@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

polotek

@polotek@social.polotek.net

Web developer, movie buff, and pretty much the best guy you know. Married to
@operaqueenie

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

A lot of frontend teams are very convinced that rewriting their frontend will lead to the promised land. And I am the bearer of bad tidings.

If you are building a product that you hope has longevity, your frontend framework is the least interesting technical decision for you to make. And all of the time you spend arguing about it is wasted energy.

I will die on this hill.

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

Oh no! You mean they didn't ask permission first so we could yell at them about "community norms"? How unexpected!
https://social.wake.st/@liaizon/112603447990005434

hrefna ,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

@polotek

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

Imagine having 8 billion people on this planet and telling a single individual that they need to get better at "multi-tasking". Like, why tho?

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I'm looking at mastodon some more today and probably tomorrow. On our last episode, we reached a milestone of getting a local mastodon build up and running using docker. The docker part is important, because my goal is to get two local instances running and have them talk to each other. I'm thinking that's the easiest way for me to be able to inspect the ActivityPub protocol more directly.

polotek OP ,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

What are some high level questions people have about how mastodon works? Maybe I can use those for guidance as I explore. I'll share any answers I'm able to uncover.

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

We got solar on the house last year. It wasn't necessarily about saving money for me. It became important to me to take a concrete step towards combatting climate change.

But something else started to dawn on me too. The fact that I'm now generating my own power, from an essentially unlimited source, is a truly radical act. I've been thinking a lot about creating a society centered around abundance instead of scarcity. It's not just theoretical.
https://assemblag.es/@theluddite/112496059286904697

tastyraspberry ,
@tastyraspberry@mastodon.online avatar

@polotek

> I've been thinking a lot about creating a society centered around abundance instead of scarcity.

Currently reading Walkway by @pluralistic, which centers about exactly that. It's the weirdest book I've discover from him yet, but also the most thought provoking.

virtuous_sloth ,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@tastyraspberry @polotek @pluralistic Indeed. Me too. Coincidentally, I'm re-reading Walkaway right now because I got interrupted 7 years ago.

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I'm gonna use this tool where no ones in charge, I don't pay for anything, and there are no real restrictions on how it's used.

Things happen that I don't like

no one could've seen this coming.

https://toot-lab.reclaim.technology/@djsundog/112480508051075965

polotek OP ,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

We're probably going to have to repeat this a lot and keep talking about it. But we don't actually have a ton of practice for how to manage things in a world without corporate control structures. Managing spam is one of the many things we take for granted now. Companies just do it for us, because not doing it devalues their business.

In the fediverse, all of these responsibilities are decentralized. It's going to matter a lot that nobody has to make themselves responsible for fighting spam.

polotek OP ,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

My current feeling is that we need more parts of the ecosystem to be "pluggable". I should be able to pay for spam protection on my instance even if other people don't care enough or don't have the funds. But right now I'm not sure where it would plug in. I haven't noticed where the services I pay for even address it.
https://front-end.social/@ppk/112480843260215805

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

That part.
https://hachyderm.io/@evacide/112452473407557731

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

Me: I think I need more flexibility than what mastodon offers right now.

Them: What do you mean? Mastodon is super flexible! What do you need?

Me: Well I don't like X and I'd rather have Y.

Them: Oh, yeah it definitely doesn't do that. But you're sort of wrong for wanting that anyway. Glad I could help!

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

“We have a culture of vibrant, open discussion that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action,” he said in the memo, which the company posted online. “But ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/22/google-nimbus-israel-protest-fired-workers/

polotek OP ,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I'm not an activist. I could be. I probably should be. Ultimately my life choices have carried me in a different direction. I say that only to acknowledge that I'm not in the trenches. And so whatever I have to say about the tactics and strategies of activism should be taken with a healthy grain of salt. But as a person who supports these causes, I do have some thoughts that I think are worth discussing.

polotek OP ,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

First and foremost, it's important to understand that what tech activism is up against. These aren't just big companies. These are the biggest companies that have ever existed. They have more resources and more power than most nation-states. So being unable to move them isn't any kind of failure in my mind. It has always been a tall order.

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I've been thinking about something a lot today. I think it's a microcosm of a big problem with the way many average people move through the world.

Why do so many software engineers hate paying for software?

polotek OP ,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I know that most people's first pithy thought is "they think they can build it themselves". But I don't buy it. Most software develops know how hard it is to build solutions that actually feel polished and usable. Our laptops are literally graveyards of projects that never get completed.

What I'm saying that if anybody in the world understands why good software is worth paying real money, it should be us. But that's often not the case. Why?

polotek OP ,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

Don't forget to be who you wanna see in the world. Do it all the time. Do it even if you think it doesn't matter. It actually does.

The money I pay for software is part of somebody's raise. It's part of some dev being able to have their own small business instead of being jerked around by a big company. It matters.

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

This is an interesting question. And I want to give a thoughtful answer. The reality is that the backend has all of these same problems. They have also experienced an explosion in complexity. I think the outcomes are different mostly because they have more support. The reality is that cloud vendors have assumed a ton of the complexity and the risk on the backend. So engineers aren't drowning to the same extent.
https://mastodon.social/@floby/112107065645789780

sgf ,
@sgf@mastodon.xyz avatar

@hrefna I hope you had users around the world, to combine the very best of "trying to fix at 2am" with "very user visible". :D

hrefna ,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

@sgf Yep! In fact most of them were in EMEA for this particular project!

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

Last week was my first time really looking into what settings are available to admins who run their own instance. I was a bit surprised to find there isn't much there. At least through masto.host. I don't think they hide settings though. Only some of the deeper technical stuff.

polotek OP ,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

Here's the snapshot of my sidekiq status again. The take away here is that there was no huge spike this morning. This is normal usage. It still produced upwards of 15K jobs that need to be completed. That's just doesn't feel like a reasonable design for this kind of system.

b0rk ,
@b0rk@jvns.ca avatar

@polotek i always feel like mastodon just isn’t designed for single user instances and that the fact that they don’t work well is just accepted

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I still maintain that the at protocol means that bluesky should be included in the definition of "the fediverse". I know it will take people some time to come around on that. And certainly bsky still has some promises to deliver on. But the actual fediverse will be so much messier than what people have in their heads right now. The lines will all be blurry and gray. By design.

polotek OP ,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

What bothers me more is how much of nerd culture is not self-aware about how much their ethos is about policing. Keeping people out or forcing them to conform. Many of these folks fancy themselves as anti-establishment. But the energy is constantly doing cop shit. They just wanna be the establishment.

polotek OP ,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

Let me be clear. This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to resist bad actors. We definitely need to keep some people out. But I think that's a smaller group than people think. And it's also beside the point. What I mean is folks who show up to preemptively police shit that doesn't even matter.

Like, I'm just some guy. It's really okay if I just think some thoughts out loud about the fediverse. You really don't have to make it your mission to fight with me about it.

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

Okay. I guess I'm gonna make this account a little more annoying. I'm gonna spend a little time each week exploring my mastodon experience and talking about how to make it better.

I say "annoying" because I'd rather be interesting than just useful. And I think this kind of content is the opposite. Potentially useful but overall not the most interesting. (It's okay if you disagree. We don't have to talk about it)
https://social.polotek.net/@polotek/111966798276024291

polotek , to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I'm still thinking about how mastodon should be a hot bed of developer a activity trying to improve the platform. But it's not. Partly because of a small minority of users who flame anyone who tries to do anything. And partly because control of the core was captured by a small, insular group of people who don't know how to foster collaborative growth. So much potential being wasted.

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