Notices by Misty (misty@digipres.club)

Every now and then I check in on the "List of hoaxes on Wikipedia" article. Looks like there's a new record! They had to create a new "extant for 20+ years" section for something added in October 2004 and only discovered in February 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wikipedia#Extant_for_20+_years

Ran into an interesting problem: got two text files to diff, but their contents aren't Unicode so the diff output is kind of useless for me.

Vancouver: do you like “cats”. Do you like “lobsters”. How would you like “cat lobsters”. Well you can go visit slimgiltsoul’s Strange Cat Festival art exhibition until April 10th at the James Black Gallery (144 E 6th Ave). Don’t miss it

I really wish it were wider knowledge that most of the content on Forbes.com is basically unreviewed blogging that didn't go through an editorial process. I still see a lot of people trust random posts they see there because they believe it's a business publication with actual reporters and editors. *Some* of the content is but a lot sure isn’t!

I don't blame individuals for not knowing, but I definitely think a lot of people'd be able to judge stuff better if they did.

Absolutely love this dive into why those old 88x31 banners are *exactly* 88x31. I always thought 31 seemed like a funny height... https://ultrasciencelabs.com/lab-notes/why-we-are-still-using-88x31-buttons

Wow, this Pixelfed bug is *nasty*. Allowed users to access private posts of remote users they're not following so long as another user on the same Pixelfed server legitimately followed that account.

If you're running a Pixelfed server, definitely upgrade immediately now that the vulnerability is publicly known.

https://fokus.cool/2025/03/25/pixelfed-vulnerability.html

I don't like it and I want to preserve the open web, but things can't keep going like this. Something has to change to stop/slow down these companies for people to be *able* to keep things open and accessible. And it's the smaller publishers and individuals who are being hurt the most and being driven offline or to more closed platforms.

I really can't overemphasize how destructive this is to the open web. The web is built just as much on a consensus on how to fairly do things as it is on technical measures keep things going, and AI scrapers have blown that up. https://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2025/03/ai-bots-are-destroying-open-access.html

I know Molly White wrote a passionate post recently asking people not to throw away open access just to stop AI scrapers, but many people *don't have a choice* anymore. If the old deal is broken, some people may be forced to take things private.

Overseas Canadians: now that an election's been called, I recommend getting registered to vote from abroad right away. This applies if you're just going to be on a trip on election day too. I've done it before, when an election was called while I was on my honeymoon, and it wasn't a difficult process at all. Something cool about voting from an embassy, honestly. https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/living-abroad/elections-faq

This license situation is getting too complicated. I'm going back to the Strongest License.
https://mastodon.social/@mcc/113765980154905389

I really can't get over how irresponsible it is for MS to tell people to throw away or recycle perfectly working computers. There are so many machines people *could* keep using for much longer if not for Windows 11.
https://mastodon.social/@dosnostalgic/114184937238415364

BTW I should mention that this is a screenshot taken via oldweb.today, a website that lets you emulate a bunch of old browsers to browse the wayback machine or even the live web. https://oldweb.today

It's a @webrecorder project, and *very* cool IMO.

Pizza Hut website (ca 1996, in NCSA Mosaic 3)

For years and years, I've been searching for a rare Canadian computer game - and I finally found it. Really excited to get to share Crosscountry BC.

If you grew up here there's a good chance you played Crosscountry Canada at school. This is the local BC version, made just for local schools, and tracking it down was *really* hard.

https://cdrom.ca/games/cancon/2025/03/18/crosscountry-bc.html

Really interesting seeing @mirlo prioritize keeping the service cheap to run for its users running their own instances. Often not a priority for this kind of open source web service. https://mirlo.space/post/222

"The Net's gotten so big that it's hard for people to find you." December, 1996
https://muffin.industries/@wayback_exe/114119227095914582

Wow, this is pretty: https://defector.com/its-snowing-sea-cucumbers-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea?giftLink=b15c1b7edf12030a6d7bf1c84800f30b

Trying to track down the source of stuff online is so weird these days. Ars Technica mentions the “Brother printers blocking third-party ink" thing that just started blowing up is I guess because someone made a video that's sourced from a three-year-old reddit post? https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/brother-denies-using-firmware-updates-to-brick-printers-with-third-party-ink/

So what's up with the "fediverse chick" spam anyway? It's relentless

Truly incredible moment in time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gay_Girl_in_Damascus