Harris Lapiroff 🔥

Data, design, security, software engineering, press freedom, and epistemic trespassing. Principal Web Dev at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Learning to do good well.

#data #pressfreedom #design #ux #webdev #fedi22

Public Key

npub17ts44449wqs52ddryckmftgwngyqvdqpk47cqqpz24pyj2d74gnsk6g4p5

NIP-05 Address

harris_at_social.coop@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs09c2666jhqg29xk3jvtd5458f5zqxxsqm2lvqqq392sjf9xl25fcfk9zen

Author Public Key

npub17ts44449wqs52ddryckmftgwngyqvdqpk47cqqpz24pyj2d74gnsk6g4p5

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Last Notes

2024-09-18 03:12:30

Partial lunar eclipse
September 17 2024, 10:52PM
Somerville MA
#space #photography #astrophotography
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/156/367/942/644/402/original/818084d63b65c9fd.jpeg

2024-08-30 01:42:48

Got me a lomg boi. #Photography
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/048/431/261/077/960/original/4b37aef6bf63ef1c.jpeg

2024-08-26 04:38:17

Bit if a long shot, but does anyone know where in the #Boston and ideally #Camberville area I can buy some Palestinian olive oil?

2024-08-25 20:06:22

Over the spring and into the summer of this year, I took lots of photos with a Nikon D70. When I wrote about this in April I was trying to decide
1. if I could take better photos with the D70 than I could with my smartphone, and
2. if I was interested enough in photography to invest more deeply in it as a hobby.
https://chromamine.com/2024/08/some-favorite-d70-shots-spring-2024/
#photography

2024-08-07 18:17:07

o ok cool then
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/112/922/107/789/047/477/original/96c13be81a4f29bc.jpeg

2024-08-07 14:31:35

Late night on Round Pond. 2:13AM. 25s exposure.
#Photography #nature
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/112/921/221/127/273/089/original/db4b100ad3559faf.jpeg

2024-08-06 00:55:33

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@npub1mdk…aptk Oh no. Do I even want to know?

2024-06-02 18:52:41

Here's a small collection of quick designs I've made since I wrote my previous 3D printing blog post "Solving Niche Problems Quickly With 3D Printing."
#making #3dPrinting #IndieWeb
https://chromamine.com/2024/06/a-selection-of-3d-printing-designs-spring-2024/

2024-05-24 23:35:14

Running my website on #11ty has been the most fun I’ve had making websites in years. I can’t say enough good things about the project. https://fediverse.zachleat.com/@zachleat/112485776015229718

2024-04-23 22:03:40

Indieweb and static-site generator lovers, how do you host and organizelarge media? I want to share videos and photosets on the web but I don’t love the idea of just hosting them with YouTube, etc. Git isn’t great for large files and GitHub charges to host them so I don’t feel like I can just add them to my 11ty repo.
What solutions are out there? Ideally something that can be cheaply hosted and easy to integrate with 11ty, mirror, and migrate freely.
#indieweb #11ty

2024-03-21 21:05:37

I know it fills a lot of people with dread, but I’m personally kinda stoked to see some @threads.net handles popping up in my feed

2024-03-19 22:00:16

What’s your favorite thing to do with a parsnip?

2024-03-01 18:14:00

This seems like a good moment to remind people that, if you’re a bit technically capable, static site builders have a lot of advantages over more complex blogging CMSes, can be hosted for free on a bunch of platforms, and make your content resistant to, if not immune from, the whims of capricious or profit-motivated software maintainers.
My blog post about why I like SSG/SSBs and #11ty in particular.
https://chromamine.com/2023/10/eleventy/

2024-02-19 20:54:53

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@npub1mdk…aptk My limited experience with Threads is that the algorithm seems tuned for outrage. Seeing a bunch of transphobic bs in all my suggested posts really turned me off of the whole deal.

2024-02-09 17:09:44

Me realizing Sim City 3000 came out 25 years ago.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/111/902/626/722/919/592/original/d3c1f6da41af6cd2.mp4

2024-02-09 15:55:36

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@npub1mdk…aptk What does "AI bullshit" mean in this case given that AFAIK *all* audio transcription is ML-based? Do the captions need to be broadcast live? Whisper is OpenAI's audio transcription model and you can run it in CLI yourself or use any of a number of GUI wrappers people have built to run it locally:
Buzz has a free version as well as a Mac-native paid version: https://chidiwilliams.github.io/buzz/docs
MacWhisper has a free and pro version: https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper

2024-01-14 14:30:29

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@npub1mdk…aptk Idk, there's a number of next gen AI products that I think are genuinely useful and quietly succeeding: GitHub Copilot works great for me. There's a lot of creative professional software that's incorporating modern ML models in ways that seem genuinely useful (my partner works on audio editing tools and their AI stuff seems along similar lines of usefulness to autotune).
Of course, I'm talking purely about usefulness here, ethical questions about training notwithstanding.

2024-01-10 20:44:36

A full week of wastewater data now shows a steep decline in covid numbers in the Boston area.
One interesting thing is that the wave peaks *at* January 1st. I would have expected it to be after January 1st due to transmission at New Years parties. This could imply that covid waves now are more influenced by population immunity and seasonal factors and less by human behaviors (like having parties)—though I imagine all of the above are factors.
(As ever, I'm not an expert.)
#epidemiology
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/111/733/574/247/394/641/original/d03b7ed1628954f0.png

2024-01-09 18:23:51

One fear I have for my Israeli friends is that they will be dragged to hell by the warmongering right. It seems hard to be antiwar Israeli right now. War doves are forced to develop rationalizations to support the massacre of Gazans, which will eventually be extended to other wars, even retroactively.
An Israeli friend of mine who I know was a pacifist before this war just wrote that the Afghanistan war made Americans safer and the war in Gaza is similarly justified. It breaks my heart to see.

2023-12-27 19:15:00

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@npub1mdk…aptk I don’t really think services should rewrite URLs in messages, especially security oriented ones 😕

2023-12-26 18:21:36

👀👀👀
https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzyde/librarians-are-finding-thousands-of-books-no-longer-protected-by-copyright-law
(h/t @npub1el7…qhs5)

2023-11-30 02:52:51

Amidst a sea of mediocre equivocating headlines, Rolling Stone nailed it.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/

2023-11-21 14:50:00

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@npub1mdk…aptk Oof, sorry! My bout with it just now was not so bad and maybe even short (gonna rest today to see if the test line drops out) so I hope yours is similar!

2023-11-01 14:34:27

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@npub1mdk…aptk I’m not positive, but I suspect it’s not trivial to run the Whisper models on mobile. In my limited experience the more accurate models are pretty large and slow even on my beefy MBP.

2023-11-01 14:08:47

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@npub1mdk…aptk Do you have air purifiers? Part of why I got a bunch of them was to passively reduce dust in my apartment. (You can also achieve a similar effect by making sure your HVAC filters are up to date and running the fan even when you’re not running heat. Idk how cost or effectiveness compares.)

2023-09-24 22:45:18

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@npub1mdk…aptk I think video games have desensitized me to this. I couldn't even see what you were talking about the first couple times through.

2023-08-12 05:59:07

I think I’m getting the hang of printing things, so maybe soon time for me to start designing some things?
Printed this hex scraper off Printables. #3dPrinting
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/110/875/111/968/020/435/original/47f52183efb2b39e.jpeg

2023-07-23 04:56:08

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@npub1axt…9cpy @npub1mdk…aptk @npub1jsn…0ewz I also have this problem. I’ve been trying to threaten apps with reporting them for App Store policy violations, but it’s no good if Apple doesn’t have a way to report violations like this (or doesn’t enforce it). I’ve noticed this issue with a surprisingly number of major apps.

2023-07-14 02:07:26

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@npub1mdk…aptk Wait moviepass exists again? And they didn’t rebrand?

2023-07-13 21:50:11

I’m now the proud maintainer of a Mastodon bot! 🤖💬📰 https://botsin.space/@foiafeed/110708506324256072

2023-07-12 03:58:31

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@npub1pfe…e2dm I’m really putting off working on the main plot because I want to draw it out as long as I can, but you’re making me want to finish it!

2023-07-07 19:06:08

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@npub1mdk…aptk This seems like the sort of thing the network needs defenses against regardless. Like, I guess I can see the scenario where federating with Threads leads to a chain of events that causes brigaders to sign up for mastodon.social—but that could totally happen without federating with Threads. It doesn't even have to happen on Threads or an ActivityPub platform at all. LOTT could post on Twitter and tell people to sign up for mastodon.social.

2023-07-06 00:03:19

@npub1xzm…eykm did a great job here articulating exactly what I’ve been trying and failing to say about how XMPP differs from Mastodon. (I know I know I’m doing a terrible job letting go of this.)
“Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.”
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/what-to-know-about-threads/

2023-07-05 23:42:42

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@npub1mdk…aptk Also, perhaps a spicy take, but: we’re defederating with the largest groups of mastodon users so join us if you want to keep your audience is… a wild pitch

2023-07-05 16:31:12

Here's a useful #covid tidbit that I got from @npub1m25…fx2k:
> Paxlovid rebound is much more likely if you initiate it within the first 2 days:
>
> 29% if started on day 1
> 17% on day 2
> 0% on day 3 or later
Study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.23.23288598v1
I'd seen immunologists theorizing that this might be the case, but this is the first study I've seen.
#epidemiology
Source: https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1675328153923854336

2023-06-29 14:53:27

Finally looking into purchasing myself my first 3D printer. The Prusa Mini+ seems to me like the best combination of price, quality, and plug-n-play-ness.
Any reasons I should reconsider, gotchas I should watch out for, or upgrades I should plan to make immediately?
Also, I'm tempted to get the self-assembly kit so I understand the whole system better. Am I likely to mess up the assembly process? Is it worth it?
#3dPrinting #maker

2023-06-26 21:52:30

Boston-area covid wastewater concentrations hit lows last week not seen since July of 2021—just slightly lower than March of 2022.
(Note: graph on log scale—larger numbers look closer together than smaller ones.)
https://observablehq.com/@harrislapiroff/mwra-wastewater-data
#epidemiology #covid #wastewater #boston
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/110/612/721/729/934/201/original/592d383c6650f892.png

2023-06-20 02:41:18

Seemingly unpopular opinion around here, but it is possible to compete with corporate behemoths without blocking them.
Email never got embrace-extend-extinguished. Gmail has a hefty market share, sure, but I switched to a different service provider last month with no trouble. Notably, I only was able to switch because I *can* still seamlessly communicate with my Gmail friends and colleagues using my new service provider! The fediverse is like email and that’s how I’d like my servers to behave.

2023-05-17 18:12:54

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@npub1j99…xtd7 Oh TinkerCAD looks very beginner friendly at a first glance, which makes it seem like an appealing place to start. Is that true?

2023-05-17 18:01:45

Maker-types, what software do you use for modeling 3D printed components? And do you have any good tutorials? I'm thinking about getting into 3D printing.
Bonus points if the software also includes features for integrating laser-cut components into multi-part designs. (I have done quite a bit of laser cutting.)
#3dPrinting #maker