#BlueSky Software

[posthumanwanderings]

Vectorman (BlueSky Software / Sega - Genesis - 1995)

#Vectorman #BlueSky Software #sega #genesis #sega genesis #game intros #dystopia #robots #mega drive

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Top 47K - Vectorman

Join the HG101 gang as they discuss and rank a Mega Drive action-platformer starring a ball man.

#Hardcore Gaming 101 #Podcast #Top 47858 Games of All Time #Vectorman #Sega #BlueSky Software #Sega Genesis #video games

[retrocgads]

USA 1997

#USA1997 #SEGA #BLUESKY SOFTWARE INC. #ACTION #SEGA GENESIS #IBM #VECTORMAN 2

[thoughtportal]

“It’s happening,” blogged Evan Prodromou, whose pioneering work inspired the ActivityPub protocol on which Mastodon runs. “I have not been this excited about federated social networks since we published ActivityPub,” he wrote. “The shift has started.”

He’s referring, of course, to the migration of hundreds of thousands of users from Twitter, a centralized social media application now controlled by Elon Musk, onto Mastodon and other ActivityPub-powered decentralized applications. While this migration is still in its early stages, developer interest in the so-called fediverse has soared in the last couple of weeks — and if there’s one historical fact about the web worth noting, it’s that developers are usually at the forefront of paradigm shifts.

In a post on Mastodon, Christine Lemmer-Webber, the co-editor of the W3C specification for ActivityPub, wrote that “a lot of people contributed to ActivityPub,” but she listed Prodromou first in her list of key contributors. She said that Prodromou “designed the core protocol,” based on his “experiences co-authoring OStatus, ActivityPub’s predecessor.”

There are signs that ActivityPub may become a significant new internet protocol post-Musk Twitter, so let’s dig into the details and see how Mastodon in particular is using it.

How ActivityPub Began

ActivityPub is a decentralized social networking protocol that began in 2016 and is supported by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It’s the main protocol of the fediverse, which is an evolving set of decentralized applications and websites that are starting to challenge the hegemony of centralized services like Twitter.

ActivityPub comprises two layers: a client-to-server protocol “for creating, updating and deleting content” and a server-to-server federation protocol “for delivering notifications and subscribing to content.”

How ActivityPub works (source: W3C)

Another important concept for ActivityPub is that a user is represented by one or more “actors,” which represent their accounts on different servers. So if you have two Mastodon accounts and one BookWyrm account (a decentralized Goodreads alternative) across three different servers, then you have three actors.

In a presentation about ActivityPub in April 2021, Lemmer-Webber explained that it was a group effort to bring together various existing protocols. “Around the time that we started the standardization work, there were all of these different protocols,” she said, “and there were a lot of different applications that spoke them, but very few of them could speak to each other.”

ActivityPub precursors

ActivityPub and Mastodon

The first time I signed up to Mastodon, it ran on OStatus rather than ActivityPub. I signed up in April 2017 and wrote up my early Mastodon experiences in a June 2017 post. I noted its relative inactivity compared to Twitter, but also its potential to be an effective “meld between Reddit and Twitter,” with the community features of the former and the micro-blogging functionality of the latter.

At the time, in mid-2017, Mastodon had just over 700,000 accounts (although it’s unknown how many were active) and 1,500 instances. Mastodon.social was the largest English-language instance in 2017, with just under 67,000 users (there were two Japanese instances which had 163,000 and 132,000 users respectively). While it’s hard to quantify the number of users now, Mastodon’s chief developer Eugen Rochko tooted on Nov. 7 that it has “1,028,362 monthly active users across the network today,” with “1,124 new Mastodon servers since Oct. 27.” As of today, mastodon.social states that it has 183,000 active users.

So when did Mastodon switch to ActivityPub? It was September 2017, when Rochko announced Mastodon v1.6, “the first Mastodon release which fully implements the ActivityPub protocol.” Several months later, in January 2018, ActivityPub became a W3C recommended standard.

So Is This a Tipping Point?

Many early adopters (myself included) experimented with Mastodon and other Fediverse apps in the 2017/18 timeframe, but the tipping point didn’t arrive then. Partly that’s because a new shiny decentralized object appeared and bedazzled many in the tech industry: blockchain. The crypto craze, rebranded as “Web3” last year by an influential VC firm, seemed to usurp the fediverse as the new face of the web.

But even though Web3 had its moment in the sun and attention on the fediverse dropped away, the true believers continued to work on the ActivityPub protocol and associated apps. This year we’ve seen Web3 take a big step backward and, thanks to Elon Musk, the fediverse become an attractive proposition once more. As Evan Prodromou said, it’s happening… again.

While Mastodon’s active user count still pales in comparison with Twitter, I have noticed many in the developer community joining the fediverse in recent weeks. Simon Willison, co-creator of the backend web development framework Django is one example. He joined Mastodon on Nov. 2, and currently has 6,300 followers (he has 43,200 on Twitter — but if Musk was correct pre-acquisition, there must be a bunch of bots in there!). So that’s around 15% of his audience that has migrated to Mastodon, after just a couple of weeks. Another developer, Molly White (who runs the “Web3 is going just great” website) has 22,000 Mastodon followers compared to 88,800 on Twitter — 25%! Again, developers are the leading edge of where things are headed.

Developer Molly White on Mastodon

What this renewed interest in the fediverse also means is the first true test of scale for ActivityPub. Twitter famously had scaling issues in its early days, so I expect that to happen with Mastodon too — and indeed Aral Balkan has already raised some concerns about the number of Sidekiq jobs required for a mega-popular user like Stephen Fry (who already has 56,000 Mastodon followers).

But the fact that people can easily create new “instances” (aka servers) for Mastodon would suggest that this can be overcome — it’s the key benefit of decentralization, after all. And if you don’t believe me, take the word of Blaine Cook, one of the founding engineers of Twitter in 2006. “I’m really not worried about Mastodon scaling issues at all,” he said (on Mastodon), adding that “these problems are solvable and I have no doubt will be fixed soon.”

Twitter Tries to Create a New Open Protocol

Finally, it’s worth noting that ActivityPub was designed from the get-go to be interoperable and extensible, so that anyone can build on it. Which brings up an interesting point: why did Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey decide to create a brand new protocol for Twitter-like apps in late 2019, under the guise of a non-profit organization called BlueSky, rather than simply extend ActivityPub? In a word: control. As the person behind the Mastodon Twitter account archly noted, “this is the building of a protocol that Twitter gets to control, like Google controls Android.”

At the time, Twitter ignoring an existing open standard didn’t necessarily ring alarm bells — after all, @jack said he was an advocate of open protocols. But now that Elon Musk is in charge of Twitter and has seemingly fired all of Twitter’s developer platform team, those alarm bells are ringing at a deafening volume.

The solution, of course, is for developers to get behind ActivityPub and make it the default open protocol for public conversation. I encourage devs to check out the spec and hop onto Mastodon to see what all the fuss is about (I’ll hopefully see you there).

#article #mastodon #fediverse #ActivityPub #open protocol #open source software #open source #tech news #twitter #bluesky

[dduane]

Fellow Windows 11 users: how to disable newly-installed Microsoft AI!

Folks, with the new updates that've come down recently, Microsoft has installed its "Copilot" AI app on your machine. It apparently cannot be removed.

But it can be disabled.

ETA: first of all, try these less-invasive/difficult options via @sky-blaze:

The slightly more complex and risky approach (as regedit is never entirely safe) comes via the excellent Pihko Misit, aka @smokepaw.bsky.social over at Bluesky). I've just done this to my own desktop machine, and all's well with it now.

Here's what to do:

(1) You need to have Admin rights for the machine and be logged in to the administrator account.

Now, right-click on the Start menu (Windows logo on the Taskbar.) A menu pops up; about half way down it you'll see Terminal and Terminal (Admin). Click on the Terminal (Admin) option.

(2) A DoS-like box will open. (For those of you who've never interacted with a Windows terminal window before, it looks like this:)

On the command line (i.e. the first empty line), copy and paste this:

reg add HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot /v TurnOffWindowsCopilot /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Then hit Enter.

If successful, you'll see a line pop up saying so. Congratulations! But you're not quite finished.

Now you need to close all programs and fully shut down the machine. A restart isn't enough, it needs to be fully powered down and started back up.

"And now," Pihko says, "ou have a NSA-like AI spy dormant on your machine. Stay vigilant, odds are it'll turn back on with future updates! Big Corporate wants you to be compliant. Don't be!"

#Windows 11 #Windows Copilot #not gone after this but at least sprawled on the cockpit floor in a drugged slumber

[blueskycreations]

Employee Retention & Management Software

All the tools required for effective employee management. Create and maintain a motivated workforce, with increased employee and customer retention

https://blueskycreations.com.au/solutions/retention/

#bluesky #blueskycreations #employee retention #employee management #employee satisfaction #employee software

[darnellclayton]

I posted this in a comment on Medium, but why is Twitter waiting on Bluesky to mature when they could embrace an open source federated protocol like Lens, Orbis & ActivityPub tomorrow‽

Also, we need a way for all of the protocols to talk to each other, lest we end up with a million apps on a hundred protocols which would not help our current conundrum.

#web 3.0 #protocols #geek #software #activitypub #lens #orbis #bluesky #decentralisation

[ai-fandom-researchstudy]

Research Study: Fandom & Generative AI still looking for participants!

I'm still recruiting research participants for my PhD dissertation study!!! If you've already participated, thanks so much! If you haven't participated yet, please consider responding to a quick survey, and sharing with your friends!

I'm interested in understanding fans' perspectives on and experiences with generative AI (text and image generation software). That means perceptions both positive and negative! However you feel about genAI, I'm interested in hearing from you. We're especially seeking diverse perspectives from underrepresented demographic groups of people.

If you're over 18, can speak/understand English, and are interested in participating you can learn more information and take the survey here. I've also made a FAQ post about the study that I've pinned to the top of the blog, and you can see more info on the shareable flyer below. You can also view posts on Twitter/X, Bluesky, and Reddit about the study and share info there! Spreading the word is greatly appreciated :)

The study is anonymous and voluntary, and you'll be asked about your fandom background, attitudes towards generative AI, and demographic information. The survey should take about 15-20 minutes, and you can skip over any questions you want. You can also elect to participate in a follow up interview, if you want to. The full details are on the consent form, which you'll be able to read before taking the survey! Feel free to reach out with any questions.

#fanfic #fandom #fanart #ai #art #writing #fan culture #fandom meta #fandom culture #fandom things #research #research study #fan fiction #fan art #fanfiction #ao3 fanfic #fic writing #artificial intelligence #technology #creative writing #creation #creativity #fandom polls #fandom research #fan studies #academic research #research survey #artists on tumblr #writers on tumblr #anime and manga

[meanbossart]

Asks about VaM, art advice, and miscellaneous stuffs

HI! Real quick please refrain from referring to Sad Sack as S/S for the uh... Obviously reasons LOL We call it "sads" for short!

If what you're asking for are recommendations for a website to host that kind of thing, Neocities, Twitter, Itchio and as you mentioned AO3 are all perfectly good options! Patreon too (depending on how gnarly you're planning on getting) but I'd suggest keeping that as a secondary host option because I don't think it lends itself super well for getting your work circulating. I believe Bluesky allows that kind of thing too, but I'm not too sure since I don't use it.

Now, If you're asking about public reaction rather than guidelines, anywhere you go you might find people that don't jive with the work you do 🤷 just be upfront about the type of content you're making right off the bat to avoid having anyone stumble upon it by accident to the best of your abilities, otherwise, I wouldn't worry too much. I know we're constantly exposed to examples of overwhelming harassment and "dogpilling" happening to others but... Truth be told, most of us won't ever get to the size/internet level of fame where we experience that. I think the threat is a little bit... Overstated, nowadays. Not to mention that most of the time people are getting harassment for things that have nothing to do with their work, and rather relating to their behavior and attitudes. Play smart, be responsible, and be honest! Whatever comes next is in god's hands LOL

Thank you for the ask! Not sure I was of much help 😅 but frankly when you're just starting out it's best to focus on getting the work done first and just throwing it out there, wherever it may be. You can worry about technicalities like that later!

I GOT YOU MAN the full sketch is now up on my patreon!

YES AND YES WHETHER IT BE STORIES OR ART OF DU DROW AND YOUR CHARACTERS SLAMMING PINTS TOGETHER BE MY GUEST PLEASE

I love seeing everyone's take on my weirdo so much, anything is honestly welcomed!

AW DUDE thank you so much! Especially for suffering through the mammoth of a story that ANE turned into - writing has never been my strongest point so I'm always shocked to hear from people that enjoy it 🥲

About the booze question, honestly I'm not picky at all, I usually go by price and by that I mean whatever is cheapest LOL but I prefer a dry white as far as types go.

You only have to pay for it once! You get a code that unlocks the software and all of it's features and you're free to cancel your subscription after that. At some point the code might change or there might be an update that requires subscribing again - but that seems like a very rare occurrence so I wouldn't worry about it.

OH NO I HAVE DEFINITELY TRACED MY OWN REFERENCE BEFORE, but not entire poses! When something is challenging I'll make a point of drawing it out the usual way.

I can remember a couple of instances from Nick and mine's comic where I traced pictures I took of myself, just as a time saving measure. Again like I said in the post, there are several ways to employ tracing your own material that is perfectly acceptable. I have also traced bare-bones 3D backgrounds that I made for the same reasons.

I know you specifically asked about tracing when something's complicated, but I still wanted to be upfront to demystify the practice under different circumstances. The rule of thumb is to never use it when you know it would be inhibiting your skill development!

Happy to hear you wanted to pick up the skill! I definitely understand the urge too LOL since playing BG3 and becoming so invested in the stories and characters my art has improved a ton, simply from forcing me out of my usual style and making me want to capture different moods and scenarios - finding something you're passionate to draw is, frankly a great damn start.

I replied to a bunch of asks asking for pointers and advice a while back, one of the questions was very similar to yours and I still stand behind the advice I gave then. Hopefully you can find something helpful here! https://meanbossart.tumblr.com/post/740543514692173824/some-art-advice-asks-ive-been-meaning-to-reply

HMMM I don't usually think of myself as the best teacher/tutorial guy, but funnily enough I can think of a few things about this topic that I could elaborate on lol. If I do that in the near future, I'll put it up on my patreon (for free as with everything else.)

If there are any specific things about it that you (and anyone else who would be interested in it, for that matter) find challenging and would like for me to focus on, let me know!

---

That's all for now folks, and as usual thank you so much to everyone who's left a nice compliment, word of encouragement or funny tidbit in my inbox as well! I can't reply to you all individually, but I see and read all the messages I get c:

HAVE A LOVELY REST OF YOUR WEEK

#lore asks coming either later today or tomorrow! #I might reply to a few right now/space them out rather than do another compilation #we'll see how I feel about it! #ask compilation

[firefly-party]

| kei | 30s | she/her | introverted mess | self-taught hobby artist |

I draw fanart for my current hyperfixation (⁎❛ᴗ❛⁎)

→ my Steddie/StrangerThings art tag ←

| Instagram | AO3 | Bluesky |

Do not follow if you're a minor! 🔞

older fanarts → the Witcher | Assassin's Creed | Star Trek |

I do not offer commissions

I do not have a shop

If you'd like to have a print, pls look out for my giveaways!!! I'm trying to do those regularly 💞

my Asks and DMs are always open! Feel free to hmu! ❤

drawing tablet: Huion Kamvas Pro 24

Software: ClipStudioPaint2.0

#masterpost #look i made a masterpost #it's about time #i had to add tags to all my art 😭🥴 #but now everything should be in order :) #yay #only took me two hours

[menggekkd]

BMO

ArtStation: artstation.com/artwork/XgkzAn

Inspired by: x.com/RealDazzen/status/1763455298172342632?s=20

Equipment: MacBook Pro Software: Blender

Subscribe to my YouTube and Bilibili.

Follow to my Pixiv and ArtStation!

Follow to my Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky.

Go to FANBOX, Patreon, Ko-fi Support me!

Prohibited reprint!!

#萌哥坑坑哒 #mengge_kkd #3d #3d artwork #3d art #3d model #blender #blender 3d #b3d #art #bmo #adventure time bmo #adventure time

[canmom]

looking again at bluesky - kind of weirdly slow load times, idk what's up with that? and the vibe feels way too much like twitter (inevitably). deeply normiecoded. i might post my stuff on there but i don't think I'll be comfy treating it as 'home'.

cohost might be worth a shot but it feels like a drama bomb waiting to explode. on some level i feel like you actually want the admins of a social media site to be distant and have minimal interference in the day to day affairs. cohost frontloads a lot of rhetoric about being a better leftist way of doing software, and that ironically makes me worry about its stability. at best they may soon exercise their own divine right to capriciously ban people based on the rumour mill. at worst i anticipate some falling out within the dev team that brings the whole thing down. also not sure how it handles spam, moderation at scale etc. fundamentally i don't see much reason to think it will be better than tumblr.

tbh i probably need to just stop using social media as much. it eats up a lot of time and to what end? hopefully i will be able to rebuild some kind of irl friend group once I'm set up in Glasgow. if not...

idk it would be a shame to sacrifice all my connections on here. I'm grateful to everyone who reads my stuff, i won't be deleting the archive. but it feels like a sinking ship. i just don't know an obvious better place to go.

#i met most of my current close friends on here but now most of them have left

[jscalzi]

My Music Production Setup, 2024

Yesterday I posted a picture of my current music composition setup here and on Bluesky, which prompted requests by music nerds to go into detail about the hardware and software I’m currently using. All right, then, fellow obsessives, strap in, we’re gonna geek out for a bit. If you’re not one of these obsessives, then here is a picture of a cat, and you are otherwise excused: For everyone…

View On WordPress

[eccentric-nucleus]

the issue w/ people going to all sorts of different sites like cohost or mastodon or bluesky or w/e is that there's no interoperability so people can't just comment on each others posts

but also back in the day it wasn't like most blogs had comment sections. they just had link roundups and it was understood that different blogs would be responding to posts elsewhere b/c they'd, like, link them

anyway it might be very funny to ride the wave of early-2000s blog nostalgia & make some link roundup posts on dreamwidth or w/e but now it's about w/e garbage we're all talking about

(or more broadly previously there wasn't the software available to do these things so people did them by hand. webrings, roundup posts, etc. now that the tech is here there's the expectation that that level of interactivity is surfaced through the software. but it's not like it has to be that way. it's just more annoying to do it by hand)

[blueskycreations]

Clever Software for Any Industry

https://blueskycreations.com.au/solutions/

Software to increase performance across all business systems, including a purpose-built workforce optimisation solution and bespoke development capabilityr Software for Any Industry

#bluesky #blueskycreations #software

[just-antithings]

Would like to remind people here not to hastily sign up on any new social media that claims to be a better alternative to any of the existing ones yet

Keep your data away from bluesky and spoutible especially.

Blue sky is using anything you post to feed its AI software and spoutible has a ceo who is a known cryptoscammer (who also wanted to doxx someone despite being allegedly against it)

thanks for the heads up!

#mod erin #ask #doxxing mention