Sal

@Sal@mander.xyz

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scientists found the missing nutrients bees need — Colonies grew 15-fold⁩ ⁨⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s awesome! And the paper is open access :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Haha, yeah, trusting ChatGPT with how to manipulate the database and change config files is a risky move 😆 I did use it myself to remind me of the postgresql syntax to find and alter the field.

• [PDF] Discovery of the eggs of Bolitoglossa pandi with observations on its reproductive biologyherpetologia.fciencias.unam.mx ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨herpetology@mander.xyz⁩ | ⁨0⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Sorry, I went to sleep. Glad you were able to sort it out 😄

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  😁 👍

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  So, ultimately my problem was that I was trying to set all of the limits to what I thought were “reasonable” values simultaneously, and misunderstood what ‘Message’ meant, and so I ended up breaking things with my changes without the reason being obvious to me. I looked into the source code and I can see now that indeed ‘Messages’ refer to API calls and not direct messages, and that there is no ‘Direct Message’ rate limit.

  If I let ‘Messages’ stay high I can adjust the other values to reasonable values and everything works fine.

  Thanks a lot for your help!! I am surprised and happy it actually worked out and I understand a little more 😁

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks!

  I was able to crash the instance for a few minutes, but I think I have a better idea of where the problem is. Ths $emote_addr variable seems to work just the same.

  In the rate limit options there is a limit for ‘‘Message’’. Common sense tells me that this means ‘direct message’, but setting this to a low number is quite bad. While testing I eventually set it to ‘1 per minute’ and the instance became unresponsive until I modified the settings in the database manually. If I give a high number to this setting then I can adjust the other settings without problem.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, I see this there. Most of the nginx config is from the ‘default’ nginx config in the Lemmy repo from a few years ago. My understanding is somewhat superficial - I don’t actually know where the variable ‘$proxy_add_x_forwarded_for’ gets populated, for example. I did not know that this contained the client’s IP.

      # backend
      location ~ ^/(api|pictrs|feeds|nodeinfo|.well-known) {
        proxy_pass http://0.0.0.0:8536/;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
  
        # Rate limit
        limit_req zone=mander_ratelimit burst=30000 nodelay;
  
        # Add IP forwarding headers
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
      }
  
  

  I need to do some reading 😁

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks! Yes, I saw both messages and I am now going through the NGINX config and trying to understand what could be going on. To be honest, Lemmy is the hobby that taught me what a ‘reverse proxy’ and a ‘vps’ are. Answering a question such as ‘Are you sending the client IP in the X-Forwarded-For header?’ is probably straight forward for a professional but for me it involves quite a bit of learning 😅

  At location /, my nginx config includes:

        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
  

  So, I think that the answer to your question is probably ‘yes’. If you did have these rate limits and they were stable, the more likely explanation is that something about my configuration is sub-optimal. I will look into it and continue learning, but I will need to keep my limits a bit high for the time being and stay alert.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t recall any of them being from mander (unless they were dealt with before I started testing?), but thanks for taking preventative measures :)

  I don’t know what ‘Antiyanks’ is
  

  It’s the codename for a particular long-term troll and is based off of their original username pattern (which they still use sometimes). I have reason to believe it’s also the same troll that used to spam the racist stuff in Science Memes.

  These are most of today’s batch (minus the JON333 which was just a garden-variety spammer that made it into the last screenshot).

  No, they were not in mander.xyz. But I am generally quite relaxed when it comes to accepting applications. I mostly reject an applicant if it is very clear it is not an actual user, and then actively follow up on recent accounts for a short time. So the possibility of silent spammer accounts accumulating over time is always a concern.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  So, a ‘Comments’ Rate limit: 10, Per second: 60, means a maximum of 10 comments per minute, correct?

  Correct, per client IP.

  Setting the limits to more reasonable values, like ‘20 posts per minute’, causes the server to stop serving posts. My front page goes blank.

  So, I am starting to think that ‘20 pots per minute’ means ‘requesting 20 posts per minute’ and not ‘creating 20 posts per minute’.

  I am still having doubts about what these limits mean, but setting reasonable numbers seems to break things, unfortunately.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Hmmm - after changing these settings to what I think are reasonable settings, the server crashed and I am now getting ‘Too many requests’ messages… So, perhaps there is something is not working so well with these rate limits, or I am still misunderstanding their meaning.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[PSA] Watch for the antiyanks troll and consider adjusting your rate limits⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for the heads up. I don’t know what ‘Antiyanks’ is, but I already had to ban one comment spammer.

  The rate limits are indeed a bit confusing. The settings are:

  Rate Limit: X Per Second: Y

  I understand this to be ‘X for every Y seconds’

  So, a ‘Comments’ Rate limit: 10, Per second: 60, means a maximum of 10 comments per minute, correct?

  Maybe the reason you see 99999999 is due to troubleshooting. I have increased my instance’s limits multiple times while troubleshooting server issues, because the meaning of the settings was not clear to me. These limits are usually not the reason for the sever issue, but I put some high number and did not bring them back down after the issues were resolved.

  I have lowered them now to more reasonable numbers. I will also be more strict with new applications for the time being.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Alpine Jelly Cone⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I would give the Letharia dye another try

  Would love to… When I was in Oregon this lichen was super abundant. At the moment I am living in Amsterdam (Netherlands), and I see mostly Xanthoria, Evernia, Rhizocarpon, and a few other lichen species that grow on city trees, but they are very small and spotty, nothing compared to the wolf lichen in Oregon. I do miss the Oregon forests with the old growth sequoia redwood trees and all that lichen.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Alpine Jelly Cone⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  9ft of snow?! I only experienced such deep snow in an urban setting while living in Connecticut for a year. I spent a few years in Oregon but the snow in the area never got so deep while I was there. When I was in the US I was not yet able to identify many fungi as I was mainly obsessed with animals (especially salamanders) back then, so unfortunately I did not really appreciate the diversity of fungi there. Although once in Oregon I did attempt to dye some socks using a wolf lichen (Letharia vulpina) and a pressure cooker. That did not end well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Alpine Jelly Cone⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I see. So it is not necessarily that their mycelium are better at surviving the freezing temperatures, but rather that either they fruit quicker once conditions are acceptable or that their fruiting bodies are more cold tolerant. Thanks, it’s interesting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Alpine Jelly Cone⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Cool! I just read their wiki page and it says

  A snowbank fungus, it is most common at higher elevations after snowmelt in the spring.

  Snowbank fungus is a new term for me. Not sure yet what makes a fungus thrive through snow. Maybe they have anti-freeze proteins?

  Does your area get a lot of snow?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Vomiting Emoji⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Entoloma sp. (or at least in the same family)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow, those spores are so bumpy, they are very interesting! Thanks for sharing :D

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Curcumin landscapes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I used 99%. 70% will probably work too. I can test later and let you know.

• Curcumin landscapesmander.xyz ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨chemistry@mander.xyz⁩ | ⁨2⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨BlackRock is Suing UnitedHealth for Giving “Too Much Care” to Patients After the CEO was Murdered⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  As far as I can tell, this is the legal document associated with the lawsuit: …courtlistener.com/…/gov.uscourts.nysd.642027.1.0…

  The most significant component of this claim is not the lawsuit itself (examples of frivolous lawsuits are common), but that BlackRock is the one suing. BlackRock doing this is the important and remarkable claim here.

  I see no obvious connection between Roberto Faller and BlackRock. To me this looks like a frivolous lawsuit issued by a random inconsequential individual. So, then, framing it as BlackRock suing is blatant misinformation.

  I could be missing something here, perhaps there is indeed a BlackRock connection that I was unable to identify. But that Medium article is certainly not explaining the connection. The CBS article does not mention BlackRock.

  If there is no connection to BlackRock, then adding “BlackRock” to the title is not click-bait! It is a blatant lie.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's play this game again⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You are a radical vegan

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's play this game again⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Unfortunately the universe consists of mostly empty space and the infinitely thin cut passess between sub-atomic particles, barely tickling the vacuum fluctuations

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's play this game again⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Vaccines cure autism

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's play this game again⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But me and you don’t want the same things

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's play this game again⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But a sociopath

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's play this game again⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Permanently magnetized

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Social nuke⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Dendrologist?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I probably interact with people who are at the pinnacle of their chosen skill but I'd never know because that skill isn't something that generates fame.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think that for mid-levels of fame you can find a mixture of musical skill and self-marketing/entrepreneurship.

  But as you go up the ladder of fame you get to the rungs where money is used to pay for an artist’s exposure. The artist becomes an investor’s asset and the “skill” of building fame arguably belongs to the investors / management team. And it is not so much skill as much as it is the power of capital to purchase attention.