I've created a new tool to make it easier for humans to browse Wikimedia's APT repository: apt.wikimedia.org. Wikimedia's servers run Debian (Ubuntu is nearly phased out), and for the most part use the standard packages that Debian provides. But in some cases we use software that isn't in the official Debian repositories, and distribute it via our own APT repository.
For a while now I've been working on different things where it's helpful for me to be able to see which packages are provided for each Debian version. I was unable to find any existing, reusable HTML browsers for APT repositories (most people seem to use the commandline tools), so I quickly wrote my own.
Introducing the Wikimedia APT browser. It's a short (less than 100 lines) Python and Flask application that reads from the Package/Release files that APT uses, and presents them in a simple HTML page. You can see the different versions of Debian and Ubuntu that are supported, the different sections in each one, and then the packages and their versions.
There's nothing really Wikimedia-specific about this, it would be trivial to remove the Wikimedia branding and turn it into something general if people are interested.
The source code is published on Phabricator and licensed under the AGPL v3, or any later version.
Skip Mobile Wikipedia on Firefox Add-ons
Lately, I've been reading Wikipedia on my phone significantly more than I used to. I get 15 minutes on the train each morning, which makes for some great reading time. But when I'm on my phone, Wikipedia redirects to the mobile website. I'm sure there are some people out there who love it, but it's not for me.
There's a "Desktop" button at the bottom of the page, but it's annoying and inconvenient. So I created my first Firefox Add-on, "Skip Mobile Wikipedia". It rewrites all requests to the mobile Wikipedia website to the standard canonical domain, and sets a cookie to prevent any further redirects. It works on the standard desktop Firefox and on Android.
Install the Add-on and view the source code.
Originally posted on mastodon.technology.
#MediaWiki 1.30.0 is now in #Debian unstable
This is a short term transition to help test something that is close to the next LTS version: 1.31 (out in June!).
https://tracker.debian.org/news/949012/accepted-mediawiki-11300-1-source-into-unstable/
Originally posted on mastodon.technology.
Today I had the privilege of judging an elementary school science fair - the same school I attended so many years ago. I'm really excited to see kids learning about and applying the scientific method in addition to basic engineering principles at such a young age.
Originally posted on mastodon.technology.
Turns out one of my favorite websites, http://tay.today/ has been suspended by the hoster, probably because the bill hasn't been paid...
I've managed to recover all of the data thanks to archive.org <3 but now I need to find a cool domain name to host it on :/
Originally posted on mastodon.technology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCXGJQYZ9JA
Delicate's video is hilarious. Taylor is going to be gif'd more than Emma Stone.
