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Back to the Beach: Long Beach

Back to the Beach: Long Beach Comic Con (2014)

Photos and writeup: Indie comics, bargains, art, cosplay, Young Justice, and a mobile exhibit for the Flash TV show at this year's Long Beach Comic Con.



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No, it doesn't.
Depending on the hub, it does have a choice of themes (Netzgemeinde and hubzilla.de don't), and even then, you can tinker with the layout a lot if you want to.
But it's hard-coded to no more than three columns, one centre column plus a maximum of two sidebars. And since it doesn't have the Mastodon client API implemented, and it never will, you can't use it with third-party apps either.
Be very careful, though, if you do move: Hubzilla is not just Mastodon with more characters and text formatting. There's hardly anything in the Fediverse that does *blogging that's more different from Mastodon than Hubzilla.
On the other hand, Hubzilla probably has the best built-in help of all Fediverse server applications. And it has its own support forums, so if you need help, you don't have to shout into the void and hope that someone will catch your hashtags.
# # # # # # # # # Actually, you must never do either.

That's because , be it due to physical disabilities (you can't access alt-text if you don't have at least one working hand, at least not easily), be it due to their choice of software.
If there's any information not in the image, not in the post text, only in the alt-text, then these people will not be able to get this information. It's lost to them.
So !
If you need more than 500 characters once, write a thread.
If you need more than 500 characters regularly, move to where you have more characters, e.g.:
It's all part of the Fediverse, i.e. it's all fully federated with Mastodon. (Greetings from Hubzilla which has over 16M characters, too).
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # I'm occasionally working on my own extensive wiki about alt-texts and image descriptions in the Fediverse. It's still very much a WIP, and not even half of the planned pages are done, and it specialises in the Fediverse (not only Mastodon, by the way). But maybe you'll find something there that's useful for static websites as well.

If that shouldn't suffice, I've got more than 50 articles, pages etc. about alt-texts and image descriptions linked on , including 25 articles by Veronica Lewis a.k.a. Veronica with Four Eyes.
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Choo Young-woo and Lee Se-young sign up for Long Vacation

Everyone should be able to build, and as long as this freedom to build does not exist, the present-day planned architecture cannot be considered art at all.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser

The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS

Hype for the Future 153J: City of Ludowici, Georgia

OverviewThe City of Ludowici is a city located within and the county seat of Long County, Georgia, within the United States of America. The community is located along Routes 84, 301, and 57, within relative proximity to the Atlantic Ocean to the east.



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A woman dies and ends up at the pearly gates. There's a long line. St. Peter is asking people questions:

"Mrs. Sanchez. Let's see here... how much money did you make in your lifetime"

The woman seems confused, says she can't recall.

"About 1.5 million euros," says St. Peter. "How much of that did you use to help others"

Again she doesn't know.

"Over 70 percent! Welcome to heaven, Mrs. Sanchez."

The next man in line tells St. Peter that he made over half a billion in his life.

"And how much of that did you use to help others, Mr. Johnson"

The man begins talking about the various charitable foundations his company created, his philanthropic giving...

"Mr. Johnson," Peter interrupts, "between the tax writeoffs and the circular charity you used less than one percent of your income to help anyone else."

Mr. Johnson's protest is cut short by the trap door beneath his feet. His scream echoes as he falls.

Eventually it is the woman's turn. Peter glances at her and then his huge ledger.

"Ms. Smith, how much money did you make in your lifetime"

She thinks for a moment then Peter answers for her,

"Okay. It looks like you made about sixty thousand American dollars in total... what instrument did you play"

Choo Young Woo and Lee Se Young Hold Script Reading for Fantasy Romance Netflix K-drama Long Vacation



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Would be interesting to add Hubzilla's Zot6 and (streams)' Nomad (which would be Zot12 if it wasn't incompatible with Zot6) to the list.
By the way: Forte doesn't require a gateway to communicate with non-nomadic ActivityPub. A fully cloned Forte channel can communicate with a Mastodon account without jumping through hoops. Remember that Forte has almost fully-featured Hubzilla-level nomadic identity (i.e. everything except real-time syncing between channel instances unlike Hubzilla and (streams) which do sync in real time, it needs a cronjob for that) directly built into its core.
(streams) does support nomadic identity via ActivityPub. But internally, it uses and relies upon Nomad for its nomadic identity. It only supports nomadic identity via ActivityPub a) because it was used as a development platform for just this and b) in order to be able to understand cloned nomadic ActivityPub actors elsewhere. This is also why it isn't possible to move from (streams) to Forte, to move from Forte to (streams) or to clone between (streams) and Forte.
(streams) itself doesn't require gateways to communicate with Mastodon & Co. either. It speaks three protocols natively: its own Nomad, Hubzilla's Zot6 and (optionally, but on by default) standard ActivityPub.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Sorry, aber das Verlinkte lt sich nicht immer zwingend zu 100% anwenden und im Fediverse schon mal erst recht nicht.
100 Zeichen sind zum einen eine hoffnungslos veraltete Beschrnkung. Zum anderen reichen sie bei so manch einem Bild bei weitem nicht aus, um alle Qualittskriterien einer guten Bildbeschreibung zu erfllen. Und glaube mir, ich habe schon gelesen, da ich wei, wovon ich spreche. Insbesondere mchte ich hier verweisen auf .
Die Regel, da Text in Bildern immer zu 100% originalidentisch transkribiert werden mu, kenne ich, und damit gehe ich weitgehend konform (bis darauf, da Text, der im Original in Grobuchstaben geschrieben ist, nicht in Grobuchstaben transkribiert werden darf). Daran halte ich mich selbst, egal, wieviel Text auf meinen eigenen Bildern ist, und egal, ob er auf den Bildern, wie ich sie poste, lesbar ist oder nicht. Aber wie soll das garantiert immer in 100 Zeichen passen
Aktuell arbeite ich seit etwa anderthalb Jahren (!) gelegentlich an den Bildbeschreibungen fr eine Serie von Portraits eines digitalen Avatars in einer virtuellen 3-D-Welt deshalb habe ich auch seit Sommer 2024 kein einziges gnzlich eigenes Bild mehr gepostet. Die Bilder haben schon einen neutralen weien Hintergrund, damit ich den Hintergrund nicht beschreiben mu. Nun enthlt aber jedes Bild drei oder vier leicht unterschiedliche Outfits. Und in den geplanten Posts mit diesen Bildern geht es um diese Outfits, d. h. die Outfits sind der Kontext.
Ich halte mich dabei an und bei Farben an . Das heit, das knnen keine superkurzen Beschreibungen werden wie z. B. bei Katzenfotos.
Die Bilder sollen sogar wie alle meine eigenen Bilder jeweils zweimal beschrieben werden: Jedes Bild bekommt eine vergleichsweise kurze Beschreibung im Alt-Text. Zustzlich wird jeder Post einen Block enthalten mit langen, detaillierten Bildbeschreibungen inklusive allen Erklrungen, die ntig sind, um die Bilder und die Beschreibungen zu verstehen. Dieser Block wird wahrscheinlich in jedem Bilderpost jeweils lnger als 20.000 Zeichen ausfallen. Das ist notwendig, weil .
Trotzdem mssen natrlich auch die Beschreibungen in den Alt-Texten gewisse Mindestkriterien erfllen. In 100 Zeichen oder weniger ist das schlicht und ergreifend unmglich. Ich habe tatschlich groe Schwierigkeiten, die Alt-Texte auf maximal 1.500 Zeichen einzukrzen. Und nein, die sind nicht mit Fllworten aufgeblht. Ich kann sie nur weiter krzen, indem ich gem den oben verlinkten Artikeln wichtige Informationen entferne.
Generell . Das 100-Zeichen-Limit ist Bullshit. Das 125-Zeichen-Limit ist Bullshit. Das 200-Zeichen-Limit ist Bullshit. . Das einzige Limit, das gilt, ist Mastodons 1.500-Zeichen-Limit. Solange Bildbeschreibungen nicht knstlich aufgeblht sind mit Fllworten, persnlichen Wertungen etc., ist alles innerhalb dieser 1.500 Zeichen erlaubt.
Dazu gilt: Wenn jemand dich darum bittet, ein Detail auf deinem Bild genauer zu beschreiben, dann ist deine Bildbeschreibung ungengend. Auch wenn jemand dich um Erklrungen bittet, ist das zurckzufhren auf Nachlssigkeit deinerseits (). Nach Details oder Erklrungen zu fragen, ist fast so schlimm, wie berhaupt um Alt-Text bitten zu mssen.
Wenn du konsequent immer mit Alt-Texten kommst, die nie die 100 Zeichen berschreiten, dann riskierst du, da dir jemand von Mastodons Alt-Text-Polizei deine Alt-Texte als unzureichend um die Ohren haut und dich als faul und ableistisch abstempelt. Wenn du dagegen Bilder mit 1.000 Zeichen und mehr beschreibst, besteht die Chance, da du in der landest.
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Choo Young Woo And Lee Se Young Confirmed For New Fantasy Romance Drama "Long Vacation"

I have two major issues with the Mastodon HOA.
One, they try hard to force "Mastodon standards", Mastodon culture and Mastodon's unwritten rules upon the whole Fediverse. Including places that not only aren't Mastodon, but that are very much not Mastodon. Simply because they can't see where a message is from. In fact, many of them are still fully convinced that the Fediverse is only Mastodon.
And so you have members of the Mastodon HOA yelling at someone who is allegedly "doing Mastodon wrong", but that someone is actually on and has been since as early as 2011. As in about five years longer than Mastodon has even existed. And seriously, the only places in the Fediverse that are even more different and farther away from Mastodon than Friendica (without specialising in something that Mastodon absolutely can't do) are Friendica's own descendants: , , .
The Mastodon HOA probably don't know that Friendica exists. They definitely don't know that either of the other three exists. They definitely don't know that any of the four is significantly different from Mastodon in any way. And frankly, they don't care a bit. If it appears on any Mastodon timeline, it's Mastodon to them, and it has to adapt to Mastodon's culture and follow Mastodon's rules.
Two, they don't coordinate anything among each other. They're just a bunch of lone wolves. Everyone has got their own standards, but everyone thinks their personal standards are the one and only Mastodon/Fediverse gold standards, and everyone enforces their own standards. And, of course, everyone thinks their standards can and must apply always, including in the most obscure edge-cases.
For example, they've got standards for describing real-life photos on Mastodon with a character limit of 500. And they try to enforce these standards always and everywhere. However, these standards don't necessarily work perfectly when I post a rendering from on (streams) with a character limit of over 24 million where I've got loads of room to write an additional long image description and put it into the post text.
The Mastodon HOA, or at least some of their members, appear to be constantly raising their minimum quality requirements for image descriptions. They must be absolutely accurate, and they must be sufficiently detailed that nobody will ever have to ask for a detail description. Oh, and they must explain whatever the audience may not know about the image or the description. (At this point, it's fair to mention that .)
Sure, I can do that. I have done so in the past. But I can't do that within Mastodon's alt-text character limit of 1,500 (Mastodon truncates longer alt-texts from outside). I can do that even less within Misskey's alt-text character limit of only 512 (Misskey and the Forkeys should truncate longer alt-texts, but due to a bug, they delete them entirely instead, giving the impression that you haven't written an alt-text at all). I can only do that in the additional long description in the post text.
If the Mastodon HOA demand I transcribe literally any and all text within the borders of an image, I can do that, too. In fact, I have done so in the past. I can transcribe bits of text verbatim which the Mastodon HOA can't even read. Which the Mastodon HOA couldn't even find in the image because they're so tiny. But there's no way that I can squeeze 20+ individual text transcripts into 1,500 characters of alt-text along with the rest of the visual description, much less into only 512 characters. The text transcripts will have to go into the long description in the post text, whether the Mastodon HOA want or not.
This means that the post will exceed the holy limit of 500 characters by huge magnitudes. This, in turn, means that when I've satisfied one Mastodon HOA member, another one comes and sanctions me for exceeding the holy 500-character limit. That is, chances are it's actually the same Mastodon HOA member.
In other words, if the content of an image is obscure enough and requires enough description, the only winning move when I want to post such an image is to not post it at all.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Long Especially whenever humans have advantages over LLMs.
When I describe my own original images, I have two advantages.
One, I know much more about the contents of the image than any AI. That's because my original images always show something from extremely obscure 3-D virtual worlds. On top of that, I may add some extra insider knowledge or explain pop-cultural references in the long description in the post if it helps understand the image and its descriptions.
Two, the LLM can only look at the image with its limited resolution. That's all it has. In contrast, when I describe my images, I don't just look at the images. I look at the real deal in-world with a nearly infinite resolution.
For example, an LLM can only generate a description from a picture of a virtual building. But when I describe it, my avatar is in-world, standing right in front of the building whose picture I'm describing. I can move the avatar around, I can move the camera around, I can zoom in on anything. I can correctly identify that four-pixel blob as a strawberry cocktail wheras the LLM doesn't even notice it's there.
I've actually done two tests using LLaVA. I've fed it two images I had described myself previously to see what happens. It was abysmal. LLaVA hallucinated, it interpreted stuff wrongly and so forth, not to mention that LLaVA's description, even after being prompted to write a detailed description, wasn't nearly as detailed as mine.
In one image, there's an OpenSimWorld beacon placed rather prominently in the scenery. LLaVA completely ignored it. I described what it looks like in about 1,000 characters, and then I explained what it is, what OpenSimWorld is and how it works in another 4,000 characters or so.
It's an illusion that AI will soon catch up with any of this.
Oh, by the way: How is an AI supposed to pinpoint exactly where an image was made if the image shows a place of which multiple absolutely identical copies exist Or if the image has a neutral background that doesn't even hint at where it was made I can do that with no problem because I remember where I've made the image.
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Well, my problem is not the alt-text.
I used to limit my alt-texts to 1,500 characters because Mastodon and its forks truncate longer alt-texts at the 1,500-character mark. In the future, I will limit them to 512 characters because Misskey and its forks should truncate them at that mark if they're longer, but instead, they delete them.
But in addition to my alt-texts, I describe my original images once more (= twice altogether). The other description is what I call the "long description", and it goes directly into the post text (as opposed to the alt-text). I don't have a character limit to worry about (over 16.7 million), so I can do what's outright unimaginable from a Mastodon point of view.
It's this long description that's causing trouble.
That is, I wouldn't wonder if the Mastodon HOA were to sanction me for my alt-text not being detailed enough when I limit it to 512 characters. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they were to sanction me because a 1,500-character alt-text of mine is lacking important elements (descriptions of certain details, transcripts of all text within the borders of the image etc.).
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with would be good for but bad for , says

An additional advantage of this would be that I could first ask just how detailed a description they need. Like, if they really want me to spend two full days, morning to evening, to write something that'll take their screen reader three hours to read out loud.
The problem, however, is that the virtual worlds that I frequent change a lot. Everything is built by users. A place that I've shown in an image may change mere days or hours after I've been there, so when I go back to take a closer look for a detailed description, it doesn't look like on the image anymore.
Or that place may be gone entirely. For example, I could post some images from an in-world event, from places specifically built for this event. Then, two months later, someone asks for a more detailed description. But I can't write a more detailed description because I can't go back to these places, simply because these places were closed and shut down a few days after I had posted the images.
Lastly, my impression of Mastodon is still that a significant number of users do not want to ask. Whatever information they may need, they expect it all to come with the post immediately. Having to ask for a detail description or for an explanation appears to be about as bad style as having to ask for a description in the first place.
I've literally seen Mastodon toots in which people say that if they don't understand a post or an image in a post, they want an explanation to come with the post.
I've also seen a Mastodon toot in which someone said that it isn't sufficient to just say what's in an image, but you also have to describe what it looks like. Right away. And in my case, this is actually absolutely justified.
It's a catch-22: If I don't describe my images sufficiently, I risk being sanctioned by the Mastodon HOA for not describing my images sufficiently. But if I do, I risk being sanctioned by the Mastodon HOA for exceeding 500 characters in one post.
Oh, and if I chop my image descriptions into tiny chunks of no more than 500 characters, it's disturbing for my own ilk, the users of Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, who are used to not having any character limits and everything being in one message, no matter how long it is. Besides, how many Mastodon users are willing to read a thread of 120 or more posts and find that more convenient than one post with 60,000 characters
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # It does depend on the image, yes.
Most of the images in the Fediverse that aren't just text are real-life photographs. Real life is something that people know, that people are familiar with. For one, it isn't that exciting, and besides, even blind folks have at least got a rough idea about what stuff looks like.
When I post memes, my visual descriptions are limited to what's important in the context, and I only write one visual description per image which goes into the alt-text. However, I do add a full explanation in the post text because it appears to me like a sizeable amout of Mastodon users expect explanations for things they don't understand to be delivered to them immediately without them having to ask.
But my original images aren't real-life photos. They aren't screencaps from anything familiar either. They're renderings from extremely obscure 3-D virtual worlds.
On the one hand, I can't expect anyone to have an idea of what anything in my images looks like. If anyone sighted doubts this, I ask them to check what an avatar in Meta Horizon looks like, what an avatar in Roblox looks like and what a modern avatar in Second Life looks like (Flickr and Primfeed are good sources for the latter).
On the other hand, people may be super curious about these worlds beyond what matters in the context of a post, even or especially if they aren't fully sighted. Or the post itself is about the image, as in about the whole image as opposed to something specific in the image.
This means that I have to describe the entire image with every detail in it. And I don't describe the image by looking at the image with its limited resolution. I describe it by looking at the real thing, in-world, where the resolution is near-infinite.
My sighted audience sees a little white square with six pixels in a row that are ever so slightly less bright. They may not even notice it. I see a sign with two lines of text on it, I describe it all the way to the typeface, and I transcribe the text verbatim. This is how I sometimes end up with over 20 individual bits of text in one image that need to be transcribed.
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Basically telling other people how they should be using Mastodon is not cool unless they are violating some instance rule.

As, by the way, is telling Fediverse users who are not on Mastodon to use whatever they use instead like Mastodon users are expected to use Mastodon.
Please don't be a Mastodon HOA enforcer.

Especially since the alt-text police of the Mastodon HOA have much higher alt-text and image description minimum standards than blind or visually-impaired people. And they seem to be raising their standards further and further.
I always try my best to be way ahead of anyone's image description minimum standards, also in order to demonstrate to the Mastodon HOA that I'm not a lazy bum, and that I do try hard to describe my images properly. For my own original images, this means that I have to describe each one of them twice, with a fairly short description in the alt-text and a much longer one in the post itself.
This, however, clashes with the Mastodon HOA, too, because they also enforce Mastodon's default 500-character limit Fediverse-wide by generously blocking everyone whom they catch exceeding it at first strike.
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At least once have I just not posted something because describing the image in any meaningful way would've been quite a task.
Though nowadays I'll post it anyway, perhaps I should call in helpers in those cases in the future.

I could post lots of pictures that I've made myself, maybe several a week. Instead, I haven't posted any since mid-2024.
I, too, refuse to post any image that doesn't have descriptions (two of them for each one of my original images) which are up to my own constantly rising standards. But these standards mean that even a fairly simple image may require several hours to one or two days to describe and explain.
In fact, I have been working on the descriptions of a series of avatar portraits for about a year and a half. So far, only the common preamble for four images and the individual long description for one of them are written. Distilling an optimal alt-text from them will be difficult because recent discoveries had me lower my personal alt-text character limit from 1,500 to 512, and I haven't even managed to put one together that doesn't exceed 1,500 characters.
And that's for avatar portraits with a neutral white background. Imagine the effort necessary for a landscape or a cityscape or something like that. So much about it being done in 10 seconds.
I recall finding a beautifully built, highly detailed harbour scene. It didn't even have anything in it that'd trigger anyone, I guess, so I deemed it safe enough to post. But I found it outright impossible to properly describe within a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable effort. I ended up choosing a much different scene that still ended up taking me two full days to describe in the long description plus the morning of the third day to write an alt-text.
To be honest, I avoid having certain elements in my pictures now, such as vehicles and buildings unless they're very simple.
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Vkend bhac. Prachovky,


Last updated: 2026-04-05