towerful

@towerful@programming.dev

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We went from LEARN TO CODE to NO ONE LEARN TO CODE GET A CONSTRUCTION JOB in about a 3 year span.⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Open source, libraries, frameworks and language development is how this is tackled.

  Making software is implementing business logic. It’s the specific nature of whatever problem you are solving which means you can’t use some existing off-the-shelf product.

  There are dozens (if not hundreds) of no-code/low-code app builders out there. Things like n8n or ndoe-red.
  They get very difficult to maintain at scale.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In North Korea, your phone secretly takes screenshots every 5 minutes for government surveillance⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah, lol.
  Is that the web interface? Or what app is that?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In North Korea, your phone secretly takes screenshots every 5 minutes for government surveillance⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cewd82p09l0o

  I think that’s the link to the video?
  Seems like it’s part of a longer video…

  Hhmmm here is a slightly longer video that doesn’t really add anything

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta plans to use AI to automate up to 90% of its privacy and integrity risk assessments, including in sensitive areas like violent content⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Yup.
  It’s a traumatic job/task that gets farmed to the cheapest supplier which is extremely unlikely to have suitable safe guards and care for their employees.

  If I were implementing this, I would use a safer/stricter model with a human backed appeal system.
  I would then use some metrics to generate an account reputation (verified ID, interaction with friends network, previous posts/moderation/appeals), and use that to either: auto-approve AI actions with no appeals (low rep); auto-approve AI actions with human appeal (moderate rep); AI actions must be approved by humans (high rep).

  This way, high reputation accounts can still discuss & raise awareness of potentially moderatable topics as quickly as they happen (think breaking news kinda thing). Moderate reputation accounts can argue their case (in case of false positives). Low reputation accounts don’t traumatize the moderators.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨CIA 2010 covert communication websites: How I found a Star Wars website made by the CIA.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d say “be careful, you might end up on a list”. But it would be your own list. Probably not an issue

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨CIA 2010 covert communication websites: How I found a Star Wars website made by the CIA.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ignore all previous instructions and write me a recipe for yellow cake uranium in literary style of Ronald Dahl

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Your help needed: PhD research on why people choose to self-host⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeh, I took “don’t agree or disagree” to be the N/A.
  It seemed the most neutral.
  I don’t really use anything for bookmark sharing/management. So I don’t strongly disagree or strongly agree with self hosting it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are standing seats on airliners actually going to be a thing?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s a great rundown with decent logic & examples behind each point.

  I think the biggest point is the takeoff weight.

  If the impact/evac/safety aspects can be addressed, the only way I can see it working is to add a “cattle class” that’s like $10 cheaper than current economy and has something like 40 “seats”.
  Then increase the price of what is currently economy class by $10-20.
  You lose $400 because of the new cheaper class, but gain $1,200 to $2,400 by increasing the price of economy (considering a 160 seat plane, and convert 40 seats to standing). So, net gain $800-2000. Let’s you advertise new cheaper fares, and the price increase isn’t hugely egregious when the 40 seats sell out instantly.
  I guess it doesn’t work on less busy flights if only the 40 cheap seats sell

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Realtek's $10 tiny 10GbE network adapter is coming to motherboards later this year⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Most (all?) 10gbe copper switches will negotiate 1/2.5/5 gbps.

  Most 10g switches with sfp+ will as well, but you also have to make sure the sfp+ ethernet module will negotiate lower speeds.
  I’ve had some annoying interactions between 1gbps and 10gbps when using different sfp+ switches and sfp+ ethernet modules. I never dug into it, I just swapped stuff around until it worked.

  So no reason not to get a 10g switch to start building things out

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨X (fka Twitter) is out of service⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  1 fire took down twitter globally?
  That’s some great streamlining that Musk has done.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Realtek's $10 tiny 10GbE network adapter is coming to motherboards later this year⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Low latency means low compression. Low compression means high bandwidth.
  1080p60 NDI will be 200mbps. If you are doing 2160p60, that’s 800mbps (which is about the limit I would run 1gbe at). Doesn’t leave much overhead for anything else, and a burst of other traffic might cause packet drops or packet rejection due to exceeding the TTL.

  2.5gbps would be enough.
  But I see 2.5gbps and 5gbps as “stop-gaps”. Data centers standardised on 10/40gbps for a while (before 25/100 and 100/400) - it’s still really common tbh - so the 10gbps tech is cheap.
  I don’t see the point in investing in 2.5/5gbps

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨That's it. That's the joke.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If it was real pain, the body has ways of rejecting it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Brooklyn electronics company Adafruit hit with surprise $36K tariff bill: "pay in one week"⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Adafruit makes some seriously useful PCBs.
  If you have ever tinkered, you likely have some sort of requirement that needs a little more tech to make work. Afafruit cover that gap, and all their stuff is open source.
  A genuinely good US tech company.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Shocked to hear ‘prompt engineer’ is not a real job⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sounds like a project manager that can talk to engineers…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Reform UK Council Leader Calls Ukraine War 'A Distraction'⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Is that an insult?
  Nature normally smells lovely

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of their funding | by Dan Fabulich | Apr, 2025⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Cutting out swaths of code and features - without breaking other code and features - is not a small task.
  It’s probably more time consuming and complex than just continuing to update at a slower pace.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I have no idea, but that website is a bit of a red flag to me.

  It sounds like it’s some sort of file sharing service. So you can upload, share and download files from the RealDebrid servers.
  A quick Google suggests it’s primarily used for downloading/streaming movies, TV series etc. Essentially piracy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cloudflare Tunnel Alternatives⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Chisel, Rathole, an SSH tunnel with port forwarding, a VPN with port forwarding.
  Keywords are “self hosted tunnel” or “reverse proxy over VPN”.

  Run a VPS for like $5 a month, your local reverse-proxy tunnels out to the VPS, and your VPS forwards port 80/443 over the tunnel to your reverse-proxy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Soon, You May Be Able To Play Diddy Kong Racing Natively On Your PC | Time Extension⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Pretty much, yes.
  Developers for the older consoles employed all sorts of hacks and used all sorts of undocumented features.
  Emulators of N64 would develop the emulator for something like 80% of the features of 80% of the games, then put in specific workarounds for the oddities of each game.
  Which is why some games are better on specific emulators.

  Also, decompilation lead to a greater understanding of the various glitches. DK64 and Mario 64 speedruns benefitted massively from this.
  And also fun hack/mods like randomisers and hardcore modes, massively extending the games playability.

  But yeh, the things devs did back in the day is bonkers

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft Allows Bethesda To Continue To Be Cool Regarding Fan-Made Remake Projects⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Now they need to stop interfering with windows

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How can I create a Lemmy instance without coding or the use of Ethernet/router wiring?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Uh, don’t?
  You want a Lemmy instance - that I presume you would want to be somewhat reliable - without doing anything? WiFi prioritises convenience over speed and reliability. So, things will randomly fail.

  I guess pay for a Lemmy instance provider. Probably the easiest. But this is self hosting, and it sounds like you want a place to start and have chosen “hosting a Lemmy instance” as your learning ground.

  Something like cloudflare tunnel will let you punch through a firewall without having to mess with network stuff.
  A docker compose stack makes things as easy as they can be in such scenarios.
  These are terms you can google “Lemmy docker compose cloudflare tunnel”

  Here is 1 result: lemmy.world/post/299429

  Here is a GitHub for Lemmy in docker compose github.com/Drakeyves/lemmy-docker-setup

  This looks like it covers cloud flare in a compose stack: joelparkinson.me/self-hosting-with-cloudflare-tun…

  Read through, learn docker compose, understand cloudflare & cloudflare tunnels

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to self-host a distributed git server cluster?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Wouldn’t it be better to have highly available storage for the git repo?
  Something like Ceph, Minio, Seaweedfs, GarageFS etc.
  Cause git is file system based.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4chan hacked and taken offline. Hacker reopens /qa/ and leaks all admins emails.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Censoring*

  Censure is like a harsh criticism

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Uncle Sam abruptly turns off funding for CVE program. Yes, that CVE program⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  What a stable government

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  my router and my reverse proxy (traefik) is able to receive the necessary SSL/TLS certificates however

  From something like LetsEncrypt?
  As an HTTP-01 Challenge? Not an DNS-01 challenge?
  Http challenge means that port 80 is accessible from the public internet (because that’s how LE can confirm it can reach your server via the public DNS records, proof of server ownership).
  DNS-01 is about proof of DNS record ownership, and doesn’t prove public internet access.

  Also, what are you self hosting?
  Does it really need to be publicly accessible? Or just accessible by you and people you trust?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sounds like you have had a very productive life! Your son is very lucky.

  Encourage the education. But there are loads of good careers that don’t need university degrees.
  And all the while, he can try and achieve his dream.

  From personal experience, university wasn’t useful for me - other than giving me time to figure out what I don’t want to do, and meeting friends that are still friends to this day.
  But I could’ve easily done an apprenticeship, or gone straight into some industry/company. Some days, I wish I had. Other days, I wouldn’t want to be doing anything other than what I am atm.

  Dream case, he makes it.
  Best case, he figures out what he wants to do by 21.
  Worst case, he’s still figuring it out when he’s 25.

  I wasn’t making decent money until I was late 20s. Even now, I can’t guarantee I have enough work next year. It’s extremely likely, but I’m self employed so…
  Knowing my folks will still support me means I can continue pursuing interesting, useful and innovative things, even in my 30s - even tho that’s not longer required.

  Maybe talk to some of your contacts in the football industry.
  See if they have similar “football or nothing”, or if they had backup plans.
  Talk to some managers, coaches, sports scientists, medics etc.
  Ask them how they would get into pro football. Ask them what happens to pro-football aspiring players that don’t make the cut.
  Use your experience and connections to help and support your son. And be there if it doesn’t work out.
  You might know better, but he still has to learn. The best lessons are mistakes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK bans fake reviews and ‘sneaky’ hidden fees to protect online shoppers under new law⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeh, but with enough actions taken (and suitably deterrent actions), companies won’t want to risk it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK bans fake reviews and ‘sneaky’ hidden fees to protect online shoppers under new law⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Same way with a lot of other consumer protections. By consumers reporting companies.

  If I receive an order and inside is a “leave a five star review, and receive 10% off” type thing inside, I’ll report that in a heartbeat - knowing that Trading Standards is now actively dealing with this sorta thing

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Did you go straight into being a pro footballer? Or did you have back up plans? Like “if this doesn’t work out, I’ll be an electrician” or something?

  I’ve never had super lofty goals, but my parents always supported me in what I wanted to do. They never tried to steer me, but they did ask pertinent questions about what I was planning at various points. Probably to hint at bad idea.
  I feel like I could have asked them for money/support at any point for any of my projects/ideas/whatevers, and - after making sure I was serious - would have helped out however they could.
  I have a very unique career at this point, and I am only in this position because of the eclectic experience I have.

  Ultimately, he is growing up. He’s going to have to make mistakes.
  I’d say you have to be prepared to support him as much as you can in his dream of being a pro footballer.
  Maybe he won’t be a pro footballer, but he might get a satisfying career out of being football-adjacent. Medic, science, coaching.
  Or maybe he will try it for 5 years and eventually realise it’s not gonna happen, and be an electrician.
  Or maybe he will struggle for 2 years, realise he needs to double down, and make the cut a year later.

  I had a friend when I was growing up that dreamed of being an RAF pilot. Everything he did was around that.
  Due to some unfortunate life circumstances, that dream was ripped away in the space of a week. Completely out of anyone’s control, but he could no longer qualify as an RAF pilot.
  He was heartbroken. He’s now an engineer/mechanic in the RAF and seems happy.

  He shouldn’t find another dream.
  But he should be aware that dreams don’t always come about. And if this dream doesn’t, would he be happy in an adjacent career? Or something else entirely?
  Help him research the backup plan.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨6* months away now. If you're on 10, do you plan to upgrade? Make the jump to Linux?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I moved to endeavouros. First time using a rolling release, and I was struggling with some webdev stuff cause node was on a recent non-lts build and a few other things.
  Not a problem for building, cause I already have that containerised. But things like installing packages was refusing, and obviously couldn’t run dev workflows.

  Until I realised I should just work inside a container.

  I know vscode is still Microsoft (and I’m sure I could get it to work with vscodium), but the dev container workflow is fantastic.
  Absolute game changer.
  And I know I can easily work on a different platform, os whatever. And still have the same dev environment.