Bing use-case! AKA One Weird Trick Time And Date Sites Hate

In my prior post¹ I noted that I use 'b' as a Search Shortcut for #Bing. Here is why:

* quickly view a Gregorian calendar month display, with readable days, days of the week, and weekends & holidays highlighted.

E.g. I type this into my Firefox address bar:

b dec 2024

then press return and immediately see:


Only Microsoft Bing search supports this.

On other search engines (Duckduckgo, Google, Yahoo) all you get are links to random date time sites littered with ads, or blurry images of calendar months where the day numbers and holidays are too small to read.

This is something I have informally complained about to friends for years, that if you use Google Search for unit conversions, simple arithmetic, and even names of holidays, you get a nice large font “featured snippet” display of exactly your answer. But not something as simple as a month and year or even month with the implication that you want to see the current or next instance of that month.

How hard can that be to build? 12 names of months. 12 more 3-letter abbreviations. Multiplied by however number of languages supported. An intern could code that in under an hour. Someone has likely already written a regular expression for detecting this. (Aside: I tried year first, e.g. 2024 Dec, and hilariously enough that did not work to show the nice month display. So I suspect there is a minimal regular expression under the covers of this Bing feature.)

From having tried search engines for years, I was pretty convinced no one supported this.

Then on a whim I tried this in Bing recently (maybe I hadn’t before?) and to my pleasant surprise it worked.

There you have it, a use-case for Bing that only works in Bing, and reason enough to add a 'b' Search Shortcut in Firefox for Bing.

#search #webSearch #SearchShortcut #Microsoft #BingTip #searchTip #calendar #month

¹ https://tantek.com/2024/287/t2/setup-search-shortcuts-firefox

You should setup Search Shortcuts in #Firefox, they have sped up my web browsing experience considerably.

James (@jamesg.blog) wrote up a great summary of how to do so and his experience:
* https://jamesg.blog/2024/10/13/search-engine-shortcuts-firefox/

I use DuckDuckGo as my default search engine, so here are the Search Shortcuts I have setup when I want to explicitly search/lookup something elsewhere, roughly ordered by my perceived frequency of use:

i - IndieWeb - https://indieweb.org/
w - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
g - Google - https://google.com/
d - MDN Web Docs - https://developer.mozilla.org/
m - Google Maps - https://maps.google.com/
b - Bing - https://bing.com/
a - Amazon - https://amazon.com/
x - Twitter - https://twitter.com/search

If you don’t see one of these search engines in your Firefox Settings: Search Shortcuts, you can visit its URL above and then follow the instructions in James’s blog post to add it to your browser’s list of search engines. Once added there, it will show up in the Search Shortcuts table and you can double-click it and add a one-letter (or more) shortcut as you wish!

What Search Shortcuts have you setup in your browser?

#search #OpenSearch #webSearch #SearchShortcuts #browserTip #FirefoxTip #searchTip

No I did not block you on the #fediverse / #Mastodon / #Misskey etc.

If you were following me @tantek.com on your client/server/instance of choice but noticed you were no longer doing so, that was due to a recent software bug in my fediverse provider which accidentally caused everyone’s #ActivityPub servers to unfollow me (bug details below).

No it’s absolutely not your fault, you did nothing wrong.

We need a variant of Hanlon’s Razor¹ like:

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by a software bug.”

Take another look at my posts if you want (directly on @tantek.com or try searching for that on your instance) and if you like what you see or find them otherwise informative and useful, feel free to refollow. If not, no worries!

Also no worries if you ever unfollow/refollow for any reason. I mean that.

I always assume people know best how to manage their online reader/reading experiences, everyone’s priorities and likes/dislikes change over time, and encourage everyone to make choices that are best for their mental health and overall joy online.

Bug details:

This was due to a #BridgyFed bug² that deleted my profile (“ActivityPub actor”) from (nearly?) all instances, making everyone’s accounts automatically unfollow me, as well as remove any of my posts from your likes and reposts (boosts) collections. It also removed my posts from any of your replies to my posts, leaving your replies dangling without reply-contexts. Apologies!

The bug was introduced accidentally as part of another fix about a month ago³, and was triggered within the following week⁴.

Anyone following me before ~2024-09-22 was no longer following me. A few folks have noticed and refollowed. Any likes or reposts of my posts before that date were also undone (removed).

Ryan (@snarfed.org) has been really good about giving folks a heads-up, and apologizing, and quickly doing what he can to fix things.

Bugs happen, yes even in production code, so please do not post/send any hate.

I’d rather be one of the folks helping with improving BridgyFed, and temporary setbacks like this are part of being an early / eager #IndieWeb adopter.

This bug has also revealed some potential weaknesses in other ActivityPub implementations. E.g. deleting an “actor” should be undoable, and undoing a delete should reconnect everything, from follows to likes & reposts collections, to reply-contexts. Perhaps the ActivityPub specification could be updated with such guidance (if it hasn’t been already, I need to double-check).

To be clear, I’m still a big supporter of #BridgyFed, #ActivityPub, #Webmention, and everyone who chooses to implement these and other #IndieWeb related and adjacent protocols as best fits their products and services.

All of these are a part of our broader open #socialWeb, and making all these #openStandards work well together (including handling edge-cases and mistakes!) is essential for providing #socialMedia alternatives that put users first.

References:

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
² https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/1379
³ https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/commit/4df76d0db7b87cabbd714039546c05b3221169be
⁴ https://chat.indieweb.org/dev/2024-09-22#t1727028174623700

This is post 26 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts

← https://tantek.com/2024/285/t1/io-domain-suggested-steps
→ 🔮

↳ In reply to issue 107 of GitHub project “sustyweb” I concur with https://github.com/TzviyaSiegman’s comment, and support making “WSG a living document rather than 1.0”.

Sustainability best practices are constantly evolving, related conditions change year over year (such as how power is generated, how devices consume electricity, etc.), and the CG has strong productive momentum which is worth maintaining and focusing on continuously improving the WSG.

The proposed IG charter could be updated accordingly, listing publishing the WSG as an intended living document rather than focusing on a “1.0” deliverable.

👍 to a comment on issue 107 of GitHub project “sustyweb”

⚠️ .io domain¹ likely being phased-out² — seven suggested steps

Good article in The Verge summarizing recent .io related events, see that for more context if this is news to you:
* https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/8/24265441/uk-treaty-end-io-domain-chagos-islands

It looks likely .io (and .io domains) will go away in the next few years (as .cs and .yu did³), so here are my suggested steps to take depending on your usage of .io domains:

1. Avoid buying new .io domains (or making plans with existing ones; sell if you can)
2. If you currently run a .io service⁴ (for a company or community), make and publicize a transition plan (like a new domain, redirection, orderly shutdown plan for redirects)
3. If you have a personal site on a .io domain⁵ or subdomain, make your own transition plan, and perhaps post about how others should link to your posts
4. If you are using someone else’s .io domain to publish (like #GitHubPages⁶), make a transition plan to publish elsewhere and leave a forwarding note and link behind
5. If you use a .io domain as your Web sign-in login on any sites, switch them to another non-io personal domain
6. Similarly if your site accepts #WebSignIn logins (via #IndieAuth, #RelMeAuth, or even #OpenID), consider discouraging any new sign-ups from .io domains, and warning any existing users with .io domains to switch per # 5
7. If you have posts (or a whole #indieweb site) with links to .io sites or pages (like those in 2-4 above), make a plan for editing those links to point to an alternative or an archival copy (like on the Internet Archive)

And of course, post about your #dotIO plans.

Glossary

Domain
 https://indieweb.org/domain
IndieAuth
 https://indieweb.org/IndieAuth
Internet Archive
 https://web.archive.org/
OpenID
 https://indieweb.org/OpenID
Redirect
 https://indieweb.org/redirect
RelMeAuth
 https://indieweb.org/RelMeAuth
Web sign-in
 https://indieweb.org/Web_sign-in


References:

¹ https://indieweb.org/.io
² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io#Phasing_Out
³ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cs
⁴ E.g. https://indieweb.org/webmention.io or https://indieweb.org/granary.io
⁵ E.g. https://indieweb.org/werd.io
⁶ https://indieweb.org/github.io

This is post 25 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts

← https://tantek.com/2024/283/t1/metaphors-constructive-cooperative-joyful
→ https://tantek.com/2024/287/t1/fediverse-unfollow-bridgyfed-bug

I have put a lot of thought into deliberately shifting¹ metaphors², often in the context of the #indieweb³. One goal is to replace use of violent or divisive metaphors with actively constructive, cooperative, or joyful alternatives, like:

* gardening/farming e.g. digital garden⁴
* biology/ecology/nature e.g. digital ecosystem⁵
* cooking/baking e.g. eat your own cooking⁶
* toolmaking, clothing making, other useful crafts e.g. sew what you want⁷
* music, dancing, painting, and other expressive crafts e.g. remixing⁸
* travel, navigation, maps e.g. information superhighway⁹
* games, sports, running, e.g. surfing the net¹⁰

Some of these areas are well developed (sports metaphors), others are obvious or emergent from various IndieWeb efforts like our principles¹¹, and others could use brainstorming and experimentation.

Thoughts and words, whether spoken or written, influence each other in reinforcement feedback loops. Consciously choosing one can impact the other and vice versa.

Especially in messages to others or our even future selves, words and metaphors communicate and reinforce our values and thus merit care in their invention¹² and usage.

What are metaphors you have found constructive, cooperative, or joyful?

References:

¹ https://tantek.com/2023/132/t1/agenda-gardening-metaphors
² https://tantek.com/2023/023/t3/
³ https://tantek.com/2023/022/t1/indieweb-eat-what-you-cook
⁴ https://indieweb.org/digital_garden
⁵ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_ecosystem
⁶ https://indieweb.org/cook_what_you_want
⁷ https://indieweb.org/events/2020-08-19-hwc-west-coast#sewing
⁸ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix_culture#Analog_era
⁹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway
¹⁰ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_metaphors#Functional_metaphors
¹¹ https://indieweb.org/principles
¹² https://tantek.com/2024/180/b1/responsible-inventing


This is post 24 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts

← https://tantek.com/2024/277/t2/october-blogtober-indieweb
→ https://tantek.com/2024/285/t1/io-domain-suggested-steps

👍 to a comment on pull request 183 to GitHub project “AB-public”

❤️ to a comment on pull request 3 to GitHub project “potential-charters”

↳ In reply to pull request 3 to GitHub project “potential-charters” I tend to agree with @github.com/manton’s comment and analysis.

As Manton points out, there are many of us now, many implementers and publishers that are implementing and supporting multiple protocols, and thus it matters to us that we at least maintain the level of compatibility and interoperability that we achieved in the initial Recommendations of these specifications.

I think we can continue to do that, especially if we scope the Working Group to being a maintenance WG for the existing specs. This is something that Evan has convinced me of, while previously I saw a renewed Social Web WG to work on new features. Given the progress with use of extensions, and the Fed ID CG/WG stages process (or something like it), that seems like a better way to pursue new features, in parallel in the Social CG.

Another benefit of one Social Web working group is that its scope is easier to determine and explain, both to prior participants, and to W3C Members who will be voting on its creation.

A renewal of a working group to do maintenance on all of its prior specs, both editorial and bug fixes, makes a lot of sense to W3C and to Members, who like seeing working groups that take up the responsibility of maintaining specs. This especially makes more sense when all those specifications have far more implementations now than when they were shipped by the prior working group!

As I saw in another blog post about the social web, we are all here on “team open”, and I think we suffer, collectively, by attempting to draw lines with any “ActivityPub-only” approach. Both because it unnecessarily divides a very diverse, mixed, and broader “ActivtyPub supporting” community, and because it’s much fuzzier, to the point of overlapping with adjacent and aligned efforts.

The rel=me specification is a good example of this overlap. Would that be included in an “ActivityPub-only” approach? Because it’s certainly used by communities beyond that.

We have a whole task force on HTML Discovery in the CG where some of us (myself included) is working on improving rel=author support when interacting between HTML representations of profiles, yes, often with microformats, and retrieving the JSON(-LD) Activity Streams 2 versions of those profiles. That sort of interoperability benefits from a more inclusive approach.

We have bridges (https://fed.brid.gy/) that have helped the “ActvityPub-verse” grow that we could only dream about during the prior Social Web WG, because that group put in the hard work of figuring out interoperability across protocols and formats. We already did that hard work so why squander it? A maintenance group for all our specs provides a venue for any marginal bits of small work we may (or may not) need to maintain the positive outcomes of all that prior hard work.

Lastly, @github.com/gobengo brings up important concerns that I think merit explicitly addressing, regarding “experience in the SocialWG from 2013-2017” (actually 2014-2018 per https://www.w3.org/wiki/Socialwg)

First, in summary I will say as the saying goes “Don't fight the last war”, or I prefer a non-violent expression instead: “Don’t argue the prior debates”.

We were in a very different situation at the start of the first Social Web Working Group, having emerged from an incredibly diverse “W3C Workshop on Social Standards: The Future of Business” (AKA osfw3c) in 2013.

The first Social Web WG had to evaluate numerous prior group efforts (17+) and different approaches (~15) that were proposed by members of the group for consideration before narrowing down to ~3 approaches. Lots of time was spent doing this, which we would obviously avoid by sticking to maintenance of existing specs.

We also found so much in common that we were able to leverage as building blocks and points of compatibility. HTTP & link rel discovery. URLs for profiles. Etc. the list goes on.

All of that is pointing out how the first Social Web WG was very different than what a similarly scoped Social Web WG could be like today.

Second, the other strong point of more recent evidence that we should use instead of fearing “the last war”, is how the Social CG has been conducted for the past 5-6 years, especially the past few years mostly chaired by Dmitri.

Every Social CG meeting I have been to has been incredibly positive & productive. Even when we disagree, we do so in very civil, polite, informed ways that consider each other’s use-cases, perspectives, opinions, with folks working on different projects and protocols! It has been an incredible experience and I am grateful to be a part of it, and especially grateful for Dmitri’s stewardship. I mentioned this briefly in a post after a recent meeting https://tantek.com/2024/216/t1/socialcg-telcon.

With the Social CG, under Dmitri’s chairing, we have found a new more harmonious rhythm, and frankly, broader inclusiveness of different efforts and communities than we ever had previously. We have proven we can have regular meetings that “continue[s] the work of the W3C Social Web Working Group” where agenda items are curated and prioritized in a manner that respects the time and interests of the participants.

I would expect the harmony of the Social Web CG to continue in a similar renewed Social Web WG, and would support Dmitri as a co-chair of that working group to keep our momentum going. In addition, I would ask anyone else wanting to co-chair to learn from and adopt Dmitri’s chairing workmode accordingly. I believe that is our best path to success for this community, and for all our collective goals.

References:
* https://www.w3.org/wiki/SocialCG
* https://www.w3.org/wiki/SocialWG
* https://indieweb.org/2013/osfw3c

👍 to a comment on pull request 3 to GitHub project “potential-charters”

Happy October!

For some reason this month has a plethora of daily blogging or other creativity prompts. Here’s a list of the ones I found so far:

* #Blogtober (consider this post my first for this, retroactively day 1)
* Inktober — https://inktober.com/
* LOLtober - https://weblog.anniegreens.lol/2024/10/loltober-2024
* Looptober — https://looptober.com/
* Mathober - https://mathober.com/
* Viztober — https://www.instagram.com/evalottchen/p/DAiNm3ZtuTj/

Having found so many for the month I created an “October” page on the #IndieWeb wiki to document them all (and in case folks find others to add):
* https://indieweb.org/October

October is also a very popular month for seasonal blog styling:
* https://indieweb.org/Halloween

Do you have a custom Halloween theme for your personal site? Add it to the wiki!

This is post 23 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts

← https://tantek.com/2024/247/t4/w3c-link-checker-before-federating
→ https://tantek.com/2024/283/t1/shifting-metaphors-constructive-cooperative

Last week I participated in #w3cTPAC 2024¹ in Anaheim, California. It was quite packed, and often started early, from 8am informal breakfast meetings at a nearby IHOP, to Working Group, Community Group, and other small group meetings every day (but Wednesday) til 18:00.

Midweek at TPAC was the usual Breakouts Day where a record 87 breakouts² were proposed³ and run by members of the community, deftly organized into rooms, timeslots, and a handful of themes⁴ by the W3C Team. In the evening there was an open Plenary Session⁵ open to all instead of an Advisory Committee (AC) meeting, where the result of the recent W3C Board Election⁶ was announced. Congratulations to the newly elected W3C Board of Directors!

I’m still compiling my own notes and observations. For now, the minutes of (nearly?) all the meetings and breakouts are available if you know how to find them.

Hint: W3C minutes URLs have the form (without spaces):

https:// www . w3 . org / YYYY / MM / DD-IRCNAME-minutes . html

E.g. to find the second day (2024-09-24) of CSS Working Group (which just uses "css", all lower case, as their IRC channel name) minutes, you would go to:
* https://www.w3.org/2024/09/24-css-minutes.html

Every Working Group and Community Group links to its IRC Channel (all lowercase), and breakout proposals link to the channel used for each breakout. Thus the minutes links to specific groups on specific days are left as a web discovery exercise for the reader.

Last year: https://tantek.com/2023/262/b1/w3c-technical-plenary-tpac

¹ https://www.w3.org/wiki/TPAC/2024
² https://www.w3.org/2024/09/TPAC/breakouts.html#grid
³ https://github.com/w3c/tpac2024-breakouts/
⁴ https://github.com/orgs/w3c/projects/57/views/1
⁵ https://www.w3.org/2024/09/26-tpac-minutes.html
⁶ https://www.w3.org/2024/09/26-tpac-minutes.html#x215

❤️ to issue 13 of GitHub project “hacienda”

👍 to issue 13 of GitHub project “hacienda”

↳ In reply to a comment on issue 163 of GitHub project “AB-public” > Should we just close this issue then?

No, because this issue as named is to “integrate” which is still a pending task separate from the Team task of “updated proposal”.

> just a reminder to the Team to keep things in sync as needed

No, that is missing half the point of this issue. By “in both directions” (per issue description) I believe it means that the chair/editor of the Vision have explicit work to do in the direction of incorporating content into the Vision document.

I disagree with “Candidate to Close” and do not think it needs AB time to discuss closing at this time, thus am removing that label.

If you believe this issue needs explicit sync-discussion by the AB at this time, please add “Agenda+” instead with your goals for discussion.

👍 to a comment on pull request 3 to GitHub project “potential-charters”

👍 to a comment on pull request 3 to GitHub project “potential-charters”

👍 to a comment on pull request 3 to GitHub project “potential-charters”

👍 to pull request 3 to GitHub project “potential-charters”

👍 to a comment on issue 113 of GitHub project “AB-public”

↳ In reply to issue 64 of GitHub project “AB-public” Closing with editorial change (https://github.com/w3c/AB-public/pull/175) merged to include "and the Vision Task Force" per Vision Task Force resolution: https://www.w3.org/2024/09/25-vision-minutes.html#r03

↳ In reply to issue 13 of GitHub project “AB-public” Removing "needed for Statement" label but leave issue open for further iterative improvements per Vision Task Force resolution:
https://www.w3.org/2024/09/25-vision-minutes.html#r04

↳ In reply to issue 126 of GitHub project “AB-public” It has been a while since the most recent discussions on this issue.

Since then, I will note that I have heard anecdotal experience from the Team and others regarding using the W3C Vision Note in their decision-making and they have found it quite useful, in everything from chartering, to resolving objections (often amciably), to recruiting.

Thus I propose that we close this issue as complete or complete enough to proceed to Statement.

If we get new information or new experiences (where people tried to use the Vision to make hard decisions and found it lacking), then we should open new issue(s) for those specific opportunities for improvement.

↳ In reply to issue 163 of GitHub project “AB-public” The editor and chair of the Vision Task Force met with W3C team members working on a proposed update to the W3C mission statement and we (VisionTF) are currently waiting on an updated proposal for presentation to the Task Force. We hope to see this proposed update sometime this month or next month.

↳ In reply to a comment on issue 87 of GitHub project “tpac2024-breakouts” @github.com/plehegar regarding: “Will the Social Web charter part of the scope of this breakout?”

I support discussing next steps on a Social Web WG charter in this breakout, in particular, using the discussion and links in https://github.com/w3c/strategy/issues/435 to help us make forward progress.

↳ In reply to a comment on issue 435 of GitHub project “strategy” @github.com/plehegar regarding:
> Can we turn the proposal (https://www.w3.org/wiki/SocialCG/WG_Charter_Discussion) into a charter?

I think that proposal made good progress on some sections of a potential future Social Web WG charter as of meetings and discussions 6-12 months ago.

However, given the CG/WG Proposal Stages you linked us to above, I think it would be worth splitting the large table of Deliverables into two tables for consideration:
* Specs published by the prior Social Web WG — for necessary maintenance
* New proposals or draft specs - for working through stages

Without objection, I can do the wiki-table editing to split up that draft table of deliverables so it matches better with the CG/WG Proposal Stages proposal.

(Please thumbs-up as encouragement if you support this)