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/5622](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/5622)

[#HelixEditor](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/HelixEditor) [#Windows](https:// ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109761770451708212)
2023-01-27T15:17:22Z	****
In the age of “AI” (algorithmic plagiarism), the maxim “less is more” has never been more relevant.

Any “AI” can bullshit for pages. Use your humanity to respect the limited time your fellow human beings have on this planet. Embrace brevity and simplicity in your work.

[#ai](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ai) [#machineLearning](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/machineLearning) [#algorithmicPlagiarism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/algorithmicPlagiarism) [#simplicity](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/simplicity) [#brevity](https://m ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109761832059725556)
2023-01-28T21:02:06Z	****
In case you’re thinking of getting a [@PINE64](https://fosstodon.org/@PINE64) PineBook Pro, just know that HDMI out doesn’t work on it and there doesn’t seem to be any work on getting it to do so.

¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯

[https://forum.manjaro.org/t/pinebook-pro-hdmi-through-usb-c-dock-not-working/132600/2](https://forum.manjaro.org/t/pinebook-pro-hdmi-through-usb-c-dock-not-working/132600/2)

[#oineBook](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/oineBook) [#pineBookPro](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/pineBookPro) [#pine64](https://mastodon.ar. ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109768849906169789)
2023-01-29T09:05:25Z	****
Folks, if you’re on toot.community, note that these are the views of the person who owns and administers it:

[https://toot.community/@jorijn/109771463321724976](https://toot.community/@jorijn/109771463321724976)

[#white](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/white) [#privilege](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/privilege) [#tootCommunity](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tootCommunity) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109771694080106571)
2023-01-29T11:30:04Z	****
Guess it’s blocking privileged white folks protecting other privileged white folks day for me on the fediverse.

Good riddance.

You’re the problem. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109772262898449493)
2023-01-29T11:36:51Z	****
Can’t we all just get along?

No, not when your fucking white privilege has you proudly proclaiming “I don’t care” about social injustice just because it doesn’t affect you and attempting to shame those who do by accusing them of perpetuating “outrage culture.”

If this is you, fuck you.

You’re the problem.

And if you’re going to defend that or tone police me for calling it out or warning people from that person’s instance, just fuck off right now and save me the trouble of blocking you. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109772289602195324)
2023-01-29T11:49:48Z	****
Of course the fuckers trickling onto the fediverse from Big Tech corporations are going to protect white privilege and their own.

But of course they are.

Welcome to the fediverse, asshats. We got about six years of respite from your bullshit here at least. That’s something. Gotta celebrate the little wins, I guess.

[#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#whitePrivilege](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/whitePrivilege) [#techBros](https://mastodon.ar.al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109772340515221895)
2023-01-29T12:12:25Z	****
Privileged white guy who runs toot.community publicly declares “outrage culture is slowly taking over my Mastodon timeline… outrage about protests, police, climate, big tech… I don’t care.”

I call him out.

Other privileged white folks: “But did you hug him first? Discuss it over tea?”

Another black man was just ruthlessly murdered by police in the US. Climate change is an existential threat. Big Tech is destroying democracy.

But you’re upset I didn’t coddle your fellow white guy?

Fuck you. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109772429400386495)
2023-01-30T10:30:48Z	****
Kitten ( [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)) now installs and run perfectly on the [@PINE64](https://fosstodon.org/@PINE64) [#PineBookPro](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/PineBookPro).

What does that mean? That there’s a $200 machine for Small Web development. Think of the possibilities for education…

Now, we just need to get the Linux kernel patched so external displays work on the device… ( [https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-rockchip/patch/20200924063042.41545-1-jhp@endlessos.or ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109777692142338506)
2023-01-30T13:13:36Z	****
Dublin Airport has videos showing you exactly how to get to the car parks. What a beautiful piece of design.

(Now I just wish they weren’t YouTube videos but, hey, Ireland is basically in the pocket of Silicon Valley so I don’t think that’s a battle I’m going to win over here…)

[https://www.dublinairport.com/car-parks/short-term-parking/terminal-2-short-term](https://www.dublinairport.com/car-parks/short-term-parking/terminal-2-short-term)

[#ireland](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ireland) [#dublinAirport](https://mast ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109778332334911381)
2023-01-30T14:36:36Z	****
“One major issue with [#PinebookPro](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/PinebookPro) is that it can't limit input current based on what software wants. It consumes 12.5 W from Type-C port if it can (as long as voltage doesn't drop bellow 4.5V). This makes proper implentation of power delivery impossible. It's risky to connect PBP to regular USB-A ports on the computer due to this.”

Should be documented, [@PINE64](https://fosstodon.org/@PINE64)?

[https://xnux.eu/log/#060](https://xnux.eu/log/#060)

[#USBC](https://mastodon.a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109778658667954190)
2023-01-30T17:30:05Z	****
Well, given I can’t demonstrate Kitten ( [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)) on a PineBook Pro due to lack of HDMI out, I just ordered a CrowPi L since I have a Raspberry Pi 4 lying about unused.

[https://www.crowpi.cc/collections/crowpi/products/crowpi-l](https://www.crowpi.cc/collections/crowpi/products/crowpi-l)

Got the advanced kit – want to demonstrate how you can do Small Web dev on this thing. And for education… imagine kids making a web site that displays sensor readings (humid ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109779340829911692)
2023-01-30T17:32:31Z	****
…And on that last note, I’ve been trying to find alternatives to Raspberry Pi – would be very interested if folks have any leads… especially to boards that can be used for education.

[#Education](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Education) [#singleBoardComputers](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/singleBoardComputers) [#RaspberryPi](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/RaspberryPi) [#alternatives](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/alternatives) [#ARM](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ARM) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109779350402321305)
2023-01-30T23:08:08Z	****
[#Apple](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Apple) Executives Violated Worker Rights—US Labor Officials

“Ashley Gjovik…filed claims in 2021 alleging an email CEO Tim Cook sent pledging to punish leakers [and] a set of policies in Apple’s employee handbook, violated federal law.”

“My hope is that for the first time Apple is told by the government that this culture of secrecy is not OK,” Gjovik said Monday. “I also hope that this sends shockwaves through other corporations that even Apple can be held accountable.”

[https://w ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109780670146746623)
2023-01-31T06:43:51Z	****
Here’s a new, non-paywall link: [https://themalaysianreserve.com/2023/01/31/apple-executives-violated-worker-rights-us-labor-officials-say/](https://themalaysianreserve.com/2023/01/31/apple-executives-violated-worker-rights-us-labor-officials-say/)

[#apple](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/apple) [#secrecy](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/secrecy) [#law](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/law) [#labour](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/labour) [#rights](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/rights) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109782462073208136)
2023-01-31T11:36:59Z	****
So apparently there’s been a denial-of-service attack on mastodon.social and it was down for a bit.

I didn’t notice.

(I have my own server.)

That’s the fediverse working as designed.

No server should be so big that its absence endangers the greater system. And if any are, that’s a problem.

If we want a healthy, resilient fediverse, we must keep the size of servers small and the number of servers high.

[#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#resilienc ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109783614729599695)
2023-01-31T14:22:15Z	****
…Mind you, compared to the size of the Node runtime (which Kitten downloads at install-time), it’s actually quite negligible. Maybe I won’t prematurely optimise just yet. (It’s useful for others to be able to provide proper stack traces should something go awry in Kitten itself.)

I’ll likely keep the single build with inline source maps for now.

[#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#prematureOptimisation](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/prematureOptimisation) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109784264561462864)
2023-01-31T14:19:09Z	****
Just peeked at [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten)’s ( [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)) esbuild\* bundle size and wow… with --sourcemap=inline, it’s 8MB. Without? 3MB 🙀

So I guess it’s time for separate debug and release builds then :) It’s not everyday a single flag can reduce the size of your app’s download 2.6× but, hey, I’ll gladly take it 😺

\\* esbuild ( [https://esbuild.github.io/](https://esbuild.github.io/)) is a blazingly fast and robust JavaScript bundler. The -- ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109784252393254541)
2023-01-31T16:21:27Z	****
PS. This is a very neat visualiser for JavaScript bundles with source maps:

[https://evanw.github.io/source-map-visualization/](https://evanw.github.io/source-map-visualization/)

[#sourceMap](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/sourceMap) [#JavaScript](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JavaScript) [#esbuild](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/esbuild) [#bundle](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/bundle) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109784733306503544)
2023-01-31T16:20:09Z	****
Me: opens up Mastodon to post something.

\*checks notifications\*

\*replies to something\*

\*closes the window\*

…

Me: opens up Mastodon to post the thing he was supposed to.

\*posts this instead\* ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109784728142761135)
2023-01-31T16:57:12Z	****
Dear Aer Lingus,

I believe you meant “arrive no later than…”

[#aerLingus](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/aerLingus) [#ireland](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ireland) [#grammar](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/grammar) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109784873878614412)
2023-01-31T18:18:27Z	****
So here’s what I’d love to have: Imagine a laptop shell with at least a 1920×1080 screen, nice keyboard & trackpad.

Case is otherwise hollow and you can open it to install any single board computer (SBC).

The screen has an HDMI cable to the inside of the case. The keyboard and trackpad, similarly, have standard USB cables so you can hook up any SBC.

Additional HDMI and USB ports on side.

Does this exist?

If not, anyone want to make it? ;)

[#sbc](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/sbc) [#laptop](https://mastodon.ar.al/ta ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109785193345499129)
2023-01-31T19:17:04Z	****
Hmm… y’know, I could probably hack the MNT Reform v0.4 I have lying about to do this.

\*takes it apart\*

It looks like the keyboard and trackpad has four-pin USB (?) If so, would just need a USB-A adapter for that. Not sure about the screen… now where did I place the owner’s manual? :)

CC [@mntmn](https://mastodon.social/@mntmn) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109785423844710178)
2023-01-31T20:53:54Z	****
**Content warning:** Fascism in the US, Trump, transphobia, bigotry

* * *

[https://kolektiva.social/@VPS\_Reports/109785681225587182](https://kolektiva.social/@VPS_Reports/109785681225587182) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109785804597715236)
2023-02-01T08:28:13Z	****
Me: Free software licenses should include ethics clauses.

Folks: Don’t be silly, you can’t put restrictions on licenses like that. It’s unworkable.

Apple: You can only run this operating system on hardware I sell.

Folks: Sounds good to us, sir. Whatever you say, boss!

If our only answer to unethical licenses is indifferent ones—as opposed to ethical ones—I don’t see how we win this. I feel the offhand dismissal of ethical licenses in technology has been and is a mistake.

[#foss](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/foss) [ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109788534774189103)
2023-02-01T08:34:37Z	****
(I don’t argue it’s a simple thing to get right. I don’t overlook the complexities involved. I don’t have all the solutions. But I feel we should be exploring the problem and coming up with workable solutions instead of dismissing it outright as infeasible. There is value even in exploring the problem. The journey is the destination and all that…) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109788559934919843)
2023-02-01T09:00:08Z	****
Quick poll for all the developers out there:

Say there’s a new free and open source license (not approved by the FSF) that is essentially AGPL version 3 but with one additional clause:

“You must not use this code as part of any system designed to profile, discriminate against, or otherwise oppress people based on their race, gender, sexuality, religion, or any other protected characteristic under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Would you consider adopting it?

No, you can use my code to oppress minoritie ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109788660265611972)
2023-02-01T10:34:07Z	****
Imagine Node.js running on a [@PINE64](https://fosstodon.org/@PINE64) PineBook or PineBook Pro with [@postmarketOS](https://fosstodon.org/@postmarketOS)… could be very useful for education (not to mention make development more accessible in general).

[https://github.com/nodejs/unofficial-builds/pull/59](https://github.com/nodejs/unofficial-builds/pull/59)

(If this pull request gets merged, Kitten – [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app) – will be able to run on the PinePhone and be used fo ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109789029829299967)
2023-02-01T10:54:19Z	****
Anyone know anyone on the NodeJS team that might have time to merge this pull request?

[https://github.com/nodejs/unofficial-builds/pull/59](https://github.com/nodejs/unofficial-builds/pull/59)

[@nodejs](https://social.lfx.dev/@nodejs)

[@PINE64](https://fosstodon.org/@PINE64)[@postmarketOS](https://fosstodon.org/@postmarketOS)

[#nodeJS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/nodeJS) [#postmarketOS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/postmarketOS) [#alpineLinux](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/alpineLinux) [#arm](https://mastodon.ar.al/t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109789109262286799)
2023-02-01T11:00:10Z	****
Ooh, I didn’t know you could change workspaces by holding down the Super key and using the mouse wheel on GNOME :)

(Just did it accidentally. Feels really nice. Although I don’t really use workspaces…) ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯

[#GNOME](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GNOME) [#design](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/design) [#workspaces](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/workspaces) [#hiddenGesture](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/hiddenGesture) [#delighter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/delighter) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109789132241634055)
2023-02-01T17:13:32Z	****
Right, well that’s Kitten\* running under Fedora Linux on a PinePhone\*\*

Did someone say Small Web development on a phone? ![:awesome:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/010/725/original/38dd73cee0f6cc9b.png)

(And HDMI out works so I can actually demonstrate this at conferences. In fact, Fedora is running amazingly well.)

\\* [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

\\*\\* Looks like Console doesn’t currently come with an emoji-capable font, thou ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109790600392957633)
2023-02-01T21:21:23Z	****
You think Mastodon.social getting denial of service attacked is something? I just denial of service attacked myself again.

If you see this, it’ll mean the Sidekiq queue has likely cleared. The last post I made three hours ago hasn’t gone through yet.

Something tells me there should be a different queue for posts you make, no?

¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯

(If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, read this, about the last time it happened: [https://ar.al/2022/11/09/is-the-fediverse-about-to-get-fryed-or-why-every-toot-is-also-a- ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109791575004934178)
2023-02-02T06:53:00Z	****
Off to Brussels today for OFFDEM (not FOSDEM; I don’t attend or speak at “free and open” or “human rights”, etc., conferences that allow themselves to be sponsored by and thus whitewash surveillance capitalists and people farmers like Google).

Going to demo Kitten ( [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)) and say hi, I have ![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png) stickers

Hope to see some of you there : ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109793822653339320)
2023-02-02T10:02:05Z	****
I cannot stress enough how important this initiative is:

“Big Tech has used deceptive lobbying tactics to sustain a toxic business model. This has to stop.🤚

📢 Today CEO and @lobbycontrol launch [http://lobbyleaks.eu](http://lobbyleaks.eu). Have you witnessed shady or opaque Big Tech lobbying? Let us know anonymously.

👉 [https://www.lobbyleaks.eu](https://www.lobbyleaks.eu)”

Follow: [@corporateeurope](https://mstdn.social/@corporateeurope)

Please share widely.

[#eu](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/eu) [#lobbying](http ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109794566181609888)
2023-02-02T10:32:19Z	****
So I’ve been told privately to “stop lecturing people on ethics” for asking if a certain new “cooperative” initiative will limit membership based on business models (specifically whether it would disallow what you might call adtech, surveillance capitalism, or – my favourite – people farming.

Platform cooperatives have great potential but only if they can move beyond merely transferring power from a tiny number of kings to a slightly larger number of barons.

[#cooperatives](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/cooperatives) [ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109794685069062327)
2023-02-02T10:41:11Z	****
Thanks to [@mikarv](https://someone.elses.computer/@mikarv) for reminding me (see [https://mastodon.ar.al/@mikarv@someone.elses.computer/109793985698320431](https://mastodon.ar.al/@mikarv@someone.elses.computer/109793985698320431)), I just added the following license to my bio on my Mastodon site.

Please feel free to copy/adapt/use if you like:

My posts are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike ( [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/b ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109794719921936831)
2023-02-02T14:04:40Z	****
I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually seen a deer in headlights but I can only imagine it looks the way I do when faced with bureaucracy. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109795520043815878)
2023-02-03T06:54:01Z	****
G’morning from Brussels :)

[#OFFDEM](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/OFFDEM) [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#Brussels](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Brussels) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109799488963496474)
2023-02-04T07:29:54Z	****
A few minutes early for [#OFFDEM](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/OFFDEM). Looking forward to seeing everyone when you get here (and hope I’m waiting at the right place on the second floor by the Adolfo Kaminski poster) :)

CC [@natacha](https://ps.s10y.eu/@natacha)[@how](https://ps.s10y.eu/@how) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109805292416936647)
2023-02-05T13:54:11Z	****
Absolute nightmare of an experience at Brussels airport passport control. Likely getting profiled because the birthplace on my French passport says Turkey and the chip isn’t working (which is why I was in the manual control lane to begin with).

The joys of being white passing in racist countries. You’re fine until they see you might be a bit too Brown inside.

Now sitting in a room with other Brown and Black folks, waiting (and they have my passport).

[#belgium](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/belgium) [#brussels](https: ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109812465785722901)
2023-02-05T14:01:35Z	****
Just spoke with two women being held in the same room as me. Also of Turkish ethnicity, both Belgian citizens. Not being allowed in to Belgium.

Brussels airport is racially profiling European Citizens.

Please share widely.

[@EU\_Commission](https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission)

[#brussels](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/brussels) [#airport](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/airport) [#belgium](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/belgium) [#racialProfing](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/racialProfing) [#EU](https://mastodon.a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109812494875856516)
2023-02-05T14:33:42Z	****
Cue my white-presenting privilege and a predictably apologetic supervisor, taking me out of the room with a look of “oh, goodness, you don’t belong in there” (first experienced while entering the US, many years ago) Explained I was unlucky a plane had landed from Turkey and they saw “Ankara” as my birth place. Told him this is racial profiling and about the two young women. Promised to look into it.

Also told him “I hope you realise how horrible this feels.”

[#brussels](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/brussels) [#airport ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109812621166923239)
2023-02-05T15:35:20Z	****
Boarded and looking forward to getting back to Ireland. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109812863505534833)
2023-02-06T17:25:38Z	****
Funny how many white EU folks come out to defend white EU police and gaslight you that you were just imagining things when you mention you’ve been racially profiled.

Almost like they’re racist themselves or something.

🤔

[#eu](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/eu) [#racism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/racism) [#racialProfiling](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/racialProfiling) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109818959523611121)
2023-02-06T18:03:50Z	****
OpenStreetMap is in trouble

[#Microsoft](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Microsoft) [#Bing](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Bing) Map Builder “…has entered the ecosystem with parasitic intents … If no improvements at all happen, we should consider cutting off mapbuilder from the API, and we should consider starting a lawsuit over the copyright infringement. This is not a small hobby website which happened to have forgotten the attribution. This is a cancer that is starting to grow. This is designed to kill the community.”

By ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109819109742679088)
2023-02-07T10:30:56Z	****
ChatGPT is, in technical terms, a ‘bullshit generator’.

[https://www.danmcquillan.org/chatgpt.html](https://www.danmcquillan.org/chatgpt.html)

[#machineLearning](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/machineLearning) [#artificialIntelligence](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/artificialIntelligence) [#ai](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ai) [#statisticalModelling](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/statisticalModelling) [#chatGPT](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/chatGPT) [#bullshit](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/bullshit) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109822991182714324)
2023-02-07T10:36:25Z	****
My alma mater in Turkey (TED; Turkish Education Foundation) has a page with reliable information on how you can help support the rescue efforts for yesterday’s earthquake; including how to donate funds.

[https://www.ted.org.tr/ulkemizin-basi-sagolsun/](https://www.ted.org.tr/ulkemizin-basi-sagolsun/)

[#turkey](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/turkey) [#türkiye](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/t%C3%BCrkiye) [#earthquake](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/earthquake) [#deprem](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/deprem) [#TED](https://mastod ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109823012745990689)
2023-02-07T10:48:30Z	****
Another reputable group that’s on the ground and providing help directly to victims of the earthquake is Ahbap, an organisation founded by Turkish rock singer Haluk Levent.

You can donate to support their efforts here:

[https://ahbap.org/](https://ahbap.org/)

[#turkey](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/turkey) [#türkiye](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/t%C3%BCrkiye) [#deprem](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/deprem) [#earthquake](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/earthquake) [#ahbap](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ahbap) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109823060238529904)
2023-02-07T10:54:34Z	****
Konuşmamız Lazım (We Need To Talk) is an organisation set up to combat period poverty and menstruation stigma in Turkey. They are providing sanitary products to people affected by the earthquake.

You can find out more (in English) and donate to help fund their efforts from here:

[https://konusmamizgerek.org/en/we-need-to-talk/](https://konusmamizgerek.org/en/we-need-to-talk/)

[#turkey](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/turkey) [#türkiye](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/t%C3%BCrkiye) [#earthquake](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/e ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109823084102030336)
2023-02-07T21:22:06Z	****
“I dashed out to grab some drugstore makeup to paint our faces with insignia from Cars and Star Wars. The random blocks of bright white, iridescent gold, and thick blues and reds reminded me of the Zinc sunscreen my own mother painted on my face for our Disney trips in the 1980s. She was protecting us from sunburn, I was warding off facial recognition systems.” — [@cyberlyra](https://mastodon.social/@cyberlyra)

[https://www.publicbooks.org/data-free-disney/](https://www.publicbooks.org/data-free-disney/)

[#surveillan ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109825551639458391)
2023-02-08T06:32:06Z	****
Human beings aren’t the only victims in the tragedy unfolding after this week’s disastrous earthquake in Turkey, Kurdistan, and Syria: countless beloved pets are also affected.

The not-for-profit animal shelter Patili Köy (Paw Village) is on the ground taking part in the rescue efforts (⚠️ [https://mobile.twitter.com/ankarapatiliky/status/1623162077098516480](https://mobile.twitter.com/ankarapatiliky/status/1623162077098516480))

Their main site: [https://patilikoyankara.com/](https://patilikoyankara.com/)

How to don ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109827714349493384)
2023-02-08T18:45:35Z	****
Deutschlandfunk Kultur – Soziale Netzwerke: Dezentrale Alternativen zu Twitter und Co.

“Noch radikaler in seinem Konzept der Dezentralität ist das des Small Web, bei dem jeder Mensch sein ganz eigener, selbstbestimmer Knoten in einem Social Netzwerk ist. Man könnte auch sagen: eine Instance of One – also ein Server, auf dem nur ein Mensch angemeldet ist.”

[https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/dezentrale-netzwerke-als-alternativen-zu-twitter-und-co-100.html](https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/dezentrale-netzwerke-al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109830598524862535)
2023-02-09T07:14:54Z	****
Oh look, Google being Google.

(In case you were thinking of learning/using Go, I’d say skip it. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. Unless you like telemetry by default in your programming languages and tools, that is. In fact, just don’t touch anything tainted by Google if you can help it.)

[https://github.com/golang/go/discussions/58409](https://github.com/golang/go/discussions/58409)

[#google](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/google) [#alphabet](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/alphabet) [#go](https://mastodon.ar.al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109833544957920153)
2023-02-09T08:38:38Z	****
Get yourself someone who protects you like the mainstream tech press protects Silicon Valley people farmers.

(Get yourself an unofficial PR department is what I’m saying, I guess.)

[#tech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tech) [#journalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/journalism) [#pr](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/pr) [#siliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/siliconValley) [#surveillance](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillance) [#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) [#peopleFarming](https://mastodon.a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109833874208176603)
2023-02-09T11:04:24Z	****
I guess keeping guns on your bedside table does make it easier to shoot yourself in the foot after all. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109834447371983671)
2023-02-09T18:29:23Z	****
I just successfully sent the first end-to-end encrypted message between two Kitten\* nodes.

This makes me happy.

![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png)

\\* [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#privacy](https://mastodon.ar.a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109836197134178155)
2023-02-09T18:33:14Z	****
(This functionality is nowhere near ready for use, by the way… it’s just the very first time it worked so I wanted to share it. Tiny steps…) ;) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109836212273301070)
2023-02-09T18:36:55Z	****
I hope I never have to rely on my Mastodon instance in an emergency because given the state of my Sidekiq queue, I’d likely have been dead for several hours before anyone even hears my cry for help :)

(I say this with a smile but it’s actually really quite concerning that I can’t rely on it being real-time. Going to have to see what I can do about it. Can’t really afford to spend more than the ~€50/month I’m spending on my instance of one and my posts are routinely delayed by hours these days.) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109836226728873045)
2023-02-09T20:58:25Z	****
Today I learned that cookies do not provide isolation by port.

I guess that’s because, in 30 years of web development, I had never locally tested multiple instances of a peer-to-peer web app that used cookies for sessions before.

PS. You can just test from different loopback addresses. e.g., 127.0.0.1:443, 127.0.0.2:444, etc. Of course, your local TLS certificate has to include those IPs or you’ll see certificate errors if testing over HTTPS.

[#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#cookies](https://masto ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109836783157456339)
2023-02-10T10:10:02Z	****
What’s interesting is that I seem to see this behaviour whenever there is a rush of new people onto the fediverse.

So I’m wondering how much is a bottleneck on my instance’s side (clearly, there is one) and how much is a general slowdown of message delivery/handling across instances (perhaps especially the major ones).

[#twitterMigration](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitterMigration) [#scaling](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/scaling) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#sidekiq](https://mastodon.ar.al/t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109839895900342335)
2023-02-10T10:18:28Z	****
How clueless do you have to be to write for a major mainstream tech publisher?

About this clueless:

[https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/10/23593966/cloudflare-mastodon-server-wildebeest-instance-fediverse](https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/10/23593966/cloudflare-mastodon-server-wildebeest-instance-fediverse)

Wildebeest is not “Mastodon”.

It’s Cloudflare’s own implementation of an ActivityPub server that’s entirely locked in to their own ecosystem.

Avoid.

[#wildebeest](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/wildebeest) [#cloudfla ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109839929057498354)
2023-02-10T10:39:11Z	****
Dear [@EU\_Commission](https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission),

Non-EU citizen parents of EU citizens should have the right to enter the EU and visit their children just like EU-citizen parents of EU citizens do.

Also, it might be nice if you stopped racially profiling us EU citizens born in non-EU countries at your borders.

When do you plan on ending this birthism and two-tier citizenship?

(Not expecting a reply or for anyone there to even see this but, hey, airing it anyway because why not.)

[#eu](https ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109840010561545601)
2023-02-10T12:00:02Z	****
Just released version 8.3.0 of Auto Encrypt Localhost¹

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost)

Certificates now support IP addresses 127.0.0.2-127.0.0.4 and place1.localhost-place4.localhost.

Use these, for example, when testing the peer-to-peer features of your Small Web² apps locally in Kitten³.

¹ Think mkcert but written in Node.js with no native dependencies – i.e., it does not require you to install certutil.

² [https ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109840328443861776)
2023-02-10T13:09:12Z	****
“We are in a real ghetto”: Kosovars grow weary of the EU’s isolating visa regime.

[https://kosovotwopointzero.com/en/we-are-in-a-real-ghetto/](https://kosovotwopointzero.com/en/we-are-in-a-real-ghetto/)

This in-depth article by [@VjosaMusliu](https://mastodon.social/@VjosaMusliu) et al. raises a very concerning issue. To quote Vjosa: “Many EU countries have outsourced their visa services entirely to 3 private companies (!) many of which are unclear if not dubious about the harvesting of data of 600.000 Schengen visa  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109840600458964169)
2023-02-10T15:40:25Z	****
Just stumbled on the Zellij terminal multiplexer/workspace and I really quite like it (especially if you start it in locked mode and only unlock to create new panes, navigate between panes, etc., so it doesn’t interfere with other apps like Helix Editor).

[https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij#readme](https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij#readme)

Anyway, I also whipped up Pencil Light theme for it – enjoy:

[https://gist.github.com/aral/19419268de743877d8d42956d2580b58](https://gist.github.com/aral/19419268de743877d8d4 ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109841195051038920)
2023-02-10T15:48:49Z	****
Yeah, I’m going to have to figure something out because this just isn’t working for me.

(You guys will likely get this sometime tomorrow or over the weekend.)

\*smh\*

[#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#scaling](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/scaling) [#sidekiq](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/sidekiq) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109841228086512238)
2023-02-11T08:05:08Z	****
On Twitter, Silicon Valley folks would do this thing where they’d use their platform to rubbish critical voices.

Surveillance capitalism? “Tin foil hat!”

Warning folks about VC-funded startups? “Fearmongering!”

Now the same folks are coming over here, trying the same tactics.

Well, guess what, bitches? You’re on our turf now. Simmer down and eat some humble pie. This place exists despite your efforts. And yes, we will resist your attempts to barge in, enclose, and exploit it.

Fool me once… ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109845067124736338)
2023-02-11T14:56:09Z	****
Implementing Curve25519/X25519: A Tutorial on Elliptic Curve Cryptography by [@martin](https://nondeterministic.computer/@martin)

A very accessible text; highly recommended if you want to understand the concepts underpinning the encryption used in TLS, Signal, etc.

Starts at modular arithmetic and covers Diffie-Hellman key exchange with clear explanations of cyclic groups and finite field and elliptic curve arithmetic within the context of the Montgomery curve used in Curve25519.

PDF: [https://martin.kleppmann.com/p ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109846683303455150)
2023-02-12T18:13:26Z	****
Gotta say, I’m a little in love with the layouts feature of Zellij¹.

(This is going to come in very handy when doing live demos/streams of Kitten².)

¹ [https://zellij.dev/tutorials/layouts/](https://zellij.dev/tutorials/layouts/)

² [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#terminal](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/terminal) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) [#multiplexer](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/multiplexer) [#workspace](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/workspace) [#linux](https://mastod ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109853121350548360)
2023-02-13T07:28:27Z	****
Folks, it’s encouraging to see more of you writing alternative text on images here so people who use screen readers can also take part but please make sure the text really is the equivalent of the image.

So, for example, if you’re posting a screenshot of some text, don’t just say “Excerpt of article” or “A tweet by so-and-so” but actually copy/paste the text from it (many platforms let you do this with images these days).

Folks who use screen readers have the right to hear what we see.

[#a11y](https://mastodon.ar.al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109856247507037772)
2023-02-13T08:02:34Z	****
Here’s a good guide for writing alternative text for images so people who use screen readers can also take part:

[https://www.sc.edu/about/offices\_and\_divisions/digital-accessibility/guides\_tutorials/alternative\_text/step-by-step-instructions-alt-text/alt-text-examples/index.php](https://www.sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/digital-accessibility/guides_tutorials/alternative_text/step-by-step-instructions-alt-text/alt-text-examples/index.php)

[#a11y](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/a11y) [#accessibility](https://mas ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109856381638027342)
2023-02-13T10:33:39Z	****
Here’s how you add alternative text (“alt text”) to your images on Mastodon so people who use screen readers can also take part.

1\. Add an image to your post.

2\. Press the Edit button.

3\. Add your alt text.

[#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#fediTips](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediTips) [#altText](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/altText) [#alternativeText](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/alternativeText) [#accessibility](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/accessibility) [#a11y](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/a1 ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109856975737773529)
2023-02-14T10:06:24Z	****
Just released syswide-cas version 6.0.1:

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/syswide-cas](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/syswide-cas)

syswide-cas enables node to use system-wide Certificate Authorities (CAs) in conjunction with the bundled root CAs.

Note that the package this is a fork of ( [https://www.npmjs.com/package/syswide-cas](https://www.npmjs.com/package/syswide-cas)) is by a defunct startup, is 404 on its source link, and is no longer maintained. I will be maintaining this fork for the fo ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109862530890618668)
2023-02-14T11:53:22Z	****
Just released Auto Encrypt Localhost¹ version 8.3.2 & @small-tech/https² version 5.1.1.

These releases fix an issue where the local Certificate Authority (CA) wasn’t being added to Node’s trust store on every run.

¹ Automatically creates locally-trusted TLS certs in 100% JavaScript (does not require certutil; has CLI). [https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost#auto-encrypt-localhost](https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt-localhost#auto-encrypt-localhost)

² @small-tech/https is a batteries-includ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109862951511956613)
2023-02-14T12:30:37Z	****
Just released @small-tech/https version 5.2.0

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/https](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@small-tech/https)

Adds support for localhost aliases place1.localhost - place4.localhost.

You can use these when testing the peer-to-peer features of Small Web apps locally ( [https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/](https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/)).

@small-tech/https is a batteries-included version of the Node.js https module (automatically provisions Let’s Encrypt ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109863097927835542)
2023-02-14T12:40:19Z	****
Never let anyone make you feel bad for caring.

And if someone tries, the correct response is always “go fuck yourself.” ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109863136073995812)
2023-02-14T18:56:41Z	****
Just got the end-to-end-encrypted Kitten¹ Chat example running!

Yay! ![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png) 🎉

Next: going to pull out the remote message event emitter and /inbox route into Kitten proper (latter is going in the Small Web protocol) and refactor the example.

After this, I’m looking forward to implementing the publishing functionality for public posts that all Small Web apps will be able to use (i.e., for “following ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109864616060366669)
2023-02-15T12:16:16Z	****
WebSocket Weasel is a very useful tool for testing, umm, WebSockets! ![:awesome:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/010/725/original/38dd73cee0f6cc9b.png)

Source code: [https://github.com/mhgolkar/Weasel](https://github.com/mhgolkar/Weasel)

Firefox/LibreWolf extension: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/websocket-weasel/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/websocket-weasel/)

[#webSocket](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/webSocket) [#wss](https://mastodon ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109868703823008717)
2023-02-15T18:33:48Z	****
Just merged the End-to-end encrypted Kitten Chat example into main.

![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png) 🎉

And wrote a tutorial you can follow that builds upon the earlier Kitten Chat tutorials: [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#end-to-end-encrypted-kitten-chat](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#end-to-end-encrypted-kitten-chat)

You can see all the source code for the example in the directory listing and the lines of code in the  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109870188336419483)
2023-02-15T19:10:43Z	****
Ah, darn, sorry if you can’t reach the repository folks, looks like [@Codeberg](https://social.anoxinon.de/@Codeberg) is having issues again.

(The site is not loading for me and the latest changes I’m trying to push are not going through either.)

[#codeberg](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/codeberg) [#git](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/git) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109870333519264227)
2023-02-15T19:32:47Z	****
[@Codeberg](https://social.anoxinon.de/@Codeberg) Right, looks like everything apart from Codeberg Pages is back up now :)

The tutorial link should be working ( [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#end-to-end-encrypted-kitten-chat](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#end-to-end-encrypted-kitten-chat)) and my git push with the latest edits just went through too.

[#codeberg](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/codeberg) [#git](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/git) [#status](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/status) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109870420287867660)
2023-02-16T09:58:41Z	****
¹ [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#kitten-chat](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#kitten-chat)

² [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#end-to-end-encrypted-kitten-chat](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#end-to-end-encrypted-kitten-chat)

³ [https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/](https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/)

[#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#SmallIsBeautiful](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallIsBeautiful) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109873825176612652)
2023-02-16T09:56:51Z	****
Live stream, today at 5PM Irish Time (GMT): Small is Beautiful

Topic: End-to-end encrypted Kitten Chat

It’s just me this month and I’m going to take you through converting a traditional centralised Kitten WebSocket chat¹ to an end-to-end encrypted peer-to-peer one² for the Small Web³.

Watch live at: [https://owncast.small-web.org](https://owncast.small-web.org)

(You can follow our stream from your fediverse account to be notified when it goes live. A big thank-you to the 755 of you who already do.) :)

[#SmallWeb]( ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109873817940193379)
2023-02-16T10:38:48Z	****
Ahead of today’s stream on implementing a basic end-to-end encrypted peer-to-peer Small Web chat example with [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten), here are some accessible resources on the math behind the [#encryption](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/encryption):

1\. [@martin](https://nondeterministic.computer/@martin)’s excellent Implementing [#Curve25519](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Curve25519)/#X25519: A Tutorial on Elliptic Curve [#Cryptography](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Cryptography) ( [https://martin.kle ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109873982902332861)
2023-02-16T10:45:30Z	****
(Note that you don’t have to understand the math behind it to use it but it doesn’t hurt, as a developer, to have a high-level understanding at least. Also note that we don‘t roll our own encryption. We rely on standard TLS to secure data in transit and Diffie-Hellman key exchange with Curve25519 as implemented by Paul Miller’s excellent (tiny/auditable) noble-ed25519 library ( [https://github.com/paulmillr/noble-ed25519](https://github.com/paulmillr/noble-ed25519)) for protecting data at rest.)

[#Kitten](https://mast ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109874009219429931)
2023-02-16T16:38:31Z	****
Bloody hell, nothing like discovering a bug in Kitten with an hour to go to a live stream. Now fixed. \*phew!\* 🐛

Join me in a little under half an hour as I take you through converting a traditional centralised Kitten WebSocket chat¹ to an end-to-end encrypted peer-to-peer one² for the Small Web³.

Watch live at: [https://owncast.small-web.org](https://owncast.small-web.org)

¹ [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#kitten-chat](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#kitten-chat)

² [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#end-to-end-enc ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109875397366152598)
2023-02-16T20:53:05Z	****
If you missed the Small is Beautiful live stream today where I take you through some of the advanced features of Kitten and the new end-to-end encrypted Kitten Chat example, here’s the recording:

[https://vimeo.com/799597015](https://vimeo.com/799597015)

(That’s on Vimeo. I’ll release it on our own site tomorrow once I’m back at my computer. Pecking this out on my phone at the moment.)

[#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#ee2e](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109876398361420817)
2023-02-16T21:04:00Z	****
Look around you… Who is the most marginalised?

That’s who you should be protecting.

If for no other reason than if you don’t, you will be next. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But you will be next.

(Or you will have to do things that will make you wish you’d been next.)

That’s just how fascism works.

And this is fascism.

[#transRightsAreHumanRights](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/transRightsAreHumanRights) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109876441289388852)
2023-02-16T21:46:21Z	****
I heard all the cool kids put stickers on their notebooks so… ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109876607781808784)
2023-02-17T08:21:41Z	****
So it turns out ChatGPT is now lying about being on [@signalapp](https://mastodon.world/@signalapp) and giving out random people’s phone numbers as its own.

[https://mastodon.ar.al/@daveleeFT@mastodon.social/109876410731988058](https://mastodon.ar.al/@daveleeFT@mastodon.social/109876410731988058)

¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯

CC [@Mer\_\_edith](https://mastodon.world/@Mer__edith) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109879106067197837)
2023-02-17T10:54:44Z	****
If you wanted to spend just one minute talking to every person on the planet, it would take you more than 200 lifetimes to do so\*.

So don’t waste even a minute on some cynical troll or sea lion.

Block and move on.

Life’s too short and there are countless people out there more worthy of your time.

💕

\\* 8,000,000,000 people \* 1 minute / 60 minutes / 24 hours / 30 days / 12 months / 73.4 average life expectancy in years in 2019 according to WHO data. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109879707832112819)
2023-02-17T12:53:42Z	****
Small is Beautiful #27: End-to-end encrypted Kitten Chat

[https://small-tech.org/videos/small-is-beautiful-27/](https://small-tech.org/videos/small-is-beautiful-27/)

In this hour-and-a-half long live stream recording, I show you how WebSockets, project-specific secrets, authenticated routes, and public-key cryptography work in Kitten.

We also cover Kitten’s native support for htmx and Alpine.js.

[#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#WebSocket](https://mast ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109880175686063458)
2023-02-18T10:17:32Z	****
Capitalism is the belief that a handful of psychopath billionaires racing to become psychopath trillionaires is somehow the best possible thing for all of us.

Fuck that.

Fuck that very much.

[#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) [#billionaires](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaires) [#psychopaths](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/psychopaths) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109885223865694071)
2023-02-19T08:48:19Z	****
Dutch border police told to stop ethnic profiling

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64647272](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64647272)

Apparently all it takes is a court order for a European country to not be racist.

[#EuropeanValues](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/EuropeanValues) [#Netherlands](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Netherlands) [#eu](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/eu) [#racism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/racism) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109890535401870110)
2023-02-19T09:02:44Z	****
So Dutch border police have been told by the courts to stop ethnic profiling… Hey, I wonder, can we do Belgium next?

Whaddaya say, [@EU\_Commission](https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission), given you’re headquartered there and all? You down with the racial profiling being carried out at the borders?

Any thoughts, [@FRA](https://social.network.europa.eu/@FRA)?

Any local politicians/MEPs want to take this on?

[https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109812465785722901](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109812465785722901)

 ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109890592110946377)
2023-02-19T09:19:11Z	****
Maybe someone should create a web site where we list which EU countries carry out racial profiling and publish the experiences of people who have been racially profiled at EU borders. 🤔

Maybe we can use the fediverse to gather those experiences…

Here, I’ll start:

I was racially profiled by Belgian border police two weeks ago at Brussels Airport.

[https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109812465785722901](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109812465785722901)

CC [@EU\_Commission](https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission)[@F ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109890656744759629)
2023-02-19T09:37:55Z	****
Oops, did I just register the domain racial-profiling.eu? I might have.

🙊

CC [@EU\_Commission](https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission)[@FRA](https://social.network.europa.eu/@FRA)

[#Belgium](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Belgium) [#racialProfiling](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/racialProfiling) [#ethnicProfiling](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ethnicProfiling) [#racism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/racism) [#eu](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/eu) [#europe](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/europe) [#humanRights](https://mas ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109890730455415892)
2023-02-20T10:40:50Z	****
Wonder if anyone has any ideas why the new Alpine Linux musl/ARM64 Node.js build is failing and/or can help fix it.

[https://github.com/nodejs/unofficial-builds/pull/59#issuecomment-1436328696](https://github.com/nodejs/unofficial-builds/pull/59#issuecomment-1436328696)

If we can get this fixed soon-ish (before it’s reverted) it’ll mean – among other things – that Node.js will run on [@postmarketOS](https://fosstodon.org/@postmarketOS) on phones and other mobile devices.

CC [@martijnbraam](https://fosstodon.org/@mar ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109896640147410121)
2023-02-20T13:57:54Z	****
Shaking my head at an article on the web written in 2021 titled “What Is AES Encryption & How Does It Work in 2023?”

Umm… exactly the same way it did in 2021, you muppets.

I swear SEO is a four-letter word.

[#seo](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/seo) [#searchEngineOptimisation](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/searchEngineOptimisation) [#mathematics](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mathematics) [#muppets](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/muppets) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109897415047328419)
2023-02-20T14:30:40Z	****
Further to last week’s stream on implementing end-to-end encryption in Kitten, a big thank-you to [@paulmillr](https://mastodon.social/@paulmillr) whose noble cryptography libraries underpin it.

Specifically, Kitten uses:

\- ed25519-keygen: [https://github.com/paulmillr/ed25519-keygen](https://github.com/paulmillr/ed25519-keygen)

\- noble ed25519: [https://github.com/paulmillr/noble-ed25519](https://github.com/paulmillr/noble-ed25519)

\- noble hashes: [https://github.com/paulmillr/noble-hashes](https://github.com/p ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109897543867977958)
2023-02-20T15:37:07Z	****
A good article on post-quantum cryptography (featuring Kyber and Dilithium, along with explanations of other promising schemes).

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/nist-post-quantum-surprise/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/nist-post-quantum-surprise/)

[#postQuantumCryptography](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/postQuantumCryptography) [#quantumComputing](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/quantumComputing) [#cryptography](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/cryptography) [#keyExchange](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/keyExchange) [#signatures](http ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109897805181721023)
2023-02-20T17:28:10Z	****
It’s 2023 and you’re designing a decentralised system based on public-key cryptography where a person’s identity(ies) are their public key(s).

Do you…

[#cryptography](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/cryptography) [#postQuantumCryptography](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/postQuantumCryptography) [#pqc](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/pqc) [#pq](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/pq) [#ed25519](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ed25519) [#curve25519](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/curve25519) [#x25519](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/x25519) [#Small ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109898241823673948)
2023-02-21T21:22:50Z	****
On signing git commits…

* * *

So today I realised that I forgot to add the global setting to make me automatically sign my git commits:

git config --global commit.gpgsign true

(Just setting up your user.signingkey isn’t enough.)

Also, you can go rebase your whole history to sign all your commits using:

git rebase --signoff --root

(However, you’ll end up with a linear history and lose any branch/merge history, etc.)

[#git](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/git) [#commit](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/commit) [#gpg](http ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109904826914977701)
2023-02-22T16:07:33Z	****
(And, I mean, let’s not even get into the whole double negatives thing…) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109909249469669269)
2023-02-22T16:05:50Z	****
Cue reply-guy: “actually, let me explain to you the historic reason why boolean attributes in HTML…” ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109909242694240679)
2023-02-22T16:04:26Z	****
Literally everything else, ever: disabled=false means enabled

HTML: disabled=false means disabled

Go home, HTML, you’re drunk!

[#html](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/html) [#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109909237228219043)
2023-02-22T18:42:39Z	****
Well, well, would you look at that… there’s some movement on my complaint to the Irish Data Protection Commission about Twitter not honouring data erasure demands under GDPR.

🤔

CC [@noybeu](https://mastodon.social/@noybeu)

[#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) [#GDPR](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GDPR) [#dataErasure](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dataErasure) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109909859349508909)
2023-02-22T20:17:14Z	****
Forget paying for it, you couldn’t pay me to go back to Twitter at this point. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109910231250966896)
2023-02-23T07:20:43Z	****
Mastodon: server admins can read your DMs…

Wildebeest: hold my beer.

[https://github.com/cloudflare/wildebeest/issues/303](https://github.com/cloudflare/wildebeest/issues/303)

TL;DR: Direct messages on Wildebeest are public. (Yes, you read that right.) In case I need to spell it out: do not use Wildebeest even if they “fix” this unless you want to be locked into Cloudflare.

Hat-tip [@doot](https://glitterkitten.co.uk/@doot)

[#wildebeest](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/wildebeest) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/ta ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109912840148039055)
2023-02-24T07:07:48Z	****
[#UN](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/UN) passes non-binding resolution calling for [#Russia](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Russia) to withdraw from [#Ukraine](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Ukraine)

[https://www.inkl.com/a/vaYovqczxXz](https://www.inkl.com/a/vaYovqczxXz)

Venezuela on behalf of 16 countries that either voted against or abstained (Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Laos, Mali, Nicaragua, North Korea, St Vincent, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe): we’re for “a spirit of comp ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109918451689299722)
2023-02-24T14:56:39Z	****
Want a quick way to test how your apps and web sites look to people with various types of colour blindness?

The Colorblind Filters GNOME extension makes it trivial to do so:

[https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/5589/colorblind-filters/](https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/5589/colorblind-filters/)

[#colourBlindness](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/colourBlindness) [#colorBlindness](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/colorBlindness) [#accessibility](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/accessibility) [#a11y](https://mastodon.ar.al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109920295287304666)
2023-02-24T17:26:08Z	****
Just got [#WezTerm](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/WezTerm) automatically conforming to the light/dark colour schemes on [#GNOME](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GNOME) under [#Wayland](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Wayland) (something it doesn‘t automatically do for its window title/decoration colours) and shared my configuration… because productive procrastination, I guess :)

[https://vimeo.com/802044990](https://vimeo.com/802044990)

[https://github.com/wez/wezterm/discussions/3153](https://github.com/wez/wezterm/discussion ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109920883102430356)
2023-02-26T20:37:52Z	****
“Structural problems don't have individual solutions.”

[https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/career-criminals/#fool-me-twice-three-times-four-times-a-hundred-times](https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/career-criminals/#fool-me-twice-three-times-four-times-a-hundred-times) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109932961620060032)
2023-02-27T07:00:37Z	****
Turkey’s regime put a bounty on my head. We’re not ready for what it might do next.

“…because I used my platform as a professional [#basketball](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/basketball) player to denounce its strongman, Recep Tayyip [#Erdoğan](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Erdo%C4%9Fan) … his regime revoked my passport, filed 12 lawsuits against me, and put my name on Interpol’s “Red Notice” list … raided my home in [#Turkey](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Turkey) and imprisoned my father … [got] my brother fired from his b ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109935410379997483)
2023-02-27T11:35:58Z	****
The only people I’ve ever seen complaining about racism against white people are… \*checks notes\*… ah, that’s right, racist white people.

[#racism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/racism) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109936493108293878)
2023-02-27T12:39:21Z	****
Kitten¹ ❤️ HTML :)

Over the weekend, I migrated Kitten from htm ( [https://github.com/developit/htm](https://github.com/developit/htm)) to xhtm ( [https://github.com/dy/xhtm](https://github.com/dy/xhtm)).

Among other things, you no longer have to close all your tags (<hr> instead of <hr />).

I want to take the opportunity to thank Dmitry Ivanov for working with me over the weekend and making eight releases over the last four days based on issues I uncovered while testing in [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitt ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109936742345154567)
2023-02-27T12:42:04Z	****
Also, countless thanks to [@developit](https://mastodon.social/@developit) for the excellent htm and vhtml ( [https://github.com/developit/vhtml](https://github.com/developit/vhtml)), which has made developing Kitten immeasurably easier.

![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png) 💕

[#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#html](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/html) [#xhtm](https:// ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109936753030953212)
2023-02-27T16:01:39Z	****
The galaxy mind take of today in my replies was “you say white people who complain about racism against white people are racist so you’re racist.”

Yep, we got ’em here too, folks. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109937537780453527)
2023-02-28T08:54:23Z	****
“If you say ‘I want to live,’ and I say ‘No,’ what happens next isn’t a debate; it’s murder.”

[https://xtramagazine.com/power/what-went-wrong-at-the-new-york-times-246409](https://xtramagazine.com/power/what-went-wrong-at-the-new-york-times-246409)

[#transRightsAreHumanRights](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/transRightsAreHumanRights) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109941520030333506)
2023-02-28T12:35:21Z	****
As of the latest commit, Kitten now deduplicates/combines all styles on a page into a single style tag in the head.

(So don’t worry about returning styles from your components which are used multiple times in the page. The styles will only be added once. Unless you‘re fetching just the component over the wire via htmx, in which case they’ll still be sent but there’s also no harm in that. I’m looking at improving component authoring further as we go.)

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)
 ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109942388900236811)
2023-02-28T15:29:37Z	****
html-validate¹ is an awesome offline HTML validator written in Node.js (with accessibility validation, etc.) I just started looking into it and whipped up a little example to test it out.

In case it helps someone else get started with it, here’s the code:

[https://gitlab.com/html-validate/html-validate/-/issues/210](https://gitlab.com/html-validate/html-validate/-/issues/210)

Enjoy!

¹ [https://html-validate.org](https://html-validate.org)

[#html](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/html) [#validation](https://mastodon.ar. ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109943074128914577)
2023-02-28T15:42:49Z	****
[#fediblock](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediblock) mostr.pub

Apparently an unmoderated bridge between nostr and Mastodon that’s being used by trolls.

(e.g., [https://mastodon.ar.al/@203b0894a863e95c69e1a1eff80885ccd5ad1d1dfc58cc1aff9892321b11bb56@mostr.pub/109942905027897532](https://mastodon.ar.al/@203b0894a863e95c69e1a1eff80885ccd5ad1d1dfc58cc1aff9892321b11bb56@mostr.pub/109942905027897532)) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109943126084308303)
2023-02-28T16:37:52Z	****
Yep, because “woke AI” was the problem.

[https://www.theinformation.com/articles/fighting-woke-ai-musk-recruits-team-to-develop-openai-rival](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/fighting-woke-ai-musk-recruits-team-to-develop-openai-rival)

Do not use this asshole’s social network. Do not buy this asshole’s cars. Lobby the EU to regulate the absolute shit out of this asshole’s businesses. Do not let your governments give this asshole even one cent of your taxes.

[#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) [# ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109943342510755021)
2023-02-28T17:23:46Z	****
Just implemented basic HTML and accessibility validation in Kitten¹ (using html-validate²).

For now, validation results are written out to the Node.js console. I do have a few ideas about how to improve that in the future, though :)

PS. All those validation errors you see are from posts coming in from my Mastodon federated timeline with images that don’t have alt text. Please folks, write text descriptions for your images.

¹ [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

² [https://html-validate ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109943523048090829)
2023-03-01T17:22:00Z	****
Billionaires aren’t going to decentralise jack shit. If they were, they’d start by decentralising themselves instead of choosing to remain billionaires.

Don’t fall for it.

[#Bluesky](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Bluesky) [#JackDorsey](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JackDorsey) [#billionaires](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/billionaires) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#oligarchs](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/oligarchs) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109949178395383435)
2023-03-01T17:27:28Z	****
Decentralisation begins at decentring yourself.

[#noncolonial](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/noncolonial) [#decentralisation](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/decentralisation) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109949199846755932)
2023-03-02T06:47:13Z	****
A billionaire promising you decentralisation is like a king promising you democracy.

(Unless it involves them abdicating the crown, you know it’s bullshit.)

[#decentralisation](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/decentralisation) [#Bluesky](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Bluesky) [#JackDorsey](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/JackDorsey) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#bullshit](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/bullshit) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109952344588355283)
2023-03-02T09:54:29Z	****
Sadly, it looks like no one was able to solve the issues around creating a Node.js binary for Musl on arm64, so it looks like Kitten¹ won’t be available on [@postmarketOS](https://fosstodon.org/@postmarketOS) on mobile phones, etc., in the foreseeable future (unless someone with the necessary knowledge and time can step up right away before this commit is reverted).

[https://github.com/nodejs/unofficial-builds/pull/59#issuecomment-1451256522](https://github.com/nodejs/unofficial-builds/pull/59#issuecomment-1451256522) ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109953080975086343)
2023-03-02T10:16:44Z	****
What kind of asshat carries out a DDoS attack on a small, independent fediverse host?

(If you’re that asshat and you’re reading this, congratulations, this is official recognition of your asshattery. Print it out. Frame it. Hang it on your wall. Asshat.) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109953168451768379)
2023-03-02T11:42:57Z	****
Folks, just a heads up that at 3PM (Irish time; GMT) today, my Mastodon is going to go down for a bit as I migrate servers.

Shouldn’t take more than an hour 🤞🤓 ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109953507486637823)
2023-03-02T14:09:50Z	****
This is a niche one but if anyone needs a hyperscript renderer more geared for an HTML-based workflow than JSX, I forked [@developit](https://mastodon.social/@developit)’s excellent vhtml to implement a few things I need for Kitten¹.

[https://codeberg.org/small-tech/vhtml](https://codeberg.org/small-tech/vhtml)

Main differences so far:

\- Style tags are no longer escaped

\- Boolean HTML attributes are emitted correctly (without ="true")

You probably want Jason’s original but putting this out there in case it helps ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109954085073099959)
2023-03-02T14:55:40Z	****
Right folks, my Mastodon will be going down in 5 minutes as I migrate to a new server. Should take about an hour…

See you on the other side! :)

🤞🤓

[#famousLastWords](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/famousLastWords) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109954265298730516)
2023-03-02T16:54:54Z	****
Hey everyone, the server migration went as smooth as butter :)

(45 minutes of it was taken up by me waiting for the 6GB database backup – sans media – to be generated, downloading it, and uploading it. The actual migration bit was faster and indices, etc., are being built in the background as we speak. Oh, and I now have 25 – count ’em… 25! – Sidekiq threads. The luxury! Can you hear them purr? I can!)

PS. Just want to take a moment to thank both [@hugo](https://masto.pt/@hugo) and [@jan](https://toot.io/@jan) for be ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109954734141033348)
2023-03-05T07:52:27Z	****
“In Webb’s first weeks, as astronomers raced to find the most distant galaxies ever detected, they wondered whether the data were actually wrong. The ancient galaxies were just too big and bright … The early universe was, somehow, bold and brash and remarkably luminous. ‘The objects we’re finding are as massive or larger than the Milky Way’ … Even accounting for some weird new phenomena, “everything’s too big, and it’s too big, too soon…’”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/AZZQabclBMl](https://www.inkl.com/a/AZZQabclBMl)

[#ast ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109969588043705072)
2023-03-05T08:07:50Z	****
For those of you, like me, watching America’s rapid decent into fascism in abject horror from the sidelines in Europe, remember: where America goes, the West soon follows. If we don’t like where that is, we must do better than doing the same things and hoping for different outcomes.

What I’m saying is America is a warning, not an instruction manual.

[#america](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/america) [#us](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/us) [#usa](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/usa) [#republicans](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/r ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109969648546731572)
2023-03-06T11:02:32Z	****
Anyone else having trouble with npm at the moment? (npm install stuck at the “idealTree buildDeps” stage)

[#npm](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/npm) [#nodeJS](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/nodeJS) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109975997809128323)
2023-03-06T11:14:47Z	****
Right, found the issue: I changed routers yesterday and it seems the one provided by Eir isn’t handling IPv6 properly (?) Anyway, turning IPv6 off for the Ethernet connection has fixed the issue for now. But, oddly, now I’m seeing “npm notice Beginning October 4, 2021, all connections to the npm registry - including for package installation - must use TLS 1.2 or higher. You are currently using plaintext http to connect” when I run npm install.

Going to look into why that is next. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109976045990797596)
2023-03-06T11:23:56Z	****
PS. I just set the IPv6 option in GNOME Settings → Network → PCI Ethernet (I’m using a wired connection on my desktop) → Gear icon → IPv6 → IPv6 Method back to Automatic (and flipped the on/off switch to restart the network) and npm install is still working.

So disabling/re-enabling IPv6 is something to try if you switch routers and you find that npm install is getting stuck at the “idealTree buildDeps” stage. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109976081933026631)
2023-03-06T11:17:48Z	****
My bad, I accidentally ran npm config set registry http:// registry.npmjs.org --global instead of \*https\* while troubleshooting. 🤦‍♂️

All good now :)

[#npm](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/npm) [#ipv6](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ipv6) [#stuck](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/stuck) [#workaround](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/workaround) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109976057855876335)
2023-03-06T14:15:14Z	****
Minimum valid HTML file, did you say? Here you go:

<!doctype html>

<html lang=en>

<title>Hello, world!</title>

(Tested with [https://validator.w3.org/nu/#textarea](https://validator.w3.org/nu/#textarea))

I mean, needless to say, don’t do this. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should :)

[#html](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/html) [#forgiving](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/forgiving) [#parser](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/parser) [#validation](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/validation) [#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/ta ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109976755565279858)
2023-03-06T14:26:37Z	****
Right, thanks for the edits, folks. I think I’ve whittled it down to the fewest possible characters now. (If not the fewest bytes. If you want that, replace the emoji with a dot or something.) :P ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109976800310948812)
2023-03-06T16:42:39Z	****
[@Codeberg](https://social.anoxinon.de/@Codeberg) Hey folks, looks like the git pull/push issues are back.

(A git pull just took > 2 minutes 12 seconds and my latest git push also just took exactly 2 minutes and 12 seconds… that’s quite a coincidence; hope it helps you debug the issue) :) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109977335225445644)
2023-03-06T20:27:02Z	****
Kitten now exposes a global \`sanitise()\` function you can use when adding untrusted content to your templates on the server (it’s an instance of [https://github.com/apostrophecms/sanitize-html](https://github.com/apostrophecms/sanitize-html)).

I’ve updated the examples and the documentation to reflect this. The underlying changes for this also mean that adding styles and scripts to your components, etc., is much nicer now at author-time and that HTML entities now render correctly.

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app]( ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109978217519441857)
2023-03-07T08:49:47Z	****
“Dowson and his comrades were driven to the beach in a lorry on that fateful day. Despite being just 40 miles from the blast, the men were issued no personal protective equipment of any kind

…

these nuclear tests ruined their lives, causing cancers and fertility problems, as well as birth defects that have been passed down through the generations.”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/wajVbXSqZXq](https://www.inkl.com/a/wajVbXSqZXq)

But everyone wears poppies on Strictly Come Dancing so it’s ok, no?

[#uk](https://mastodon.ar.a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109981138121183630)
2023-03-07T14:47:50Z	****
If you want to npm install a specific branch of your Node module from [@Codeberg](https://social.anoxinon.de/@Codeberg), you can do:

npm install git+ [https://codeberg.org/](https://codeberg.org/) <organisation>/<repository>.git#<branch name>

e.g., npm install git+ [https://codeberg.org/small-tech/hyperscript-to-html-string.git#escape-newlines-in-attributes](https://codeberg.org/small-tech/hyperscript-to-html-string.git#escape-newlines-in-attributes)

[#codeberg](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/codeberg) [#npm](https://m ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109982546034215718)
2023-03-07T14:55:32Z	****
The lovely [@imsnif](https://hachyderm.io/@imsnif) et al. have just released a new version of Zellij (a terminal workspace with split panes and much more).

The latest version brings stacked panes, auto and swap layouts, and floating panes in layouts.

[https://zellij.dev/news/stacked-panes-swap-layouts/](https://zellij.dev/news/stacked-panes-swap-layouts/)

[#zellij](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/zellij) [#terminal](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/terminal) [#multiplexer](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/multiplexer) [#cli](http ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109982576335341315)
2023-03-07T15:26:48Z	****
I would rather have a conversation with a literal talking poo than Elon Musk. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109982699263676204)
2023-03-08T07:44:51Z	****
Billionaires are tumours. Capitalism is cancer. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109986545126975746)
2023-03-08T08:53:57Z	****
Political spectrum, TL; DR:

Libertarian socialism/anarchism: “Fuck hierarchy!”

Right libertarianism: “Fuck your (state) hierarchy, long live my (corporate) hierarchy!”

Authoritarian socialism: “Fuck your (corporate) hierarchy, long live my (state) hierarchy!”

Centrism: “Fuck you, I got mine!”

[#politics](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/politics) [#philosophy](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/philosophy) [#anarchism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/anarchism) [#socialism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/socialism) [#libertarianism] ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109986816814579429)
2023-03-08T18:45:33Z	****
Imagine staying on Twitter until it goes bankrupt.

[https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/how-long-does-twitter-have-left](https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/how-long-does-twitter-have-left)

[#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) [#musk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/musk) [#sewer](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/sewer) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109989143109504778)
2023-03-09T08:52:17Z	****
I guess this is one of those “I need a large dollop of chocolate spread in my porridge” sort of days. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109992472577549742)
2023-03-09T09:32:13Z	****
On my left, we have a tiny organic farm that produces vegetables.

On my right, we have a factory farm for livestock.

Tech folks: They look the same to me.

(Venture capital funded startups and the billion-and-trillion-dollar corporations they want to become—or be bought by—that make their money by exploiting you are not the same as independent app developers and tiny and small businesses and not-for-profits that just make/sell tools for people.)

[#ventureCapital](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ventureCapital) [#vc](htt ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109992629607990890)
2023-03-09T09:47:29Z	****
Mozilla announces they’re launching Greenzilla to tackle the climate emergency…

Greenzilla will be a not-for-profit foundation that owns a for-profit corporation that is funded by half-a-billion dollars every year from ExxonMobil.

Tech folks: wow, that sounds great! Thank you for saving the environment, Greenzilla!

[#greenzilla](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/greenzilla) [#mozilla](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mozilla) [#google](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/google) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconVall ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109992689644655470)
2023-03-09T10:01:42Z	****
Little Tommy Tinder has burned down nearly every house he’s touched.

He always approaches with a neighbourly smile and a welcome cake.

He’s now heading towards your house.

Maybe this time it’ll be different. Who knows? The cake sure does look tasty…

🍰

[#ventureCapital](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ventureCapital) [#VC](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/VC) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#fediverse](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/fediverse) [#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#the ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109992745518001309)
2023-03-09T10:32:38Z	****
I’ve never understood dangerouslySetInnerHTML. Been working on the authoring/HTML rendering in Kitten and I’ve decided on the following model:

\- Anything you interpolate into your templates is escaped. So you’re protected from script injection by default. (I’m a big fan of safe by default vs. blame after the fact.)

\- To include HTML, you call safelyAddHtml(untrustedHtml) in your template. That sanitises it before adding.

Think I’m happy with that.

¹ [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/ap ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109992867195050739)
2023-03-09T11:45:31Z	****
The number of people who actually believed Mozilla is launching Greenzilla to fight the climate emergency funded by half-a-billion dollars every year from ExxonMobil tells you everything you need to know about Mozilla.

[https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109992689644655470](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109992689644655470)

(Mozilla is a not-for-profit foundation that owns a for-profit corporation and says it exists to protect your privacy while being funded by half a billion dollars a year from Google.)

[#mozilla](https:// ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109993153756421388)
2023-03-09T12:41:36Z	****
Donno about you but preparing the ingredients is my favorite part of cooking.

(Really enjoying ordering these HelloFresh meals we’ve been getting. It’s teaching me a lot about cooking too.)

[#cooking](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/cooking) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109993374313289017)
2023-03-09T13:51:00Z	****
And the result :) (Spicy mushroom ramen with charred garlic pak choi.)

Mind you, my presentation could use some work :)

🍜

[#food](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/food) [#ramen](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ramen) [#vegetarian](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/vegetarian) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109993647177316828)
2023-03-10T11:50:56Z	****
Trying my best to ensure that the authoring experience with Kitten¹ is going to be delightful… and that includes error messages :)

PS. This one isn‘t in the main branch yet.

¹ [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#html](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/html) [#markup](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/markup) [#authoring](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/authoring) [# ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109998837379878452)
2023-03-10T16:03:47Z	****
Oh I am very excited about this! Just implemented very neat support for conditionals in Kitten¹ (not in main yet).

Kitten embraces vanilla HTML, JS, and CSS as much as possible but this little extension to HTML improves authoring/readability so much that I’ve made an exception. The <then> and <else> tags are optional, by the way, so the following is perfectly valid markup:

<if ${true}>

<strong>This is true!</strong>

</if>

Enjoy! (Soon.) 💕

¹ [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#Kit ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109999831613187202)
2023-03-10T16:10:00Z	**** ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109999856079539480)
2023-03-10T17:05:41Z	****
Right, I just made the end tags for <then> and <else> optional so now you can also write your conditionals like this! :)

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#conditionals](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/conditionals) [#markup](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/markup) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110000075017613863)
2023-03-11T08:31:32Z	****
You don’t need predators to validate what you have for what you have to have value. Predators eye what you have because they want it for themselves.

Even if can’t fend them off, there’s a difference between locking your door and rolling out a red carpet.

I’m not saying they’re not going to get in one way or another eventually because they are.

I’m saying at least don’t make it easy for them so others have more time to work on more resilient alternatives.

[#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#fediverse ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110003715604269055)
2023-03-12T07:39:20Z	****
Today on The Silicon Valley Shitshow…

[https://www.inkl.com/a/gbpVgvTmywm](https://www.inkl.com/a/gbpVgvTmywm)

[#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#SiliconValleyBank](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValleyBank) [#svb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/svb) [#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110009172624126588)
2023-03-12T15:29:20Z	****
Who has two thumbs and just got Markdown working in Kitten?

w00t! ![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png)🎉

Bonus: you can use components inside Markdown tags :)

PS. This is not in main yet ( [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)). ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110011020763230902)
2023-03-12T15:33:32Z	****
“A parapgraph”

🤦‍♂️ 🤣 ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110011037300234496)
2023-03-12T19:15:45Z	****
Right, Kitten’s initial Markdown support implementation is now in main.

I’ll be adding better examples and comprehensive documentation as I go but if you want to have a play, these resources should help:

Kitten Count example in Markdown: [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#html-is-so-1991-introducing-markdown](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#html-is-so-1991-introducing-markdown)

Components example (which demonstrates nearly all the supported features): [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/src/branch/main/examples/component ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110011911048231988)
2023-03-13T06:55:53Z	****
“European Commission’s anti-trust division gave the unconditional go-ahead to a joint venture between four of Europe’s largest telcos to develop a new EU-wide digital advertising platform”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/GrWLWrfokGo](https://www.inkl.com/a/GrWLWrfokGo)

EU’s answer to Silicon Valley people farmers? Create our own.

Stunning failure of imagination and business as usual draped in the EU flag and lip service to privacy. Wouldn’t have expected anything less [@EU\_Commission](https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_C ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110014664095349572)
2023-03-13T12:35:00Z	****
Does anyone know why Mastodon has a limitation on what dimensions your images and videos can be? It’s such an annoying restriction. (Also, it can’t handle webm videos created by @GNOME’s screenshot tool.)

(Not sure if this is a Mastodon web client restriction or Mastodon restriction.)

[#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#images](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/images) [#videos](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/videos) [#media](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/media) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110015997592634845)
2023-03-13T12:37:20Z	****
For a bit of fun, I made a version of the end-to-end encrypted Kitten chat example that animates part of the ciphertext descrambling into the plaintext. Because why not have a little fun along the way?

Video: [https://vimeo.com/smalltech/kitten-animated-e2ee-chat](https://vimeo.com/smalltech/kitten-animated-e2ee-chat)

Source code: [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/src/branch/main/examples/animated-end-to-end-encrypted-kitten-chat/private%F0%9F%94%92](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/src/branch/main/examples/animated-en ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110016006753037183)
2023-03-13T20:47:59Z	****
Waiting for Lizzo :)

[#dublin](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dublin) [#lizzo](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/lizzo) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110017936032975645)
2023-03-14T00:24:10Z	****
Likely the best photo I took at the Lizzo gig tonight in Dublin. Was a blast :)

[#lizzo](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/lizzo) [#dublin](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dublin) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110018786160343513)
2023-03-14T11:30:26Z	****
“There's a lot of stuff being ground up into the sausage.” – Microsoft VP

[https://www.platformer.news/p/microsoft-just-laid-off-one-of-its](https://www.platformer.news/p/microsoft-just-laid-off-one-of-its)

[#ai](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ai) [#microsoft](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/microsoft) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110021406010454967)
2023-03-15T08:36:20Z	****
“In the mid-2000s, a group of libertarian activists decided to turn a small New Hampshire town called Grafton into an Ayn Rand-inspired paradise. No rules, no regulations, just vibes … [hundreds] descended on Grafton and started stripping away all public services. Everything fell apart and hungry bears began invading the town. The libertarians started fighting each other, the bears and an angry llama called Hurricane. Long story short: the experiment was not a success.”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/qVwbZzhMLpM](https://www ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110026383724695087)
2023-03-15T08:42:57Z	****
“First BBC bosses said Lineker could say what he liked; the next day they suspended him. It was clear they had been nobbled by the government. Just like Putin’s Russia. Made a change from 1930s Germany, I suppose.”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/kbqZnlHjBoj](https://www.inkl.com/a/kbqZnlHjBoj)

[#bbc](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/bbc) [#lineker](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/lineker) [#tories](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tories) [#uk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/uk) [#ukpol](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ukpol) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110026409735919179)
2023-03-15T09:40:32Z	****
Imagine if Mozilla were what it says it is and had released Firefox OS under GPL…

Instead, they did the research and development (with some of your money, if you donate to them) for a third-party company to come and close it off in a commercial product. Oh and for their patron, Google, to invest $20 million on top to create closed “smart feature phones” to farm the data of the <strike>poors</strike> “next five billion.”

\*golf claps\*

[https://tuxphones.com/smart-feature-phones-revolution-kai-os/](https://tuxphones. ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110026636180643342)
2023-03-15T09:53:43Z	****
Folks: So what browser do you recommend, then?

Me: the post-capitalist one we haven’t built yet.

[#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#browsers](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/browsers) [#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110026687974373796)
2023-03-15T10:17:01Z	****
Petition to call “liberal licenses” what they really are: “enclosable by rich people licenses.”

[#mit](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mit) [#bsd](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/bsd) [#mpl](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mpl) [#liberal](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/liberal) [#openSource](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/openSource) [#gpl](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/gpl) [#agpl](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/agpl) [#copyLeft](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/copyLeft) [#freeSoftware](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/freeSoftware) [#foss](https:/ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110026779592868934)
2023-03-15T18:14:31Z	****
Just wrote </dev> instead of </div>.

I think I might be trying to tell myself something. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110028657258744225)
2023-03-16T10:36:30Z	****
(Similarly I can get Black Box terminal close but it doesn’t have split panes. If GNOME Console supported split panes and could change its theme based on the currently active colour scheme, I’d use that.)

\*sigh\* ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110032518517000856)
2023-03-16T10:35:34Z	****
My kingdom¹ for a terminal emulator that:

1\. Works under Wayland.

1\. Has split panes.

2\. Conforms to GNOME’s design guidelines (is a GTK window, reacts to system colour scheme changes, etc.)

I can get WezTerm pretty close to this but its window looks entirely alien and while I’ve managed to configure it to switch themes when the colour scheme changes, it has a tendency to lose its title bar when it does. 🤦‍♂️

[#terminal](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/terminal) [#commandLine](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/commandLin ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110032514880517849)
2023-03-16T11:09:29Z	****
Small is Beautiful: live stream today at 5PM Irish Time (UTC)

What’s new in Kitten¹ this month?

![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png) Markdown support

![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png) New HTML validator

![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png) HTML ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110032648236455954)
2023-03-16T14:45:28Z	****
Oh yeah, and also the new conditional syntax :)

\`\`\`js

<if ${true}>

<then>

<p>This will show.</p>

<else>

<p>This will not show.</p>

</if>

\`\`\` ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110033497548824138)
2023-03-16T16:39:44Z	****
Small Is Beautiful live stream starts in ~20 minutes :)

We’re going to make a silly little blog page in Markdown and then add commenting to it using Kitten. Feel free to follow along and ask questions during the stream.

[https://owncast.small-web.org](https://owncast.small-web.org)

[#SmallIsBeautiful](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallIsBeautiful) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/d ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110033946834366127)
2023-03-18T07:34:23Z	****
“Scientists have created baby mice from two males for the first time, raising the possibility of using the same technique for people.”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/qVwpMBIMLpM](https://www.inkl.com/a/qVwpMBIMLpM)

In a stunning blow to bigots everywhere, it turns out god’s fine with Adam and Steve.

[#stemCells](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/stemCells) [#science](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/science) [#lgbtq](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/lgbtq) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110043127056759135)
2023-03-18T08:17:01Z	****
Meanwhile, in The Atlantic, “for anyone who is critical of the many serious excesses of the left” and “my most thoughtful centrist and conservative followers” writes self-avowed “moderate” Thomas Chatterton Williams as we live in a world of billionaires and trillion-dollar corporations where bigots in so-called democracies ban books and turn back the clock on human rights.

This is precisely the sort of spineless centrist bothsidesism that paves the path for fascism.

[https://www.inkl.com/a/wawgnVuqZXq](https://www.in ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110043294689725446)
2023-03-18T09:15:26Z	****
“If you don't respect any of the channels meant for the expression of dissent, it will find a way to express itself directly”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/BZnowoFlWbl](https://www.inkl.com/a/BZnowoFlWbl)

[#france](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/france) [#macron](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/macron) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110043524395225152)
2023-03-18T17:02:00Z	****
Did someone say Markdown in components? Yep, you can now do that in Kitten (as of a few minutes ago in main).

Markdown support is now in the core renderer and every Kitten feature is now supported under Markdown as it is under HTML (Kitten conditionals, components, etc.)

Mix and match to your heart’s desire :)

![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png)💕

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#Kitten](h ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110045359023170450)
2023-03-18T19:41:55Z	****
[@andrew\_chou](https://toot.cafe/@andrew_chou) Just wanted to say thank you. I’ve implemented your suggestion from the stream and it already feels 100% better :)

![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png)💕 ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110045987814954607)
2023-03-18T19:40:49Z	****
Huge breaking change just landed in Kitten thanks to [@andrew\_chou](https://toot.cafe/@andrew_chou)’s suggestion during Thursday’s Small is Beautiful live stream – update your projects if you’re playing with it:

All Kitten routes now end in .js (so .page becomes .page.js, .component becomes .component.js, etc.)

What this means:

\- No tooling required (your editor of choice already has great JS support)

\- Syntax highlighting in code repositories

\- ES Module Loader no longer necessary

[https://codeberg.org/kitte ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110045983535937362)
2023-03-18T22:08:23Z	****
The BBC and “impartiality”

“The then director-general records that in March 1938 he attended a reception at the German embassy in London, where he made himself ‘very agreeable’ to lots of people and told Ambassador Ribbentrop ‘to tell Hitler that the BBC was not anti-Nazi’”

Via [@karmel80](https://norrebro.space/@karmel80)

[#bbc](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/bbc) [#nazis](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/nazis) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110046563768705010)
2023-03-19T09:05:54Z	****
Excellent work on a holistic light mode for GNOME. Currently GNOME has a dark mode and a “mixed mode” and the “mixed mode” is used when the light colour scheme is active. If that sounds inconsistent, that’s because it is.

The design work presented here would fix that and provide a consistent light mode:

View the design: [https://gitlab.gnome.org/dikasp2/gnome-shell-light-theme-experimentation](https://gitlab.gnome.org/dikasp2/gnome-shell-light-theme-experimentation)

Join the discussion: [https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNO ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110049149198793201)
2023-03-19T10:23:43Z	****
Photo of Nazi concentration camp.

(Sorry, my bad, it’s just Suella Braverman reviewing plans for their holiday village for refugees in Rwanda. I don’t even know why I was confused. Clearly, the Conservatives are nothing like the Nazis.)

Via [@jdpoc](https://mastodonapp.uk/@jdpoc)

[#tories](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tories) [#conservatives](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/conservatives) [#nazis](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/nazis) [#refugeesWelcome](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/refugeesWelcome) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110049455204966605)
2023-03-19T10:53:13Z	****
Right that photo of Suella Braverman looking at the model of a refugee camp based on Auschwitz was a parody… deleting.

(Can you blame me for believing it?)

CC [@jdpoc](https://mastodonapp.uk/@jdpoc) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110049571241656451)
2023-03-19T20:26:57Z	****
Been wanting this for a long time: finally got round to writing a little script¹ to find all the contributors in every package used in Kitten and combine it with a hand-maintained list of direct contributors and tadaaa…

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/src/branch/main/CONTRIBUTORS.md](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/src/branch/main/CONTRIBUTORS.md)

Folks might see you as the author of something but without the invaluable direct/indirect effort of hundreds of people (for Kitten, currently ~230 people) that thing would ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110051827234402006)
2023-03-20T09:06:17Z	****
“The British government says it wants to ‘get cracking’ on sending migrants on a one-way trip to Rwanda as soon as this summer.”

[https://www.inkl.com/a/GrwxwYIokGo](https://www.inkl.com/a/GrwxwYIokGo)

Evil fucks.

[#uk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/uk) [#unitedKingdom](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/unitedKingdom) [#tories](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/tories) [#conservatives](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/conservatives) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110054813032441326)
2023-03-20T18:02:24Z	****
So according to Twitter’s press office, Elon Musk is 💩

Good to have official confirmation finally.

[#elonMusk](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/elonMusk) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110056921132621060)
2023-03-20T20:33:50Z	****
Interesting… just got an email from [#Twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Twitter) after my complaint to the Irish DPC that they are not complying with [#GDPR](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/GDPR) data erasure demands:

“Thank you for contacting us. We write in response to your case with the DPC…

Your account was deleted on 4 December, 2022. All associated information is no longer available in our Production Tools.”

So I followed up with questions…

– “in our Production Tools” – does this mean my data exists elsewhere? ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110057516576410579)
2023-03-20T20:58:28Z	****
Got an auto response back from Twitter saying they’ve closed my case.

I guess I should feel lucky it wasn’t a poo emoji.

So back to the Irish Data Protection Commission, I go…

[#gdpr](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/gdpr) [#twitter](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/twitter) [#rightToErasure](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/rightToErasure) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110057613429624210)
2023-03-21T08:28:19Z	****
So ChatGPT is basically just natural language programming where you don’t know what data and algorithms you’re working with and can’t predict the exact result you’re going to get.

Sure sounds like progress to me!

🤓👍

[#ChatGPT](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ChatGPT) [#openAI](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/openAI) [#artificialIntelligence](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/artificialIntelligence) [#ai](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ai) [#machineLearning](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/machineLearning) [#ml](https://mastodon.ar.al/ta ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110060326061294040)
2023-03-21T08:31:08Z	****
It’s only AI if it originates in the Silicon Valley region of California.

Otherwise, it’s just sparkling bullshit.

(With apologies to [@berrakbiz](https://mastodon.world/@berrakbiz))

[#ai](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ai) [#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#sparklingBullshit](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/sparklingBullshit) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110060337114732027)
2023-03-21T10:39:24Z	****
Did someone say slots in components?

Yes, Kitten has slots in components (as of about a minute ago in main).

Enjoy!

😺 💕

PS. The code snippet also shows the plain CSS idiom of scoping styles to components using class prefixes and how to override styles in slotted content. Remember, Kitten embraces HTML, CSS, and JS; it doesn’t try to abstract it away. So, as you learn Kitten, you’ll be learning HTML, CSS, and JS skills you can use anywhere.

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#Kitte ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110060841484703355)
2023-03-21T16:17:16Z	****
Oh, would you look at that? Kitten passed 1,000 commits yesterday and I missed the occasion :)

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/commits/branch/main](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/commits/branch/main)

![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png)💕

[#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110062170021013132)
2023-03-22T12:20:02Z	****
HTML validation issues in Kitten now show a brief summary in your terminal with the full details available in your browser’s developer console.

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app)

[#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#HTML](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/HTML) [#validation](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/validation) [#web](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/web) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110066899517645296)
2023-03-22T14:23:17Z	****
Mozilla AI? Darn, I was waiting for Mozilla NFT.

:disappointed face:

[#mozilla](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mozilla) [#siliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/siliconValley) [#ai](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ai) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110067384150165931)
2023-03-22T14:38:51Z	****
The beauty of “open source” software is that it can be enclosed at anytime.

The beauty of “free software” is that it cannot.

Beauty is clearly in the eye of the beholder.

[#openSource](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/openSource) [#openForBusiness](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/openForBusiness) [#corporations](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/corporations) [#freeSoftware](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/freeSoftware) [#freeAsInFreedom](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/freeAsInFreedom) [#people](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/people) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110067445373667273)
2023-03-22T15:12:47Z	****
Mozilla: Trust Us™

[#mozilla](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mozilla) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110067578820547017)
2023-03-22T15:11:25Z	****
“Mozilla.ai: Investing in Trustworthy AI”¹

At the helm is none other than Moez Draief.

Y’all know Moez, right?

He was previously chief scientist at Huawei’s Noah’s Ark AI lab² and Global Chief Scientist and VP of Data Science and Engineering at Capgemini³.

Mozilla, stop it! You’re making it impossible for me to parody you. I’m going to have to find a new hobby…

:sad face:

¹ [https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/introducing-mozilla-ai-investing-in-trustworthy-ai/](https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/introducing-moz ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110067573456013533)
2023-03-22T21:06:31Z	****
So I went down a bit of a rabbit hole with Kitten’s HTML validation features today and… well… now you can click a link in your developer console and view all the validation errors in-place in your web page :)

![:kitten:](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/custom_emojis/images/000/134/702/original/3630b351addf5d80.png)💕

[https://vimeo.com/810697322](https://vimeo.com/810697322)

[#Kitten](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Kitten) [#SmallWeb](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SmallWeb) [#HTML](https://mastodon.ar. ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110068969725391163)
2023-03-22T21:08:05Z	****
(And I just realised I have to reset a few more styles in the inline validation issue boxes after watching that video back. Oh well, that’s why we have tomorrow.) :) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110068975873226852)
2023-03-23T07:32:38Z	****
Mozilla is what Greenpeace would be if Greenpeace was run by petroleum industry executives.

[#mozilla](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mozilla) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110071431748761562)
2023-03-23T10:07:41Z	****
Oh look whose ugly mug makes an appearance in this month’s Linux Format magazine article on Mastodon.

CC [@neilhimself](https://mastodon.social/@neilhimself)

[#mastodon](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/mastodon) [#linuxFornat](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/linuxFornat) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110072041380906566)
2023-03-23T20:06:20Z	****
“This account is a replica from Twitter. Its author can't see your replies.”

No, thank you. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110074395389048303)
2023-03-24T10:53:01Z	****
The US understands the threat of foreign tech companies/apps gathering data on US citizens and manipulating their behaviour and is looking to ban TikTok.

Dear [@EU\_Commission](https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission), here’s an incomplete list of foreign tech companies/apps gathering data on EU citizens and manipulating their behaviour:

\- Meta Platforms, Inc. (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.)

\- Alphabet, Inc. (Google, YouTube, etc.)

\- Twitter, Inc.

\- Microsoft (Windows, etc.)

\- Snap, Inc.

Thoug ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110077881993849282)
2023-03-24T11:38:05Z	****
Get yourself a code editor you can compile in 30 seconds if you need to 💕

(Get yourself Helix Editor is what I’m saying.) ;)

[https://helix-editor.com](https://helix-editor.com)

[#helixEditor](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/helixEditor) [#dev](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/dev) ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110078059200721541)
2023-03-25T07:26:19Z	****
People debating which trillion-dollar Silicon Valley corporation is better is like livestock rating factory farms.

[#SiliconValley](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SiliconValley) [#BigTech](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/BigTech) [#PeopleFarming](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/PeopleFarming) [#SurveillanceCapitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/SurveillanceCapitalism) [#surveillance](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/surveillance) [#capitalism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/capitalism) [#DigitalImperialism](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110082731526022839)
2023-03-25T09:04:03Z	****
Just read someone quoted as saying Elon Musk “does really care.”

Yeah, he cares.

He cares like any other predator cares about its prey.

Nothing good ever comes from that sort of caring. So don’t conflate it with caring about making the world a fairer, kinder, and more welcoming place for everyone. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110083115830129360)
2023-03-25T10:15:13Z	****
America, land of the (buy one, get one) free. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110083395656969219)
2023-03-25T14:40:30Z	****
Right, in what can only be described as masochism, I’ve added a step-by-step guide to installing Kitten under Windows¹ (on Linux and macOS, installation is seamless and takes seconds):

[https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#install-kitten-on-windows-under-wsl-2](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app#install-kitten-on-windows-under-wsl-2)

¹ As my reward, fucking [#Microsoft](https://mastodon.ar.al/tags/Microsoft) threw every dark pattern in the book at me to try and sign me up for a Microsoft account. Also, the screenshots have m ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110084438795685129)
2023-03-25T14:43:36Z	****
Ok, it’s back up. ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110084450969011453)
2023-03-25T14:49:49Z	****
And if you’re wondering why I still support Windows in Kitten, the answer’s in the last paragraph of the comment on this issue: [https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/issues/83#issuecomment-852771](https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/issues/83#issuecomment-852771)

But please, if you’re using Windows out of choice, know that your decision to legitimise it doesn’t just affect you. Your operating system should be working for you and you alone, not for a trillion-dollar corporation trying to exploit you any way it can and willing t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110084475422790843)