On October 7, 2023, fighters from Hamas invaded Israel and killed around 400 soldiers and around 800 civilians. They raped, injured and kidnapped hundreds of others. By October 13, the Intelligence Ministry of Israel had produced a plan for how to deal with these attacks. Led by the Likud Party member Gila Gamliel, the document … Continue reading The Gamliel Plan
Another chapter done!
Just a few minutes ago I sent my development editor Sarah the news that I'd finished another chapter of the ActivityPub book I'm writing for O'Reilly Media. This was the hardest one so far -- the one on the ActivityPub federation protocol that connects different servers on the fediverse. I'm now at 5 out of … Continue reading Another chapter done!
Taking sides in a genocide
During World War I, the Ottoman Empire collectively blamed the millions of Armenians in their territory for attacks by Armenian resistance fighters. Around 1M non-combatants were killed by the Ottoman military -- in many cases, by forced marches through the Syrian desert without food and water. Denouncing this genocide doesn't make you an Armenian resistance … Continue reading Taking sides in a genocide
Leave the World Behind
I've been prompted by the Netflix algorithm pretty aggressively to watch Leave the World Behind, the 2023 apocalypse film -- it said I was a 98% match for the movie. I've taken it in over the last couple of days, and I have to grudgingly admit that the algorithm was correct; I really liked it. … Continue reading Leave the World Behind
The Obelisk Gate
I finished the Obelisk Gate today; it's book 2 of NK Jamison's Broken Earth series. I want to write some notes here about the book to cement them in my mind. Spoilers ahead. I mentioned on Mastodon that the series had been pretty striking for me. It's the story of a future (probably) world in … Continue reading The Obelisk Gate
Two more chapters
I finished two more chapters this week in my book about ActivityPub. Chapter 2 is about Activity Streams 2.0, the social network data standard we use for ActivityPub. Appendix 1 is a reference for all the types in Activity Streams. Next up is Chapter 4, federation protocol, and Chapter 5, extensions. I'm on a tight … Continue reading Two more chapters
Big Fedi, Small Fedi
As I often do, I made a poll on the fediverse about two concepts I am interested in: Big Fedi versus Small Fedi. Although I think these are interesting topics, I couldn't come up with exact summations of what the "Big Fedi" and "Small Fedi" positions are. So, I wanted to write down what I … Continue reading Big Fedi, Small Fedi
First two chapters turned in
After a couple of months of deep writing, I've just turned in my first two chapters for the ActivityPub book for O'Reilly Media. Finn the Human from Adventure Time saying Yussssss It's been a really tough process for me. I've never written a book, or really any text of this size, before, so learning how … Continue reading First two chapters turned in
Birthday Inventory 2023
Today, October 14, is my birthday. I'm far from home, in Brussels, with my wife on a trip to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday. We had a long, exhausting flight from Montreal, got in yesterday evening, and dragged ourselves out for dinner and got to sleep at a reasonable hour. This morning, coffee and … Continue reading Birthday Inventory 2023
ActivityPub on WordPress.com
I'm really happy to see the ActivityPub plugin enabled for all free and paid WordPress.com accounts. I've been using the plugin on this blog for about a week, thanks to Matthias Pfefferle at WordPress, and I have some thoughts about it so far. The first thing is that it's definitely more like having a fediverse … Continue reading ActivityPub on WordPress.com