I’ve turned on ActivityPub on this blog.

Future edit note: I ended up turning off this feature. I outlined why here. The remainder of this article is exactly as I wrote it back then. It is now out-of-date.

This is a quick update- this WordPress blog is now integrated with the Fediverse via the ActivityPub plugin. Or, at least, that’s what it says it’s doing.

I spent time on this today and have tested it briefly this evening- it seems to be working, although if you aren’t already following https://vkc.sh/@posts, I don’t know that it’s going to show you much- I don’t think older posts federate. But, it looks like Mastodon replies will show up as comments, which is neat!

So, my plan is to try to retoot this post from my Mastodon account. And with that, I suppose I should give you all a “where I’ve been” brief update. 🙂

Here’s some blog posts I’ve written- I encourage you to share them wherever you want. Or not, you do you.

Yes, I’m taking a break from Mastodon.

I outlined why I’m taking a break from Mastodon here. It might be worth a read?

Long story short- reply guys getting angry and clogging up my notifications/inbox/what have you. I elaborated on it in the blog post. I might come back someday though- for now it’s a “breather” period.

I wrote about YouTube’s bad AI disclosure policy.

YouTube just launched a new AI disclosure policy, and I think it stinks.

I’m all for identifying lousy LLM-driven shovelware videos. But like their bad copyright enforcement policies, I worry the policy as written will end up hurting innocent folks and making little dent in the lousy content.

One creator who I could imagine technically breaks the new rules is Pat Finnerty of What Makes This Song Stink fame. (Link is YouTube, tracking and ad warnings apply.) Pat hilariously imagines absurd scenarios about famous(-ly bad) songs, and shows cutout versions of musicians going about creating their bad tunes, including one video (on YouTube) imagining a hilarious exchange between the members of Red Hot Chili Peppers about Dani California. I worry that obviously unreal segments like this could be flagged as “manipulation” or whatever.

Anyway, I might be over reacting, or I’m not. Check out the post if you want to see for yourself.

I’m back on search engines, after quitting them for three months.

I went three whole months away from search engines. And I lost a lot of momentum and time.

Everything took longer without a search engine, and I outlined that in a post earlier this week. Since this started with a whole Mastodon thing, I figure you all might be interested.

Kdenlive has a good speech recognition system, and Flathub can use it too.

I wrote this one today, so it might federate properly?

Anyway, Kdenlive’s Python-based speech recognition options are pretty swell, but they don’t seem to work out of the box when using Flathub.

I’m wrapping up an unscripted video right now, and forgot that I need to update the runtime to have the Python apps ready-to-go. I wrote up a blog post about it today.

Lastly, Patrons and Ko-Fi members are more in-the-loop.

I’m prioritizing messages from my financial supporters over on Patreon and Ko-Fi. While I plan to keep blogging, and might someday return to Mastodon, I am engaged in far more regular communication with my monthly sustainers.

They get a weekly newsletter, DM options, and soon a virtual Linux club. Tiers start at $2/mo USD if you’d like to join them:

• Patreon: https://patreon.com/VeronicaExplains
• Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/VeronicaExplains

Thanks folks. I appreciate your well wishes- things are fine and I’m developing a good routine here. More to come! And hopefully, it’ll post right from here to the Fediverse! Feel free to shoot me an email if something isn’t working: explainer[at]vkc[dot]sh.