Sunday Bits 7/16/2023

08:41 This morning I think I’m ready to sign up for Blaugust, now that this account appears to be working correctly. Incidentally, I noticed that it doesn’t take very long for traffic from unknown servers to start pouring in once you begin communicating with a Mastodon server, and for your server to start showing up on instance-tracking sites. I knew that already, but just a cautionary reminder. You have to get it right the first time when you join the fediverse. #activitypub #blaugust2023

10:12 Hrm so I’m trying to follow a couple of accounts from this one and I don’t know how to do it in this Statuzer thing. The couple of accounts I’ve tried to search for don’t show up. Not sure if it’s a problem with Statuzer or my server or something else. I might end up just looking at my own writing here.

10:19 @ultrviolet It seems a bit silly to me that there’s no mechanism in ActivityPub to follow an instance instead of following individual accounts. That’s really what I want to do in the fediverse: Show me the local public timeline of instances X or Y.

10:34 Oh I see why I can’t find anyone to follow: Statuzer doesn’t conduct the search itself, it sends the search query to the connected instance’s search api. It thinks it’s talking to Mastodon, which has a robust search, but it’s really talking to GoToSocial, and my instance isn’t returning any search results for some reason. Possibly because it’s only searching locally cached data.

10:58 I can see from the GoToSocial source code https://github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial/blob/12b6cdcd8ce52269be5a1ca8acaae006896808b5/internal/api/client/search/searchget.go#L30 that it is intended to search remotely as well as locally but I don’t see any actual evidence or code to confirm that it’s doing that. Perhaps an unimplemented GoToSocial feature?

11:25 Bleh. It started raining. I should have mowed yesterday afternoon when it wasn’t raining, but a) I was busy working on this stupid gotosocial instance and b) I haven’t refilled the gas cans for the mower yet. #homeowner

13:16 I’m now trying a web client called Phanpy. It looks nice. Weirdly the font text keeps changing size as I type into the box. Don’t like that. Also, it defaulted to “unlisted” instead of “public.” I hope there’s a setting to change that default. But then, it says right on the tin that it’s an “opinionated” client, which means probably not.

13:36 Indeed, there does not seem to be any obvious way to make posts default to public instead of unlisted. I even tried to go to my instance and change my default settings to public. Maybe Phanpy cached the settings it found when it first connected to my instance. Incidentally, GoToSocial lets you approve an application to connect to your instance but I don’t see any way in GoToSocial to revoke a permission later on.

17:46 Currently watching The Keepers. Most of these true crime docudramas put a constantly droning suspenseful music soundtrack behind all the interviews which makes it feel like you might actually die if you don’t keep listening. When the show ends there is silence and an overpowering feeling of relief. #netflix