Browsing the fediverse
In early November, when the Great Discontinuity happened, I started working on a Steampipe plugin to enable SQL queries against the Mastodon API, along with a companion Steampipe “mod” (suite of...
View ArticleA Bloomberg terminal for Mastodon
As I mentioned last time, the Steampipe dashboard for Mastodon has evolved in unexpected ways. I imagined that the components — a plugin that maps Mastodon APIs to Postgres foreign tables, and a suite...
View ArticleCreate your own Mastodon UX
I’ve been discussing Mastodon UX wish lists with some new acquaintances there. This excerpt from A Bloomberg terminal for Mastodon concludes with part of my own wish list. In a Mastodon timeline, a...
View ArticleLists and people on Mastodon
I hadn’t thought to use Mastodon lists until I read the Frustration with lists chapter of Martin Fowler’s Exploring Mastodon, in which he writes: I like lists because they allow me to divide up my...
View ArticleHow many people in my Mastodon feed also tweeted today?
I lasted tweeted on Dec 22. (It was, unsurprisingly, a link to a blog post about Mastodon.) Today I wondered what percentage of the people who appear in my Mastodon timeline today also appeared on...
View ArticleInstance-qualified Mastodon URLs
In Lists and people on Mastodon I showed how I added a list column to the following tab of the Mastodon browser I’m building. That was a step in the direction of easier and more powerful list...
View ArticleMastodon relationship graphs
The new release of Steampipe is all about relationship graphs. Our blog post shows how these graphs provide contextual awareness for devops and security pros who can now see all the resources related...
View ArticleWorking with Mastodon lists
Since the early days of the blogosphere I have cherished the ability to view the world through the eyes of people more qualified than me to understand and explain what happens in particular domains....
View ArticleImages considered harmful (sometimes)
The Mastodon dashboards I’ve been developing and describing in this series are backed by a Steampipe plugin that translates SQL queries to Mastodon API calls. Like all Steampipe plugins you can use...
View ArticleMapping the wider fediverse
I began this journey convinced that Steampipe could help the fediverse evolve, but not sure exactly how. My first thought was to use Steampipe’s API-wrangling superpower to study patterns of...
View ArticleProtocols, APIs, and conventions
The fediverse is wired together by protocols like ActivityPub and WebFinger which, as yet, I know very little about. That’s because the Steampipe plugin, which supports the dashboards I’ve been...
View ArticleNews in the fediverse
On a recent episode of You’re Wrong About, Sarah Marshall delivered a crisp summary of how the 24-hour news cycle came to be. This led me to realize that many among us do not remember when news was...
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Mastodon, Steampipe, and RSS
I was determined to write my Mastodon #introduction today. To get started I used the tag search in the dashboard I’m building. IDG The idea was to look at a bunch of other #introduction posts to get a...
View ArticleMapping people and tags on Mastodon
In Mastodon relationship graphs I showed how to use Steampipe to map Mastodon network neighborhoods. When I use the word map here, I’m channeling Denis Wood’s The Power of Maps: Every map shows this …...
View ArticleVisualizing Mastodon server moderation
In Mapping the wider fediverse I showed how a new table added to the Mastodon plugin—mastodon_domain_block—enables queries that find which servers are moderating which other servers. For example, here...
View ArticleMastodon timelines for teams
Welcome to episode 17 of the Steampipe+Mastodon series, in which we introduce a new subplot: timeline history. So far, the examples I’ve shown and discussed work with current timelines. We’ve seen SQL...
View ArticleThe Mastodon plugin is now available on the Steampipe Hub
When Twitter changed hands last November I switched to Mastodon; ever since I’ve enjoyed happier and more productive social networking. To enhance my happiness and productivity I began working on a...
View ArticleMigrating Mastodon lists
My original Mastodon account was on mastodon.social. I chose it because it’s the largest instance, it’s operated by the developers of the service, and it runs the reference implementation of the...
View ArticleWhen the rubber duck talks back
I’d been needing to refactor the pagination logic in the Mastodon plugin for Steampipe. After a couple of abortive tries, I took another run at it this week with the help of the latest generation of...
View ArticleFlowpipe: A workflow engine for devops scripters
If you define your infrastructure as code, shouldn't your workflow automation use the same as-code approach? That's how Flowpipe works. Define workflows with HCL (HashiCorp configuration language),...
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