Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill

Random expat geekery from The Low Countries

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Unbridgeable

May 3, 2012 No comments

Further to my last post, it turns out that I was reading the wiki wrongly or – more accurately – not reading the whole of the wiki:

Import my Friends Timeline.

Currently StatusNet software can fetch directly from Twitter, but this is not enabled on identi.ca as it’s not yet functional for a high-load site.

What that means is that the Status.net software can import tweets from twitter into my timeline, but this is not implemented for Identi.ca.

Bugger.

I did take a look at the Feed mirror settings in the Identi.ca comtrol panel but it appears that Twitter also started playing silly buggers with their RSS feeds at some point over the past 12 months. Workarounds exist, but I’m not sure I want to waste my time faffing around with a service that I haven’t missed for over a year – especially if they are this determined to make life difficult for me.

I could federate and start running my own Status.net instance. This is something I have thought about in the past but have yet to find the motivation to abandon the convenience that Identi.ca provides. And Twitter deciding to make things difficult simply makes me less inclined to faff around any further with the site.

I am also aware that clients exist that can merge Twitter and Identi.ca streams. I even use some of them. But relying on external clients to merge these streams means that I then lose the convenience of having a single stream of conversation that is the same regardless of which device/application combination I happen to be using at the time.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the existence of cross-platform clients now is no guarantee that Twitter won’t start blocking them at some point in the future.

Twitter, it seems, are building a walled garden. It’s not (yet) as annoying as Facebook, but they’re working on it.

And I will leave them to it.

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Corporate Insanity, Web

Federation is a wonderful thing: Pity Twitter can’t manage it

May 2, 2012 No comments

This is (potentially) a bit of a mea culpa post. Back in March of last year, I took the decision to stop using Twitter. That decision was essentially ideological but it was made a lot easier by the fact that I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the Twitter service.

Then Google+ came along. I signed up, took a look around and eventually found myself retreating from The Borg. I did, however, realise two things:

  • I really much prefer the more conversational stream based approach to social networking rather than the post/comment approach taken by Facebook, Google+ and Diaspora.
  • There are plenty of interesting people online who would prefer to stick with well-known, slightly sub-optimal proprietary solutions rather than explore the full range of options.

And if you haven’t already figured out where this is going, I have cleaned out some of my Twitter followers and switched on the Twitter Bridge from Identi.ca. This means that my dents will be posted to Twitter and (if I’m reading the wiki page correctly) any replies in Twitter will be polled into my Identi.ca stream.

Life would be a lot easier if Twitter would federate their service but I am willing to see how this works for a while. Hopefully this will allow me to stay in touch with people I know from other forums (and real life) but we shall see.

It is worth noting, of course, that Identi.ca is still my first choice when it comes to online chatter and you are much more likely to get a response out of me @ExpatPaul than elsewhere.

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Self Indulgence, Web ,

You’re welcome

May 2, 2012 No comments

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Humour, Print none

Some people deserve a patronising response

May 2, 2012 No comments

Some bunch of utterly childish anti-GM crops activists have taken it upon themselves to destroy (via) years of publicly funded research into a genetically modified wheat that can repel insect pests by emitting a repellent-smelling substance.

Their reason:

Matt Thomson, from Take the Flour Back, told The Independent yesterday that action against the Rothamsted site would go ahead as planned.

“The concerns that we have are not addressed in this letter,” he said. “The way that Rothamsted have publicised this trial has been patronising. This wheat contains genes that are not naturally occurring.”

Frankly, anyone who seriously thinks that going out and vandalising years worth of research into a staple food – research that will help us avoid crop failure and famine – because they didn’t like the publicity has no sense of proportion, no idea what they are talking about and no concept if the impact of their actions.

Sense About Science has a more measured response and petition you can sign and circulate.

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Biology, Moral Panics none

StarShipSofa No 236

May 2, 2012 No comments

I haven’t mentioned the StarShipSofa for a while – mainly because I am so far behind with my podcast listening at the momement. But the cover for episode 236 is so utterly gorgeous that I shall probably be replacing the desktop walpaper on my netbook before the end of today.

Click on through to see the full size version of the cover and to download the podcast.

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Audio

Observation of the Day: All of the fun parts of life are optional

May 2, 2012 No comments

It comes from XKCD: Forgot Algebra. Click through and mouse over.

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Humour, Mathematics, Print

A little bit of data can go a long way: How the internet can read your mind

May 1, 2012 No comments

Think you’re anonymous when you’re online? Think again.

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Digital, Privacy none

Quote of the Day: Defeating terrorists with songs, not surveilance

April 30, 2012 No comments

Norway shows that the effective way to deal with terrorism is not through abandoning privacy, spying on citizens, or turning to naked barbarism. As the UK did in the 80′s and 90′s, it should be dealt with as a crime, without the special venom which only serves to feed more violence and hatred. It takes a strong person to react with intelligence, but only a thuggish fool to react with fear and anger.

- Andrew Norton.

I have long felt that the most appropriate way to respond to extremists is to point and laugh. A crowd of 40,000 Norwegians demonstrated this very effectively on April 26th.

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Liberties, Politics none

Pin-up Sunday: Kourtney Reppert by Celeste Giuliano

April 29, 2012 No comments

Celeste Giuliano graduated with a BFA in Photography from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 2001. After graduating, she became a photo editor for a weekly newspaper in the Philadelphia area, working by day as a photo-journalist and, in the evenings, as a portrait photographer.

In 2005 she started Celeste Giuliano Photography and has been photographing pinups and theatrical styled portraits ever since.

The photo below – which struck me as being very reminiscent of Gil Elvgren‘s work – is part of a special edition of Retro Lovelies.

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Art ,

If mediums were real

April 28, 2012 No comments

I found this via Bad Astronomy. It’s six minutes long and very funny indeed.

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Humour, Video none
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