Yaky

@Yaky@slrpnk.net

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Signal – an ethical replacement for WhatsApp⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  IMO the best on-boarding I have seen in a chat app. Just scan each other’s QR codes or click a link. No account management because ID is unique to each conversation.

  Signal and WhatsApp need a phone number, Matrix/Element is needlessly messy, XMPP/Conversations is sensible IIRC (ID + password)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dems Demand Answers from Palantir About Plans to Build IRS “Mega-Database” of American Citizens⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t Equifax, Experian and Transunion already have that?

  At least they have enough info about where you lived, what credit cards you had, what loans you had, what vehicles you owned, enough to be used as “verification” to prove your identity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Part 2 of car Raspberry pi 4 GPS project⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  (I haven’t really used them a lot in the heat yet) Last enclosure was ASA, but AFAIK, black ABS is OK too because black pigment absorbs most of the light/UV, preventing plastic from degrading as fast

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Part 2 of car Raspberry pi 4 GPS project⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  For offline navigation on Linux, have you looked at osmin? It was pretty decent on a PinePhone.

  How do you handle power-off? Does Raspberry Pi just shut down? My thoughts were to use Alpine or some RAM-based OS that would not corrupt SD card or the hard drive.

  I have been messing around with building an in-car navigation from e-waste for a while now. Right now, I settled on an old smartphone with OsmAnd and wrote my own app to view the reverse camera.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do websites now prefer IP-based geolocation rather than the `Accept-Language` HTTP header?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly, plain old ignorance. (and some anglo-centrism)

  I am a software dev, worked on two translation projects at different points in time, and both of them were kind of a mess. In one case, translation team was all Americans (US company), and I was the only person who spoke another language and had firsthand experience with bad translation in media. When I asked how to switch the language in their app, senior dev told me to switch my OS language. Translations themselves often sounded overly verbose, robotic, or plain weird in other languages.

  And then, the typical oversights like not leaving enough screen space for longer translated text, using ambiguous terms without providing context, badly splitting phrases. Text-in-image, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do fancy cars look fancy and cheap cars don't? Can't you just slap a Lamborghini-style chassis onto a lawnmower engine if you want?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t know much about cars either, but that does happen. For example, Cadillac Escalade was/is based on a less-fancy-looking GMC SUV (Suburban?). Chevy Volt is also Cadillac ELR (different body and interior, same drivetrain), Opel Ampera (in Europe), and Buick Velite (in China, because Buick has a better brand recognition there)

  Some cheaper car models come with variety of “sport editions” and out-of-factory tint and spoilers, which would be the equivalent to the RGB computer peripherals that you mentioned, and appeal to specific customers.

  TBH I don’t know why some expensive car designs are perceived as “fancy” or “impressive”. I think they are mostly boring. And quality-wise, anything above bottom tier would have materials that last decades now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨what’s the difference between “he died” and “he’s dead”?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Interesting, as an ESL speaker of US English (for several decades nonetheless) the timing sounds the reverse for me:

  “I thought he died” seems to imply the death was recent, and “I thought he was dead” implies the death happened some time ago.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨glupi jebeni bot⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Recently, saw some survey that explicitly said 1-7 is “poor”, 7-8 is “OK”, and 9-10 is “great”. Wild, not sure what the point of the scale is then.

  Same with book ratings. Looking at StoryGraph, the average ratings I see is somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5. While I would rate a decent book a 3.

  Born in Eastern Europe, live in the US, maybe that’s why.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  When I read books, picturing everything in my head is a part of the enjoyment. Often, books describe senses and feelings that would be more difficult to portray in images or video. Some examples:

  Right now, I am reading Ancillary Justice (by Ann Leckie), and the main character (who is the narrator) has difficulty with recognizing gender, so, unless explicitly stated, it is up to me to decide how characters look. Also, main character controls multiple bodies at once, and some paragraphs are full of parallel events and thoughts.

  Annihilation (by Jeff Vandermeer) has a movie adaptation, but it’s different from the book. The book goes deeper into the main characters own thoughts, concerns and regrets. It also describes smells and physical senses quite often, and the creature the main character encounters evokes emotions more so than just a description. And throughout the story, in addition to the general eeriness of Area X, there is just a feeling of being lost. (I should give credit that It Follows does the uneasy feeling really well, too)

  And just to be annoying, I can extrapolate your logic to “video does not show what happens around the camera, VR is better”, and “VR does not bring the senses of touch, smell, and heat, fully immersive simulators are better” :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft shuts down email account of International Criminal Court chief prosecutor⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  forcing the prosecutor to move to Proton Mail, a Swiss email provider

  Whose CEO publicly stated that “Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses”. Oh, the irony.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google Says iPhone Adoption Of RCS Has Led Users To Share 'More Than A Billion' Messages Daily, Yet SMS/MMS Still Reign Supreme In The U.S.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I run GrapheneOS and can send RCS to both Androids and iPhones mostly without issues. But then, my GrapheneOS is still the actively supported version, so I don’t know what will happen in a few years.

  The only reason I have Google Messages is for RCS.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How I view others in social media⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I am the same way, if I write something, I try to make it a complete, and informative statement.

  IMO this trend started with Twitter 10+ years ago, where short messages were equivalent of shouting into the crowd, and more frequent shouts got more retweets. Then there was the trend of “first” comments, glad that is mostly gone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Android’s next big feature turns your phone into a desktop⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
  • postmarketOS for older mainstream phones
  • Librem 5
  • PinePhone and PinePhone Pro
  • FuriLabs FLX1
  • Liberux Nexx (upcoming)
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Short summary of dumbphone market in 2025⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not looking for a dumbphone at the moment, but

  There’s a KaiOS jailbreaking community … I’ve seen an XMPP client and a Matrix one too.

  This is good and opens up a path for using other messengers via bridges.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk: your new Tesla will drive from the factory floor, to your house 'this year'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Right… My favorite “promise” so far was the Tesla SpaceX edition (with rocket boosters or microjets or some shit, IDK doesn’t make sense) and die-hard fans defending this PR stunt as “the car that might fly”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨how do I avoid becoming conformist, lazy and completely incapable of learning something new?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I knew a guy in his 30s that has similar attitudes: thinks that his ways and opinions are the only valid ones, thinks he is smarter than most people, has instant assumptions about people based on appearance, and does not take criticism well.

  From talking to him, I would say that to avoid becoming someone like him:

  • Do not define yourself in terms of work or money. Yes, most people need a job to pay bills to live. But find a hobby, passion, or charity that you like. Trying to make / hustle / gamble money for the sake of a larger number in your account (with no other goal) is honestly sad.
  • No one is out to get you. Stop seeking enemies or blaming problems on others.
  • Do not make IRL opinions from online “content” (I don’t even wanna know which subreddits and YouTube people this guy follows) Interact with real people.
  • If your friends are repeatedly calling you out on questionable or insensitive actions and opinions, listen and think for a minute.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It also works as a weather provider for Gadgetbridge!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What programs do you wish a good FOSS alternative existed, but doesn't or most of the FOSS alternatives simply aren't good?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have been using OpenSCAD to make models for 3D-printing. I know this is a specific use case, and I have no experience with the “real” CAD software, but OpenSCAD makes sense to me as a programmer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What programs do you wish a good FOSS alternative existed, but doesn't or most of the FOSS alternatives simply aren't good?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You might be interested in postmarketOS They try to mainline older Android devices. It works pretty well on the PinePhone, too.

  As far as I understand, the hardware-adaptive part is difficult to implement because ARM systems do not have automatic hardware detection like x86/x64 PCs do, so the hardware list (tree) has to be known for each device, that hardware is mostly proprietary and requires proprietary drivers. All of which results in Android phones using different per-phone-model kernels.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The code is on Codeberg, as seen on their site.

  And it’s free on F-Droid. Playstore has it for $8, which goes to the developer (and probably supporting the conversations.im XMPP server)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Markor: one of the few Android text editors/notepads that saves text to text files (crazy idea, right?) and works rally well with Syncthing.

  Conversations.im for Android is an incredibly well made XMPP/Jabber messenger, and their message polling and real-time message delivery is unmatched AFAIK.

  ratbag (and the frontend, piper) is a tool for remapping buttons on mice with a sensible interface. Beats installing proprietary Logitech software.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do Americanized names of places etc exist?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But you would call Alexander or Alexandra “Sasha” or even “Shura” in some Slavic languages. And you call Robert “Bob” in the US.

  On the same topic, are “Alexander”, “Aleksandr” and “Oleksandr” the same name or not? What about “John” and “Ivan”?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Plus, AFAIK, Purism is one of the few companies that pays their developers to write FOSS code, which produced the Phosh UI, basic call and text apps, and mobile-friendly UI library.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  By “nonstandard SIM” do you mean one of two common SIM sizes that are not “nano”, which is preferred by current phones?

  GNSS means it’s global. Which includes US GPS, as well as Europe’s Galileo, Russia’s GLONASS, and China’s BeiDou. Wikipedia

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Organic Maps migrates to Forgejo due to GitHub account blocked by Microsoft.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Has been since 2018, and acquisition news caused quite an upset at the time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Looking for a good RSS Reader⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I just installed Miniflux on my server as well.

  Advantages (in my opinion) are: Package is in Debian repos (safe and no compilation needed), software is a static binary (thus does not require docker and only needs postgreSQL), documentation is good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discord going public. Plz help a future refugee.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This tool looks fantastic, thank you!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discord going public. Plz help a future refugee.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And Snikket for super-easy setup and management

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discord going public. Plz help a future refugee.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Synapse has seemingly improved since 2020. A word of warning though: if you join large rooms from your server, Synapse will eventually grow the DB to a huge size due to a “lookup” table state_groups_state, and will require manual cleanup. See sequentialread.com/matrix-synapse-out-of-disk-spa…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are there any non capitalistic technology companies still around?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It really depends on the business.

  I worked for two smaller businesses (team of ≤ 10 software developers). One was mismanaged, ran by very unpleasant people, and abusive towards employees, resulting in a huge turnover and a “dead sea effect”. The other company got government grants because the owner’s relative was a politician, and had ridiculous surveillance software on developers’ machines.

  Ironically, the most “human” and enjoyable work I did was working on internal legacy software and code rewrites for a huge corporation before and during their move towards agile and modern “conveyorized” approach to software.