I love that all urls take 23 characters of your 500 limit, regardless of actual url length. This means there's absolutely no need to use url shorteners on masto. I bet this isn't widely known, so let this be a #tootorial for you.
@JordiGH What is the technical details behind this?
@djxejms idk, let's try pasting a gigabyte of url and see what happens.
@JordiGH @djxejms pasing even a single megabyte is PITA.
maybe someone with dektop client should try again
https://mastodon.social/web/statuses/99868639713727551
@JordiGH Hadn't even noticed.
I suppose I should tear down my URL shortening server at some point. Haven't used it in years.
@JordiGH
The fact that BirdSite used to do its own url shortening on urls that were already shortened annoyed the hell out of me. A friend pointed out they probably did it to virus check all shortened urls, but all I could think of is how then storing the real url means they could monetise from knowing what i link to. When you don't pay for the product...
@ciarancolgan Yeah, it does seem kind of insidious, doesn't it?
@JordiGH
Totally. Once you see yourself as the product, all these seemingly harmless decisions start to add up...
That way they can monitor who clicked on the link even when the tweet is integrated on another site (otherwise they could just do it with JS)
@JordiGH Wait what if the url's under 23 characters long?
@onf It still takes up 23. So this actually should discourage people from using shorteners!
@JordiGH But what if you just want to link someone to http://example.com/ ?
@JordiGH On a more serious note I have just learned Tusky is not aware of this rule. In any direction.
@JordiGH Also in some ways a nice (albeit indirect) security enhancer.
@JordiGH I wonder how they settled on the number 23.
@paluche 22 is too short and 24 is too long.
@JordiGH but why 23?
It's the ninth prime number but doesn't seem to have nice characteristics like 31
@JordiGH could this potentially be abused?
@alex_ Normal people thinking: "Cool a new feature!" Nerd people thinking, "how can I cause the most mayhem with this?"
@JordiGH I wasn’t thinking that :(
@JordiGH somehow this made my browser lag.
Maybe they examine soft limit on a per-char basis.
@JordiGH thinking of which, I'm sure that 500 is the soft cap and there will be a hard cap somewhere else. Limiting the size of packages is helpful in decentralized networks.
Tried to transmit 1.7 MB of high-quality kiwi close-ups
Juicy green fruits (CC0)
@JordiGH
Good to know, thanks!
@JordiGH what
i did not know this :D