abucci
Reply to #paebb5a
@bender I have nothing against GoToSocial, but:
> GoToSocial stores statuses, accounts, etc, in a database. This can be either SQLite or Postgres.
`snac` is simpler. Some JSON files and that's it. I can read them with `jq` and `less`. I can use `tar` to back them up. I can hand edit them in a text editor.
3 weeks ago
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abucci
Reply to #gxolr6a
> I think @abucci and @stigatle are running snac? I didn’t have a closer look at snac (no intention of running it), but if that is a relatively small daemon (maybe comparable to Yarn?) that gives you access to the whole world of ActivityPub, then, well, yeah … That’s tough to beat.
Yes, I am running `snac` on the same VPS where I run my yarn pod. I heard of it from @stigatle, so blame him 😏 `snac` is written in C and is one simple executable, uses very little resources on the server, and stores everything in JSON files (no databases or other integrations; easy to save and migrate your data) . It's definitely like yarn in that respect.
I haven't been around yarn much lately. Part of that is that I've been very busy at work and home and only have a limited time to spend goofing off on a social network. Part of it is that I'm finding `snac` very useful: I've connected with friends I'd previously lost touch with, I've found useful work-related information, I've found colleagues to follow, and even found interesting conferences to attend. There's a lot more going on over there.
I guess if I had to put it simply, I'd say I have limited time to play and there are more kids in the ActivityPub sandbox than this one. That's not a ding on yarn--I like yarn and twtxt--I'm just time constrained.
3 weeks ago
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abucci
Reply to #fxa4bpa
@New_scientist Silicon Valley’s top AI models are terrible at almost everything. They only seem otherwise because people are easily fooled into believing they have capabilities they don't have.
3 months ago
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abucci
Yet another study strongly calling into question the concept of "echo chambers". I've argued it here before and people pushed back, but there is growing evidence that "echo chambers" are a moral panic and not a real phenomenon that we need to worry about. It's time to throw it out and re-think, in my opinion.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81531-x
5 months ago
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abucci
COVID is still a leading cause of death in the United States. This pandemic is nowhere near over no matter how many times people try to pretend it is.
5 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #5isd6aq
@New_scientist I hate to break it to you but that's not really "A" I?
5 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #7jmjuwa
@prologic @movq `s/twitter\.com/nitter.net/`
5 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #la3jy6a
@movq I guess so. It's weird and obsessive. They are compulsively monopolistic anymore.
5 months ago
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abucci
Youtube has started to artificially slow down video load times if you use Firefox. Spoofing Chrome magically makes this problem go away. : youtube
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #6i52mba
@Phys_org We're going to be killed by these people's excesses, almost literally. This ratio is indefensible.
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #eqzslla
@New_scientist No it isn't. The prejudice that playing board games is indicative of general intelligence is passe, outdated.
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #cikr4oa
@prologic I feel like my kid is a better weather predictor than most weather sites. He freaks out whenever the pressure drops and we know a storm is coming 😆
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #cikr4oa
@xuu Right now they're laying the groundwork for uncritical belief in the power of #AI, so the next step will be accepting the magical incantations as if they were real.
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #f5m5s4q
@prologic I don't know but I don't want it!
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #cikr4oa
@New_scientist no it can't. Your blurb is literally "if we had data we can't have, we could predict weather better". DeepMind is irrelevant in that statement--anyone could.
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #f5m5s4q
@New_scientist fuck off with this nightmare.
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #y6ha7ha
@lyse I think we're 90 meters above sea level or thereabouts. Pretty far north in the US though.
6 months ago
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abucci
First snowfall of the season.
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #vrp5cjq
@prologic "who could possibly forget that" you could, apparently lol
6 months ago
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abucci
Fuck Earth!
-- Elon Musk
https://aeon.co/essays/elon-musk-puts-his-case-for-a-multi-planet-civilisation
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #qlcjv5q
@prologic Any of these work? https://gadgetstouse.com/blog/2023/05/15/bypass-ad-blockers-not-allowed-on-youtube/
6 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #b7srh4q
@prologic Newpipe on android continues to work fine
7 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #ru2lfuq
@phoronix You get what you pay for?
7 months ago
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abucci
Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible - Nieman Reports
7 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #67tvvwa
@prologic `iotop`
7 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #cukuraa
@lyse oh wow nice autumn shot. I expected to see then silhouette of a witch flying on a broomstick
7 months ago
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abucci
More data contradicting the existence of "echo chambers". As I've argued many times before, the concept of an echo chamber or information bubble is not real. The podcast below is an interview of an author of a study where they actually intervened and changed the information diet of 20,000 people (with consent!), then surveyed them after three months. They observed essentially no changes to the study subjects' beliefs and attitudes. They also observed that the typical person, while they tend to gravitate towards people with similar political leanings, only get about 50% of their content from such like-minded people. They get the rest from neutral sources and maybe 20% from non-like-minded people.
Varied information diet + No change in attitudes when information diet is forced to be different = no echo chamber.
Listen to the podcast episode here
7 months ago
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abucci
EU warns Elon Musk after Twitter found to have highest rate of disinformation | X (formerly known as Twitter) | The Guardian
Not a surprise I guess.
7 months ago
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abucci
AWS: Cannot Escape IPv4
> more than 90% of all AWS service API endpoints do not support IPv6
Sounds like AWS is instituting an IPv4 tax soon.
7 months ago
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abucci
Oops, let a SSL certificate expire.
7 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #jzzukua
@prologic
1. It's criminal: Copilot was only possible because of massive theft of other peoples' work (no compensation or even acknowledgement to any of the developers whose code was used to create Copilot)
2. It's positioned to put software developers out of work or so fully de-skill them that they no longer know how to code anything but prompts (after which come corporate-justified salary and benefits decreases)
Don't use it. No one should ever use it. You're destroying your own future as a software developer by leaning on and supporting these things.
7 months ago
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abucci
How Google Authenticator made one company’s network breach much, much worse | Ars Technica
🤦♂
WHY are these big companies treated as though they are the be all and end all of infosec? These are rookie mistakes Google's making, *at scale*.
> Unfortunately Google employs dark patterns to convince you to sync your MFA codes to the cloud, and our employee had indeed activated this “feature”. If you install Google Authenticator from the app store directly, and follow the suggested instructions, your MFA codes are by default saved to the cloud. If you want to disable it, there isn’t a clear way to “disable syncing to the cloud”, instead there is just a “unlink Google account” option.
Like, never ever put your multi-factor tokens into a single cloud storage location! The whole point of this being "multi" factor is that there is a separate, independent physical factor involved in the authentication process. If the authenticator app on your phone puts the tokens in the cloud, then it reduces the security that comes from having a second factor. This is basic stuff.
Of course, never ever use Google Authenticator. All it does is generate TOTP and HOTP codes, which you can do with any OTP app, preferably an open source one that's been vetted.
8 months ago
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abucci
USENET, the OG social network, rises again like a text-only phoenix
> The USENET management committee has reconvened and there are green shoots of growth in the original, pre-World Wide Web social network.
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #zs4fbfa
@movq oops, forgot to say thank you for the birthday wishes!
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #zs4fbfa
@lyse Thank you!
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #zs4fbfa
@movq If you've got it, own it!
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #zs4fbfa
@prologic thank you! Yup, a full half century. Quite weird feeling. I feel like I've finally earned my curmudgeonly personality 😆
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #xqbzm5a
@mckinley I do the `ls` thing regularly. I even do it after I've already `ls`ed the directory but have run some other command afterwards. I tend to think of it like the LOOK command in text adventures.
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #zs4fbfa
@ionores thank you, thank you. Hoping to make it to a decent fraction of a century.
8 months ago
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abucci
Turned half a century old today. Boy I'm tired.
#birthday
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #22svhvq
@New_scientist What the flying fuck?
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #skljzma
@New_scientist GPT-4 didn't win shit.
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #xwli2wa
@Phys_org Green growth was always horseshit and everyone knows it.
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #7uig3sq
@prologic I use the gmail webapp for work, and I have to say that over the years it's gotten less and less usable. There are so many little usability things that it's bad at. For instance, if you select a message and hit the Delete key nothing happens. The message is not put in the trash like you'd expect. There are issues like that scattered all over the app. I suspect they spend most of their energy on the spyware side of gmail and dedicate less to making it a useful app for end users (which seems to be true of their search engine too).
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #if5eb2a
@adi hahaha in some ways it sure does!
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #if5eb2a
@adi I think it is, and one benefit they have is that you can add third-party repositories to the F-Droid app as you discover them. So, for instance, if you know of a developer who pushes builds to an F-Droid compatible repository, you can add that to your F-Droid app and start tracking updates like you would for any other app in there. Can't do that with Google Play!
F-Droid tends to focus on open source applications that can be built in a reproducible way, which limits the inventory (though of course tends to mean the apps are safer and don't spy on you). There are non-free apps in there as well but they come with warnings so you're informed about what you might be sacrificing by using them.
That said if you have a favorite app you get through Google Play, there's a decent chance it won't be in F-Droid. Many "big corporate" apps aren't, and vendor-specific apps tend not to be either. But for most of the major functions you might want, like email clients, calendar apps, weather apps, etc etc, there are very good substitutes now in F-Droid. You're definitely making a trade-off though.
What I did was go through the apps I had installed on my last phone, found as many substitutes in F-Droid as I could, started using those instead to see how they worked, and bit by bit replaced as much as I could from Google Play with a comparable app from F-Droid. I still have a few apps (mostly vendor-specific things that don't have substitutes) that come from Google Play but I'm aiming to be rid of those before I need to replace this phone.
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #eqvdabq
@prologic yeah, it's true. Thing is, Linux as a desktop operating system sucked in 1996 yet I adopted it then anyway because I wanted nothing to do with MS anymore 😆 I know it's not for everyone but I'm pretty tolerant of a less-than-stellar experience if it means I can be free of big-company garbage.
I haven't tried a Linux-based smartphone OS in a long time so I don't have any idea how bad/good it might be. I figure when I finally break down and get a new phone I'll experiment on my current phone.
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #if5eb2a
@prologic yes, the OS is based on stock Android, so probably wouldn't be of interest if you prefer Apple.
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #if5eb2a
@adi @prologic F-droid. Getting APKs from developers you trust and side-loading them. Some flavor of Linux. Some distro of the open source parts of Android.
There are lots of options. Bit by bit I divest from anything that's distributed from Google Play. With my latest phone I find and download APKs so that I could have the app without all the Google crap woven through it. By the time I need to replace this one I'll be fully free of Google Play. Most of my apps come from F-droid now. You can a perfectly functional phone/pocket computer unless you're addicted to installing dozens of corporate apps.
8 months ago
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abucci
Reply to #if5eb2a
@prologic I've had a Teracube phone for about 3 years now. Theirs comes with a guarantee of 4 years--if something that's covered breaks, you send the phone to them and they fix it and send it back, or they send you a new one. I took advantage of that last year when the screen broke; their tech support even helped me figure out how to wipe the phone when the screen didn't display anything. Pretty painless all around. Have to say I've been very happy with it. It doesn't have the top-end features that new big company phones have, but I don't want those features so that's not an issue for me. I dunno if it's available in Australia or if it's just a US thing.
8 months ago
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