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Feed title: Terence Eden’s Blog
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First item published on 2025-11-05T12:34:48.000Z
Last item published on 2025-09-29T11:34:27.000Z
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<title type="text">Terence Eden’s Blog</title>
<subtitle type="text">Regular nonsense about tech and its effects 🙃</subtitle>
<updated>2025-11-02T20:34:40Z</updated>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog"/>
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<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: The Battle of the Beams by Tom Whipple ★★★★★]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/book-review-the-battle-of-the-beams-by-tom-whipple/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63079</id>
<updated>2025-09-25T10:06:25Z</updated>
<published>2025-11-05T12:34:48Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="history"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="WWII"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Well this is a treat! It is rare to find a pop-science book which does such a good job of actually explaining the science, rather than just using it as a background for storytelling. The Battle of Beams doesn't go too deep into the mechanics and physics, but gives a general overview with just enough detail to keep things interesting. It is also well illustrated (not a given in these sorts of…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/book-review-the-battle-of-the-beams-by-tom-whipple/"><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/9781473584204-jacket-large.webp" alt="Book cover featuring radio waves and fighter planes." width="321" height="500" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63081">
Well this is a <em>treat</em>! It is rare to find a pop-science book which does such a good job of actually explaining the science, rather than just using it as a background for storytelling. The Battle of Beams doesn't go <em>too</em> deep into the mechanics and physics, but gives a general overview with just enough detail to keep things interesting. It is also well illustrated (not a given in these sorts of books) which helps flesh out some of the trickier concepts.</p>
<p>How did radio-waves change the course of the war? Was RADAR solely the preserve of the British? What tactics were used to conceal developments? Was there an invisible war in the skies? Battle of the Beams takes a technical and social look at how physics became the forefront of attack and defence. It dives into the people who set their brains to work on the problem, and those who were determined to stop them.</p>
<p>The book honest about the problems of referencing contradictory source material. Some of the work published after the war is obviously biased towards the writer's personal successes - which don't always tally with reality. Similarly, there's a good overview of what <em>both</em> sides were doing in technology. We often only hear about ENIGMA and Britain's attempts to crack it - it's rare to read something from the other side. Here we get to experience both sides as they attempt to tame the radio waves, discover how they are being used against them, <em>and</em> the countermeasures both sides took.</p>
<p>The book is pacey and leaps back-and-forth across the channel, giving a real sense of drama to the sometimes baroque nature of physics research. There is a little touch of the "boys-own-adventure" what with daring fighter pilots and exciting raids - but it never strays into the hagiographic.</p>
<p>As ever with histories of the second World War, you're left wondering how it was the Allies succeeded. The book is full of infuriating little anecdotes like:</p>
<blockquote><p>The report was filed and then forgotten, seen by some officials, understood by fewer, and then left in the archives of Whitehall. Britain continued for at least a year to believe that it, alone, had mastered this new wonder weapon of radar.</p></blockquote>
<p>Similarly, a daring piece of espionage was fatally undermined when the defector was imprisoned and then:</p>
<blockquote><p>through an astonishing cock-up the film he had gone to so much trouble to smuggle in had been sent to be processed at the post office, and most of it had been destroyed.</p></blockquote>
<p>Gah!</p>
<p>Nevertheless, a fascinating look at how technology develops and how systems react to change.</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>0</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Political Experiments]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/political-experiments/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64202</id>
<updated>2025-11-02T20:34:40Z</updated>
<published>2025-11-03T12:34:41Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="politics"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Many years ago, in another lifetime, I was presenting our team's work to a rather senior politician. Here's how I remember it: "We want to provide value for money," I said, "so we propose that running five small pilots of [thing I still can't talk about]. We know there are multiple technologies which could work. But we don't know which one will work best." "How will running something five times …]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/political-experiments/"><![CDATA[<p>Many years ago, in another lifetime, I was presenting our team's work to a <em>rather</em> senior politician. Here's how I remember it:</p>
<p>"We want to provide value for money," I said, "so we propose that running five small pilots of [thing I still can't talk about]. We know there are multiple technologies which <em>could</em> work. But we don't know which one will work best."</p>
<p>"How will running something five times save the taxpayer money?" They asked, quite reasonably.</p>
<p>I replied, somewhat smugly, "Big technology projects often fail because they get very far along before a critical flaw is discovered. If we run some pilot programmes, we hope to discover those problems before we go too far down the wrong path."</p>
<p>"But running five pilots will cost more money?" They replied, with a smugness born of a thousand encounters like this.</p>
<p>I had the uneasy feeling I knew where this was going. "Yes, in the short term, it will cost more."</p>
<p>"Why don't we just run the pilot with the technology which will work best?" They asked earnestly.</p>
<p>I had one of those "<a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3APassages_from_the_Life_of_a_Philosopher.djvu/83#:~:text=if%20you%20put%20into%20the%20machine%20wrong%20figures%2C%20will%20the%20right%20answers%20come%20out%3F">Pray Mr Babbage</a>" moments and took a moment to compose myself.</p>
<p>I gently explained that we wouldn't know in advance the results of the experiment and, without going too far into The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, falsifiable hypotheses were probably the best way to discover the truth.</p>
<p>Apparently their <abbr title="Philosophy, Politics, and Economics">PPE</abbr> degree was worthwhile because they accepted my arguments - albeit only with funding for 3 pilots.</p>
<p>From their point of view, it was perfectly rational to reject experimentation. Each failed experiment is a waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money. How do you look your constituents in the eye and say "80% of our budget was spent on failure"? It is political suicide.</p>
<p>Which leads me on to <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/opinion/article/ai-mark-taught-realities-new-technology">this <em>brilliant</em> blog post by Mark Sewards MP</a>. In it, the MP describes the process of setting up an "AI" counterpart to answer his constituents' questions.</p>
<p>So far, so zeitgeisty. But rather than just slap a label on an LLM and call it a day, the MP for Leeds South West and Morley actually spent time thinking about what he and his team wanted out of this experiment. They didn't just launch and bugger off; they tested and refined.</p>
<p>The experiment was a success. Not because it reduced his case-load and allowed a tech company to profit from misery. But because it taught him (and others) the limitations of technology. It shows exactly what <em>doesn't</em> work. If a person can't understand where the boundaries are, they'll never learn how to successfully master <em>anything</em>.</p>
<p>As Mark said:</p>
<blockquote><p>What didn’t it do? It didn’t save any time. I read every single transcript to ensure we didn’t miss any questions from constituents. I can see this technology working alongside a casework team, but it needs a lot of refinement. I took this leap to understand what AI might be capable of and what it isn’t yet. I understand why some dismissed the model out of hand, but I think the potential is real, even if that’s all it is for now – potential.</p></blockquote>
<p>Experimentation is hard because it leaves us vulnerable. It shows that we don't know everything and that humbles us. We need to loudly celebrate politicians who try something new and are honest about where it goes wrong.</p>
<p>There is so much more to be learned from failure than success.</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>2</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: When We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamín Labatut ★★★★★]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/book-review-when-we-cease-to-understand-the-world-benjamin-labatut/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63474</id>
<updated>2025-09-21T20:52:52Z</updated>
<published>2025-11-01T12:34:19Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This is a stunning book. If some scientists and mathematicians have seen further than others, it is by standing on the mountains of madness. This straddles between being a faithful and fanciful biography of insanity. It is written like a hyperactive friend trying to show you how all the things in the universe connect with each other - while you slowly back away in terror. Are these ghost…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/book-review-when-we-cease-to-understand-the-world-benjamin-labatut/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/cease.webp" alt="Book cover with abstract art showing the centre of an atom." width="250" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63476">
<p>This is a stunning book.</p>
<p>If some scientists and mathematicians have seen further than others, it is by standing on the mountains of madness. This straddles between being a faithful and fanciful biography of insanity. It is written like a hyperactive friend trying to show you how all the things in the universe connect with each other - while you slowly back away in terror.</p>
<p>Are these ghost stories? Biographies dictated from beyond the grave? Counter-factual histories written to bemuse and confuse? These are the implausibly mystic crystal revelations that strain the boundary between realities.</p>
<p>Science <em>is</em> terrifying. It ought to be. It tells us that the world isn't quite what we thought it was. If you found out the secret to the universe, how would you react? In many ways, it remind me of Asimov's "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeds_There_a_Man...%3F">Breeds There A Man…?</a>".</p>
<p>The prose is sublime and the stories are haunting. Highly recommended!</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>2</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Gig Review: Meat Loaf by Candlelight ★★★★☆]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/gig-review-meat-loaf-by-candlelight/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64184</id>
<updated>2025-11-02T12:48:55Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-30T12:34:02Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="gig"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Theatre Review"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[The "…by Candlelight" concerts have a simple premise - come to a cathedral or church to hear top West End talent sing your favourite singer's songs, backed by a live band. This is a cut above your usual tribute act - they aren't trying to do impressions of the act, they're stamping their own energy onto beloved songs. It works! Mostly. This concert was in a West End theatre so the (electric) c…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/gig-review-meat-loaf-by-candlelight/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/meatloaf.webp" alt="Promotional poster for Meat Loaf." width="200" height="200" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-64185">
<p>The "<a href="https://concertsbycandlelight.com/">…by Candlelight</a>" concerts have a simple premise - come to a cathedral or church to hear top West End talent sing your favourite singer's songs, backed by a live band. This is a cut above your usual tribute act - they aren't trying to do impressions of the act, they're stamping their own energy onto beloved songs.</p>
<p>It works! Mostly. This concert was in a West End theatre so the (electric) candles were only on the stage. It perhaps wasn't as intimate as some of their other concerts. But, still, I was blown away by how powerful their voices were and how loud the band was.</p>
<p>The first half perhaps felt a little <em>too</em> polished - but the second was more raucous. Lots of encouragement to get up and dance, sing along, and snap photos.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Meat-Loaf-Concert.webp" alt="Four singers and a band surrounded by candles." width="1024" height="576" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-64186">
<p>All the hits were there - with the deepest cut being "<a href="https://jimsteinman.fandom.com/wiki/In_the_Land_of_the_Pig,_the_Butcher_Is_King">In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher Is King</a>" and the Jim Steinman penned "Total Eclipse of the Heart".</p>
<p>You're never going to be able to see Meat Loaf sing live (unless he returns from the dead as foretold in prophesy) but this is a good substitute. None of the singers could individually match his vocal ferocity - but when they come together it is a thing of joy.</p>
<p><a href="https://concertsbycandlelight.com/shows/meat-loaf-by-candlelight/">Meat Loaf by Candlelight is touring the UK now</a>.</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>0</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[A Self-Hosted Favicon Proxy written in PHP]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63434</id>
<updated>2025-09-21T20:20:57Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-28T12:34:54Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="favicon"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="HowTo"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="HTML"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="php"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[In theory, you should be able to get the base favicon of any domain by calling /favicon.ico - but the reality is somewhat more complex than that. Plenty of sites use a wide variety of semi-standardised images which are usually only discoverable from the site's HTML. There are several services which allow you to get favicons based on a domain. But they all have their problems. Google Exposes…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/"><![CDATA[<p>In theory, you should be able to get the base favicon of any domain by calling <code>/favicon.ico</code> - but the reality is somewhat more complex than that. Plenty of sites use a wide variety of semi-standardised images which are usually only discoverable from the site's HTML.</p>
<p>There are several services which allow you to get favicons based on a domain. But they all have their problems.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=shkspr.mobi&sz=256">Google</a>
<ul>
<li>Exposes your user's to Google's tracking.</li>
<li>Relies on redirects.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://icons.duckduckgo.com/ip9/shkspr.mobi.ico">DuckDuckGo</a>
<ul>
<li>Not officially supported by DDG.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://favicon.is/shkspr.mobi">Favicon.is</a>
<ul>
<li>No privacy policy whatsoever.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://icon.horse/">Icons.horse</a>
<ul>
<li>Paid service.</li>
<li>Only small size icons.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://favicone.com/shkspr.mobi">Favicone</a>
<ul>
<li>No privacy policy.</li>
<li>Only small size icons.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<p>I want to show favicons next to specific links, but I don't want to expose my visitors to unnecessary tracking. How can I proxy these images so they are stored and served locally?</p>
<p>There are a few existing services. Some use <a href="https://github.com/seadfeng/favicons-proxy">Cloudflare workers</a> or other <a href="https://github.com/shaklain125/gicon">cloud services</a>, there are some local-first ones which are <a href="https://github.com/toolness/favicon-proxy">unmaintained</a>. But nothing modern, self-hosted, and as easy to deploy as uploading a single PHP file.</p>
<p>So here's my attempt to make something which will preserve user privacy, be reasonably fast, and have moderately up-to-date icons, while remaining fast and efficient.</p>
<p></p><nav role="doc-toc"><menu><li><h2 id="table-of-contents"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#table-of-contents">Table of Contents</a></h2><menu><li><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-domain">Getting the domain</a></li><li><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-image">Getting the image</a></li><li><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-structure-right">Getting the structure right</a></li><li><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#preventing-abuse">Preventing abuse</a></li><li><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#putting-it-all-together">Putting it all together</a></li></menu></li></menu></nav><p></p>
<h2 id="getting-the-domain"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-domain">Getting the domain</a></h2>
<p>Assuming the request comes in to <code>https://proxy.example.com/?domain=bbc.co.uk</code></p>
<p>PHP has a <a href="https://www.php.net/manual/en/filter.constants.php#constant.filter-validate-domain">handy <code>FILTER_VALIDATE_DOMAIN</code> filter</a> which will determine if the string is a domain.</p>
<pre><code class="language-php">filter_var( $domain, FILTER_VALIDATE_DOMAIN, FILTER_FLAG_HOSTNAME );
</code></pre>
<h3 id="dealing-with-idns"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#dealing-with-idns">Dealing with IDNs</a></h3>
<p>Some domains contain non-ASCII characters - for example <a href="https://莎士比亚.org/">https://莎士比亚.org/</a> - not all favicon services support International Domain Names.</p>
<p>Using <a href="https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.idn-to-ascii.php">the <code>idn_to_ascii()</code> function</a>, it is possible to get the Punycode domain.</p>
<pre><code class="language-php">$domain = idn_to_ascii("莎士比亚.org");
</code></pre>
<h2 id="getting-the-image"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-image">Getting the image</a></h2>
<ol>
<li>Check if the icon has previously been downloaded.</li>
<li>Rotate randomly between a few different Favicon services.</li>
<li>Download the icon.</li>
<li>Save it somewhere.</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="getting-the-structure-right"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-structure-right">Getting the structure right</a></h2>
<p>I know from my work on OpenBenches that storing tens of thousands of files in a single directory can be problematic. So I'll store the retrieved favicon in: <code>/tld/domain/subdomain/</code></p>
<p>That will make it quick to see if an icon exists. I'll save the file with a filename based on the current timestamp. That will allow me to check if an icon is out of date, and will prevent people downloading the icons directly from me.</p>
<h2 id="preventing-abuse"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#preventing-abuse">Preventing abuse</a></h2>
<p>I don't want anyone but visitors to my site to be able to use this service. So I'll add a (weak) check to see if the request came from my domain.</p>
<pre><code class="language-php">$referer = parse_url( $_SERVER["HTTP_REFERER"], PHP_URL_HOST );
if ( $referer == "shkspr.mobi") {
…
}
</code></pre>
<p>Some browsers may not send referers for privacy reasons. So they won't see the favicons. But they probably wouldn't have seen the images loaded from a 3<sup>rd</sup> party service. So I'll serve a default image.</p>
<h2 id="putting-it-all-together"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#putting-it-all-together">Putting it all together</a></h2>
<p>You can grab the code from <a href="https://git.edent.tel/edent/Favicon-Proxy-PHP">my personal git service</a>.</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>3</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Movie Review: The Story of the Weeping Camel ★★★★★]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/movie-review-the-story-of-the-weeping-camel/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63140</id>
<updated>2025-10-26T13:10:08Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-26T14:34:35Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Movie Review"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Our friends Annie and Dave run the podcast "Will You Still Love It Tomorrow". The premise is great - take a film that you love but you haven't seen for ages, and see if it still holds up. They asked me and Liz to nominate a film to discuss with them. What's something that we loved but last saw 20ish years ago? We suggested The Story of the Weeping Camel. It is my go-to answer when someone asks …]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/movie-review-the-story-of-the-weeping-camel/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The_Story_of_the_Weeping_Camel.jpeg" alt="Film poster featuring a camel." width="218" height="320" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63142">
<p>Our friends Annie and Dave run the podcast "<a href="https://stillloveit.libsyn.com/">Will You Still Love It Tomorrow</a>". The premise is great - take a film that you love but you haven't seen for ages, and see if it still holds up.</p>
<p>They asked me and Liz to nominate a film to discuss with them. What's something that we loved but last saw 20ish years ago? We suggested The Story of the Weeping Camel. It is my go-to answer when someone asks me for my favourite film - it is sufficiently obscure to elicit further questions and sounds cool enough to make me seem interesting.</p>
<p>So we re-watched it in preparation for discussing it on the podcast. How did it hold up?</p>
<p>It is <em>still</em> my favourite foreign language movie. The story is simple and beautifully told. The cinematography is stunning. It is the perfect mix of heartbreaking and hopeful.</p>
<p>Weeping Camel is presented as a documentary - but it is rather closer to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanook_of_the_North">Nanook of the North</a>, mixing documentary and drama. At its heart is the story of motherly love. Deep in the Gobi desert, a camel has a difficult birth and rejects her colt. Can the Mongolian farmers help bring mother and child together?</p>
<p>One of the best aspects of the film is that it is 100% on the side of "show, don't tell". If this were a documentary, there would be pointless narration telling us what was going on. Instead, we're treated as grown-ups. We can plainly see the pain - we don't need it spelled out.</p>
<p>Similarly, the Mongolian language is barely translated. Do you <em>need</em> to know what is being sung as a lullaby to a sleeping (human) baby? No! You understand the context. Similarly, what are the grandparents chatting about while playing cards? It isn't important to the plot, they're just sharing their love for each other.</p>
<p>There's a tension at the core of the movie about the tug between tradition and modernity. The vast and empty vista with all its magnificent beauty holds no appeal to a kid who just wants to watch cartoons on TV. The family's traditions are noble and ancient - but they're all supplemented with modern technology.</p>
<p>Back when Russell T. Davies was pitching Doctor Who in 2005, he said "<a href="https://archive.org/details/doctor-who-magazine-special-editions/11.%20The%20Series%20One%20Companion/page/n37/mode/2up">If the Zogs on planet Zog are having trouble with the Zog-monster [...] who gives a toss?</a>" There's a limit to human empathy. Why should we care about creatures so different to us? The Story of the Weeping Camel shows how wrong Davies was. I don't mean to imply that the Mongolians are an alien species and that their concerns shouldn't bother us - but that with the right skill, it is possible to make humans care about the emotional difficulties of camels in a distant desert.</p>
<p>If you want a gentle, moving, and uplifting movie - I urge you to seek it out. It is a tragedy that the film isn't better known. It is unavailable on any streaming service that I can find. Despite being Oscar nominated, it hasn't be re-released in HD, but you can buy it on DVD.</p>
<p>You can <a href="https://stillloveit.libsyn.com/episode-107-the-story-of-the-weeping-camel">listen to "Will You Still Love It Tomorrow" wherever you get your podcasts</a>.</p>
<iframe title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/38782235/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" height="90" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen=""></iframe>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Alpha launch - .well-known/avatar - feedback wanted]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64078</id>
<updated>2025-10-25T20:13:42Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-25T11:34:10Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="IETF"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="ReDeCentralize"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="standards"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="web"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I've gotten sufficiently annoyed with a trivial problem that I'm preparing to write an IETF RFC. Yeah. That's how ticked off I am! Every site that I sign up for asks me to upload an avatar to represent myself. Whenever I change my photo, I have to log in to a hundred sites and change it there. Perhaps they could all use Gravatar - but that's a centralised service and doesn't work with wildcard…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/"><![CDATA[<p>I've gotten sufficiently annoyed with a trivial problem that I'm preparing to write an IETF RFC. Yeah. That's how ticked off I am!</p>
<p>Every site that I sign up for asks me to upload an avatar to represent myself. Whenever I change my photo, I have to log in to a hundred sites and change it there<sup id="fnref:ok"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fn:ok" class="footnote-ref" title="OK, I don't have to. But I want to. I dislike having last year's photo cluttering some half-remembered social network." role="doc-noteref">0</a></sup>.</p>
<p>Perhaps they could all use <a href="https://gravatar.com/">Gravatar</a> - but that's a centralised service<sup id="fnref:boo"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fn:boo" class="footnote-ref" title="We live in the redecentralised future now!" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup> and doesn't work with wildcard email addresses. <a href="https://libravatar.org/">Libravatar</a> also relies on email addresses and requires implementers to set up new DNS entries.</p>
<p>So I'm proposing <code>.well-known/avatar</code>. Here's how it works (for now). I'd like your feedback before going further<sup id="fnref:slow"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fn:slow" class="footnote-ref" title="I wrote about this in 2004 and in 2020. It takes me time, but I get there eventually!" role="doc-noteref">2</a></sup>.</p>
<p>I sign up to a service and use the email address <code>[email protected]</code>.</p>
<p>The service looks up my avatar using a well-known path. For example, request <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:[email protected]">https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:[email protected]</a> and you'll get back this JSON:</p>
<pre><code class="language-json">{
"subject": "acct:[email protected]",
"links": [
{
"rel": "http:\/\/webfinger.net\/rel\/avatar",
"type": "image\/webp",
"href": "https:\/\/shkspr.mobi\/.well-known\/avatar\/avatar-1024.webp",
"sizes": "1024x1024"
},
{
"rel": "http:\/\/webfinger.net\/rel\/avatar",
"type": "image\/jpeg",
"href": "https:\/\/shkspr.mobi\/.well-known\/avatar\/avatar-512.jpg",
"sizes": "512x512"
}
]
}
</code></pre>
<p>That's a slightly enhanced <a href="https://webfinger.net/rel/#avatar">https://webfinger.net/rel/#avatar</a> which adds <a href="https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/semantics.html#attr-link-sizes">a <code>sizes</code> parameter</a>. The service can then pick the appropriate MIME and size.</p>
<p>Alternatively, you can request the same URl but with a header of <code>Accept: image/gif</code> and receive the default sized avatar in that specific format.</p>
<p>Try it by running:</p>
<pre><code class="language-bash">curl -H "Accept: image/avif" https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar/ --output "test.avif"
</code></pre>
<p>You should receive an auto-converted version of my avatar.</p>
<h2 id="some-thoughts"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#some-thoughts">Some Thoughts</a></h2>
<p>Please add your thoughts to the comments box. Here's some feedback I've received so far.</p>
<p>Perhaps this is too complicated? What's wrong with just serving up an image when the URl is requested? That would make it easier for static sites.</p>
<div class="activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card"> <img class="u-photo" src="https://cdn.fosstodon.org/accounts/avatars/000/061/904/original/5e6ac0188b3ab021.png" alt=""> <div class="activitypub-embed-header-text"> <h2 class="p-name" id="simon-josefsson"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#simon-josefsson">Simon Josefsson</a></h2> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/users/jas" class="ap-account u-url">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-content"> <div class="ap-subtitle p-summary e-content"><p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@Edent" class="u-url mention">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> Thinking about this, while I like content negotiation as a clever hack, I wonder if maybe it isn’t too clever. The nice thing with WKD is that you can deploy it with any normal static HTTP file without any special magic. Maybe the protocol could be dumbed down to simply rely on WKD-style URLs? I’m not sure how to configure my web server (Apache) for your avatar well known URL with negotiation magic.</p></div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-meta"> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/users/jas/statuses/115424507307729006" class="ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to">2025-10-23, 16:50</a> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>0</strong> boosts </span> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>1</strong> favorites </span> </div> </div>
<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>
<p>What about a size parameter?</p>
<div class="activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card"> <img class="u-photo" src="https://mastocdn.talking.dev/accounts/avatars/106/551/937/719/290/584/original/733b34a017037146.jpg" alt=""> <div class="activitypub-embed-header-text"> <h2 class="p-name" id="chip"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#chip">Chip</a></h2> <a href="https://talking.dev/users/chip" class="ap-account u-url">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-content"> <div class="ap-subtitle p-summary e-content"><p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@Edent" class="u-url mention">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> It'd be nice if the query could limit the size of the avatar being returned. If only there were `Accept-Max-Size`, but maybe a query param? I wouldn't want my performance taking a dive if Alice has a 35M avatar that my client starts downloading. If my client had requested with `max_size=3072` I'd rather not see the avatar than degrade performance/pull excess data</p></div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-meta"> <a href="https://talking.dev/users/chip/statuses/115424082361331622" class="ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to">2025-10-23, 15:02</a> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>0</strong> boosts </span> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>1</strong> favorites </span> </div> </div>
<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>
<p>Will anyone actually use it?</p>
<div class="activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card"> <img class="u-photo" src="https://fedi.splitbrain.org/fileserver/013DGS4XRNRZTWPDP5Q2MKSHZR/attachment/original/01JNBFPHNR06RXDG36V0VM7D3V.jpeg" alt=""> <div class="activitypub-embed-header-text"> <h2 class="p-name" id="andreas-gohr"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#andreas-gohr">Andreas Gohr</a></h2> <a href="https://fedi.splitbrain.org/users/splitbrain" class="ap-account u-url">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-content"> <div class="ap-subtitle p-summary e-content"><p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@Edent" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> good luck with getting the hundreds of services to implement it. I mean it. it would be awesome and you might be well connected enough to make it happen.</p></div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-meta"> <a href="https://fedi.splitbrain.org/users/splitbrain/statuses/01K88SH504PEK5X8C6MSXRY0YH" class="ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to">2025-10-23, 15:03</a> </div> </div>
<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>
<p>What about hashing the email?</p>
<div class="activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card"> <img class="u-photo" src="https://media.social.lol/accounts/avatars/111/559/923/870/165/558/original/5c1a92fdf91205a8.png" alt=""> <div class="activitypub-embed-header-text"> <h2 class="p-name" id="david-bushell-%f0%9f%8e%ae"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#david-bushell-%f0%9f%8e%ae">David Bushell 🎮</a></h2> <a href="https://social.lol/users/db" class="ap-account u-url">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-content"> <div class="ap-subtitle p-summary e-content"><p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@Edent" class="u-url mention">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> would using a hash of the email address in its place improve privacy? 🤔</p></div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-meta"> <a href="https://social.lol/users/db/statuses/115434663342778931" class="ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to">2025-10-25, 11:52</a> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>0</strong> boosts </span> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>0</strong> favorites </span> </div> </div>
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<p>You've already given the service your email address, and your domain already knows your account name - so there's no privacy leak here. Obviously, a service shouldn't hotlink to your avatar image.</p>
<p>How about DNS?</p>
<blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:en7czkhogfoggztn3newgk3u/app.bsky.feed.post/3m3zdjv7vcs2v" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreibp7hypzhpjiwairnihopr47fdifwasluludaxobybpnna3jcupzu"><p lang="en">I like it. Is there an argument that service / endpoint should be specifiable at the DNS level?As others in your comments pointed out, if your site is currently just static, some users might prefer to run an entirely separate dedicated avatar service.</p>— <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:en7czkhogfoggztn3newgk3u?ref_src=embed">Emily Shepherd (@emi.ly)</a> <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:en7czkhogfoggztn3newgk3u/post/3m3zdjv7vcs2v?ref_src=embed">2025-10-25T11:57:43.456Z</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Personally, I think that's a bit complicated, but I'm happy to be convinced.</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/ox.ca/post/3m3zkrun4j22b">Is this restricted to email?</a></p></blockquote>
<p>No! For example, if you know my GitHub username then you should be able to get the avatar from <code>https://github.com/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:edent</code></p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://mechadarwin.com/2025/10/25/well-known-avatar-location/">How can a service tell if the avatar has been updated</a>?</p></blockquote>
<p>Perhaps a hash, timestamp, or something else?</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@gumnos/115436604786371047">Can requests for multiple accounts be sent at once?</a></p></blockquote>
<p>I'm not sure how / if WebFinger handles this. I suppose there ought to be some limit to avoid overwhelming a server.</p>
<h2 id="proposal"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#proposal">Proposal</a></h2>
<p>I think the default should be to return an image.</p>
<p>If an accept of <code>image/…</code> is requested, the server should try to return an image in that format.</p>
<p>If an accept of <code>application/json</code> or similar is requested, the server should return a JSON document listing the available avatars.</p>
<p>I don't think a <code>?size=</code> GET parameter is necessary; services can resize once they've downloaded, or use the JSON document to get the right size.</p>
<p>A limited amount of alt text could be added using <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7033#section-4.4.4.4">the title attribute</a> in the JSON.</p>
<p>Before I start writing up anything formal - I'd love your constructive criticism on this.</p>
<div id="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<hr>
<ol start="0">
<li id="fn:ok">
<p>OK, I don't <em>have</em> to. But I <em>want</em> to. I dislike having last year's photo cluttering some half-remembered social network. <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fnref:ok" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:boo">
<p>We live in the redecentralised future now! <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fnref:boo" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:slow">
<p>I wrote about this in <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/03/well-known-avatar/">2004</a> and in <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/03/one-avatar-to-rule-them-all/">2020</a>. It takes me time, but I get there eventually! <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fnref:slow" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: A Quest for God and Spices by Dean Cycon ★★☆☆☆]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-a-quest-for-god-and-spices-by-dean-cycon/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64049</id>
<updated>2025-10-23T08:49:06Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-23T11:34:44Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="NetGalley"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Brother Mauro, an older monk, and Nicolo, a young, striving merchant are called by the Pope to traverse the treacherous political, religious, and mercantile terrain of medieval Europe and the Byzantine Empire to seek out the powerful Presbyter John, a mysterious king in the Far East who has promised to put his wealth and vast armies to the service of the pope's crusade. I don't understand why…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-a-quest-for-god-and-spices-by-dean-cycon/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/A-Quest-for-God-and-Spices-cover.webp" alt="Book cover with an illustrated map." width="200" height="282" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-64051">
<blockquote><p>Brother Mauro, an older monk, and Nicolo, a young, striving merchant are called by the Pope to traverse the treacherous political, religious, and mercantile terrain of medieval Europe and the Byzantine Empire to seek out the powerful Presbyter John, a mysterious king in the Far East who has promised to put his wealth and vast armies to the service of the pope's crusade.</p></blockquote>
<p>I don't understand why all books nowadays have to be an epic trilogy. There's a perfectly decent story in here - but it is padded out to the point of flabbiness. The dialogue veers between trite and didactic. At times it feels like the author has rummaged around Wikipedia for contemporaneous famous people and thrown them in to the story without any particular reason.</p>
<p>Similarly, lots of the scene setting feels like a needless history lesson, inserted just to bring up the word-count.</p>
<blockquote><p>He was joined by a thin, muscular young man who played an oud, the Arabic stringed instrument that French crusaders had recently brought to Europe under the name l’oud and were now calling the “lute.”</p></blockquote>
<p>I loved the idea of a super-smeller going on a journey to find the source of the expensive spices which were entering Europe. A quest of a befuddled monk to reunite the various strands of Christendom also makes for a rich tale. But mashed together - and interspersed with treacherous kings, scheming Popes, and duplicitous pirates - it loses all coherence.</p>
<p>Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>0</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Getting started with simple CSS View Transitions]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-simple-css-view-transitions/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64009</id>
<updated>2025-10-18T22:41:02Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-21T11:34:07Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="css"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="HTML"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Web Development"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="webdev"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[There's (yet another) new piece of CSS to learn! Hurrah! Way back in 2011, jQuery mobile introduced the web to page-change animations. Clicking on a link would make your high-tech Nokia display a cool page-flip as you navigated from one page of a website to another. Just like an app!!!! A decade-and-a-half later, and CSS has caught up (mostly). No more JavaScript, just spec-compliant CSS. Well, …]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-simple-css-view-transitions/"><![CDATA[<p>There's (yet another) new piece of CSS to learn! Hurrah!</p>
<p>Way back in 2011, <a href="https://demos.jquerymobile.com/1.1.0/docs/pages/page-transitions.html">jQuery mobile introduced the web to page-change animations</a>. Clicking on a link would make your high-tech Nokia display a cool page-flip as you navigated from one page of a website to another. Just like an app!!!!</p>
<p>A decade-and-a-half later, and CSS has caught up (mostly). No more JavaScript, just spec-compliant CSS. Well, as long as you're using Chrome or Safari. Here's a quick quick MVP which will add some fancy animations as people browse your website.</p>
<p>Every page which wants animations has to "opt in". That means you need this:</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">@view-transition {
navigation: auto;
}
</code></pre>
<p>Next, you'll probably want to define some animations. Here are two I use:</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">@keyframes slide-in {
from {
translate: 100vw 0;
}
}
@keyframes fade-out {
to {
opacity: 0;
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>Any standard CSS animation will work. Get creative!</p>
<p>Which elements do you want to animate? I'm just going to do the whole page.</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">html {
view-transition-name: page;
}
</code></pre>
<p>If you have a fancy app-like site, you might only want to animate specific parts of it.</p>
<p>While the page is transitioning, you can have something in the background to prevent things looking odd.</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">::view-transition {
background: black;
}
</code></pre>
<p>That's optional, but rather useful.</p>
<p>Next, we have to assign the animations to specific events. Here, I have the old page fade out and the new page slide in.</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">::view-transition-old(page) {
animation-name: fade-out;
animation-duration: 1s;
}
::view-transition-new(page) {
animation-name: slide-in;
animation-duration: 1s;
}
</code></pre>
<p>You can set the duration to whatever makes sense for your page and animation style.</p>
<p>Finally, and this is <strong>important</strong>, some people find animations painful or discombobulating. Make sure the animations are turned off for those who don't like them.</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
::view-transition-group(page) {
animation-duration: 0s;
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>And that's it! A couple of dozen lines of CSS and you've got started with view transitions.</p>
<p>For more information, you can <a href="https://view-transitions.chrome.dev/">see the Chrome Devs' demo page</a>, or take a read of <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/View_Transition_API">the MDN documentation</a>. There's also a <a href="https://drafts.csswg.org/css-view-transitions-2/">full spec document</a> if you like that sort of thing.</p>
<p>Right, I'm off to create some delightful animations!</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>1</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Improving PixelMelt's Kindle Web Deobfuscator]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64017</id>
<updated>2025-10-19T09:35:02Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-19T11:34:37Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Amazon"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="drm"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="ebooks"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="kindle"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="python"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[A few days ago, someone called PixelMelt published a way for Amazon's customers to download their purchased books without DRM. Well… sort of. In their post "How I Reversed Amazon's Kindle Web Obfuscation Because Their App Sucked" they describe the process of spoofing a web browser, downloading a bunch of JSON files, reconstructing the obfuscated SVGs used to draw individual letters, and running O…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/"><![CDATA[<p>A few days ago, someone called PixelMelt published a way for Amazon's customers to download their purchased books without DRM. Well… <em>sort of</em>.</p>
<p>In their post "<a href="https://blog.pixelmelt.dev/kindle-web-drm/">How I Reversed Amazon's Kindle Web Obfuscation Because Their App Sucked</a>" they describe the process of spoofing a web browser, downloading a bunch of JSON files, reconstructing the obfuscated SVGs used to draw individual letters, and running OCR on them to extract text.</p>
<p>There were a few problems with this approach.</p>
<p>Firstly, the downloader was hard-coded to only work with the .com site. That fix was simple - do a search and replace on <code>amazon.com</code> with <code>amazon.co.uk</code>. Easy!</p>
<p>But the harder problem was with the OCR. The code was designed to visually centre each extracted glyph. That gives a nice amount of whitespace around the character which makes it easier for OCR to run. The only problem is that some characters are ambiguous when centred:</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/centred-fs8.png" alt="Several letters drawn with vertical centering." width="1134" height="177" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-64025">
<p>When I ran the code, lots of full-stops became midpoints, commas became apostrophes, and various other characters went a bit wonky.</p>
<p>That made the output rather hard to read. This was compounded by the way line-breaks were treated. Modern eBooks are designed to be reflowable - no matter the size of your screen, lines should only break on a new paragraph. This had forced linebreaks at the end of every displayed line - rather than at the end of a paragraph.</p>
<p>So I decided to fix it.</p>
<h2 id="a-new-approach"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#a-new-approach">A New Approach</a></h2>
<p>I decided that OCRing an entire page would yield better results than single characters. I was (mostly) right. Here's what a typical page looks like after de-obfuscation and reconstruction:</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/sample-page.webp" alt="A page of text." width="500" height="800" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-64027">
<p>As you can see - the typesetting is good for the body text, but skew-whiff for the title. Bold and italics are preserved. There are no links or images.</p>
<p>Here's how I did it.</p>
<h3 id="extract-the-characters"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#extract-the-characters">Extract the characters</a></h3>
<p>As in the original code, I took the SVG path of the character and rendered it as a monochrome PNG. Rather than centring the glyph, I used the height and width provided in the <code>glyphs.json</code> file. That gave me a directory full of individual letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and ligatures. These were named by fontKey (bold, italic, normal, etc).</p>
<h3 id="create-a-blank-page"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#create-a-blank-page">Create a blank page</a></h3>
<p>The <code>page_data_0_4.json</code> has a width and height of the page. I created a white PNG with the same dimensions. The individual characters could then be placed on that.</p>
<h3 id="resize-the-characters"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#resize-the-characters">Resize the characters</a></h3>
<p>In the <code>page_data_0_4.json</code> each run of text has a fontKey - which allows the correct glyph to be selected. There's also a <code>fontSize</code> parameter. Most text seems to be (the ludicrously precise) <code>19.800001</code>. If a font had a different size, I temporarily scaled the glyph in proportion to 19.8.</p>
<p>Each glyph has an associated <code>xPosition</code>, along with a <code>transform</code> which gives X and Y offsets. That allows for indenting and other text layouts.</p>
<p>The characters were then pasted on to the blank page.</p>
<p>Once every character from that page had been extracted, resized, and placed - the page was saved as a monochrome PNG.</p>
<h3 id="ocr-the-page"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#ocr-the-page">OCR the page</a></h3>
<p><a href="https://tesseract-ocr.github.io/tessdoc/">Tesseract 5</a> is a fast, modern, and <em>reasonably</em> accurate OCR engine for Linux.</p>
<p>Running <code>tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng</code> produced a .txt file with all the text extracted.</p>
<p>For a more useful HTML style layout, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOCR">hOCR output</a> can be used: <code>tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng hocr</code></p>
<p>Or, a PDF with embedded text: <code>tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng pdf</code></p>
<h3 id="mistakes"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#mistakes">Mistakes</a></h3>
<p>OCR isn't infallible. Even with a high resolution image and a clear font, there were some errors.</p>
<ul>
<li>Superscript numerals for footnotes were often missing from the OCR.</li>
<li>Words can run together even if they are well spaced.</li>
<li>Tesseract can recognise bold and italic characters - but it outputs everything as plain text.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="whats-missing"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#whats-missing">What's missing?</a></h2>
<p>Images aren't downloaded. I took a brief look and, while there are links to them in the metadata, they're downloaded as encrypted blobs. I'm not clever enough to do anything with them.</p>
<p>The OCR can't pick out semantic meaning. Chapter headings and footnotes are rendered the same way as text.</p>
<p>Layout is flat. The image of the page might have an indent, but the outputted text won't.</p>
<h2 id="whats-next"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#whats-next">What's next?</a></h2>
<p>This is very far from perfect. It can give you a visually <em>similar</em> layout to a book you have purchased from Amazon. But it won't be reflowable.</p>
<p>The text will be <em>reasonably</em> accurate. But there will be plenty of mistakes.</p>
<p>You can get an HTML layout with hOCR. But it will be missing formatting and links.</p>
<p>Processing all the JSON files and OCRing all the images is <em>relatively</em> quick. But tweaking and assembling is still fairly manual.</p>
<p>There's nothing particularly clever about what I've done. The original code didn't come with an open source software licence, so I am unable to share my changes - but any moderately competent programmer could recreate this.</p>
<p>Personally, I've just stopped buying books from Amazon. I find that <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/02/automatic-kobo-and-kindle-ebook-arbitrage/">Kobo is often cheaper</a> and their DRM is easy to bypass. But if you have many books trapped in Amazon - or a book is only published there - this is a barely adequate way to liberate it for your personal use.</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>5</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Was my website mentioned in a GitHub issue?]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63352</id>
<updated>2025-09-14T20:37:17Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-17T11:34:51Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="blog"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="github"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This is a quick GitHub action to get alerted every time your website is mentioned in a GitHub issue. Doing it manually You can search GitHub for a URl, and sort the results with the newest first, like this: https://github.com/search?q=%22shkspr.mobi%22&type=issues&s=created&o=desc Using the API GitHub has a fairly straightforward API - although it uses slightly different parameters. …]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/"><![CDATA[<p>This is a quick GitHub action to get alerted every time your website is mentioned in a GitHub issue.</p>
<h2 id="doing-it-manually"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/#doing-it-manually">Doing it manually</a></h2>
<p>You can search GitHub for a URl, and sort the results with the newest first, like this:</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/search?q=%22shkspr.mobi%22&type=issues&s=created&o=desc">https://github.com/search?q=%22shkspr.mobi%22&type=issues&s=created&o=desc</a></p>
<h2 id="using-the-api"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/#using-the-api">Using the API</a></h2>
<p>GitHub has a <a href="https://api.github.com/">fairly straightforward API</a> - although it uses slightly different parameters.</p>
<p><a href="https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=shkspr.mobi&sort=created&order=desc">https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=shkspr.mobi&sort=created&order=desc</a></p>
<p>That will return a bunch of <code>items</code>. Here's the 29th. I've truncated it down to only what is necessary for our purposes:</p>
<pre><code class="language-json">{
"html_url": "https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-webfinger/issues/29",
"id": 3286159033,
"number": 29,
"title": "Tracking support for non-ascii characters",
"user": {
"login": "evanp",
},
"created_at": "2025-08-02T17:52:46Z",
"updated_at": "2025-08-02T18:50:27Z",
"body": "One of the benefits of using Webfinger is that it's […]"
}
</code></pre>
<h2 id="action"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/#action">Action</a></h2>
<p>I'm not very good at creating actions. But this should:</p>
<ol>
<li>Search GitHub for mentions of your URl.</li>
<li>Store the results.</li>
<li>If there is a new entry - open a new issue describing it.</li>
</ol>
<p>You will need to set your repository to private in order to not spam other repos. You will also need to go to your repo settings and give the action write permissions. You'll also need a Personal Access Token with sufficient permissions to write to your repo. I bloody hate actions. YAML? Eugh!</p>
<pre><code class="language-yaml">name: API Issue Watcher
on:
schedule:
- cron: '*/59 * * * *'
permissions:
issues: write
contents: write
jobs:
watch-and-create:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout repository
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Restore latest seen ID
id: cache-latest
uses: actions/cache@v4
with:
path: .github/latest_seen.txt
key: latest-seen-1
restore-keys: |
latest-seen-
- name: Fetch latest item from API
id: fetch
run: |
curl -s 'https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=EXAMPLE.COM&s=created&order=desc' > result.json
jq -r '.items[0].id' result.json > latest_id.txt
jq -r '.items[0].title' result.json > latest_title.txt
jq -r '.items[0].html_url' result.json > latest_url.txt
jq -r '.items[0].body // ""' result.json > latest_body.txt
- name: Compare with previous run
id: check
run: |
NEW_ID=$(cat latest_id.txt)
OLD_ID=$(cat .github/latest_seen.txt 2>/dev/null || echo "")
echo "NEW_ID=$NEW_ID" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
echo "OLD_ID=$OLD_ID" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
if [ "$NEW_ID" != "$OLD_ID" ]; then
echo "NEW_ITEM=true" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
else
echo "NEW_ITEM=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
fi
- name: Open new issue if new item found
if: steps.check.outputs.NEW_ITEM == 'true'
uses: actions/github-script@v7
with:
github-token: ${{ secrets.MY_PAT }}
script: |
const fs = require('fs');
const title = fs.readFileSync('latest_title.txt', 'utf8').trim();
const url = fs.readFileSync('latest_url.txt', 'utf8').trim();
const body = fs.readFileSync('latest_body.txt', 'utf8').trim();
await github.rest.issues.create({
owner: context.repo.owner,
repo: context.repo.repo,
title: `[API] ${title}`,
body: `Found new item: [${title}](${url})\n\n${body}`
});
- name: Update latest seen ID
if: steps.check.outputs.NEW_ITEM == 'true'
run: |
mkdir -p .github
cp latest_id.txt .github/latest_seen.txt
- name: Save cache
uses: actions/cache@v4
with:
path: .github/latest_seen.txt
key: latest-seen-1
restore-keys: |
latest-seen-
</code></pre>
<p>This is probably all kinds of wrong. If you know how to improve it, please let me know!</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: The Anarchy - The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple ★★★★☆]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-the-anarchy-the-relentless-rise-of-the-east-india-company-by-william-dalrymple/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63916</id>
<updated>2025-10-12T13:53:39Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-15T11:34:11Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="history"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This is a marvellous and depressing book. Marvellous because it finely details the history, atrocities, and geopolitical strife of unfettered capitalism. Depressing for much the same reason. Dalrymple takes the thousand different strands of the story and weaves them into a (mostly) comprehensible narrative. With this many moving parts, it is easy to get confused between the various people,…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-the-anarchy-the-relentless-rise-of-the-east-india-company-by-william-dalrymple/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/9781408864401.webp" alt="Book cover for The Anarchy. An illustration of four Indian soldiers in European dress." width="200" height="307" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63918">
<p>This is a marvellous and depressing book. Marvellous because it finely details the history, atrocities, and geopolitical strife of unfettered capitalism. Depressing for much the same reason.</p>
<p>Dalrymple takes the thousand different strands of the story and weaves them into a (mostly) comprehensible narrative. With this many moving parts, it is easy to get confused between the various people, places, companies, and loyalties. Your eReader's dictionary will have a good workout as you try to decipher the various calques and loanwords.</p>
<p>It is more nuanced than I expected. Rather than just an unending parade of awfulness, it does dive in to the various attempts to reign in the terror and promote peaceful trade. These nearly always failed. Similarly, there were individual acts of kindness and honour which, nevertheless, cannot begin to make up for the exploitation.</p>
<p>The one question it doesn't (and possibly can't) answer is "what would India have been like without the EIC?" Obviously the company was hugely disruptive and extracted vast amounts of wealth - but the history of <em>every</em> continent shows internecine warfare whenever a ruler dies. A constant theme of the book is "Almost immediately, the court disintegrated into rival factions" The bloody battles between the various states, despots, kings, and tyrants would have eventually occurred. The French - and other colonisers - would have also rampaged through the nation. This isn't to excuse the EIC, and almost everything they did was inexcusable, but rather to say they probably weren't <em>uniquely</em> awful in the atrocities they committed.</p>
<p>We see the rapacious nature of megacorporations today. While few have a standing army, they are all dedicated to usurping authority and plundering resources. The Anarchy describes how the Company whispered in the ears of leaders, promised them the world, and then cruelly turned on them. Again, a depressing reflection of our own times.</p>
<p>Notable by their absence are women. There are an endless assortment of unnamed dancing girls and courtesans, but the only named women are the (mostly British) wives in the background and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum_Samru">Begum Samru</a>. There's also only a brief mention of the other geopolitical impacts the EIC had. For example, I had no idea that the tea from the eponymous Boston Tea Party was supplied by the EIC.</p>
<p>I don't understand why publishers pretend eBooks have the same limitations as their paper counterparts. The paper book puts all the illustrations at the end - presumably to save money. But this book would have benefited from interspersing the portraits with the text. Similarly, a map or two wouldn't have gone amiss to help the reader visualise the tangled path the various armies took.</p>
<p>The books is disturbing and upsetting, but a vital read for anyone who wants to understand a key point in the world's history. If only we could learn from it, eh?</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>1</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Every Theatre Show is "Immersive"]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=62544</id>
<updated>2025-10-13T13:21:47Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-13T11:34:49Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="theatre"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I go to see a lot of theatrical productions. While most shows are good, the audience experience is usually dreadful. I'm not just talking about cramped seats and disgusting toilets (although they play a part) but that theatres haven't cottoned on to the idea that theatre is an immersive experience which can't be replicated by watching Netflix. There's an excellent article in The Stage about the…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/"><![CDATA[<p>I go to see <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/theatre-review/">a lot of theatrical productions</a>. While most shows are good, the audience experience is usually dreadful. I'm not just talking about cramped seats and disgusting toilets (although they play a part) but that theatres haven't cottoned on to the idea that theatre is an immersive experience which can't be replicated by watching Netflix.</p>
<p>There's an excellent article in The Stage about <a href="https://www.thestage.co.uk/long-reads/is-the-immersive-sector-experiencing-growing-pains-punchdrunk-secret-cinema">the growth and pain-points of immersive shows</a> (free registration required to read).</p>
<blockquote><p>One thing that most creators agree on is that while the word immersive remains the most accurate umbrella term, it is largely functionally meaningless. The sense is that it will have to do as there is not currently a better one. “The word ‘immersive’is one that we have to continue to own,” says Matt Costain of Secret Cinema. “Because I think the fad of calling everything immersive will pass, but it’s a broad church. I went to an immersive art exhibition and what are they supposed to call it? They have as much right to it as I have.”</p></blockquote>
<p>The idea of an "immersive" performance is somewhat nebulous. Sitting passively in a theatre is not immersive - but what about a self-guided tour of an art gallery? You can make the case for pantomime being immersive (oh no you can't!) - but it isn't in the same league as <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/02/review-phantom-peak-jonacon-london-2025/">Phantom Peak</a>.</p>
<p>In an article about the immersive Elvis show, Amanda Parker succinctly describes what audience expects:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/is-the-immersive-sector-all-shook-up-amanda-parker-elvis-evolution">The whole point of immersive theatre is the blurring of boundaries.</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Live performance is expensive. A single ticket to a 90 minute show can cost more than an entire year of Netflix. A drink before the show and an ice-cream in the interval is the same cost as a month of Disney+! Audiences want blurred boundaries, but they also want value for money. I don't think it takes much money or effort for <em>any</em> show to become more immersive.</p>
<p>Here's my 6-point guide to making <em>any</em> theatrical experience more immersive and more entertaining for the audience.</p>
<h2 id="pre-pre-show"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#pre-pre-show">Pre-Pre-Show</a></h2>
<p>Even <em>before</em> booking, there's a chance for a show to be immersive. Most shows have trailers on YouTube - but are the characters on social media? Where are the opportunities to learn about the costume designer's vision (outside a one-paragraph entry in an expensive programme)?</p>
<p>Once booked, there are some brilliant opportunities for pre-pre show immersion. Emails shouldn't be the usual hectoring affair of reminding people to be on time; they should build a sense of excitement. What makes the paying customer feel like they're going on an adventure?</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, when schools booked group tickets for the 1990s run of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", they were sent colouring-in packs or some activity worksheets (it was a <em>long</em> time ago and my memory is hazy). What can a theatre do to make its paying customers <em>excited</em> about making the trip outside to sit in an unfamiliar building?</p>
<h2 id="pre-show"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#pre-show">Pre-Show</a></h2>
<p>This is probably the easiest one to get right, and the one which most shows fail at. Decorate the venue. That's it. It is that simple. It costs next to nothing to put up posters on the walls, or fun little Easter-Eggs on the back of toilet doors, or to have a themed cocktail menu. The Stranger Things show does this brilliantly - there are lots of little clues dotted around the show in the form of newspaper clippings and yearbook pages.</p>
<p>Shows like <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/06/theatre-review-just-for-one-day/">Just For One Day</a> had "selfie pods". Big posters which let audience members take cool looking selfies with the stars of the show. The guest gets a fun memento, the show gets free advertising.</p>
<p>You can go further and have the cast play with the audience. When I saw "Cats" in New York, some of the actors were roaming the stalls - fighting, stealing licks of ice-creams, miaowing at each other. It was brilliant to watch and got the audience in the mood.</p>
<p>More recently, The Play That Goes Wrong has the on-stage crew setting up the stage while the audience enters. It's pre-show which rewards early attendance - it gets people rushing back to the bar to drag their friends in. It <em>feels</em> improvised and rewards returning guests.</p>
<p>You can spend time in the <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/04/theatre-review-cabaret-at-the-kitkat-club/">KitKat Club before the start of Cabaret</a>. A seedy underbelly with bored dancers and sweaty patrons. A brilliant way immerse the audience before the show. (<a href="https://technokitten.blogspot.com/2024/12/on-art-of-pre-show-and-post-show.html">Although not everyone agrees</a>.)</p>
<p><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/06/theatre-review-operation-mincemeat/">Operation Mincemeat</a> has an online pub-quiz for audience members. Sit and chat about what you think the answers are, try to get on the leaderboard, see if it motivates you to learn more about the real history of the operation.</p>
<p>A bunch of theatres offer "<a href="https://officiallondontheatre.com/access/touch-tours/">Touch Tours</a>" for visually impaired visitors. They get to come on stage and feel the set, have it described to them, so that they can get more immersed in the performance without constantly trying to guess the layout of the set. The stage magicians Penn and Teller invite members of the audience onto the stage before the performance so they can check for hidden wires and other trickery. That's probably not possible for <em>every</em> show - but can be sympathetically integrated into some.</p>
<h2 id="show"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#show">Show</a></h2>
<p>I'll defer this to the director! It's up to them whether they want to make use of the audience! I've been to operas where the lead performer appeared at the back of the stalls singing to his love on stage. Confetti falls into the auditorium with regular abundance.</p>
<p>It doesn't suit every show, of course, but there are a dozen little tweaks which can remind the audience that this is a high-quality experience worth paying for. That this is something they simply can't get by watching TV.</p>
<h2 id="the-interval"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#the-interval">The Interval</a></h2>
<p>The interval isn't just a chance to go for a piss and an over-priced drink. It's an opportunity to reflect on what you've seen, discuss what you think will happen, <em>and</em> stretch your legs.</p>
<p>All of the pre-show decoration is available to browse again - but is there anything else to do?</p>
<p>At a performance of Misalliance, a character hides himself in a portable Turkish bath at the end of Act 1. Throughout the interval, the audience were encouraged to follow the character on social media. He sent messages about his predicament and replied to people who interacted with him.</p>
<p>During the interval of a schools' performance of <i lang="it">La bohème</i>, the curtain was raised so that we could see the hard work which went into changing all the sets around. Is that suitable for every show? Probably not. Does it interfere with the fire curtain? Maybe. Was it a fascinating look literally behind the scenes? Absolutely!</p>
<p>Although I hated <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/03/theatre-review-murder-trial-tonight-ii-aldwych-theatre/">Murder Trial Tonight</a>, it used the interval to encourage audience members to discuss the case laid before them. It's high-risk to get a reserved British audience to talk to strangers, but it can pay dividends.</p>
<h2 id="post-show"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#post-show">Post-Show</a></h2>
<p>The audience have risen to their feet in applause. Perhaps the lead actor (the one from that TV show you like) gives a short, heartfelt speech thanking everyone for coming out and encouraging them to tell their friends about the show.</p>
<p>What next?</p>
<p>Musicals often go with an encore where they specifically encourage the audience to take photos and sing along. Hey! You're part of the show! You'll probably never watch that video again, but you'll get the joy of communal singing and will feel like you're contributing.</p>
<p>As we left Just For One Day, we were handed commemorative leaflets which turned out to be discount vouchers. A little memento <em>and</em> a way to get repeat custom!</p>
<p>At the end of <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/07/theatre-review-accidental-death-of-an-anarchist/">Accidental Death of an Anarchist</a>, the audience were encourage to learn more about various historical and modern cases of police corruption by scanning QR codes projected onto the set.</p>
<p>Walking out of The Storeroom, we found ourselves in a lovely cocktail bar with an amazing view. Of <em>course</em> we paid for a fancy drink while discussing the evening's entertainment. Most West End theatres shove you out into the cold night air as though you're a guest who has overstayed their welcome.</p>
<p>Stage door autographs have been a thing since time immemorial. Probably a bit annoying for the actors, but a huge part of building a post-show buzz for some people. There are shows which have a paid meet-and-greet option (which feels a little icky to me).</p>
<p>I've been to plenty of shows which have a Q&A with the cast and director afterwards. Again, not something which can be done every night, but a brilliant opportunity to reward people for coming.</p>
<p>Even Shakespeare used to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1B70P6pjT8">end his plays with a jig</a>.</p>
<p>The point is, a show can do <em>some</em> aftercare. A little something to keep the audience happy and engaged.</p>
<h2 id="post-post-show"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#post-post-show">Post-Post-Show</a></h2>
<p>The audience has gone home. Is that the end of the experience? Sending out a survey email or asking them to share their memories on social media is a pretty cheap (and lazy) option for a show. It doesn't do much for the audience though.</p>
<p>What about competitions? Can a show encourage the audience to enter a prize draw. Why not offer an upgraded seat at a discount for your next visit - as a little thank you for being a customer?</p>
<p>It beggars belief that most shows don't offer a "come back and bring a friend" offer.</p>
<p>After every roller-coaster ride, the theme park attempts to sell you a photo of you and your friends screaming. What's the equivalent for a theatrical show?</p>
<p>This doesn't have to be a full-on marketing assault. Just a little nudge to make the audience feel special and like they'd want to repeat the experience.</p>
<h2 id="is-all-this-really-necessary"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#is-all-this-really-necessary">Is all this really necessary?</a></h2>
<p>No.</p>
<p>If you think people are happy to spend £150 to sit in conditions worse than the nastiest budget airline, and that they're delighted to be screamed at by over-officious security guards, then you don't need to do any of this. Leave the theatre decorated in its faded glory with faded photos of faded stars. Over-charge for the drinks, pad the programme with adverts, and hope the audience don't reflect on whether they enjoyed the experience.</p>
<p>I'm not saying every show needs to be <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/08/secret-cinema-grease/">Secret Cinema's Grease</a>, but a little effort goes a long way.</p>
<p>Premium Netflix costs £19 per month. Find me a <em>single</em> ticket at the back of the gods which costs less than that! Even the last-minute seat filler shows I go to have trouble getting down to that level. Live performance <em>cannot compete on cost-per minute</em>. Instead, theatre has to play to its strengths.</p>
<ul>
<li>Live actors are there!</li>
<li>It's a communal experience!</li>
<li>Something unique happens every performance!</li>
<li>The building is interesting!</li>
<li>You can't distract yourself with your phone!</li>
<li>You can show your appreciation directly!</li>
<li>It's part of a night out!</li>
<li>The audience is an integral part of the experience!</li>
</ul>
<p>All theatre is immersive because you are <em>there</em> - with actual people in front of you. Theatre needs to capitalise on the fact that it is different to being sat at home watching the telly. And that means putting a little effort into treating the audience like valued guests rather than treating them like cattle.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Quick and dirty bar-charts using HTML's meter element]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/quick-and-dirty-bar-charts-using-htmls-meter-element/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63220</id>
<updated>2025-10-11T09:26:16Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-11T11:34:57Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="css"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="HTML"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA["If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid." I want to draw some vertical bar charts. I don't want to use a 3rd party library, or bundle someone else's CSS, or learn how to build SVGs. HTML contains a <meter> element. It is used like this: <meter min="0" max="4000" value="1234">1234</meter> Which looks like this: 1234 There isn't much you can do to style it. Browser manufacturers seem to …]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/quick-and-dirty-bar-charts-using-htmls-meter-element/"><![CDATA[<p>"If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid."</p>
<p>I want to draw some vertical bar charts. I don't want to use a 3rd party library, or bundle someone else's CSS, or learn how to build SVGs.</p>
<p>HTML contains a <code><meter></code> element. It is used like this:</p>
<pre><code class="language-html"><meter min="0" max="4000" value="1234">1234</meter>
</code></pre>
<p>Which looks like this: <meter min="0" max="4000" value="1234" style="border-radius:0 !important;">1234</meter></p>
<p>There isn't <em>much</em> you can do to style it. Browser manufacturers seem to have forgotten it exists and the CSS standard kind of ignores it.</p>
<p>It <em>is</em> possible to use CSS to rotate it using:</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">meter {
transform: rotate(-90deg);
}
</code></pre>
<p>But then you have to mess about with origins and the box model gets a bit confused.</p>
<p>See what <meter min="0" max="4000" value="1234" style="transform: rotate(-90deg);">1234</meter> I mean?</p>
<p>You can hack your way around that with <code><div></code>s and bludgeoning your layout into submission.</p>
<p>But that is a bit tedious.</p>
<p>Luckily, there's another way. As suggested by <a href="https://mastodon.social/@gundersen/115168958609140525">Marius Gundersen</a>, it's possible to set the <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/writing-mode">writing direction</a> of the element to be vertical.</p>
<p>That means you can have them "written" vertically, while having them laid out horizontally. Giving a nice(ish) bar-chart effect.</p>
<p><meter min="0" max="4000" value="1000" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">1000</meter><meter min="0" max="4000" value="2000" style="writing-mode: vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">2000</meter><meter min="0" max="4000" value="3000" style="writing-mode: vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">3000</meter><meter min="0" max="4000" value="4000" style="writing-mode: vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">4000</meter></p>
<p>As well as the normal sort of CSS spacing, there is basic colour support for values which are inside a specific range:</p>
<p><meter min="0" max="4000" value="1000" low="1000" high="400" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">1000</meter>
<meter min="0" max="4000" value="2000" low="2000" high="400" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">2000</meter>
<meter min="0" max="4000" value="3000" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">3000</meter>
<meter min="0" max="4000" value="4000" high="4000" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">4000</meter></p>
<p>The background colour can also be set.</p>
<p><meter min="0" max="4000" value="1000" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;background:red;">1000</meter></p>
<p>I dare say they're slightly more accessible than a raster image - even with good alt text. They can be targetted with JS, if you want to do fancy things with them.</p>
<p>Or, if you just want a quick and dirty bar-chart, they're basically fine.</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>5</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: The Breaking of Liam Glass by Charles Harris ★★★⯪☆]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-the-breaking-of-liam-glass-by-charles-harris/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63095</id>
<updated>2025-09-25T17:30:42Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-09T11:34:00Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This is a curious and mostly satisfying novel. It bills itself as a satire, but it is rather more cynical than that. A kid has been stabbed and the worst instincts of humanity descend. Race-baiting police, vote-grubbing politicians, and exploitative journalists. I can't comment on the accuracy of the satire of the press - but it feels real. It's full of the hungriest, nastiest people who will…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-the-breaking-of-liam-glass-by-charles-harris/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/liamglass.webp" alt="Book cover with a deflated football." width="256" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63097">
<p>This is a curious and mostly satisfying novel. It bills itself as a satire, but it is rather more cynical than that. A kid has been stabbed and the worst instincts of humanity descend. Race-baiting police, vote-grubbing politicians, and exploitative journalists.</p>
<p>I can't comment on the accuracy of the satire of the press - but it <em>feels</em> real. It's full of the hungriest, nastiest people who will step over anyone and cross any moral line in pursuit of a headline.</p>
<p>Similarly, the political commentary isn't exactly subtle - but it will raise your blood pressure.</p>
<p>Perhaps that's the aim of the book? The author is an equal opportunity cynic. Every paragraph is so wry that it can only have been written with a permanently raised eyebrow. You'll leave it frustrated and bitter.</p>
<p>There are no heroes in the story - just a series of increasingly desperate villains all trying to profit from a senseless tragedy - which makes for a difficult read at times.</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>0</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[How to *actually* test your readme]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=62224</id>
<updated>2025-10-07T10:28:12Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-07T11:34:08Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="developers"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Free Software"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="linux"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Open Source"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[If you've spent any time using Linux, you'll be used to installing software like this: The README says to download from this link. Huh, I'm not sure how to unarchive .tar.xz files - guess I'll search for that. Right, it says run setup.sh hmm, that doesn't work. Oh, I need to set the permissions. What was the chmod command again? OK, that's working. Wait, it needs sudo. Let me run that again.…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/"><![CDATA[<p>If you've spent any time using Linux, you'll be used to installing software like this:</p>
<blockquote><p>The README says to download from this link. Huh, I'm not sure how to unarchive .tar.xz files - guess I'll search for that. Right, it says run <code>setup.sh</code> hmm, that doesn't work. Oh, I need to set the permissions. What was the <code>chmod</code> command again? OK, that's working. Wait, it needs <code>sudo</code>. Let me run that again. Hang on, am I in the right directory? Here it goes. What, it crapped out. I don't have some random library - how the hell am I meant to install that? My distro has v21 but this requires <=19. Ah, I also need to upgrade something which isn't supplied by repo. Nearly there, just need to compile this obscure project from SourceForge which was inexplicably installed on the original dev's machine and then I'll be good to go. Nope. Better raise an issue on GitHub. Oh, look, it is tomorrow.</p></blockquote>
<p>As a developer, you probably don't want to answer dozens of tickets complaining that users are frustrated with your work. You thought you made the README really clear and - hey! - it works on your machine.</p>
<p>There are various solutions to this problem - developers can release AppImages, or Snaps, or FlatPaks, or Docker or whatever. But that's a bit of stretch for a solo dev who is slinging out a little tool that they coded in their spare time. And, even those don't always work as seamlessly as you'd hope.</p>
<p>There's an easier solution:</p>
<ol>
<li>Follow the steps in your README</li>
<li>See if they work.</li>
<li>…</li>
<li>That's it.</li>
</ol>
<p>OK, that's a bit reductive! There are a million variables which go into a test - so I'm going to introduce you to a secret <em>zeroth</em> step.</p>
<ol start="0">
<li>Spin up a fresh Virtual Machine with a recent-ish distro.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you are a developer, your machine probably has a billion weird configurations and obscure libraries installed on it - things which <em>definitely</em> aren't on your users' machines. Having a box-fresh VM means than you are starting with a blank-slate. If, when following your README, you discover that the app doesn't install because of a missing dependency, you can adjust your README to include <code>apt install whatever</code>.</p>
<h2 id="ok-but-how"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/#ok-but-how">OK, but how?</a></h2>
<p>Personally, I like <a href="https://flathub.org/apps/org.gnome.Boxes">Boxes</a> as it gives you a simple choice of VMs - but there are plenty of other Virtual Machine managers out there.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/OS-Selection.webp" alt="List of Linux OSes." width="801" height="728" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62227">
<p>Pick a standard OS that you like. I think the latest Ubuntu Server is pretty lightweight and is a good baseline for what people are likely to have. But feel free to pick something with a GUI or whatever suits your audience.</p>
<p>Once your VM is installed and set up for basic use, take a snapshot.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/revert.webp" alt="Pop up showing a snapshot of a virtual machine." width="692" height="628" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62228">
<p>Every time you want to test or re-test a README, revert back to the <em>original</em> state of your box. That way you won't have odd half-installed packages laying about.</p>
<p>Your next step is to think about how much hand-holding do you want to do?</p>
<p>For example, the default Debian doesn't ship with git. Does your README need to tell people to <code>sudo apt install git</code> and then walk them through configuring it so that they can <code>git clone</code> your repo?</p>
<p>Possibly! Who is your audience? If you've created a tool which is likely to be used by newbies who are just getting started with their first Raspberry Pi then, yeah, you probably will need to include that. Why? Because it will save you from receiving a lot of repeated questions and frustrated emails.</p>
<p>OK, but most developers will have <code>gcc</code> installed, right? Maybe! But it doesn't do any harm to include it in a long list of <code>apt get …</code> anyway, does it? Similarly, does everyone know how to upgrade to the very latest npm?</p>
<p>If your software is designed for people who are experienced computer touchers, don't fall into the trap of thinking that they know everything you do. I find it best to assume people are intelligent but not experienced; it doesn't hurt to give <em>slightly</em> too much detail.</p>
<p>The best way to do this is to record <em>everything</em> you do after logging into the blank VM.</p>
<ol start="0">
<li>Restore the snapshot.</li>
<li>Log in.</li>
<li>Run all the commands you need to get your software working.</li>
<li>Once done, run <code>history -w history.txt</code>
<ul>
<li>That will print out <em>every</em> command you ran.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Copy that text into your README.</li>
</ol>
<p>Hey presto! You now have README instructions which have been tested to work. Even on the most bare-bones machine, you can say that your README will allow the user to get started with your software with the minimum amount of head-scratching.</p>
<p>Now, this isn't foolproof. Maybe the user has an ancient operating system running on obsolete hardware which is constantly bombarded by cosmic rays. But at least this way your issues won't be clogged up by people saying their install failed because <code>lib-foobar</code> wasn't available or that <code>./configure</code> had fatal errors.</p>
<p>A great example is <a href="https://github.com/xiph/opus/blob/main/README">the Opus Codec README</a>. I went into a fresh Ubuntu machine, followed the readme, ran the above history command, and got this:</p>
<pre><code class="language-_">sudo apt-get install git autoconf automake libtool gcc make
git clone https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/opus.git
cd opus
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install
</code></pre>
<p>Everything worked! There was no missing step or having to dive into another README to figure out how to bind flarg 6.9 with schnorp-unstable.</p>
<p>So that's my plea to you, dear developer friend. Make sure your README contains both the necessary <em>and</em> sufficient information required to install your software. For your sake, as much as mine!</p>
<h2 id="wait-you-didnt-follow-your-own-advice"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/#wait-you-didnt-follow-your-own-advice">Wait! You didn't follow your own advice!</a></h2>
<p>You're quite right. Feel free to send a pull request to correct this post - as I shall be doing with any unhelpful READMEs I find along the way.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[You did no fact checking, and I must scream]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/i-have-no-facts-and-i-must-scream/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63643</id>
<updated>2025-10-06T09:56:50Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-05T11:34:23Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="fact check"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="fake news"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="newspapers"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="quote"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Social Media"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I'm neither a journalist nor a professional fact checker but, the thing is, it's has never been easier to check basic facts. Yeah, sure, there's a world of misinformation out there, but it doesn't take much effort to determine if something is likely to be true. There are brilliant tools like reverse Image Search which give you a good indicator of when an image first appeared on the web, and…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/i-have-no-facts-and-i-must-scream/"><![CDATA[<p>I'm neither a journalist nor a professional fact checker but, the thing is, it's has never been easier to check basic facts. Yeah, sure, there's a world of misinformation out there, but it doesn't take much effort to determine if something is likely to be true.</p>
<p>There are brilliant tools like <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/04/tools-to-defeat-fake-news-reverse-image-search/">reverse Image Search</a> which give you a good indicator of when an image first appeared on the web, and whether it was published by a reputable source.</p>
<p>You can <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/06/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-we-shouldnt-just-be-pulling-people-out-of-the-river-we-should-be-going-upstream-to-find-out-whos-pushing-them-in/">use Google Books to check whether a quote is true</a>.</p>
<p>You can use social-media searches to <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/01/no-oscar-wilde-did-not-say-imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery-that-mediocrity-can-pay-to-greatness/">easily check the origin of memes</a>.</p>
<p>There are <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/07/did-dvorak-die-a-bitter-man/">vast archives of printed material</a> to help you.</p>
<p>The World Wide Web has a million sites which allow you to <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/07/did-nikola-tesla-receive-nothing-but-insults-and-humiliation/">cross-reference any citations</a> to see if they're spurious.</p>
<p>Now, perhaps all that is a bit too much effort for someone casually doomscrolling and hitting "repost" for an instant dopamine hit. But it shouldn't be. And it <em>certainly</em> shouldn't be for people who write for trusted sources like newspapers.</p>
<p>Recently, the beloved actor Patricia Routledge died. Several newspapers reposted a piece of viral slop which <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3lwvalev4r22b">I had debunked a month previously</a>. Let's go through the piece and see just how easy it is to prove false.</p>
<p>Here's that "viral" story. I've kept to the parts which contain easily verifiable / falsifiable claims.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/turning-95.webp" alt="**“I’ll be turning 95 this coming Monday. In my younger years, I was often filled with worry — worry that I wasn’t quite good enough, that no one would cast me again, that I wouldn’t live up to my mother’s hopes. But these days begin in peace, and end in gratitude.”**" width="350" height="120" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63645">
<p>Wikpedia says that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Routledge">her birthday was 17 February 1929</a>. She would have turned 95 in 2024.</p>
<p>Open up your calendar app. Scroll back to February 2024. What date was 17 February 2024? Saturday. Not Monday.</p>
<p>Now, OK, maybe at 95 she's forgotten her birthday. What else does the rest of the piece say?</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/life.webp" alt="My life didn’t quite take shape until my forties. I had worked steadily — on provincial stages, in radio plays, in West End productions — but I often felt adrift, as though I was searching for a home within myself that I hadn’t quite found." width="350" height="100" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63646">
<p>In 1968, <a href="https://youtu.be/_e6_6pHKsQU?t=5382">Patricia Routledge won Best Actress (Musical) at the Tony Awards</a> - she was 39. I don't know if I'd consider appearing on Broadway as provincial stages.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/accepted.webp" alt="At 50, I accepted a television role that many would later associate me with — Hyacinth Bucket, of Keeping Up Appearances. I thought it would be a small part in a little series. I never imagined that it would take me into people’s living rooms and hearts around the world. And truthfully, that role taught me to accept my own quirks. It healed something in me." width="350" height="140" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63647">
<p><a href="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/579878/">Keeping Up Appearances was first broadcast in 1990</a>. Patricia was around 60, not 50, when she was cast.</p>
<p>While she may have thought it would only be a small series - even though it was by the creator of Open All Hours and Last of the Summer Wine - there's no way that being the lead character could be described as a "small part". She wasn't a breakout character - she was the star.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/shake.webp" alt="At 70, I returned to the Shakespearean stage — something I once believed I had aged out of. But this time, I had nothing to prove. I stood on those boards with stillness, and audiences felt that. I was no longer performing. I was simply being." width="350" height="100" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63648">
<p>Wikipedia isn't always accurate, but it <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Routledge#Stage">does list lots of her stage work</a>. She was working steadily on stage from 1999 - when she hit 70 - but none of it Shakespeare.</p>
<p>I was able to do that fact checking in 10 minutes while laying in bed waiting for the bathroom to become free. It wasn't onerous. It didn't require subscriptions to professional journals. I didn't need a team of fact-checkers. It took a bit of web-sleuthing and, dare I say it, a smidgen of common sense.</p>
<p>And yet, a couple of newspapers ran with this utter drivel as though it were the truth. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20251003145620/https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/tv/news/patricia-routledge-death-last-message-b2838736.html">The Independent</a> published it as part of their tribute - although they <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3m2cmhw7nmc2a">took the piece down after I emailed them</a>. Similarly <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/2100863/keeping-appearances-patricia-routledge-confession">The Express</a> ran it without any basic fact-checking (and <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3m2jdtg6xys22">didn't take it down</a> after being contacted).</p>
<p>Both of them say their primary source is the <a href="https://jayspeak.blog/2025/08/02/growing-oldoops-up/">"Jay Speak" blog</a>. There's nothing on that blog post to say that the author interviewed Patricia Routledge. A quick check of the other posts on the site don't make it obvious that it is a reputable source of exclusive interviews with notable actors.</p>
<p>The date on that blog post is August 2nd, 2025. Is there anything earlier? Typing a few of the phrases into a search engine found a bunch of posts which pre-date it. The earliest I can find was <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DMeyLa6oU8q/">this Instagram post</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/henk.benson/posts/pfbid02dWng6y7dpubTFSZuYavFYVdEfLuzcnvmqNnJuiAN693LfJLSNwHec8p7cSQasgdxl">this Facebook post</a> both from the <strong>24th of July</strong> - a week early than the Jay Speaks post.</p>
<p>To be clear, I don't think Jay Speaks was deliberately trying to fool journalists or hoax anyone. They simply saw an interesting looking post and re-shared it. I also suspect the Facebook and Instagram posts were copied from other sources - but I've been unable to find anything definitive.</p>
<p>I would expect that professional journalists at well-established newspapers to be able to call an actor's agent to fact-check a piece before running it. If they can't, I would have thought they'd do a cursory fact check.</p>
<p>But, no. I presume the rush to publish is so great that it over-rides any sense of whether a piece should be accurate.</p>
<p>This is irresponsible. Last week saw <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/jamesomalley.co.uk/post/3m2edtpdysc2u">the BBC air an outright lie on Have I Got News For You</a>. A professional TV company, with a budget for lawyers, fact checkers, and researchers - and they just broadcast easily disproven lies. Why? Maybe hubris, maybe laziness, maybe deliberate rabble-rousing.</p>
<p>The media have comprehensively failed us. They will repeat any tawdry nonsense as long as it keeps people clicking. It's up to us to defend ourselves and our friends against this unending tsunami of low-grade slurry.</p>
<p>I hope I've demonstrated that it takes almost no effort to perform a basic fact check. It isn't a professional skill. It doesn't require anything more than an Internet connection and a curious mind. If you see something online, take a moment to check it before sharing it.</p>
<p>Stopping misinformation starts with you.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Getting started with Mastodon's Quote Posts - technical implementation details for servers]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63527</id>
<updated>2025-10-03T15:06:55Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-03T11:34:27Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="ActivityPub"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="fediverse"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="mastodon"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="MastodonAPI"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Quoting posts on Mastodon is slightly complex. Because of the privacy conscious nature of the platform and its users, reposting isn't merely a case of sharing a URl. A user writes a status. The user can choose to make their statuses quotable or not. What happens when a quoter quotes that post? I've read through the specification and tried to simplify it. Quoting is a multi-step process: The…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/"><![CDATA[<p>Quoting posts on Mastodon is <em>slightly</em> complex. Because of the privacy conscious nature of the platform and its users, reposting isn't merely a case of sharing a URl.</p>
<p>A user writes a status. The user can choose to make their statuses quotable or not. What happens when a quoter quotes that post?</p>
<p>I've <a href="https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/044f/fep-044f.md">read through the specification</a> and tried to simplify it. Quoting is a multi-step process:</p>
<ol>
<li>The status <em>must</em> opt-in to being shared.</li>
<li>The quoter quotes the status.</li>
<li>The quoter's server sends a request to the status's server.</li>
<li>The status's server sends an accept message back to the quoter's server.</li>
<li>When other servers see the quote, they check with the status's server to see if it is allowed.</li>
</ol>
<p>I'm going to walk you through each stage as best as I understand them.</p>
<h2 id="opting-in"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#opting-in">Opting In</a></h2>
<p>An ActivityPub status message is JSON. In order to opt-in, it needs this additional field.</p>
<pre><code class="language-JSON">"interactionPolicy": {
"canQuote": {
"automaticApproval": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public"
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>That tells ActivityPub clients that anyone is allowed to quote this post. It is also possible to say that only specific users, or only followers, or no-one is allowed.</p>
<h2 id="the-quoterequest"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#the-quoterequest">The QuoteRequest</a></h2>
<p>Someone has hit the quote post button, typed their own message, and shared their wisdom. Their server sends the following message to the server which hosts the quoted status. This has been edited for brevity.</p>
<pre><code class="language-JSON">{
"@context": [
"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
{
"QuoteRequest": "https://w3id.org/fep/044f#QuoteRequest"
}
],
"type": "QuoteRequest",
"id": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/quote_requests/1234-5678-9101",
"actor": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent",
"object": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json",
"instrument": {
"id": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/statuses/123456789",
"url": "https://mastodon.test/@Edent/123456789",
"attributedTo": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent",
"quote": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json",
"_misskey_quote": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json",
"quoteUri": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json"
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>All this says is "I would like permission to quote you."</p>
<h2 id="the-stamp"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#the-stamp">The Stamp</a></h2>
<p>The quoted server needs to approve this quote. First, it generates a "stamp".</p>
<p>This is a file which lives on the quoted server. It is proof that the quote is allowed. If it is deleted, the quote permission is revoked. When the <a href="https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/quote-post-implementation-issues/8032/2?u=eden_t">stamp's ID is requested the stamp <em>must</em> be returned</a>.</p>
<pre><code class="language-JSON">{
"@context": [
"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
{
"gts": "https://gotosocial.org/ns#",
"QuoteAuthorization": {
"@id": "https://w3id.org/fep/044f#QuoteAuthorization",
"@type": "@id"
},
"interactingObject": {
"@id": "gts:interactingObject"
},
"interactionTarget": {
"@id": "gts:interactionTarget"
}
}
],
"type": "QuoteAuthorization",
"id": "https://example.com/quote-987654321.json",
"attributedTo": "https://example.com/users/username",
"interactionTarget": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json",
"interactingObject": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/statuses/123456789"
}
</code></pre>
<p>If the quoted status is viewed from a different server, that server will query the stamp to make sure the share is allowed.</p>
<h2 id="the-accept"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#the-accept">The Accept</a></h2>
<p>This is the message that the quoted server sends to the quoting server. It references the request and the stamp.</p>
<pre><code class="language-JSON">{
"@context": [
"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
{
"QuoteRequest": "https://w3id.org/fep/044f#QuoteRequest"
}
],
"type": "Accept",
"to": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent",
"id": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json",
"actor": "https://example.com/account",
"object": {
"type": "QuoteRequest",
"id": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/quote_requests/1234-5678-9101",
"actor": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent",
"instrument": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/statuses/123456789",
"object": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json"
},
"result": "https://example.com/quote-987654321.json"
}
</code></pre>
<p>The "result" <em>must</em> be the same as the stamp's URl.</p>
<h2 id="and-then"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#and-then">And then?</a></h2>
<p>You can follow and quote <a href="https://colours.bots.edent.tel/">@[email protected]</a> on your favourite Fediverse platform.</p>
<p>I've written an ActivityPub server in a single file which is designed to teach you have the protocol works. Have a play with <a href="https://gitlab.com/edent/activity-bot">ActivityBot</a>.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: Streaming Wars - How Getting Everything We Wanted Changed Entertainment Forever by Charlotte Henry ★★☆☆☆]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-streaming-wars-how-getting-everything-we-wanted-changed-entertainment-forever-by-charlotte-henry/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63503</id>
<updated>2025-10-01T16:51:02Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-01T11:34:54Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="iplayer"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Netflix"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="NetGalley"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This should be a fascinating look at how streaming services evolved and the outsized impact they've had on our culture. Instead it is mostly a series of re-written press-releases and recycled analysis from other people. Sadly, the book never dives in to the pre-history of streaming. There's a brief mention of RealPlayer - but nothing about the early experiments of livestreaming gigs and TV…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-streaming-wars-how-getting-everything-we-wanted-changed-entertainment-forever-by-charlotte-henry/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/cover719123-medium.png" alt="Book cover." width="255" height="391" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63514">
<p>This <em>should</em> be a fascinating look at how streaming services evolved and the outsized impact they've had on our culture. Instead it is mostly a series of re-written press-releases and recycled analysis from other people.</p>
<p>Sadly, the book never dives in to the pre-history of streaming. There's a brief mention of RealPlayer - but nothing about the early experiments of livestreaming gigs and TV over the Internet. Similarly, it ignores how Big Brother created a generation of people who wanted to stream on their phones. Early pioneers like JenniCam are written out of history. The book is relentlessly focussed on American streamers, with only a brief foray into the UK, Africa, and other markets. There's nothing about Project Kangaroo and how it squandered an early opportunity for streaming dominance.</p>
<p>Steaming only started with Netflix, according to this book. Despite iPlayer launching at roughly the same time, it doesn't make an appearance until halfway though the book. It's also missing some of the interesting aspects of how Netflix built its algorithm, and the privacy impacts of it.</p>
<p>The analysis itself mostly quotes from reports from Enders and other firms like that. It doesn't seem like there was any original research done, and there aren't any new interviews done for the book. Instead it is just a surface-level analysis mixed in with clichéd prose about boiling frogs. It's also fairly uncritical - several sections are just press-releases from big streaming services with little discussion about whether they're accurate. It almost turns into a corporate biography / hagiography rather than a serious look at streaming.</p>
<p>There's very little about the production side. For example, how <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-does-everything-on-netflix-look-like-that/">Netflix squashes cinematograph</a> and how its <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/cinematography/comments/16precd/whats_the_real_reason_netflix_shows_all_look_the/k1v88gd/">lack of permanent props storage</a> restricts accurate set-dressing to <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/07/stories-behind-stranger-things-retro-80s-props/">tent-pole shows</a>.</p>
<p>Although this is a preview copy, the prose feels half-baked.</p>
<blockquote><p>Overall, the iPlayer is a very high-quality product, providing access to both linear TV and a whole range of content in its extensive catalogue.</p></blockquote>
<p>That's the sort of thing I'd expect from a student essay rather than a serious book.</p>
<p>Unlike <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/03/book-review-warez-the-infrastructure-and-aesthetics-of-piracy-by-martin-paul-eve/">Warez - The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy by Martin Paul Eve</a>, there's almost nothing about piracy and how that drives the behaviour of consumers, producers, and distributors. There's a bit of discussion of Napster, but hardly anything about the more modern cultural impact.</p>
<p>It is maddeningly contradictory. In a couple of pages it goes from:</p>
<blockquote><p>Consequently, we are closer than we have ever been to having something like global TV. Close, but not actually there.</p></blockquote>
<p>To:</p>
<blockquote><p>because of the amount of work available to view, there is no mono-culture anymore.</p></blockquote>
<p>Which is it?</p>
<p>The book concludes by saying:</p>
<blockquote><p>With that in mind, the ultimate winner of the streaming wars is the consumer. It is us.</p></blockquote>
<p>Is it though? There's almost nothing about shows cancelled before they got going. Nothing about whether American cultural hegemony suffocates local media development. It briefly touches on the constant price rises, but never investigates whether it changes behaviours or if they drive customers away. There's not a single interview with viewers - and no attempt to understand whether they feel positive about the way streaming has changed the world.</p>
<p>There's a fascinating story to be told, but this isn't it.</p>
<p>Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy, the book is available to pre-order now.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Can you use GDPR to Circumvent BlueSky's Adult Content Blocks?]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/"/>
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=62143</id>
<updated>2025-09-30T12:01:46Z</updated>
<published>2025-09-29T11:34:27Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="BlueSky"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="gdpr"/>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="OnlineSafety"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[In the battle between the Online Safety Act and GDPR, who will win? FIGHT! I'll start by saying that I'm moderately positive on Online Safety. If services don't want to provide moderation then they shouldn't let their younger users be exposed to harm. The social network BlueSky has taken a pragmatic approach to this. If you don't want to verify your age, you can still use its services - but it…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/"><![CDATA[<p>In the battle between the Online Safety Act and GDPR, who will win? FIGHT!</p>
<p>I'll start by saying that I'm <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/12/food-safety-vs-online-safety/">moderately positive on Online Safety</a>. If services don't want to provide moderation then they shouldn't let their younger users be exposed to harm.</p>
<p>The social network BlueSky has taken a pragmatic approach to this. If you don't want to verify your age, you can still use its services - but <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3ltmzgl5h4c2k">it won't serve you porn or let people send you non-public messages</a>.</p>
<p>I think that's pretty reasonable. I don't use BSky to look at naked <del>mole rats</del> people, and I already have plenty of other messaging accounts. So I haven't verified my age.</p>
<p>There are two slight wrinkles with BSky's implementation. Firstly, there's no way to retrieve DMs which were sent before this restriction came into force. Oh, you can one-click export your data - but <a href="https://docs.bsky.app/blog/repo-export">it only includes <em>public</em> data</a>. So no DMs.</p>
<p>Secondly, you can't turn off DM from people who have previously messaged you. <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3luoqklgdhk27">I asked people to message me</a> to see if they got an error - but it looks like the messages just get silently accepted. I probably look a bit rude if I don't answer them.</p>
<p>Worse still, the DM notification keeps incrementing!</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Bluesky-DM-notification.webp" alt="A notification counter showing the number 3. The message next to it says I need to complete age assurance." width="932" height="401" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62145">
<p>It <em>is</em> possible to turn off DMs - but <a href="https://bsky.social/about/blog/05-22-2024-direct-messages">only if you can access your DM settings</a>. Which you can't if you haven't passed age assurance.</p>
<p>Well, what about GDPR?</p>
<p><a href="https://bsky.social/about/support/privacy-policy#personal-information-collect">BlueSky's privacy policy</a> has this to say about DMs:</p>
<blockquote><p>Your Direct Messages. We store and process your direct messages in order to enable you to communicate directly and privately with other users on the Bluesky App. These are unencrypted and can be accessed for Trust and Safety purposes.</p></blockquote>
<p>They go on to say that I may have the right to:</p>
<blockquote><p>Request Access to and Portability of Your Personal Information, including: (i) obtaining access to or a copy of your personal information; and (ii) receiving an electronic copy of personal information that you have provided to us, or asking us to send that information to another company in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format (also known as the “right of data portability”);</p></blockquote>
<p>So I sent off a Subject Access Request asking specifically for the Direct Messages sent to/from my account.</p>
<p>I was 100% sure that the messages I had sent were my personal data and should be returned to me. I wasn't sure if messages other people had sent to me could be considered personal data. But I figured that the OSA hadn't invalidated GDPR.</p>
<p>Here's what happened:</p>
<h2 id="timeline"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#timeline">Timeline</a></h2>
<ul>
<li>2025-07-24 - Sent request to their support desk and received an acknowledgement.
<ul>
<li>Response: "I've gone ahead and shared your request with our team and will follow up with you if any additional information or verification is needed."</li>
</ul></li>
<li>2025-07-31 - Sent a reminder to them.
<ul>
<li>Response: "We've escalated your concern to our developers and are still waiting for their response and confirmation. We'll get back as soon as we get this information."</li>
</ul></li>
<li>2025-08-25 - One month later sent an escalation to their legal team reminding them of their obligations.
<ul>
<li>Response: Asked to provide my country of residence and to prove my account ownership by send an email from the address associated with my BSky account.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>2025-09-05 - Sent yet another chaser.</li>
<li>2025-09-13 - Over seven weeks since the initial request. Told them that I wanted to know which data protection authority they were registered with so I could make a formal complaint.
<ul>
<li>Response: "Please be aware that we are currently in the process of making your data available for download. We will notify you as soon as it is ready."</li>
</ul></li>
<li>2025-09-22 - 8 weeks since the complaint was raised. Sent another chaser asking how long until my data would be ready to download.</li>
<li>2025-09-25 - After 64 days they sent me a CSV with my data!</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="result"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#result">Result</a></h2>
<p>Here's an extract of the CSV. I've lightly redacted the data, but you can see how JSON embedding works.</p>
<pre><code class="language-csv">convoId,sentAt,sender,contents
3kt6f7a2,2025-07-24 05:50:09.339+00,did:plc:pxy4cjqfu5aa6eadtx5,"{""text"": ""Testing testing""}"
3ku4lvbh,2024-06-04 18:17:52.414+00,did:plc:i6misxex577k4q6o7gl,"{""text"": ""Thought this might be up your alley. I've been to a few of them - pretty good crowd. thegeomob.com/post/july-3r..."", ""facets"": [{""index"": {""byteEnd"": 114, ""byteStart"": 85}, ""features"": [{""uri"": ""https://thegeomob.com/post/july-3rd-2024-geomoblon-details"", ""$type"": ""app.bsky.richtext.facet#link""}]}]}"
</code></pre>
<h2 id="thoughts"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#thoughts">Thoughts</a></h2>
<p>I didn't have to prove my age. I just proved account ownership and then politely but insistently asked for my data. Frankly, it is baffling that such a well-funded company takes this long to answer a simple request.</p>
<p>Does this expose a gaping whole in the idea of online safety?</p>
<p>No. Not really. I suppose that a theoretical abuser could send messages to a minor and then that minor could go through a Subject Access Request process to try and access them. But that all feels a bit far-fetched and is likely to draw attention to both parties.</p>
<h2 id="but-why-didnt-you-just"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#but-why-didnt-you-just">But why didn't you just…</a></h2>
<p>This was definitely "playing on hard mode". There were other ways to get my DMs. Here are some alternatives which I didn't try and <em>why</em> I didn't try them.</p>
<ul>
<li>Use a VPN to circumvent the geoblock.
<ul>
<li>Why should I have to pay for a VPN, or trust my browsing data to a dodgy 3rd party? I shouldn't have to install and configure software just to work around a crappy design decision.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Go through age verification.
<ul>
<li>I don't browse BlueSky for the "gentlemen's special interest" section. I already have lots of ways people can contact me. I'm not against a KYC process - but I simply don't need it.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Use a 3rd party client to download the data.
<ul>
<li>I don't trust my data with 3rd party apps, and neither should you!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Use <a href="https://docs.bsky.app/docs/api/chat-bsky-convo-get-messages">the API</a> to read DMs.
<ul>
<li>I wasn't sure if the API required age verification. And, frankly, I couldn't be faffed learning a brand new API.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Escalate straight to the CEO or via a friend who works there.
<ul>
<li>I like doing things the official way. Not everyone has a friend who works at BSky (thanks <REDACTED>!) and I feel it is better if legal teams get direct feedback from users; not management.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Ignore this and use a better social network.
<ul>
<li>I go where my friends are. I have lots of friends on Mastodon and other services. BSky is OK, but I'm only there for my friends. But, while they are there, I didn't want an obnoxious DM notification taunting me.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="next-steps"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#next-steps">Next Steps</a></h2>
<p>I've emailed BlueSky to ask them to completely disable my inbox and clear my notifications. We'll see how long that takes them!</p>
]]></content>
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<title type="text">Terence Eden’s Blog</title>
<subtitle type="text">Regular nonsense about tech and its effects 🙃</subtitle>
<updated>2025-11-02T20:34:40Z</updated>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" />
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<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: The Battle of the Beams by Tom Whipple ★★★★★]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/book-review-the-battle-of-the-beams-by-tom-whipple/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63079</id>
<updated>2025-09-25T10:06:25Z</updated>
<published>2025-11-05T12:34:48Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="history" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="WWII" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Well this is a treat! It is rare to find a pop-science book which does such a good job of actually explaining the science, rather than just using it as a background for storytelling. The Battle of Beams doesn't go too deep into the mechanics and physics, but gives a general overview with just enough detail to keep things interesting. It is also well illustrated (not a given in these sorts of…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/book-review-the-battle-of-the-beams-by-tom-whipple/"><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/9781473584204-jacket-large.webp" alt="Book cover featuring radio waves and fighter planes." width="321" height="500" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63081">
Well this is a <em>treat</em>! It is rare to find a pop-science book which does such a good job of actually explaining the science, rather than just using it as a background for storytelling. The Battle of Beams doesn't go <em>too</em> deep into the mechanics and physics, but gives a general overview with just enough detail to keep things interesting. It is also well illustrated (not a given in these sorts of books) which helps flesh out some of the trickier concepts.</p>
<p>How did radio-waves change the course of the war? Was RADAR solely the preserve of the British? What tactics were used to conceal developments? Was there an invisible war in the skies? Battle of the Beams takes a technical and social look at how physics became the forefront of attack and defence. It dives into the people who set their brains to work on the problem, and those who were determined to stop them.</p>
<p>The book honest about the problems of referencing contradictory source material. Some of the work published after the war is obviously biased towards the writer's personal successes - which don't always tally with reality. Similarly, there's a good overview of what <em>both</em> sides were doing in technology. We often only hear about ENIGMA and Britain's attempts to crack it - it's rare to read something from the other side. Here we get to experience both sides as they attempt to tame the radio waves, discover how they are being used against them, <em>and</em> the countermeasures both sides took.</p>
<p>The book is pacey and leaps back-and-forth across the channel, giving a real sense of drama to the sometimes baroque nature of physics research. There is a little touch of the "boys-own-adventure" what with daring fighter pilots and exciting raids - but it never strays into the hagiographic.</p>
<p>As ever with histories of the second World War, you're left wondering how it was the Allies succeeded. The book is full of infuriating little anecdotes like:</p>
<blockquote><p>The report was filed and then forgotten, seen by some officials, understood by fewer, and then left in the archives of Whitehall. Britain continued for at least a year to believe that it, alone, had mastered this new wonder weapon of radar.</p></blockquote>
<p>Similarly, a daring piece of espionage was fatally undermined when the defector was imprisoned and then:</p>
<blockquote><p>through an astonishing cock-up the film he had gone to so much trouble to smuggle in had been sent to be processed at the post office, and most of it had been destroyed.</p></blockquote>
<p>Gah!</p>
<p>Nevertheless, a fascinating look at how technology develops and how systems react to change.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Political Experiments]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/political-experiments/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64202</id>
<updated>2025-11-02T20:34:40Z</updated>
<published>2025-11-03T12:34:41Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="politics" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Many years ago, in another lifetime, I was presenting our team's work to a rather senior politician. Here's how I remember it: "We want to provide value for money," I said, "so we propose that running five small pilots of [thing I still can't talk about]. We know there are multiple technologies which could work. But we don't know which one will work best." "How will running something five times …]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/political-experiments/"><![CDATA[<p>Many years ago, in another lifetime, I was presenting our team's work to a <em>rather</em> senior politician. Here's how I remember it:</p>
<p>"We want to provide value for money," I said, "so we propose that running five small pilots of [thing I still can't talk about]. We know there are multiple technologies which <em>could</em> work. But we don't know which one will work best."</p>
<p>"How will running something five times save the taxpayer money?" They asked, quite reasonably.</p>
<p>I replied, somewhat smugly, "Big technology projects often fail because they get very far along before a critical flaw is discovered. If we run some pilot programmes, we hope to discover those problems before we go too far down the wrong path."</p>
<p>"But running five pilots will cost more money?" They replied, with a smugness born of a thousand encounters like this.</p>
<p>I had the uneasy feeling I knew where this was going. "Yes, in the short term, it will cost more."</p>
<p>"Why don't we just run the pilot with the technology which will work best?" They asked earnestly.</p>
<p>I had one of those "<a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3APassages_from_the_Life_of_a_Philosopher.djvu/83#:~:text=if%20you%20put%20into%20the%20machine%20wrong%20figures%2C%20will%20the%20right%20answers%20come%20out%3F">Pray Mr Babbage</a>" moments and took a moment to compose myself.</p>
<p>I gently explained that we wouldn't know in advance the results of the experiment and, without going too far into The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, falsifiable hypotheses were probably the best way to discover the truth.</p>
<p>Apparently their <abbr title="Philosophy, Politics, and Economics">PPE</abbr> degree was worthwhile because they accepted my arguments - albeit only with funding for 3 pilots.</p>
<p>From their point of view, it was perfectly rational to reject experimentation. Each failed experiment is a waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money. How do you look your constituents in the eye and say "80% of our budget was spent on failure"? It is political suicide.</p>
<p>Which leads me on to <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/opinion/article/ai-mark-taught-realities-new-technology">this <em>brilliant</em> blog post by Mark Sewards MP</a>. In it, the MP describes the process of setting up an "AI" counterpart to answer his constituents' questions.</p>
<p>So far, so zeitgeisty. But rather than just slap a label on an LLM and call it a day, the MP for Leeds South West and Morley actually spent time thinking about what he and his team wanted out of this experiment. They didn't just launch and bugger off; they tested and refined.</p>
<p>The experiment was a success. Not because it reduced his case-load and allowed a tech company to profit from misery. But because it taught him (and others) the limitations of technology. It shows exactly what <em>doesn't</em> work. If a person can't understand where the boundaries are, they'll never learn how to successfully master <em>anything</em>.</p>
<p>As Mark said:</p>
<blockquote><p>What didn’t it do? It didn’t save any time. I read every single transcript to ensure we didn’t miss any questions from constituents. I can see this technology working alongside a casework team, but it needs a lot of refinement. I took this leap to understand what AI might be capable of and what it isn’t yet. I understand why some dismissed the model out of hand, but I think the potential is real, even if that’s all it is for now – potential.</p></blockquote>
<p>Experimentation is hard because it leaves us vulnerable. It shows that we don't know everything and that humbles us. We need to loudly celebrate politicians who try something new and are honest about where it goes wrong.</p>
<p>There is so much more to be learned from failure than success.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: When We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamín Labatut ★★★★★]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/book-review-when-we-cease-to-understand-the-world-benjamin-labatut/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63474</id>
<updated>2025-09-21T20:52:52Z</updated>
<published>2025-11-01T12:34:19Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This is a stunning book. If some scientists and mathematicians have seen further than others, it is by standing on the mountains of madness. This straddles between being a faithful and fanciful biography of insanity. It is written like a hyperactive friend trying to show you how all the things in the universe connect with each other - while you slowly back away in terror. Are these ghost…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/book-review-when-we-cease-to-understand-the-world-benjamin-labatut/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/cease.webp" alt="Book cover with abstract art showing the centre of an atom." width="250" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63476">
<p>This is a stunning book.</p>
<p>If some scientists and mathematicians have seen further than others, it is by standing on the mountains of madness. This straddles between being a faithful and fanciful biography of insanity. It is written like a hyperactive friend trying to show you how all the things in the universe connect with each other - while you slowly back away in terror.</p>
<p>Are these ghost stories? Biographies dictated from beyond the grave? Counter-factual histories written to bemuse and confuse? These are the implausibly mystic crystal revelations that strain the boundary between realities.</p>
<p>Science <em>is</em> terrifying. It ought to be. It tells us that the world isn't quite what we thought it was. If you found out the secret to the universe, how would you react? In many ways, it remind me of Asimov's "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeds_There_a_Man...%3F">Breeds There A Man…?</a>".</p>
<p>The prose is sublime and the stories are haunting. Highly recommended!</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>2</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Gig Review: Meat Loaf by Candlelight ★★★★☆]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/gig-review-meat-loaf-by-candlelight/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64184</id>
<updated>2025-11-02T12:48:55Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-30T12:34:02Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="gig" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Theatre Review" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[The "…by Candlelight" concerts have a simple premise - come to a cathedral or church to hear top West End talent sing your favourite singer's songs, backed by a live band. This is a cut above your usual tribute act - they aren't trying to do impressions of the act, they're stamping their own energy onto beloved songs. It works! Mostly. This concert was in a West End theatre so the (electric) c…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/gig-review-meat-loaf-by-candlelight/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/meatloaf.webp" alt="Promotional poster for Meat Loaf." width="200" height="200" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-64185">
<p>The "<a href="https://concertsbycandlelight.com/">…by Candlelight</a>" concerts have a simple premise - come to a cathedral or church to hear top West End talent sing your favourite singer's songs, backed by a live band. This is a cut above your usual tribute act - they aren't trying to do impressions of the act, they're stamping their own energy onto beloved songs.</p>
<p>It works! Mostly. This concert was in a West End theatre so the (electric) candles were only on the stage. It perhaps wasn't as intimate as some of their other concerts. But, still, I was blown away by how powerful their voices were and how loud the band was.</p>
<p>The first half perhaps felt a little <em>too</em> polished - but the second was more raucous. Lots of encouragement to get up and dance, sing along, and snap photos.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Meat-Loaf-Concert.webp" alt="Four singers and a band surrounded by candles." width="1024" height="576" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-64186">
<p>All the hits were there - with the deepest cut being "<a href="https://jimsteinman.fandom.com/wiki/In_the_Land_of_the_Pig,_the_Butcher_Is_King">In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher Is King</a>" and the Jim Steinman penned "Total Eclipse of the Heart".</p>
<p>You're never going to be able to see Meat Loaf sing live (unless he returns from the dead as foretold in prophesy) but this is a good substitute. None of the singers could individually match his vocal ferocity - but when they come together it is a thing of joy.</p>
<p><a href="https://concertsbycandlelight.com/shows/meat-loaf-by-candlelight/">Meat Loaf by Candlelight is touring the UK now</a>.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[A Self-Hosted Favicon Proxy written in PHP]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63434</id>
<updated>2025-09-21T20:20:57Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-28T12:34:54Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="favicon" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="HowTo" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="HTML" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="php" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[In theory, you should be able to get the base favicon of any domain by calling /favicon.ico - but the reality is somewhat more complex than that. Plenty of sites use a wide variety of semi-standardised images which are usually only discoverable from the site's HTML. There are several services which allow you to get favicons based on a domain. But they all have their problems. Google Exposes…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/"><![CDATA[<p>In theory, you should be able to get the base favicon of any domain by calling <code>/favicon.ico</code> - but the reality is somewhat more complex than that. Plenty of sites use a wide variety of semi-standardised images which are usually only discoverable from the site's HTML.</p>
<p>There are several services which allow you to get favicons based on a domain. But they all have their problems.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=shkspr.mobi&sz=256">Google</a>
<ul>
<li>Exposes your user's to Google's tracking.</li>
<li>Relies on redirects.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://icons.duckduckgo.com/ip9/shkspr.mobi.ico">DuckDuckGo</a>
<ul>
<li>Not officially supported by DDG.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://favicon.is/shkspr.mobi">Favicon.is</a>
<ul>
<li>No privacy policy whatsoever.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://icon.horse/">Icons.horse</a>
<ul>
<li>Paid service.</li>
<li>Only small size icons.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://favicone.com/shkspr.mobi">Favicone</a>
<ul>
<li>No privacy policy.</li>
<li>Only small size icons.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<p>I want to show favicons next to specific links, but I don't want to expose my visitors to unnecessary tracking. How can I proxy these images so they are stored and served locally?</p>
<p>There are a few existing services. Some use <a href="https://github.com/seadfeng/favicons-proxy">Cloudflare workers</a> or other <a href="https://github.com/shaklain125/gicon">cloud services</a>, there are some local-first ones which are <a href="https://github.com/toolness/favicon-proxy">unmaintained</a>. But nothing modern, self-hosted, and as easy to deploy as uploading a single PHP file.</p>
<p>So here's my attempt to make something which will preserve user privacy, be reasonably fast, and have moderately up-to-date icons, while remaining fast and efficient.</p>
<p></p><nav role="doc-toc"><menu><li><h2 id="table-of-contents"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#table-of-contents">Table of Contents</a></h2><menu><li><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-domain">Getting the domain</a></li><li><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-image">Getting the image</a></li><li><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-structure-right">Getting the structure right</a></li><li><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#preventing-abuse">Preventing abuse</a></li><li><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#putting-it-all-together">Putting it all together</a></li></menu></li></menu></nav><p></p>
<h2 id="getting-the-domain"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-domain">Getting the domain</a></h2>
<p>Assuming the request comes in to <code>https://proxy.example.com/?domain=bbc.co.uk</code></p>
<p>PHP has a <a href="https://www.php.net/manual/en/filter.constants.php#constant.filter-validate-domain">handy <code>FILTER_VALIDATE_DOMAIN</code> filter</a> which will determine if the string is a domain.</p>
<pre><code class="language-php">filter_var( $domain, FILTER_VALIDATE_DOMAIN, FILTER_FLAG_HOSTNAME );
</code></pre>
<h3 id="dealing-with-idns"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#dealing-with-idns">Dealing with IDNs</a></h3>
<p>Some domains contain non-ASCII characters - for example <a href="https://莎士比亚.org/">https://莎士比亚.org/</a> - not all favicon services support International Domain Names.</p>
<p>Using <a href="https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.idn-to-ascii.php">the <code>idn_to_ascii()</code> function</a>, it is possible to get the Punycode domain.</p>
<pre><code class="language-php">$domain = idn_to_ascii("莎士比亚.org");
</code></pre>
<h2 id="getting-the-image"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-image">Getting the image</a></h2>
<ol>
<li>Check if the icon has previously been downloaded.</li>
<li>Rotate randomly between a few different Favicon services.</li>
<li>Download the icon.</li>
<li>Save it somewhere.</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="getting-the-structure-right"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-structure-right">Getting the structure right</a></h2>
<p>I know from my work on OpenBenches that storing tens of thousands of files in a single directory can be problematic. So I'll store the retrieved favicon in: <code>/tld/domain/subdomain/</code></p>
<p>That will make it quick to see if an icon exists. I'll save the file with a filename based on the current timestamp. That will allow me to check if an icon is out of date, and will prevent people downloading the icons directly from me.</p>
<h2 id="preventing-abuse"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#preventing-abuse">Preventing abuse</a></h2>
<p>I don't want anyone but visitors to my site to be able to use this service. So I'll add a (weak) check to see if the request came from my domain.</p>
<pre><code class="language-php">$referer = parse_url( $_SERVER["HTTP_REFERER"], PHP_URL_HOST );
if ( $referer == "shkspr.mobi") {
…
}
</code></pre>
<p>Some browsers may not send referers for privacy reasons. So they won't see the favicons. But they probably wouldn't have seen the images loaded from a 3<sup>rd</sup> party service. So I'll serve a default image.</p>
<h2 id="putting-it-all-together"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#putting-it-all-together">Putting it all together</a></h2>
<p>You can grab the code from <a href="https://git.edent.tel/edent/Favicon-Proxy-PHP">my personal git service</a>.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Movie Review: The Story of the Weeping Camel ★★★★★]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/movie-review-the-story-of-the-weeping-camel/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63140</id>
<updated>2025-10-26T13:10:08Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-26T14:34:35Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Movie Review" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Our friends Annie and Dave run the podcast "Will You Still Love It Tomorrow". The premise is great - take a film that you love but you haven't seen for ages, and see if it still holds up. They asked me and Liz to nominate a film to discuss with them. What's something that we loved but last saw 20ish years ago? We suggested The Story of the Weeping Camel. It is my go-to answer when someone asks …]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/movie-review-the-story-of-the-weeping-camel/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The_Story_of_the_Weeping_Camel.jpeg" alt="Film poster featuring a camel." width="218" height="320" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63142">
<p>Our friends Annie and Dave run the podcast "<a href="https://stillloveit.libsyn.com/">Will You Still Love It Tomorrow</a>". The premise is great - take a film that you love but you haven't seen for ages, and see if it still holds up.</p>
<p>They asked me and Liz to nominate a film to discuss with them. What's something that we loved but last saw 20ish years ago? We suggested The Story of the Weeping Camel. It is my go-to answer when someone asks me for my favourite film - it is sufficiently obscure to elicit further questions and sounds cool enough to make me seem interesting.</p>
<p>So we re-watched it in preparation for discussing it on the podcast. How did it hold up?</p>
<p>It is <em>still</em> my favourite foreign language movie. The story is simple and beautifully told. The cinematography is stunning. It is the perfect mix of heartbreaking and hopeful.</p>
<p>Weeping Camel is presented as a documentary - but it is rather closer to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanook_of_the_North">Nanook of the North</a>, mixing documentary and drama. At its heart is the story of motherly love. Deep in the Gobi desert, a camel has a difficult birth and rejects her colt. Can the Mongolian farmers help bring mother and child together?</p>
<p>One of the best aspects of the film is that it is 100% on the side of "show, don't tell". If this were a documentary, there would be pointless narration telling us what was going on. Instead, we're treated as grown-ups. We can plainly see the pain - we don't need it spelled out.</p>
<p>Similarly, the Mongolian language is barely translated. Do you <em>need</em> to know what is being sung as a lullaby to a sleeping (human) baby? No! You understand the context. Similarly, what are the grandparents chatting about while playing cards? It isn't important to the plot, they're just sharing their love for each other.</p>
<p>There's a tension at the core of the movie about the tug between tradition and modernity. The vast and empty vista with all its magnificent beauty holds no appeal to a kid who just wants to watch cartoons on TV. The family's traditions are noble and ancient - but they're all supplemented with modern technology.</p>
<p>Back when Russell T. Davies was pitching Doctor Who in 2005, he said "<a href="https://archive.org/details/doctor-who-magazine-special-editions/11.%20The%20Series%20One%20Companion/page/n37/mode/2up">If the Zogs on planet Zog are having trouble with the Zog-monster [...] who gives a toss?</a>" There's a limit to human empathy. Why should we care about creatures so different to us? The Story of the Weeping Camel shows how wrong Davies was. I don't mean to imply that the Mongolians are an alien species and that their concerns shouldn't bother us - but that with the right skill, it is possible to make humans care about the emotional difficulties of camels in a distant desert.</p>
<p>If you want a gentle, moving, and uplifting movie - I urge you to seek it out. It is a tragedy that the film isn't better known. It is unavailable on any streaming service that I can find. Despite being Oscar nominated, it hasn't be re-released in HD, but you can buy it on DVD.</p>
<p>You can <a href="https://stillloveit.libsyn.com/episode-107-the-story-of-the-weeping-camel">listen to "Will You Still Love It Tomorrow" wherever you get your podcasts</a>.</p>
<iframe title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/38782235/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" height="90" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen=""></iframe>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Alpha launch - .well-known/avatar - feedback wanted]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64078</id>
<updated>2025-10-25T20:13:42Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-25T11:34:10Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="IETF" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="ReDeCentralize" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="standards" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="web" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I've gotten sufficiently annoyed with a trivial problem that I'm preparing to write an IETF RFC. Yeah. That's how ticked off I am! Every site that I sign up for asks me to upload an avatar to represent myself. Whenever I change my photo, I have to log in to a hundred sites and change it there. Perhaps they could all use Gravatar - but that's a centralised service and doesn't work with wildcard…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/"><![CDATA[<p>I've gotten sufficiently annoyed with a trivial problem that I'm preparing to write an IETF RFC. Yeah. That's how ticked off I am!</p>
<p>Every site that I sign up for asks me to upload an avatar to represent myself. Whenever I change my photo, I have to log in to a hundred sites and change it there<sup id="fnref:ok"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fn:ok" class="footnote-ref" title="OK, I don't have to. But I want to. I dislike having last year's photo cluttering some half-remembered social network." role="doc-noteref">0</a></sup>.</p>
<p>Perhaps they could all use <a href="https://gravatar.com/">Gravatar</a> - but that's a centralised service<sup id="fnref:boo"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fn:boo" class="footnote-ref" title="We live in the redecentralised future now!" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup> and doesn't work with wildcard email addresses. <a href="https://libravatar.org/">Libravatar</a> also relies on email addresses and requires implementers to set up new DNS entries.</p>
<p>So I'm proposing <code>.well-known/avatar</code>. Here's how it works (for now). I'd like your feedback before going further<sup id="fnref:slow"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fn:slow" class="footnote-ref" title="I wrote about this in 2004 and in 2020. It takes me time, but I get there eventually!" role="doc-noteref">2</a></sup>.</p>
<p>I sign up to a service and use the email address <code>[email protected]</code>.</p>
<p>The service looks up my avatar using a well-known path. For example, request <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:[email protected]">https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:[email protected]</a> and you'll get back this JSON:</p>
<pre><code class="language-json">{
"subject": "acct:[email protected]",
"links": [
{
"rel": "http:\/\/webfinger.net\/rel\/avatar",
"type": "image\/webp",
"href": "https:\/\/shkspr.mobi\/.well-known\/avatar\/avatar-1024.webp",
"sizes": "1024x1024"
},
{
"rel": "http:\/\/webfinger.net\/rel\/avatar",
"type": "image\/jpeg",
"href": "https:\/\/shkspr.mobi\/.well-known\/avatar\/avatar-512.jpg",
"sizes": "512x512"
}
]
}
</code></pre>
<p>That's a slightly enhanced <a href="https://webfinger.net/rel/#avatar">https://webfinger.net/rel/#avatar</a> which adds <a href="https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/semantics.html#attr-link-sizes">a <code>sizes</code> parameter</a>. The service can then pick the appropriate MIME and size.</p>
<p>Alternatively, you can request the same URl but with a header of <code>Accept: image/gif</code> and receive the default sized avatar in that specific format.</p>
<p>Try it by running:</p>
<pre><code class="language-bash">curl -H "Accept: image/avif" https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar/ --output "test.avif"
</code></pre>
<p>You should receive an auto-converted version of my avatar.</p>
<h2 id="some-thoughts"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#some-thoughts">Some Thoughts</a></h2>
<p>Please add your thoughts to the comments box. Here's some feedback I've received so far.</p>
<p>Perhaps this is too complicated? What's wrong with just serving up an image when the URl is requested? That would make it easier for static sites.</p>
<div class="activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card"> <img class="u-photo" src="https://cdn.fosstodon.org/accounts/avatars/000/061/904/original/5e6ac0188b3ab021.png" alt=""> <div class="activitypub-embed-header-text"> <h2 class="p-name" id="simon-josefsson"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#simon-josefsson">Simon Josefsson</a></h2> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/users/jas" class="ap-account u-url">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-content"> <div class="ap-subtitle p-summary e-content"><p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@Edent" class="u-url mention">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> Thinking about this, while I like content negotiation as a clever hack, I wonder if maybe it isn’t too clever. The nice thing with WKD is that you can deploy it with any normal static HTTP file without any special magic. Maybe the protocol could be dumbed down to simply rely on WKD-style URLs? I’m not sure how to configure my web server (Apache) for your avatar well known URL with negotiation magic.</p></div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-meta"> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/users/jas/statuses/115424507307729006" class="ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to">2025-10-23, 16:50</a> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>0</strong> boosts </span> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>1</strong> favorites </span> </div> </div>
<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>
<p>What about a size parameter?</p>
<div class="activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card"> <img class="u-photo" src="https://mastocdn.talking.dev/accounts/avatars/106/551/937/719/290/584/original/733b34a017037146.jpg" alt=""> <div class="activitypub-embed-header-text"> <h2 class="p-name" id="chip"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#chip">Chip</a></h2> <a href="https://talking.dev/users/chip" class="ap-account u-url">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-content"> <div class="ap-subtitle p-summary e-content"><p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@Edent" class="u-url mention">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> It'd be nice if the query could limit the size of the avatar being returned. If only there were `Accept-Max-Size`, but maybe a query param? I wouldn't want my performance taking a dive if Alice has a 35M avatar that my client starts downloading. If my client had requested with `max_size=3072` I'd rather not see the avatar than degrade performance/pull excess data</p></div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-meta"> <a href="https://talking.dev/users/chip/statuses/115424082361331622" class="ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to">2025-10-23, 15:02</a> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>0</strong> boosts </span> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>1</strong> favorites </span> </div> </div>
<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>
<p>Will anyone actually use it?</p>
<div class="activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card"> <img class="u-photo" src="https://fedi.splitbrain.org/fileserver/013DGS4XRNRZTWPDP5Q2MKSHZR/attachment/original/01JNBFPHNR06RXDG36V0VM7D3V.jpeg" alt=""> <div class="activitypub-embed-header-text"> <h2 class="p-name" id="andreas-gohr"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#andreas-gohr">Andreas Gohr</a></h2> <a href="https://fedi.splitbrain.org/users/splitbrain" class="ap-account u-url">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-content"> <div class="ap-subtitle p-summary e-content"><p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@Edent" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> good luck with getting the hundreds of services to implement it. I mean it. it would be awesome and you might be well connected enough to make it happen.</p></div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-meta"> <a href="https://fedi.splitbrain.org/users/splitbrain/statuses/01K88SH504PEK5X8C6MSXRY0YH" class="ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to">2025-10-23, 15:03</a> </div> </div>
<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>
<p>What about hashing the email?</p>
<div class="activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card"> <img class="u-photo" src="https://media.social.lol/accounts/avatars/111/559/923/870/165/558/original/5c1a92fdf91205a8.png" alt=""> <div class="activitypub-embed-header-text"> <h2 class="p-name" id="david-bushell-%f0%9f%8e%ae"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#david-bushell-%f0%9f%8e%ae">David Bushell 🎮</a></h2> <a href="https://social.lol/users/db" class="ap-account u-url">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-content"> <div class="ap-subtitle p-summary e-content"><p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@Edent" class="u-url mention">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> would using a hash of the email address in its place improve privacy? 🤔</p></div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-meta"> <a href="https://social.lol/users/db/statuses/115434663342778931" class="ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to">2025-10-25, 11:52</a> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>0</strong> boosts </span> <span class="ap-stat"> <strong>0</strong> favorites </span> </div> </div>
<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>
<p>You've already given the service your email address, and your domain already knows your account name - so there's no privacy leak here. Obviously, a service shouldn't hotlink to your avatar image.</p>
<p>How about DNS?</p>
<blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:en7czkhogfoggztn3newgk3u/app.bsky.feed.post/3m3zdjv7vcs2v" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreibp7hypzhpjiwairnihopr47fdifwasluludaxobybpnna3jcupzu"><p lang="en">I like it. Is there an argument that service / endpoint should be specifiable at the DNS level?As others in your comments pointed out, if your site is currently just static, some users might prefer to run an entirely separate dedicated avatar service.</p>— <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:en7czkhogfoggztn3newgk3u?ref_src=embed">Emily Shepherd (@emi.ly)</a> <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:en7czkhogfoggztn3newgk3u/post/3m3zdjv7vcs2v?ref_src=embed">2025-10-25T11:57:43.456Z</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Personally, I think that's a bit complicated, but I'm happy to be convinced.</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/ox.ca/post/3m3zkrun4j22b">Is this restricted to email?</a></p></blockquote>
<p>No! For example, if you know my GitHub username then you should be able to get the avatar from <code>https://github.com/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:edent</code></p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://mechadarwin.com/2025/10/25/well-known-avatar-location/">How can a service tell if the avatar has been updated</a>?</p></blockquote>
<p>Perhaps a hash, timestamp, or something else?</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@gumnos/115436604786371047">Can requests for multiple accounts be sent at once?</a></p></blockquote>
<p>I'm not sure how / if WebFinger handles this. I suppose there ought to be some limit to avoid overwhelming a server.</p>
<h2 id="proposal"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#proposal">Proposal</a></h2>
<p>I think the default should be to return an image.</p>
<p>If an accept of <code>image/…</code> is requested, the server should try to return an image in that format.</p>
<p>If an accept of <code>application/json</code> or similar is requested, the server should return a JSON document listing the available avatars.</p>
<p>I don't think a <code>?size=</code> GET parameter is necessary; services can resize once they've downloaded, or use the JSON document to get the right size.</p>
<p>A limited amount of alt text could be added using <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7033#section-4.4.4.4">the title attribute</a> in the JSON.</p>
<p>Before I start writing up anything formal - I'd love your constructive criticism on this.</p>
<div id="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<hr>
<ol start="0">
<li id="fn:ok">
<p>OK, I don't <em>have</em> to. But I <em>want</em> to. I dislike having last year's photo cluttering some half-remembered social network. <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fnref:ok" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:boo">
<p>We live in the redecentralised future now! <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fnref:boo" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:slow">
<p>I wrote about this in <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/03/well-known-avatar/">2004</a> and in <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/03/one-avatar-to-rule-them-all/">2020</a>. It takes me time, but I get there eventually! <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fnref:slow" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: A Quest for God and Spices by Dean Cycon ★★☆☆☆]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-a-quest-for-god-and-spices-by-dean-cycon/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64049</id>
<updated>2025-10-23T08:49:06Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-23T11:34:44Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="NetGalley" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Brother Mauro, an older monk, and Nicolo, a young, striving merchant are called by the Pope to traverse the treacherous political, religious, and mercantile terrain of medieval Europe and the Byzantine Empire to seek out the powerful Presbyter John, a mysterious king in the Far East who has promised to put his wealth and vast armies to the service of the pope's crusade. I don't understand why…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-a-quest-for-god-and-spices-by-dean-cycon/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/A-Quest-for-God-and-Spices-cover.webp" alt="Book cover with an illustrated map." width="200" height="282" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-64051">
<blockquote><p>Brother Mauro, an older monk, and Nicolo, a young, striving merchant are called by the Pope to traverse the treacherous political, religious, and mercantile terrain of medieval Europe and the Byzantine Empire to seek out the powerful Presbyter John, a mysterious king in the Far East who has promised to put his wealth and vast armies to the service of the pope's crusade.</p></blockquote>
<p>I don't understand why all books nowadays have to be an epic trilogy. There's a perfectly decent story in here - but it is padded out to the point of flabbiness. The dialogue veers between trite and didactic. At times it feels like the author has rummaged around Wikipedia for contemporaneous famous people and thrown them in to the story without any particular reason.</p>
<p>Similarly, lots of the scene setting feels like a needless history lesson, inserted just to bring up the word-count.</p>
<blockquote><p>He was joined by a thin, muscular young man who played an oud, the Arabic stringed instrument that French crusaders had recently brought to Europe under the name l’oud and were now calling the “lute.”</p></blockquote>
<p>I loved the idea of a super-smeller going on a journey to find the source of the expensive spices which were entering Europe. A quest of a befuddled monk to reunite the various strands of Christendom also makes for a rich tale. But mashed together - and interspersed with treacherous kings, scheming Popes, and duplicitous pirates - it loses all coherence.</p>
<p>Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Getting started with simple CSS View Transitions]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-simple-css-view-transitions/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64009</id>
<updated>2025-10-18T22:41:02Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-21T11:34:07Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="css" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="HTML" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Web Development" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="webdev" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[There's (yet another) new piece of CSS to learn! Hurrah! Way back in 2011, jQuery mobile introduced the web to page-change animations. Clicking on a link would make your high-tech Nokia display a cool page-flip as you navigated from one page of a website to another. Just like an app!!!! A decade-and-a-half later, and CSS has caught up (mostly). No more JavaScript, just spec-compliant CSS. Well, …]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-simple-css-view-transitions/"><![CDATA[<p>There's (yet another) new piece of CSS to learn! Hurrah!</p>
<p>Way back in 2011, <a href="https://demos.jquerymobile.com/1.1.0/docs/pages/page-transitions.html">jQuery mobile introduced the web to page-change animations</a>. Clicking on a link would make your high-tech Nokia display a cool page-flip as you navigated from one page of a website to another. Just like an app!!!!</p>
<p>A decade-and-a-half later, and CSS has caught up (mostly). No more JavaScript, just spec-compliant CSS. Well, as long as you're using Chrome or Safari. Here's a quick quick MVP which will add some fancy animations as people browse your website.</p>
<p>Every page which wants animations has to "opt in". That means you need this:</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">@view-transition {
navigation: auto;
}
</code></pre>
<p>Next, you'll probably want to define some animations. Here are two I use:</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">@keyframes slide-in {
from {
translate: 100vw 0;
}
}
@keyframes fade-out {
to {
opacity: 0;
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>Any standard CSS animation will work. Get creative!</p>
<p>Which elements do you want to animate? I'm just going to do the whole page.</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">html {
view-transition-name: page;
}
</code></pre>
<p>If you have a fancy app-like site, you might only want to animate specific parts of it.</p>
<p>While the page is transitioning, you can have something in the background to prevent things looking odd.</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">::view-transition {
background: black;
}
</code></pre>
<p>That's optional, but rather useful.</p>
<p>Next, we have to assign the animations to specific events. Here, I have the old page fade out and the new page slide in.</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">::view-transition-old(page) {
animation-name: fade-out;
animation-duration: 1s;
}
::view-transition-new(page) {
animation-name: slide-in;
animation-duration: 1s;
}
</code></pre>
<p>You can set the duration to whatever makes sense for your page and animation style.</p>
<p>Finally, and this is <strong>important</strong>, some people find animations painful or discombobulating. Make sure the animations are turned off for those who don't like them.</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
::view-transition-group(page) {
animation-duration: 0s;
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>And that's it! A couple of dozen lines of CSS and you've got started with view transitions.</p>
<p>For more information, you can <a href="https://view-transitions.chrome.dev/">see the Chrome Devs' demo page</a>, or take a read of <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/View_Transition_API">the MDN documentation</a>. There's also a <a href="https://drafts.csswg.org/css-view-transitions-2/">full spec document</a> if you like that sort of thing.</p>
<p>Right, I'm off to create some delightful animations!</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Improving PixelMelt's Kindle Web Deobfuscator]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64017</id>
<updated>2025-10-19T09:35:02Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-19T11:34:37Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Amazon" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="drm" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="ebooks" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="kindle" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="python" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[A few days ago, someone called PixelMelt published a way for Amazon's customers to download their purchased books without DRM. Well… sort of. In their post "How I Reversed Amazon's Kindle Web Obfuscation Because Their App Sucked" they describe the process of spoofing a web browser, downloading a bunch of JSON files, reconstructing the obfuscated SVGs used to draw individual letters, and running O…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/"><![CDATA[<p>A few days ago, someone called PixelMelt published a way for Amazon's customers to download their purchased books without DRM. Well… <em>sort of</em>.</p>
<p>In their post "<a href="https://blog.pixelmelt.dev/kindle-web-drm/">How I Reversed Amazon's Kindle Web Obfuscation Because Their App Sucked</a>" they describe the process of spoofing a web browser, downloading a bunch of JSON files, reconstructing the obfuscated SVGs used to draw individual letters, and running OCR on them to extract text.</p>
<p>There were a few problems with this approach.</p>
<p>Firstly, the downloader was hard-coded to only work with the .com site. That fix was simple - do a search and replace on <code>amazon.com</code> with <code>amazon.co.uk</code>. Easy!</p>
<p>But the harder problem was with the OCR. The code was designed to visually centre each extracted glyph. That gives a nice amount of whitespace around the character which makes it easier for OCR to run. The only problem is that some characters are ambiguous when centred:</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/centred-fs8.png" alt="Several letters drawn with vertical centering." width="1134" height="177" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-64025">
<p>When I ran the code, lots of full-stops became midpoints, commas became apostrophes, and various other characters went a bit wonky.</p>
<p>That made the output rather hard to read. This was compounded by the way line-breaks were treated. Modern eBooks are designed to be reflowable - no matter the size of your screen, lines should only break on a new paragraph. This had forced linebreaks at the end of every displayed line - rather than at the end of a paragraph.</p>
<p>So I decided to fix it.</p>
<h2 id="a-new-approach"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#a-new-approach">A New Approach</a></h2>
<p>I decided that OCRing an entire page would yield better results than single characters. I was (mostly) right. Here's what a typical page looks like after de-obfuscation and reconstruction:</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/sample-page.webp" alt="A page of text." width="500" height="800" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-64027">
<p>As you can see - the typesetting is good for the body text, but skew-whiff for the title. Bold and italics are preserved. There are no links or images.</p>
<p>Here's how I did it.</p>
<h3 id="extract-the-characters"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#extract-the-characters">Extract the characters</a></h3>
<p>As in the original code, I took the SVG path of the character and rendered it as a monochrome PNG. Rather than centring the glyph, I used the height and width provided in the <code>glyphs.json</code> file. That gave me a directory full of individual letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and ligatures. These were named by fontKey (bold, italic, normal, etc).</p>
<h3 id="create-a-blank-page"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#create-a-blank-page">Create a blank page</a></h3>
<p>The <code>page_data_0_4.json</code> has a width and height of the page. I created a white PNG with the same dimensions. The individual characters could then be placed on that.</p>
<h3 id="resize-the-characters"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#resize-the-characters">Resize the characters</a></h3>
<p>In the <code>page_data_0_4.json</code> each run of text has a fontKey - which allows the correct glyph to be selected. There's also a <code>fontSize</code> parameter. Most text seems to be (the ludicrously precise) <code>19.800001</code>. If a font had a different size, I temporarily scaled the glyph in proportion to 19.8.</p>
<p>Each glyph has an associated <code>xPosition</code>, along with a <code>transform</code> which gives X and Y offsets. That allows for indenting and other text layouts.</p>
<p>The characters were then pasted on to the blank page.</p>
<p>Once every character from that page had been extracted, resized, and placed - the page was saved as a monochrome PNG.</p>
<h3 id="ocr-the-page"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#ocr-the-page">OCR the page</a></h3>
<p><a href="https://tesseract-ocr.github.io/tessdoc/">Tesseract 5</a> is a fast, modern, and <em>reasonably</em> accurate OCR engine for Linux.</p>
<p>Running <code>tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng</code> produced a .txt file with all the text extracted.</p>
<p>For a more useful HTML style layout, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOCR">hOCR output</a> can be used: <code>tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng hocr</code></p>
<p>Or, a PDF with embedded text: <code>tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng pdf</code></p>
<h3 id="mistakes"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#mistakes">Mistakes</a></h3>
<p>OCR isn't infallible. Even with a high resolution image and a clear font, there were some errors.</p>
<ul>
<li>Superscript numerals for footnotes were often missing from the OCR.</li>
<li>Words can run together even if they are well spaced.</li>
<li>Tesseract can recognise bold and italic characters - but it outputs everything as plain text.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="whats-missing"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#whats-missing">What's missing?</a></h2>
<p>Images aren't downloaded. I took a brief look and, while there are links to them in the metadata, they're downloaded as encrypted blobs. I'm not clever enough to do anything with them.</p>
<p>The OCR can't pick out semantic meaning. Chapter headings and footnotes are rendered the same way as text.</p>
<p>Layout is flat. The image of the page might have an indent, but the outputted text won't.</p>
<h2 id="whats-next"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#whats-next">What's next?</a></h2>
<p>This is very far from perfect. It can give you a visually <em>similar</em> layout to a book you have purchased from Amazon. But it won't be reflowable.</p>
<p>The text will be <em>reasonably</em> accurate. But there will be plenty of mistakes.</p>
<p>You can get an HTML layout with hOCR. But it will be missing formatting and links.</p>
<p>Processing all the JSON files and OCRing all the images is <em>relatively</em> quick. But tweaking and assembling is still fairly manual.</p>
<p>There's nothing particularly clever about what I've done. The original code didn't come with an open source software licence, so I am unable to share my changes - but any moderately competent programmer could recreate this.</p>
<p>Personally, I've just stopped buying books from Amazon. I find that <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/02/automatic-kobo-and-kindle-ebook-arbitrage/">Kobo is often cheaper</a> and their DRM is easy to bypass. But if you have many books trapped in Amazon - or a book is only published there - this is a barely adequate way to liberate it for your personal use.</p>
]]></content>
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<thr:total>5</thr:total>
</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Was my website mentioned in a GitHub issue?]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63352</id>
<updated>2025-09-14T20:37:17Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-17T11:34:51Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="blog" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="github" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This is a quick GitHub action to get alerted every time your website is mentioned in a GitHub issue. Doing it manually You can search GitHub for a URl, and sort the results with the newest first, like this: https://github.com/search?q=%22shkspr.mobi%22&type=issues&s=created&o=desc Using the API GitHub has a fairly straightforward API - although it uses slightly different parameters. …]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/"><![CDATA[<p>This is a quick GitHub action to get alerted every time your website is mentioned in a GitHub issue.</p>
<h2 id="doing-it-manually"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/#doing-it-manually">Doing it manually</a></h2>
<p>You can search GitHub for a URl, and sort the results with the newest first, like this:</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/search?q=%22shkspr.mobi%22&type=issues&s=created&o=desc">https://github.com/search?q=%22shkspr.mobi%22&type=issues&s=created&o=desc</a></p>
<h2 id="using-the-api"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/#using-the-api">Using the API</a></h2>
<p>GitHub has a <a href="https://api.github.com/">fairly straightforward API</a> - although it uses slightly different parameters.</p>
<p><a href="https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=shkspr.mobi&sort=created&order=desc">https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=shkspr.mobi&sort=created&order=desc</a></p>
<p>That will return a bunch of <code>items</code>. Here's the 29th. I've truncated it down to only what is necessary for our purposes:</p>
<pre><code class="language-json">{
"html_url": "https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-webfinger/issues/29",
"id": 3286159033,
"number": 29,
"title": "Tracking support for non-ascii characters",
"user": {
"login": "evanp",
},
"created_at": "2025-08-02T17:52:46Z",
"updated_at": "2025-08-02T18:50:27Z",
"body": "One of the benefits of using Webfinger is that it's […]"
}
</code></pre>
<h2 id="action"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/#action">Action</a></h2>
<p>I'm not very good at creating actions. But this should:</p>
<ol>
<li>Search GitHub for mentions of your URl.</li>
<li>Store the results.</li>
<li>If there is a new entry - open a new issue describing it.</li>
</ol>
<p>You will need to set your repository to private in order to not spam other repos. You will also need to go to your repo settings and give the action write permissions. You'll also need a Personal Access Token with sufficient permissions to write to your repo. I bloody hate actions. YAML? Eugh!</p>
<pre><code class="language-yaml">name: API Issue Watcher
on:
schedule:
- cron: '*/59 * * * *'
permissions:
issues: write
contents: write
jobs:
watch-and-create:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout repository
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Restore latest seen ID
id: cache-latest
uses: actions/cache@v4
with:
path: .github/latest_seen.txt
key: latest-seen-1
restore-keys: |
latest-seen-
- name: Fetch latest item from API
id: fetch
run: |
curl -s 'https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=EXAMPLE.COM&s=created&order=desc' > result.json
jq -r '.items[0].id' result.json > latest_id.txt
jq -r '.items[0].title' result.json > latest_title.txt
jq -r '.items[0].html_url' result.json > latest_url.txt
jq -r '.items[0].body // ""' result.json > latest_body.txt
- name: Compare with previous run
id: check
run: |
NEW_ID=$(cat latest_id.txt)
OLD_ID=$(cat .github/latest_seen.txt 2>/dev/null || echo "")
echo "NEW_ID=$NEW_ID" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
echo "OLD_ID=$OLD_ID" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
if [ "$NEW_ID" != "$OLD_ID" ]; then
echo "NEW_ITEM=true" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
else
echo "NEW_ITEM=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
fi
- name: Open new issue if new item found
if: steps.check.outputs.NEW_ITEM == 'true'
uses: actions/github-script@v7
with:
github-token: ${{ secrets.MY_PAT }}
script: |
const fs = require('fs');
const title = fs.readFileSync('latest_title.txt', 'utf8').trim();
const url = fs.readFileSync('latest_url.txt', 'utf8').trim();
const body = fs.readFileSync('latest_body.txt', 'utf8').trim();
await github.rest.issues.create({
owner: context.repo.owner,
repo: context.repo.repo,
title: `[API] ${title}`,
body: `Found new item: [${title}](${url})\n\n${body}`
});
- name: Update latest seen ID
if: steps.check.outputs.NEW_ITEM == 'true'
run: |
mkdir -p .github
cp latest_id.txt .github/latest_seen.txt
- name: Save cache
uses: actions/cache@v4
with:
path: .github/latest_seen.txt
key: latest-seen-1
restore-keys: |
latest-seen-
</code></pre>
<p>This is probably all kinds of wrong. If you know how to improve it, please let me know!</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: The Anarchy - The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple ★★★★☆]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-the-anarchy-the-relentless-rise-of-the-east-india-company-by-william-dalrymple/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63916</id>
<updated>2025-10-12T13:53:39Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-15T11:34:11Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="history" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This is a marvellous and depressing book. Marvellous because it finely details the history, atrocities, and geopolitical strife of unfettered capitalism. Depressing for much the same reason. Dalrymple takes the thousand different strands of the story and weaves them into a (mostly) comprehensible narrative. With this many moving parts, it is easy to get confused between the various people,…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-the-anarchy-the-relentless-rise-of-the-east-india-company-by-william-dalrymple/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/9781408864401.webp" alt="Book cover for The Anarchy. An illustration of four Indian soldiers in European dress." width="200" height="307" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63918">
<p>This is a marvellous and depressing book. Marvellous because it finely details the history, atrocities, and geopolitical strife of unfettered capitalism. Depressing for much the same reason.</p>
<p>Dalrymple takes the thousand different strands of the story and weaves them into a (mostly) comprehensible narrative. With this many moving parts, it is easy to get confused between the various people, places, companies, and loyalties. Your eReader's dictionary will have a good workout as you try to decipher the various calques and loanwords.</p>
<p>It is more nuanced than I expected. Rather than just an unending parade of awfulness, it does dive in to the various attempts to reign in the terror and promote peaceful trade. These nearly always failed. Similarly, there were individual acts of kindness and honour which, nevertheless, cannot begin to make up for the exploitation.</p>
<p>The one question it doesn't (and possibly can't) answer is "what would India have been like without the EIC?" Obviously the company was hugely disruptive and extracted vast amounts of wealth - but the history of <em>every</em> continent shows internecine warfare whenever a ruler dies. A constant theme of the book is "Almost immediately, the court disintegrated into rival factions" The bloody battles between the various states, despots, kings, and tyrants would have eventually occurred. The French - and other colonisers - would have also rampaged through the nation. This isn't to excuse the EIC, and almost everything they did was inexcusable, but rather to say they probably weren't <em>uniquely</em> awful in the atrocities they committed.</p>
<p>We see the rapacious nature of megacorporations today. While few have a standing army, they are all dedicated to usurping authority and plundering resources. The Anarchy describes how the Company whispered in the ears of leaders, promised them the world, and then cruelly turned on them. Again, a depressing reflection of our own times.</p>
<p>Notable by their absence are women. There are an endless assortment of unnamed dancing girls and courtesans, but the only named women are the (mostly British) wives in the background and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum_Samru">Begum Samru</a>. There's also only a brief mention of the other geopolitical impacts the EIC had. For example, I had no idea that the tea from the eponymous Boston Tea Party was supplied by the EIC.</p>
<p>I don't understand why publishers pretend eBooks have the same limitations as their paper counterparts. The paper book puts all the illustrations at the end - presumably to save money. But this book would have benefited from interspersing the portraits with the text. Similarly, a map or two wouldn't have gone amiss to help the reader visualise the tangled path the various armies took.</p>
<p>The books is disturbing and upsetting, but a vital read for anyone who wants to understand a key point in the world's history. If only we could learn from it, eh?</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Every Theatre Show is "Immersive"]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=62544</id>
<updated>2025-10-13T13:21:47Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-13T11:34:49Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="theatre" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I go to see a lot of theatrical productions. While most shows are good, the audience experience is usually dreadful. I'm not just talking about cramped seats and disgusting toilets (although they play a part) but that theatres haven't cottoned on to the idea that theatre is an immersive experience which can't be replicated by watching Netflix. There's an excellent article in The Stage about the…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/"><![CDATA[<p>I go to see <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/theatre-review/">a lot of theatrical productions</a>. While most shows are good, the audience experience is usually dreadful. I'm not just talking about cramped seats and disgusting toilets (although they play a part) but that theatres haven't cottoned on to the idea that theatre is an immersive experience which can't be replicated by watching Netflix.</p>
<p>There's an excellent article in The Stage about <a href="https://www.thestage.co.uk/long-reads/is-the-immersive-sector-experiencing-growing-pains-punchdrunk-secret-cinema">the growth and pain-points of immersive shows</a> (free registration required to read).</p>
<blockquote><p>One thing that most creators agree on is that while the word immersive remains the most accurate umbrella term, it is largely functionally meaningless. The sense is that it will have to do as there is not currently a better one. “The word ‘immersive’is one that we have to continue to own,” says Matt Costain of Secret Cinema. “Because I think the fad of calling everything immersive will pass, but it’s a broad church. I went to an immersive art exhibition and what are they supposed to call it? They have as much right to it as I have.”</p></blockquote>
<p>The idea of an "immersive" performance is somewhat nebulous. Sitting passively in a theatre is not immersive - but what about a self-guided tour of an art gallery? You can make the case for pantomime being immersive (oh no you can't!) - but it isn't in the same league as <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/02/review-phantom-peak-jonacon-london-2025/">Phantom Peak</a>.</p>
<p>In an article about the immersive Elvis show, Amanda Parker succinctly describes what audience expects:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/is-the-immersive-sector-all-shook-up-amanda-parker-elvis-evolution">The whole point of immersive theatre is the blurring of boundaries.</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Live performance is expensive. A single ticket to a 90 minute show can cost more than an entire year of Netflix. A drink before the show and an ice-cream in the interval is the same cost as a month of Disney+! Audiences want blurred boundaries, but they also want value for money. I don't think it takes much money or effort for <em>any</em> show to become more immersive.</p>
<p>Here's my 6-point guide to making <em>any</em> theatrical experience more immersive and more entertaining for the audience.</p>
<h2 id="pre-pre-show"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#pre-pre-show">Pre-Pre-Show</a></h2>
<p>Even <em>before</em> booking, there's a chance for a show to be immersive. Most shows have trailers on YouTube - but are the characters on social media? Where are the opportunities to learn about the costume designer's vision (outside a one-paragraph entry in an expensive programme)?</p>
<p>Once booked, there are some brilliant opportunities for pre-pre show immersion. Emails shouldn't be the usual hectoring affair of reminding people to be on time; they should build a sense of excitement. What makes the paying customer feel like they're going on an adventure?</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, when schools booked group tickets for the 1990s run of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", they were sent colouring-in packs or some activity worksheets (it was a <em>long</em> time ago and my memory is hazy). What can a theatre do to make its paying customers <em>excited</em> about making the trip outside to sit in an unfamiliar building?</p>
<h2 id="pre-show"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#pre-show">Pre-Show</a></h2>
<p>This is probably the easiest one to get right, and the one which most shows fail at. Decorate the venue. That's it. It is that simple. It costs next to nothing to put up posters on the walls, or fun little Easter-Eggs on the back of toilet doors, or to have a themed cocktail menu. The Stranger Things show does this brilliantly - there are lots of little clues dotted around the show in the form of newspaper clippings and yearbook pages.</p>
<p>Shows like <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/06/theatre-review-just-for-one-day/">Just For One Day</a> had "selfie pods". Big posters which let audience members take cool looking selfies with the stars of the show. The guest gets a fun memento, the show gets free advertising.</p>
<p>You can go further and have the cast play with the audience. When I saw "Cats" in New York, some of the actors were roaming the stalls - fighting, stealing licks of ice-creams, miaowing at each other. It was brilliant to watch and got the audience in the mood.</p>
<p>More recently, The Play That Goes Wrong has the on-stage crew setting up the stage while the audience enters. It's pre-show which rewards early attendance - it gets people rushing back to the bar to drag their friends in. It <em>feels</em> improvised and rewards returning guests.</p>
<p>You can spend time in the <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/04/theatre-review-cabaret-at-the-kitkat-club/">KitKat Club before the start of Cabaret</a>. A seedy underbelly with bored dancers and sweaty patrons. A brilliant way immerse the audience before the show. (<a href="https://technokitten.blogspot.com/2024/12/on-art-of-pre-show-and-post-show.html">Although not everyone agrees</a>.)</p>
<p><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/06/theatre-review-operation-mincemeat/">Operation Mincemeat</a> has an online pub-quiz for audience members. Sit and chat about what you think the answers are, try to get on the leaderboard, see if it motivates you to learn more about the real history of the operation.</p>
<p>A bunch of theatres offer "<a href="https://officiallondontheatre.com/access/touch-tours/">Touch Tours</a>" for visually impaired visitors. They get to come on stage and feel the set, have it described to them, so that they can get more immersed in the performance without constantly trying to guess the layout of the set. The stage magicians Penn and Teller invite members of the audience onto the stage before the performance so they can check for hidden wires and other trickery. That's probably not possible for <em>every</em> show - but can be sympathetically integrated into some.</p>
<h2 id="show"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#show">Show</a></h2>
<p>I'll defer this to the director! It's up to them whether they want to make use of the audience! I've been to operas where the lead performer appeared at the back of the stalls singing to his love on stage. Confetti falls into the auditorium with regular abundance.</p>
<p>It doesn't suit every show, of course, but there are a dozen little tweaks which can remind the audience that this is a high-quality experience worth paying for. That this is something they simply can't get by watching TV.</p>
<h2 id="the-interval"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#the-interval">The Interval</a></h2>
<p>The interval isn't just a chance to go for a piss and an over-priced drink. It's an opportunity to reflect on what you've seen, discuss what you think will happen, <em>and</em> stretch your legs.</p>
<p>All of the pre-show decoration is available to browse again - but is there anything else to do?</p>
<p>At a performance of Misalliance, a character hides himself in a portable Turkish bath at the end of Act 1. Throughout the interval, the audience were encouraged to follow the character on social media. He sent messages about his predicament and replied to people who interacted with him.</p>
<p>During the interval of a schools' performance of <i lang="it">La bohème</i>, the curtain was raised so that we could see the hard work which went into changing all the sets around. Is that suitable for every show? Probably not. Does it interfere with the fire curtain? Maybe. Was it a fascinating look literally behind the scenes? Absolutely!</p>
<p>Although I hated <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/03/theatre-review-murder-trial-tonight-ii-aldwych-theatre/">Murder Trial Tonight</a>, it used the interval to encourage audience members to discuss the case laid before them. It's high-risk to get a reserved British audience to talk to strangers, but it can pay dividends.</p>
<h2 id="post-show"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#post-show">Post-Show</a></h2>
<p>The audience have risen to their feet in applause. Perhaps the lead actor (the one from that TV show you like) gives a short, heartfelt speech thanking everyone for coming out and encouraging them to tell their friends about the show.</p>
<p>What next?</p>
<p>Musicals often go with an encore where they specifically encourage the audience to take photos and sing along. Hey! You're part of the show! You'll probably never watch that video again, but you'll get the joy of communal singing and will feel like you're contributing.</p>
<p>As we left Just For One Day, we were handed commemorative leaflets which turned out to be discount vouchers. A little memento <em>and</em> a way to get repeat custom!</p>
<p>At the end of <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/07/theatre-review-accidental-death-of-an-anarchist/">Accidental Death of an Anarchist</a>, the audience were encourage to learn more about various historical and modern cases of police corruption by scanning QR codes projected onto the set.</p>
<p>Walking out of The Storeroom, we found ourselves in a lovely cocktail bar with an amazing view. Of <em>course</em> we paid for a fancy drink while discussing the evening's entertainment. Most West End theatres shove you out into the cold night air as though you're a guest who has overstayed their welcome.</p>
<p>Stage door autographs have been a thing since time immemorial. Probably a bit annoying for the actors, but a huge part of building a post-show buzz for some people. There are shows which have a paid meet-and-greet option (which feels a little icky to me).</p>
<p>I've been to plenty of shows which have a Q&A with the cast and director afterwards. Again, not something which can be done every night, but a brilliant opportunity to reward people for coming.</p>
<p>Even Shakespeare used to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1B70P6pjT8">end his plays with a jig</a>.</p>
<p>The point is, a show can do <em>some</em> aftercare. A little something to keep the audience happy and engaged.</p>
<h2 id="post-post-show"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#post-post-show">Post-Post-Show</a></h2>
<p>The audience has gone home. Is that the end of the experience? Sending out a survey email or asking them to share their memories on social media is a pretty cheap (and lazy) option for a show. It doesn't do much for the audience though.</p>
<p>What about competitions? Can a show encourage the audience to enter a prize draw. Why not offer an upgraded seat at a discount for your next visit - as a little thank you for being a customer?</p>
<p>It beggars belief that most shows don't offer a "come back and bring a friend" offer.</p>
<p>After every roller-coaster ride, the theme park attempts to sell you a photo of you and your friends screaming. What's the equivalent for a theatrical show?</p>
<p>This doesn't have to be a full-on marketing assault. Just a little nudge to make the audience feel special and like they'd want to repeat the experience.</p>
<h2 id="is-all-this-really-necessary"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#is-all-this-really-necessary">Is all this really necessary?</a></h2>
<p>No.</p>
<p>If you think people are happy to spend £150 to sit in conditions worse than the nastiest budget airline, and that they're delighted to be screamed at by over-officious security guards, then you don't need to do any of this. Leave the theatre decorated in its faded glory with faded photos of faded stars. Over-charge for the drinks, pad the programme with adverts, and hope the audience don't reflect on whether they enjoyed the experience.</p>
<p>I'm not saying every show needs to be <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/08/secret-cinema-grease/">Secret Cinema's Grease</a>, but a little effort goes a long way.</p>
<p>Premium Netflix costs £19 per month. Find me a <em>single</em> ticket at the back of the gods which costs less than that! Even the last-minute seat filler shows I go to have trouble getting down to that level. Live performance <em>cannot compete on cost-per minute</em>. Instead, theatre has to play to its strengths.</p>
<ul>
<li>Live actors are there!</li>
<li>It's a communal experience!</li>
<li>Something unique happens every performance!</li>
<li>The building is interesting!</li>
<li>You can't distract yourself with your phone!</li>
<li>You can show your appreciation directly!</li>
<li>It's part of a night out!</li>
<li>The audience is an integral part of the experience!</li>
</ul>
<p>All theatre is immersive because you are <em>there</em> - with actual people in front of you. Theatre needs to capitalise on the fact that it is different to being sat at home watching the telly. And that means putting a little effort into treating the audience like valued guests rather than treating them like cattle.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Quick and dirty bar-charts using HTML's meter element]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/quick-and-dirty-bar-charts-using-htmls-meter-element/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63220</id>
<updated>2025-10-11T09:26:16Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-11T11:34:57Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="css" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="HTML" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA["If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid." I want to draw some vertical bar charts. I don't want to use a 3rd party library, or bundle someone else's CSS, or learn how to build SVGs. HTML contains a <meter> element. It is used like this: <meter min="0" max="4000" value="1234">1234</meter> Which looks like this: 1234 There isn't much you can do to style it. Browser manufacturers seem to …]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/quick-and-dirty-bar-charts-using-htmls-meter-element/"><![CDATA[<p>"If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid."</p>
<p>I want to draw some vertical bar charts. I don't want to use a 3rd party library, or bundle someone else's CSS, or learn how to build SVGs.</p>
<p>HTML contains a <code><meter></code> element. It is used like this:</p>
<pre><code class="language-html"><meter min="0" max="4000" value="1234">1234</meter>
</code></pre>
<p>Which looks like this: <meter min="0" max="4000" value="1234" style="border-radius:0 !important;">1234</meter></p>
<p>There isn't <em>much</em> you can do to style it. Browser manufacturers seem to have forgotten it exists and the CSS standard kind of ignores it.</p>
<p>It <em>is</em> possible to use CSS to rotate it using:</p>
<pre><code class="language-css">meter {
transform: rotate(-90deg);
}
</code></pre>
<p>But then you have to mess about with origins and the box model gets a bit confused.</p>
<p>See what <meter min="0" max="4000" value="1234" style="transform: rotate(-90deg);">1234</meter> I mean?</p>
<p>You can hack your way around that with <code><div></code>s and bludgeoning your layout into submission.</p>
<p>But that is a bit tedious.</p>
<p>Luckily, there's another way. As suggested by <a href="https://mastodon.social/@gundersen/115168958609140525">Marius Gundersen</a>, it's possible to set the <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/writing-mode">writing direction</a> of the element to be vertical.</p>
<p>That means you can have them "written" vertically, while having them laid out horizontally. Giving a nice(ish) bar-chart effect.</p>
<p><meter min="0" max="4000" value="1000" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">1000</meter><meter min="0" max="4000" value="2000" style="writing-mode: vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">2000</meter><meter min="0" max="4000" value="3000" style="writing-mode: vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">3000</meter><meter min="0" max="4000" value="4000" style="writing-mode: vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">4000</meter></p>
<p>As well as the normal sort of CSS spacing, there is basic colour support for values which are inside a specific range:</p>
<p><meter min="0" max="4000" value="1000" low="1000" high="400" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">1000</meter>
<meter min="0" max="4000" value="2000" low="2000" high="400" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">2000</meter>
<meter min="0" max="4000" value="3000" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">3000</meter>
<meter min="0" max="4000" value="4000" high="4000" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;">4000</meter></p>
<p>The background colour can also be set.</p>
<p><meter min="0" max="4000" value="1000" style="writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;background:red;">1000</meter></p>
<p>I dare say they're slightly more accessible than a raster image - even with good alt text. They can be targetted with JS, if you want to do fancy things with them.</p>
<p>Or, if you just want a quick and dirty bar-chart, they're basically fine.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: The Breaking of Liam Glass by Charles Harris ★★★⯪☆]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-the-breaking-of-liam-glass-by-charles-harris/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63095</id>
<updated>2025-09-25T17:30:42Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-09T11:34:00Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This is a curious and mostly satisfying novel. It bills itself as a satire, but it is rather more cynical than that. A kid has been stabbed and the worst instincts of humanity descend. Race-baiting police, vote-grubbing politicians, and exploitative journalists. I can't comment on the accuracy of the satire of the press - but it feels real. It's full of the hungriest, nastiest people who will…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-the-breaking-of-liam-glass-by-charles-harris/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/liamglass.webp" alt="Book cover with a deflated football." width="256" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63097">
<p>This is a curious and mostly satisfying novel. It bills itself as a satire, but it is rather more cynical than that. A kid has been stabbed and the worst instincts of humanity descend. Race-baiting police, vote-grubbing politicians, and exploitative journalists.</p>
<p>I can't comment on the accuracy of the satire of the press - but it <em>feels</em> real. It's full of the hungriest, nastiest people who will step over anyone and cross any moral line in pursuit of a headline.</p>
<p>Similarly, the political commentary isn't exactly subtle - but it will raise your blood pressure.</p>
<p>Perhaps that's the aim of the book? The author is an equal opportunity cynic. Every paragraph is so wry that it can only have been written with a permanently raised eyebrow. You'll leave it frustrated and bitter.</p>
<p>There are no heroes in the story - just a series of increasingly desperate villains all trying to profit from a senseless tragedy - which makes for a difficult read at times.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[How to *actually* test your readme]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=62224</id>
<updated>2025-10-07T10:28:12Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-07T11:34:08Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="developers" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Free Software" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="linux" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Open Source" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[If you've spent any time using Linux, you'll be used to installing software like this: The README says to download from this link. Huh, I'm not sure how to unarchive .tar.xz files - guess I'll search for that. Right, it says run setup.sh hmm, that doesn't work. Oh, I need to set the permissions. What was the chmod command again? OK, that's working. Wait, it needs sudo. Let me run that again.…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/"><![CDATA[<p>If you've spent any time using Linux, you'll be used to installing software like this:</p>
<blockquote><p>The README says to download from this link. Huh, I'm not sure how to unarchive .tar.xz files - guess I'll search for that. Right, it says run <code>setup.sh</code> hmm, that doesn't work. Oh, I need to set the permissions. What was the <code>chmod</code> command again? OK, that's working. Wait, it needs <code>sudo</code>. Let me run that again. Hang on, am I in the right directory? Here it goes. What, it crapped out. I don't have some random library - how the hell am I meant to install that? My distro has v21 but this requires <=19. Ah, I also need to upgrade something which isn't supplied by repo. Nearly there, just need to compile this obscure project from SourceForge which was inexplicably installed on the original dev's machine and then I'll be good to go. Nope. Better raise an issue on GitHub. Oh, look, it is tomorrow.</p></blockquote>
<p>As a developer, you probably don't want to answer dozens of tickets complaining that users are frustrated with your work. You thought you made the README really clear and - hey! - it works on your machine.</p>
<p>There are various solutions to this problem - developers can release AppImages, or Snaps, or FlatPaks, or Docker or whatever. But that's a bit of stretch for a solo dev who is slinging out a little tool that they coded in their spare time. And, even those don't always work as seamlessly as you'd hope.</p>
<p>There's an easier solution:</p>
<ol>
<li>Follow the steps in your README</li>
<li>See if they work.</li>
<li>…</li>
<li>That's it.</li>
</ol>
<p>OK, that's a bit reductive! There are a million variables which go into a test - so I'm going to introduce you to a secret <em>zeroth</em> step.</p>
<ol start="0">
<li>Spin up a fresh Virtual Machine with a recent-ish distro.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you are a developer, your machine probably has a billion weird configurations and obscure libraries installed on it - things which <em>definitely</em> aren't on your users' machines. Having a box-fresh VM means than you are starting with a blank-slate. If, when following your README, you discover that the app doesn't install because of a missing dependency, you can adjust your README to include <code>apt install whatever</code>.</p>
<h2 id="ok-but-how"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/#ok-but-how">OK, but how?</a></h2>
<p>Personally, I like <a href="https://flathub.org/apps/org.gnome.Boxes">Boxes</a> as it gives you a simple choice of VMs - but there are plenty of other Virtual Machine managers out there.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/OS-Selection.webp" alt="List of Linux OSes." width="801" height="728" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62227">
<p>Pick a standard OS that you like. I think the latest Ubuntu Server is pretty lightweight and is a good baseline for what people are likely to have. But feel free to pick something with a GUI or whatever suits your audience.</p>
<p>Once your VM is installed and set up for basic use, take a snapshot.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/revert.webp" alt="Pop up showing a snapshot of a virtual machine." width="692" height="628" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62228">
<p>Every time you want to test or re-test a README, revert back to the <em>original</em> state of your box. That way you won't have odd half-installed packages laying about.</p>
<p>Your next step is to think about how much hand-holding do you want to do?</p>
<p>For example, the default Debian doesn't ship with git. Does your README need to tell people to <code>sudo apt install git</code> and then walk them through configuring it so that they can <code>git clone</code> your repo?</p>
<p>Possibly! Who is your audience? If you've created a tool which is likely to be used by newbies who are just getting started with their first Raspberry Pi then, yeah, you probably will need to include that. Why? Because it will save you from receiving a lot of repeated questions and frustrated emails.</p>
<p>OK, but most developers will have <code>gcc</code> installed, right? Maybe! But it doesn't do any harm to include it in a long list of <code>apt get …</code> anyway, does it? Similarly, does everyone know how to upgrade to the very latest npm?</p>
<p>If your software is designed for people who are experienced computer touchers, don't fall into the trap of thinking that they know everything you do. I find it best to assume people are intelligent but not experienced; it doesn't hurt to give <em>slightly</em> too much detail.</p>
<p>The best way to do this is to record <em>everything</em> you do after logging into the blank VM.</p>
<ol start="0">
<li>Restore the snapshot.</li>
<li>Log in.</li>
<li>Run all the commands you need to get your software working.</li>
<li>Once done, run <code>history -w history.txt</code>
<ul>
<li>That will print out <em>every</em> command you ran.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Copy that text into your README.</li>
</ol>
<p>Hey presto! You now have README instructions which have been tested to work. Even on the most bare-bones machine, you can say that your README will allow the user to get started with your software with the minimum amount of head-scratching.</p>
<p>Now, this isn't foolproof. Maybe the user has an ancient operating system running on obsolete hardware which is constantly bombarded by cosmic rays. But at least this way your issues won't be clogged up by people saying their install failed because <code>lib-foobar</code> wasn't available or that <code>./configure</code> had fatal errors.</p>
<p>A great example is <a href="https://github.com/xiph/opus/blob/main/README">the Opus Codec README</a>. I went into a fresh Ubuntu machine, followed the readme, ran the above history command, and got this:</p>
<pre><code class="language-_">sudo apt-get install git autoconf automake libtool gcc make
git clone https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/opus.git
cd opus
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install
</code></pre>
<p>Everything worked! There was no missing step or having to dive into another README to figure out how to bind flarg 6.9 with schnorp-unstable.</p>
<p>So that's my plea to you, dear developer friend. Make sure your README contains both the necessary <em>and</em> sufficient information required to install your software. For your sake, as much as mine!</p>
<h2 id="wait-you-didnt-follow-your-own-advice"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/#wait-you-didnt-follow-your-own-advice">Wait! You didn't follow your own advice!</a></h2>
<p>You're quite right. Feel free to send a pull request to correct this post - as I shall be doing with any unhelpful READMEs I find along the way.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[You did no fact checking, and I must scream]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/i-have-no-facts-and-i-must-scream/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63643</id>
<updated>2025-10-06T09:56:50Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-05T11:34:23Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="fact check" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="fake news" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="newspapers" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="quote" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Social Media" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I'm neither a journalist nor a professional fact checker but, the thing is, it's has never been easier to check basic facts. Yeah, sure, there's a world of misinformation out there, but it doesn't take much effort to determine if something is likely to be true. There are brilliant tools like reverse Image Search which give you a good indicator of when an image first appeared on the web, and…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/i-have-no-facts-and-i-must-scream/"><![CDATA[<p>I'm neither a journalist nor a professional fact checker but, the thing is, it's has never been easier to check basic facts. Yeah, sure, there's a world of misinformation out there, but it doesn't take much effort to determine if something is likely to be true.</p>
<p>There are brilliant tools like <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/04/tools-to-defeat-fake-news-reverse-image-search/">reverse Image Search</a> which give you a good indicator of when an image first appeared on the web, and whether it was published by a reputable source.</p>
<p>You can <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/06/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-we-shouldnt-just-be-pulling-people-out-of-the-river-we-should-be-going-upstream-to-find-out-whos-pushing-them-in/">use Google Books to check whether a quote is true</a>.</p>
<p>You can use social-media searches to <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/01/no-oscar-wilde-did-not-say-imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery-that-mediocrity-can-pay-to-greatness/">easily check the origin of memes</a>.</p>
<p>There are <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/07/did-dvorak-die-a-bitter-man/">vast archives of printed material</a> to help you.</p>
<p>The World Wide Web has a million sites which allow you to <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/07/did-nikola-tesla-receive-nothing-but-insults-and-humiliation/">cross-reference any citations</a> to see if they're spurious.</p>
<p>Now, perhaps all that is a bit too much effort for someone casually doomscrolling and hitting "repost" for an instant dopamine hit. But it shouldn't be. And it <em>certainly</em> shouldn't be for people who write for trusted sources like newspapers.</p>
<p>Recently, the beloved actor Patricia Routledge died. Several newspapers reposted a piece of viral slop which <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3lwvalev4r22b">I had debunked a month previously</a>. Let's go through the piece and see just how easy it is to prove false.</p>
<p>Here's that "viral" story. I've kept to the parts which contain easily verifiable / falsifiable claims.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/turning-95.webp" alt="**“I’ll be turning 95 this coming Monday. In my younger years, I was often filled with worry — worry that I wasn’t quite good enough, that no one would cast me again, that I wouldn’t live up to my mother’s hopes. But these days begin in peace, and end in gratitude.”**" width="350" height="120" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63645">
<p>Wikpedia says that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Routledge">her birthday was 17 February 1929</a>. She would have turned 95 in 2024.</p>
<p>Open up your calendar app. Scroll back to February 2024. What date was 17 February 2024? Saturday. Not Monday.</p>
<p>Now, OK, maybe at 95 she's forgotten her birthday. What else does the rest of the piece say?</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/life.webp" alt="My life didn’t quite take shape until my forties. I had worked steadily — on provincial stages, in radio plays, in West End productions — but I often felt adrift, as though I was searching for a home within myself that I hadn’t quite found." width="350" height="100" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63646">
<p>In 1968, <a href="https://youtu.be/_e6_6pHKsQU?t=5382">Patricia Routledge won Best Actress (Musical) at the Tony Awards</a> - she was 39. I don't know if I'd consider appearing on Broadway as provincial stages.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/accepted.webp" alt="At 50, I accepted a television role that many would later associate me with — Hyacinth Bucket, of Keeping Up Appearances. I thought it would be a small part in a little series. I never imagined that it would take me into people’s living rooms and hearts around the world. And truthfully, that role taught me to accept my own quirks. It healed something in me." width="350" height="140" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63647">
<p><a href="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/579878/">Keeping Up Appearances was first broadcast in 1990</a>. Patricia was around 60, not 50, when she was cast.</p>
<p>While she may have thought it would only be a small series - even though it was by the creator of Open All Hours and Last of the Summer Wine - there's no way that being the lead character could be described as a "small part". She wasn't a breakout character - she was the star.</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/shake.webp" alt="At 70, I returned to the Shakespearean stage — something I once believed I had aged out of. But this time, I had nothing to prove. I stood on those boards with stillness, and audiences felt that. I was no longer performing. I was simply being." width="350" height="100" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63648">
<p>Wikipedia isn't always accurate, but it <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Routledge#Stage">does list lots of her stage work</a>. She was working steadily on stage from 1999 - when she hit 70 - but none of it Shakespeare.</p>
<p>I was able to do that fact checking in 10 minutes while laying in bed waiting for the bathroom to become free. It wasn't onerous. It didn't require subscriptions to professional journals. I didn't need a team of fact-checkers. It took a bit of web-sleuthing and, dare I say it, a smidgen of common sense.</p>
<p>And yet, a couple of newspapers ran with this utter drivel as though it were the truth. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20251003145620/https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/tv/news/patricia-routledge-death-last-message-b2838736.html">The Independent</a> published it as part of their tribute - although they <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3m2cmhw7nmc2a">took the piece down after I emailed them</a>. Similarly <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/2100863/keeping-appearances-patricia-routledge-confession">The Express</a> ran it without any basic fact-checking (and <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3m2jdtg6xys22">didn't take it down</a> after being contacted).</p>
<p>Both of them say their primary source is the <a href="https://jayspeak.blog/2025/08/02/growing-oldoops-up/">"Jay Speak" blog</a>. There's nothing on that blog post to say that the author interviewed Patricia Routledge. A quick check of the other posts on the site don't make it obvious that it is a reputable source of exclusive interviews with notable actors.</p>
<p>The date on that blog post is August 2nd, 2025. Is there anything earlier? Typing a few of the phrases into a search engine found a bunch of posts which pre-date it. The earliest I can find was <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DMeyLa6oU8q/">this Instagram post</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/henk.benson/posts/pfbid02dWng6y7dpubTFSZuYavFYVdEfLuzcnvmqNnJuiAN693LfJLSNwHec8p7cSQasgdxl">this Facebook post</a> both from the <strong>24th of July</strong> - a week early than the Jay Speaks post.</p>
<p>To be clear, I don't think Jay Speaks was deliberately trying to fool journalists or hoax anyone. They simply saw an interesting looking post and re-shared it. I also suspect the Facebook and Instagram posts were copied from other sources - but I've been unable to find anything definitive.</p>
<p>I would expect that professional journalists at well-established newspapers to be able to call an actor's agent to fact-check a piece before running it. If they can't, I would have thought they'd do a cursory fact check.</p>
<p>But, no. I presume the rush to publish is so great that it over-rides any sense of whether a piece should be accurate.</p>
<p>This is irresponsible. Last week saw <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/jamesomalley.co.uk/post/3m2edtpdysc2u">the BBC air an outright lie on Have I Got News For You</a>. A professional TV company, with a budget for lawyers, fact checkers, and researchers - and they just broadcast easily disproven lies. Why? Maybe hubris, maybe laziness, maybe deliberate rabble-rousing.</p>
<p>The media have comprehensively failed us. They will repeat any tawdry nonsense as long as it keeps people clicking. It's up to us to defend ourselves and our friends against this unending tsunami of low-grade slurry.</p>
<p>I hope I've demonstrated that it takes almost no effort to perform a basic fact check. It isn't a professional skill. It doesn't require anything more than an Internet connection and a curious mind. If you see something online, take a moment to check it before sharing it.</p>
<p>Stopping misinformation starts with you.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Getting started with Mastodon's Quote Posts - technical implementation details for servers]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63527</id>
<updated>2025-10-03T15:06:55Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-03T11:34:27Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="ActivityPub" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="fediverse" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="mastodon" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="MastodonAPI" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Quoting posts on Mastodon is slightly complex. Because of the privacy conscious nature of the platform and its users, reposting isn't merely a case of sharing a URl. A user writes a status. The user can choose to make their statuses quotable or not. What happens when a quoter quotes that post? I've read through the specification and tried to simplify it. Quoting is a multi-step process: The…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/"><![CDATA[<p>Quoting posts on Mastodon is <em>slightly</em> complex. Because of the privacy conscious nature of the platform and its users, reposting isn't merely a case of sharing a URl.</p>
<p>A user writes a status. The user can choose to make their statuses quotable or not. What happens when a quoter quotes that post?</p>
<p>I've <a href="https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/044f/fep-044f.md">read through the specification</a> and tried to simplify it. Quoting is a multi-step process:</p>
<ol>
<li>The status <em>must</em> opt-in to being shared.</li>
<li>The quoter quotes the status.</li>
<li>The quoter's server sends a request to the status's server.</li>
<li>The status's server sends an accept message back to the quoter's server.</li>
<li>When other servers see the quote, they check with the status's server to see if it is allowed.</li>
</ol>
<p>I'm going to walk you through each stage as best as I understand them.</p>
<h2 id="opting-in"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#opting-in">Opting In</a></h2>
<p>An ActivityPub status message is JSON. In order to opt-in, it needs this additional field.</p>
<pre><code class="language-JSON">"interactionPolicy": {
"canQuote": {
"automaticApproval": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public"
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>That tells ActivityPub clients that anyone is allowed to quote this post. It is also possible to say that only specific users, or only followers, or no-one is allowed.</p>
<h2 id="the-quoterequest"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#the-quoterequest">The QuoteRequest</a></h2>
<p>Someone has hit the quote post button, typed their own message, and shared their wisdom. Their server sends the following message to the server which hosts the quoted status. This has been edited for brevity.</p>
<pre><code class="language-JSON">{
"@context": [
"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
{
"QuoteRequest": "https://w3id.org/fep/044f#QuoteRequest"
}
],
"type": "QuoteRequest",
"id": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/quote_requests/1234-5678-9101",
"actor": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent",
"object": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json",
"instrument": {
"id": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/statuses/123456789",
"url": "https://mastodon.test/@Edent/123456789",
"attributedTo": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent",
"quote": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json",
"_misskey_quote": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json",
"quoteUri": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json"
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>All this says is "I would like permission to quote you."</p>
<h2 id="the-stamp"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#the-stamp">The Stamp</a></h2>
<p>The quoted server needs to approve this quote. First, it generates a "stamp".</p>
<p>This is a file which lives on the quoted server. It is proof that the quote is allowed. If it is deleted, the quote permission is revoked. When the <a href="https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/quote-post-implementation-issues/8032/2?u=eden_t">stamp's ID is requested the stamp <em>must</em> be returned</a>.</p>
<pre><code class="language-JSON">{
"@context": [
"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
{
"gts": "https://gotosocial.org/ns#",
"QuoteAuthorization": {
"@id": "https://w3id.org/fep/044f#QuoteAuthorization",
"@type": "@id"
},
"interactingObject": {
"@id": "gts:interactingObject"
},
"interactionTarget": {
"@id": "gts:interactionTarget"
}
}
],
"type": "QuoteAuthorization",
"id": "https://example.com/quote-987654321.json",
"attributedTo": "https://example.com/users/username",
"interactionTarget": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json",
"interactingObject": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/statuses/123456789"
}
</code></pre>
<p>If the quoted status is viewed from a different server, that server will query the stamp to make sure the share is allowed.</p>
<h2 id="the-accept"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#the-accept">The Accept</a></h2>
<p>This is the message that the quoted server sends to the quoting server. It references the request and the stamp.</p>
<pre><code class="language-JSON">{
"@context": [
"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
{
"QuoteRequest": "https://w3id.org/fep/044f#QuoteRequest"
}
],
"type": "Accept",
"to": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent",
"id": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json",
"actor": "https://example.com/account",
"object": {
"type": "QuoteRequest",
"id": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/quote_requests/1234-5678-9101",
"actor": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent",
"instrument": "https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/statuses/123456789",
"object": "https://example.com/posts/987654321.json"
},
"result": "https://example.com/quote-987654321.json"
}
</code></pre>
<p>The "result" <em>must</em> be the same as the stamp's URl.</p>
<h2 id="and-then"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#and-then">And then?</a></h2>
<p>You can follow and quote <a href="https://colours.bots.edent.tel/">@[email protected]</a> on your favourite Fediverse platform.</p>
<p>I've written an ActivityPub server in a single file which is designed to teach you have the protocol works. Have a play with <a href="https://gitlab.com/edent/activity-bot">ActivityBot</a>.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Book Review: Streaming Wars - How Getting Everything We Wanted Changed Entertainment Forever by Charlotte Henry ★★☆☆☆]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-streaming-wars-how-getting-everything-we-wanted-changed-entertainment-forever-by-charlotte-henry/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63503</id>
<updated>2025-10-01T16:51:02Z</updated>
<published>2025-10-01T11:34:54Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Book Review" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="iplayer" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="Netflix" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="NetGalley" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This should be a fascinating look at how streaming services evolved and the outsized impact they've had on our culture. Instead it is mostly a series of re-written press-releases and recycled analysis from other people. Sadly, the book never dives in to the pre-history of streaming. There's a brief mention of RealPlayer - but nothing about the early experiments of livestreaming gigs and TV…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-streaming-wars-how-getting-everything-we-wanted-changed-entertainment-forever-by-charlotte-henry/"><![CDATA[<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/cover719123-medium.png" alt="Book cover." width="255" height="391" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-63514">
<p>This <em>should</em> be a fascinating look at how streaming services evolved and the outsized impact they've had on our culture. Instead it is mostly a series of re-written press-releases and recycled analysis from other people.</p>
<p>Sadly, the book never dives in to the pre-history of streaming. There's a brief mention of RealPlayer - but nothing about the early experiments of livestreaming gigs and TV over the Internet. Similarly, it ignores how Big Brother created a generation of people who wanted to stream on their phones. Early pioneers like JenniCam are written out of history. The book is relentlessly focussed on American streamers, with only a brief foray into the UK, Africa, and other markets. There's nothing about Project Kangaroo and how it squandered an early opportunity for streaming dominance.</p>
<p>Steaming only started with Netflix, according to this book. Despite iPlayer launching at roughly the same time, it doesn't make an appearance until halfway though the book. It's also missing some of the interesting aspects of how Netflix built its algorithm, and the privacy impacts of it.</p>
<p>The analysis itself mostly quotes from reports from Enders and other firms like that. It doesn't seem like there was any original research done, and there aren't any new interviews done for the book. Instead it is just a surface-level analysis mixed in with clichéd prose about boiling frogs. It's also fairly uncritical - several sections are just press-releases from big streaming services with little discussion about whether they're accurate. It almost turns into a corporate biography / hagiography rather than a serious look at streaming.</p>
<p>There's very little about the production side. For example, how <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-does-everything-on-netflix-look-like-that/">Netflix squashes cinematograph</a> and how its <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/cinematography/comments/16precd/whats_the_real_reason_netflix_shows_all_look_the/k1v88gd/">lack of permanent props storage</a> restricts accurate set-dressing to <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/07/stories-behind-stranger-things-retro-80s-props/">tent-pole shows</a>.</p>
<p>Although this is a preview copy, the prose feels half-baked.</p>
<blockquote><p>Overall, the iPlayer is a very high-quality product, providing access to both linear TV and a whole range of content in its extensive catalogue.</p></blockquote>
<p>That's the sort of thing I'd expect from a student essay rather than a serious book.</p>
<p>Unlike <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/03/book-review-warez-the-infrastructure-and-aesthetics-of-piracy-by-martin-paul-eve/">Warez - The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy by Martin Paul Eve</a>, there's almost nothing about piracy and how that drives the behaviour of consumers, producers, and distributors. There's a bit of discussion of Napster, but hardly anything about the more modern cultural impact.</p>
<p>It is maddeningly contradictory. In a couple of pages it goes from:</p>
<blockquote><p>Consequently, we are closer than we have ever been to having something like global TV. Close, but not actually there.</p></blockquote>
<p>To:</p>
<blockquote><p>because of the amount of work available to view, there is no mono-culture anymore.</p></blockquote>
<p>Which is it?</p>
<p>The book concludes by saying:</p>
<blockquote><p>With that in mind, the ultimate winner of the streaming wars is the consumer. It is us.</p></blockquote>
<p>Is it though? There's almost nothing about shows cancelled before they got going. Nothing about whether American cultural hegemony suffocates local media development. It briefly touches on the constant price rises, but never investigates whether it changes behaviours or if they drive customers away. There's not a single interview with viewers - and no attempt to understand whether they feel positive about the way streaming has changed the world.</p>
<p>There's a fascinating story to be told, but this isn't it.</p>
<p>Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy, the book is available to pre-order now.</p>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>@edent</name>
<uri>https://edent.tel/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Can you use GDPR to Circumvent BlueSky's Adult Content Blocks?]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/" />
<id>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=62143</id>
<updated>2025-09-30T12:01:46Z</updated>
<published>2025-09-29T11:34:27Z</published>
<category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="/etc/" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="BlueSky" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="gdpr" /><category scheme="https://shkspr.mobi/blog" term="OnlineSafety" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[In the battle between the Online Safety Act and GDPR, who will win? FIGHT! I'll start by saying that I'm moderately positive on Online Safety. If services don't want to provide moderation then they shouldn't let their younger users be exposed to harm. The social network BlueSky has taken a pragmatic approach to this. If you don't want to verify your age, you can still use its services - but it…]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/"><![CDATA[<p>In the battle between the Online Safety Act and GDPR, who will win? FIGHT!</p>
<p>I'll start by saying that I'm <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/12/food-safety-vs-online-safety/">moderately positive on Online Safety</a>. If services don't want to provide moderation then they shouldn't let their younger users be exposed to harm.</p>
<p>The social network BlueSky has taken a pragmatic approach to this. If you don't want to verify your age, you can still use its services - but <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3ltmzgl5h4c2k">it won't serve you porn or let people send you non-public messages</a>.</p>
<p>I think that's pretty reasonable. I don't use BSky to look at naked <del>mole rats</del> people, and I already have plenty of other messaging accounts. So I haven't verified my age.</p>
<p>There are two slight wrinkles with BSky's implementation. Firstly, there's no way to retrieve DMs which were sent before this restriction came into force. Oh, you can one-click export your data - but <a href="https://docs.bsky.app/blog/repo-export">it only includes <em>public</em> data</a>. So no DMs.</p>
<p>Secondly, you can't turn off DM from people who have previously messaged you. <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3luoqklgdhk27">I asked people to message me</a> to see if they got an error - but it looks like the messages just get silently accepted. I probably look a bit rude if I don't answer them.</p>
<p>Worse still, the DM notification keeps incrementing!</p>
<img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Bluesky-DM-notification.webp" alt="A notification counter showing the number 3. The message next to it says I need to complete age assurance." width="932" height="401" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62145">
<p>It <em>is</em> possible to turn off DMs - but <a href="https://bsky.social/about/blog/05-22-2024-direct-messages">only if you can access your DM settings</a>. Which you can't if you haven't passed age assurance.</p>
<p>Well, what about GDPR?</p>
<p><a href="https://bsky.social/about/support/privacy-policy#personal-information-collect">BlueSky's privacy policy</a> has this to say about DMs:</p>
<blockquote><p>Your Direct Messages. We store and process your direct messages in order to enable you to communicate directly and privately with other users on the Bluesky App. These are unencrypted and can be accessed for Trust and Safety purposes.</p></blockquote>
<p>They go on to say that I may have the right to:</p>
<blockquote><p>Request Access to and Portability of Your Personal Information, including: (i) obtaining access to or a copy of your personal information; and (ii) receiving an electronic copy of personal information that you have provided to us, or asking us to send that information to another company in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format (also known as the “right of data portability”);</p></blockquote>
<p>So I sent off a Subject Access Request asking specifically for the Direct Messages sent to/from my account.</p>
<p>I was 100% sure that the messages I had sent were my personal data and should be returned to me. I wasn't sure if messages other people had sent to me could be considered personal data. But I figured that the OSA hadn't invalidated GDPR.</p>
<p>Here's what happened:</p>
<h2 id="timeline"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#timeline">Timeline</a></h2>
<ul>
<li>2025-07-24 - Sent request to their support desk and received an acknowledgement.
<ul>
<li>Response: "I've gone ahead and shared your request with our team and will follow up with you if any additional information or verification is needed."</li>
</ul></li>
<li>2025-07-31 - Sent a reminder to them.
<ul>
<li>Response: "We've escalated your concern to our developers and are still waiting for their response and confirmation. We'll get back as soon as we get this information."</li>
</ul></li>
<li>2025-08-25 - One month later sent an escalation to their legal team reminding them of their obligations.
<ul>
<li>Response: Asked to provide my country of residence and to prove my account ownership by send an email from the address associated with my BSky account.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>2025-09-05 - Sent yet another chaser.</li>
<li>2025-09-13 - Over seven weeks since the initial request. Told them that I wanted to know which data protection authority they were registered with so I could make a formal complaint.
<ul>
<li>Response: "Please be aware that we are currently in the process of making your data available for download. We will notify you as soon as it is ready."</li>
</ul></li>
<li>2025-09-22 - 8 weeks since the complaint was raised. Sent another chaser asking how long until my data would be ready to download.</li>
<li>2025-09-25 - After 64 days they sent me a CSV with my data!</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="result"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#result">Result</a></h2>
<p>Here's an extract of the CSV. I've lightly redacted the data, but you can see how JSON embedding works.</p>
<pre><code class="language-csv">convoId,sentAt,sender,contents
3kt6f7a2,2025-07-24 05:50:09.339+00,did:plc:pxy4cjqfu5aa6eadtx5,"{""text"": ""Testing testing""}"
3ku4lvbh,2024-06-04 18:17:52.414+00,did:plc:i6misxex577k4q6o7gl,"{""text"": ""Thought this might be up your alley. I've been to a few of them - pretty good crowd. thegeomob.com/post/july-3r..."", ""facets"": [{""index"": {""byteEnd"": 114, ""byteStart"": 85}, ""features"": [{""uri"": ""https://thegeomob.com/post/july-3rd-2024-geomoblon-details"", ""$type"": ""app.bsky.richtext.facet#link""}]}]}"
</code></pre>
<h2 id="thoughts"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#thoughts">Thoughts</a></h2>
<p>I didn't have to prove my age. I just proved account ownership and then politely but insistently asked for my data. Frankly, it is baffling that such a well-funded company takes this long to answer a simple request.</p>
<p>Does this expose a gaping whole in the idea of online safety?</p>
<p>No. Not really. I suppose that a theoretical abuser could send messages to a minor and then that minor could go through a Subject Access Request process to try and access them. But that all feels a bit far-fetched and is likely to draw attention to both parties.</p>
<h2 id="but-why-didnt-you-just"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#but-why-didnt-you-just">But why didn't you just…</a></h2>
<p>This was definitely "playing on hard mode". There were other ways to get my DMs. Here are some alternatives which I didn't try and <em>why</em> I didn't try them.</p>
<ul>
<li>Use a VPN to circumvent the geoblock.
<ul>
<li>Why should I have to pay for a VPN, or trust my browsing data to a dodgy 3rd party? I shouldn't have to install and configure software just to work around a crappy design decision.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Go through age verification.
<ul>
<li>I don't browse BlueSky for the "gentlemen's special interest" section. I already have lots of ways people can contact me. I'm not against a KYC process - but I simply don't need it.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Use a 3rd party client to download the data.
<ul>
<li>I don't trust my data with 3rd party apps, and neither should you!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Use <a href="https://docs.bsky.app/docs/api/chat-bsky-convo-get-messages">the API</a> to read DMs.
<ul>
<li>I wasn't sure if the API required age verification. And, frankly, I couldn't be faffed learning a brand new API.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Escalate straight to the CEO or via a friend who works there.
<ul>
<li>I like doing things the official way. Not everyone has a friend who works at BSky (thanks <REDACTED>!) and I feel it is better if legal teams get direct feedback from users; not management.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Ignore this and use a better social network.
<ul>
<li>I go where my friends are. I have lots of friends on Mastodon and other services. BSky is OK, but I'm only there for my friends. But, while they are there, I didn't want an obnoxious DM notification taunting me.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="next-steps"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#next-steps">Next Steps</a></h2>
<p>I've emailed BlueSky to ask them to completely disable my inbox and clear my notifications. We'll see how long that takes them!</p>
]]></content>
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"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63079",
"title": "Book Review: The Battle of the Beams by Tom Whipple ★★★★★",
"description": "Well this is a treat! It is rare to find a pop-science book which does such a good job of actually explaining the science, rather than just using it as a background for storytelling. The Battle of Beams doesn't go too deep into the mechanics and physics, but gives a general overview with just enough detail to keep things interesting. It is also well illustrated (not a given in these sorts of…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/book-review-the-battle-of-the-beams-by-tom-whipple/",
"published": "2025-11-05T12:34:48.000Z",
"updated": "2025-09-25T10:06:25.000Z",
"content": "<p><img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/9781473584204-jacket-large.webp\" alt=\"Book cover featuring radio waves and fighter planes.\" width=\"321\" height=\"500\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-63081\">\nWell this is a <em>treat</em>! It is rare to find a pop-science book which does such a good job of actually explaining the science, rather than just using it as a background for storytelling. The Battle of Beams doesn't go <em>too</em> deep into the mechanics and physics, but gives a general overview with just enough detail to keep things interesting. It is also well illustrated (not a given in these sorts of books) which helps flesh out some of the trickier concepts.</p>\n\n<p>How did radio-waves change the course of the war? Was RADAR solely the preserve of the British? What tactics were used to conceal developments? Was there an invisible war in the skies? Battle of the Beams takes a technical and social look at how physics became the forefront of attack and defence. It dives into the people who set their brains to work on the problem, and those who were determined to stop them.</p>\n\n<p>The book honest about the problems of referencing contradictory source material. Some of the work published after the war is obviously biased towards the writer's personal successes - which don't always tally with reality. Similarly, there's a good overview of what <em>both</em> sides were doing in technology. We often only hear about ENIGMA and Britain's attempts to crack it - it's rare to read something from the other side. Here we get to experience both sides as they attempt to tame the radio waves, discover how they are being used against them, <em>and</em> the countermeasures both sides took.</p>\n\n<p>The book is pacey and leaps back-and-forth across the channel, giving a real sense of drama to the sometimes baroque nature of physics research. There is a little touch of the \"boys-own-adventure\" what with daring fighter pilots and exciting raids - but it never strays into the hagiographic.</p>\n\n<p>As ever with histories of the second World War, you're left wondering how it was the Allies succeeded. The book is full of infuriating little anecdotes like:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>The report was filed and then forgotten, seen by some officials, understood by fewer, and then left in the archives of Whitehall. Britain continued for at least a year to believe that it, alone, had mastered this new wonder weapon of radar.</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>Similarly, a daring piece of espionage was fatally undermined when the defector was imprisoned and then:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>through an astonishing cock-up the film he had gone to so much trouble to smuggle in had been sent to be processed at the post office, and most of it had been destroyed.</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>Gah!</p>\n\n<p>Nevertheless, a fascinating look at how technology develops and how systems react to change.</p>",
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"title": "Political Experiments",
"description": "Many years ago, in another lifetime, I was presenting our team's work to a rather senior politician. Here's how I remember it: \"We want to provide value for money,\" I said, \"so we propose that running five small pilots of [thing I still can't talk about]. We know there are multiple technologies which could work. But we don't know which one will work best.\" \"How will running something five times …",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/political-experiments/",
"published": "2025-11-03T12:34:41.000Z",
"updated": "2025-11-02T20:34:40.000Z",
"content": "<p>Many years ago, in another lifetime, I was presenting our team's work to a <em>rather</em> senior politician. Here's how I remember it:</p>\n\n<p>\"We want to provide value for money,\" I said, \"so we propose that running five small pilots of [thing I still can't talk about]. We know there are multiple technologies which <em>could</em> work. But we don't know which one will work best.\"</p>\n\n<p>\"How will running something five times save the taxpayer money?\" They asked, quite reasonably.</p>\n\n<p>I replied, somewhat smugly, \"Big technology projects often fail because they get very far along before a critical flaw is discovered. If we run some pilot programmes, we hope to discover those problems before we go too far down the wrong path.\"</p>\n\n<p>\"But running five pilots will cost more money?\" They replied, with a smugness born of a thousand encounters like this.</p>\n\n<p>I had the uneasy feeling I knew where this was going. \"Yes, in the short term, it will cost more.\"</p>\n\n<p>\"Why don't we just run the pilot with the technology which will work best?\" They asked earnestly.</p>\n\n<p>I had one of those \"<a href=\"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3APassages_from_the_Life_of_a_Philosopher.djvu/83#:~:text=if%20you%20put%20into%20the%20machine%20wrong%20figures%2C%20will%20the%20right%20answers%20come%20out%3F\">Pray Mr Babbage</a>\" moments and took a moment to compose myself.</p>\n\n<p>I gently explained that we wouldn't know in advance the results of the experiment and, without going too far into The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, falsifiable hypotheses were probably the best way to discover the truth.</p>\n\n<p>Apparently their <abbr title=\"Philosophy, Politics, and Economics\">PPE</abbr> degree was worthwhile because they accepted my arguments - albeit only with funding for 3 pilots.</p>\n\n<p>From their point of view, it was perfectly rational to reject experimentation. Each failed experiment is a waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money. How do you look your constituents in the eye and say \"80% of our budget was spent on failure\"? It is political suicide.</p>\n\n<p>Which leads me on to <a href=\"https://www.politicshome.com/opinion/article/ai-mark-taught-realities-new-technology\">this <em>brilliant</em> blog post by Mark Sewards MP</a>. In it, the MP describes the process of setting up an \"AI\" counterpart to answer his constituents' questions.</p>\n\n<p>So far, so zeitgeisty. But rather than just slap a label on an LLM and call it a day, the MP for Leeds South West and Morley actually spent time thinking about what he and his team wanted out of this experiment. They didn't just launch and bugger off; they tested and refined.</p>\n\n<p>The experiment was a success. Not because it reduced his case-load and allowed a tech company to profit from misery. But because it taught him (and others) the limitations of technology. It shows exactly what <em>doesn't</em> work. If a person can't understand where the boundaries are, they'll never learn how to successfully master <em>anything</em>.</p>\n\n<p>As Mark said:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>What didn’t it do? It didn’t save any time. I read every single transcript to ensure we didn’t miss any questions from constituents. I can see this technology working alongside a casework team, but it needs a lot of refinement. I took this leap to understand what AI might be capable of and what it isn’t yet. I understand why some dismissed the model out of hand, but I think the potential is real, even if that’s all it is for now – potential.</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>Experimentation is hard because it leaves us vulnerable. It shows that we don't know everything and that humbles us. We need to loudly celebrate politicians who try something new and are honest about where it goes wrong.</p>\n\n<p>There is so much more to be learned from failure than success.</p>",
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"title": "Book Review: When We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamín Labatut ★★★★★",
"description": "This is a stunning book. If some scientists and mathematicians have seen further than others, it is by standing on the mountains of madness. This straddles between being a faithful and fanciful biography of insanity. It is written like a hyperactive friend trying to show you how all the things in the universe connect with each other - while you slowly back away in terror. Are these ghost…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/book-review-when-we-cease-to-understand-the-world-benjamin-labatut/",
"published": "2025-11-01T12:34:19.000Z",
"updated": "2025-09-21T20:52:52.000Z",
"content": "<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/cease.webp\" alt=\"Book cover with abstract art showing the centre of an atom.\" width=\"250\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-63476\">\n\n<p>This is a stunning book.</p>\n\n<p>If some scientists and mathematicians have seen further than others, it is by standing on the mountains of madness. This straddles between being a faithful and fanciful biography of insanity. It is written like a hyperactive friend trying to show you how all the things in the universe connect with each other - while you slowly back away in terror.</p>\n\n<p>Are these ghost stories? Biographies dictated from beyond the grave? Counter-factual histories written to bemuse and confuse? These are the implausibly mystic crystal revelations that strain the boundary between realities.</p>\n\n<p>Science <em>is</em> terrifying. It ought to be. It tells us that the world isn't quite what we thought it was. If you found out the secret to the universe, how would you react? In many ways, it remind me of Asimov's \"<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeds_There_a_Man...%3F\">Breeds There A Man…?</a>\".</p>\n\n<p>The prose is sublime and the stories are haunting. Highly recommended!</p>",
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"title": "Gig Review: Meat Loaf by Candlelight ★★★★☆",
"description": "The \"…by Candlelight\" concerts have a simple premise - come to a cathedral or church to hear top West End talent sing your favourite singer's songs, backed by a live band. This is a cut above your usual tribute act - they aren't trying to do impressions of the act, they're stamping their own energy onto beloved songs. It works! Mostly. This concert was in a West End theatre so the (electric) c…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/gig-review-meat-loaf-by-candlelight/",
"published": "2025-10-30T12:34:02.000Z",
"updated": "2025-11-02T12:48:55.000Z",
"content": "<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/meatloaf.webp\" alt=\"Promotional poster for Meat Loaf.\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-64185\">\n\n<p>The \"<a href=\"https://concertsbycandlelight.com/\">…by Candlelight</a>\" concerts have a simple premise - come to a cathedral or church to hear top West End talent sing your favourite singer's songs, backed by a live band. This is a cut above your usual tribute act - they aren't trying to do impressions of the act, they're stamping their own energy onto beloved songs.</p>\n\n<p>It works! Mostly. This concert was in a West End theatre so the (electric) candles were only on the stage. It perhaps wasn't as intimate as some of their other concerts. But, still, I was blown away by how powerful their voices were and how loud the band was.</p>\n\n<p>The first half perhaps felt a little <em>too</em> polished - but the second was more raucous. Lots of encouragement to get up and dance, sing along, and snap photos.</p>\n\n<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Meat-Loaf-Concert.webp\" alt=\"Four singers and a band surrounded by candles.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-64186\">\n\n<p>All the hits were there - with the deepest cut being \"<a href=\"https://jimsteinman.fandom.com/wiki/In_the_Land_of_the_Pig,_the_Butcher_Is_King\">In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher Is King</a>\" and the Jim Steinman penned \"Total Eclipse of the Heart\".</p>\n\n<p>You're never going to be able to see Meat Loaf sing live (unless he returns from the dead as foretold in prophesy) but this is a good substitute. None of the singers could individually match his vocal ferocity - but when they come together it is a thing of joy.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://concertsbycandlelight.com/shows/meat-loaf-by-candlelight/\">Meat Loaf by Candlelight is touring the UK now</a>.</p>",
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"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63434",
"title": "A Self-Hosted Favicon Proxy written in PHP",
"description": "In theory, you should be able to get the base favicon of any domain by calling /favicon.ico - but the reality is somewhat more complex than that. Plenty of sites use a wide variety of semi-standardised images which are usually only discoverable from the site's HTML. There are several services which allow you to get favicons based on a domain. But they all have their problems. Google Exposes…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/",
"published": "2025-10-28T12:34:54.000Z",
"updated": "2025-09-21T20:20:57.000Z",
"content": "<p>In theory, you should be able to get the base favicon of any domain by calling <code>/favicon.ico</code> - but the reality is somewhat more complex than that. Plenty of sites use a wide variety of semi-standardised images which are usually only discoverable from the site's HTML.</p>\n\n<p>There are several services which allow you to get favicons based on a domain. But they all have their problems.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=shkspr.mobi&sz=256\">Google</a>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Exposes your user's to Google's tracking.</li>\n<li>Relies on redirects.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://icons.duckduckgo.com/ip9/shkspr.mobi.ico\">DuckDuckGo</a>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Not officially supported by DDG.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://favicon.is/shkspr.mobi\">Favicon.is</a>\n\n<ul>\n<li>No privacy policy whatsoever.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://icon.horse/\">Icons.horse</a>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Paid service.</li>\n<li>Only small size icons.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://favicone.com/shkspr.mobi\">Favicone</a>\n\n<ul>\n<li>No privacy policy.</li>\n<li>Only small size icons.</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I want to show favicons next to specific links, but I don't want to expose my visitors to unnecessary tracking. How can I proxy these images so they are stored and served locally?</p>\n\n<p>There are a few existing services. Some use <a href=\"https://github.com/seadfeng/favicons-proxy\">Cloudflare workers</a> or other <a href=\"https://github.com/shaklain125/gicon\">cloud services</a>, there are some local-first ones which are <a href=\"https://github.com/toolness/favicon-proxy\">unmaintained</a>. But nothing modern, self-hosted, and as easy to deploy as uploading a single PHP file.</p>\n\n<p>So here's my attempt to make something which will preserve user privacy, be reasonably fast, and have moderately up-to-date icons, while remaining fast and efficient.</p>\n\n<p></p><nav role=\"doc-toc\"><menu><li><h2 id=\"table-of-contents\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#table-of-contents\">Table of Contents</a></h2><menu><li><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-domain\">Getting the domain</a></li><li><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-image\">Getting the image</a></li><li><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-structure-right\">Getting the structure right</a></li><li><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#preventing-abuse\">Preventing abuse</a></li><li><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#putting-it-all-together\">Putting it all together</a></li></menu></li></menu></nav><p></p>\n\n<h2 id=\"getting-the-domain\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-domain\">Getting the domain</a></h2>\n\n<p>Assuming the request comes in to <code>https://proxy.example.com/?domain=bbc.co.uk</code></p>\n\n<p>PHP has a <a href=\"https://www.php.net/manual/en/filter.constants.php#constant.filter-validate-domain\">handy <code>FILTER_VALIDATE_DOMAIN</code> filter</a> which will determine if the string is a domain.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-php\">filter_var( $domain, FILTER_VALIDATE_DOMAIN, FILTER_FLAG_HOSTNAME );\n</code></pre>\n\n<h3 id=\"dealing-with-idns\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#dealing-with-idns\">Dealing with IDNs</a></h3>\n\n<p>Some domains contain non-ASCII characters - for example <a href=\"https://莎士比亚.org/\">https://莎士比亚.org/</a> - not all favicon services support International Domain Names.</p>\n\n<p>Using <a href=\"https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.idn-to-ascii.php\">the <code>idn_to_ascii()</code> function</a>, it is possible to get the Punycode domain.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-php\">$domain = idn_to_ascii(\"莎士比亚.org\");\n</code></pre>\n\n<h2 id=\"getting-the-image\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-image\">Getting the image</a></h2>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Check if the icon has previously been downloaded.</li>\n<li>Rotate randomly between a few different Favicon services.</li>\n<li>Download the icon.</li>\n<li>Save it somewhere.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<h2 id=\"getting-the-structure-right\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#getting-the-structure-right\">Getting the structure right</a></h2>\n\n<p>I know from my work on OpenBenches that storing tens of thousands of files in a single directory can be problematic. So I'll store the retrieved favicon in: <code>/tld/domain/subdomain/</code></p>\n\n<p>That will make it quick to see if an icon exists. I'll save the file with a filename based on the current timestamp. That will allow me to check if an icon is out of date, and will prevent people downloading the icons directly from me.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"preventing-abuse\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#preventing-abuse\">Preventing abuse</a></h2>\n\n<p>I don't want anyone but visitors to my site to be able to use this service. So I'll add a (weak) check to see if the request came from my domain.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-php\">$referer = parse_url( $_SERVER[\"HTTP_REFERER\"], PHP_URL_HOST );\nif ( $referer == \"shkspr.mobi\") {\n …\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Some browsers may not send referers for privacy reasons. So they won't see the favicons. But they probably wouldn't have seen the images loaded from a 3<sup>rd</sup> party service. So I'll serve a default image.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"putting-it-all-together\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/a-self-hosted-favicon-proxy-written-in-php/#putting-it-all-together\">Putting it all together</a></h2>\n\n<p>You can grab the code from <a href=\"https://git.edent.tel/edent/Favicon-Proxy-PHP\">my personal git service</a>.</p>",
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"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63140",
"title": "Movie Review: The Story of the Weeping Camel ★★★★★",
"description": "Our friends Annie and Dave run the podcast \"Will You Still Love It Tomorrow\". The premise is great - take a film that you love but you haven't seen for ages, and see if it still holds up. They asked me and Liz to nominate a film to discuss with them. What's something that we loved but last saw 20ish years ago? We suggested The Story of the Weeping Camel. It is my go-to answer when someone asks …",
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"published": "2025-10-26T14:34:35.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-26T13:10:08.000Z",
"content": "<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The_Story_of_the_Weeping_Camel.jpeg\" alt=\"Film poster featuring a camel.\" width=\"218\" height=\"320\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-63142\">\n\n<p>Our friends Annie and Dave run the podcast \"<a href=\"https://stillloveit.libsyn.com/\">Will You Still Love It Tomorrow</a>\". The premise is great - take a film that you love but you haven't seen for ages, and see if it still holds up.</p>\n\n<p>They asked me and Liz to nominate a film to discuss with them. What's something that we loved but last saw 20ish years ago? We suggested The Story of the Weeping Camel. It is my go-to answer when someone asks me for my favourite film - it is sufficiently obscure to elicit further questions and sounds cool enough to make me seem interesting.</p>\n\n<p>So we re-watched it in preparation for discussing it on the podcast. How did it hold up?</p>\n\n<p>It is <em>still</em> my favourite foreign language movie. The story is simple and beautifully told. The cinematography is stunning. It is the perfect mix of heartbreaking and hopeful.</p>\n\n<p>Weeping Camel is presented as a documentary - but it is rather closer to <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanook_of_the_North\">Nanook of the North</a>, mixing documentary and drama. At its heart is the story of motherly love. Deep in the Gobi desert, a camel has a difficult birth and rejects her colt. Can the Mongolian farmers help bring mother and child together?</p>\n\n<p>One of the best aspects of the film is that it is 100% on the side of \"show, don't tell\". If this were a documentary, there would be pointless narration telling us what was going on. Instead, we're treated as grown-ups. We can plainly see the pain - we don't need it spelled out.</p>\n\n<p>Similarly, the Mongolian language is barely translated. Do you <em>need</em> to know what is being sung as a lullaby to a sleeping (human) baby? No! You understand the context. Similarly, what are the grandparents chatting about while playing cards? It isn't important to the plot, they're just sharing their love for each other.</p>\n\n<p>There's a tension at the core of the movie about the tug between tradition and modernity. The vast and empty vista with all its magnificent beauty holds no appeal to a kid who just wants to watch cartoons on TV. The family's traditions are noble and ancient - but they're all supplemented with modern technology.</p>\n\n<p>Back when Russell T. Davies was pitching Doctor Who in 2005, he said \"<a href=\"https://archive.org/details/doctor-who-magazine-special-editions/11.%20The%20Series%20One%20Companion/page/n37/mode/2up\">If the Zogs on planet Zog are having trouble with the Zog-monster [...] who gives a toss?</a>\" There's a limit to human empathy. Why should we care about creatures so different to us? The Story of the Weeping Camel shows how wrong Davies was. I don't mean to imply that the Mongolians are an alien species and that their concerns shouldn't bother us - but that with the right skill, it is possible to make humans care about the emotional difficulties of camels in a distant desert.</p>\n\n<p>If you want a gentle, moving, and uplifting movie - I urge you to seek it out. It is a tragedy that the film isn't better known. It is unavailable on any streaming service that I can find. Despite being Oscar nominated, it hasn't be re-released in HD, but you can buy it on DVD.</p>\n\n<p>You can <a href=\"https://stillloveit.libsyn.com/episode-107-the-story-of-the-weeping-camel\">listen to \"Will You Still Love It Tomorrow\" wherever you get your podcasts</a>.</p>\n\n<iframe title=\"Libsyn Player\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/38782235/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/\" height=\"90\" width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"\" mozallowfullscreen=\"\" oallowfullscreen=\"\" msallowfullscreen=\"\"></iframe>",
"image": null,
"media": [],
"authors": [
{
"name": "@edent",
"email": null,
"url": "https://edent.tel/"
}
],
"categories": [
{
"label": "/etc/",
"term": "/etc/",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
},
{
"label": "Movie Review",
"term": "Movie Review",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
}
]
},
{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64078",
"title": "Alpha launch - .well-known/avatar - feedback wanted",
"description": "I've gotten sufficiently annoyed with a trivial problem that I'm preparing to write an IETF RFC. Yeah. That's how ticked off I am! Every site that I sign up for asks me to upload an avatar to represent myself. Whenever I change my photo, I have to log in to a hundred sites and change it there. Perhaps they could all use Gravatar - but that's a centralised service and doesn't work with wildcard…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/",
"published": "2025-10-25T11:34:10.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-25T20:13:42.000Z",
"content": "<p>I've gotten sufficiently annoyed with a trivial problem that I'm preparing to write an IETF RFC. Yeah. That's how ticked off I am!</p>\n\n<p>Every site that I sign up for asks me to upload an avatar to represent myself. Whenever I change my photo, I have to log in to a hundred sites and change it there<sup id=\"fnref:ok\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fn:ok\" class=\"footnote-ref\" title=\"OK, I don't have to. But I want to. I dislike having last year's photo cluttering some half-remembered social network.\" role=\"doc-noteref\">0</a></sup>.</p>\n\n<p>Perhaps they could all use <a href=\"https://gravatar.com/\">Gravatar</a> - but that's a centralised service<sup id=\"fnref:boo\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fn:boo\" class=\"footnote-ref\" title=\"We live in the redecentralised future now!\" role=\"doc-noteref\">1</a></sup> and doesn't work with wildcard email addresses. <a href=\"https://libravatar.org/\">Libravatar</a> also relies on email addresses and requires implementers to set up new DNS entries.</p>\n\n<p>So I'm proposing <code>.well-known/avatar</code>. Here's how it works (for now). I'd like your feedback before going further<sup id=\"fnref:slow\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fn:slow\" class=\"footnote-ref\" title=\"I wrote about this in 2004 and in 2020. It takes me time, but I get there eventually!\" role=\"doc-noteref\">2</a></sup>.</p>\n\n<p>I sign up to a service and use the email address <code>[email protected]</code>.</p>\n\n<p>The service looks up my avatar using a well-known path. For example, request <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:[email protected]\">https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:[email protected]</a> and you'll get back this JSON:</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-json\">{\n \"subject\": \"acct:[email protected]\",\n \"links\": [\n {\n \"rel\": \"http:\\/\\/webfinger.net\\/rel\\/avatar\",\n \"type\": \"image\\/webp\",\n \"href\": \"https:\\/\\/shkspr.mobi\\/.well-known\\/avatar\\/avatar-1024.webp\",\n \"sizes\": \"1024x1024\"\n },\n {\n \"rel\": \"http:\\/\\/webfinger.net\\/rel\\/avatar\",\n \"type\": \"image\\/jpeg\",\n \"href\": \"https:\\/\\/shkspr.mobi\\/.well-known\\/avatar\\/avatar-512.jpg\",\n \"sizes\": \"512x512\"\n }\n ]\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>That's a slightly enhanced <a href=\"https://webfinger.net/rel/#avatar\">https://webfinger.net/rel/#avatar</a> which adds <a href=\"https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/semantics.html#attr-link-sizes\">a <code>sizes</code> parameter</a>. The service can then pick the appropriate MIME and size.</p>\n\n<p>Alternatively, you can request the same URl but with a header of <code>Accept: image/gif</code> and receive the default sized avatar in that specific format.</p>\n\n<p>Try it by running:</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-bash\">curl -H \"Accept: image/avif\" https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar/ --output \"test.avif\"\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>You should receive an auto-converted version of my avatar.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"some-thoughts\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#some-thoughts\">Some Thoughts</a></h2>\n\n<p>Please add your thoughts to the comments box. Here's some feedback I've received so far.</p>\n\n<p>Perhaps this is too complicated? What's wrong with just serving up an image when the URl is requested? That would make it easier for static sites.</p>\n\n<div class=\"activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite\"> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card\"> <img class=\"u-photo\" src=\"https://cdn.fosstodon.org/accounts/avatars/000/061/904/original/5e6ac0188b3ab021.png\" alt=\"\"> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-header-text\"> <h2 class=\"p-name\" id=\"simon-josefsson\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#simon-josefsson\">Simon Josefsson</a></h2> <a href=\"https://fosstodon.org/users/jas\" class=\"ap-account u-url\">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-content\"> <div class=\"ap-subtitle p-summary e-content\"><p><span class=\"h-card\"><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/@Edent\" class=\"u-url mention\">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> Thinking about this, while I like content negotiation as a clever hack, I wonder if maybe it isn’t too clever. The nice thing with WKD is that you can deploy it with any normal static HTTP file without any special magic. Maybe the protocol could be dumbed down to simply rely on WKD-style URLs? I’m not sure how to configure my web server (Apache) for your avatar well known URL with negotiation magic.</p></div> </div> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-meta\"> <a href=\"https://fosstodon.org/users/jas/statuses/115424507307729006\" class=\"ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to\">2025-10-23, 16:50</a> <span class=\"ap-stat\"> <strong>0</strong> boosts </span> <span class=\"ap-stat\"> <strong>1</strong> favorites </span> </div> </div>\n\n<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, \"Segoe UI\", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>\n\n<p>What about a size parameter?</p>\n\n<div class=\"activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite\"> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card\"> <img class=\"u-photo\" src=\"https://mastocdn.talking.dev/accounts/avatars/106/551/937/719/290/584/original/733b34a017037146.jpg\" alt=\"\"> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-header-text\"> <h2 class=\"p-name\" id=\"chip\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#chip\">Chip</a></h2> <a href=\"https://talking.dev/users/chip\" class=\"ap-account u-url\">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-content\"> <div class=\"ap-subtitle p-summary e-content\"><p><span class=\"h-card\"><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/@Edent\" class=\"u-url mention\">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> It'd be nice if the query could limit the size of the avatar being returned. If only there were `Accept-Max-Size`, but maybe a query param? I wouldn't want my performance taking a dive if Alice has a 35M avatar that my client starts downloading. If my client had requested with `max_size=3072` I'd rather not see the avatar than degrade performance/pull excess data</p></div> </div> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-meta\"> <a href=\"https://talking.dev/users/chip/statuses/115424082361331622\" class=\"ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to\">2025-10-23, 15:02</a> <span class=\"ap-stat\"> <strong>0</strong> boosts </span> <span class=\"ap-stat\"> <strong>1</strong> favorites </span> </div> </div>\n\n<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, \"Segoe UI\", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>\n\n<p>Will anyone actually use it?</p>\n\n<div class=\"activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite\"> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card\"> <img class=\"u-photo\" src=\"https://fedi.splitbrain.org/fileserver/013DGS4XRNRZTWPDP5Q2MKSHZR/attachment/original/01JNBFPHNR06RXDG36V0VM7D3V.jpeg\" alt=\"\"> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-header-text\"> <h2 class=\"p-name\" id=\"andreas-gohr\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#andreas-gohr\">Andreas Gohr</a></h2> <a href=\"https://fedi.splitbrain.org/users/splitbrain\" class=\"ap-account u-url\">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-content\"> <div class=\"ap-subtitle p-summary e-content\"><p><span class=\"h-card\"><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/@Edent\" class=\"u-url mention\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> good luck with getting the hundreds of services to implement it. I mean it. it would be awesome and you might be well connected enough to make it happen.</p></div> </div> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-meta\"> <a href=\"https://fedi.splitbrain.org/users/splitbrain/statuses/01K88SH504PEK5X8C6MSXRY0YH\" class=\"ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to\">2025-10-23, 15:03</a> </div> </div>\n\n<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, \"Segoe UI\", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>\n\n<p>What about hashing the email?</p>\n\n<div class=\"activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite\"> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card\"> <img class=\"u-photo\" src=\"https://media.social.lol/accounts/avatars/111/559/923/870/165/558/original/5c1a92fdf91205a8.png\" alt=\"\"> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-header-text\"> <h2 class=\"p-name\" id=\"david-bushell-%f0%9f%8e%ae\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#david-bushell-%f0%9f%8e%ae\">David Bushell 🎮</a></h2> <a href=\"https://social.lol/users/db\" class=\"ap-account u-url\">@[email protected]</a> </div> </div> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-content\"> <div class=\"ap-subtitle p-summary e-content\"><p><span class=\"h-card\"><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/@Edent\" class=\"u-url mention\">@<span>Edent</span></a></span> would using a hash of the email address in its place improve privacy? 🤔</p></div> </div> <div class=\"activitypub-embed-meta\"> <a href=\"https://social.lol/users/db/statuses/115434663342778931\" class=\"ap-stat ap-date dt-published u-in-reply-to\">2025-10-25, 11:52</a> <span class=\"ap-stat\"> <strong>0</strong> boosts </span> <span class=\"ap-stat\"> <strong>0</strong> favorites </span> </div> </div>\n\n<style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, \"Segoe UI\", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border-radius: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; display: grid; gap: 2px; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr 1fr; margin: 1em 0 0; min-height: 64px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-1 { grid-template-columns: 1fr; grid-template-rows: 1fr; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-2 { aspect-ratio: auto; grid-template-rows: 1fr; height: auto; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview.layout-3 > img:first-child { grid-row: span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { border: 0; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview video, .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { max-width: 100%; display: block; grid-column: 1 / span 2; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview audio { width: 100%; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>\n\n<p>You've already given the service your email address, and your domain already knows your account name - so there's no privacy leak here. Obviously, a service shouldn't hotlink to your avatar image.</p>\n\n<p>How about DNS?</p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"bluesky-embed\" data-bluesky-uri=\"at://did:plc:en7czkhogfoggztn3newgk3u/app.bsky.feed.post/3m3zdjv7vcs2v\" data-bluesky-cid=\"bafyreibp7hypzhpjiwairnihopr47fdifwasluludaxobybpnna3jcupzu\"><p lang=\"en\">I like it. Is there an argument that service / endpoint should be specifiable at the DNS level?As others in your comments pointed out, if your site is currently just static, some users might prefer to run an entirely separate dedicated avatar service.</p>— <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:en7czkhogfoggztn3newgk3u?ref_src=embed\">Emily Shepherd (@emi.ly)</a> <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:en7czkhogfoggztn3newgk3u/post/3m3zdjv7vcs2v?ref_src=embed\">2025-10-25T11:57:43.456Z</a></blockquote>\n\n<script async=\"\" src=\"https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n<p>Personally, I think that's a bit complicated, but I'm happy to be convinced.</p>\n\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/ox.ca/post/3m3zkrun4j22b\">Is this restricted to email?</a></p></blockquote>\n\n<p>No! For example, if you know my GitHub username then you should be able to get the avatar from <code>https://github.com/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:edent</code></p>\n\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https://mechadarwin.com/2025/10/25/well-known-avatar-location/\">How can a service tell if the avatar has been updated</a>?</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>Perhaps a hash, timestamp, or something else?</p>\n\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@gumnos/115436604786371047\">Can requests for multiple accounts be sent at once?</a></p></blockquote>\n\n<p>I'm not sure how / if WebFinger handles this. I suppose there ought to be some limit to avoid overwhelming a server.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"proposal\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#proposal\">Proposal</a></h2>\n\n<p>I think the default should be to return an image.</p>\n\n<p>If an accept of <code>image/…</code> is requested, the server should try to return an image in that format.</p>\n\n<p>If an accept of <code>application/json</code> or similar is requested, the server should return a JSON document listing the available avatars.</p>\n\n<p>I don't think a <code>?size=</code> GET parameter is necessary; services can resize once they've downloaded, or use the JSON document to get the right size.</p>\n\n<p>A limited amount of alt text could be added using <a href=\"https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7033#section-4.4.4.4\">the title attribute</a> in the JSON.</p>\n\n<p>Before I start writing up anything formal - I'd love your constructive criticism on this.</p>\n\n<div id=\"footnotes\" role=\"doc-endnotes\">\n<hr>\n<ol start=\"0\">\n\n<li id=\"fn:ok\">\n<p>OK, I don't <em>have</em> to. But I <em>want</em> to. I dislike having last year's photo cluttering some half-remembered social network. <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fnref:ok\" class=\"footnote-backref\" role=\"doc-backlink\">↩︎</a></p>\n</li>\n\n<li id=\"fn:boo\">\n<p>We live in the redecentralised future now! <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fnref:boo\" class=\"footnote-backref\" role=\"doc-backlink\">↩︎</a></p>\n</li>\n\n<li id=\"fn:slow\">\n<p>I wrote about this in <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/03/well-known-avatar/\">2004</a> and in <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/03/one-avatar-to-rule-them-all/\">2020</a>. It takes me time, but I get there eventually! <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/#fnref:slow\" class=\"footnote-backref\" role=\"doc-backlink\">↩︎</a></p>\n</li>\n\n</ol>\n</div>",
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"label": "/etc/",
"term": "/etc/",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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"label": "IETF",
"term": "IETF",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"label": "ReDeCentralize",
"term": "ReDeCentralize",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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"label": "standards",
"term": "standards",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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"term": "web",
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64049",
"title": "Book Review: A Quest for God and Spices by Dean Cycon ★★☆☆☆",
"description": "Brother Mauro, an older monk, and Nicolo, a young, striving merchant are called by the Pope to traverse the treacherous political, religious, and mercantile terrain of medieval Europe and the Byzantine Empire to seek out the powerful Presbyter John, a mysterious king in the Far East who has promised to put his wealth and vast armies to the service of the pope's crusade. I don't understand why…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-a-quest-for-god-and-spices-by-dean-cycon/",
"published": "2025-10-23T11:34:44.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-23T08:49:06.000Z",
"content": "<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/A-Quest-for-God-and-Spices-cover.webp\" alt=\"Book cover with an illustrated map.\" width=\"200\" height=\"282\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-64051\">\n\n<blockquote><p>Brother Mauro, an older monk, and Nicolo, a young, striving merchant are called by the Pope to traverse the treacherous political, religious, and mercantile terrain of medieval Europe and the Byzantine Empire to seek out the powerful Presbyter John, a mysterious king in the Far East who has promised to put his wealth and vast armies to the service of the pope's crusade.</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>I don't understand why all books nowadays have to be an epic trilogy. There's a perfectly decent story in here - but it is padded out to the point of flabbiness. The dialogue veers between trite and didactic. At times it feels like the author has rummaged around Wikipedia for contemporaneous famous people and thrown them in to the story without any particular reason.</p>\n\n<p>Similarly, lots of the scene setting feels like a needless history lesson, inserted just to bring up the word-count.</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>He was joined by a thin, muscular young man who played an oud, the Arabic stringed instrument that French crusaders had recently brought to Europe under the name l’oud and were now calling the “lute.”</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>I loved the idea of a super-smeller going on a journey to find the source of the expensive spices which were entering Europe. A quest of a befuddled monk to reunite the various strands of Christendom also makes for a rich tale. But mashed together - and interspersed with treacherous kings, scheming Popes, and duplicitous pirates - it loses all coherence.</p>\n\n<p>Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.</p>",
"image": null,
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"name": "@edent",
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{
"label": "/etc/",
"term": "/etc/",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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"label": "Book Review",
"term": "Book Review",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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"label": "NetGalley",
"term": "NetGalley",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64009",
"title": "Getting started with simple CSS View Transitions",
"description": "There's (yet another) new piece of CSS to learn! Hurrah! Way back in 2011, jQuery mobile introduced the web to page-change animations. Clicking on a link would make your high-tech Nokia display a cool page-flip as you navigated from one page of a website to another. Just like an app!!!! A decade-and-a-half later, and CSS has caught up (mostly). No more JavaScript, just spec-compliant CSS. Well, …",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-simple-css-view-transitions/",
"published": "2025-10-21T11:34:07.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-18T22:41:02.000Z",
"content": "<p>There's (yet another) new piece of CSS to learn! Hurrah!</p>\n\n<p>Way back in 2011, <a href=\"https://demos.jquerymobile.com/1.1.0/docs/pages/page-transitions.html\">jQuery mobile introduced the web to page-change animations</a>. Clicking on a link would make your high-tech Nokia display a cool page-flip as you navigated from one page of a website to another. Just like an app!!!!</p>\n\n<p>A decade-and-a-half later, and CSS has caught up (mostly). No more JavaScript, just spec-compliant CSS. Well, as long as you're using Chrome or Safari. Here's a quick quick MVP which will add some fancy animations as people browse your website.</p>\n\n<p>Every page which wants animations has to \"opt in\". That means you need this:</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-css\">@view-transition {\n navigation: auto;\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Next, you'll probably want to define some animations. Here are two I use:</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-css\">@keyframes slide-in {\n from {\n translate: 100vw 0;\n }\n}\n\n@keyframes fade-out {\n to {\n opacity: 0;\n }\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Any standard CSS animation will work. Get creative!</p>\n\n<p>Which elements do you want to animate? I'm just going to do the whole page.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-css\">html {\n view-transition-name: page;\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>If you have a fancy app-like site, you might only want to animate specific parts of it.</p>\n\n<p>While the page is transitioning, you can have something in the background to prevent things looking odd.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-css\">::view-transition {\n background: black;\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>That's optional, but rather useful.</p>\n\n<p>Next, we have to assign the animations to specific events. Here, I have the old page fade out and the new page slide in.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-css\">::view-transition-old(page) {\n animation-name: fade-out;\n animation-duration: 1s;\n}\n\n::view-transition-new(page) {\n animation-name: slide-in;\n animation-duration: 1s;\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>You can set the duration to whatever makes sense for your page and animation style.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, and this is <strong>important</strong>, some people find animations painful or discombobulating. Make sure the animations are turned off for those who don't like them.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-css\">@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {\n ::view-transition-group(page) {\n animation-duration: 0s;\n }\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>And that's it! A couple of dozen lines of CSS and you've got started with view transitions.</p>\n\n<p>For more information, you can <a href=\"https://view-transitions.chrome.dev/\">see the Chrome Devs' demo page</a>, or take a read of <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/View_Transition_API\">the MDN documentation</a>. There's also a <a href=\"https://drafts.csswg.org/css-view-transitions-2/\">full spec document</a> if you like that sort of thing.</p>\n\n<p>Right, I'm off to create some delightful animations!</p>",
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"label": "/etc/",
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=64017",
"title": "Improving PixelMelt's Kindle Web Deobfuscator",
"description": "A few days ago, someone called PixelMelt published a way for Amazon's customers to download their purchased books without DRM. Well… sort of. In their post \"How I Reversed Amazon's Kindle Web Obfuscation Because Their App Sucked\" they describe the process of spoofing a web browser, downloading a bunch of JSON files, reconstructing the obfuscated SVGs used to draw individual letters, and running O…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/",
"published": "2025-10-19T11:34:37.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-19T09:35:02.000Z",
"content": "<p>A few days ago, someone called PixelMelt published a way for Amazon's customers to download their purchased books without DRM. Well… <em>sort of</em>.</p>\n\n<p>In their post \"<a href=\"https://blog.pixelmelt.dev/kindle-web-drm/\">How I Reversed Amazon's Kindle Web Obfuscation Because Their App Sucked</a>\" they describe the process of spoofing a web browser, downloading a bunch of JSON files, reconstructing the obfuscated SVGs used to draw individual letters, and running OCR on them to extract text.</p>\n\n<p>There were a few problems with this approach.</p>\n\n<p>Firstly, the downloader was hard-coded to only work with the .com site. That fix was simple - do a search and replace on <code>amazon.com</code> with <code>amazon.co.uk</code>. Easy!</p>\n\n<p>But the harder problem was with the OCR. The code was designed to visually centre each extracted glyph. That gives a nice amount of whitespace around the character which makes it easier for OCR to run. The only problem is that some characters are ambiguous when centred:</p>\n\n<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/centred-fs8.png\" alt=\"Several letters drawn with vertical centering.\" width=\"1134\" height=\"177\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-64025\">\n\n<p>When I ran the code, lots of full-stops became midpoints, commas became apostrophes, and various other characters went a bit wonky.</p>\n\n<p>That made the output rather hard to read. This was compounded by the way line-breaks were treated. Modern eBooks are designed to be reflowable - no matter the size of your screen, lines should only break on a new paragraph. This had forced linebreaks at the end of every displayed line - rather than at the end of a paragraph.</p>\n\n<p>So I decided to fix it.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"a-new-approach\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#a-new-approach\">A New Approach</a></h2>\n\n<p>I decided that OCRing an entire page would yield better results than single characters. I was (mostly) right. Here's what a typical page looks like after de-obfuscation and reconstruction:</p>\n\n<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/sample-page.webp\" alt=\"A page of text.\" width=\"500\" height=\"800\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-64027\">\n\n<p>As you can see - the typesetting is good for the body text, but skew-whiff for the title. Bold and italics are preserved. There are no links or images.</p>\n\n<p>Here's how I did it.</p>\n\n<h3 id=\"extract-the-characters\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#extract-the-characters\">Extract the characters</a></h3>\n\n<p>As in the original code, I took the SVG path of the character and rendered it as a monochrome PNG. Rather than centring the glyph, I used the height and width provided in the <code>glyphs.json</code> file. That gave me a directory full of individual letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and ligatures. These were named by fontKey (bold, italic, normal, etc).</p>\n\n<h3 id=\"create-a-blank-page\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#create-a-blank-page\">Create a blank page</a></h3>\n\n<p>The <code>page_data_0_4.json</code> has a width and height of the page. I created a white PNG with the same dimensions. The individual characters could then be placed on that.</p>\n\n<h3 id=\"resize-the-characters\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#resize-the-characters\">Resize the characters</a></h3>\n\n<p>In the <code>page_data_0_4.json</code> each run of text has a fontKey - which allows the correct glyph to be selected. There's also a <code>fontSize</code> parameter. Most text seems to be (the ludicrously precise) <code>19.800001</code>. If a font had a different size, I temporarily scaled the glyph in proportion to 19.8.</p>\n\n<p>Each glyph has an associated <code>xPosition</code>, along with a <code>transform</code> which gives X and Y offsets. That allows for indenting and other text layouts.</p>\n\n<p>The characters were then pasted on to the blank page.</p>\n\n<p>Once every character from that page had been extracted, resized, and placed - the page was saved as a monochrome PNG.</p>\n\n<h3 id=\"ocr-the-page\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#ocr-the-page\">OCR the page</a></h3>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://tesseract-ocr.github.io/tessdoc/\">Tesseract 5</a> is a fast, modern, and <em>reasonably</em> accurate OCR engine for Linux.</p>\n\n<p>Running <code>tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng</code> produced a .txt file with all the text extracted.</p>\n\n<p>For a more useful HTML style layout, the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOCR\">hOCR output</a> can be used: <code>tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng hocr</code></p>\n\n<p>Or, a PDF with embedded text: <code>tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng pdf</code></p>\n\n<h3 id=\"mistakes\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#mistakes\">Mistakes</a></h3>\n\n<p>OCR isn't infallible. Even with a high resolution image and a clear font, there were some errors.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Superscript numerals for footnotes were often missing from the OCR.</li>\n<li>Words can run together even if they are well spaced.</li>\n<li>Tesseract can recognise bold and italic characters - but it outputs everything as plain text.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h2 id=\"whats-missing\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#whats-missing\">What's missing?</a></h2>\n\n<p>Images aren't downloaded. I took a brief look and, while there are links to them in the metadata, they're downloaded as encrypted blobs. I'm not clever enough to do anything with them.</p>\n\n<p>The OCR can't pick out semantic meaning. Chapter headings and footnotes are rendered the same way as text.</p>\n\n<p>Layout is flat. The image of the page might have an indent, but the outputted text won't.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"whats-next\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/improving-pixelmelts-kindle-web-deobfuscator/#whats-next\">What's next?</a></h2>\n\n<p>This is very far from perfect. It can give you a visually <em>similar</em> layout to a book you have purchased from Amazon. But it won't be reflowable.</p>\n\n<p>The text will be <em>reasonably</em> accurate. But there will be plenty of mistakes.</p>\n\n<p>You can get an HTML layout with hOCR. But it will be missing formatting and links.</p>\n\n<p>Processing all the JSON files and OCRing all the images is <em>relatively</em> quick. But tweaking and assembling is still fairly manual.</p>\n\n<p>There's nothing particularly clever about what I've done. The original code didn't come with an open source software licence, so I am unable to share my changes - but any moderately competent programmer could recreate this.</p>\n\n<p>Personally, I've just stopped buying books from Amazon. I find that <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/02/automatic-kobo-and-kindle-ebook-arbitrage/\">Kobo is often cheaper</a> and their DRM is easy to bypass. But if you have many books trapped in Amazon - or a book is only published there - this is a barely adequate way to liberate it for your personal use.</p>",
"image": null,
"media": [],
"authors": [
{
"name": "@edent",
"email": null,
"url": "https://edent.tel/"
}
],
"categories": [
{
"label": "/etc/",
"term": "/etc/",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
},
{
"label": "Amazon",
"term": "Amazon",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
},
{
"label": "drm",
"term": "drm",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"label": "ebooks",
"term": "ebooks",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"label": "kindle",
"term": "kindle",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"label": "python",
"term": "python",
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63352",
"title": "Was my website mentioned in a GitHub issue?",
"description": "This is a quick GitHub action to get alerted every time your website is mentioned in a GitHub issue. Doing it manually You can search GitHub for a URl, and sort the results with the newest first, like this: https://github.com/search?q=%22shkspr.mobi%22&type=issues&s=created&o=desc Using the API GitHub has a fairly straightforward API - although it uses slightly different parameters. …",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/",
"published": "2025-10-17T11:34:51.000Z",
"updated": "2025-09-14T20:37:17.000Z",
"content": "<p>This is a quick GitHub action to get alerted every time your website is mentioned in a GitHub issue.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"doing-it-manually\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/#doing-it-manually\">Doing it manually</a></h2>\n\n<p>You can search GitHub for a URl, and sort the results with the newest first, like this:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://github.com/search?q=%22shkspr.mobi%22&type=issues&s=created&o=desc\">https://github.com/search?q=%22shkspr.mobi%22&type=issues&s=created&o=desc</a></p>\n\n<h2 id=\"using-the-api\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/#using-the-api\">Using the API</a></h2>\n\n<p>GitHub has a <a href=\"https://api.github.com/\">fairly straightforward API</a> - although it uses slightly different parameters.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=shkspr.mobi&sort=created&order=desc\">https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=shkspr.mobi&sort=created&order=desc</a></p>\n\n<p>That will return a bunch of <code>items</code>. Here's the 29th. I've truncated it down to only what is necessary for our purposes:</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-json\">{\n \"html_url\": \"https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-webfinger/issues/29\",\n \"id\": 3286159033,\n \"number\": 29,\n \"title\": \"Tracking support for non-ascii characters\",\n \"user\": {\n \"login\": \"evanp\",\n },\n \"created_at\": \"2025-08-02T17:52:46Z\",\n \"updated_at\": \"2025-08-02T18:50:27Z\",\n \"body\": \"One of the benefits of using Webfinger is that it's […]\"\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<h2 id=\"action\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/was-my-website-mentioned-in-a-github-issue/#action\">Action</a></h2>\n\n<p>I'm not very good at creating actions. But this should:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Search GitHub for mentions of your URl.</li>\n<li>Store the results.</li>\n<li>If there is a new entry - open a new issue describing it.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>You will need to set your repository to private in order to not spam other repos. You will also need to go to your repo settings and give the action write permissions. You'll also need a Personal Access Token with sufficient permissions to write to your repo. I bloody hate actions. YAML? Eugh!</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-yaml\">name: API Issue Watcher\n\non:\n schedule:\n - cron: '*/59 * * * *'\n\npermissions:\n issues: write\n contents: write\n\njobs:\n watch-and-create:\n runs-on: ubuntu-latest\n\n steps:\n - name: Checkout repository\n uses: actions/checkout@v4\n\n - name: Restore latest seen ID\n id: cache-latest\n uses: actions/cache@v4\n with:\n path: .github/latest_seen.txt\n key: latest-seen-1\n restore-keys: |\n latest-seen-\n\n - name: Fetch latest item from API\n id: fetch\n run: |\n curl -s 'https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=EXAMPLE.COM&s=created&order=desc' > result.json\n jq -r '.items[0].id' result.json > latest_id.txt\n jq -r '.items[0].title' result.json > latest_title.txt\n jq -r '.items[0].html_url' result.json > latest_url.txt\n jq -r '.items[0].body // \"\"' result.json > latest_body.txt\n\n - name: Compare with previous run\n id: check\n run: |\n NEW_ID=$(cat latest_id.txt)\n OLD_ID=$(cat .github/latest_seen.txt 2>/dev/null || echo \"\")\n echo \"NEW_ID=$NEW_ID\" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT\n echo \"OLD_ID=$OLD_ID\" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT\n if [ \"$NEW_ID\" != \"$OLD_ID\" ]; then\n echo \"NEW_ITEM=true\" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT\n else\n echo \"NEW_ITEM=false\" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT\n fi\n\n - name: Open new issue if new item found\n if: steps.check.outputs.NEW_ITEM == 'true'\n uses: actions/github-script@v7\n with:\n github-token: ${{ secrets.MY_PAT }}\n script: |\n const fs = require('fs');\n const title = fs.readFileSync('latest_title.txt', 'utf8').trim();\n const url = fs.readFileSync('latest_url.txt', 'utf8').trim();\n const body = fs.readFileSync('latest_body.txt', 'utf8').trim();\n await github.rest.issues.create({\n owner: context.repo.owner,\n repo: context.repo.repo,\n title: `[API] ${title}`,\n body: `Found new item: [${title}](${url})\\n\\n${body}`\n });\n\n - name: Update latest seen ID\n if: steps.check.outputs.NEW_ITEM == 'true'\n run: |\n mkdir -p .github\n cp latest_id.txt .github/latest_seen.txt\n\n - name: Save cache\n uses: actions/cache@v4\n with:\n path: .github/latest_seen.txt\n key: latest-seen-1\n restore-keys: |\n latest-seen-\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>This is probably all kinds of wrong. If you know how to improve it, please let me know!</p>",
"image": null,
"media": [],
"authors": [
{
"name": "@edent",
"email": null,
"url": "https://edent.tel/"
}
],
"categories": [
{
"label": "/etc/",
"term": "/etc/",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
},
{
"label": "blog",
"term": "blog",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"label": "github",
"term": "github",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63916",
"title": "Book Review: The Anarchy - The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple ★★★★☆",
"description": "This is a marvellous and depressing book. Marvellous because it finely details the history, atrocities, and geopolitical strife of unfettered capitalism. Depressing for much the same reason. Dalrymple takes the thousand different strands of the story and weaves them into a (mostly) comprehensible narrative. With this many moving parts, it is easy to get confused between the various people,…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-the-anarchy-the-relentless-rise-of-the-east-india-company-by-william-dalrymple/",
"published": "2025-10-15T11:34:11.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-12T13:53:39.000Z",
"content": "<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/9781408864401.webp\" alt=\"Book cover for The Anarchy. An illustration of four Indian soldiers in European dress.\" width=\"200\" height=\"307\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-63918\">\n\n<p>This is a marvellous and depressing book. Marvellous because it finely details the history, atrocities, and geopolitical strife of unfettered capitalism. Depressing for much the same reason.</p>\n\n<p>Dalrymple takes the thousand different strands of the story and weaves them into a (mostly) comprehensible narrative. With this many moving parts, it is easy to get confused between the various people, places, companies, and loyalties. Your eReader's dictionary will have a good workout as you try to decipher the various calques and loanwords.</p>\n\n<p>It is more nuanced than I expected. Rather than just an unending parade of awfulness, it does dive in to the various attempts to reign in the terror and promote peaceful trade. These nearly always failed. Similarly, there were individual acts of kindness and honour which, nevertheless, cannot begin to make up for the exploitation.</p>\n\n<p>The one question it doesn't (and possibly can't) answer is \"what would India have been like without the EIC?\" Obviously the company was hugely disruptive and extracted vast amounts of wealth - but the history of <em>every</em> continent shows internecine warfare whenever a ruler dies. A constant theme of the book is \"Almost immediately, the court disintegrated into rival factions\" The bloody battles between the various states, despots, kings, and tyrants would have eventually occurred. The French - and other colonisers - would have also rampaged through the nation. This isn't to excuse the EIC, and almost everything they did was inexcusable, but rather to say they probably weren't <em>uniquely</em> awful in the atrocities they committed.</p>\n\n<p>We see the rapacious nature of megacorporations today. While few have a standing army, they are all dedicated to usurping authority and plundering resources. The Anarchy describes how the Company whispered in the ears of leaders, promised them the world, and then cruelly turned on them. Again, a depressing reflection of our own times.</p>\n\n<p>Notable by their absence are women. There are an endless assortment of unnamed dancing girls and courtesans, but the only named women are the (mostly British) wives in the background and <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum_Samru\">Begum Samru</a>. There's also only a brief mention of the other geopolitical impacts the EIC had. For example, I had no idea that the tea from the eponymous Boston Tea Party was supplied by the EIC.</p>\n\n<p>I don't understand why publishers pretend eBooks have the same limitations as their paper counterparts. The paper book puts all the illustrations at the end - presumably to save money. But this book would have benefited from interspersing the portraits with the text. Similarly, a map or two wouldn't have gone amiss to help the reader visualise the tangled path the various armies took.</p>\n\n<p>The books is disturbing and upsetting, but a vital read for anyone who wants to understand a key point in the world's history. If only we could learn from it, eh?</p>",
"image": null,
"media": [],
"authors": [
{
"name": "@edent",
"email": null,
"url": "https://edent.tel/"
}
],
"categories": [
{
"label": "/etc/",
"term": "/etc/",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"label": "Book Review",
"term": "Book Review",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"label": "history",
"term": "history",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=62544",
"title": "Every Theatre Show is \"Immersive\"",
"description": "I go to see a lot of theatrical productions. While most shows are good, the audience experience is usually dreadful. I'm not just talking about cramped seats and disgusting toilets (although they play a part) but that theatres haven't cottoned on to the idea that theatre is an immersive experience which can't be replicated by watching Netflix. There's an excellent article in The Stage about the…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/",
"published": "2025-10-13T11:34:49.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-13T13:21:47.000Z",
"content": "<p>I go to see <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/theatre-review/\">a lot of theatrical productions</a>. While most shows are good, the audience experience is usually dreadful. I'm not just talking about cramped seats and disgusting toilets (although they play a part) but that theatres haven't cottoned on to the idea that theatre is an immersive experience which can't be replicated by watching Netflix.</p>\n\n<p>There's an excellent article in The Stage about <a href=\"https://www.thestage.co.uk/long-reads/is-the-immersive-sector-experiencing-growing-pains-punchdrunk-secret-cinema\">the growth and pain-points of immersive shows</a> (free registration required to read).</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>One thing that most creators agree on is that while the word immersive remains the most accurate umbrella term, it is largely functionally meaningless. The sense is that it will have to do as there is not currently a better one. “The word ‘immersive’is one that we have to continue to own,” says Matt Costain of Secret Cinema. “Because I think the fad of calling everything immersive will pass, but it’s a broad church. I went to an immersive art exhibition and what are they supposed to call it? They have as much right to it as I have.”</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>The idea of an \"immersive\" performance is somewhat nebulous. Sitting passively in a theatre is not immersive - but what about a self-guided tour of an art gallery? You can make the case for pantomime being immersive (oh no you can't!) - but it isn't in the same league as <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/02/review-phantom-peak-jonacon-london-2025/\">Phantom Peak</a>.</p>\n\n<p>In an article about the immersive Elvis show, Amanda Parker succinctly describes what audience expects:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/is-the-immersive-sector-all-shook-up-amanda-parker-elvis-evolution\">The whole point of immersive theatre is the blurring of boundaries.</a></p></blockquote>\n\n<p>Live performance is expensive. A single ticket to a 90 minute show can cost more than an entire year of Netflix. A drink before the show and an ice-cream in the interval is the same cost as a month of Disney+! Audiences want blurred boundaries, but they also want value for money. I don't think it takes much money or effort for <em>any</em> show to become more immersive.</p>\n\n<p>Here's my 6-point guide to making <em>any</em> theatrical experience more immersive and more entertaining for the audience.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"pre-pre-show\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#pre-pre-show\">Pre-Pre-Show</a></h2>\n\n<p>Even <em>before</em> booking, there's a chance for a show to be immersive. Most shows have trailers on YouTube - but are the characters on social media? Where are the opportunities to learn about the costume designer's vision (outside a one-paragraph entry in an expensive programme)?</p>\n\n<p>Once booked, there are some brilliant opportunities for pre-pre show immersion. Emails shouldn't be the usual hectoring affair of reminding people to be on time; they should build a sense of excitement. What makes the paying customer feel like they're going on an adventure?</p>\n\n<p>If I remember correctly, when schools booked group tickets for the 1990s run of \"Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat\", they were sent colouring-in packs or some activity worksheets (it was a <em>long</em> time ago and my memory is hazy). What can a theatre do to make its paying customers <em>excited</em> about making the trip outside to sit in an unfamiliar building?</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"pre-show\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#pre-show\">Pre-Show</a></h2>\n\n<p>This is probably the easiest one to get right, and the one which most shows fail at. Decorate the venue. That's it. It is that simple. It costs next to nothing to put up posters on the walls, or fun little Easter-Eggs on the back of toilet doors, or to have a themed cocktail menu. The Stranger Things show does this brilliantly - there are lots of little clues dotted around the show in the form of newspaper clippings and yearbook pages.</p>\n\n<p>Shows like <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/06/theatre-review-just-for-one-day/\">Just For One Day</a> had \"selfie pods\". Big posters which let audience members take cool looking selfies with the stars of the show. The guest gets a fun memento, the show gets free advertising.</p>\n\n<p>You can go further and have the cast play with the audience. When I saw \"Cats\" in New York, some of the actors were roaming the stalls - fighting, stealing licks of ice-creams, miaowing at each other. It was brilliant to watch and got the audience in the mood.</p>\n\n<p>More recently, The Play That Goes Wrong has the on-stage crew setting up the stage while the audience enters. It's pre-show which rewards early attendance - it gets people rushing back to the bar to drag their friends in. It <em>feels</em> improvised and rewards returning guests.</p>\n\n<p>You can spend time in the <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/04/theatre-review-cabaret-at-the-kitkat-club/\">KitKat Club before the start of Cabaret</a>. A seedy underbelly with bored dancers and sweaty patrons. A brilliant way immerse the audience before the show. (<a href=\"https://technokitten.blogspot.com/2024/12/on-art-of-pre-show-and-post-show.html\">Although not everyone agrees</a>.)</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/06/theatre-review-operation-mincemeat/\">Operation Mincemeat</a> has an online pub-quiz for audience members. Sit and chat about what you think the answers are, try to get on the leaderboard, see if it motivates you to learn more about the real history of the operation.</p>\n\n<p>A bunch of theatres offer \"<a href=\"https://officiallondontheatre.com/access/touch-tours/\">Touch Tours</a>\" for visually impaired visitors. They get to come on stage and feel the set, have it described to them, so that they can get more immersed in the performance without constantly trying to guess the layout of the set. The stage magicians Penn and Teller invite members of the audience onto the stage before the performance so they can check for hidden wires and other trickery. That's probably not possible for <em>every</em> show - but can be sympathetically integrated into some.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"show\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#show\">Show</a></h2>\n\n<p>I'll defer this to the director! It's up to them whether they want to make use of the audience! I've been to operas where the lead performer appeared at the back of the stalls singing to his love on stage. Confetti falls into the auditorium with regular abundance.</p>\n\n<p>It doesn't suit every show, of course, but there are a dozen little tweaks which can remind the audience that this is a high-quality experience worth paying for. That this is something they simply can't get by watching TV.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"the-interval\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#the-interval\">The Interval</a></h2>\n\n<p>The interval isn't just a chance to go for a piss and an over-priced drink. It's an opportunity to reflect on what you've seen, discuss what you think will happen, <em>and</em> stretch your legs.</p>\n\n<p>All of the pre-show decoration is available to browse again - but is there anything else to do?</p>\n\n<p>At a performance of Misalliance, a character hides himself in a portable Turkish bath at the end of Act 1. Throughout the interval, the audience were encouraged to follow the character on social media. He sent messages about his predicament and replied to people who interacted with him.</p>\n\n<p>During the interval of a schools' performance of <i lang=\"it\">La bohème</i>, the curtain was raised so that we could see the hard work which went into changing all the sets around. Is that suitable for every show? Probably not. Does it interfere with the fire curtain? Maybe. Was it a fascinating look literally behind the scenes? Absolutely!</p>\n\n<p>Although I hated <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/03/theatre-review-murder-trial-tonight-ii-aldwych-theatre/\">Murder Trial Tonight</a>, it used the interval to encourage audience members to discuss the case laid before them. It's high-risk to get a reserved British audience to talk to strangers, but it can pay dividends.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"post-show\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#post-show\">Post-Show</a></h2>\n\n<p>The audience have risen to their feet in applause. Perhaps the lead actor (the one from that TV show you like) gives a short, heartfelt speech thanking everyone for coming out and encouraging them to tell their friends about the show.</p>\n\n<p>What next?</p>\n\n<p>Musicals often go with an encore where they specifically encourage the audience to take photos and sing along. Hey! You're part of the show! You'll probably never watch that video again, but you'll get the joy of communal singing and will feel like you're contributing.</p>\n\n<p>As we left Just For One Day, we were handed commemorative leaflets which turned out to be discount vouchers. A little memento <em>and</em> a way to get repeat custom!</p>\n\n<p>At the end of <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/07/theatre-review-accidental-death-of-an-anarchist/\">Accidental Death of an Anarchist</a>, the audience were encourage to learn more about various historical and modern cases of police corruption by scanning QR codes projected onto the set.</p>\n\n<p>Walking out of The Storeroom, we found ourselves in a lovely cocktail bar with an amazing view. Of <em>course</em> we paid for a fancy drink while discussing the evening's entertainment. Most West End theatres shove you out into the cold night air as though you're a guest who has overstayed their welcome.</p>\n\n<p>Stage door autographs have been a thing since time immemorial. Probably a bit annoying for the actors, but a huge part of building a post-show buzz for some people. There are shows which have a paid meet-and-greet option (which feels a little icky to me).</p>\n\n<p>I've been to plenty of shows which have a Q&A with the cast and director afterwards. Again, not something which can be done every night, but a brilliant opportunity to reward people for coming.</p>\n\n<p>Even Shakespeare used to <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1B70P6pjT8\">end his plays with a jig</a>.</p>\n\n<p>The point is, a show can do <em>some</em> aftercare. A little something to keep the audience happy and engaged.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"post-post-show\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#post-post-show\">Post-Post-Show</a></h2>\n\n<p>The audience has gone home. Is that the end of the experience? Sending out a survey email or asking them to share their memories on social media is a pretty cheap (and lazy) option for a show. It doesn't do much for the audience though.</p>\n\n<p>What about competitions? Can a show encourage the audience to enter a prize draw. Why not offer an upgraded seat at a discount for your next visit - as a little thank you for being a customer?</p>\n\n<p>It beggars belief that most shows don't offer a \"come back and bring a friend\" offer.</p>\n\n<p>After every roller-coaster ride, the theme park attempts to sell you a photo of you and your friends screaming. What's the equivalent for a theatrical show?</p>\n\n<p>This doesn't have to be a full-on marketing assault. Just a little nudge to make the audience feel special and like they'd want to repeat the experience.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"is-all-this-really-necessary\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/every-theatre-show-is-immersive/#is-all-this-really-necessary\">Is all this really necessary?</a></h2>\n\n<p>No.</p>\n\n<p>If you think people are happy to spend £150 to sit in conditions worse than the nastiest budget airline, and that they're delighted to be screamed at by over-officious security guards, then you don't need to do any of this. Leave the theatre decorated in its faded glory with faded photos of faded stars. Over-charge for the drinks, pad the programme with adverts, and hope the audience don't reflect on whether they enjoyed the experience.</p>\n\n<p>I'm not saying every show needs to be <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/08/secret-cinema-grease/\">Secret Cinema's Grease</a>, but a little effort goes a long way.</p>\n\n<p>Premium Netflix costs £19 per month. Find me a <em>single</em> ticket at the back of the gods which costs less than that! Even the last-minute seat filler shows I go to have trouble getting down to that level. Live performance <em>cannot compete on cost-per minute</em>. Instead, theatre has to play to its strengths.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Live actors are there!</li>\n<li>It's a communal experience!</li>\n<li>Something unique happens every performance!</li>\n<li>The building is interesting!</li>\n<li>You can't distract yourself with your phone!</li>\n<li>You can show your appreciation directly!</li>\n<li>It's part of a night out!</li>\n<li>The audience is an integral part of the experience!</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>All theatre is immersive because you are <em>there</em> - with actual people in front of you. Theatre needs to capitalise on the fact that it is different to being sat at home watching the telly. And that means putting a little effort into treating the audience like valued guests rather than treating them like cattle.</p>",
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"label": "/etc/",
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"label": "theatre",
"term": "theatre",
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63220",
"title": "Quick and dirty bar-charts using HTML's meter element",
"description": "\"If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid.\" I want to draw some vertical bar charts. I don't want to use a 3rd party library, or bundle someone else's CSS, or learn how to build SVGs. HTML contains a <meter> element. It is used like this: <meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"1234\">1234</meter> Which looks like this: 1234 There isn't much you can do to style it. Browser manufacturers seem to …",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/quick-and-dirty-bar-charts-using-htmls-meter-element/",
"published": "2025-10-11T11:34:57.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-11T09:26:16.000Z",
"content": "<p>\"If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid.\"</p>\n\n<p>I want to draw some vertical bar charts. I don't want to use a 3rd party library, or bundle someone else's CSS, or learn how to build SVGs.</p>\n\n<p>HTML contains a <code><meter></code> element. It is used like this:</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-html\"><meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"1234\">1234</meter>\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Which looks like this: <meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"1234\" style=\"border-radius:0 !important;\">1234</meter></p>\n\n<p>There isn't <em>much</em> you can do to style it. Browser manufacturers seem to have forgotten it exists and the CSS standard kind of ignores it.</p>\n\n<p>It <em>is</em> possible to use CSS to rotate it using:</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-css\">meter {\n transform: rotate(-90deg);\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>But then you have to mess about with origins and the box model gets a bit confused.</p>\n\n<p>See what <meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"1234\" style=\"transform: rotate(-90deg);\">1234</meter> I mean?</p>\n\n<p>You can hack your way around that with <code><div></code>s and bludgeoning your layout into submission.</p>\n\n<p>But that is a bit tedious.</p>\n\n<p>Luckily, there's another way. As suggested by <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/@gundersen/115168958609140525\">Marius Gundersen</a>, it's possible to set the <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/writing-mode\">writing direction</a> of the element to be vertical.</p>\n\n<p>That means you can have them \"written\" vertically, while having them laid out horizontally. Giving a nice(ish) bar-chart effect.</p>\n\n<p><meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"1000\" style=\"writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;\">1000</meter><meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"2000\" style=\"writing-mode: vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;\">2000</meter><meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"3000\" style=\"writing-mode: vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;\">3000</meter><meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"4000\" style=\"writing-mode: vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;\">4000</meter></p>\n\n<p>As well as the normal sort of CSS spacing, there is basic colour support for values which are inside a specific range:</p>\n\n<p><meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"1000\" low=\"1000\" high=\"400\" style=\"writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;\">1000</meter>\n<meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"2000\" low=\"2000\" high=\"400\" style=\"writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;\">2000</meter>\n<meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"3000\" style=\"writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;\">3000</meter>\n<meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"4000\" high=\"4000\" style=\"writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;\">4000</meter></p>\n\n<p>The background colour can also be set.</p>\n\n<p><meter min=\"0\" max=\"4000\" value=\"1000\" style=\"writing-mode:vertical-lr;border-radius:0 !important;background:red;\">1000</meter></p>\n\n<p>I dare say they're slightly more accessible than a raster image - even with good alt text. They can be targetted with JS, if you want to do fancy things with them.</p>\n\n<p>Or, if you just want a quick and dirty bar-chart, they're basically fine.</p>",
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"label": "/etc/",
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"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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"term": "css",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"label": "HTML",
"term": "HTML",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63095",
"title": "Book Review: The Breaking of Liam Glass by Charles Harris ★★★⯪☆",
"description": "This is a curious and mostly satisfying novel. It bills itself as a satire, but it is rather more cynical than that. A kid has been stabbed and the worst instincts of humanity descend. Race-baiting police, vote-grubbing politicians, and exploitative journalists. I can't comment on the accuracy of the satire of the press - but it feels real. It's full of the hungriest, nastiest people who will…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-the-breaking-of-liam-glass-by-charles-harris/",
"published": "2025-10-09T11:34:00.000Z",
"updated": "2025-09-25T17:30:42.000Z",
"content": "<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/liamglass.webp\" alt=\"Book cover with a deflated football.\" width=\"256\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-63097\">\n\n<p>This is a curious and mostly satisfying novel. It bills itself as a satire, but it is rather more cynical than that. A kid has been stabbed and the worst instincts of humanity descend. Race-baiting police, vote-grubbing politicians, and exploitative journalists.</p>\n\n<p>I can't comment on the accuracy of the satire of the press - but it <em>feels</em> real. It's full of the hungriest, nastiest people who will step over anyone and cross any moral line in pursuit of a headline.</p>\n\n<p>Similarly, the political commentary isn't exactly subtle - but it will raise your blood pressure.</p>\n\n<p>Perhaps that's the aim of the book? The author is an equal opportunity cynic. Every paragraph is so wry that it can only have been written with a permanently raised eyebrow. You'll leave it frustrated and bitter.</p>\n\n<p>There are no heroes in the story - just a series of increasingly desperate villains all trying to profit from a senseless tragedy - which makes for a difficult read at times.</p>",
"image": null,
"media": [],
"authors": [
{
"name": "@edent",
"email": null,
"url": "https://edent.tel/"
}
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{
"label": "/etc/",
"term": "/etc/",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"label": "Book Review",
"term": "Book Review",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=62224",
"title": "How to *actually* test your readme",
"description": "If you've spent any time using Linux, you'll be used to installing software like this: The README says to download from this link. Huh, I'm not sure how to unarchive .tar.xz files - guess I'll search for that. Right, it says run setup.sh hmm, that doesn't work. Oh, I need to set the permissions. What was the chmod command again? OK, that's working. Wait, it needs sudo. Let me run that again.…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/",
"published": "2025-10-07T11:34:08.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-07T10:28:12.000Z",
"content": "<p>If you've spent any time using Linux, you'll be used to installing software like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>The README says to download from this link. Huh, I'm not sure how to unarchive .tar.xz files - guess I'll search for that. Right, it says run <code>setup.sh</code> hmm, that doesn't work. Oh, I need to set the permissions. What was the <code>chmod</code> command again? OK, that's working. Wait, it needs <code>sudo</code>. Let me run that again. Hang on, am I in the right directory? Here it goes. What, it crapped out. I don't have some random library - how the hell am I meant to install that? My distro has v21 but this requires <=19. Ah, I also need to upgrade something which isn't supplied by repo. Nearly there, just need to compile this obscure project from SourceForge which was inexplicably installed on the original dev's machine and then I'll be good to go. Nope. Better raise an issue on GitHub. Oh, look, it is tomorrow.</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>As a developer, you probably don't want to answer dozens of tickets complaining that users are frustrated with your work. You thought you made the README really clear and - hey! - it works on your machine.</p>\n\n<p>There are various solutions to this problem - developers can release AppImages, or Snaps, or FlatPaks, or Docker or whatever. But that's a bit of stretch for a solo dev who is slinging out a little tool that they coded in their spare time. And, even those don't always work as seamlessly as you'd hope.</p>\n\n<p>There's an easier solution:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Follow the steps in your README</li>\n<li>See if they work.</li>\n<li>…</li>\n<li>That's it.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>OK, that's a bit reductive! There are a million variables which go into a test - so I'm going to introduce you to a secret <em>zeroth</em> step.</p>\n\n<ol start=\"0\">\n<li>Spin up a fresh Virtual Machine with a recent-ish distro.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>If you are a developer, your machine probably has a billion weird configurations and obscure libraries installed on it - things which <em>definitely</em> aren't on your users' machines. Having a box-fresh VM means than you are starting with a blank-slate. If, when following your README, you discover that the app doesn't install because of a missing dependency, you can adjust your README to include <code>apt install whatever</code>.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"ok-but-how\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/#ok-but-how\">OK, but how?</a></h2>\n\n<p>Personally, I like <a href=\"https://flathub.org/apps/org.gnome.Boxes\">Boxes</a> as it gives you a simple choice of VMs - but there are plenty of other Virtual Machine managers out there.</p>\n\n<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/OS-Selection.webp\" alt=\"List of Linux OSes.\" width=\"801\" height=\"728\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-62227\">\n\n<p>Pick a standard OS that you like. I think the latest Ubuntu Server is pretty lightweight and is a good baseline for what people are likely to have. But feel free to pick something with a GUI or whatever suits your audience.</p>\n\n<p>Once your VM is installed and set up for basic use, take a snapshot.</p>\n\n<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/revert.webp\" alt=\"Pop up showing a snapshot of a virtual machine.\" width=\"692\" height=\"628\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-62228\">\n\n<p>Every time you want to test or re-test a README, revert back to the <em>original</em> state of your box. That way you won't have odd half-installed packages laying about.</p>\n\n<p>Your next step is to think about how much hand-holding do you want to do?</p>\n\n<p>For example, the default Debian doesn't ship with git. Does your README need to tell people to <code>sudo apt install git</code> and then walk them through configuring it so that they can <code>git clone</code> your repo?</p>\n\n<p>Possibly! Who is your audience? If you've created a tool which is likely to be used by newbies who are just getting started with their first Raspberry Pi then, yeah, you probably will need to include that. Why? Because it will save you from receiving a lot of repeated questions and frustrated emails.</p>\n\n<p>OK, but most developers will have <code>gcc</code> installed, right? Maybe! But it doesn't do any harm to include it in a long list of <code>apt get …</code> anyway, does it? Similarly, does everyone know how to upgrade to the very latest npm?</p>\n\n<p>If your software is designed for people who are experienced computer touchers, don't fall into the trap of thinking that they know everything you do. I find it best to assume people are intelligent but not experienced; it doesn't hurt to give <em>slightly</em> too much detail.</p>\n\n<p>The best way to do this is to record <em>everything</em> you do after logging into the blank VM.</p>\n\n<ol start=\"0\">\n<li>Restore the snapshot.</li>\n<li>Log in.</li>\n<li>Run all the commands you need to get your software working.</li>\n<li>Once done, run <code>history -w history.txt</code>\n\n<ul>\n<li>That will print out <em>every</em> command you ran.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Copy that text into your README.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Hey presto! You now have README instructions which have been tested to work. Even on the most bare-bones machine, you can say that your README will allow the user to get started with your software with the minimum amount of head-scratching.</p>\n\n<p>Now, this isn't foolproof. Maybe the user has an ancient operating system running on obsolete hardware which is constantly bombarded by cosmic rays. But at least this way your issues won't be clogged up by people saying their install failed because <code>lib-foobar</code> wasn't available or that <code>./configure</code> had fatal errors.</p>\n\n<p>A great example is <a href=\"https://github.com/xiph/opus/blob/main/README\">the Opus Codec README</a>. I went into a fresh Ubuntu machine, followed the readme, ran the above history command, and got this:</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-_\">sudo apt-get install git autoconf automake libtool gcc make\ngit clone https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/opus.git\ncd opus\n./autogen.sh\n./configure\nmake\nsudo make install\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Everything worked! There was no missing step or having to dive into another README to figure out how to bind flarg 6.9 with schnorp-unstable.</p>\n\n<p>So that's my plea to you, dear developer friend. Make sure your README contains both the necessary <em>and</em> sufficient information required to install your software. For your sake, as much as mine!</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"wait-you-didnt-follow-your-own-advice\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/how-to-actually-test-your-readme/#wait-you-didnt-follow-your-own-advice\">Wait! You didn't follow your own advice!</a></h2>\n\n<p>You're quite right. Feel free to send a pull request to correct this post - as I shall be doing with any unhelpful READMEs I find along the way.</p>",
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"term": "Open Source",
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63643",
"title": "You did no fact checking, and I must scream",
"description": "I'm neither a journalist nor a professional fact checker but, the thing is, it's has never been easier to check basic facts. Yeah, sure, there's a world of misinformation out there, but it doesn't take much effort to determine if something is likely to be true. There are brilliant tools like reverse Image Search which give you a good indicator of when an image first appeared on the web, and…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/i-have-no-facts-and-i-must-scream/",
"published": "2025-10-05T11:34:23.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-06T09:56:50.000Z",
"content": "<p>I'm neither a journalist nor a professional fact checker but, the thing is, it's has never been easier to check basic facts. Yeah, sure, there's a world of misinformation out there, but it doesn't take much effort to determine if something is likely to be true.</p>\n\n<p>There are brilliant tools like <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/04/tools-to-defeat-fake-news-reverse-image-search/\">reverse Image Search</a> which give you a good indicator of when an image first appeared on the web, and whether it was published by a reputable source.</p>\n\n<p>You can <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/06/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-we-shouldnt-just-be-pulling-people-out-of-the-river-we-should-be-going-upstream-to-find-out-whos-pushing-them-in/\">use Google Books to check whether a quote is true</a>.</p>\n\n<p>You can use social-media searches to <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/01/no-oscar-wilde-did-not-say-imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery-that-mediocrity-can-pay-to-greatness/\">easily check the origin of memes</a>.</p>\n\n<p>There are <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/07/did-dvorak-die-a-bitter-man/\">vast archives of printed material</a> to help you.</p>\n\n<p>The World Wide Web has a million sites which allow you to <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/07/did-nikola-tesla-receive-nothing-but-insults-and-humiliation/\">cross-reference any citations</a> to see if they're spurious.</p>\n\n<p>Now, perhaps all that is a bit too much effort for someone casually doomscrolling and hitting \"repost\" for an instant dopamine hit. But it shouldn't be. And it <em>certainly</em> shouldn't be for people who write for trusted sources like newspapers.</p>\n\n<p>Recently, the beloved actor Patricia Routledge died. Several newspapers reposted a piece of viral slop which <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3lwvalev4r22b\">I had debunked a month previously</a>. Let's go through the piece and see just how easy it is to prove false.</p>\n\n<p>Here's that \"viral\" story. I've kept to the parts which contain easily verifiable / falsifiable claims.</p>\n\n<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/turning-95.webp\" alt=\"**“I’ll be turning 95 this coming Monday. In my younger years, I was often filled with worry — worry that I wasn’t quite good enough, that no one would cast me again, that I wouldn’t live up to my mother’s hopes. But these days begin in peace, and end in gratitude.”**\" width=\"350\" height=\"120\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-63645\">\n\n<p>Wikpedia says that <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Routledge\">her birthday was 17 February 1929</a>. She would have turned 95 in 2024.</p>\n\n<p>Open up your calendar app. Scroll back to February 2024. What date was 17 February 2024? Saturday. Not Monday.</p>\n\n<p>Now, OK, maybe at 95 she's forgotten her birthday. What else does the rest of the piece say?</p>\n\n<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/life.webp\" alt=\"My life didn’t quite take shape until my forties. I had worked steadily — on provincial stages, in radio plays, in West End productions — but I often felt adrift, as though I was searching for a home within myself that I hadn’t quite found.\" width=\"350\" height=\"100\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-63646\">\n\n<p>In 1968, <a href=\"https://youtu.be/_e6_6pHKsQU?t=5382\">Patricia Routledge won Best Actress (Musical) at the Tony Awards</a> - she was 39. I don't know if I'd consider appearing on Broadway as provincial stages.</p>\n\n<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/accepted.webp\" alt=\"At 50, I accepted a television role that many would later associate me with — Hyacinth Bucket, of Keeping Up Appearances. I thought it would be a small part in a little series. I never imagined that it would take me into people’s living rooms and hearts around the world. And truthfully, that role taught me to accept my own quirks. It healed something in me.\" width=\"350\" height=\"140\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-63647\">\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/579878/\">Keeping Up Appearances was first broadcast in 1990</a>. Patricia was around 60, not 50, when she was cast.</p>\n\n<p>While she may have thought it would only be a small series - even though it was by the creator of Open All Hours and Last of the Summer Wine - there's no way that being the lead character could be described as a \"small part\". She wasn't a breakout character - she was the star.</p>\n\n<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/shake.webp\" alt=\"At 70, I returned to the Shakespearean stage — something I once believed I had aged out of. But this time, I had nothing to prove. I stood on those boards with stillness, and audiences felt that. I was no longer performing. I was simply being.\" width=\"350\" height=\"100\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-63648\">\n\n<p>Wikipedia isn't always accurate, but it <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Routledge#Stage\">does list lots of her stage work</a>. She was working steadily on stage from 1999 - when she hit 70 - but none of it Shakespeare.</p>\n\n<p>I was able to do that fact checking in 10 minutes while laying in bed waiting for the bathroom to become free. It wasn't onerous. It didn't require subscriptions to professional journals. I didn't need a team of fact-checkers. It took a bit of web-sleuthing and, dare I say it, a smidgen of common sense.</p>\n\n<p>And yet, a couple of newspapers ran with this utter drivel as though it were the truth. <a href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20251003145620/https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/tv/news/patricia-routledge-death-last-message-b2838736.html\">The Independent</a> published it as part of their tribute - although they <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3m2cmhw7nmc2a\">took the piece down after I emailed them</a>. Similarly <a href=\"https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/2100863/keeping-appearances-patricia-routledge-confession\">The Express</a> ran it without any basic fact-checking (and <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3m2jdtg6xys22\">didn't take it down</a> after being contacted).</p>\n\n<p>Both of them say their primary source is the <a href=\"https://jayspeak.blog/2025/08/02/growing-oldoops-up/\">\"Jay Speak\" blog</a>. There's nothing on that blog post to say that the author interviewed Patricia Routledge. A quick check of the other posts on the site don't make it obvious that it is a reputable source of exclusive interviews with notable actors.</p>\n\n<p>The date on that blog post is August 2nd, 2025. Is there anything earlier? Typing a few of the phrases into a search engine found a bunch of posts which pre-date it. The earliest I can find was <a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DMeyLa6oU8q/\">this Instagram post</a> and <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/henk.benson/posts/pfbid02dWng6y7dpubTFSZuYavFYVdEfLuzcnvmqNnJuiAN693LfJLSNwHec8p7cSQasgdxl\">this Facebook post</a> both from the <strong>24th of July</strong> - a week early than the Jay Speaks post.</p>\n\n<p>To be clear, I don't think Jay Speaks was deliberately trying to fool journalists or hoax anyone. They simply saw an interesting looking post and re-shared it. I also suspect the Facebook and Instagram posts were copied from other sources - but I've been unable to find anything definitive.</p>\n\n<p>I would expect that professional journalists at well-established newspapers to be able to call an actor's agent to fact-check a piece before running it. If they can't, I would have thought they'd do a cursory fact check.</p>\n\n<p>But, no. I presume the rush to publish is so great that it over-rides any sense of whether a piece should be accurate.</p>\n\n<p>This is irresponsible. Last week saw <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/jamesomalley.co.uk/post/3m2edtpdysc2u\">the BBC air an outright lie on Have I Got News For You</a>. A professional TV company, with a budget for lawyers, fact checkers, and researchers - and they just broadcast easily disproven lies. Why? Maybe hubris, maybe laziness, maybe deliberate rabble-rousing.</p>\n\n<p>The media have comprehensively failed us. They will repeat any tawdry nonsense as long as it keeps people clicking. It's up to us to defend ourselves and our friends against this unending tsunami of low-grade slurry.</p>\n\n<p>I hope I've demonstrated that it takes almost no effort to perform a basic fact check. It isn't a professional skill. It doesn't require anything more than an Internet connection and a curious mind. If you see something online, take a moment to check it before sharing it.</p>\n\n<p>Stopping misinformation starts with you.</p>",
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63527",
"title": "Getting started with Mastodon's Quote Posts - technical implementation details for servers",
"description": "Quoting posts on Mastodon is slightly complex. Because of the privacy conscious nature of the platform and its users, reposting isn't merely a case of sharing a URl. A user writes a status. The user can choose to make their statuses quotable or not. What happens when a quoter quotes that post? I've read through the specification and tried to simplify it. Quoting is a multi-step process: The…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/",
"published": "2025-10-03T11:34:27.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-03T15:06:55.000Z",
"content": "<p>Quoting posts on Mastodon is <em>slightly</em> complex. Because of the privacy conscious nature of the platform and its users, reposting isn't merely a case of sharing a URl.</p>\n\n<p>A user writes a status. The user can choose to make their statuses quotable or not. What happens when a quoter quotes that post?</p>\n\n<p>I've <a href=\"https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/044f/fep-044f.md\">read through the specification</a> and tried to simplify it. Quoting is a multi-step process:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>The status <em>must</em> opt-in to being shared.</li>\n<li>The quoter quotes the status.</li>\n<li>The quoter's server sends a request to the status's server.</li>\n<li>The status's server sends an accept message back to the quoter's server.</li>\n<li>When other servers see the quote, they check with the status's server to see if it is allowed.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I'm going to walk you through each stage as best as I understand them.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"opting-in\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#opting-in\">Opting In</a></h2>\n\n<p>An ActivityPub status message is JSON. In order to opt-in, it needs this additional field.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-JSON\">\"interactionPolicy\": {\n \"canQuote\": {\n \"automaticApproval\": \"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public\"\n }\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>That tells ActivityPub clients that anyone is allowed to quote this post. It is also possible to say that only specific users, or only followers, or no-one is allowed.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"the-quoterequest\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#the-quoterequest\">The QuoteRequest</a></h2>\n\n<p>Someone has hit the quote post button, typed their own message, and shared their wisdom. Their server sends the following message to the server which hosts the quoted status. This has been edited for brevity.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-JSON\">{\n \"@context\": [\n \"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams\",\n {\n \"QuoteRequest\": \"https://w3id.org/fep/044f#QuoteRequest\"\n }\n ],\n \"type\": \"QuoteRequest\",\n \"id\": \"https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/quote_requests/1234-5678-9101\",\n \"actor\": \"https://mastodon.test/users/Edent\",\n \"object\": \"https://example.com/posts/987654321.json\",\n \"instrument\": {\n \"id\": \"https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/statuses/123456789\",\n \"url\": \"https://mastodon.test/@Edent/123456789\",\n \"attributedTo\": \"https://mastodon.test/users/Edent\",\n \"quote\": \"https://example.com/posts/987654321.json\",\n \"_misskey_quote\": \"https://example.com/posts/987654321.json\",\n \"quoteUri\": \"https://example.com/posts/987654321.json\"\n }\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>All this says is \"I would like permission to quote you.\"</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"the-stamp\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#the-stamp\">The Stamp</a></h2>\n\n<p>The quoted server needs to approve this quote. First, it generates a \"stamp\".</p>\n\n<p>This is a file which lives on the quoted server. It is proof that the quote is allowed. If it is deleted, the quote permission is revoked. When the <a href=\"https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/quote-post-implementation-issues/8032/2?u=eden_t\">stamp's ID is requested the stamp <em>must</em> be returned</a>.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-JSON\">{\n \"@context\": [\n \"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams\",\n {\n \"gts\": \"https://gotosocial.org/ns#\",\n \"QuoteAuthorization\": {\n \"@id\": \"https://w3id.org/fep/044f#QuoteAuthorization\",\n \"@type\": \"@id\"\n },\n \"interactingObject\": {\n \"@id\": \"gts:interactingObject\"\n },\n \"interactionTarget\": {\n \"@id\": \"gts:interactionTarget\"\n }\n }\n ],\n \"type\": \"QuoteAuthorization\",\n \"id\": \"https://example.com/quote-987654321.json\",\n \"attributedTo\": \"https://example.com/users/username\",\n \"interactionTarget\": \"https://example.com/posts/987654321.json\",\n \"interactingObject\": \"https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/statuses/123456789\"\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>If the quoted status is viewed from a different server, that server will query the stamp to make sure the share is allowed.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"the-accept\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#the-accept\">The Accept</a></h2>\n\n<p>This is the message that the quoted server sends to the quoting server. It references the request and the stamp.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-JSON\">{\n \"@context\": [\n \"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams\",\n {\n \"QuoteRequest\": \"https://w3id.org/fep/044f#QuoteRequest\"\n }\n ],\n \"type\": \"Accept\",\n \"to\": \"https://mastodon.test/users/Edent\",\n \"id\": \"https://example.com/posts/987654321.json\",\n \"actor\": \"https://example.com/account\",\n \"object\": {\n \"type\": \"QuoteRequest\",\n \"id\": \"https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/quote_requests/1234-5678-9101\",\n \"actor\": \"https://mastodon.test/users/Edent\",\n \"instrument\": \"https://mastodon.test/users/Edent/statuses/123456789\",\n \"object\": \"https://example.com/posts/987654321.json\"\n },\n \"result\": \"https://example.com/quote-987654321.json\"\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>The \"result\" <em>must</em> be the same as the stamp's URl.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"and-then\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/getting-started-with-mastodons-quote-posts-technical-implementation-details-for-servers/#and-then\">And then?</a></h2>\n\n<p>You can follow and quote <a href=\"https://colours.bots.edent.tel/\">@[email protected]</a> on your favourite Fediverse platform.</p>\n\n<p>I've written an ActivityPub server in a single file which is designed to teach you have the protocol works. Have a play with <a href=\"https://gitlab.com/edent/activity-bot\">ActivityBot</a>.</p>",
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"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog"
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=63503",
"title": "Book Review: Streaming Wars - How Getting Everything We Wanted Changed Entertainment Forever by Charlotte Henry ★★☆☆☆",
"description": "This should be a fascinating look at how streaming services evolved and the outsized impact they've had on our culture. Instead it is mostly a series of re-written press-releases and recycled analysis from other people. Sadly, the book never dives in to the pre-history of streaming. There's a brief mention of RealPlayer - but nothing about the early experiments of livestreaming gigs and TV…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/book-review-streaming-wars-how-getting-everything-we-wanted-changed-entertainment-forever-by-charlotte-henry/",
"published": "2025-10-01T11:34:54.000Z",
"updated": "2025-10-01T16:51:02.000Z",
"content": "<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/cover719123-medium.png\" alt=\"Book cover.\" width=\"255\" height=\"391\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-63514\">\n\n<p>This <em>should</em> be a fascinating look at how streaming services evolved and the outsized impact they've had on our culture. Instead it is mostly a series of re-written press-releases and recycled analysis from other people.</p>\n\n<p>Sadly, the book never dives in to the pre-history of streaming. There's a brief mention of RealPlayer - but nothing about the early experiments of livestreaming gigs and TV over the Internet. Similarly, it ignores how Big Brother created a generation of people who wanted to stream on their phones. Early pioneers like JenniCam are written out of history. The book is relentlessly focussed on American streamers, with only a brief foray into the UK, Africa, and other markets. There's nothing about Project Kangaroo and how it squandered an early opportunity for streaming dominance.</p>\n\n<p>Steaming only started with Netflix, according to this book. Despite iPlayer launching at roughly the same time, it doesn't make an appearance until halfway though the book. It's also missing some of the interesting aspects of how Netflix built its algorithm, and the privacy impacts of it.</p>\n\n<p>The analysis itself mostly quotes from reports from Enders and other firms like that. It doesn't seem like there was any original research done, and there aren't any new interviews done for the book. Instead it is just a surface-level analysis mixed in with clichéd prose about boiling frogs. It's also fairly uncritical - several sections are just press-releases from big streaming services with little discussion about whether they're accurate. It almost turns into a corporate biography / hagiography rather than a serious look at streaming.</p>\n\n<p>There's very little about the production side. For example, how <a href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-does-everything-on-netflix-look-like-that/\">Netflix squashes cinematograph</a> and how its <a href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/cinematography/comments/16precd/whats_the_real_reason_netflix_shows_all_look_the/k1v88gd/\">lack of permanent props storage</a> restricts accurate set-dressing to <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/2016/07/stories-behind-stranger-things-retro-80s-props/\">tent-pole shows</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Although this is a preview copy, the prose feels half-baked.</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>Overall, the iPlayer is a very high-quality product, providing access to both linear TV and a whole range of content in its extensive catalogue.</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>That's the sort of thing I'd expect from a student essay rather than a serious book.</p>\n\n<p>Unlike <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/03/book-review-warez-the-infrastructure-and-aesthetics-of-piracy-by-martin-paul-eve/\">Warez - The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy by Martin Paul Eve</a>, there's almost nothing about piracy and how that drives the behaviour of consumers, producers, and distributors. There's a bit of discussion of Napster, but hardly anything about the more modern cultural impact.</p>\n\n<p>It is maddeningly contradictory. In a couple of pages it goes from:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>Consequently, we are closer than we have ever been to having something like global TV. Close, but not actually there.</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>To:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>because of the amount of work available to view, there is no mono-culture anymore.</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>Which is it?</p>\n\n<p>The book concludes by saying:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>With that in mind, the ultimate winner of the streaming wars is the consumer. It is us.</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>Is it though? There's almost nothing about shows cancelled before they got going. Nothing about whether American cultural hegemony suffocates local media development. It briefly touches on the constant price rises, but never investigates whether it changes behaviours or if they drive customers away. There's not a single interview with viewers - and no attempt to understand whether they feel positive about the way streaming has changed the world.</p>\n\n<p>There's a fascinating story to be told, but this isn't it.</p>\n\n<p>Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy, the book is available to pre-order now.</p>",
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{
"id": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=62143",
"title": "Can you use GDPR to Circumvent BlueSky's Adult Content Blocks?",
"description": "In the battle between the Online Safety Act and GDPR, who will win? FIGHT! I'll start by saying that I'm moderately positive on Online Safety. If services don't want to provide moderation then they shouldn't let their younger users be exposed to harm. The social network BlueSky has taken a pragmatic approach to this. If you don't want to verify your age, you can still use its services - but it…",
"url": "https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/",
"published": "2025-09-29T11:34:27.000Z",
"updated": "2025-09-30T12:01:46.000Z",
"content": "<p>In the battle between the Online Safety Act and GDPR, who will win? FIGHT!</p>\n\n<p>I'll start by saying that I'm <a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/12/food-safety-vs-online-safety/\">moderately positive on Online Safety</a>. If services don't want to provide moderation then they shouldn't let their younger users be exposed to harm.</p>\n\n<p>The social network BlueSky has taken a pragmatic approach to this. If you don't want to verify your age, you can still use its services - but <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3ltmzgl5h4c2k\">it won't serve you porn or let people send you non-public messages</a>.</p>\n\n<p>I think that's pretty reasonable. I don't use BSky to look at naked <del>mole rats</del> people, and I already have plenty of other messaging accounts. So I haven't verified my age.</p>\n\n<p>There are two slight wrinkles with BSky's implementation. Firstly, there's no way to retrieve DMs which were sent before this restriction came into force. Oh, you can one-click export your data - but <a href=\"https://docs.bsky.app/blog/repo-export\">it only includes <em>public</em> data</a>. So no DMs.</p>\n\n<p>Secondly, you can't turn off DM from people who have previously messaged you. <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/edent.tel/post/3luoqklgdhk27\">I asked people to message me</a> to see if they got an error - but it looks like the messages just get silently accepted. I probably look a bit rude if I don't answer them.</p>\n\n<p>Worse still, the DM notification keeps incrementing!</p>\n\n<img src=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Bluesky-DM-notification.webp\" alt=\"A notification counter showing the number 3. The message next to it says I need to complete age assurance.\" width=\"932\" height=\"401\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-62145\">\n\n<p>It <em>is</em> possible to turn off DMs - but <a href=\"https://bsky.social/about/blog/05-22-2024-direct-messages\">only if you can access your DM settings</a>. Which you can't if you haven't passed age assurance.</p>\n\n<p>Well, what about GDPR?</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://bsky.social/about/support/privacy-policy#personal-information-collect\">BlueSky's privacy policy</a> has this to say about DMs:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>Your Direct Messages. We store and process your direct messages in order to enable you to communicate directly and privately with other users on the Bluesky App. These are unencrypted and can be accessed for Trust and Safety purposes.</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>They go on to say that I may have the right to:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>Request Access to and Portability of Your Personal Information, including: (i) obtaining access to or a copy of your personal information; and (ii) receiving an electronic copy of personal information that you have provided to us, or asking us to send that information to another company in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format (also known as the “right of data portability”);</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>So I sent off a Subject Access Request asking specifically for the Direct Messages sent to/from my account.</p>\n\n<p>I was 100% sure that the messages I had sent were my personal data and should be returned to me. I wasn't sure if messages other people had sent to me could be considered personal data. But I figured that the OSA hadn't invalidated GDPR.</p>\n\n<p>Here's what happened:</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"timeline\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#timeline\">Timeline</a></h2>\n\n<ul>\n<li>2025-07-24 - Sent request to their support desk and received an acknowledgement.\n\n<ul>\n<li>Response: \"I've gone ahead and shared your request with our team and will follow up with you if any additional information or verification is needed.\"</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>2025-07-31 - Sent a reminder to them.\n\n<ul>\n<li>Response: \"We've escalated your concern to our developers and are still waiting for their response and confirmation. We'll get back as soon as we get this information.\"</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>2025-08-25 - One month later sent an escalation to their legal team reminding them of their obligations.\n\n<ul>\n<li>Response: Asked to provide my country of residence and to prove my account ownership by send an email from the address associated with my BSky account.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>2025-09-05 - Sent yet another chaser.</li>\n<li>2025-09-13 - Over seven weeks since the initial request. Told them that I wanted to know which data protection authority they were registered with so I could make a formal complaint.\n\n<ul>\n<li>Response: \"Please be aware that we are currently in the process of making your data available for download. We will notify you as soon as it is ready.\"</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>2025-09-22 - 8 weeks since the complaint was raised. Sent another chaser asking how long until my data would be ready to download.</li>\n<li>2025-09-25 - After 64 days they sent me a CSV with my data!</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h2 id=\"result\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#result\">Result</a></h2>\n\n<p>Here's an extract of the CSV. I've lightly redacted the data, but you can see how JSON embedding works.</p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"language-csv\">convoId,sentAt,sender,contents\n3kt6f7a2,2025-07-24 05:50:09.339+00,did:plc:pxy4cjqfu5aa6eadtx5,\"{\"\"text\"\": \"\"Testing testing\"\"}\"\n3ku4lvbh,2024-06-04 18:17:52.414+00,did:plc:i6misxex577k4q6o7gl,\"{\"\"text\"\": \"\"Thought this might be up your alley. I've been to a few of them - pretty good crowd. thegeomob.com/post/july-3r...\"\", \"\"facets\"\": [{\"\"index\"\": {\"\"byteEnd\"\": 114, \"\"byteStart\"\": 85}, \"\"features\"\": [{\"\"uri\"\": \"\"https://thegeomob.com/post/july-3rd-2024-geomoblon-details\"\", \"\"$type\"\": \"\"app.bsky.richtext.facet#link\"\"}]}]}\"\n</code></pre>\n\n<h2 id=\"thoughts\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#thoughts\">Thoughts</a></h2>\n\n<p>I didn't have to prove my age. I just proved account ownership and then politely but insistently asked for my data. Frankly, it is baffling that such a well-funded company takes this long to answer a simple request.</p>\n\n<p>Does this expose a gaping whole in the idea of online safety?</p>\n\n<p>No. Not really. I suppose that a theoretical abuser could send messages to a minor and then that minor could go through a Subject Access Request process to try and access them. But that all feels a bit far-fetched and is likely to draw attention to both parties.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"but-why-didnt-you-just\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#but-why-didnt-you-just\">But why didn't you just…</a></h2>\n\n<p>This was definitely \"playing on hard mode\". There were other ways to get my DMs. Here are some alternatives which I didn't try and <em>why</em> I didn't try them.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Use a VPN to circumvent the geoblock.\n\n<ul>\n<li>Why should I have to pay for a VPN, or trust my browsing data to a dodgy 3rd party? I shouldn't have to install and configure software just to work around a crappy design decision.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Go through age verification.\n\n<ul>\n<li>I don't browse BlueSky for the \"gentlemen's special interest\" section. I already have lots of ways people can contact me. I'm not against a KYC process - but I simply don't need it.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Use a 3rd party client to download the data.\n\n<ul>\n<li>I don't trust my data with 3rd party apps, and neither should you!</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Use <a href=\"https://docs.bsky.app/docs/api/chat-bsky-convo-get-messages\">the API</a> to read DMs.\n\n<ul>\n<li>I wasn't sure if the API required age verification. And, frankly, I couldn't be faffed learning a brand new API.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Escalate straight to the CEO or via a friend who works there.\n\n<ul>\n<li>I like doing things the official way. Not everyone has a friend who works at BSky (thanks <REDACTED>!) and I feel it is better if legal teams get direct feedback from users; not management.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Ignore this and use a better social network.\n\n<ul>\n<li>I go where my friends are. I have lots of friends on Mastodon and other services. BSky is OK, but I'm only there for my friends. But, while they are there, I didn't want an obnoxious DM notification taunting me.</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n\n<h2 id=\"next-steps\"><a href=\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/can-you-use-gdpr-to-circumvent-blueskys-adult-content-blocks/#next-steps\">Next Steps</a></h2>\n\n<p>I've emailed BlueSky to ask them to completely disable my inbox and clear my notifications. We'll see how long that takes them!</p>",
"image": null,
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"authors": [
{
"name": "@edent",
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"url": "https://edent.tel/"
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{
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