Carpet Bomberz Inc.

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  • I forgot to verify the ActivityPub

    I was just alerted by someone that the profile on Mastodon doesn’t have an verified ActivityPub linkage. So it’s high time I corrected that as I now see that 100% there’s no linkage, just some bare text dropped into the verification table. Mastodon is likely going to need the ActivityPub path verified in it’s own little way by placing the special “link” with the “rel” tags set to “me” so that it can prove out I have some authoring/authorship on one URL that can be read easily by the other side of that linkage. Let’s see if that works or not.

    Also I’m going to attempt to drop the meta tag that proves authorship on this site for things that I share too. Again for attribution purposes. That however needs to be an HTML meta tag embedded somewhere within this doc. Let me see if I can figure that out or not. I’ll try it first as inline code, as I don’t have a raw html editor in WordPress.com that I know of.

    <meta name="fediverse:creator" content="@carpetbomberz@mastodon.online">

    This likely will get ignored because it’s in pre-formatted text tag.

    Still looking for raw HTML input,…

    <meta name="fediverse:creator" content="@carpetbomberz@mastodon.online">

    And this is a code block. Still not an raw html box. Feels like meta tags can only be directly added if I had access to the actual header files (which WordPress.com doesn’t allow for the free/unpaid versions). So I’ll publish this and see what happens. Likely the meta tag will just get filtered out and ignored. But at LEAST I have tried to tie/bind the two identities together.

  • The best, most original YouTube channel – curiousmarc

  • You don’t win today nostalgia!

    The eMac: Using Apple’s Forgotten Educational Mac in 2025

  • Operation Crossroads: Baker-shot

    To further inaugerate, nay I take that back,…
    To further investigate the file not found errors some are seeing with ActivityPub shares via WordPress.com, I’m now running the next open air atomic bomb test, AKA Crossroads-Baker.

    In this episode we’re trying to narrow down why when someone clicks on the entry they get a file not found. Surprisingly I’m unable to replicate using Firefox on Win11 or MS Edge on Win11. So it may require some regression tests on Mac OS, or Android or iOS. This is starting to sound like real WORK!

    What I *am* noticing right now is the base level ActivityPub entry uses the prefix: http://

    I have my web-browser to automatically redirect to https:// prefix for all websites. So perhaps the WP.com ActivityPub service is not publishing the URL as https//: ?

    This blog post should reproduce the same conditions of Operation Crossroads – Abel shot (just an image and some text, nothing fussy). Here we go 10,9,8,….

  • It’s been 20 years for me on WordPress.com

    In spite of current world/local news events there is a small celebration going on in me heart.

    Here it is, after paying $13/year I made it. Got the badge to show for it (but maybe not the blog entries as such, but still I am here). Here’s to keeping your finger in the pocket, the iron in the fire, not cutting your losses. There is no sunk cost with a blog, no. I stay here because it’s just low effort enough and still fun enough (thanks Automattic for further developing this product!) that I can pick a new Twenty Twenty template each and every year and get MORE than what I had prior. It’s worth paying that small sum for my custom domain.

  • The “Big Bus” gives me all the feels

    The Full-Sized 32-Wheeled, Articulated Bus Built for a 1976 Movie

    As I kid growing up heard tales told (by a good friend) who had SEEN the actual movie on the big screen in a real theater. And it all sounds fake and made up, couldn’t believe what he was saying. I thought he was making it up as he was telling me the story. But little did I know.

    Literally 2 years later, this movie played on network TeeVee (I think maybe it was CBS, I’ll have to look that up). Anyways it was a Sunday Night feature and what a spectacle! But really for such a low budget film, that Bus man, spending that money on a “prop” was well worth the price of admission. Just like the helicopter in “Blue Thunder”, it was a real bus! Not some miniature or ILM magic trick.

    So kudos the designers and production team, all that money spent was right there on the screen for all to see. That’s how movies USED to be made.

  • Operation Crossroads

    yesterday was teh “Trinity” test,… we’ve gone way past that one now

    So CogDogBlog in the truest most generous sense took my posting from yesterday and started asking questions and got some answers. And now I can verify I do, I DO have the ActivityPub plug-in. Believe it or not. I had bumped into the settings once, partially set them up. But still no joy it wasn’t “just working” for me. So in honor of our predecessors who invented the Atomic Bomb, I will start code-naming each one of these attempts similarly to that used by US Army/Air Force/Atomic Energy Commission circa 1946.

    Today’s attempt is to step-wise follow Alan’s ActivityBlog run-down from a few days ago (here: https://cogdogblog.com/2026/01/free-bonuses-wordpress-activitypub-plugin/) and narrow down what/why things are happening.

    Here now should be an oEmbed of the @cosocial.ca Toot from 3hrs. ago today on Alan’s ActivityPub stream.

    Alan is @cogdog

    @pfefferle Is @activitypub.blog available on all WP.com blogs?

    I tried it early on a few free WP.com blogs I use for experimenting, and it is active on all of mine, not via a plugin, just under the settings.

    Do all WP.com free users have this? What about those with a hosted domain?

    Wordpress dashboard menu showing the selection of Settings on left with a red arrow towards the submenu of 10 items, pointing to ActivityPub.
    January 8, 2026, 4:16 pm 0 boosts 2 favorites

    Boo-yah!
    Well Hot Dog, we have a weiner!
    This is now working for some reason. Folks what you see above is a full-on oEmbed of Alan’s Toot showing where the ActivityPub setting is on WordPress (all of them,… free, .com or .org). The only thing I did differently was to add a “header image” to one of the tabs in the settings. Could it be that simple? Did I do anything else different? Dunno. But one good turn deserves another. If that was the first test (we’ll call it Able). The next one will be Baker, same as Operation Crossroads.

    Here now should be Alan’s demonstration link and ActivityPub oEmbed of Andy Rush’s Christmas message example from Alan’s same blog entry re: Activity Pub:

    Andy Rush

    The biggest fireplace I’ve ever had. Merry Christmas everyone!

    A fireplace video on the wall from a projector and Christmas tree with colorful lights.
    December 25, 2025, 1:19 am 1 boosts 3 favorites


    Garsh!
    It worked the 2nd time too!

    I think without jinxing it, I will say ActivityPub works for ME.

    And it can work for You TOO!

    If you have WordPress.com, or WordPress.org or you’re just a free tier participant in either group,… You HAVE the power. ActivityPub is just a slightly bend, configure, fill out the form fields, enable the things. And you now are hosting your own Federated Identity, ActivityPub socialz node of your own.

    No ifs, ands or buts. Although, it is hosted on WordPress.com,… so they could knock me off this platform. But I OWNS my own domain. So take that!

    All of us together Alan, Andy and me,… there’s nothing we can’t do! 👍

    Me with Alan’s blog entry re:ActivityPub on hte left and on the right-side my ActivityPub settings on WordPress.com

  • The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Fourier Transform

    A talk, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Fourier Transform, was presented by [Joshua Wise] at Teardown 2025 in June last year. Click-through for the notes or check out the video …read more

    The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Fourier Transform

    Will be checking this out real soon now, as I keep bumping into FFT in different contexts professionally and personally. Some of it is parking ba k to the SETI@home days watching it chug through a data packet like it was a bitcoin proof of work transaction and verification. Those were the daze 🥴.

  • The ActivityPub Plug-in Acid Test

    Are all plug-ins made the same?

    So @cogdogblog did a nice write-up over the hidden utility of WordPress’s free ActivityPub free plugin which effectively makes your WordPress site a standalone ActivityPub node of one’s own. Like your own instance of Mastodon where you can both 1.)Originate and 2.)Share postings using the ActivityPub protcols same as any other Federated social sharing site. That’s located here: https://cogdogblog.com/2026/01/free-bonuses-wordpress-activitypub-plugin/

    The test example Alan (cogodog) used was a Christmas posting by Andy Rush. So here now I’m going to give it a shot myself cobbling together as much of the steps as Alan outline in his article. Let’s see if it Pubs:


    https://mastodon.social/@andyrush/115777574463230300

    That’s nothing more than a new paragraph block with the raw url pasted in. And something I’ve suspected all along (again without confirmation, I’ve asked but it was never clear) there’s 2 tiers of “free” ActivityPub plugin. There’s WordPress.com (free tier) which I have. And then there’s the WordPress.org (non-free hosted tier) which allows you the luxury of editing the look/feel CSS styles of your whole site to your hearts content. And allows you to install actual plug-ins (free or paid ones, that’s on you). The WordPress dot com, free tier doesn’t give you that. You do not get to edit the CSS-styles, look and feel, nor do you get the to add-in any plug-in you desire.

    Hence, this is why I’m calling this the acid test. If Andy’s Christmas greeting is not majickally embedded. Then the free-tier WordPress.com site is not using the same ActivityPub plug-in, but a stripped down version that allows WordPress to push a link to your linked ActivityPub account on the instance where it resides (arguably a “nice” feature but nothing like the invention of fire).

    So there’s free ActivityPub plug-in, and the stripped down, barely there Plug-in that is just posting a link to your blog into your ActivityPub account when you hit Publish, in order to share the link with your followers. Which is I’m positive all I have access to:

    No joy,… sad. Andy’s URL is nothing more than a link. No majickal embed, no ActivityPub goodness. So just be sure you know what you HAVE. There’s ActivityPub (providing links to things) and then ActivityPub (where your blog becomes an ActivityPub instance with all the same capabilities as a full-up Mastoodon site). WordPress.com (free tier) is not that, even though it superficially makes it seem like ActivityPub capability is THERE, it’s just URL links out from your blog post, no oEmbeds or goodness.

  • ReBoot rebooted, SGI ftw!

    Reviving ReBoot With a Tape Deck Repair

    I count myself lucky to have indulged back inna day, on Saturday morning cartoons. And specfiically ABC’s rebrand attempt aka One Saturday Morning. That was a whole suite of shows that started just around 9am and ran until 11am with an interesting mix of stuff in between and attempts to really engage with the viewing audience that would make them brand loyal to ABC.

    Anyone remember “Manny the Uncanny”. A recurring character in a funny suit and with a funny accent that was hard to place. This guy had many mis-adventures and stunts along the way. But the real star of the show was an import from Canada, known as ReBoot. A 3d rendered cartoon that ran for a number of episodes and had some interesting characters and plot points. The idea was not dissimilar from TRON in some ways where the characters were parts of an overall computer operating system with jobs associated with users from the outside occasionally launching games that the would take over part of the city map in which they would dwell.

    It was definitely interesting and there’s not been much before or after that were like it either a true Canadian original. Very much up there like,… I dunno Norman McLaren perhaps?! Worthwhile and I hope to see the full rez resetorations of those Sony D1 archive tapes. Hopefully they will get rights-cleared and see the light of day.