Sunset Strypey

Just a reminder that in anticipation of the sunset over mastodon.nzoss.nz, my micro-reviews of pop culture, music, TV, movies, etc, will be posted on my Wafrn account (

) from now on (if I remember).

This is to keep that stuff somewhat separate from;

• my political ranting (see

  npub1sgcnee3…v0nnan

  )

• my hopefully more measured tech/ media news and commentary (still here for now but see thread attached to pinned post)

(1/2)

The more I learn about Ghost, the more conflicted I feel. It's a big step up from SS, and I really enjoy the carefully thought out UX of the Ghost interface. But it ...

1. can't send so much as a single email newsletter to a subscriber without a MailGun account

2. can't accept payment from subscribers without a Stripe account

3. can't do basic web traffic analytics without an account on a third-party service - TinyBird - instead of integrating Free code like Plausible or Matomo

(1/?)

#Ghost

XMPP server eJabberD has had Matrix support for a few years now;

https://www.process-one.net/blog/matrix-gateway-setup-with-ejabberd/

I wonder if the

team have considered doing the same? I know how passionate they are about XMPP and fair enough. But hear me out, I'm going somewhere with this.

(1/2)

#Matrix #XMPP #FederatedChat #chat

Just out of curiosity, have you checked out Wafrn?

One thing that gives it an edge over other fediverse server software is an ATProto 'sidecar'. Which enables a PDA for each account that opts in, making their posts and replies visible in the ATmosphere. I presume ATProto accounts can be followed without bridging too, but I've only just started testing.

(1/2)

#Tumblr #Wafrn #ATProto #fediverse

The power of denial summed up in a single image.

I feel duty bound to comment on the Buck the Sheep controversy. I'm kind of embarrassed that both theSpinoff and John Oliver stole a march on me on this one. I've been busy doing fuck all, as is the nature of burnout. But I digress ...

In brief, I when the Greens and ACT/ Free Speech Onion agree on something, it's usually pretty bona fide. Obviously satire ought to be exempt from NZ copyright law. Or even better, BORA ought to have teeth enough overrule it.

(1/?)

#BORA #copyright #satire

I'm think about a new project, codename; #DeadPage.

The idea is to set up a service that mirrors the homepages of public interest commons projects, like those developing Free Code software. With some kind of archive.org style header to make it clear that it's a mirror.

The mirror would be hosted as a subdomain, eg;

https://glimpse-editor.deadpa.ge

Ideally in such a way that if the homepage is unresponsive, for any reason, the the DeadPage version gets served instead. But I'm not sure how though.

How the rest of the country sees The Tron ...

Social media bans for children? Barlow called it, 30 years ago;

"You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves."

#JohnPerryBarlow, 1996

https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence

(1/2)

#B416 #SocialMediaBans #AgeVerification #AgeGating

Maybe it's just a case of OMYAC syndrome, but I've been noticing more and more ludicrously noisy motor vehicles and reckless driving these days. Anyone get the eerie feeling we're now living in the first Mad Max movie? We're not at the Road Warrior stage yet, but it's starting to feel more and more plausible.

(For the uninitiated, OMYAC = Old Man Yells At Clouds)

(1/?)

#dystopia #MadMax #movies

Does anyone know of an article that explains why someone might want to publish their blog or newsletter into the social web, and explains the basics of how to do that? Using simple, clear language that non-geeks can easily make sense of.

#publishing #SocialWeb

The things generative models can do, which can't be done with more deterministic forms of AI (a very broad category including a lot of genuinely useful automation), are all things that can otherwise only be done by humans.

So a question I'd like to ask anyone boosting the use of generative models is;

Why do you want to avoid working with a human?

This is not a gotcha question, I'm genuinely curiously. There are many possible answers, all of which could be illuminating.

#GenerativeAI #AI

#Listening to The Pit by

, from the 2019 EP Hello Cruel World;

https://bandwagon.fm/668613500477057c74ab4012

I like the strutting beat, the quirky lead guitar, and especially the raw rock attitude of the lyrics and vocal performance. Well worth a listen.

(1/2)

#ButterflyDoom #LoFi #rock #music #CCBYSA #CCMusic

"But yet, despite video now being native to the web, people still habitually treat YouTube as the only way to publish video content on the web. Despite native support for video streaming and all the server software available, people habitually treat Twitch as the only way to stream. Despite web browser vendors working together on a standard API for video/voice calls (WebRTC), people act as if Discord is the only way to hold a group call."

https://arcanican.is/blog/2025/retvrn.php

(1/2)

#OpenWeb

#Listening to the latest edition of Radio @bsots, which I somehow missed when it dropped in August;

https://radiobsots.blogspot.com/2026/08/193-wrapping-up-and-winding-down.html

I really enjoy this podcast, every time, and I'm very sad to hear Macedonia talk about calling it a day. But I totally agree there's no point struggling on with a hobby project you're not enjoying anymore.

(1/2)

#BSOTS #podcasts #CCMusic #music

There's been a bunch of discussion here recently about building a federated replacement for the recruitment and jobhunting aspects of LockedIn. There have been a couple of attempts to build something like this, and today I stumbled on another one. Development started at the end of 2020 and stalled a few months later, although the repo was only official archived and the homepage taken down in 2023;

https://github.com/Flockingbird

( 1/2)

#FlockingBird #LinkedIn #ProfessionalNetworking #FediDevs

Anyone know why all the sites run by Ted Unangst, the developer of Honk and azorius, seem to have gone down at the end of last year? Is Ted OK?

https://web.archive.org/web/20251207001422/https://honk.tedunangst.com/u/tedu

#Honk #azorius #TedUnangst #FediverseParty

"... a national conversation about governance beyond party politics [which] ... could mean experimenting with citizens’ assemblies, deliberative democracy, local decision-making, participatory budgeting, digitally enabled consultation, rotating civic representation, transparent public deliberation and new mechanisms for allowing expertise and lived experience to enter decision-making without requiring people to join or identify with a political tribe."

#NotAParty, 2026

https://www.nap.org.nz/

A friendly reminder from the late, great Bill Hicks that regardless of who wins what electoral race in Nov - in NZ or the US - nothing much will change by itself. What Hicks joked about here;

https://video.kamloops.social/w/bd35ca5e-1336-4eb7-95e6-5d34ffa9d553

... was all but confirmed by Confessions of an Economic Hitman;

Democracy means we have to make the change together, and in our current system, make it clear to political representatives of the corporate class they have no choice.

#elections #BillHicks

Trying to watching the Kingmakers debate, it occurs to me that Parliamentary politics has devolved into the secular equivalent of an interfaith debate club. They constantly say things as if they're stating obvious facts. Even though, more often than not, they're unverifiable articles of political-economic faith, and when they are falsifiable they're usually unproven, if not directly contradicted by available evidence.

(1/?)

I'm a died-in-the-wool political tragic, but I'm finding it really hard to pay attention to the election campaign. It's all so cynical and spoon-fed.

I'm normally like a kid at Christmas During election time. But for the first time ever, I just want it all to be over so we can go on with our lives.

#NZElection2026 #NZPolitics

New #Disintermedia blog post about supplying groceries to households in Aotearoa in more decentralised, low-emission ways, and hopefully breaking the supermarket duopoly;

creative policy approaches to

https://disintermedia.net.nz/breaking-the-supermarket-monopoly-over-grocery-supplies-in-aotearoa/

I dropped this off last week, before a young family member came to stay (it's been enjoyable, exhausting chaos). In all the hubbub I kept forgetting to share the link. At one point I forgot which blog I posted in on : P

#KiwiDelivery #AntiMonopoly #supermarkets #groceries

#Opportunity party have released 5 bottom lines for post-election negotiations;

• "Giving the Commerce Commission more teeth and greater independence ..."

• "Regulating lobbying and capping political donations ..."

• "... 10-year plan to 'fix the health system' alongside health professionals ..."

• "Phasing out bottom trawling ..."

• "Recommitting to Paris Agreement emissions reduction obligations and protecting the Climate Change Commission's independence."

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/1643401/health-supermarkets-and-political-lobbying-among-opportunity-party-s-bottom-lines

(1/?)

When people ask why it matters if species go extinct, when most of us have never even heard of them and they don't seem to do anything for us, here's a way to answer. Point out that there are plenty of components in their computer, or their car, that they've never heard of and don't know what they do either, and ask them if it's ok to randomly pull a few out.

#extinction #ecology

"On Tuesday, the IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir ordered an investigation of the [documentary] film [NAZA] to be carried out. Reportedly, the IDF will be seeking the assistance of the security agency Shin Bet in their inquiries, and legal action may be taken against the film-makers."

#Gordon Campbell, 2026

https://werewolf.co.nz/2026/09/gordon-campbell-on-israels-extreme-responses-to-the-film-naza/

Well that's a military and a government with absolutely nothing to hide. Nothing to see here, move along ...

#NAZA #Gaza #IDF #Israel

I'm on the hunt for a kiwi with fairly average reading skills, and not a 'computer person', as a co-author or subeditor for the Disintermedia blog;

https://disintermedia.net.nz/

My goal for Disintermedia has always been to explain digital rights issues, and rights-respecting software and online services, in a way that the average kiwi can grok. But when I'm deep into one of my special subject, it's easy to think my somewhat technical explanations are 'simple' ones.

(1/2)

#Disintermedia

For a while now I've been using 'hard right' and 'far right' to distinguish between corporatists and other market extremists, on the one hand, and crypto-fascists and open fascists on the other. But the more I think about it, the more the phrase 'far right' seems to miss the point.

The problem with fascists is not how far to the right their take on economic issues (often it's actually more centre-left), but their deeply authoritarian and antidemocratic social attitudes.

(1/?)

#FarRight

I have a suggestion about inviting people to speak at tech conferences. It's particularly focused on people who sometimes get described as "problematic".

I don't mean self-identified white supremacists (like DHH), or people's whose behaviour is unambiguously abusive. I mean all the edge cases, where some people feel uncomfortable, and others don't (for a wide range of reasons).

To explain the idea, I'll use the example of RMS (Richard Matthew Stallman).

(1/?)

#RMS #ConferenceSpeakers

"Mastodon has a feature called "quote tweeting" that lets you embed what someone else posts, with your own comment right next to it. It's really useful for provide commentary in context, like this, where I point people to a sale and they can read both my comment on the sale and the original tweet about the sale in one post."

https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown

Finally, I understand what makes Quote Posts distinctly useful. Another way to describe them would be Boost Comments.

(1/2)

A few weeks back I was wailing and gnashing my teeth, about all the perfectly functional hardware that will go to e-waste in Aotearoa because of the 3G turnoff. In response, someone (can't remember who, sorry!) was schooling me on all the reasons why it's impractical to re-purpose obsolete mobile devices, eg as home media servers.

Anyway #TIL there's a company in the EU that's found a creative solution to that problem;

https://citronics.eu/

#Citronics #EWaste #recycling

A favourite or like from me just means "Marked as read"

I've been told people do this. It breaks my brain. The button literally says 'favourite'. How can everything you read be your favourite?

Keep in my mind that every time you hit this button you're sending the author a notification. I don't really want to be notified every time someone has merely read one of my posts. Do you?

Is there maybe another way fediverse apps could serve the purpose this serves for you?

"Democracy Without Politicians";

https://www.futurehindsight.com/episodes/democracy-without-politicians-hlne-landemore

You've got my attention ; ) This is an interview with political scientist Hélène Landemore about;

"... the concept of deliberative representative democracy by ordinary citizens, which means representing and being represented in turn."

(1/?)

#DeliberativeDemocracy #democracy #FutureHindsight #podcasts