# 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 hosted by a Yarn.social pod twtxt.net running yarnd 0.15.1@7fd3daed 2023-11-26T10:40:12+10:00 go1.21.4 # Learn more about Yarn.social at https://yarn.social # # nick = jan6 # url = https://twtxt.net/user/jan6/twtxt.txt # avatar = https://twtxt.net/user/jan6/avatar#tv552lrehvrlerdb2kqqsbdzakrq3y54vqqcoazssf7zy6rm7dpq # description = jan6 # # following = 15 ## # follow = adi https://twtxt.net/user/adi/twtxt.txt # follow = creme https://envs.net/~creme/twtxt.txt # follow = deepend https://tilde.club/~deepend/twtxt.txt # follow = gbmor https://gbmor.org/twtxt.txt # follow = jan6 https://twtxt.net/user/jan6/twtxt.txt # follow = jlj https://twt.nfld.uk/user/jlj/twtxt.txt # follow = lyse https://lyse.isobeef.org/twtxt.txt # follow = movq https://www.uninformativ.de/twtxt.txt # follow = news https://twtxt.net/user/news/twtxt.txt # follow = novaburst https://twt.nfld.uk/user/novaburst/twtxt.txt # follow = prologic https://twtxt.net/user/prologic/twtxt.txt # follow = support https://twtxt.net/user/support/twtxt.txt # follow = thecanine https://twtxt.net/user/thecanine/twtxt.txt # follow = xkcd https://feeds.twtxt.net/xkcd/twtxt.txt # follow = ~duriny https://envs.net/~duriny/twtxt.txt 2022-02-21T02:51:59Z hello world, posted from NetSurf browser 2022-02-21T03:01:13Z hello
this is from links2, which despite being a purely text-based browser (tho has a GUI which shows images 'n stuff, but still no CSS) actually works better than netsurf, lol
what a weird world, where no css is better than some css 2022-02-23T20:29:49Z (#jfstoxa) @ information should be free, up to ignoring when you want, and it is, because YOU feel like anti-vaccine nonsense should be limited, that's just your side, e.g. google is known to manipulate perfectly valid political searches, does that counteract "but also less misinformation"?
there's no way to please everyone, for example imo ddg is great at programming and tech related queries, but lacks in other areas, but all that means is that I'll switch the engine when one is insufficient, and ddg's "bangs" are great at that, for example, you can just add !g to redirect to google's results, or !sp for startpage, or twitter, or wikipedia, or...you get it...
there's always also the option to just use something like Searx, a meta-search engine, and tweak the priorities of the different engines, such as tell it to use yahoo, but rank it lower than google's results

also I've never gotten philosophical reasons for disuse, like "suckless nazi, therefore their software bad" or "ddg doesn't filter misinformation, so f*k them, despite it not affecting me" 2022-02-23T20:36:00Z (#jfstoxa) a search engine's job isn't to filter, but purely index, and sort information by relevance to query, which is why there's options to modify search, such as `twt -site:twitter.com -twitter` or such, or `gemini AND protocol -stock -exchange -crypto` which help you easily filter resources yourself, plus always rephrasing can also significantly change results

if you REALLY wanted to, you could bypass any measures anyway, playing feline and rodent games 2022-02-23T20:48:53Z (#b7xg3cq) @ problem is inaction, I think in theory, it's mandatory here to put a visible notice about video surveillance, but a ton of places don't bother, and even when they do it's generic "there's cameras somewhere around here", and no punishments I know of being dished out

but a counterpoint is also that knowing exactly where cameras are helps easily bypass their entire point, you can just blind them such as with IR or laser pointers or face away and avoid their range, kinda making it useless other than question of "when did it happen" 2022-02-23T20:49:51Z (#b7xg3cq) unless you can afford to put up a lot of them, of course 2022-02-23T20:56:49Z (#zrpwznq) @ why a book specifically, rather than just a tutorial series? curious about how difficult it is? or just a generic "I want this, idk why"?

the only problem I see is that books should, in theory, be as correct and clear as possible, since with physical copies you can't really correct it afterwards, which takes the majority of time, making sure it's structured well, spelled well, doesn't have any mistakes, etc, have others proofread it, and then need an errata and/or a second version ANYWAY after people find something weird ;p

but also I got no real experience, so don't get discouraged ;P 2022-02-23T21:04:55Z (#yiuclda) @ too bad that's pretty much impossible, unless you make something like that...dissenter I think it's called? that adds a "comments section for every website" which only others using it can see, and then try to keep up with categorizing everything...

because people already often don't read rules of any given space, and any dedicated site is doomed to obscurity, even if you manage brief flashes of popularity through aggregator sites 'n stuff

collaborative approaches are also prone to vandalism, and set teams can get overwhelmed, or overly opinionated, etc problems also 2022-02-23T21:14:54Z (#bxxbuya) @ there are plenty of nice gui apps, tbh, which can help with the commandline intimidance, e.g. you can set up nextcloud and not have to bother manually setting up servers for voice and video chat, file hosting/sharing, etc, and there's some guis for general system management also

it's kinda the question of intimidation vs interest, like will they even bother to deal with the system a few months on, despite automagic installers (or lack thereof), or if they get a gui, will they ever want to learn the power of cli? it depends tremendously, some people want a Just Works system & don't care, others want to learn to customize or tinker, but just lack the experience and skill and are too afraid to break things to attempt setting things themselves 2022-02-23T21:17:35Z (#eaam6dq) @ maybe they think all of internet is still in usa? or are just totally oblivious of TLDs and see "hey this seems popular enough and cheap!", kinda like how using browser inspect element is "hacking" 2022-02-23T21:22:07Z (#jfstoxa) @ they have, cause they're bubbling you up in what you want to see and show ads while at it, and also have deals to be the default search engine to the point most people don't even KNOW there's alternatives and "to google something" is officially a verb now 2022-02-23T21:34:42Z (#jfstoxa) @ duckduckgo DOES collect info about searches and visits and stuff, it just doesn't specifically profile what any given user visits

I know for a fact that they track which results are clicked, because the search results are redirections and not direct links, when you try using a non-js or old browser ;p 2022-02-23T21:38:33Z (#jfstoxa) @ there's a great quote about it
> think of how dumb the average person is. now realize that half the people are dumber than that.

what internet has done is just given those people a worldwide presence and allow them to confirm each other's broken views, and group together on platforms which prioritize making money over truth, discovery, or mental health 2022-02-23T21:42:22Z (#jfstoxa) I guess there might be an alternate world where corporations decided to instead of repeating echo-chambers, to base their platforms on finding new and cool stuff, keeping the engagement through cool facts and showing off skilled people, instead of seeing the same gif/theory/whatever content for the 200th time that year 2022-02-23T21:43:55Z (#jfstoxa) /me mourns StumbleUpon & death of interlinked blogosphere and webrings 2022-02-23T21:49:06Z (#jfstoxa) @ the warfare has changed from physically killing people, to mentally controlling people, isn't that enough of a benefit ;P

but of course, data is the ultimate weapon, back in the day you might've had to intercept a messenger and replace their letter, or themselves, nowdays you just "fail to post" from time to time and "forget" to notify about disliked people's posts, and rank them way lower in feeds and search results, etc, "hey, you read the ToS right? it's not censorship anyway, we're just inconveniencing you as much as we can" 2022-02-23T21:53:48Z (#jfstoxa) @ problem is the only alternative people see is either paywall things up, or use cryptominers in the browser or such

and both are bad, if paywall, even if super cheap, you're gonna be limited to only a couple sites, donations rarely cover even the base costs, unless REALLY significant project, cryptominers usually crank cpu/gpu to the max and as such kill their lifespan and waste power, etc etc

it's pretty hard to come up with a better system that doesn't lose too much money, and keeps income reasonably steady and positive enough to be profitable 2022-02-23T22:01:01Z (#jfstoxa) technically low-power alternative crypto might be a way (e.g. there's some where you earn by donating unused bandwidth or disk space or stuff, or just mine at like, 10% of max cpu usage, not inconveniencing people too much)

even wikipedia has to put up big banners reminding to plz donate, from time to time, which is one of the easier ways to see why donations are not feasible if even MASSIVE projects struggle, even with most of the people being unpaid volunteers 

and paywalls would work for bigger sites, but there's only so much you can pay, even at like $1/mo you prolly can't afford more than like 30 of such sides, which in turn makes controlling opinions easier

etc etc 2022-02-23T22:03:00Z (#jfstoxa) @ problem is decentralization and stuff might be good, but there's no monetary gain youbcan get from that, only loss, hence why only small groups are the ones making attempts, and usually getting vastly overshadiwed by BigCo-s 2022-02-23T22:13:05Z (#jfstoxa) @ but how do you plan on combatting centralization? human societies used to be wide and decentralized, most things being decided per your small tribe or city-state, and now it's all centralized

same for internets, how do you prevent stuff like "yo, you know yarn.social? how about you come over here, we'll take care you see ALL posts mentioning you even if you don't follow them, and you get a free website, and you also get reaction stickers! and likes! and you can cross-post to mastodon and diaspora* too! all you have to do is sell your soul!" 2022-02-23T22:29:15Z (#jfstoxa) @ no, 'cause it's just as obscure as alternate engines, although you DO get given the doublequote-to-verbatim tip when there's few results

but of course same goes for pretty much any feature, like if I told you to quickly grab a Creative Commons licensed image from google, would you know how? or "animated picture in a big wallpaper size"

the buttons are right there! ;p

I guess education is direly needed 2022-02-23T22:33:38Z (#jfstoxa) also I tend to use more bare sentences and still get good results ;p
e.g. "python inline for" instead of "how to write for loop in one line in python" (correct answer would be list comprehension), or "prime minister of lithuania" instead of "who is current prime minister of lithuania", a lot of it it just fluff that's discarded anyway 2022-02-23T23:34:09Z (#djb7lbq) @ markdown, per spec, explicitly supports inline html ;p
so you could do manual html for the parts that need it, and keep the rest markdown 2022-02-23T23:51:46Z (#djb7lbq) 
> @ If you’re into that kinds of stuff, you might enjoy my static site generator btw https://mkws.sh!

actually I've been trying to make my own, using posix utils + the C PreProcessor
and for theming something similar to https://jan6.tilde.team/rwrs/ but in theory, ideally, it should be available in both hard-wrapped, and unwrapped variants, plus pure unformatted plaintext...and both html and gemini... it is getting quite hacky tho (lotsa sed-ing to (un)escape specific statements, especially tricky to allow multiple macro arguments to work correctly), lol, but also powerful and VERY portable (literally anywhere with a couple posix tools and a shell & any c99 compiler that allows invoking preprocessor directly)

usage would be limited-ish tho, stuff like
# "header.h"
h1(hello world)
pre_start
some code or stuff
pre_end
normal 

html will get escaped & stuff
# "footer.h"

etc, which will then get converted to the right markup

no source public yet since it's kinda janky and not fully working yet at all, but if ya want I could hit you with the eldrich horror that is my code (people have nicknamed it jan6-json before, lol)
2022-02-23T23:59:30Z	(#djb7lbq) @  I think it's great to be able to inline as it allows you to do more complex stuff, such as having an html form, or using 
 or using spoiler text or doing highlighted code blocks, or easily inserting an image gallery without having to do janky javascript, etc etc

in most cases it's not needed but it'd be bloat to define every single useful html feature as something in markdown is also too much, e.g. you might want to directly link video/audio inline, but it's rare enough a language feature is excess
2022-02-24T00:06:31Z	(#djb7lbq) @ https://0x0.st/oKeJ.zip
it's definitely not user-friendly right now, and there's some bug with how I attempt to preproccess headers, but it should KINDA work, at least without includes
2022-02-24T00:10:20Z	(#djb7lbq)  I guess it is not actually worming at all right now lol

after I tried to make includes be preprocessed, everything fell apart
2022-02-24T00:14:41Z	(#djb7lbq) @  I tried m4 first
got stuck with something, and the support channel said it cannot be done with m4 and nobody should be using m4 if they have other options, that it's that terrible, lmao
2022-02-24T00:18:01Z	(#djb7lbq)  it was something pretty simple too iirc
but CPP is better any day
I could prolly fix the includes by using post-proccessed files instead, and have a include() macro that selects file with the extention matching the target markup, like header.gmi for gemini and header.html for html, automatically
2022-03-04T23:20:43Z	this penguin gets it, existence is futile, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWH_9VRWn8Y
2022-03-08T23:09:15Z	(#67i57ca) @ I have the exact opposite experience, lmao
that if they're indian, they likely know enough of surface level to do the tutorial, but don't really know anything else, 
e.g. how 2 use ssh, "now create 2048-bit rsa key" because "someone told me", not mentioning that 4096-bit is better for security, and that elliptic curves exist, and have been supported by openssh for years or any other such info
or how 2 set up a web server, they tell you how 2 set it up, but they do NOT mention stuff like "turn off tls 1.1" or "don't gzip with https"
2022-03-08T23:17:31Z	(#67i57ca) I'd kinda agree, that they make great total-noob-level tutorials, often assuming about zero previous knowledge, and giving pretty much exact copy-paste style tutorials, but at least as far as I've seen, that's all.. great if you know nothing, but annoying and not very helpful if you do know something, and also quite often not really explaining WHY any step is taken or written (or conversely, explaining EVERY step, such as what a text editor is, or how to list files, out of scope), sure, the result often works, but you don't really learn the thing, only how to copy-paste
2022-03-11T16:17:12Z	(#x6zqkha) @ well, it's not surprising at all, the bots act as if you were a normal irc user, where the only options are "public channel message", "public channel notice", or "personal message", so for spammy stuff, it's often sent via PM (stuff like "welcome to channel" or "here's the commands I support")
it'd be surprising, if you DIDN'T get those ;P

I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the transparent bridging without any prompt, though (e.g. imho should be like, "this is a room on IRC, not matrix, all chats will be bridged to , your nick will be ")
2022-03-11T16:18:59Z	(#x6zqkha) it's surprising for both irc and matrix, in that it's unexpected, sure, but it's not surprising you get them on matrix's side, is what I meant, btw, ANY decent bridge would bridge both PMs and public channels
2023-05-10T16:03:53Z	@ who are you really
2023-09-14T21:49:10Z	I am temporarily back from the dead to share:  ![unity f*in' itself in a nutshell](https://twtxt.net/media/Tb864ag7BCNZ4eKBZHjj9n.png)