bobbytables
@bobbytables@feddit.de
- Comment on EU tells Meta it can't paywall privacy 6 months ago:
Huh, I’m curious how this one turns out. Lots of German news outlets use some kind of privacy paywall for their websites. Its always some pop-up with “read the article for free with tracking or subscribe to [newspaper name] Pure/Plus”. So this might affect way more smaller companies than just Meta.
- Comment on Or we could do metric time 7 months ago:
You are right! English is not my first language and I thought I was talking about the pads. My bad! Yours is the best way!
- Comment on Or we could do metric time 7 months ago:
AFAIK the system goes back to the old Babylonians who had a base-60 system subdivided into 5 times 12. 5 times 12 could easily be counted using your thumb to count the 12 knuckles on the other fingers and the 5 fingers of the other hand.
I mean, how amazing is counting like that! I only learned to count to 10 with my fingers. I love the base-10 for its simplicity but base-60, subbase-12 is the shit :D
- Comment on Or we could do metric time 7 months ago:
IMHO especially in a setting like time where fractions are very common (like “half an hour”), being able to represent fractions with whole numbers is very convenient.
- Comment on Or we could do metric time 7 months ago:
I hate the idea of metric time (for a lot of use cases metric is still awesome).
12 and 60 can be easily divided by 2, 3, 4, 6. 60 also by 5 and 10. Even for 8 it’s still kind of easy.
For 10 or 100 division is easy for 2, 5 and 10 and okay-ish for 4.
The 12/60 (and 360 degrees of a circle) are such an elegant system!
- Comment on A German state is ditching Windows and Microsoft Office for Linux and LibreOffice on the 30,000 PCs it uses for local government functions 7 months ago:
Yes, it was Munich. And all things considered it worked quite well for a while.
After a while AFAIK the then new mayor called himself a “Microsoft fan” and tried to get Microsoft to build their new German HQ in Munich. So I am pretty sure there is no connection whatsoever between canceling Limux and switching back to Windows and Microsoft building a huge campus in Munich Freimann…
- Comment on Pixelfed introduces Loops, a Short-Form Video App 8 months ago:
Evidently, [loops and goldfish] are intended to be compatible with one another, as well as other video platforms in the Fediverse, such as PeerTube or Vidzy.
From the article. So yes, they should be cross compatible at some point.
- Comment on Just doing my part 🤡 8 months ago:
I was recently served a long macaroni as a straw in a restaurant. It was honestly amazing how well it worked! At no point it was mushy and there’s nothing in it that I wouldn’t eat with my pasta dish anyway.
- Comment on Hiring Someone to setup servers 11 months ago:
Hetzner has Nextcloud in their your-storageshare.de offer. It’s a hosted instance which you are admin of. About 5 Euros a month for 1 TB of storage for the smallest tier. This was the way I chose after years of self hosting. Your-storageshare is awesome and I don’t get tired of recommending it. Maybe I should ask for a commission at some point…
- Comment on I am tired of corporatist technology and I need help to get away from it. 11 months ago:
In a way yes, we are running from company to company. For myself I accepted a few compromises along the way because I don’t have the time and energy to do everything myself. So this is where I am at.
Hosting email yourself is a nightmare and is getting basically impossible more and more (see here). So I accepted my fate and looked for a solution that fits my needs.
For cloud storage I used to self host Nextcloud and / or Syncthing for years. While it was fun in the beginning I loathed it at the end. Even with good hardware and Docker and 25 years of experience there was always something that stopped to work after a while - especially with Nextcloud. For Syncthing (which I really like) there is no real client for iOS (wife’s phone). Also exposing anything to the internet can turn into a nightmare pretty quickly. But my work blocks my VPN… You see what I mean? There certainly are solutions for all that but I was tired of looking.
Hetzner is a large German hoster with a quite good reputation. They need to follow GDPR regulations and because they provide closely monitored solutions for my work I know they do as much as possible. The Nextcloud instance is super reliable ever since I started.
I use Nextcloud tools for encryption at rest which is enough for me. They even let you perform cli commands (a few from a web UI, other through support mail). Support is fast and well informed.
It is certainly not for everyone! But for my scenario it is the currently best compromise.
- Comment on I am tired of corporatist technology and I need help to get away from it. 11 months ago:
If you aren’t too tech savvy I would recommend against self hosted services. There are amazing solutions out there but they will cost a few bucks.
For cloud storage I use Hetzner’s https://www.your-storageshare.de. It’s a hosted Nextcloud with pretty much all the freedom you can get. Currently it costs about 5 Euros per month for 1TB of storage. You can even share it with your family and friends because you can create more users on your instance. While I self hosted Nextcloud and Syncthing in the past this is just way less work.
Your-storageshare replaced Dropbox/Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Contacts and Google Photos for me. That’s a pretty huge chunk of the services I use passively all the time. With Nextcloud’s encryption enabled and GDPR regulations in place it is IMHO as save as you can get without self hosting.
For mails I am quite happy with https://mailbox.org - it starts at 1 Euro per month but I recommend the 3 Euros tier. It’s no Proton Mail but somehow to me it seems more trustworthy. They don’t overpromise on features but provide a solid secure service. Most of the time I send unencrypted mails (due to various reasons) but you could use SMIME with it. Since it provides IMAP you could even integrate it with your-storageshare using the Nextcloud Mail app.
Both services support your own domains so if you fancy it you could set up www.IHadTwoCows.com for cloud and mail. Hetzner has you covered for domains too. Not the cheapest but reliable.
For search I use https://startpage.com. It uses Google results but anonymized. I am very happy with it.
And that, kids, is the story of how I banned Google from my digital life. (okay, Maps is still there but all the alternatives where just not good enough with traffic jams in my city)
- Comment on Ask RPS: what is your favorite co-op gaming memory? 1 year ago:
Around the beginning of the 00s I used to play coop NHL with a friend of mine. We used to play hours on hours over night together as one team trying for the Stanley Cup. I still remember it every time I hear “Heroes” because it was the intro song for one of the NHL games at that time.
- Comment on Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working 1 year ago:
I currently lease a 2 years old Renault Zoe (very compact car) for 200€ a month (0€ upfront). It was a special deal in Germany for a few months. I charge at home with solar panels and rarely drive more than the 300-350km range.
It honestly feels like the holy grail of electro mobility.
- Comment on What do you use for cloud storage and why? 1 year ago:
I think they opened or are planning to open a US data center. Other than that they are in Germany and Norway at the moment.
I’m in Germany, too, but I synced to it while being in the US, in Spain, and in Indonesia on vacation and I never had any problems with delays. And even if it was slow it was the hotel wifi 100% of the time. But using it full time from across the ocean ymmw.
- Comment on What do you use for cloud storage and why? 1 year ago:
I only use the encrypted storage built in natively in Nextcloud. https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/configuration_files/encryption_configuration.html but only for local storage.
The e2ee was not very good the last time I checked. I should check out any new developments though.
- Comment on What do you use for cloud storage and why? 1 year ago:
ICloud with e2e could be nice. But having a mix of Linux and Windows laptops in the household it is just not possible. There simply is no Linux client for it. And last time I checked the Windows client didn’t support e2e. So there goes that.
And to be completely honest I really do have trust issues with Apple (and Big Tech in general).
- Comment on What do you use for cloud storage and why? 1 year ago:
Nextcloud with Hetzner your-storageshare. ~5€/m for 1TB is hard to beat and it runs so well. I still use encryption and a few plugins like on a selfhosted instance.
- Comment on Apple considered switching to DuckDuckGo from Google for Safari - Bloomberg News 1 year ago:
Shout out to startpage! I use it almost exclusively and it is great.
- Comment on What is your favorite programming language? 1 year ago:
I’ll just say it: PHP. I mean the language itself is not really pretty (but came a long way).
But I’ve got a nice side gig running where I help small businesses and schools to keep their old PHP based websites running and secure until they can afford a new system. In that area money is often very tight and there are no “content managers” but a few people maintaining content with next to no technological knowledge and in their spare time. So changing systems is a hard task. Being the really decently priced guy who keeps their PHP ship afloat is pretty rewarding (not really monetarily but personally).
So working with PHP I have a very nice group of customers who are grateful for every bit of help. I love that.