Notices by Nicol Wistreich (nicol@social.coop)

@AlSweigart love it! Tho have seen enough terrible interfaces on functioning software to think the ‘works but looks like it doesn’t’ is a tad small..

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/116296013231850535

There’s a Dieter Rams linked quote that good product design is about a collection of small details, and that seems particularly true with user interface. And #Apple - for all its many other sins - got these details far better than their competitors.

And that’s why these never-ending horror stories of how Apple has shipped a broken interface are so astonishing for someone who’s been learning from Apple UX and UI for over 30 years. It’s like they’ve taken the business model of enshitification and tried to turn it into an aesthetic.

How many people know that #WordPress was co-founded by a black man, Mike Little?

Or that he's from the north of England? A self-taught coder from #Stockport, just south of #Manchester? Or that he never received so much as a share, cent or job offer from the $7bn+ valued Automattic after spending five months working exclusively with Matt Mullenweg on the B2 fork?

After @bevangelist told me about @mikelittle I interviewed him for a documentary I never got round to making. Back then I was left with two certainties: he's Wozniak to Mullenweg's Jobs. Among other things he added the one-click upgrade that's been central to WP's bonkers 45%-of-the-web-success. And he's one of the nicest people I've ever interviewed, which is also bonkers given that he not only didn't share in WP's financial success, but that he's barely known.

But he should be - so, better late than never - please meet #MikeLittle, perhaps the most-influential-least-known person in #foss… https://25.netribution.co.uk/nic/mike-little-the-british-co-founder-of-wordpress-youve-probably-never-heard-of/

No fun in the bandstand arena

Maria Farmer, the first known survivor to have reported Epstein and Maxwell to police:

“Today is just the beginning of accountability and justice brought forth by Virginia Roberts Giuffre — a young mother who adored her daughter so deeply, she fought the most powerful on earth to protect her.”

“She did this for everyone’s daughters. Let’s now demand all the dominos of power and corruption begin to fall.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2026/feb/19/police-arrest-former-prince-andrew-mountbatten-windsor-sandringham-latest-updates?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-69976ebc8f08446dc4696c57#block-69976ebc8f08446dc4696c57

@afewbugs - at the risk of making things worse but in hope of making them better… by my reading @Infoseepage was just responding to this sentence – "There really is no need to eat meat when vegan alternatives are this good" – to say that cost is a reason.

ie it wasn't a criticism of your delicious looking meal or of the existence of meat substitutes (which should be zero-VAT rated imho to lower cost), just adding a clarification to that sentence.

I’ve a question about using boosts with the #WordPress #ActivityPub plugin.

If I have two WordPress sites, both with the plugin, can I boost a full post from one to the other? Will it appear as a post in the second site? Has anyone written about this?

Will shortly test but thought I’d check if someone has tackled this and written it up first.

cc @pfefferle.

China's foreign ministry just tried to remind the US about international law:

“China has stated its position on multiple occasions on Greenland.

“The international law underpinned by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter is the foundation of the current international order and must be upheld.

“We urge the US to stop using the so-called “China threat” as a pretext for itself to seek selfish gains.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/19/donald-trump-greenland-denmark-nobel-nato-europe-live-latest-news-updates?page=with%3Ablock-696ea1538f08e9ae87e1ca5e

@internetsdairy @TheBreadmonkey that sadly seems to be the timeline we’re on, tho people often skip laws 1 & 2

Office for Budget Irresponsibility has leaked the #budget early…

"Fuel duty to be frozen until next September"
"A new mileage tax on electric vehicles"

Brilliant double whammy of first policies out the bag. Meanwhile in Norway –driven by tax incentives– EVs were 96% of car sales in June (https://mobilityportal.eu/norway-96-9-market-share-evs/)

Ignoring the climate & PR idiocy of disincentivising EVs over petrol, I still don't get why Labour desperately chases Reform voters while giving the Green Party the easiest of wins.

I'm drafting a diagram to try to explain to newcomers the relationship between #ActivityPub, Server Apps, Instances and Client Apps… it's obvious once you've been here a while but not intuitive if you're used to the rest of the web. "It's a bit like email, but you also can get your Netflix shows in your inbox".

Obviously I'm missing lots out here - anything really obvious I should add, please let me know? Comments/thoughts /additions/etc welcome… (and apologies in advance to any I've offended).

Visited the Science Museum and Walthamstow Pumphouse at the weekend and learned three things:
- the first steam train was designed by Richard Trevithick in Wales in 1804, 25 years before the Rocket.
- the first internal combustion engine car in the UK was made by a German, Frederick Bremer, who made and drove it around in Walthamstow.
- the UK’s first post-operative transgender woman was an RAF pilot - Roberta Cowell - who flew a spitfire in World War II. Somehow this isn’t yet a movie.

‘Among those taking part in yesterday’s protest was Claudia Cotton, 89, a Jewish refugee whose family fled Nazi Germany in 1939. “I am prepared to be arrested,” the retired social worker from London said. “In fact, I think it’s a good thing because it shows how ordinary people are willing to go to prison to oppose governments that are doing evil things.’

RT @urlyman
https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/115003501170223700

This seems an old issue, long closed and resolved.. https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/issues/16

But not for me

Hmm the #WordPress ActivityPub integration seems to have stopped sending unpublish events, and the Fediverse Preview doesn’t seem to match what’s published anymore. ~~Wish there was a gitlab/hub/codeberg type repo to post issues on.~~

Edit - there is! Not sure how I missed this before : https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub

@pfefferle thanks - sorry I just found that, not sure how I missed before! And a relevant issue - https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/issues/16.

Just to dble check, if I unpublish a post does that send out an ActivityPub action and the only issue is Mastodon/etc caching?

The craziest thing about USA handing the renewable economy to China for fossil fuels is that the renewable business after installation - the thing that earns money each year a solar/wind farm runs - is maintenance, repair, parts, servicing, expertise.

This isn’t like buying apples for a GOP President while a Democrat admin can buy oranges. This is trying to ensure America is irrelevant in the renewable economy the world is shifting to.

From: @joeinwynnewood
https://mstdn.social/@joeinwynnewood/1148135617

@jensscherbl in case you’ve not seen Christine Lemmer-Webber tackling the main problem with ATProto - it’s not really decentralised, and probably can’t be: https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/

A UK protest group who sprayed graffiti on an RAF plane has been declared a terrorist organisation by the UK Government.

Supplying military equipment to a military who currently shoots civilians queueing for food: fine.
Graffiti in protest against this? Terrorism.

Grim stuff. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/jun/23/david-lammy-us-strikes-iran-labour-keir-starmer-uk-politics-latest-updates-news #PalestineAction #YvetteCooper

@dajb @pfefferle it's really impressive how well it all works.

The blog is on shared hosting and I didn't notice any performance issue, despite 2000% traffic jump and a steady stream of notifications.

Only puzzle that's probably me not reading enough is that this Reactions block is a Gutenberg block, not a widget - so I'm adding it to every page manually, as can't add it to the theme templating tool, unlike the comments. Is there WP+Fediverse online meetup / call or group to join?