Brooke Vibber brionv@identi.ca
Portland, Oregon, United States
Wikimedia Software Architect & open source web developer; MediaWiki, StatusNet, and other goodies! Current ActivityPub-enabled home: https://bikeshed.vibber.net/@brooke
bkuhn's identi.ca / pump.io account is offiically inactive
Bradley M. Kuhn at 2019-10-14T19:20:49Z
Hey everyone, I know there is a solid userbase of folks on pump.io. Regarding my account, for years now, I've just used this a dumping ground for reposting of content from my blog. Ostensibly, I was attempting to use pump.io as a mechanism to handle blog comments, but I noticed today there were many comments I never even saw or responded to simply because I just auto-posted stuff that was already on my blog to here and never even looked back at response.
I generally haven't used social media software in the last 3-4 years; I just really don't have time for it.
I'm making a note here so folks will see this and know to check my blog as a central location for anything I am currently talking about.
Mussot valéry, Brooke Vibber, Mike Linksvayer, AJ Jordan likes this.
Understood. Now that I've left the Service the time is there for me to wander back in. I've been away for a while and it was a very dark time at the end of it.
Now you need to blog more often than you do. Your last blog post was only 6 months ago...
Karl Fogel at 2019-11-13T19:17:53Z
Wow. If you read this Bytecode Alliance announcement all the way through, it's *also* a great primer on the operating system <-> application security relationship -- and doesn't require deep technical skillz to understand. Highly recommended!Brooke Vibber likes this.
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Tyng-Ruey Chuang at 2017-04-11T11:31:09Z
Is Wikimedia A Memory Institution? https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Is_Wikimedia_A_Memory_Institution%3FIn a way, Wikipedia edits are made so we can remember, Wikidata statements are added so facts will not be forgotten, and pictures are put into the Wikimedia Commons because they are our favorites.
a panel proposal for Wikimania 2017 https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikimaniaBrooke Vibber, Christopher Allan Webber, Mike Linksvayer likes this.
Christopher Allan Webber, Mike Linksvayer shared this.
not sure why I don't see wikis out there using simple compressed log-style databases.
Mike Linksvayer at 2015-07-14T16:45:06Z
Complain to Mozilla about Pocket
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9884637
https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/?q=pocket&date_start=2015-01-01Brooke Vibber likes this.
And about poor support for dark colorschemes, since you're at it xD
Once upon a time, I tried to use a "bookmarking" service. It was based on the same software this service is. Operated by the same people, ie people you ought to trust.
After a while the service *disappeared*. I'm really saying disappeared because it was gone, no notice, no data, nothing. Never even got an explanation from the admin. - and my bookmarks are gone.
I'm not crying over it, but sometime even the people you trust can't be, or fail to keep your trust.
As for Pocket, between you and me, I see three problems:
1. The way it was handled. From not telling anyone to not riding the trains (ie code got forward ported to Aurora and Beta for the sake of pushing it - lowering the quality and breaking the engineering process)
2. It replaced / destroyed the "Reading List" feature interoperability that was in Firefox for Android, and that IMHO should have been on desktop a long time ago. Worse is that I had started using it on Nightly and got foobared.
3. I can't wait for Pocket to be Acquihired by one of the internet giant and be closed.
<end_of_rant/>
Greg Grossmeier at 2015-07-03T17:30:03Z
How many of us moving to Portland-area would it take to open a remote office, do you think? :)
Christopher Allan Webber, Brooke Vibber likes this.
Sumana Harihareswara [on Mastodon] at 2015-07-03T18:09:46Z
At the #wiscon #wc39 Tiptree charity auction someone paid $137 for me to read my first Austen. I now have! P&P was great!Brooke Vibber likes this.
Comments and byte compiled Lojban
Christopher Allan Webber at 2015-01-10T18:08:24Z
Thought of the morning: people often say "we have variables and comments because programming languages are for humans, not computers". But thought experiment: if computers were really at the point where they were able to program themselves, and I mean really do it (even invent and code new things, and I don't mean genetic algorithm bullshit, I mean thinking about design... so this also means code as more than just "learning", but actually planning and programming something new), would they need variable names and comments?
My thought is: yes, or they'd need something like it. If you don't have this, this means you're effectively reverse engineering "purpose" in the codebase all the time, which can be both expensive and faulty. I think any AI that's not some ~dumb application of known heuristics will need to be able to "think" about the code at point, and knowing the reason for a code change is important. So of course relevant information should be recorded in that portion of the code.
Now, does that mean something as messy as English will be used (as the majority of present code is written in English)? I doubt it. Probably something like Lojban will be used. Maybe it will not even be plaintext code: it could be machine-readable, machine-thinkable code with "byte compiled lojban", or similar.
Relatedly, in the (glorious???) future where machines can think and design programs, assuming enough resources exist to keep said machines running, humans will have to interface with computers on a computer's level more often. Will Lojban as a second language be mandated in schools?
Brooke Vibber, Timo Kankare, Evan Prodromou, Charles Stanhope likes this.
Mike Linksvayer shared this.
would they need variable names and comments? My thought is: yes
"If there would exist strong AI then who would teach it how to think" type of answer. We don't need description of every body movement to understand non verbal signs. "New people" would possibly able to understand whole program with integrating program in their thinking process without code isolation, decomposition and reinterpretation in terms of some learned language. If AI would work in this manner then "reverse engineering" term would have no meaning for AI.
Will Lojban as a second language be mandated in schools?
In ancient time when peoples like Donald Knuth wrote their software they thought that programs must understand people and when people make a mistake programs must correct it. Now when people make a mistake programs just fail. With this tendency answer yes: people will learn Lojban, AI would not learn English.
P.S. Sometimes I think that if I learn Lojban then I can write some code to translate most of my Lojban constructions simultaneously in correct English and correct Russian texts. And then I finally get rid of the thought: "Can native English speakers understand my text?"
Christopher Allan Webber likes this.
Interesting speculation, but I'd bet against two of your points:
> Now, does that mean something as messy as English will be used (as the majority of present code is written in English)? I doubt it. Probably something like Lojban will be used. Maybe it will not even be plaintext code: it could be machine-readable, machine-thinkable code with "byte compiled lojban", or similar.
If software can think about new software designs, I bet it has no problem understanding an evolved language. No reason for it to remain recognizably English (or Chinese, or whatever) for long, but no reason to evolve from Lojban at all.
> Relatedly, in the (glorious???) future where machines can think and design programs, assuming enough resources exist to keep said machines running, humans will have to interface with computers on a computer's level more often. Will Lojban as a second language be mandated in schools?
No! If humans survive, they will not have to interface at a computer's level more often, which will be incomprehensible anyway. Computers will have zero problem communicating in human language to humans, to the extent concepts comprehensible to humans at all are relevant.Sumana Harihareswara [on Mastodon] at 2015-05-19T03:08:11Z
New post: http://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2015/05/18/0 Recompiler, Passionate Voices, Book Club, A Soviet Spy, & More. (I srsly know a KGB agent.)Brooke Vibber likes this.
Mike Linksvayer at 2015-05-14T14:17:52Z
https://treitter.livejournal.com/15701.html
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1381437927/endless-computers
I think this is a computer running GNOME, stated at https://endlessm.com/developer/ but not in their appeal, in a cute case with some characteristics chosen for emerging market appealTyng-Ruey Chuang, Brooke Vibber likes this.
Christopher Allan Webber at 2015-05-14T02:53:09Z
crapability security rant by Sandstorm founder (who knows enough on capabilities to rant appropriately)
(I enjoyed that rant; I guess I'm uncertain of when I think ranting is fun and when it's too negative. This one was fun?)
Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠), Brooke Vibber, X11R5 likes this.
Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠), Mike Linksvayer shared this.
ZeMarmot crowdfunding campaign
Someone's crowdfunding a 2d animated free culture film about a cute Marmot? Made entirely with free software? Yeah, I'll support that!
Brooke Vibber, World Intellectual Freedom Organization, Mike Linksvayer, sazius and 1 others likes this.
World Intellectual Freedom Organization, World Intellectual Freedom Organization, Mike Linksvayer shared this.
That looks awesome. I'll have to give more than I can afford for the link to ammd.net (for the music) alone.
Am I forgetting something obvious or by 2nd are you referring to one of the characters in Big Buck Bunny?
@Mike,
I assume he meant 2-D, as in two dimensional, not that it was the second film about a marmot.
saul goode at 2015-05-03T18:28:24Z
Mike Linksvayer likes this.
Ah. I misread 2d as 2nd. :) Still, I'll take both. I really hope this succeeds!Sumana Harihareswara [on Mastodon] at 2015-05-02T17:10:34Z
RT @mchua · Apr 28On the diversity-readiness of STEM environments: “It’s almost as if I could only enter the makerspace as a janitor.”http://blog.melchua.com/2015/04/28/on-the-diversity-readiness-of-stem-environments-its-almost-as-if-...Brooke Vibber, Charles Stanhope likes this.
Mailman 3, released!
Christopher Allan Webber at 2015-04-29T14:26:37Z
Delivered fresh to your pump inbox about a project oon to be delivering to your email inbox, Mailman 3 is released!
Congrats Mailman team!
Brooke Vibber, Tyng-Ruey Chuang, Stephen Michael Kellat, uıɐɾ ʞ ʇɐɯɐs and 5 others likes this.
Stephen Michael Kellat, uıɐɾ ʞ ʇɐɯɐs, Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠), Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) and 2 others shared this.
That's great!
With the improvements on the user interface, mailing lists will be more inviting for end-users.
Mailman is in my most-useful-software-ever list :)sirgazil at 2015-04-29T14:44:15Z
Christopher Allan Webber likes this.
First it was Duke Nukem Forever… and now GNU Mailman 3!uıɐɾ ʞ ʇɐɯɐs at 2015-04-29T21:39:29Z
Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠), Face likes this.
Ah yes, returning to this tab I remember why I started looking for PyCon 2015 videos. :-)
No talks about mailman in there it seems.
Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) at 2015-04-28T12:49:23Z
Trickle-down gentrification ... but what are you going to do. You're caught in the middle.
Are you considering buying this time? Or is that out of the question for reasons? A good way to be safe against gentrification.Brooke Vibber likes this.
Sumana Harihareswara [on Mastodon] at 2015-04-27T22:10:31Z
Mark your calendar for the night of May 8th &/or 12th: I'm performing stand-up comedy in Park Slope, Brooklyn! More TBA.Brooke Vibber likes this.
It's a little far from here, but good luck with it! =)
Wow, sounds like fun!
sound interesting
Andrew E at 2015-04-24T00:50:53Z
sure, but i presume that many environmental activists drive cars.
Brooke Vibber likes this.
Mike Linksvayer at 2015-04-23T20:37:34Z
why not
svn sw http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/4.2
https://wordpress.org/news/2015/04/powell/
these two "under the hood" items look interestingutf8mb4 support
Background on the 1st, which I had never heard of before http://pento.net/2014/04/07/wordpress-and-utf-8/
Database character encoding has changed from utf8 to utf8mb4, which adds support for a whole range of new 4-byte characters.
JavaScript accessibility
You can now send audible notifications to screen readers in JavaScript with wp.a11y.speak(). Pass it a string, and an update will be sent to a dedicated ARIA live notifications area.Brooke Vibber likes this.
I spent years fighting the broken 3-byte-maximum utf8 support in MySQL for MediaWiki... glad to see apps starting to use the fixed 4-byte-friendly version now that it's pretty widely available.
I suspect this was driven for WordPress by desire for emoji support rather than the actual languages that require it though. ;)Brooke Vibber at 2015-04-23T20:51:04Z
Greg Grossmeier, Christopher Allan Webber, Mike Linksvayer likes this.
Snowdrift.coop email lists (finally!) and code now at git.gnu.io
Aaron Wolf at 2015-04-23T05:58:34Z
This is 2+ years late, but finally Snowdrift.coop has email lists! http://lists.snowdrift.coop/
Of course, there's also our blog https://snowdrift.coop/p/snowdrift/blog and feed https://snowdrift.coop/p/snowdrift/feed and other activity on the site itself, and our #snowdrift freenode channel. Those will all stay active.
I don't like too much fragmentation of discussion, but nothing else we've had adequately replaces the value of traditional email lists (at this time).
The other news is: we've made our choice post-Gitorious. Our code is now at https://git.gnu.io/snowdrift/snowdrift — and we have a new BEGINNERS.md file with a complete getting-started for contributing even for those with basically no experience with any of the technologies we use. We care about welcoming everyone!
The links to the email lists and the new code will be up on the site sometime soon. :ots of other news coming, pushing ahead… hard work and all… we always love more folks coming to help. Thanks all! Thanks to our many contributors already, and especially to @mattl for getting git.gnu.io set up!
sazius, netgeek, Charles Stanhope, Brooke Vibber and 4 others likes this.
mray INACTIVE, netgeek, Christopher Allan Webber, Mike Linksvayer and 3 others shared this.
Show all 6 repliesSorry for hijacking your thread! I think Snowdrift is one of the most interesting and potentially important things to happen in the Free Software space in years, and I am actually joining the list right now. :-)Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) at 2015-04-23T14:35:32Z
X11R5, sazius, Christopher Allan Webber, Aaron Wolf likes this.
Make that lists!
Both the Dev subscription and the Join All The Things subscription on the page are broken though:
mailto:dev-subscribe@lists.snowdrift.dev?subject=subscribe
Should be @lists.snowdrift.coop like the rest of them.
The error message is pretty cute though:
<dev-subscribe@lists.snowdrift.dev>: connect to
your-dns-needs-immediate-attention.dev[127.0.53.53]:25: Connection refusedGreg Grossmeier at 2015-04-21T20:32:36Z
May you live in interesting times.
Brooke Vibber likes this.
@greg@identi.ca Sadly it seems I do