Are you a safe kid? I’ve just had a memory of a past time in a library.

Two newer meta-ish search engines for encyclopedias (about 30+ wikis):

• https://encyclosearch.org/
• https://encycloreader.org/

On math, magic, and mathematical grimoires.. As I was “speedrun reading” about MathML days ago, I discovered an amazing digital library of mathematical functions. Boring, but why amazing? Take a look at this function and hover click on any of the variables to view the definition, and keep clicking on more variables for even more… definitions. That’s a legit library.

See, now all of us can roleplay as mages and mathematicians on the Internet.

Mathematical Markup Language (MathML)? I’ve thought about LaTeX/TeX strategies on the web for a bit ever since someone asked years ago about different approaches. I never got to poking around on my blog, but since then the masters have delivered unto us;

1. MathML (XML based web specification)
2. KaTeX
3. MathJax

In format conversion land we’ve been given; LaTeXML, make4ht, texmath, temml, and Pandoc.

I caught a glimpse of an interesting thing by chance. Meta Platforms aka Facebook hid the x from their login prompt on public pages–including government pages, then brought it back. ‘Twas on the desktop before mobile and perhaps (who knows) for a subset (as a test). A “login only public page” is for a near–distant future, set. Seriously though; developer documentation will become my final excuse to visit Facebook.

I came across a good article on finding video feed links from various (mostly western) sites. Odysee links have a funky format that are prefixed with https://odysee.com/$/rss + channel.

So this (channel):
https://odysee.com/@andkos.music:1

Becomes this (feed):
https://odysee.com/$/rss/@andkos.music:1

And… as a pretend expert :) started wondering: In the big bad messy real world (super serious business), how does one on such a decentralized (social) network thoroughly:

1. Block specific users from viewing
2. Block specific users from following
3. Block specific users from interacting
4. Delete previous local/remote content from specific users following
5. Delete previous local/remote interactions from specific users interacting

ActivityPub is an open/transparent protocol (amazing) but for adoption, the expectation/reality of many users online anywhere (even public networks) is favourable discoverability not discoverability itself… however contradictory/debatable. That’s probably easy/possible centralized but stupid hard/impossible decentralized.

The IndieWeb’s POSSE is a rather sophisticated syndication philosophy. Too bad I’ve got such a disdain for social media that I’d never explore it personally. It’s a good approach for working on other people’s stuff though: think Facebook’s (Meta) instant RSS articles (dies April 2023), podcast feeds, or any other (kinda) bi–directional site syndication mechanism.

The hypothetical outcomes/incentives of POSSE if it was done by everyone is an entertaining thought experiment.

It seems that.. from talking to a few people via email, basic feed discovery with rel alternates are ineffective. Simple redirects work better for organic discovery.

1. /atom -> /path/to/real/{atom,rss}/feed
2. /rss -> /path/to/real/{atom,rss}/feed
3. /feed -> /path/to/real/{atom,rss}/feed

I was reading web.dev recently and couldn’t help but think that in tech circles/articles online it’s easy to get the impression that Firefox is a major competing browser. Firefox actually doesn’t even register. Firefox has an estimated 3% points in global market–share and doesn’t even show up in mobile market–share estimates.

Users implicitly use Safari (Apple) and/or some derivation of Chromium (Google Chrome). When was the last time you saw someone irl using Firefox? Not recently if you’re outside the tech bubble.