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Threads, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp all went down today, because they are centralised services owned and run by Meta. When Meta breaks, Meta's services break too.
This doesn't happen on the Fediverse because it is thousands of totally independent servers owned and run by thousands of different people. If one server goes down, the other servers keep running.
This is one of the reasons why decentralisation is so important: it makes networks more resilient through diverse ownership.
SnerkRabbledauber likes this.
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I think there is a point to this Jane Austen quote.
#AmReading #AmWriting @bookstodon #books #Bookstodon
#WritingCommunity #ReadingCommunity #Regency #Georgian #JaneAusten @romancelandia
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I cackled for several seconds when I saw who #1 is. If you have followed me for some time, you’ll know why.
swooon.com/gallery/mr-darcy-ac…
#AmReading #AmWriting @bookstodon #books #Bookstodon
#WritingCommunity #ReadingCommunity #Regency #Georgian #JaneAusten @romancelandia
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Explanation:
During the day, over 12,000 large mirrors reflect sunlight at the 100-megawatt, molten-salt, solar thermal power plant at the western edge of the Gobi desert near Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China. Individual mirror panels turn to track the sun like sunflowers. They act as a single super mirror reflecting the sunlight toward a fixed position, the power station's central tower.
@photography
#astrophotography
#SolarPower
#mirrors
#StarTrails
#APOD
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Wall Clock, so-called Plate Clock c. 1661.
Gilded silver, amethyst, jasper, turquoises, wax (Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien)
@jdmccafferty #clocks #museums
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Quinkans - Ancient Aboriginal rock art in Queensland, Australia, dating back 15,000–30,000 years.
#drthehistories #Aboriginal #Australia #Rockart
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One of the oldest "goofs" in the history of cinema: A dancer loses a shoe during this scene from Georges Méliès's Le Rêve de Noël (1900) and the rest of the cast work around it
@silentmoviegifs #dancing #cinema #cinemahistory
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How do you clean a 600-year-old painting? 👀
Paolo Uccello died #OnThisDay in 1475. Restorer Paul Ackroyd talks us through some of the challenges he's encountered while working with Uccello's 15th-century battlefield scene.
Watch the full film: bit.ly/3ZEelHv
@NationalGallery #museums #artgallery #conservation #art #painting
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Did you know? Cow horn was used for lanterns before glass!
Andrew from the Fleet team show us how this traditional technique is being used to repair the stern lantern on our replica 1606 Dutch tall ship Duyfken.
sea.museum/en/whats-on/events/…
#Restoration #TraditionalCrafts
Australian National Maritime Museum
@seamuseum_
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#TodayinSpyHistory - On December 10, 1999, Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested and charged with 59 counts of mishandling classified information. 💻
Lee faced intense scrutiny as the only suspect in an alleged Chinese espionage case, but nine months later, all espionage allegations collapsed. 🤯
In 2006, Lee received settlements from both the government and media outlets for the mishandling of his case.
📸 : Mike Fiala / AFP / Getty Images file @IntlSpyMuseum
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🌬️
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •Yeah, it is annoying if it's your instance that goes down 😦
However, the Fedi lets you also have a backup emergency account on a different server. You can recommend the backup account to your main account's followers, it's just one click and they'll only hear from it if the main one is down. (Of course not everyone will want this hassle, but some accounts might find it useful/vital.)
Backup accounts aren't possible on centralised networks, they are all-or-nothing 😞
mkj
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •@david_chisnall Indeed, it doesn't really help *you* if the one part that's affected is the one that you use. But then again, that's the case with pretty much everything else, too.
It doesn't help me if others' banks still work if mine's having problems.
It doesn't help me that the next town over has electricity if where I am doesn't.
And so on.
That there can still be problems (you're 100% right: there can) doesn't mean creating a situation where one affects everyone is better. 🙂
@FediTips
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to mkj • • •@mkj
It isn’t better or worse. For most users, the thing that matters is the amount of downtime. If power goes out in each town in a country for a different week, is that better or worse than if the power goes out in the entire country for ten minutes and then comes back? Aside from the impossibility of doing a cold start of most electricity grids, I would expect most people to be happier in latter case.
The case with federation is more complex because two people can’t communicate if either of their endpoints is broken, so the failure modes are difficult to reason about individually.
Even though the aggregate network may never go down, in the same way that email is never down for everyone, that doesn’t really matter to most users. The thing that matters is how much there i
... Show more...@mkj
It isn’t better or worse. For most users, the thing that matters is the amount of downtime. If power goes out in each town in a country for a different week, is that better or worse than if the power goes out in the entire country for ten minutes and then comes back? Aside from the impossibility of doing a cold start of most electricity grids, I would expect most people to be happier in latter case.
The case with federation is more complex because two people can’t communicate if either of their endpoints is broken, so the failure modes are difficult to reason about individually.
Even though the aggregate network may never go down, in the same way that email is never down for everyone, that doesn’t really matter to most users. The thing that matters is how much there is downtime that affects them.
Being able to use a backup instance is not really a solution, because most Fediverse software doesn’t allow you to synchronise feeds across instances, so you can’t just fail over. Email is slightly better in that you can often send emails from an alternative server if your primary is down but you generally can’t receive them.
It is possible to build replication, transparent fail-over, and so on in a federated system, but ActivityPub doesn’t try to do any of this.
Psychologically there’s also a difference. When something is down for everyone, there’s shared commiseration, when it’s down for you that can be harder, especially when you’re the one using the unusual thing. When a thing that ‘everyone’ uses is working and the weird thing you use is down, people are less sympathetic than when the thing both of you use is down.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •Having an entire network going down causes widespread chaos, having a tiny part of a network going down is much more manageable.
If you need to make sure downtime doesn't affect you, on a federated network you can set up a backup account and encourage your followers to follow that too. That way, if your server ever goes down you can switch to the backup.
Centralised networks cannot offer this option, that's part of why federated is better.
Stefano Marinelli
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Stefano Marinelli • • •ActivityPub isn't perfect, but it's certainly better than centralisation.
That's all I'm trying to say with the original post, I'm trying to get across to a mostly non-technical audience why a network being on many servers is preferable to putting all your eggs in one basket.
Most people are unaware of what is even being aimed for with decentralisation, even though they benefit from decentralised networks all the time (such as on email).
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •@stefano @mkj
But that's my point. To a non-technical audience, it doesn't matter. To a non-technical audience, their instance going down for a federated service, or their availability zone going down for a centralised service are indistinguishable. And 'Twitter is down' is an easier thing to explain than 'your bit of the Fediverse is down, but the rest of it is fine'.
There are a lot of benefits from federation. Being able to have a second source if one provider has terms you don't like, for example (though the fact that ActivityPub requires cooperation from the original instance to transfer your followers is a potential problem).
Federation
... Show more...@stefano @mkj
But that's my point. To a non-technical audience, it doesn't matter. To a non-technical audience, their instance going down for a federated service, or their availability zone going down for a centralised service are indistinguishable. And 'Twitter is down' is an easier thing to explain than 'your bit of the Fediverse is down, but the rest of it is fine'.
There are a lot of benefits from federation. Being able to have a second source if one provider has terms you don't like, for example (though the fact that ActivityPub requires cooperation from the original instance to transfer your followers is a potential problem).
Federation and fault tolerance are orthogonal problems. You can build a fault-tolerant distributed system. You can build a federated system with a load of single points of failure. There are enough good reasons to prefer a federated system without claiming this one, which is a real stretch.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •@david_chisnall @stefano @mkj
"their availability zone going down for a centralised service are indistinguishable."
That's absolutely absurd.
If an entire network goes down, it's not just your account but all the accounts of your friends, family, co-workers etc.
For example, I volunteer with organisations that depend on Whatsapp etc to keep going. Losing the entire network is a disaster.
If just one person's account goes down, they can ask others in the group to handle stuff for them.
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •@stefano @mkj
And why does that matter? If my email goes down, it doesn't matter if someone else's email is working, we still can't contact each other. Now, I might have another email provider for outgoing messages, but if they want to contact me then the messages won't get through.
... Show more...Okay, so how is this better with ActivityPub? The organisation's instance goes down. Now members of the organisation can post things on other instances, but who is following them? How do you actually reach the people that need to be reached? How do they reach you?
@stefano @mkj
And why does that matter? If my email goes down, it doesn't matter if someone else's email is working, we still can't contact each other. Now, I might have another email provider for outgoing messages, but if they want to contact me then the messages won't get through.
Okay, so how is this better with ActivityPub? The organisation's instance goes down. Now members of the organisation can post things on other instances, but who is following them? How do you actually reach the people that need to be reached? How do they reach you?
Which works only if the other people are using different providers (the fact that others exist isn't sufficient). And then it works only for outbound communication. If someone needs to reach a person at that organisation and their communication provider (ActivityPub, email, XMPP, whatever federated service you're talking about) is down then the fact that other instances are up is of no help.
Someone can send a message, but you won't receive it until your instance is up again.
1a1nC
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to 1a1nC • • •@1a1nC
Yes and no, it's a bit complicated 😅
Try to join a reputable long-running server that has promised to give warning if it intends to shut down, takes daily backups and has more than one person with admin access. (You can find lists of these at fedi.garden and joinmastodon.org/servers)
You can use Mastodon's "export and import" feature to back up follows, bookmarks, lists, mutes, block, domain blocks and posts. However, there's no way for users to import posts at the moment.
Amber
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Amber • • •@puppygirlhornypost2 @1a1nC
Yup, I've tried to match the Covenant standard on fedi.garden and have added a couple of extra requirements on top (fewer than 50k users, defederated Threads).
Amber
in reply to Amber • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Amber • • •Yeah, most of the shutdowns of long-running servers I've seen have been graceful. Mastodon.technology for example went out of its way to warn people in good time, they even set up special CSS code warnings when people logged in. Botsin.space and warhammer.social which are about to shut down have been similarly proactive.
I've also listed covenant-compliant servers by founding year so people can see which ones have the longest track record:
fedi.garden/servers-sorted-by-…
Fedi.Tips
in reply to 1a1nC • • •p.s. Some non-Mastodon platforms can import Mastodon post backups, but if there are a lot of posts it is very slow and can cause problems for the server. EDIT: @nova has helpfully pointed out Sharkey is a current server type that supports Masto post imports.
Also, importing a post's content doesn't mean it is the actual post itself. None of the replies or threads will be there, from the network's point of view it is a brand new post that happens to have the original post's content.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •@david_chisnall @mkj
"Psychologically there’s also a difference. When something is down for everyone, there’s shared commiseration, when it’s down for you that can be harder"
By that logic, if there's a power cut in one town we should switch off power in the entire world so that people feel a sense of solidarity.
I know it's not easy when your part of the network goes down, but wanting everyone else to suffer because of it is hardly the answer.
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •@mkj Reductio ad absurdum is never a good argument.
Here's the right analogy:
You live in a town with an electricity grid provided by a centralised electricity provider. You don't trust them, so you live off the grid. You have a solar array on your roof and a battery.
Now consider two situations: First, there's a power cut in your neighbourhood. It doesn't affect you, but it does affect everyone else. Typically, this involves neighbours being quite sympathetic towards each other.
In the second scenario, the power grid is fine but your inverter blows and you're without power until you get a replacement part. Now how do you expect people to react? Power works for everyone who does the normal thing, but not for you. Why didn't you just do the normal thing?
Now consider a variation of the second scenario where, during the power cut, you had spent the time telling all of your neighbours that centralised systems are intrinsically unreliable and that they should really use a federated power system like you. Now how do you expect them to react when they see your power going out?
Alida Antonia
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Toran Shaw - M7TOR
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Axel Rauschmayer
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Alas, it’s still a bit complicated:
On one hand, if your Fediverse server is down, it *currently* doesn’t help you much that the Fediverse is decentralized.
On the other hand, I hope we’ll eventually have nomadic identity (*) in the Fediverse. Then we can run continuous backups of our accounts and easily switch whenever an outage happens.
(*) 2ality.com/2024/11/mastodon-we…
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer • • •@rauschma
"On one hand, if your Fediverse server is down, it *currently* doesn’t help you much that the Fediverse is decentralized."
It does help, because you can use a backup account on another server to maintain contact with your Fediverse followers (as long as you've told your followers to follow the backup account in advance).
Backups aren't possible at all on centralised services. Meta is currently using its Twitter/X account to tell people what is going on! 🤣
Axel Rauschmayer
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Axel Rauschmayer
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer • • •I wonder if the Fediverse could better support “lightweight nomadic identity” via backup accounts—e.g. via entries in profiles: Then, if a server is offline, the profile (if cached by other servers) could tell people where to go until the server is back up again.
Obviously, you can already do that manually today. But special support could hide it when a server works and display it prominently when it is offline.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer • • •That's a really interesting idea! 🤔
I think PeerTube has something like that for video files, different PeerTube instances can agree to carry backups of videos for each other so if one goes down the videos are still playable.
everypizza (nyx)
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to everypizza (nyx) • • •That's a good point, lots of instances being on one hosting provider could cause similar problems indeed!
We need more decentralisation at every level 👍
joel b
in reply to everypizza (nyx) • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to joel b • • •@skotchygut @ep
Yes, that too 👍
Zoidtes
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •😂
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Zoidtes • • •@Zoidtes
Well yeah, that's a fair point! There needs to also be decentralisation at the hosting level to make it really durable.
But it is possible to move instances to a new hosting company without breaking the connections, so it is possible for admins to further decentralise the hosting without users having to do anything.
Darrell Bowles
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Darrell Bowles • • •@vol4life8657
If you have a backup account on a different server, it's unlikely they would both go down at the same time.
And if you tell your followers in advance to also follow your backup account, you have a plan B if your main account's server goes down.
Darrell Bowles
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •srđan dvornik
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to srđan dvornik • • •@srdjandvr
...and telephones, telegrams, the postal system etc. Federation is how communications is supposed to work 🙂
SpaceLifeForm
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •🐜
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •