Notices by Alex (avolkov@mastodon.xyz), page 6

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/68.0/releasenotes/

The new Firefox 68 release notes are quite educational:

- They added a bunch of extension quality features: clearer permissions, recommended extensions program, reporting. THIS IS WHAT CHROME SHOULD HAVE DONE!
- cryptomining and fingerprint protections
- WebRender rolling out to more users by default
- camera and microphone access requiring HTTPS

Firefox is really making the case for being the browser that has its users best interest at heart.

Building a small all-in-one unit for your solar power needs. https://hackaday.com/2019/07/09/soak-up-the-sun-with-this-3d-printed-solar-harvester/

Original tweet: https://twitter.com/hackaday/status/1148615383412162562

Huh? There are 113k git repos depending on this JS library, whose purpose is to find an available TCP port. By starting a listener, stopping it, and returning the port it got. Yes, race condition included. https://github.com/sindresorhus/get-port
(You can just specify port 0 and the operating system will pick an unused one for you)

Here's a pic of it.

Introducing: Clinical trials viewer

https://blog.bgcarlisle.com/2019/07/08/introducing-clinical-trials-viewer/

I'm extremely pleased to launch Run Your Own Social: How to run a small social network site for you friends.

This is a guide book to running a small, tight-knit federated social network server. It comes from my year of experience running Friend Camp. It's focused largely on SOCIAL solutions, though it does touch on the technical.

I've tried to keep it technology-neutral, and it should be a pretty easy read for anyone who's been on the fediverse for a while.

https://runyourown.social/

Mastodon Gestalt Timeline:

2017: HOLY SHIT IT'S BBSES
2018: WAIT NO, IT'S SORTA TWITTER WITHOUT NAZIS
2019: HANG THE FUCK ON IS THIS EMAIL
2020: OH GOD RUN IT'S NEWSGROUPS, WE REINVENTED NEWSGROUPS

#GTALUG meeting tomorrow at 7:30 PM.

We're having Lightning talks!

https://gtalug.org/meeting/2019-07/

Leave tusky good reviews and mark the 1 stars as unhelpful, the trolls are throwing a review bombing tantrum because tusky won't bend to let them have their way. It RULES that they can't have their way and are so pressed about it but not at tuskys expense.

Every time I see someone use "snowflake" as an insult, I want to remind them that Tyler Durden wasn't a good guy or a good person, and that when he told Project Mayhem "you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake" he was deliberately dehumanizing his victims to brainwash them into being in his cult.

So, sure, if you want to act like a cultist devoted to a homicidal villain, you go right ahead. Just be aware that's what you're doing.