Posts by pyrex@dragon.style
(DIR) Post #AcqQmJVAZDcQnSXXI8 by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-15T20:19:23Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@natalie Oh hell, you're correct!Sorry, very bad oversight -- I just grep for my user agent since I figured a lot of people are not good at formatting robots.txt files.I'll clear the database after since there's going to be polluted data in there.
(DIR) Post #AcqR1KbOl2mkYNc9ku by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-15T20:29:19Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@natalie Heads up, you'll see some requests from my developer box while I retest on your instance specifically. I'm now parsing the file correctly, but I want to make sure you're excluded end-to-end.After that I'll also add you to the opt-outs file, so it won't matter what your robots.txt says.
(DIR) Post #AcqU1Sex6IUhPC1wRs by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-15T18:00:32Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Stop Using Threads consumes a list of users and tells you which of those users interact with Threads. You can use it to remove Threads participants from your timeline.You can find out the tool's opinion on you by entering your own name, or you can just Submit with default settings to find out about Gargron.https://stop-using-threads.net/Data practices, anti-abuse and opt-in/out are behind the link. If you didn't opt into search, you're not visible here either.#threads #fediblock
(DIR) Post #AcqU1XWH1zWUTj0a7E by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-15T18:45:05Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Changing the rate limiting settings -- if some of you were getting throttled, that's my bad!
(DIR) Post #AcqU1atmT36oxV1tfk by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-15T19:00:06Z
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You're allowed to hate my idea by the way, but if your reasoning is an incoherent repurposing of queer Discourse, then I am going to block you and you are not going to be able to opt out of the tool by contacting me.This goes double if you're implying Facebook users or their friends are going to be persecuted.
(DIR) Post #AcqU1dakSGfRJL9EvI by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-15T20:45:38Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
There was a bug in the robots.txt support -- it was totally my fault. I cleared the DB because it included data from instances that opted out.It's fixed now. Apologies if you were affected, and thanks to the creature that gave me notice.
(DIR) Post #AcqWdGhIDxCnDYHSt6 by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-15T20:44:02Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@natalie You weren't the only person affected. (there are at least like ten instances)Cleared table, fixed robots.txt parsing. Profuse apologies -- if you ever see any network traffic from me again, let me know and I'll fix it immediately.I'll announce this under the initial post without naming you.
(DIR) Post #AcsNjIgvDFRtrspQXo by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-16T07:49:34Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@Chozo It's midnight here, opt-out will be processed in the morning. You can add nobot or similar to your account if you need it right away."Worse than Meta": I'm not complicit in the Burmese genocide.
(DIR) Post #AcsNjJzOO3oltSTgyO by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-16T19:02:28Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Chozo Just processed your opt-out. Thank you!
(DIR) Post #ActwW9E0muhoIXjIsy by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-15T08:38:44Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
In disagreement with the take that there's nothing to do about Threads.Right now Facebook gets a lot of power out of saying "You consented to this," because it's an open protocol and by default Masto will federate with them.There is a solution to the technical problem, which is to block federation with threads.net. Then Facebook has to at least admit they're doing this without consent.That's the tech problem. There's also a people problem.I think that Threads users don't benefit much from being connected to me, but they want things that are totally inconsistent with my happiness. So I see them as purely taking from Masto as it exists.I think infosec.exchange's stance of "we won't decide for you if we federate with Threads" is completely inadequate in the face of this problem because Facebook is introducing a giant coalition of which, presumably, many will want voting rights.I can't see an outcome where people who oppose Facebook aren't marginalized off the instance by a massive, semi-astroturfed coalition of people who think Zuck should have another private beach. The members of this coalition will be a mixture of Threads.net users and infosec.exchange users who have realized they like some Threads users.I expect this to be the outcome for Hachyderm too.My goal is (1) to make it technically possible to express nonconsent to this in an unambiguous way (2) to create implicit social threat against joining the coalition Facebook is trying to create.Specifically, I want to support this in cases where there aren't instance-level blocks on Threads. This is likely to happen a lot in cases where Threads bribes instance admins with money or promises of power.I do not know if this will work. But I hope something does.
(DIR) Post #ActwWAedTPb2jPC51U by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-15T08:41:38Z
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It frustrates me because basically, I think the average Threads user has very little stake in what happens to us, but collectively Threads can destroy the platform.I believe Zuck wants this and the average user does not care.It is insane to me that people who nominally support unions on the rest of the timeline are supporting every-man-for-himself style responses to a corporate attack on the platform.If you understand organization you should understand why not organizing won't work.
(DIR) Post #ActwWCGFV3HHiLndI0 by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-15T08:54:48Z
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To respond to one specific bad take:I've seen several people say (at various levels of sophistication) that there's probably not a good technical way to completely exclude Meta.Fedi isn't resistant to scraping, so that's kind of true. I have no idea if Threads is going to start scraping all the content from instances that block it.I do know that if they were to resort to scraping instances that block them, or running dummy servers for the purpose of loading content, the messaging to neutral parties would go from "Meta is interoperating, it's an open platform" to "Meta is straight-up terrorizing people."Like, yes, they don't respect our consent, but the appearance of our consent is valuable to them. We may not be able to block them in the long run, but we shouldn't be giving away the appearance of consent for free.Plus: a lot of the ways they could circumvent this have a high chance of killing our servers. I genuinely don't know how they will bypass instance level blocks if they do, but brute scraping would be a very bad idea.
(DIR) Post #Ad2jbmZzIxRuReY1tQ by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-21T18:35:35Z
2 likes, 3 repeats
Sometimes you just get an email with "undisclosed breach" vibes.
(DIR) Post #Ad2jc1oieT95hgYVRA by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-21T18:38:47Z
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(The email is new, but I'm betting I unwittingly stole the comment from someone else the last time a major platform did this.)
(DIR) Post #AdCUJafC6l9dtFoMC0 by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-25T19:11:18Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
I saw a few people talking shit about Linux users.I'm a Linux user! I'm also a Windows user and a Mac user. I try to make sure my software works on multiple platforms.What I'm told is that I only use software that is blatantly broken in five ways, and I respond to bug reports by saying "fix it yourself."This is surprising to me because my experience is that when I use proprietary software, it's full of bugs that go unfixed for years. The experience is often unfixably broken for disabled people, who aren't in the target market. But even for people who don't need accessibility features, I'm not sure the experience is any less broken.I can understand feeling disempowered when someone asks you to write code or file a bug report. But I feel even more disempowered when literally no one in the world can help me. In many cases like Windows itself, the software is designed to hurt me, with irremovable ads and push notifications.The actual business model is "no one can help you."I think the reason that Linux software is perceived as buggy is because when you complain about bugs in Linux software, there is a significant chance they will be fixed. It is typically completely useless to complain about proprietary software and if you do so, you are probably doing so in a one-on-one, private medium. So no one will actually see your problem.For that matter, it's not clear to me that Linux actually is harder to use than Windows. I think that when someone's bad at Linux, we say "Linux is hard," and when someone's bad at Windows, we say they're "bad at computers," which holds Linux to a double standard.If you actually watch a new computer user learn Windows, you won't think it's easy.It's also way harder for experienced users to do power user tasks on Windows because the environment will respond to basic operations like "launch Python" by trying to sell you on the desirability of the Windows store.It might be tempting to say "novice users will not need to do that" but this is a major frustration in trying to support Windows users who have broken their system, often by using it as designed. And there's an even more fundamental problem in that nobody actually knows what Windows is supposed to do. There are relatively few tools designed to restore Windows to a known good state and Microsoft's preferred process for this will delete your data.Even if it was easier to get started on Windows, I'm not sure it would be a good thing. Low tech literacy can be expensive: concretely, malware and scams rely on you not having the ability to distinguish them from legitimate content.And Windows and iOS abet that. They actively train you not to understand:- the distinction between privileged/non-privileged contexts- the true source of messages you see from the computer- the inherent danger of saying "yes" to thingsI suspect the design of Windows itself is a primary reason for the success of ransomware.(A footnote on accessibility: It's really common for me to see people reply to accessibility talk with comments that amount to "fuck the blind." To that I'll say: visual impairment has about a 2% prevalence rate. If you live to 50, you have about a 10% chance of visual disability, and at 75 that rises to 25%. So it's about as common as autism and rapidly becomes more common with age.)
(DIR) Post #AdLVlnl9OLNT7mUL32 by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-30T20:18:11Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
OK, sorry again -- today I have literally no control of how many words I produce, and it's going to affect you.
(DIR) Post #AdLXGhHtbUT3z36J8a by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-30T20:32:49Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
I have occasionally wondered if my tendency to write a literally shocking number of words per day (there's far more than you see here) my weird mental health episodes, and my tendency to be moralistic and religious in public are indications that I have temporal lobe epilepsy or something.I think my therapist basically thinks I'm a hypochondriac though.
(DIR) Post #AdLXGkDkhLw554BXay by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-30T20:35:00Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
To be clear, my official diagnoses are "autism," and "generalized anxiety disorder," but I show a really large number of symptoms that aren't stereotypically associated with autism.I think it is extremely likely I have subdiagnostic schizophrenic symptoms, but I'm open to many other possibilities! I am very worried I will deteriorate later, although I'm told that if I haven't had an episode of florid psychosis by 30, I probably will not have one, at least for purely neurological reasons.
(DIR) Post #AdLXK9MZfzMhvWw48m by pyrex@dragon.style
2023-12-30T20:35:37Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
(Also, when I say "far more than you see here": I estimate about 1/3 of my words make it to Mastodon!)
(DIR) Post #Ada5UtD4BvL9fUDh0y by pyrex@dragon.style
2024-01-06T20:42:58Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Icon (and handle) rotated!It's this image by Skdaffle.