<unnamed>

Public Key

npub176495h5jd2deymed6taalm3mwgcg9k9qf6z03vac2wp84htwvzvs66nuj0

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs0d2j6t6fx4xujduka977lacahyvyzmzsyap8ckwu98qn6m4hxpxgpqq9h0zgd

Publishing to

Last Notes

2026-08-31 19:50:46 CEST

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I know I'm an Obama-era engineering manager, but I always make sure there's a quarterly hackday on my teams. Triumph of the human spirit and celebration of creativity and so on. Also, there's a nonzero chance that we get a new product. Who knows? That's how Tinder started! Boocoo bucks baby!

2026-08-31 06:12:15 CEST

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Orly?!

2026-08-31 02:11:35 CEST

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it's still open!

2026-08-30 17:51:35 CEST

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a slur is a name, though.

2026-08-28 17:16:21 CEST

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Isn't the difference a little blurred? There are definitely the spiders that collect training material from the Web, which is used for creating the models. But most chat and coding systems now have RAG and MCP and similar tool infrastructure, so they can do live web searches and API calls at query time, not training time. I haven't seen anyone who talks about the effect from excess traffic on LLMs on Web sites and services tease those two apart.

2026-08-28 04:01:02 CEST

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I would also say that you can achieve a lot of privacy just by not saving any data on the server. It's actually easier!

2026-08-28 02:47:41 CEST

One of the funny things about reading the #ActivityPub specification is how much @npub1urx…v0z4 loves #Emacs #orgmode.
In our read-through tonight we read the aside that said it might be a good idea to abandon editing a Note if it could mess up your org-mode formatting, and I was like, yeah, that sounds like something Christine would do.

2026-08-27 23:02:40 CEST

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However, I think it's the kind of thing that makes people pretty upset.

2026-08-27 23:02:05 CEST

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so, there are two answers.
For me, the energy issue is not central. Using LLMs is not a major GHG source, especially compared to other common activities.
https://cosocial.ca/@evan/115580076628853324
#note1sxe…39td

2026-08-27 21:56:56 CEST

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If I were to put together a document in Korean and Japanese (auto translated) with roughly this information, would you be willing to read it over for style? Just so it's not nonsensical.

2026-08-27 21:55:17 CEST

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As you probably know, the W3C has hundreds of member organizations, and many of them are in East Asia. The organization has two important partners, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China.
We have a community group meeting tonight, and I'm going to add an agenda item about engaging more East Asian participants.

2026-08-27 21:51:31 CEST

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the second mechanism is the mailing lists; one for the community group and one for the working group.
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swicg/
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-socialweb/
These are places for discussion but also for decisions. In particular, no decision is made by the community group without a 14-day call for consensus (cfc) on the mailing list.
So, it's entirely possible to follow work and participate from there.

2026-08-27 21:47:09 CEST

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for asynchronous collaboration, we have two main mechanisms.
One is using GitHub issues and PRs. We have two main GitHub repos for ActivityPub and Activity Streams respectively, and issues are the main way we coordinate work.
https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues
https://github.com/w3c/activitystreams/issues
There are specific task forces for different application areas for the community group, so for example this one gives you issues for geosocial apps:
https://github.com/swicg/geosocial/issues

2026-08-27 21:38:06 CEST

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So, we might not be that far off. All the CG/WG meetings are supposed to have minutes to read. They all go into https://github.com/swicg/meetings .

2026-08-27 21:35:10 CEST

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We actually moved the SocialCG/SocialWG meeting to accommodate east Asian time zones. We now alternate between a Europe-friendly time and an Asia-friendly time. If we need to move more, I think we would!
/cc @npub1fd2…f2f9 @npub1dvx…gems @npub1a72…66ak

2026-08-27 15:26:46 CEST

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booooooooooooooooo

2026-08-27 14:34:38 CEST

@npub1upg…9n89 how can we get more East Asian #ActivityPub developers involved in the #W3C #SocialCG and #SocialWG?

2026-08-27 06:08:09 CEST

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...or share screenshots in the private chat, as Nature intended.

2026-08-27 05:32:09 CEST

If you're in #Montreal, we have a beautiful clear night for the #LunarEclipse. It's at a reasonable time (right now till right after midnight). Just go outside and look.
[@plateau_astro](https://threads.net/@plateau_astro/ ) has the details:
https://plateauastro.com/blog/2026-08-19/finally-lunar-eclipse-montreal-reasonable-time-and-temperature

2026-08-26 05:23:09 CEST

Should you reply to subtoots?
#EvanPoll #poll #subtoot #subtweet

2026-08-25 00:31:28 CEST

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Granola bars and fig bars: iffy
Lemon bars and maple bars: right out

2026-08-25 00:20:37 CEST

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You can define "nutrition bar" however you'd like.
For me, I'd call protein bars, meal replacement bars, and energy bars "nutrition bars".
I would say that candy bars, gold bars, bars of soap and cocktail bars are not nutrition bars.
If you can't answer this question without an exact definition, that's ok.

2026-08-25 00:16:12 CEST

When did you last eat a nutrition bar?
#EvanPoll #poll #food #NutritionBar

2026-08-24 22:29:15 CEST

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I get that there are people for whom their primary motivation is stopping X. That's fine; somebody has to do that job. For me, my number one goal is growing the Fediverse and retaining people on the Fediverse.

2026-08-24 22:06:49 CEST

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I think it's interesting to see that attitude reflected in this poll. It does clarify why that post got such strong negative responses.
Anyway, I'm much more Fediverse. I care more about whether content is available here than if it's copied elsewhere. I'd rather see content on both than neither.

2026-08-24 22:03:54 CEST

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There are a lot of angry responses. I found this surprising, since the poster said they'd continue posting on the Fediverse.

2026-08-24 02:00:11 CEST

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if they didn't tell stories, we wouldn't have stories.

2026-08-24 01:43:13 CEST

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how would we know?

2026-08-23 21:48:29 CEST

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Personally, I prefer independence and autonomy, so I'd rather that I and my descendants were not pets, even if we might do a good job at it.

2026-08-23 21:47:52 CEST

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Oh, and I'm sorry to everyone who feels like the topic is unacceptable to the nobility of the human spirit or whatever. I heard the song "Pets" a couple of days ago, and it started me thinking about whether we would actually make great pets or not.

2026-08-23 21:35:17 CEST

Is it more important that publications post on the Fediverse, or that they don't post on X?
#EvanPoll #poll #SocialMedia #Publishing

2026-08-23 05:04:57 CEST

Anglophone Canadians woke up today furious that Americans would complain about Quebec's language laws. How dare they? That's *our* job!

2026-08-22 23:25:59 CEST

I've got more action than ol' Riel, Lou,
And I've got mad hits like I was Wab Kinew

2026-08-22 23:21:10 CEST

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it was a good speech.

2026-08-22 22:45:47 CEST

So, when the Canadian government said that the US had added last-minute stipulations to the new trade deal, I figured it was more Art of the Deal bullshit; stupid demands thrown in while the other party just wants to get things finished.
It turns out the demands were quite material, basically restricting Canada's tariff policies to match the US ones on certain goods. Canada couldn't make trade deals with other countries without US permission. No fucking way.
#ElbowsUp
https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/9.7310605

2026-08-22 21:21:21 CEST

What kind of pets will we make?
#EvanPoll #poll #pets

2026-08-20 02:43:52 CEST

TFW your 2013 checkin at the grocery store is the example activity in the Granary README /cc [@snarfed.org](https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://snarfed.org/about )
https://github.com/snarfed/granary

2026-08-19 15:21:28 CEST

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I have a discussion of the topic here.
https://cosocial.ca/@evan/117119648900494272

2026-08-19 04:22:45 CEST

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in particular, is there a public interest in archiving the content of people who don't object to being archived? I think for personal relationships and public figures, there is. Is it enough to default to opt out rather than opt in? That I don't know.

2026-08-19 03:54:36 CEST

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A lot of people don't want this, though. They want to exercise their right to be forgotten. Or they want to enjoy the ephemerality of temporary posts. They don't want their data stored in a system they don't have direct control of.

2026-08-19 03:50:09 CEST

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Third, there's valid historic and scientific reasons to maintain an archive. Being able to go back and confirm what a politician or other leader said. If there is access to the data in aggregate, statistical work can be done, too.

2026-08-19 03:48:48 CEST

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Second, in the cases where servers go down. Unless you're active in the last few months that the server is up, you might not find out that all your content was gone until it's too late. And for your friends and family, your account would have a fallback; it wouldn't just blink out of existence.

2026-08-19 03:46:57 CEST

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Thanks to everyone who replied!
I think there are a lot of benefits to an archive for Fediverse content. First, as a way to balance load from small or overburdened servers. Checking an archive first for public data could save a lot of hits.

2026-08-19 03:41:58 CEST

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no, it was a flippant question. I do think it's worthwhile thinking about how other public archives work, though.

2026-08-19 00:05:00 CEST

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because that's how libraries work?

2026-08-18 22:28:45 CEST

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Would a good archive pick up that you'd deleted the posts?
Many archives contain things that others hold the copyright on. Libraries, for example. Or the Internet Archive.

2026-08-18 01:22:45 CEST

What did your grandparents call stuffed grape leaves? In whatever language.
(If you are not from a family or a culture where stuffed grape leaves were something your grandparents ate, please don't reply.)

2026-08-18 00:20:06 CEST

Should there be an archive of Fediverse posts?
#EvanPoll #poll #Fediverse #archive

2026-08-17 04:40:45 CEST

@npub19yg…wysk question for you about Mitra. I believe you accept RFC 9421 signatures for GET and POST to inbox and sharedInbox, right? Do you also send RFC 9421 signatures for GET and POST to inbox and sharedInbox, and do you use FEP 844e capability discovery? I'm trying to put together a compatibility table.
https://swicg.github.io/activitypub-http-signature/RFC9421

2026-08-16 18:16:45 CEST

Is it OK to write code that does new things on the Fediverse?
#EvanPoll #poll #ActivityPub #Fediverse

2026-08-16 17:42:19 CEST

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how many questions do I get to ask?

2026-08-16 17:13:21 CEST

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So, what about on other people? First, at the risk of being called "woke", let me say that I judge people not by the size of their butt, but by the content of their character. All Cakes Are Beautiful.

2026-08-15 16:34:15 CEST

What's the best butt size?
#EvanPoll #poll #butts #ButtSize

2026-08-15 13:44:20 CEST

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It gives me energy to keep going.

2026-08-15 13:33:56 CEST

I'm at the Moynihan #train hall waiting for my train home to #Montreal from #hope26.
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/099/307/559/425/631/original/790366cea143a199.jpg

2026-08-15 05:17:12 CEST

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how Nor are you in Norcal? Is there a reka in your town's name?

2026-08-15 05:02:54 CEST

We had a great #Fediverse #meetup tonight at Penn Station. A good place for new friends to meet! Everyone left before we got a good group pic but the real ones stuck around to the end
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/097/298/063/793/160/original/feb1af42be940870.jpg

2026-08-15 00:34:43 CEST

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we gotta go

2026-08-15 00:34:28 CEST

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♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

2026-08-14 17:39:10 CEST

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They are good questions! You should answer them.

2026-08-14 15:52:37 CEST

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And are you counting other Fediverse instances in this? You have to go to each and every other instance -- all 40,000+, mstdn.jp, social.techncs.de, cosocial.ca -- log in, and proactively enable search results with your remote content from social.coop?

2026-08-14 15:49:25 CEST

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you want double-opt-in? You opt in once through your instance UI or whatever, and then you opt in through the search engine's UI, too? Why?

2026-08-14 15:28:37 CEST

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How do you think it works? How do you want it to work?

2026-08-14 15:03:32 CEST

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https://evanp.me/pollfaq#define
I don't usually give further specifics and interpretations in my polls until they're done.
Question back to you: what is the difference between how someone wants it to work, and how they think it works?

2026-08-14 14:36:58 CEST

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This is the search control interface on Mastodon.
The first checkbox turns the "indexable" flag on and off.
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/093/893/202/139/410/original/713bbe5d76ee99c8.png

2026-08-14 14:33:03 CEST

If you add the "indexable" flag in your ActivityPub actor profile, which content search engines can index your content and show it in search results?
https://docs.joinmastodon.org/spec/activitypub/#indexable
#EvanPoll #poll #ActivityPub #Mastodon #UserSearch

2026-08-14 04:40:05 CEST

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I hate to spoil your spoiler, but I see a raised finger, not a pistol. Maybe I'm not looking close enough.

2026-08-13 20:36:27 CEST

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I did enjoy the film, though. The ship felt like a ship -- they were on the Mediterranean, in the goddamn water. That was great. Also, the magic was subtle and subdued, just how I like it. I liked all the stars. I liked the landscapes. I thought the narrative was good -- very Homeric, back and forth and stories and nonlinearity.

2026-08-12 19:43:54 CEST

Which of these Mexican-ish dishes do you prefer?
#EvanPoll #poll #food #MexicanFood

2026-08-09 15:42:54 CEST

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that's not the question, though. Do you prefer descriptions with context ("my dog Alex after our walk") that discuss why the picture matters to me, or low-context ("a brown medium-sized dog looking at something outside the left frame") that help understand the photo literally?

2026-08-09 07:05:10 CEST

An #a11y #alttext question: I tend to write high level alt text with a context-heavy description of the picture, like "the blueberry pancakes I made for the kids on Saturday". Bots and some humans tend to write longer, low-level context-free descriptions, like "a white plate with two pancakes with dark splotches on a brown wood table. A fork to the side." I think I'd prefer the first type of description if I were asking someone, "What's in the photo you're looking at?" But maybe others don't?

2026-08-09 06:21:46 CEST

Me and @npub1mlk…nu5a #Fedicon
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/063/634/434/894/594/original/84a864b9d0c5ead5.jpg

2026-08-08 21:57:13 CEST

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you can also do a closure.
```js
const counter = function () {
let count = 0;
return function () {
count += 1;
return count;
}
}();
```

2026-08-07 20:47:32 CEST

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one thing I talked to Tau about after was how we need more infrastructure to scale moderation: shared blocklists, filtering, and labelling. It means letting go of some control in order to do less work.

2026-08-07 18:51:11 CEST

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I heard that Secure Scuttlebutt has a feature for this, too. "Pet names", maybe? @npub1urx…v0z4 might know more.

2026-08-07 18:30:33 CEST

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a lot of messaging systems have this; you can assign someone a nickname that appears in-band when you mention them in a message. So I could write "@bruce here is an idea" and we'd both see it.

2026-08-07 17:45:48 CEST

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One other thing I'd like to see this task force address is petnames or nicknames. That is, I can assign a personal handle to someone, like "Mom", which represents my relationship to them or what I normally call them. There's a consent issue; people might not want me to nickname them "that idiot" or "jerkwad".
@npub1t5c…ppw4 @npub1sst…4hjt @npub1zzy…9edy [@thisismissem](https://hachyderm.io/@thisismissem )

2026-08-07 17:27:14 CEST

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Mastodon and others use domain-name -at- domain-name for the server actor, so it would introduce some complexity there, too.
@npub1t5c…ppw4 @npub1sst…4hjt @npub1zzy…9edy [@thisismissem](https://hachyderm.io/@thisismissem )

2026-08-07 17:22:03 CEST

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Adding a secondary username system to ActivityPub is a development burden and adds cognitive load to users; I think it should be done carefully. I think if we do decide to do domain-name-only handles, we should re-use Webfinger, like domain.name -at- domain.name, or possibly use hostmeta for a similar resolution.
@npub1t5c…ppw4 @npub1sst…4hjt @npub1zzy…9edy [@thisismissem](https://hachyderm.io/@thisismissem )

2026-08-07 17:17:59 CEST

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There was also a question of reverse discovery:
https://swicg.github.io/activitypub-webfinger/#reverse-discovery
I'd be happy to submit FEP 2c59 as an input for the task force:
https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/2c59/fep-2c59.md
@npub1t5c…ppw4 @npub1sst…4hjt @npub1zzy…9edy [@thisismissem](https://hachyderm.io/@thisismissem )

2026-08-07 17:14:59 CEST

@npub1t5c…ppw4 there's going to be a new task force to open up further discussion of Webfinger for ActivityPub, including using unicode usernames, and using bare domain names as usernames. As the co-authors of the previous report on Webfinger, I think we should participate. /cc @npub1sst…4hjt @npub1zzy…9edy [@thisismissem](https://hachyderm.io/@thisismissem ) .

2026-08-07 03:27:14 CEST

Make sure to follow [@fedicon](https://tags.pub/profile/fedicon ) to get all your #fedicon updates from across the Fediverse

2026-08-07 02:23:27 CEST

What is the appropriate number of slides for a 45-minute talk? Please round to the nearest 1000 slides.

2026-08-06 13:35:29 CEST

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The DSA and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party have fought hard to tell a different story, and earn a mandate to make change. It has worked sometimes; sometimes it hasn't.

2026-08-06 13:33:50 CEST

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If the Biden Administration's only mission was to stop Trump, they failed.

2026-08-06 13:32:50 CEST

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"Stop Donald Trump" is a mission that doesn't win at the polls, most of the time. And when it does win, it results in gridlock for governance. There's no mandate to do anything; just a mandate to stop someone else from doing something.

2026-08-06 13:29:35 CEST

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The best speech for me by a mainstream Democratic candidate during this period was Joe Biden's acceptance speech for the 2020 presidential candidate nomination. He didn't concentrate on Donald Trump; instead, he promised to address four important crises: the pandemic, the economy, racial injustice, and climate change.

2026-08-06 13:22:35 CEST

For years, the Democratic Party has concentrated it's messaging on only one thing: stopping Donald Trump. It is an exhausting, anxiety-inducing rearguard effort that hands over power and momentum to white nationalists.

2026-08-06 13:00:27 CEST

On the way to #YVR for #Fedicon
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/048/215/167/346/129/original/5e566d8180557d49.jpg

2026-08-05 19:13:55 CEST

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I don't see anything happening with mstdn.jp though.

2026-08-05 16:17:10 CEST

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I forgot Cybertrucks!

2026-08-05 06:13:49 CEST

I'm done with class for the summer! I get to go do other things with my free time for the next luxurious 2.5 weeks.

2026-08-05 05:42:18 CEST

How long has it been since you used the "cyber-" prefix?
#EvanPoll #poll #cyber

2026-08-04 01:03:47 CEST

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https://ecosyste.ms/ has data on the other package ecosystems, and they seem to also have a shitload of data on Git repositories. So... also interesting?

2026-08-04 00:57:17 CEST

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Another option could be using a package repository like npm or PyPI. There's a pretty cool package for npm that does a lot of the heavy lifting (but doesn't calculate the HHI):
https://github.com/nice-registry/all-the-package-repos

2026-08-04 00:43:52 CEST

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thoughts?

2026-08-04 00:25:38 CEST

This is a really interesting paper. I'm reading it for my Modern Internet Research Methods course at #GeorgiaTech.
https://research.facebook.com/publications/deep-entity-classification-abusive-account-detection-for-online-social-networks/
#NetworkScience #Meta #DeepEntityClassification

2026-08-03 16:17:57 CEST

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Hey, all. Thanks for replying. My city, Montreal, has a number of signature dishes: bagels, smoked meat sandwiches, Portuguese chicken, poutine, pudding chômeur, shish taouk, hot dog Michigan.

2026-08-02 22:37:01 CEST

If you found out a friend or family member was cheating, would you tell their partner(s)?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-08-02 18:52:33 CEST

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One of my new favourite sites, https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/ , shows how grossly centralised code forges are. HHI is a metric for how concentrated a market is; this one is off the charts.
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/026/950/472/105/322/original/4189c69f70aa24ad.png