Notices by Merovius (merovius@chaos.social)

Got confused because I was supposed to walk south but had the sun behind me.

Then I realised which hemisphere I’m in.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/07/germany-influence-of-english-idiots-apostrophe

I mean, the prescriptivist assumptions of the article are already bad enough. No one "decides" what is "correct German".

But… it also links to
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/29/how-viral-tongue-twister-lightened-up-german-language
and I know this is a dumb thing to get angry about but… Does no one at the Guardian do even a *little* bit of research? Rhabarbar Barbara is *not* by Bodo Wartke. It's almost 20 years old:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcMT395UvWI
Wartke just took someone else's work and made a song out of it.

The Simple Solution to Traffic…………
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE
#waymo #honking #cars

@rick @kaia Me neither =D Searched for "Cowell Olympics" - the former is a name you can read on one of the jerseys, the latter being inference from timing. Kinda amazing that worked.

@rick @kaia Rugby, apparently.
https://metro.co.uk/2024/07/31/ireland-rugby-star-shows-superhuman-strength-save-team-mate-certain-injury-paris-olympics-21331795/

@bagder @LangerJan At first I thought “curl forum” meant “a forum that you use curl to read from/post to”

I mean, you *got to*, right?

@feditips I'm talking about the server you are leaving.

Specifically, I believe you confirmed that, if Meta started federating and at some point wouldn't want you to leave, you just couldn't. Not any easier than, say, Twitter.

@feditips Thanks.

Okay, so, heretical question, but: *Does* ActivityPub actually enable people to easily switch servers on a protocol level?
Like, what prevents a server from just not supporting you moving out?
(Leaving aside whether the actual moving process works as advertised)

@truhe I don't think that matters terribly in terms of my question.

@truhe So ISTM what you are saying is that a) yes, a server could absolutely refuse to let you move out (by not providing the export and not telling your followers to move over) and b) even if working as intended, it doesn't *really* work as advertised.

This is doing numbers, so to maybe preempt the most common responses:

1. "Or you can ask if it's okay" - sure. Go ahead. I just wanted people to be aware of a privacy-preserving option that has the same convenience as just giving out the number. As long as you don't give out my info without consent, we're good.

2. "You know about phone books, right?" - Yes. They sucked. Good riddance. "We used to be even worse at privacy" is not a justification. The world changed, mostly for the better.

PSA, if someone asks you for contact info (e.g. a phone number) of someone you know, the correct response is "I can't give that to you, but I can give them yours".

It's efficient and adds no round-trips, it's privacy friendly, it's non-awkward and it's social engineering resistant. It's a universally good rule.

And the corollary, of course: Don't ask someone for another person's contact info - ask them to pass on yours.