By @edent · MastodonAPI python untappd · 550 words
A few years ago, I wrote some code to post Untappd check-ins to Mastodon. I've recently updated it to also post a photo of the beer you're enjoying. First up, you'll need a file called config.py to hold all your API keys: instance = "https://mastodon.social" access_token = "…" write_access_token = "…" untappd_client_id = "…" untappd_client_secret […]
Continue reading →By @edent · mastodon MastodonAPI python · 3 comments · 1,150 words · read ~2,825 times.
I wrote a moderately popular post on Mastodon. Lots of people shared it. Is it possible to find out how many different ActivityPub servers it went to? Yes! As we all know, the Fediverse is one big chain mail. I don't mean that in a derogatory way. When I write a post, it appears on […]
Continue reading →By @edent · MastodonAPI Social Media Social Networks · 5 comments · 350 words · read ~304 times.
One of the reasons I'm still on the original Mastodon.social instance is that I am vain. I joined shortly after the project was announced and, as a consequence, I have a "joined" date of 2016 and a user ID of under 10,0000. This doesn't make me an "elder statesman" and is rarely useful beyond bragging […]
Continue reading →By @edent · mastodon MastodonAPI search · 8 comments · 850 words · read ~552 times.
The latest version of Mastodon includes search functionality. It's early days, but seems to work pretty well. Here are some of the interesting things I found when using it. Search is complex - expectations I don't mean the act of searching a database - that's routine - but I mean it is socially complex. Lots […]
Continue reading →By @edent · ActivityPub mastodon MastodonAPI ReDeCentralize · 5 comments · 750 words · read ~525 times.
Twitter's decision to hobble its API has meant that a number of useful alerting bots might no longer function. Your local subway might not be able to Tweet each morning about delays on the line, nor will a tornado warning be displayed as you scroll through photos of brunch, and forget about flood alerts between […]
Continue reading →By @edent · beer cider mastodon MastodonAPI python untappd · 2 comments · 850 words
I'm a big fan of Untappd. It's a social drinking app which lets you check in to a beer and rate it. Look, we all need hobbies, mine is drinking cider. You can see a list of everything I've drunk over the 13 last years. Nearly 900 different pints! After checking in, the app automatically […]
Continue reading →By @edent · fediverse MastodonAPI · 1 comment · 500 words · read ~862 times.
Computer Science has two canonical "hard problems": cache invalidation naming things off-by-one errors Let's talk about how we name unique items in Federated services - for example, posts on a social media service. If you have only one service, it's pretty easy. Every time a new entry is created in a database, give it a […]
Continue reading →By @edent · mastodon MastodonAPI metadata NaBloPoMo ogp · 16 comments · 750 words · read ~372 times.
Mastodon - the distributed social network - has two interesting challenges when it comes to how users share links. I'd like to discuss those issues and suggest a possible way forward. When you click on a link on my website which takes you to another website, your browser sends a Referer0. This says to the […]
Continue reading →By @edent · api mastodon MastodonAPI NaBloPoMo python tutorial · 1 comment · 1,600 words · read ~1,095 times.
The social network service "Mastodon" allows people to publish posts. People can reply to those posts. Other people can reply to those replies - and so on. What does that look like in the API? Here's a quick guide to the concepts you need to know - and some code to help you visualise conversations. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · a11y accessibility mastodon MastodonAPI NaBloPoMo twitter · 2 comments · 500 words
Because I don't trust Alan, the Hyperprat who now runs Twitter, I decided to download my Twitter archive before setting my account to dormant. About a decade ago, I wrote about how the Twitter archive works and where it is deficient. Things have got better, but there are still annoying limitations. For example, Hannah Kolbeck […]
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