Notices by stragu (stragu@mastodon.indie.host), page 24

Image from page 598 of "Blätter für Aquarien- und Terrarien-Kunde" (1890)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/20200409739/

PDF - Wild Edibles of Missouri

https://nature.mdc.mo.gov/sites/default/files/downloads/page/WildEdibles.pdf

I wouldn't normally directly link to a tweet, but this thread on #activism by Iyad El Baghdadi is fantastic & eloquent and appropriate to a any cause, not just human rights.

https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/1012849565488336896?s=19

Then again, I'm a software developer, not a lobbyist or a politician, so I'm just doing what I can. 😊 Also I'm trying to remain optimistic, and as part of that optimism I'm trying to "be the change I want to see in the world," i.e. build the alternatives I want to exist.

So let's hear it for the fediverse in 2019! And hopefully by building up a viable alternative, we can make a case to policymakers that it's worth reviving antitrust rather than handing the reigns of power to the monopolists.

As technologists I think it's tempting to believe that decentralization can be achieved if we just had the right tech – better interfaces, more options, the right algorithms, whatever. I've been guilty of this myself; Pinafore is my attempt to make Mastodon's UI more accessible. But Doctorow makes a good case that these are just band-aids on what is fundamentally a policy problem. And unfortunately the policy solutions being floated right now would entrench monopolies rather than break them up.

A summary of victories of the Women's Revolution in Northern Syria/Rojava during the year 2018:
http://www.hawarnews.com/en/haber/womens-victories-in-northern-syria-in-2018-h5885.html

I've posted it a little early because I'm excited but here is my reading and analysis of RFC-1, the very first official Request for Comments document and an important piece of internet history.

https://write.as/365-rfcs/rfc-1

I'm doing one of these a day for a year. You can follow along at @365-rfcs. I'll only be posting the really noteworthy ones on this account.

Haven't really thought about it too much just yet, but I want to put the question out there and read what you think : what if Facebook or Twitter started using #ActivityPub (and other protocols)? How would you feel about that? And in general, about big corporations / proprietary programs starting to interact with the Fediverse? Is there something in the AP specs that allows us to reliably identify where the activity comes from? To maybe block it? Would it further their monopoly, or the opposite?