So, I've had two good pieces of news for the ActivityPub book from O'Reilly Media. The first one is that I finished the 6th of 7 chapters this week (on using and creating ActivityPub extensions). It was a gruelling chapter that I had to reorganise a couple of times to clarify, but I'm so happy … Continue reading Early Access to O’Reilly Media ActivityPub Book →

On October 7, 2023, fighters from Hamas invaded Israel and killed around 400 soldiers and around 800 civilians. They raped, injured and kidnapped hundreds of others. By October 13, the Intelligence Ministry of Israel had produced a plan for how to deal with these attacks. Led by the Likud Party member Gila Gamliel, the document … Continue reading The Gamliel Plan →

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire collectively blamed the millions of Armenians in their territory for attacks by Armenian resistance fighters. Around 1M non-combatants were killed by the Ottoman military -- in many cases, by forced marches through the Syrian desert without food and water. Denouncing this genocide doesn't make you an Armenian resistance … Continue reading Taking sides in a genocide →

I finished the Obelisk Gate today; it's book 2 of NK Jamison's Broken Earth series. I want to write some notes here about the book to cement them in my mind. Spoilers ahead. I mentioned on Mastodon that the series had been pretty striking for me. It's the story of a future (probably) world in … Continue reading The Obelisk Gate →

I finished two more chapters this week in my book about ActivityPub. Chapter 2 is about Activity Streams 2.0, the social network data standard we use for ActivityPub. Appendix 1 is a reference for all the types in Activity Streams. Next up is Chapter 4, federation protocol, and Chapter 5, extensions. I'm on a tight … Continue reading Two more chapters →

I have some strong feelings about the social web (aka "the fediverse") right now. I don't aways communicate them well, because they feel so essential to me, which can be frustrating for my friends, colleagues and allies. I want to set out some steps for my reasoning. I think the social web is very important. … Continue reading ActivityPub, the SocialCG, and the social web →

One of the outcomes of the W3C worldwide technical conference, TPAC, this year, was a suggestion from W3C staff that we consider forming a new Social Web Working Group (WG) for revising the ActivityPub and Activity Streams 2.0 standards. There has been some controversy about this idea, which I wanted to address with a blog … Continue reading A New Social Web Working Group at the W3C →