The iOS Astronomy Wallpaper and Seasons
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The iOS Astronomy Wallpaper and Seasons

Byrichard

If you’re wondering why one of the tags in my post is “Day 388” it’s because I shifted from WordPress to ClassicPress once again. In so doing I lost access to Akismet and Jetpack. By losing Akismet I lose comment spam filtering. I also lost access to the Jetpack app so I lost access to my streak info. That’s why I included it as a task.

Astronomy Wallpaper

If, like me, you’re using the Astronomy Wallpaper on your mobile phones you will have noticed that the shadow over the Northern hemisphere has shifted. It has gone from being a south to North shadow to an East to West shadow from the top of Europe. You can see how parts of Norway, Sweden England and Finland are now in the dark for longer and longer parts of the day. It’s rational that we would see it, but it’s interesting that we can see an illustration of how seasons change the pattern of daylight on earth.

With the Astronomy app on the Apple Watch you can see the same thing, but you can also see cloud cover over the part of the world where you are. In my case it’s Europe.

Gradual change

The changes are so gradual that if you look at your watch or phone every single day you wouldn’t notice unless you’re looking at the right time of day. If we went up to Kiruna now we might see that we’re in constant darkness according to our phones and watches. If we had a Garmin or Suunto device that displays sunrise and sunset we would see that the day may just be a few minutes long, at this time of year. We see this wherever we are, but to be in the arctic circle would be an extreme demonstration of the seasonal change.

And Finally

if you have an iphone play with the app and see what the pattern is like for your part of the world.

More Experimenting with ClassicPress
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More Experimenting with ClassicPress

Byrichard

Although I didn’t achieve what I set out to achieve I have been experimenting with ClassicPress and the Fediverse, but rather than do it from my main blog I have decided to experiment within a subdomain and so far I have achieved much. I see that activitypub and webfinger can be installed on ClassicPress.

I checked that a webfinger was created and displayed correctly but this took trial and error. The biggest error is that to create a webfinger that is valid you must come from an https hyperlink. If it is not secure you get a “socket not secure error”. I found a solution, by creating classicpress.main-vision.com for the sake of testing.

In so doing I achieved two things. The first is that I found a way to experiment with ClassicPress without destroying my website but at the same time I found a way to experiment with other things too. By a similar setup I could get Wordpress and webfingers, where a few accounts are possible, rather than just one.

The Stumbling Block

I have hit a wall. I created the ClassicPress instance. The webfinger works when I test it and the account is visible on the Fediverse. The problem, at the moment, is that posts do not appear in Fediverse timelines. I don’t know why that is yet. I also noticed that if I follow from mastodon instances, I can, but from Firefish I can’t. It’s not meant to work, so my experimentation is out of curiousity.

The Next Step

The next step will be to create a subdomain and experiment with a wordpress blog. I expect this to work flawlessly, but what I really want to see, is whether I can get the webfinger to work so that it displays several users for a single instance. If I succeed then I will have demonstrated that Wordpress can be a full-fledged Fediverse instance.

ClassicPress and the Fediverse – Not Quite Ready
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ClassicPress and the Fediverse – Not Quite Ready

Byrichard

Yesterday I experimented with migrating my blog from WordPress to ClassicPress to see whether ClassicPress plays nicely with the fediverse. It does but there is room for improvement.

If you want instructions on how to migrate from wordpress you can find the instructions here. Summarised, you download the switch to ClassicPress plugin, you run it, it checks that you’re ready to migrate, you fix what needs to be fixed, and when ClassicPress sees that you’re ready it will allow you to start the migration. The migration takes a second or two. It felt almost instant in my case. You know it has succeeded because you see the “ClassicPress” message at the bottom of the admin section.

Wanting to Quit WordPress

I want to dump WordPress for two main reasons. The first is that it has become bloated and slow. It offers an enormous amount of functionality, but at the cost of speed, and efficiency. The second reason is that it uses React and I am deeply opposed to anything developed by Facebook. Instead of connecting single people, it reminds single people of their isolation. It gets caught playing with emotions, and facilitating genocide, and never, ever apologises. By using React WordPress is closer to Facebook than I would like.

How Well ClassicPress plays with the Fediverse

If you want to write a blog post, and for it to show up on the fediverse via the Activity Plugin then it’s ready and work well. As soon as you post from ClassicPress it shows up in the fediverse streams. If that’s what you want to do then it works seamlessly.

Comments Unseen

With WordPress if someone comments to a post on the fediverse then it shows up in the wordpress comments section. With ClassicPress the comments are only visible on the fediverse. The quick fix to this, is to write a comment in wordpress that shows up on the fediverse. At this point communication is two way.

Why This Matters

If you’re writing blog posts, and people comment on the fediverse, but you can’t see the comments, then you won’t know to thank, ignore or react. You will be posting into a vacuum with no dialogue taking place. By having two way commenting we have a way of having the blog as an integral part of the fediverse, and vice versa. Now that I know what’s possible I don’t want to go back.

The Side Track

Aside from experimenting with ClassicPress I also noticed that there are plugins that allow you to provide a summary of content headings at the top of the page, as well as a markdown parser or two to choose from. The final one was an estimated reading time. The last one isn’t that intereting, but it’s a curiousity worth knowing about.

And Finally

When I can get the exchange of comments to be from the Fediverse to my blog, and vice versa withput having to comment first I will be happy because then it will be seamless and I will be able to dump WordPress and focus on ClassicPress.

What Do The Logs Show

What Do The Logs Show

Byrichard

Joke: I was on the phone with tech support when I walked by these and I was asked “What do the logs show?” I had a double take before I understood he meant the web logs and other server logs. I then continued walking


A pile of logs waiting to be transported by train
A pile of logs waiting to be transported by train


I am getting somewhere with my studies. I feel that I am now starting to understand ideas and contexts and that as a result I can start working towards reaching and getting stuck on the next plateau, and the next one after that. In short, I am making progress.


Today the Steripen adventure opti arrived and I tested it in a container. Testing such a device on clean water is useless. I did learn that it is not dead on arrival.


I heard about ClassicPress while listening to a podcast so I downloaded the files, copied them to the htdocs folder, entered a few bits of information and it was up and running on my local machine. ClassicPress is a fork of WordPress.org. It aims to provide those who do not like Gutenburg with an alternative solution where they keep control of how posts are formated and displayed.


For now you can download wordpress plugins and use them on ClassicPress but I don’t know for how long this interoperability will last. There is an explanation about how to use shims to use incompatible apps.