I haven't done it in a while, but after yesterday I will officially no longer be linking to X on this blog. For reasons which are beyond obvious after yesterday.
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"The end of Elon Musk" by Drew Magary
Years ago I read Drew Magary's The Postmortal and really enjoyed it for what it asked about the nature of life and death. Here's Drew discussing the pop-death of Elon Musk regarding his recent awful appearance at the NY Times book event:
Musk, who appeared both high and made of plywood, responded with a reality of his own:
"Actually, what this advertising boycott is going to do is, it's going to kill the company. And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in great detail."
Here Musk looked out to the audience, expecting vehement agreement, perhaps even applause. He was greeted with dead silence instead. Sorkin, still residing in the correct reality, told Musk, "But those advertisers, I imagine they're going to say, 'WE didn't kill the company.'"
And here is where Musk revealed his delusion to all. "Oh yeah?" he shot back. "Tell it to Earth."
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An interesting step against AI cheating
An interesting step in the AI cheating battle. I see it working in the short term, but also being something that can be somewhat easily gamed. Though it shows an interesting possibility where a file format which tracks every keystroke and embeds it for verification, etc.
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Social media is all about moving goal posts
An excellent observation regarding the growth of new social media platforms. The goal posts will continue to move.
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Author of popular Twitteriffic client blogs about the ignominous end thanks to Musk
Well, it happened.
We knew it was coming.
A prick pulled the plug. And what bothers me most about it is how Space Karen did it.
What bothers me about Twitterrific’s final day is that it was not dignified. There was no advance notice for its creators, customers just got a weird error, and no one is explaining what’s going on. We had no chance to thank customers who have been with us for over a decade. Instead, it’s just another scene in their ongoing shit show.
But I guess that’s what you should expect from a shitty person.
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Twitter disallows linking to other social networks
Wild. It's burning down before our eyes.
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"A guide to getting started with Twitter alternative Mastodon"
I continue to dislike the comparisons between Twitter and Mastodon, but it is a big deal for a major newspaper to cover how to migrate or start an account on Mastodon.
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Mastodon is not a Twitter replacement
One of the worst things during this Twitter migration is that a lot of people (including technologists) have positioned Mastodon as a Twitter replacement. It isn't. The federated model means it can't be in a lot of ways, ever.
For example, this Mastodon thread highlights one of the big challenges when it comes to becoming a centralized emergency platform, the way Twitter has. Mastodon, quite literally by design, can't currently become that.
A friend of mine ventured into Mastodon this week and immediately was turned off by the inherently challenging UX from the start. Things that should be simple, aren't. (And this is something I've also highlighted before.) Like, the act of following someone when they are on an instance other than yours, is non-trivial, which is a huge issue for new users. Or liking someone's post when they are on another instance is shockingly difficult. These are the things which have to be solved for it to ever gain mass appeal. Even I, a fairly capable technology user and fan of Mastodon, grow tired of these issues.
Moderation is an ongoing issue and discussing how it will be handled. If you report a tweet, if they are on your instance, great the mods can deal and action accordingly. As it is, if you report a tweet of someone who isn't on your instance, it goes to your instance mods. They can discuss if they want to block this user from the instance, or if they are seeing a lot of users from a particular instance get reported, it could escalate to them unfederating with that entire instance. Imagine 4chan opened a Mastodon instance. Imagine those trolls letting loose on Mastodon. The network would simply block that server and refuse to work with them.
But that doesn't solve harassment and attacks. Another part of Mastodon's design is of minimizing exposure. People can't simply search for a keyword and find people to attack like on Twitter. You, the poster, have to choose to use a hashtag, doing so gives your post potentially more exposure to people who search that hashtag or who follow it. If you do then you're opening your self up to possibly random people engaging. But this is only a first-level defense. Someone is going to, eventually, build a bigger Mastodon search engine which does enable full text search, etc.
Scaling and malicious attacks. Handling attacks from malicious actors. There has already been a moderate scale attack by folks on a domain attempting to basically DDOS the network. Seeing this play out has convinced me that I don't ever want to run my own instance. It would seem fun to be on my own for branding and the act of owning my Mastodon identity, but things like this would put it very-much out of my skill technologically right now.
All of that said...
I continue to really like Mastodon, but that is because I've found a good instance with a strong overlap of my own interests. I don't know how much of that is because of Mastodon itself.
As much as social media relies on you finding and following the right accounts, I have come to believe Mastodon's success for each individual relies on them finding the right instance for them. Which is no different than finding the right forum, or discord, or just - community.
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#hachybots
I crawled into bed last night and checked my phone. Surprisingly I got notice of a post of mine on Mastodon being taken down. It turned out the instance has implemented rules for automated posts and I simply hadn't been aware of them. So they had taken down my automated afternoon blog post.
The change was simple enough, they simply wanted to ensure automated posts include the "#hachybots" hashtag so that individuals on their instance can easily choose to block that tag if they want to avoid seeing automated posts.
No sweat. My body ended up waking me up at 5:30 this morning, so after my morning shower I decided to quickly make the change. While in there though, I decided it was time.
I also made the decision to go ahead and disable the automated posting to Twitter. I only barely engage over there anymore, and the meager traffic I do get, Twitter is not a big driver. I'm creeping closer and closer to fully exiting there. We'll see.
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"I Was Wrong About Mastodon"
Having spent time on Mastodon, I now realize how hilariously wrong I was about how moderation would work. I was seeing Mastodon through the lenses of Twitter, rather than as a different culture with different technology. I'm now fairly confident in saying Mastodon is friendlier than Twitter and will remain so, regardless of who and how many join.
A good re-examination of expectations about how Mastodon would work, and realizing it is not a Twitter replacement.
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A fascinating thread of an antifascist researcher looking at the bonkers "Nazi" list circulating on Twitter
The person's summary for what to do if you find yourself in possession of a "Nazi list."
- as a general rule of thumb, don't post even edited Nazi content unless you know what you're doing or have talked to someone who does
- warn privately. Don't post Nazi lists to Twitter don't tag people for them, don't amplify lists. Warn via mutuals if you must
- practice humility (researchers, this is for us). No one gets it right 100% of the time, not even the pros. Be real about your experience level, ask more experienced folks to vet your work regularly.
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A very compelling theory and narrative about the lead up and current situation for Musk & Twitter
Included the original tweet by @drskyskull, but in case the thread disappears, I captured it in the text below.
So here's my hypothesis on the whole Musk twitter deal. 1/
Dude LOVES Twitter. As a narcissist, he can't get enough of the adulation of the right-wing mouth-breathers. But Twitter keeps banning the people he loves, so he becomes convinced that Twitter is a liberal SJW organization. 2/
He decides to teach them a lesson, and make an offer to buy the company. Absolutely convinced that it is a left-wing political site, he's sure they'll refuse his offer, even a ridiculously good offer. Then he can say "aha! they're so woke!" and his fans will cheer. 3/
But Twitter is actually governed by businesspeople who see his offer as absurdly high, and they jump at it. Musk freaks out, tries to get out of the deal, but he's already locked in solidly. 4/
Now his Dunning-Kruger kicks in to protect him from his panic, and he says, "heck, it's not that hard to run this site; I'll turn it around right quick!" He's not completely stupid, so he cons investors into going in with him. 5/
Dude has fundamentally never understood how Twitter works, and what it takes to make Twitter work. To him, it's a company filled with a bunch of lefties who just sit around censoring everyone. He can dump that dead weight and everything will run fine. 6/
He goes into it with the same bluster that he used to boost his car and space companies: act like the genius "disruptor" that can fix anything. But those companies are not ad-based, and advertisers immediately become spooked by his approach. 7/
He is utterly baffled; don't they see how he's going to make Twitter better than ever before? He fundamentally doesn't understand how much effort Twitter put into protecting brands. He's high on his own supply of "free speech," which he also doesn't understand. 8/
He clearly thinks that the value of twitter is entirely in the number of users. That is important, but the quality of users matters, too, which he doesn't get. He starts his ill-advised (stupid) change to the blue check system. 9/
With the blue checks, again he's high on his own supply. He see the check as a status symbol (which it is), but thinks that he can sell that status, which he can't. People are verified because users need to be able to separate real people from scams. 10/
Elon also thinks that everyone is just as addicted to Twitter as he is. He's a narcissist; he NEEDS Twitter just like Trump needed it. But relatively few people are that addicted to the site, and the real blue checks know that they bring value to the site. 11/
So more advisors leave. Elon is desperate to turn things around quickly, so he just throws shit at the wall to see what sticks. Nothing does, because he has no concept of how actual human beings experience reality. 12/
I think he's in a panic state, because he knows that his mystique is evaporating quickly. He's the golden boy who had "made 3 companies worth a billion dollars." He can't afford, mentally, to be seen as the guy holding the company losing a billion a year. 13/
He probably can't financially, either, which has got to be intense pressure on his psyche. He keeps trying to turn things around by doing things exactly like he does at Tesla and SpaceX: he's got a hammer, Twitter is the nail. 14/
But Twitter's corporate culture is very different from those other companies, so most people aren't interested in his appeals to going "hardcore." And his immediate layoffs trigger company-wide resentment, which means almost everyone is ready to bail. 15/
He assumes that he can make things so shitty for workers that only the best, "hardcore" workers will remain. But pretty much the opposite is true: the best workers can jump somewhere else instantly. So his plan backfires 100%.
Now, he's left with a company with no advertisers, massive debt, and a toxic work environment that will struggle to find new employees. Institutional knowledge has walked out the door. 17/
Overall? I think he is a victim of being a legend in his own mind. He felt he understood twitter well enough that they would never sell. They did. Then he thought he understood it well enough to slash it in half to improve efficiency. He didn't. 18/
He thought he could appeal to some sort of macho tough guy work ethic that he probably has never experienced himself. He probably sleeps in his office, but he probably has a very comfy bed in it. 19/
To summarize: he thought that Twitter was run by a bunch of left-wingers, who were therefore inferior to him. He was wrong on both counts, and now he's stuck with a company that may not function at all within days. END/
This was a bit of a ramble, but just putting together my impressions of watching him work. PS his tough guy snarky comments? That, to me, is another facade. The sort of thing that someone does to hide the fact that they're panicking and don't know what to do.
PPS this was my thought as well. Saudi and other investors may have recognized that Twitter was a bad deal, but by investing they're hoping to leverage control of his other companies.
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Jamey Stegmaier writes about why he quit Twitter. Elon has nothing to do with it.
Stegmaier runs a boardgame company which has had a number of very successful boardgames. Wingspan being my favorite among them. Having not followed the interactions, this reads a bit like him explaining himself, but based on the descriptions it seems honest and direct.
About a month ago, I deactivated my Twitter account (@jameystegmaier). I haven't regretted the decision even for a moment.
This isn't about Elon Musk or the general state of social media or Twitter itself. It also really isn't about other Twitter users. It's about me: I realized that I'm not my best self on Twitter. So I quit.
I sent an apology to the original person, which would end up being my final tweet. When I reflected on the experience–which really bugged me for hours–I realized that it wasn't an isolated situation. Most of my biggest knee-jerk reactions that I instantly regretted over the last 5+ years on social media were on Twitter.
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"Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless and negligent cybersecurity policies"
At first I was inclined to wait for this to turn into something bigger, and I ignored a few reports of it. Only when I checked out the conversation on Hacker News did I give it more attention.
From the top comment on Hacker News:
Millenials and GenZ may have no idea who Mudge is. I, however, almost lost my first job out of college at a bank because I ran l0phtcrack against our Windows NT 4 server to see if it could crack passwords. I showed my boss, and he pulled me aside into another room and tore my head off for irresponsibly running this tool against a production server. He said I could have been fired if this got out, but he covered my ass, sent out an email requesting everyone reset their passwords, and let me continue working. I learned a good lesson because even though my intentions were good, and it did expose security issues, it was a bit immature and should have been done in a more controlled manner along with the proper clearances.
Mudge knows the implications of "whistleblowing". He has been a security consultant and even testified to Congress. He's not some noob that doesn't understand security or how systems work together to provide services like disclosure to FTC. The idea that Twitter PR can pooh-pooh away his concerns is shockingly stupid.
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I just realized that Twitter's co-tweeting functionality is 100% meant for brands and influencers.
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Elon has notified Twitter that he is terminating the deal
Our long Twitter soap opera nightmare appears to be coming to an end.
Was this Musk getting cold feet after an emotional decision about buying the site? Or was it, perhaps, a calculated method for him to liquidate Tesla stock without causing a run?
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There is an article in the Atlantic about @Horse_Ebooks
I don't know whether to laugh with joy or cry with sadness at the current state of journalism.
Reading the article makes it make a bit more sense where they view the current events through a tweet by the account's usage on Twitter, but it's still wild to see.
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Twitter preparing to launch 'Notes' blogging functionality
I will be curious to see how this rolls out, both to the user, but also to the API backend. Will they keep this a platform only feature (such as polls, which you cannot create via the API) or will they allow folks to blog to Twitter via a 3rd party app?
I can see cases for it both ways. But it seems to me that democratizing it via the API is a net value for Twitter. Allowing publishers on other platforms to push content onto their site provides more reason for users (in this, consumers of that content) to stay on the site.
If that is the case, then the question moves back to the writers to decide what is either posted only to Twitter, or to both, or to just their owned platform. I don't know where I'd fall on that yet. On the one hand, while I have TrickBot make its twice-daily posts on @trickjarrett, I also have @TrickWords, and I could see that becoming the Twitter blog account essentially. Or, given their new community functionality, I could create a blog community, and potentially write the blog notes into that community for people who have opted in to that segment of what I would post.
It's an interesting question to explore.
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As is tradition and simply part of my morning routine, this morning has been spent with a bit more coding.
Today's coding has been mostly cleaning up code. I moved every variable, or API key, etc. from their place in code and moved to a new file which is not stored in GIT. I should have done this a long time ago, but oh well.
Last night I fixed the code for publishing the blog. When I first wrote it, I used entirely relative server paths. It worked perfectly for normal publishing. But with my recent updates and changes, I was trying to publish from a different script and it was dumping all the files in the wrong location. Now, that is fixed.
If it works, this embed is going to not work:
Also this morning I'm attempting to update my twitter bot code. Primarily, the intent is to delete my previous automated tweet when I make a new one. It should be set up to do it. But we'll see when the cron runs in a little bit.
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It occurred to me, as I laid in bed last night, that I can recreate one of the most useful integrations I ever had with IFTTT. I used to have IFTTT grab any Tweet which I liked (as in, clicked the heart / star on), and then they would grab the URL from that tweet and save it to my Pocket for later reading.
IFTTT is not what it used to be, and I'm now using my self-hosted Wallabag, and also I have more coding prowess and power - so I this morning I spent a bit and have my own implementation of this nearly complete. I'm running into some issues with connecting to the Wallabag API, but once I have that sorted - it should be a very quick next few steps to get this up and running. We'll see.
I cannot stress enough that the key to a content consumption workflow like what I've described in the path relies on making the action of capturing content to read later as seamless and smooth as possible.
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Yesterday I polled my Twitter followers about whether the automated tweets updating them about recent posts:
[{embed}]https://twitter.com/trickjarrett/status/1528166144800018432\[{/embed}]
Overall the feedback was that they were fine. Which is better than a resounding amount of people telling me they were annoying. I did get a good suggestion to add a tag which people could filter out, so, I did that. Along with that, I improved the overall coding.
First, I fixed it so the grammar of the tweets will be correct regardless of the number of posts made, or tags used. Previously, on days with few posts or tags, would lead to some poorly worded tweets.
Second, I refined the system for how it chooses tags to highlight. It's still far from perfect, but it first looks at the tags used in the day and ranks them by frequency of use. If there is hierarchy there, it goes with it. If not (aka, the tags are all used once) then it falls back to ranking tags by their frequency of use across the entire blog. Still not perfect, but better than the purely random highlight of tags.
Lastly, I cleaned up and refactored the code. In fact, as I was writing this blog post, I had to stop and go back as I realized I could further improve the refactoring of the code.
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