Mastodon Feed: Posts

xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:

the absolute worst feature of Reddit right now is that if you land on a page through search it flags you as interested and starts pushing you random alerts from that subreddit, with no apparent opt-out

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Six months ago I wrote some of this down, but the last couple of quarters have demonstrated even more directly how much of a choice this has been:

https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-browser-engine-choice/

Apple starved the web through monopoly control over iOS and structural under-funding of Safari. Nobody made them, and none of these fast-follow features being implemented today are anything but an admission.

Cupertino is not a responsible steward and cannot be trusted w/ the future of the web ever again.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

All of which means that we should be *hopping mad* that these fast-catch-up features were APIs that Apple was more than happy to gaslight web developers about for years on end.

None of this needed to wait. There wasn't any legitimate reason for a contemplative pause. There wasn't some big bug in any of these APIs that would create huge risks. It was all thoughtfulness kayfabe. Misdirection to cover for disinvestment.

And it stinks to high heavens.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

On the back of Senators and regulators sniffing around, Apple has expanded the WebKit team by 30-100%. It's hard to know the # exactly because of attrition, opacity in volume of posted recs, and Apple's habit of seconding key engineers to secret projects, sapping WebKit of bandwidth. But it has been a _lot_.

And even without any of that extra firepower, Safari was doing just fine on macOS.

So the claim that enabling true competition on iOS would destroy Safari share is totally unsubstantiated.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

The strongest counterpoint to this is, of course, the situation on macOS.

But beyond that, the extraordinary catch-up of the Safari team over the past ~18 months (contemporaneous to regulatory scrutiny by coincidence, I'm sure) regarding features that every other engine has, shows that this was all a choice.

The purse strings got loosened, and Safari got better. Apple doesn't need protection, and none of these features were beyond the pale, turns out.

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

Atheists & Christians alike should be united in condemning this linking of Nazi and Christian symbolism. And the people who are doing it.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/01/17/they-get-away-with-it-because-they-can-get-away-with-it/

Attachments:

• Swastika & cross projected on a building (remote)

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

It's truly shocking how many people persist in the idea that Safari couldn't compete if it had to, despite all the evidence (macOS use) and the quality of the WebKit team when they're given the resources to execute.

Wild.

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
caseynewton ("Casey Newton") wrote:

Attachments:

• Tweet from @TwitterDev: "Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules. That may result in some apps not working."

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
patrickbrosset@mas.to ("Patrick Brosset") wrote:

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
kacey@mspsocial.net ("Kacey 🌌") wrote:

Attachments:

• Again, The Corrupt and Unfound Form of Speaking in the Plural Number to a Single Person, YOU to One, instead of THOU, contrary to the Pure, Plain and Single Language of TRUTH, T H O U to One, and YOU to more than One, which had always been used, by GOD to Men, and Men to GOD, as well as one to another, from the oldest Record of Time, till Corrupt Men, for Corrupt Ends, in later and Corrupt Times, to Flatter, Fawn, and work upon the Corrupt Nature in Men, brought in that false and senseless Way of Speaking, YOU to One ; which hath since corrupted the Modern Languages, and hath greatly debased the Spirits, and depraved the Manners of Men. This Evil Custom I had been as forward in as others and this I was now called out of, and required to cease from. (remote)

Reblogged by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):
darktable wrote:

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
BennettTomlin@mstdn.social ("Bennett Tomlin") wrote:

Attachments:

• Each Ape (the Bored ones and the Mutant ones) get to claim a ‘Sewer Pass‘ (I guess the sewers have a doorman checking if your name is on the list). If you have an NFT from the Bored Ape Kennel Club, then you get an extra special tier of sewer pass. Some Sewer Passes include bonuses. Sewer Passes are tradable assets that non-Apes can purchase to participate in digging through shit for a key. Once you’ve entered the sewers, you can find fragments that will give you points once collected. ApeCoin allows you to purchase power-ups to improve your in-game performance. These power-ups include the so-called ‘Powershart Pack.’ The player with the highest score after several weeks finds the key in the shit. If you have a sewer pass, you’ll be part of ‘The Summoning,’ which seems to be the NFT mint that this is all about. ApeCoin will also somehow enable you to earn more powers in mini-games. (remote)

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
michelleful@scicomm.xyz ("Dr. Michelle Fullwood") wrote:

Attachments:

• Black-and-white image of a clay tablet with horizontal and vertical lines forming what looks like a familiar spreadsheet. Most of the text, written in cuneiform, is in the rightmost column. There are also cuneiform signs in the cells. (remote)
• Hand-drawn version of the table in the previous image. The cuneiform signs are much more legible. Source: Robson, E. (2003). Tables and tabular formatting in Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria, 2500 BCE-50 CE. In The history of mathematical tables: From Sumer to spreadsheets, 19-47. (remote)

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Gonna need to write the "In Defense of 'Best Viewed In'" blog post, aren't I?

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
ben@werd.social ("Ben Werdmuller :ben: :tardis:") wrote:

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
Greg@social.coop wrote:

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

@chriscoyier This is an explicit, consistent, year-over-year choice.

We need to stop seeing it as the cause-free absence of some imaginary incentive and instead see it for what it is: an explicit strip-mining of the web for the benefit of Apple's shareholders.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

@chriscoyier In browser development, The Room Where It Happened is the budget meeting that sets headcount targets year-over-year. *Everything* else is downstream of that basic capacity allocation decision.

Apple is *choosing* to fuck over the web by ensuring that there's no capacity for any other outcome to emerge, either through the Safari/WebKit teams or through competition.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

@chriscoyier So Apple is *choosing* to deprive WebKit/Safari of capacity. It is *choosing* to continually deny API access to browsers. It's *choosing*, every single year, to hurt Mozilla and every other browser vendor while reinvesting a tiiiiiiiiny fraction of the cream it skims from search engine deals back into engine develpoment.

These are choices.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

@chriscoyier As someone that has worked on browsers for a minute now, I can tell you that "no incentive" is heavily influenced by capacity, and when you're as rich as Apple, capacity is a choice about values:

https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-browser-engine-choice/

Apple does not *value* a free, open, interoperable, and vibrant web. Apple doesn't value having Mozilla in the world. It doesn't value a bigger and brighter future for the web. This is bad!

kornel ("Kornel") wrote:

Yesterday I've got a bug report for pngquant, and found the bug. It was below the comment:

> it happens so rarely that there's no point doing something smarter

Yeah, I've replaced it with something smarter.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

This post by @chriscoyier is the most generous case (to Apple) regarding the boot that Cupertino has been stamping on the web's face for a decade.

https://chriscoyier.net/2023/01/16/chokepoint/

What Chris identifies as "no incentive" to allowing alternative browsers is indistinguishable in practice from late-stage monopoly: when you've extinguished competition and reconfigured the world assuming it doesn't exist, it sure looks like a lot of work to allow it.

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
chriscoyier@front-end.social ("Chris Coyier") wrote:

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
nolan@toot.cafe ("Nolan") wrote:

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

I wonder what the males in my spider colony think about my plans for them.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/01/17/now-what-2/

Attachments:

• Death by Snu Snu (remote)

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

The sexual market value of males in my lab is through the roof right now.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/01/17/now-what-2/

blithe ("Blithe") wrote:

Never thought I would take comfort in the heavy mask usage in Oakland’s Chinatown but here we are. Thanks Covid.

jeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

aaaaaah Mexican Home (Live) by John Prine

https://pandora.app.link/x7REgNimFwb

Attachments:

• d4719b6489c29371.png

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
john@sauropods.win ("John Conway") wrote:

Attachments:

• The pterosaur Pterandon flies above a stormy sea, head down as if about to make a dive for a fish. (remote)

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
brianbilston@mastodon.online ("Brian Bilston") wrote:

Attachments:

• Refugees They have no need of our help So do not tell me These haggard faces could belong to you or me Should life have dealt a different hand We need to see them for who they really are Chancers and scroungers Layabouts and loungers With bombs up their sleeves Cut-throats and thieves They are not Welcome here We should make them Go back to where they came from They cannot Share our food Share our homes Share our countries Instead let us Build a wall to keep them out It is not okay to say These are people just like us A place should only belong to those who are born there Do not be so stupid to think that The world can be looked at another way (now read from bottom to top) Brian Bilston (remote)