Mark Stosberg

Interests include #TranspoEquity, #UltraRunning, #BloomingtonIN, #DevOps, #UrbanPlanning, #Mapping, #Linux

Boosting questions and helpful or actionable posts. Let’s build better together.

Blog: Bikes, Mapping, Linux, Keyboards: https://mark.stosberg.com
Walk Potential: https://gitlab.com/markstos/walk-potential
Sidewalk Priority Mapping: https://gitlab.com/markstos/sidewalk-priority-map
Newsletters: Mapping, Tech, Plant-powered adventures

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markstos_at_urbanists.social@momostr.pink

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nprofile1qqsfzfdgezalvl79uqqnva5z8yn72tqzegzercj0k683heg37rnc5jcprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntz5042r

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Last Notes

2026-07-03 16:13:19 UTC

Mozilla is launching Thundermail, a hosted email service including tools for sending large files securely and scheduling appointments.
The service is currently onboarding new customers from a waiting list. Webmail from the service should be available within a month or so.
I recently appeared on Thunderbird Community Office Hours with some other folks from the Thunderbird team to give progress updates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS6IcMCJ93s
https://tb.pro/en-US/
@npub1hxz…r8sj
#thundermail #thunderbird

2026-06-05 19:27:11 UTC

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I read the post and couldn’t find the explanation of what law the police were enforcing.

2026-04-05 15:56:54 UTC

@npub1jtd…g0mv on why urban grocery stores should prioritize bike parking over car parking:
- You don't need a car for groceries
- Grocery access is an equity issue
- Car parking is expensive and subsidizes the rich
- We can have 10 more customers park per spot
- Induced demand works both ways
- Spillover benefits
- Built for the future
https://yyahn.com/wiki/Bike-parking-at-urban-grocery-stores/
#urbanplanning #bikeTooter #cycling

2026-03-23 16:16:05 UTC

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Alt headlines:
Cyberattack blows for Intoxalock
Intoxalock sobered by cyberattack

2026-02-05 20:06:21 UTC

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Frosted glass? Emulating iOS?

2026-01-27 16:05:07 UTC

“If I sleep like this, will that be distracting?”
#cats #MechanicalKeyboard
https://cdn.masto.host/urbanistssocial/media_attachments/files/115/967/911/946/034/170/original/e1e1e85f6c7ad3a8.jpeg

2025-12-26 12:35:36 UTC

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I explain you can't use Windows-only apps if they are using MS Office, they should use LibreOffice or Google docs.
In exchange, they generally won't have to worry about viruses, the computer will run faster, and they may need to consider Linux-compatibility when they shop for a printer.

2025-12-26 02:00:54 UTC

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I’ve supported and still support grandparent-age folks using Linux and it’s always turned out OK. The key thing is that they are interested and away of the trade-offs as this woman seems to be.

2025-12-01 23:07:37 UTC

I'm a Google Workspace admin, and a team member sent me a screenshot showing that a message they wanted to send was being blocked because it violated an organizational policy-- which was news to me-- I hadn't put in place to block messages based on their content.
Turns out Google Workspace now warns by default when the message content mentions gender identity.
#google #privacy #politics
https://cdn.masto.host/urbanistssocial/media_attachments/files/115/646/815/343/060/565/original/221d8aa2678c47bc.png

2025-11-22 22:39:17 UTC

Teens Are Clearing Their Criminal Records By Running A Half Marathon https://marathonhandbook.com/teens-are-clearing-their-criminal-records-by-running-a-half-marathon/
#running

2025-08-13 14:27:36 UTC

Google has added "eSignatures" to Google Workspace, competing with PDF as a solution.
It seems both parties need a Google account for it to work, while PDFs don't force you have an Adobe account to sign the document.
Imagine you are ready to purchase your dream home, only to find that you are required to have a Google account to sign the paperwork.
#privacy #google

2025-08-06 20:46:19 UTC

2021: I analyzed locations in my city of highest priority to fund sidewalks. Yesterday, a person walking was struck and killed at one of the top locations.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/1a98ce59ed5e4d6a879735863433a133
2023: I did a "most dangerous intersections for pedestrians" analysis. Shortly after, a pedestrian was struck in one of those locations.
https://mark.stosberg.com/the-most-dangerous-intersections-for-pedestrians-in-bloomington-indiana/
Cities have the data to know where safety upgrades will have the highest impact for pedestrians. But will they put it in the budget?
#transportation

2025-08-06 01:45:28 UTC

https://lemmy.world/post/34012702

2025-07-08 17:00:22 UTC

Now for sale: Failure as a Service.
For 10 cents per minute, AWS will you charge you to break the infrastructure you are renting from them (while also charging you for renting it).
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/fis/latest/userguide/what-is.html
This method of success-through-failure was pioneered by Netflix which built a "chaos monkey" to randomly break 10% of their infra at any time. This forced Netflix to design everything to be redundant and self-healing.
Go forth and fail like no others dare fail!
#devops #aws #weird

2025-05-12 18:50:12 UTC

I tried letting "Claude Code" solve a coding problem for me.
It was iterating, trying edits, running the tests, revising the code. But then when it couldn't get the tests pass to after a couple of iterations, it updated the test suite to just skip those tests, declaring that they were unreliable and not useful. 😂
The tests were passing before Claude got involved. Our jobs are safe for now.
#AI #LLM #CLaude

2025-04-17 13:36:16 UTC

MAZANOKE - a free, simple and private image optimizer that runs in your browser.
The next time you are pasting a screenshot into a blog post, run it through a compressor and see how much smaller it can be.
https://mazanoke.com/
#blogging

2025-04-10 01:21:12 UTC

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Orion, WebKit-based, is interesting. It claims to support some Firefox and Chrome extensions.

2025-04-10 01:07:33 UTC

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There’s no perfect browser, and it’s good to hold Firefox to a high standard along with all the others, but context matters.
It seems like there are two primary options: either a browser based on Chromium or one based on Firefox.
And the Chromium family already has more than 70% market share, creating a kind monoculture.
Maybe one day there will be a strong third option based on LadyBird or something else, but that’s not today

2025-04-09 23:24:18 UTC

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That’s the recommended alternative to Firefox, a browser engine made by Google and reskinned by Vivaldi?

2025-04-09 14:11:12 UTC

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So what browser do you recommend?

2025-04-07 01:00:22 UTC

If you are a fan of the #ThinkPad X220 laptop for running #Linux, I have one on auction now, bidding starts at just $18! Includes 8G ram and 128G SSD.
Touchpad and trackpoint not currently working.

2025-04-05 15:19:09 UTC

@npub1fdr…lvhs Fellow #Framework laptop lover, here’s the sticker I designed for mine, layered on a dbrand skin.
@npub15f7…m7wr
https://cdn.masto.host/urbanistssocial/media_attachments/files/114/286/025/005/429/391/original/3c3189fcc786d294.jpeg

2025-03-29 21:54:54 UTC

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Once you get through the dangerous slightly-out-date era, there are years of calm waters when you are so out of date even the exploits quit supporting your OS.

2025-03-07 00:29:23 UTC

355 small and mid-sized towns in the US now have AI-generated newsletter sites that appear to local. They make money by summarizing local news and adding ads.
Here’s the story of how investigating one such site led to discovering a whole network of doppelgängers with questionable practices.
https://limestonepostmagazine.com/today-in-bloomington-not-local-newsletter/
#ai #journalism

2025-02-28 14:46:21 UTC

Context: Google, the world’s largest advertising company and dominant browser made changes claimed to be on technical merits to block the most popular ad-blocking extension.
The change is now making its way into other popular browsers based on Chrome, like Edge.
In related news, Zen browser based on Firefox is great.
https://zen-browser.app/ https://mastodon.social/@vascorsd/114081326102526021

2025-01-11 20:39:14 UTC

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Is there an alternative to democracy you recommend?

2025-01-11 20:36:39 UTC

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Why in secret?

2025-01-11 20:29:49 UTC

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And why should you be permitted to hold elected office?
If you should you do it, will you be filling the paper to run for office?

2025-01-11 15:19:12 UTC

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So who should govern?

2024-12-16 18:48:58 UTC

#Tesla is a study in risk compensation.
The safer you make a car, the more dangerously people will drive it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation https://mastodon.scot/@kim_harding/113663908806005350

2024-11-21 00:04:09 UTC

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Is there evidence they were behind the alleged fraud, vs foreign interests?

2024-11-20 21:25:21 UTC

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Or by the time it was found it would be too late?

2024-11-20 20:15:28 UTC

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Let’s do the recounts, but if you are going to do widespread election fraud, why use a pattern so easy to spot?

2024-11-19 18:32:39 UTC

#EV folks: I'm in the market for a new-to-me car, perhaps $20k. The idea of going all-electric for our next car is appealing, but at the same it seems like EV tech is evolving rapidly and we may see for example new battery chemistries in the market in just a few short years. Cameras, sensors and on-board processing seem very much in flux as well.
Also, I'm likely more interested in the price point of a used car, but am concerned about buying an #EV with a used battery.
Sell me on an EV.

2024-11-17 16:17:53 UTC

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The Tuba UI is nice, but the fonts are too small on my HiDPI screen.
I tried using Flatseal to set QT_SCALE_FACTOR=2 for the app, but it seemed to have no effect.

2024-11-17 16:00:26 UTC

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Thanks. Trying Tuba now.

2024-11-17 15:29:34 UTC

Anyone on #Linux using a desktop app with a custom UI to access #Mastodon instead of the web view?

2024-11-14 16:22:14 UTC

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I tried #jujutsu based on your mention here. One of my first impressions didn't go well:
❯ jj git fetch
Error: failed to authenticate SSH session: Unable to extract public key from private key file: Wrong passphrase or invalid/unrecognized private key file format; class=Ssh (23)
Hint: Jujutsu uses libssh2, which doesn't respect ~/.ssh/config. Does `ssh -F /dev/null` to the host work?
JJ can't even understand ~/.ssh/config.
Perhaps I can directly use `git fetch` as workaround.

2024-11-01 14:16:06 UTC

Reminder: The reason that some email apps don't show images by default is for your #privacy
The images are not part of the email. They are hosted on remote servers controlled by the email publisher. The URL for the images contains a unique ID in it.
The result is that when you click "load images", the publisher can track that you specifically opened their email.
This is also why nearly every newsletter contains at least one image.

2024-10-28 22:20:49 UTC

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There may be no need to fork `httpie` in the end, as it seems there are decent re-implementations of it already.
The first I looked at is `curlie`, which is described as an `httpie` interface to `curl`. But first impression was not good:
``curlie --helip` returns no help.
Running `curlie` alone returns a bunch of ouptut, but it doesn't seem to be much like the `httpie` interface. This tool may be more like `curl` than `httpie`. Moving on for now!
https://github.com/rs/curlie
#webdev

2024-10-28 18:16:05 UTC

Time to fork httpie?
If you are a #webdev or do #coding for the web, `httpie` is great CLI tool for HTTP requests.
https://httpie.io
There's a mega-patch opened against it which solves about 2 dozen issues, including supporting newer HTTP and DNS features. But it's considered "not ready" as it's slightly slower, like 200 ms per request slower due to new protocol complexities.
Forking it may be the best way forward to get these bug fixes and features released.
https://github.com/httpie/cli/pull/1531

2024-10-27 21:55:34 UTC

“How much forest has been replaced by specific agricultural commodities?
Of the seven commodities analyzed, cattle replaced the most forest by far—cattle pasture now occupies some 45.1 million hectares (Mha) of land deforested between 2001 and 2015, accounting for 36 percent of all tree cover loss associated with agriculture during the time period. “
If we want more trees to combat climate change, consume less beef, dairy and leather.
#vegan
https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture#how-much-forest-has-been-replaced-by-specific-agricultural-commodities

2024-10-24 10:56:16 UTC

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Sounds like a satisfying first 50-miler experience!
I wrote up my first 50-miler as well, a solo mid-winter adventure.
https://limestonepostmagazine.com/why-i-found-myself-running-50-miles/
#running

2024-10-18 20:04:35 UTC

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I like #GhostBlog, which does blog/newsletter/subsciptions well, but it doesn’t have the bazillion plugins to make it a do-everything CMS that #WordPress turned into.
For my needs, Ghost has been refreshingly simple and secure, allowing me to focus more on content and less on security-driven upgrades.

2024-08-31 10:36:17 UTC

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And it's not like it's a binary choice either, like pointing the finger at the single worst cause of climate change and ignoring all others.
There are a lot of developers in the world. Enough to work on Rust-in-Linux and a Rust-only kernel as well.
A small, Rust-only kernel could try out some ideas that might actually spend up Rust-in-Linux development.

2024-08-27 16:57:52 UTC

One open source #Linux project I cheer for is Regolith Desktop, which just had a new release.
https://regolith-desktop.com
Regolith is a polished take on the #sway tiling window manager, using Ubuntu (and soon Debian) as a base.
I hope to see more of what they've done-- like the new Ilia launcher-- make into the #Fedora Sway Atomic and #ArchLInux as well