Michael Smith

https://social.hacktheplanet.be/@neo

Cyberpunk | Programmer | Ruby on Rails veteran | FreeBSD | Sysop | Mr. Fusion maintainer for the MiSTer project

Website: https://michaelsmith.be
GitHub: https://github.com/michaelshmitty
Location: Antwerp, 🇧🇪 Belgium
MiSTer FPGA: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

Public Key

npub1acc2dnywrwkvaydc7uy3a3ztfh7j8aqg9mwnz4ec09hppnnlg8msc9v90a

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqswuv9xej8phtxwjxu0wzg7c395mlfr7syzahf32uu8jmsseel5racpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsdl2jrn

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1acc2dnywrwkvaydc7uy3a3ztfh7j8aqg9mwnz4ec09hppnnlg8msc9v90a

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Last Notes

2025-06-10 12:16:19 UTC

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Jean-Ralphio is the best
https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/659/017/200/709/304/original/64089f68dcf523af.jpeg

2025-06-10 00:33:13 UTC

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in Dutch you can say “Wat baten kaars en bril als de uil niet zien en wil.” Which roughly translates to “What matters candle and glasses when the owl doesn’t want to see.”

2025-06-09 23:44:27 UTC

"If you do not master your computer, your computer will become your master." 😅
https://youtu.be/S4Qf8o4QSDs?si=_HOSEaFiJ_57aQfo

2025-06-09 11:24:43 UTC

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dammit that’s an earworm. Thanks!

2025-06-08 15:31:12 UTC

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Fingwit looks an awesome addition. I just got bitten by having an encrypted home directory breaking fingerprint login. Good stuff 👍

2025-06-08 15:28:55 UTC

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pretty good in Quills too iirc, with Geoffrey Rush also A class actor imho.

2025-06-07 16:58:43 UTC

And suddenly there it was, an accurate #FPGA implementation of the #SNES on the #MiSTer. That was an awesome moment for #retrogaming.

2025-06-07 13:19:53 UTC

TIL Mo-Do died more than a decade ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo-Do

2025-06-07 12:41:28 UTC

This just oozes #90s from the Eurobeat music, corny lyrics, and eccentric decade accurate clothing to the synthesizers that are not plugged it. Love it or hate it. Deal with it 😎
https://youtube.com/watch?v=eeR9LTooUxE&si=q6trShTN_O7mdV9X

2025-06-07 07:57:07 UTC

One should wonder if any tool is required to sanely manage so much complexity, that it may be time to review the necessity of all this complexity and do something about it. “The best part is no part”.

2025-06-06 22:54:46 UTC

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I see. So next month Palestinian flag colors, then Ukrainian? It’s branding, it’s supposed to be consistent and recognizable. This project should really straighten out its priorities. What a silly thing to do.

2025-06-05 23:31:03 UTC

Inconceivable! I watched The Princess Bride for the first time in 38 years.

2025-06-03 21:06:11 UTC

There's always another update... I remember the time before the internet and the downloading of updates. Good, quiet times.

2025-06-03 11:57:19 UTC

I always find "predictable interfaces" to be intuitively very unpredictable.

2025-06-03 11:48:36 UTC

It's safe to say that in 20+ years #Debian has never let me down

2025-06-03 00:45:43 UTC

What’s wrong with a plain text config file? I’ll tell you what. Absolutely nothing.

2025-06-02 20:51:13 UTC

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I’m on the second attempt. Forgot this thing is so old it doesn’t boot GPT. Not FreeBSD’s fault. There’s no recourse for user stupidity.

2025-06-02 20:47:33 UTC

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if it’s any consolation I’m wasting my evening too. My 15 year old wall kiosk laptop conversion didn’t like the latest NixOS (25.05) upgrade. A modern rolling release on ancient hardware is a bad idea you say? Yes. Putting something more stable and cutting edge on it: #FreeBSD
https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/615/730/086/646/433/original/c4c073b801e783e9.jpeg

2025-06-02 20:31:36 UTC

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if there’s a lesson learned, it’s not a wasted evening. Good luck 👍

2025-06-02 14:21:36 UTC

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this exactly. I had this silly idea a few weeks ago to create a lean fork of nixpkgs with just the bare minimum to get a Linux OS going. Goal was to learn how nixpkgs actually builds NixOS. Yes I went to the basement and had a look at what’s actually going on in there and oh my, there be dragons. It made me rethink how great abstractions are. Then again I wouldn’t go bake my own CPU either. It’s a fine line.

2025-06-02 13:46:07 UTC

It's shell scripts all the way down

2025-06-01 08:23:30 UTC

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“Keyboard? How quaint!”
https://youtu.be/QpWhugUmV5U?si=MbKLsFAZ28BtiVLY

2025-05-31 22:53:16 UTC

“This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.” - Jimmy Carter #space #voyager

2025-05-31 19:22:07 UTC

https://youtu.be/cFP5bp3JvaU?si=--npZmsiYpTwcIyI
#futo #keyboard

2025-05-31 11:16:52 UTC

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_Ulpia_Traiana?wprov=sfti1

2025-05-31 11:15:26 UTC

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de fundamenten van de thermen van die stad zijn bewaard en te bezichtigen. Imposant, die Romeinen wisten hoe ze een badenhuis moesten bouwen! Xanten zelf is voor volgend bezoek. Daar was één of ander middeleeuws tentenkamp feest aan de gang dit weekend en daardoor te druk!

2025-05-31 11:10:27 UTC

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nice one. Here’s a better one of mine.
https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/602/136/077/698/533/original/f809ea8d25d77e5b.jpeg

2025-05-31 10:39:24 UTC

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gisteren Colonia Ulpia Traiana bij Xanten gaan bezoeken. De moeite!

2025-05-31 10:30:13 UTC

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gezellig druk, te verwachten met dit weekend. Chique park jong, die vliegtuigen zijn de max!

2025-05-31 10:27:03 UTC

@npub18ju…7rl6 gelandet!
https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/601/964/691/306/544/original/fb6715ad9911b83a.jpeg

2025-05-30 19:48:27 UTC

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It works!

2025-05-29 10:48:24 UTC

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https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/590/725/107/921/263/original/5875510a5eaed49b.jpeg

2025-05-28 15:34:17 UTC

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“In some South American countries, it is known to be occasionally added to ayahuasca brews by malevolent sorcerers or bad shamans who wish to take advantage of unsuspecting tourists.” Brilliant.

2025-05-28 07:39:08 UTC

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https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/584/318/566/675/475/original/6f9ec656b96393ef.jpeg

2025-05-28 07:30:12 UTC

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beautiful but poisonous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brugmansia_suaveolens?wprov=sfti1

2025-05-28 07:15:51 UTC

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this PR is great, it covers what I meant. “Nix as LEGO for building your own Linux based OS”. I like that analogy. It’s a good one. I must repeat that I am not advocating #NixOS as a base OS for EU OS proof of concept. I suggest looking into using #Nix to build and maintain a lean base.

2025-05-27 22:33:24 UTC

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I’m not even saying “use NixOS as base”, I am saying use #Nix (the build tool) to build your own #NixOS sibling if you want. In theory one could even build an OS based on #FreeBSD (like Dell’s ThinOS) using a reproducible build tool like Nix (not how Dell does it I assume). This notion of “Linux distributions” is so entrenched but it’s the first dogma that crumbles when looking into Nix. It’s quite refreshing.

2025-05-27 22:23:58 UTC

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I agree with the point raised about #NixOS and have suggested looking into this a few times wrt EU OS. Using #Nix as build tool really is a very unique approach to building a Linux based OS and completely cuts out the notion of a “distribution”. It takes a more direct path from the upstream source code (kernel, systemd, …) to a working OS. Thus entirely sidestepping the raised concerns about another distro used as a base.

2025-05-23 09:19:57 UTC

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one could argue that "Get me out of here!" has the same meaning as "Delete Account" and that both buttons perform the same action 😂

2025-05-22 21:09:48 UTC

It's pronounced "engine x" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nginx

2025-05-20 21:16:03 UTC

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exactly!

2025-05-20 21:00:35 UTC

#FreeBSD is neither dead, nor dying.
https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/the-report-of-my-death-was-an-exaggeration/

2025-05-20 20:20:45 UTC

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but in this same document they use "Mail Submission Agent" for MSA. So "Mail" an "Message" get mixed up even in the same document.

2025-05-20 20:16:58 UTC

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yeah, in this RFc they use Message too: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5598.txt

2025-05-20 20:15:01 UTC

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that's what I was thinking of going with for the formal description of this component in an email solution. Message Transfer Agent could be interpreted more broadly in systems that deal with other types of messages than email. XMPP comes to mind for example. Thanks for your reply, all the best!

2025-05-20 20:10:51 UTC

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perhaps a somewhat related question for you if you don't mind: MTA (and assorted abbreviations) -> Mail Transfer Agent or Message Transfer Agent? "Naming things hard" aside, there's mixed uses in the relevant RFCs and other documentation I came across so I am curious what people in field think. Thanks in advance!

2025-05-19 21:37:46 UTC

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yes, it's normal. I had the same experience on my journey with #Nix. And to an extent it's super convenient and alluring. But after a while I realized that Nix puts a uniform abstraction over everything, taking away any knowledge of how things work under the hood. Depending on your use case and progress in this journey, this may or may not be an issue. I've recently re-learned that it's good to know how stuff works under the hood. I'm more weary of abstractions now.

2025-05-17 18:32:33 UTC

"How the web became unreadable", by having the same fucking meme show up in your timeline on a daily basis. I get it. Ha. Ha.

2025-05-17 18:23:18 UTC

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thanks, you're welcome! Core MiSTer community members had copyright infringement concerns and asked me to remove the bundled `update_all.sh` script. I didn't want to cause a fuss and complied.

2025-05-16 14:21:15 UTC

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Magnificent city! But DO NOT attempt to take andl elephant for a ride on the Schwebebahn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuffi?wprov=sfti1

2025-05-15 22:18:42 UTC

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me, from across the Atlantic: stands up and claps 👏

2025-05-14 07:07:06 UTC

https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/how-to-unlock-high-speed-wi-fi-on-freebsd-14/
#freebsd #framework

2025-05-14 06:49:38 UTC

TIL: Nero Burning ROM software title is a pun. I can only assume I was too young at the time to get it. Ha!

2025-05-14 06:48:12 UTC

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nearly three decades later for me! 🤦

2025-05-13 21:02:28 UTC

I've just released version 2.10 of Mr. Fusion for the #MiSTer project. This version now bundles `update_all.sh`! https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/mr-fusion/releases/tag/v2.10

2025-05-13 15:36:20 UTC

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Scary! Any thoughts as to what caused the problem?

2025-05-13 10:46:05 UTC

Setting up #Cryptpad on #FreeBSD was a breeze. I like simplicity.

2025-05-12 17:24:12 UTC

You know what I think has made the world more depressing in the last decade or so? Dark mode! This is why I've been consistently switching all my computing themes back to light mode. 42 trips around the sun and reduced eyesight may have something to do with it too. Here's to a "brighter" future!

2025-05-12 08:40:08 UTC

"That's your name, isn't it? Calvin Klein? It's written all over your underwear."

2025-05-09 07:06:09 UTC

https://youtu.be/UxxajLWwzqY?si=vR9ymuru1Wwdc-tJ

2025-05-09 07:04:32 UTC

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"You're from the 70s, but I'm a 90s bitch" could be up next. Icona Pop - I Love It https://www.letras.com/icona-pop/i-love-it/

2025-05-07 22:56:32 UTC

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the internet, it truly is a thing of beauty. What a time to be alive!

2025-05-07 22:55:01 UTC

@npub1c36…ydp2 immediately reacts to my comment: it's way past my bedtime on this side of the pond! G'night everyone!

2025-05-07 22:52:31 UTC

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checks pants situation past age 40: this is accurate.

2025-05-07 16:15:39 UTC

His name is Mark Zuckerberg.

2025-05-05 18:57:44 UTC

Maybe you don't need tools to manage all this complexity and instead put effort in reducing complexity.

2025-05-05 15:34:29 UTC

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bedankt voor de tip, doorgegeven aan de reisorganisatie (de mama van de kindjes) 👍

2025-05-04 18:35:17 UTC

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https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/451/003/047/416/577/original/3038bd3534f55ca0.jpeg

2025-05-04 17:29:43 UTC

Again with those date days that only make sense when you get the month and day backwards 🤪

2025-05-02 06:19:54 UTC

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2025-05-02 06:13:25 UTC

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because I assumed you’d think it a welcome suggestion and I first did a quick check to see if it supports bluray and it should. I have used HandBrake many times so I know it’s the go to tool. I haven’t used it for bluray in particular because I don’t have the hardware.

2025-05-02 05:49:47 UTC

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HandBrake: https://handbrake.fr/
Although I have not personally used it for bluray so ymmv.

2025-04-30 06:53:11 UTC

#TechLead is on a roll lately. “The USA is sitting by the phone, waiting for a call that will never come”.
https://youtu.be/YsjSGeJ1USc?si=Gtfk09xcbu7lTlwJ
#uspol #bitcoin #gold

2025-04-29 22:00:56 UTC

The silicon streets are paved with superfluous abstractions.

2025-04-29 18:32:20 UTC

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for the love of God, “THESE last 100 days FEEL like A 100 years” please. You indirectly invented English grammar, please apply it correctly! Oh and thanks for the universe by the way.

2025-04-28 20:39:20 UTC

The #Fediverse is where it’s at. Someone should tell the people on #BlueSky. Not me, I removed the app a while ago.

2025-04-28 05:23:12 UTC

Back in my day it was Sin With Sebastian instead of Red Sebastian.

2025-04-28 05:11:41 UTC

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or alternatively, invest in a good internet connection and do some low power, but reliable, self hosting instead. But that may also be way more expensive compared to VPS.

2025-04-28 05:09:23 UTC

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I’ve gotten very used to VPS the last few decades, but recently I’ve started to think about renting a bare metal server in a rack somewhere. Still managed hardware wise and connectivity wise, but no longer virtualized (at least not by the service provider, I might still use virtualization). Would that solve such problems like you are having now? And is it way more expensive though?

2025-04-27 21:19:14 UTC

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good you made some progress figuring out the problem! That sucks though. I’ve heard other stories that Hetzner is quite protective, but this was about new accounts signing up and losing access after a few days because they got flagged for whatever reason. That said I can’t imagine the abuse a service provider has to deal with though unfortunately.

2025-04-27 16:09:02 UTC

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same, at the age of 13 QBASIC on MS DOS 6.22. My birth year is 1983. And actually before that a 2-week after school course of SuperLogo on Windows 3.11.
Nowadays, I’d say #p5js https://p5js.org/ and #thecodingtrain https://thecodingtrain.com/
@npub14kz…ykqp

2025-04-27 08:51:46 UTC

I agree, case-insensitive file systems are a bad idea. Looking at you default MacOS APFS 👀

2025-04-27 06:43:35 UTC

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I didn’t see anything specific in OP’s post.

2025-04-27 06:31:16 UTC

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it does. I use it on my Framework laptop with NixOS and GNOME to unlock and elevate privileges with sudo in a terminal. I’m sure it also works with other distros. May depend on your hardware support of course.

2025-04-26 10:15:45 UTC

I is here #HamConBE25
https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/403/739/740/580/062/original/c8b10e77834936f1.jpeg

2025-04-26 09:12:35 UTC

Off to #HamConBE25!

2025-04-25 20:30:48 UTC

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I’m not familiar with that!

2025-04-25 20:27:10 UTC

I’ve just set up a classic #Quake1 #QuakeWorld deathmatch server on #FreeBSD at q1.hacktheplanet.be:27500 Come join if you want a fragging nostalgia hit so it’s not just me with a bunch of bots! You can use #ezquake (https://ezquake.com/).

2025-04-25 20:24:14 UTC

Even though I’ve only gotten (re)acquainted with #FreeBSD in the last few months and only have two servers up and running for #email, #minecraft and #quake1 #quakeworld I have just filled out the #FreeBSD 2025 Community Survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/freebsdsurvey25). If you use #FreeBSD in any capacity, take 10 minutes to do so too!

2025-04-25 08:23:05 UTC

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just tried with Firefox (on Linux) and I was able to log in and browse my data. I'v already uploaded my periodic declaration so I couldn't test that. https://intervat.minfin.fgov.be/

2025-04-25 06:08:23 UTC

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I donough what you’re talking about man!

2025-04-25 02:21:18 UTC

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Sir, have you heard about our Lord and Savior, #Nix?

2025-04-25 02:18:26 UTC

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I’ll have a look today “if it works for me” (TM) 🙂

2025-04-24 21:11:45 UTC

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I switched back to Chrome a while ago, but before I was using Firefox and I remember Intervat working well.

2025-04-24 07:35:31 UTC

#eu #digitalsovereignty #microsoft #google #Email
https://jurgen.gaeremyn.be/2025/03/08/european-critical-dependencies/

2025-04-24 06:32:27 UTC

Active, I’m active, you’re active, everyone is active! This guy is like a walking meme generator.
https://youtube.com/shorts/MP0GZK0fsPg?si=06PWLynZGFgN6cac
#Trump

2025-04-23 17:43:54 UTC

Nobody likes you when you’re 23. And where’s my Asian friend?

2025-04-17 19:45:36 UTC

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https://youtu.be/U4WiIEGYZEs

2025-04-17 19:42:26 UTC

Guus Uitenwaard is een week of wat geleden, toen 'ie terug kwam met de trekker na 't hooien van 't land, met een behoorlijk flinke vaart tegen de koeienstal gereden. Zien trekker total-loss en zien kop in 'et verband!

2025-04-17 10:06:55 UTC

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#quake1 #quakeworld Quake 1 deathmatch on LAN and internet
https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/352/740/545/980/178/original/e8bc64de71170e86.jpeg