modem_down

Thank you.

However, my browser's language is set to English (United Kingdom), which normally gives monotonic dates.

Steps to reproduce:

1. In Chromium, go to chrome://settings/languages.
2. Under Preferred languages, ensure "English (United Kingdom)" is at the top (position 1) of the list.
3. Go to this thread.
4. Hover mouse cursor over my username for 2-3 secs, until overlay appears showing my "cake day".
5. My "cake day" is shown as 7/23/2026, which is non-monotonic.

For items that might need sorting by name or date - like file names, or spreadsheet or database entries, I entirely agree.

But my question was not, "What is a sensible date format?" It was, "How can I get Mbin to show me dates in a monotonic date format."

If it's a server for self hosting you definitely don't want anything that requires interaction at boot.

That depends. If you only plan to boot it when you're physically present, then it's fine.

i believe a much better secure layer is something similar to what Novacustoms, Purism attempt to do: verify if somebody else not you try to access the laptop.

You're thinking of Heads, which I agree is ideal for supported motherboards.

tang

Thanks. TIL about Clevis/Tang.

Yes. Here are 3 common self-hosting scenarios:

• Home server containing family files (scans, photos, device backups)
• Office server containing business files (sensitive documents, device backups)
• Web or email server containing websites, Fediverse instances, emails, etc

For all three, FDE is a sensible precaution to protect the data in case the server is physically stolen.

Linux is probably the most common OS kernel for self-hosting. On that kernel, [LUKS (Linux Unified Key Setup)](Linux Unified Key Setup) is probably the most sensible FDE system to use. It's mature and reliable. But anyone self-hosting a Linux server with LUKS FDE is faced with the question of where to store the keys.

Hardware security tokens (HSTs) are widely considered a safer place for keys than SSDs, HDDs, or USB storage. They follow the smartcard principle: a private key can be written to an HST but not read from it (security vulnerabilities excepted. Instead, they implement cryptographic algorithms to prove possession of the private key. So, anyone self-hosting a Linux server with LUKS FDE should strongly consider storing their private key(s) on an HST.

However, there is more than one way to do that. Hence the question in my OP.

Many thanks for this clarification - and for hosting The Brain Bin!

if you follow a user their future posts will be sent to your server. We were talking about implementing a backfill option, but there is no eta yet

OK, got it. That's the reason I couldn't see those toots on Mbin.

so no guarantee it will be implemented at all. But since it is an annoying problem, maybe it will

Backfill would be great! (Server capacity concerns notwithstanding.)

In the meantime, clearer wording for the info banner would help:

• Before subscribing: "This Fediverse profile is hosted on a different server than yours. If you, or another user on your server, were to subscribe to this profile, the profile's subsequent posts will be displayed here. The profile's older posts can be viewed on their server"

• After subscribing: "This Fediverse profile is hosted on a different server than yours. Now that you have subscribed, the profile's future posts will be displayed here. The profile's older posts can be viewed on their server"

https://alternativeto.net/software/find-my-iphone/?license=opensource

Thanks for your reply. I should have been clearer!

It's not the banner that bothers me, it's the fact that that microblog's posts (toots) aren't being displayed when viewed from Mbin!

Is there anything I can do in order to get those posts to propagate through to Mbin? Would I have to contact the admin for the Mbin instance hosting my account? Something else?

@Pamasich Thanks for following up with the detailed explanation. Makes sense now!

@Auster

one thing you can do is to browse the subscribed microblog feed, https://thebrainbin.org/sub/microblog
Thanks, this is the kind of thing I hoped for!

you can also go to the general settings, https://thebrainbin.org/settings/general, and set "Homepage" as "Subscriptions", and "Front page default view" as "Microblog", so https://thebrainbin.org/ becomes a mirror of https://thebrainbin.org/sub/microblog
Excellent tip, thank you!

@Pamasich thanks. Unforunately, I can't see a globe icon or the word "All". I'll try to post a screenshot.