Mike Stone

Husband, father, nerd. Half human, half Fosstodon Admin. Tends to tell Dad Jokes.

Don't feel obligated, but if you feel like buying me a coffee, I won't say no...

:cupofcoffee: https://ko-fi.com/mikestone :cupofcoffee:

Public Key

npub1l3ck4tnw7s928c8tk6kczewjhjmcd0lesf7jncs3zhd4wvxyj0sq02vnpa

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs0cut24eh0gz4rur4mdtvpvhfteduxhlucylffugg3tk6hxrzf8cqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsdanu4s

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1l3ck4tnw7s928c8tk6kczewjhjmcd0lesf7jncs3zhd4wvxyj0sq02vnpa

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Last Notes

2024-07-24 18:22:17

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@npub1gzl…kk4u Can confirm! I was just in Vegas a couple weeks ago. I had the "pleasure" of being present for the hottest day in Vegas's recorded history! Would not recommend!

2024-07-24 18:15:25

It's now 9:15 in the morning, and it's 100 degrees F outside.Yay Arizona.

2024-06-24 22:18:47

Announcement from #Fastly today regarding support for the Linux Foundation.
"Today, we’re committing to five years of support for the Linux Foundation, its hosted projects, nonprofits, and the maintainers who make it happen."
"This pledge represents a commitment of $40M in in-kind services, one of the largest donations in the Linux Foundation’s history. (It’s the largest single commitment of free services to an organization in Fastly’s history)."
https://www.fastly.com/blog/fast-forward-were-here-for-the-maintainers/

2024-06-17 22:34:55

What's the oldest computer you have in ACTIVE use. It doesn't have to be every day, but not something that's sitting in a drawer you haven't turned on for a decade. Something you use. For me, it's a Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 1, which originally was released in 2012. I'm currently running #Zorin 16.1 :zorin: on it, and it's perfectly capable of most of my everyday tasks.

2024-06-15 01:00:31

One of the features I love about Mastodon that doesn't get much attention is one that is in your face every day, and that's the chronological stream. If I refresh my browser, I can still find the post I was looking at. It's not been moved off to some seemingly random place based on some unknown algorithm, assuming you can find it at all. It's such a simple thing, but it really makes my experience with Mastodon that much better.

2024-05-30 05:57:28

I've been using DuckDuckGo as my main search engine for a while now. Lately, DDG seems to "correct" my searches. A LOT. I don't know if it's just me or if it's a universal thing, but when I type in a search sometimes not only the results aren't what I was looking for, but I see the query itself has been changed to something I didn't actually search for. It's INCREDIBLY frustrating. I just might have to find a new search engine if this keeps up.

2024-05-30 05:20:03

My search engine skills are failing me tonight. Does anybody know of a tool that will convert an HTML document into markdown? Linux obviously and CLI would be nice. I want to use it for a script.

2024-05-09 03:34:38

I wonder how much more of this type of thing it's going to take before people just raise the Jolly Roger instead.
https://www.androidpolice.com/new-amazon-prime-video-ad-format-incoming/

2024-04-19 23:43:12

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@npub15c0…hxke Thanks for hosting this! I was a little late as I've got a sick kid at home, so I missed the first part. I'm looking forward to when you do it again, and hopefully I can show up on time! 😉

2024-04-13 05:43:03

Early on in dating my future wife, I noticed that even though she's objectively brilliant, she doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to her environment. One of my favorite things to do is randomly buy her flowers and place them somewhere in plain view in the house and see how long it takes her to notice them. We're going on day 3 right now for a bouquet on the kitchen counter. 💐 🤣

2024-04-08 21:16:31

The #Eclipse2024 was pretty cool. Unfortunately we weren't in the path of totality, so this was about the best we got. Still, very cool to watch.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/112/237/198/850/220/749/original/08bfdd24fa77ae46.jpeg

2024-04-08 00:49:05

I haven't done a #ScreenShotSunday for a while, so I thought I'd throw up a retro desktop from June of 2020. I don't remember why I took this particular screenshot, but there it is.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/112/232/364/039/378/054/original/d7c45cf78da5f5eb.png

2024-04-07 02:23:07

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@npub1rsl…lqqt I actually kind of miss that sound. Given, this is coming from the guy that configured Thunderbird to say, "You've Got Mail!" whenever a new message is received.

2024-04-03 00:47:56

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@npub1l3g…vu48 Your right, it does have a resemblance.

2024-04-02 05:07:52

Just watched the SpaceX launch. I gotta say, Musk is a total asshat, but that was very cool to watch.

2024-03-29 18:05:38

This is why you can't trust GPTs right now. This screenshot was over the course of MAYBE 15 minutes. Just for the record, the GPT NEVER had the right answer.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/112/180/061/262/883/014/original/92e7e147312eae97.png

2024-03-27 17:08:43

I had some sad news today for some people in a meeting wondering if they should upgrade from CentOS 7.x to 8.x or wait for CentOS 9.

2024-03-25 19:21:09

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@npub1vlh…f6as Weird. I've never tried using my Steamdeck with a monitor, and I pretty much stick to more modern titles. Glad to see it eventually decided to update itself.

2024-03-25 03:32:02

I find this video amazingly helpful. I don't have #ADHD, but I often have trouble concentrating. If there's anything that can draw my attention away, it does. Even listening to more traditional music can pull me into lyrics instead of what I'm trying to focus on. When I do manage to focus, my attention is like a glass plate. If it gets broken, it REALLY gets broken. It's a battle to get all those pieces back in place.
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=RG2IK8oRZNA

2024-03-19 06:32:18

OK, so I officially registered #Fosstodon on libera.chat. I'm going to be occasionally dropping in there (don't expect @npub1tc6…mhfm though). If you're wanting to chat, that's where I'll be (but not all the time). Anybody is welcome!

2024-03-17 21:32:48

I've been begging (BEGGING) @npub1kcy…fzfa to make something like this for YEARS. I'm so excited to see it!
https://pine64.org/2024/03/17/march-update-making-waves/#pinevox---virtual-assistant
#PineVox

2024-03-15 08:00:34

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@npub1q5l…ywp3 Fingers crossed.

2024-03-15 03:17:54

One more day of work this week, and next week I'm on holiday. Don't quote me on this, but I have a sneaking suspicion that not a lot of work is going to get done tomorrow. ESPECIALLY since it's almost 7:30 at night here and I'm still working. 12 hours today can be compensated for by 4 hours tomorrow.

2024-03-15 00:13:30

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@npub1vlh…f6as Ah, thanks! I saw Origins, but I didn't put the two together. I'm slow, sorry. I have a full week off next week, and hopefully I can rest my brain and come back not so dumb.

2024-03-14 23:36:44

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@npub1vlh…f6as Hm, I can't find that one in the Steam Store. Can you link it for me?

2024-03-14 22:51:59

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@npub1vlh…f6as Which one is that?

2024-03-14 16:44:22

Happy Pi Day everybody!
Today is auspicious for another reason. 30 years ago today, in 1994, Linus Torvalds released the 1.0 version of Linux. Of course Linux had been available since the fall of 1991, but to me there's just something defining about a 1.0 release.

2024-03-10 05:52:16

My son has recently gotten into playing Lethal Company, and wants me to tag along. So far, I've found pretty much every way to lose the game imaginable.

2024-02-29 18:02:22

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@npub1alm…yeul Just saw the title. "So you think you know git?" NO. NO I DO NOT. I can clone a repo and do basic pulls and pushes, but anything else is beyond me.
I might have to watch this presentation.

2024-02-26 17:11:23

I changed my new mail notification sound to the old AOL, "You've Got Mail" sound. Now, just to wait and see how long it takes for my wife to comment. 😈

2024-02-26 06:54:44

Final Exam this week. It feels stupid, but it always makes me nervous when they include things like, "60% or higher required to pass the class." So, basically if something goes really sideways this whole semester goes away in an hour.

2024-02-23 20:29:55

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@npub1nlt…t44t I confess I know very little about nostr or what it does. If it speak ActivityPub, we aren't preventing communications. That's all I got.

2024-02-23 20:25:38

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@npub1nlt…t44t We've done nothing to prevent that from working. Equally, we've done nothing that would allow that to work. So, I guess we allow it? If it works already?

2024-02-23 18:18:52

Fosstodon has been upgraded to version 4.2.8 of the Mastodon software. This is a nice release as it comes with a couple new features to help reduce spam in the Fed. They won't change how Fosstodon works, but their inclusion will mean we'll be seeing less unwelcome influx from outside of our instance, and that's a very good thing. Don't hesitate to read the release notes if you're interested. They're short.
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.2.8
Also, if you have any questions, you know where to find us.

2024-02-18 02:08:12

We appreciate everybody's patience over the last couple days regarding the spam wave the Fediverse has been experiencing. Positively, none of the spam has originated from Fosstodon. Negatively, that means we have very little ability to block it beyond suspending the accounts when they appear and notifying remote admins. Many instances have been very proactive, and we thank them for that. Also, thank you for all the reports you've been sending. They let both us and remote admins act more quickly.

2024-02-16 19:24:33

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@npub1l3g…vu48 All calls on Monday will be redirected to the janitorial closet in basement.

2024-02-16 18:47:21

Is it over the top to remind everybody right in middle of a discussion about DR servers that you're going to be on vacation on Monday and including a 😏 at the end?

2024-02-14 16:32:21

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@npub1tc6…mhfm Nice of your company. I don't even recall the last time I got anything for #ValentinesDay. Wife, kids, company, anybody.

2024-02-12 18:16:34

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@npub1vlh…f6as We bought some Steelseries gaming headphones for my kids a while back. None of them use them, so I stole a pair to use for conference calls.

2024-02-09 20:02:15

Does anybody actually use the term "Personal Area Network" and abbreviate it PAN? I've seen that a couple times lately in my college class, and in almost 30 years in this field I don't think I've ever heard it in practice.

2024-02-09 17:36:38

Notifications on phones are a double edged sword. There are times I want notifications and times I outright NEED notifications. During those times I only want some things getting through. It seems like the tools required are there to make the experience livable, but tuning it to work the way I want is not an easy task. I use an Android phone, and there's the "Digital Wellbeing" section allows control of notifications during specific times, but I feel this should be part of the app configuration.

2024-01-10 18:52:20

I just found out my company rented a WeWork space yesterday and a bunch of people showed up. I like my job, but almost none of my work is collaborative. I can't think of a good reason to drive 20 miles through rush hour traffic and road construction to down town Phoenix, deal with parking down there, and then drive home just to spend the day with the admittedly nice people I don't work with day to day. Management really wants to bring it back, but I don't miss in office work.

2023-12-25 05:23:18

My Christmas present from my day job: As of midnight I'm no longer on call.
I'm on vacation, and my phone notifications are turning off. I'll not turning them back on until January. I've already turned off all my computers that aren't serving something to someone, and I'm going to unplug for the next week. If I can't do it on my phone, it's probably not going to get done until after the new year. Happy holidays everyone, whether you celebrate something or don't.
🎆🎇🎆🎇🎆🎇🎆🎇🎆🎇🎆

2023-12-22 22:04:10

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@npub1h56…ch5t Check out the section of that post under "Disallow Unauthenticated API Access".
"there’s a second protocol, the Mastodon API that clients and apps use to communicate with Mastodon’s server backend."
"Again, by default, anonymous access is allowed to public posts and profile information. Somebody who is determined to circumvent a server suspension can still access public information anonymously through the Mastodon API."
AUTHORIZED_FETCH and the api are different things.
@npub1zun…4zjg

2023-12-22 18:28:43

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@npub1h56…ch5t timelines, but doing so would still allow access to individual profiles. Only the timelines wouldn't be visible from outside. I guess the short (too late for that!) answer is turning on AUTHORIZED_FETCH doesn't keep instances from retrieving information unless you go hog wild and turn on other features and disable even more. Doing so impacts more than just instances that are blocked. Also, AUTHORIZED_FETCH breaks Lemmy and kbin access, whether they're blocked or not. 2/2
@npub1zun…4zjg

2023-12-22 18:21:02

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@npub1h56…ch5t No, you're not wrong here. When we block an instance that instance can still retrieve posts from Fosstodon. But enabling AUTHORIZED_FETCH doesn't change anything about the Mastodon API, and anonymous access to that is still allowed. Further, our timelines are currently public, so anybody can view them from the web just by going to our site. We could block API access, but that would break the page for people who aren't logged in. We could turn off access to the public 1/
@npub1zun…4zjg

2023-12-22 05:28:28

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@npub1h56…ch5t We're not opposed to implementing it. It just seemed the negatives outweighed the positives. If someone shows us that's not the case, we'd turn it on for sure.
@npub1zun…4zjg

2023-12-08 18:12:22

The most fun comment I've heard in a meeting today:
"Someone somewhere in corporate did some knee jerky thing because that's what they do, and now we have to go and explain to them the ramifications of what they did."

2023-10-13 15:30:59

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@npub1alm…yeul That would have been cool! We'll have to do that next time. I'm not sure when that'll be, but I'm guessing in the next 6 months or so. The company I work for bought a company located here in town and my group was transferred under their silo, so all the upper management stuff happens here in Columbus. All the corporate merger mumbo jumbo stuff is still going on, and will be for a while, so I expect a return trip won't be too far away.

2023-10-13 15:13:43

Finally heading back home today. It's been a long week in Columbus OH, and I'm anxious to get back. #Columbus seems nice from what I've seen, which admittedly isn't much. I've spent pretty much all of my time either at work or at the hotel or somewhere between. I like the weather here more than the furnace of #Phoenix. My coworkers all seem to disagree with me on that one. Seems people from Phoenix don't appreciate colder weather. Who knew? I'm excited to see my kids not on a computer monitor.

2023-09-27 00:03:55

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@npub1q5l…ywp3 Absolutely. My mother had Alzheimer's, and long after she lost the capability of using a computer she could still video call and send messages using a Google Assistant screen. She could even get slideshows of the the latest pictures of her grandkids. That kind of thing shouldn't be locked behind a paywall of used to advertise.
@npub1kcy…fzfa

2023-09-26 23:39:39

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@npub1q5l…ywp3 I've been coughing at @npub1kcy…fzfa for years now, but so far they've successfully managed to ignore me. Now that Mycroft has dropped out of the market, it's virtually impossible to get a smart speaker that isn't spying on your every move. NeonAI still sells the #Mark2 from Mycroft, but they're super expensive with such low market penetration. Would be amazing to see someone really put some juice behind it.

2023-09-26 23:33:39

This is one of the reasons I've been a big supporter of #Mycroft in the past, and I'm still supporting #OVOS and #NeonAI. I think a voice driven UI (VUI) is important, but the biggest players in that market are Google and Amazon, and their motivation isn't improving the experience for the people using their devices, it's monetizing anything and everything they can. I'd love to see a new smart speaker (*cough* @npub1kcy…fzfa *cough*) that would support OVOS or NeonAI soon.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/amazon-wants-to-charge-a-subscription-fee-for-alexa-eventually/

2023-09-22 23:41:07

I don't want to be the parent that crushes my child's dreams, but there needs to be some understanding that "Gamer" isn't a viable long term career for the VAST majority of people.

2023-09-21 19:53:59

It's here. Fosstodon has been updated to Mastodon 4.2.0. A couple things to note.
1. You have to opt in to be part of the new discoverability features. The setting is in your preferences in Public Profile and under the Privacy and Reach tab.
2. Direct Messages are now called Private Mentions. This doesn't mean they're encrypted. They're not.
3. The Local feed and the Fed have been moved behind Live Feeds, but they're still there.

2023-09-20 21:16:31

With the impending release of Mastodon 4.2.0, I wanted to highlight the new Public Profile page.
There are several new options here, and they WILL control whether your posts are part of the new full text search. This feature is OPT IN, so if you're wanting your posts to be included, you're going to have to manually give it the thumbs up. If you don't, well, keep on doing what you're doing.
#Mastdon #FullTextSearch
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/111/099/062/108/525/960/original/6db6ad5fc7f11d59.png

2023-09-05 17:49:10

I personally prefer the "before" version, but I might be in the minority. Thoughts?
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/26606
#Hashtags

2023-08-23 21:47:15

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@npub1j43…jvze We're not cracking down now more than we ever have. The rule in question has been there for the majority of the time Fosstodon has been here. Quite the opposite actually. There's an active poll right now for our patrons to see if they'd prefer that rule be removed.
https://www.patreon.com/fosstodon
@npub1jt8…pjjw

2023-08-19 20:24:22

This was inspired by @npub16mt…pnwy. What's your #NerdShirt for the day? 👴
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/110/917/667/657/953/817/original/548e5860d9ae2c3d.png

2023-08-11 18:32:19

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@npub1rnj…vtmy Well, we keep #Fosstodon as close to vanilla as possible to avoid issues with upgrades and maintenance, so the HOW things show up is identical to vanilla. What we see from an Admin perspective is 3 categories. We see hashtags, posts, and links. These are all things that are just getting traction in the Fed. Our moderation team can "overrule" a hashtag, link, or post if we find the content inappropriate, so a bot can't take advantage and spam the Explore section. 1/
@npub1tc6…mhfm

2023-08-08 19:43:17

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@npub1j43…jvze Well, the intent is/was to have a quick script that I could write that would allow me to stream the Fosstodon local timeline either in a window or a desktop widget of some kind. This script doesn't do any of that, but it was a first pass by someone who's pretty garbage at Python programming to begin with. It's kinda a personal project to build over time. I haven't gone back to it since I posted that, but I hope to get there eventually. Probably not useful to most people to be honest.

2023-08-08 18:10:59

Going through the Changelog for the new Mastodon 4.2.0 beta. Looks interesting, and there's some good changes in there. There's a lot of stuff, but I'm not sure how much of it is going to be super obvious to people day to day. New (and hopefully improved) onboarding is a good thing though, and improvements in reporting capability.
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.2.0-beta1
#Mastodon
#Fosstodon

2023-08-01 17:58:49

I'm a garbage #Python programmer, and even I can pull this off.
import requests, json, re
def strip_html(text):
pattern = re.compile(r"<.*?>", re.DOTALL)
return pattern.sub("", text)
i = "https://fosstodon.org/api/v1/timelines/public"
m = requests.get(i)
d = json.loads(m.content)
for x in d:
dat = x["account"]
txt = x["content"]
print (dat["display_name"] + " (" + dat["acct"] + "):")
print (strip_html(txt))
print("-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-")

2023-07-13 23:27:09

Who's working on getting #Linux running on this thing?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2381832-quantum-randomness-of-empty-space-can-be-controlled-with-a-laser/
#QuantumComputer
#Laser

2023-07-12 23:26:12

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@npub1j43…jvze I just got back from a week vacation with my family. I've been trying to unplug. I apologize if this sounds curt, but occasionally I like to take some time away. Considering how old all of this stuff is, I don't feel like it's too much to wait a few days.

2023-07-12 23:18:14

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@npub1j43…jvze Who is considered "prominent" is entirely subjective, and we're not going to put up a notification every time we block an account. How would you suggest we solve this problem?

2023-07-12 23:11:54

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@npub1j43…jvze There's no rogue mod/admin that I'm aware of. We use the moderation tools available to us, which are the same tools all moderators have at their disposal. Notifications of actions on reports are sent via email, so if you're part of the community here at Fosstodon, you'll get an email notification of any action regarding your account. Email addresses are not part of the information instances exchange (that's good), so we don't email remote individuals. I'd be surprised if any anyone does.