We had some gray soup with the occasional fine rain with strong wind gusts. Despite the bad forecast we took the train to Geislingen/Steige and strolled up to the Helfenstein castle ruin. All the colorful leaves were so beautiful, it didnât matter that the sun was behind thick layers of clouds.
We then continued to the Ădenturm (lit. boring tower). By then the wind had picked up by quite a bit, just as the weatherman predicted. We were very positively surprised that the Swabian Jura Association had opened up the tower. Between May and October, the tower is typically only manned on Sundays and holidays between 10 and 17 oâclock. But yesterday was Saturday and no holiday. The lovely lady up there told us that theyâre currently experimenting with opening up on Saturday, too, because there are some highly motivated members responsible for the tower.
We were the very first visitors on that day. Last Sunday, when the weather lived up to the weekdayâs name, they counted 128 people up in the tower. Very impressive.
The wind gusts were howling around the tower. Luckily, there are glass windows. So, it was quite pleasant up in the tower room. Chatting with the tower guard for a while, we got even luckier: the sun came out! That was really awesome. The photos donât do justice. As always, it looked way more stunning in person.
Thanks to all the volunteers who make it possible to enjoy the view from the thirty odd meters up there. That certainly made our day!
After signing the guestbook we climbed down the staircase and returned to the station and headed back. The train even arrived on time. What a great little trip!
After taking most of the year off from role-playing, Iâve got 3 one-shots coming up in the next month, all of which need some tweaking before I can run them (as do my homebrew rules).
Plus thereâs a âbuild a gameâ code challenge at work, a pair of media boxes I need to rebuild, a pair of dead machines I need to diagnose, and Iâd like to (eventually) get my twtxt apps to a âreleasableâ state.
While working on the Discoverability for my twtxt client (it runs client-side) I found out that Chrome doesnât allow to set a custom user agent. đ
I thought it was a general thing for browsers, but it that was actually allowed in a newer specification, yet itâs still not implemented in Chrome, it does work in Firefox though.
(#jdhwlna) @thecanine@twtxt.net With a progressive web app (PWA) you can have a native like experience without having to trouble yourself with building a second project that act as a client.
You can even âwrapâ it into a packaged installation and publish it on stores, theres even projects to streamline it https://www.pwabuilder.com/.
A thread is a single post of a single feed as a root, but the hash has the drawback of not referencing the source, in a distributed network like twtxt it might leave some people out of the whole conversation.
I suggest a simpler format, something like: (#<TIMESTAMP URL>)
This solves three issues:
Easier referencing: no need to generate a hash, just copy the timestamp and url, itâs also simpler to implement in a client without the rish of collisions when putting things together
Fetchable source: you can find the source within the reference and construct the thread from there
Allow editing: If a post is modified the hash becomes invalid since it depends on [ timestamp, url, content ]
After a long while away, Iâm back on twtxt with this new feed.
Some of you might remember me as justamoment@twtxt.net, that was a test account I made for trying things out, but I ended up keeping it more than planned.
I also tried other social platforms in search of a place that felt right for me.
In the end twtxt was the one that ticked all of my boxes:
Slow social: it act more like a feed reader and I really appreciate that thereâs no flood of content that I canât keep up with.
No server needed: I absolutely love to have total control over my content, I tend to avoid having moving parts that might break, plus you can put your feed under version control and itâs all backed up.
Ownership: I can put my feed anywhere I want and nobody can decide if I can access it or not.
For hackers: a single .txt file allows me to join a community, how cool is that!
This is why I decided to build my own twtxt client, one that allows you to decide how the feed is presented on your âinstanceâ.
Itâs still in the making but Iâll try to share a bit of it once I defined how things should work.
So, in addition to HTTPS and Gemini, my twtxt should now also be available over Gopher (gopher://hashnix.club:70/0/~dce/twtxt.txt). Not sure who, if anyone, would need this; but since my tilde provides Gopher hosting, Iâd may as well mirror my twtxt there as well.
You know, I think I do actually like it here better than my other social media. Itâs slower and quieter, but it feels more organic and nobodyâs trying to sell me anything, promote their podcast, or change the way I think. Itâs just⊠nice!
Since 2020, Iâve been putting together one playlist every year, in which each track represents one month of that year. However, I also have assigned each season two specific songs, which do not change year-to-year: Spring: âA Little Bit Of Loveâ by Weezer and âGretelâ by Alex G; Summer: âDumbâ by Roe Kapara and âEndless Bummerâ by Weezer; Autumn: â1979â by The Smashing Pumpkins and âThe Dead Come Talkingâ by Roe Kapara; Winter: âRed Water (Christmas Mourning)â by Type O Negative and âChristmas Time (Donât Let The Bells End)â by The Darkness
Since 2020, Iâve been putting together one playlist every year, in which each track represents one month of that year. However, I also have assigned each season two specific songs, which do not change year-to-year: Spring: âA Little Bit Of Loveâ by Weezer and âGretelâ by Alex G; Summer: âDumbâ by Roe Kapara and âEndless Bummerâ by Weezer; Autumn: â1979â by The Smashing Pumpkins and âThe Dead Come Talkingâ by Roe Kapara; Winter: âRed Water (Christmas Mourning)â by Type O Negative and âChristmas Time (Donât Let The Bells End)â by The Darkness