Amikke @Amikke@qoto.org

TIL that some CCTV systems will have a tummy ache if you happen to expose them to a QR encoded antivirus test string.

https://www.revk.uk/2020/01/eicar-test-qr.html

Pleased to report that I am now receiving only 12 copies of every delete message from threads.net. A remarkable improvement!

Countries, where Police force commander in-chief fired a 90mm anti-tank grenade launcher in Police Headquarters

It is so cringe when i hear people hijack general less descriptive terms like "neurodivergent" to mean really silly arbitrary things like adhd and autism... we already have descriptive terms and that word already means something useful before you bastardized it.

#ADHD #ADD #AUTISM #NEURODIVERGENT

Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) can be divided into 3 categories, depending on where the authority resides:

- Secret key (did:key, did:pkh).
- Server (did:web).
- Blockchain (hundreds of them).

With a #DID derived from a secret key you can truly own your identity. Unfortunately, key rotation is not supported, and if you lose your key, you lose everything. This can be partially mitigated with distributed key generation techniques that make key recovery possible if only M of N shards are available, but they are complicated.

Servers can rotate keys, but they can also suddenly disappear, and again you lose everything.

Blockchain-based systems support key rotation and don't have a single point of failure (if done right). Sometimes they are called "servers with superpowers". However, popular ones are not suitable for the job because writing to them is very expensive and their clients need powerful computing devices and a lot of storage.

Is there a way around that? Yes. Blockchains can be very lightweight and they don't actually need a cryptocurrency, miners or stakers in order to work. There is a simple consensus algorithm known as Proof of authority, and one of the Fediverse competitors, Bluesky, seems to be planning to build such system:

https://github.com/did-method-plc/did-method-plc

>We are actively hoping to replace it with or evolve it into something less centralized - likely a permissioned DID consortium.

They are afraid to say the B-word, but "permissioned consortium" is exactly what it is. Of course, their identity #blockchain doesn't have to be the only one in existence. I think in the future we might see quite a lot of "identity cooperatives" of different shapes and sizes. Perhaps even a universal client, curl for identity, can be developed.

USA to ban Tik Tok as fears of china copying dances intensifies.

#TikTok

China: “Remove all VPNs”
Apple: “Sure thing”

China: “…and podcast apps”
Apple: “Can do boss!”

China: “…and also hand over all iCloud data for our citizens”
Apple: “I mean why wouldn’t we? Here you go!”

EU: “Allow alternate app stores, and do it fairly”
Apple: “Ahhh hell no! This is so unfair you guys are bullies! Malware! Privacy! We have standards! Unlike you we care about our users!”

The Doctor: The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried.

Voice from outside: This is the Lock Picking Lawyer, and what I have for you today is a Type 40 TARDIS....

the two macos genders

i am quite good at computers but i am tired of the bullshit
OH NO TWO BUTTONS I'M SKERD

Now that HDMI has rejected open-source, normalize DisplayPort on everything. It's open-source, the port is easier to plug in and locks into place, allows for video through USB-C (HDMI doesn't) and it supports the same high resolutions and refresh rates as HDMI. It should be way more common, at least on TVs, consoles, and laptops.

I spent the last week scraping through a terabyte of GeoCities archives and collecting ALL THE #88x31 buttons! In the end, I gathered 29257 unique buttons (75k with duplicates). They are available at https://hellnet.work/8831/

Check them out!

I also have the dataset (~160MB), stats and a bit about the scraping process here: https://hellnet.work/8831/stats.html

#indieweb #smallweb #geocities #neocities

For the last few years I have been really annoyed with companies that advertise so called "Gaming routers". None of them are ever capable of running any games!
So @manawyrm and I built what I consider to be the first real gaming router.
It is based on a classic, the TP-Link TL-WDR4900 WLAN router with an AMD Radeon external GPU connected via PCIe and can run GTA.

https://youtu.be/bcjuoEZg8rI

Blogpost: https://kittenlabs.de/real-gaming-router/

This is a *fascinating* concept for games studies - "quotes" of a game that don't just show you a clip of gameplay, but actually let you take control and try it out. It trims the ROM down to only what's needed to run the quote, so this might even pass a fair dealing/fair use test in court if it came down to it - just like quoting a passage of text, or a clip of a movie.

https://tenmile.quote.games

watched the Theo Netlify video since this is a topic that's important to me.. kinda an L take

any sort of pay as you use platform should support soft and hard limits, no exceptions

additionally, those limits must be on by default, especially for a "free tier"

I get the point about not wanting to ruin your moment.. but also just seems out of touch. Unless you're VC backed or have large coffers, you're always going to want some sort of upper limit in terms of spend.

People who prioritize availability over spend should be able to choose that, but that certainly shouldn't be the default.

Support shouldn't be the first line against unexpected overages. There is no guarantee there. The existence of reconciliation is not an excuse for the absence of a safety net.

And if the traffic is legitimate, yet unexpected, it's unsure what support would do in that case. They'd technically be in their right to refuse to refund. You'd want limits there.

For example, if my personal page was on one of these platforms, and an article blew up overnight on HN, I'd rather have it inaccessible to users rather than incur a large bill that the platform doesn't cover. Traffic != Revenue in this case, so I wouldn't want unlimited scale.

Lack of proper spend management, limits, and safety nets is absolutely a reason to avoid these platforms. It is absolutely irresponsible as a company to allow for unbound spend as a default. The fact people see this is acceptable is baffling. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Today on 11AM UTC parliamentary task force for fighting transportation divide of the Polish parliament will meet again to discuss the Newag trains DRM issue again.

Last time Newag representatives were giving everyone a spectacle of going offtopic and blaming literally everything on everyone just but themselves.

Later Newag CEO was said to low-key threaten the chairman of aforementioned task force during some different event.

And in the meantime new details showed up claiming that Newag Impuls trains were going into lockout mode DURING SERVICE with PASSENGERS ONBOARD while passing through Mińsk Mazowiecki station that has Newag main competitor's (Pesa) maintenance workshop nearby

This will be 🔥

I can't say what manual I'm reading, but it feels like they were legally required to fully document the system, but at the same time didn't want anyone to understand it.

Dear developers: Please stop using random valid domains in your examples or documentation, there are dedicated domain names and IP ranges for that.

For domain names for example use: example.com

Reference: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6761#section-6.5

For IP address ranges for example use: 203.0.113.0/24
or
2001:DB8::/32

Reference: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5737#section-3 [IPv4] or https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3849#section-4 [IPv6]

Thanks!
The infrastructure people.

Domain-Driven Design: building a product out of guilt because you’ve had the domain for 10 years and the annual renewal reminder just came around again.