Nostr notes by Jim Salter

even if you wanted to extend them every possible benefit of the ...

2026-07-08T15:24:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…nzzf
_________________________

even if you wanted to extend them every possible benefit of the doubt--which I do not--anyone with a functioning human soul would take one look at how "rape gang" intersects with the project name "parallels" and IMMEDIATELY change course, very much including any necessary policy change to make sure similar "accidents" don't happen again.

Somebody please ELI5 to me why Ubuntu's systemd refuses to ...

2026-07-03T02:33:04Z

Somebody please ELI5 to me why Ubuntu's systemd refuses to boot a system if ANY network interface is not currently connected to a network, with an UNLIMITED timeout.

It's not (just) that I still have to remember to systemctl mask systemd-networkd-online-wait.

I want to know what the hell was this idea about in the FIRST place--and why, after *years* of this idiocy, is it still in place?

Who wanted this? And why? What "problem" was it meant to solve? Who wants their system to NOT BOOT?

Ohmygod. THE CHAIR KNOWS. ...

2026-07-02T15:13:01Z

Ohmygod. THE CHAIR KNOWS.

factory resetting does not save you from MDM enrollment. Samsung, ...

2026-06-12T17:35:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…sruq
_________________________

factory resetting does not save you from MDM enrollment. Samsung, Google, or Apple as appropriate recognize the IMEI and force the device right back into management during the OOB setup process.

Welcome to our dystopian reality, I'm afraid. Your mainstream smartphone is *never* truly yours.

Nostr event nevent1qqsdm8wd29umszw7d686agr7j60x3wc77w2dh4vhgmv3krk9myym92gzyp5qvwahe2em24xrzwydcm0xcfygkaqkmzn8d5eqap4qyrh22wtz69ksp2k

2026-06-12T13:16:41Z

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/verizon-sent-man-a-refurbished-phone-with-mdm-then-deleted-his-data-remotely/

"I lost everything. Contacts, messages, videos, documents, pictures, everything from patient information to the last video I have with my grandmother before she died."

BACK UP YOUR SHIT

I'm not victim blaming. I'm future victim *warning.*

BACK UP YOUR SHIIIIIIIIIT...!

This is exactly the way I want my ISP to talk about its own ...

2026-05-28T23:00:11Z

This is exactly the way I want my ISP to talk about its own failures in service. I mean, a little more technical detail on what broke and what they're replacing would be NICE, but this? This will do.

This may also explain why the 5G Home Internet (which I also have) is "a little broken, but only a LITTLE" today, where it's been flawless for more than a year up until now, IDK.

pretty sure it boils down to "rust rewrites are the new ...

2026-04-28T15:52:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…c4ry
_________________________

pretty sure it boils down to "rust rewrites are the new hotness so we dropped sudo-rs in where sudo used to be."

In fairness to sudo-rs, that project is in part trying to simplify things from classic sudo, which is rather crufty with decades of often inadvisable feature creep.

I'm cool with getting on board THAT part of the train but I'm not happy about the asterisks.

Installed Ubuntu 26.04 for the first time. Logged into a TTY. ...

2026-04-27T14:35:39Z

Installed Ubuntu 26.04 for the first time.

Logged into a TTY.

me@box:~$ sudo-s
Password: ********************

EXCUSE ME--ASTERISKS? WTF?

Look, obviously I appreciate that seeing the character count as you type makes it easier. But this is supposed to be suitable for high security environments. And making it easy to see the character count is a significant entropy leak.

This should not be the default configuration, particularly in Ubuntu *server* (which is what I installed). DISAPPROVE.

Not kidding, and I can defend this as a thesis. ...

2026-04-13T20:07:06Z

Not kidding, and I can defend this as a thesis.

Second half. Full text is, again, in the ALT tag. ...

2026-01-30T15:02:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…ctms
_________________________

Second half. Full text is, again, in the ALT tag.

I first found this writing prompt and response six years ago. It ...

2026-01-30T14:56:27Z

I first found this writing prompt and response six years ago. It brought tears to my eyes then, and it did again today.

Full text is in the ALT tags. Second half of the response is in the next post.

Hot take: AI is the literal antithesis of the Unix Philosophy. I ...

2026-01-07T19:40:32Z

Hot take: AI is the literal antithesis of the Unix Philosophy.

I really kind of want to write up a full piece on this, but I'm also pretty damn tired. So here's the short version:

The UP is about keeping tools simple, modular, and reusable to maximize what a practitioner can accomplish with them, as opposed to self-contained, huge, and complex so any idiot can (hopefully) use them.

AI isn't merely about building complex tools, it's about *replacing* tools with *servants.*

RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/115668458912432300 If we ...

2025-12-05T21:06:22Z

RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/115668458912432300

If we don't start vigorously we-are-not-fucking-around-here enforcing the antitrust laws we already have, we'll never get the chance to write the stronger ones we've needed for longer than I've been alive.
nostr:note1fjznupcsccnje4qx07njzw0tvyqj22csc7udg2hu9rjtxprcf40srq6czy

Healthy life coach type shit right here ...

2025-11-02T16:36:49Z

Healthy life coach type shit right here

I have PLENTY. No assistance needed. ...

2025-10-12T03:03:38Z

I have PLENTY. No assistance needed.

Today, I had to dig into a senior executive's email to find ...

2025-08-12T18:45:22Z

Today, I had to dig into a senior executive's email to find out why the hell "Otter dot AI" was suddenly invited to every Teams meeting the company had, and was emailing people snippets from what was said, still images of them from the call, etc.

If you sign up for this thing, it starts emailing anybody you've had a meeting with, pretending to be you, giving them a big fat blue button that says "open minutes."

If they do: now it attends THEIR meetings, and emails THEIR contacts as THEM.

I'm still not clicking any damn Reels tho, wtf do people ...

2025-07-31T21:15:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…mt6a
_________________________

I'm still not clicking any damn Reels tho, wtf do people TOLERATE videos without working playback controls?!

Zuckerberg Minion 382A: sir, this user refuses to interact with ...

2025-07-31T21:14:35Z

Zuckerberg Minion 382A: sir, this user refuses to interact with Reels. We've tried everything--AI lactation porn, American teenagers in wicked weasel bikinis, clearly trafficked and terrified Asian women in lingerie... We even tried adding hysterical cackling laugh tracks to the scared Asian women. But he just won't click!

Zuckerberg: try this lil bro

The #FSF wanted to know why I'd cancelled recurring billing ...

2025-07-15T16:03:16Z

The #FSF wanted to know why I'd cancelled recurring billing immediately after my membership auto-renewed. So I told them.

I've spent the better part of half a century trying to look ...

2025-07-11T23:59:29Z

I've spent the better part of half a century trying to look clean-cut and conventional, but in my old age, I'm finally starting to let my inner punk out of the closet.

I'm waffling on whether to try dying my hair fun colors for the first time. If I do try the dye, what color scheme should I go for?

This is the best take on Fermi's Paradox that I've ever ...

2025-07-11T13:46:13Z

This is the best take on Fermi's Paradox that I've ever seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Cineco/Zongshen (not sure which, that's kinda like Ford vs ...

2025-07-04T00:22:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…tuy7
_________________________

Cineco/Zongshen (not sure which, that's kinda like Ford vs Mercury and I've seen claims it's BOTH) E-RT3. Mine was imported by way of CSC, but they stopped importing them shortly after I bought mine.

TFW you finally start getting serious about figuring out how many ...

2025-07-03T21:59:28Z

TFW you finally start getting serious about figuring out how many miles you REALLY get to a charge on your electric motorcycle:

“The really remarkable thing about this new age of AI is, to ...

2025-07-03T15:10:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…h6yr
_________________________

“The really remarkable thing about this new age of AI is, to patch it, all I had to do was add a line for what we call the system prompt — which is the prompt that’s included in every Lindy — and it’s like, don’t Rickroll people.”

This is the thing I keep trying to impress on people about indiscriminately trained LLMs. We don't "fix" them by actually correcting them, we just slap muzzles and blinders on them. But they still "want" to do the wrong thing and "find" ways to do it!

Not sure if true story or merely funny parable, but I WANT TO ...

2025-07-03T14:19:41Z

Not sure if true story or merely funny parable, but I WANT TO BELIEVE

fear the single-minded exhaustive and absolutely commercially ...

2025-06-20T05:42:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…c6yv
_________________________

fear the single-minded exhaustive and absolutely commercially unsupportable analysis of some rando you accidentally nerdsniped. :)

I'm not sure how to feel about this... 🙃 @npub1mvj…jlw0 ...

2025-06-11T14:01:00Z

I'm not sure how to feel about this... 🙃

Alex Kretzschmar (npub1mvj…jlw0) 🍻🤠👍

sure, that works. I was assuming that this was hypothetical and ...

2025-06-11T12:27:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…n4ms
_________________________

sure, that works. I was assuming that this was hypothetical and an exercise to trim the absolute least amount off the total capacity of the drives in play!

You'll lose a bit to padding with five wide Z2, of course--enough so that you'll be back down to roughly the 50% SE that mirrors offer. But you'll have true dual parity on both vdevs, which mirrors *can't* offer, and I suspect you still prefer.

3 3-wide Z1 + 1 hotspare would work nicely, also. But I figure ...

2025-06-11T03:31:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…ft90
_________________________

3 3-wide Z1 + 1 hotspare would work nicely, also.

But I figure more of the folks doing the hoarding would tend to prefer having true dual parity across all six disks, rather than individual single parity across two groups of three disks.

Keeping it identical, vdev-wise, with three 3-wide Z1 makes future upgrades easier. One 6-wide Z2 + one 3-wide Z1 makes the most out of what you've got, with no planning for the future.

Pick your poison! =)

Depends on use case. For generic hoarding, most likely one 6-wide ...

2025-06-11T03:21:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…nl2g
_________________________

Depends on use case.

For generic hoarding, most likely one 6-wide Z2 + 1 3-wide Z1 + 1 hotspare.

For anything with any performance component to it at all... well, you know me and mirrors. So either 5 2-wide mirrors, or 4 2-wide mirrors + 2 hotspares, depending on how nervous you are (and how well monitored you are).

A friend of mine, @npub1kws…0n5s, came up with a really ...

2025-06-11T00:06:16Z

A friend of mine, Buttered Jorts (npub1kws…0n5s), came up with a really interesting term: "parasocial media."

Social media is about socializing, but on many if not most "social" media platforms, we're seeing less and less actual socializing, with most engagement being reposting things others posted, without additional comment.

That ain't social, it's parasocial.

Avoid parasocial media. Go where people actually talk to you.

it strikes me as unlikely--not impossible, but unlikely--that a ...

2025-06-10T17:24:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…2a59
_________________________

it strikes me as unlikely--not impossible, but unlikely--that a human artist would be that good at capturing the gestalt of the faces so recognizably, with almost picasso-level minimalism of detail, while getting proportions of arms, hands, and legs so desperately wrong.

Tarring Rob Liefeld again, he made several of the same class of mistake throughout an entire career... But his *faces* frequently weren't really amazing either.

@npub15wh…e9hw credited this image to Paramount, which ...

2025-06-10T15:43:59Z

Ars Technica (npub15wh…e9hw) credited this image to Paramount, which doesn't answer the question I have about it: did Paramount use #AI image generation for this?

That's not an *accusation,* but it's definitely a question. Neither I nor anyone else can definitively distinguish AI generated images from human art beyond the shadow of a doubt, but this one "whiffs" of AI to me.

And it's seriously pretty gross if an entity the size of Paramount doesn't bother to employ a human artist for something like this.

no, because I've been using it in production since day zero. ...

2025-05-31T01:41:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…vd5e
_________________________

no, because I've been using it in production since day zero. And from the first moment I decided to write it, I decided to take my time, think every problem through, and make it as bulletproof as I possibly could--not just "good enough for me," good enough for me not to be embarrassed when better devs began reading the code!

I haven't authored much of the code revisions for the past few years, I'm more BDFL and reviewer. But that makes me happy too.

, thanks for the write-up! Makes my heart happy when I see my ...

2025-05-30T21:05:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…uvjf
_________________________

, thanks for the write-up! Makes my heart happy when I see my tools being used for the betterment of science. <3

Professor Anil Madhavapeddy published a nice step-by-step ...

2025-05-30T19:25:59Z

Professor Anil Madhavapeddy published a nice step-by-step explainer on how the Energy and Environment Group of his university is beginning to use #Sanoid and #syncoid to manage "100s of terabytes of satellite imagery, biodiversity data, academic literature, and the intermediate computations that go along with them."

https://anil.recoil.org/notes/syncoid-sanoid-zfs

Sometimes I forget just how shitty #Microsoft has been steadily ...

2025-05-29T18:21:25Z

Sometimes I forget just how shitty #Microsoft has been steadily making #Windows. Then I sit at a client's desk, when that client hasn't done anything to stem the tide of shit on their own.

A Windows notification popped up for some "Avowed Premium Edition" game nonsense, and I thought it was from some website that had been given notification permissions.

Nope.

"Suggested" is not clearly labeled as Microsoft's own way to throw random low-quality ads at you, but that's exactly what it is.

Nostr event nevent1qqsp6ynpkvwul9vst7wk6rr08qa6zwp8xl8w89l5x3gyt7vpfucnjygzyp5qvwahe2em24xrzwydcm0xcfygkaqkmzn8d5eqap4qyrh22wtz6nsav62

2025-05-05T18:57:32Z

there are many, many things your wife presumably does for you ...

2025-05-04T02:29:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…sdtn
_________________________

there are many, many things your wife presumably does for you which I definitely will not--but I have a feeling we're both willing to mock you as and when necessary. Or simply when it's entertaining. :)

I'll be sure to prounounce the "e" in your name from ...

2025-05-04T02:22:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…9kte
_________________________

I'll be sure to prounounce the "e" in your name from now on, Joey.

This is EXTREMELY relevant to my interests: an ultra minimal ...

2025-04-26T17:34:27Z

This is EXTREMELY relevant to my interests: an ultra minimal <$20K work capable small pickup truck, due to launch next year.

https://www.theverge.com/electric-cars/655527/slate-electric-truck-price-paint-radio-bezos

You may now add me to the list of FOSS folks directly impacted by ...

2025-04-02T22:25:41Z

You may now add me to the list of FOSS folks directly impacted by unethical AI scraping effectively performing Denial of Service attacks.

My wife informed me this morning that our billing system had been knocked offline.

The reason? #Amazon, #OpenAI, and similar bot scraping traffic blew up my access logs to the point of filling that server's entire drive. They're constantly scraping and re-scraping my FreeBSD wiki.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/devs-say-ai-crawlers-dominate-traffic-forcing-blocks-on-entire-countries/

Major respect to former Nouveau kernel maintainer Karol Herbst ...

2025-02-21T22:01:21Z

Major respect to former Nouveau kernel maintainer Karol Herbst for standing up for what's right.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Karol-Herbst-Nouveau-No

before "we" is giving me too much credit, honestly. ...

2025-01-30T17:02:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…827m
_________________________

before "we" is giving me too much credit, honestly. Before "I" is better. Adding "this" before the crazy would be better yet. I try to keep myself honest.

Q: why don't you sell your Tesla, you hypocrite A: ...

2025-01-30T15:56:00Z

Q: why don't you sell your Tesla, you hypocrite
A: https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/musk-tesla-sell

This might be an oddball venue, but it's a good logical explainer. Nobody should buy a Tesla new anymore, but--if you understand their intrinsic flaws, and they ABSOLUTELY have them--there's nothing wrong with a used one, and it's just plain stupid to take a massive hit disposing of one.

My M3P went from $65K resale value to $30K resale value in only two years. I'll probably be driving it till the wheels fall off.

Netflix: we're increasing your monthly cost to $34, for ...

2025-01-27T16:19:12Z

Netflix: we're increasing your monthly cost to $34, for questions please call 1-900-EAT-SHIT

Netflix: hey verge you see this shit? This is only the beginning, we're calling this "six percent monetized" and people will still pay a LOT more than this. Plus we want them getting ads again, too, even as we raise prices. Fuck yeah! https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/26/24351302/netflix-price-increase-streaming-wars

Me: you know I literally still WEAR my old SuprNova shirt, douchebags...

I get it. I'm happy to hear your choice was constrained by ...

2025-01-16T22:37:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…s5lq
_________________________

I get it. I'm happy to hear your choice was constrained by technology rather than by design, though, tbh. Keep up the great work, I've been very happy on this instance!

I largely agree with your stance here, although I would have ...

2025-01-16T20:04:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…gkxv
_________________________

I largely agree with your stance here, although I would have preferred default block with a similarly easy way to UN block for those who desire to do so.

IMO, IME, human society at scale tends to be shaped by the defaults FAR more than it is shaped by the possibilities.

I'm not sure if you're listing that as a con, or as a ...

2024-12-28T02:28:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…nv5q
_________________________

I'm not sure if you're listing that as a con, or as a pro.

I have a couple of podcasts I use as sleep aids. They're not BORING, they're just COMFORTING...

I don't want this myself, and I don't like the ...

2024-12-28T02:25:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…qgzr
_________________________

I don't want this myself, and I don't like the implication for professional narrators whose work I *might* want. But, agreed. Wow.

You will know the times you live in by how blatantly the most ...

2024-12-16T23:06:32Z

You will know the times you live in by how blatantly the most "respectable" news organizations take payola.

Pic related.

TFW you don't have controlled access, and the users like to ...

2024-11-24T17:57:06Z

TFW you don't have controlled access, and the users like to randomly reboot things:

(I put these warnings on a rack in 2013, after a user randomly wandered in on a Sunday and interrupted a 9+ hour scheduled migration by bouncing every box in the rack. It was Mother's Day, too--and thanks to him, I didn't spend the day with MY wife, EITHER.)

The FSF's got a lot of damn nerve, asking me for EXTRA money ...

2024-11-20T04:59:24Z

The FSF's got a lot of damn nerve, asking me for EXTRA money on top of my $140/yr associate membership right now.

Letting RMS just sashay his way as publicly as possible back into the lead role--with neither significant remorse expressed nor visible changes made--put this one directly in the "no, hell no, and in fact get out of my damn office" pile.

Are you listening, Free Software Foundation (npub167r…p2re) ?

Well, it looks like I've got some highly targeted yelling to ...

2024-10-18T21:30:33Z

Well, it looks like I've got some highly targeted yelling to do on Monday.

#FSF #RMS #FOSS

btw Alex, if you're going across the public Internet, part of ...

2024-09-18T14:07:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…cqsq
_________________________

btw Alex, if you're going across the public Internet, part of the issue may be NETWORK threads, not just CPU threads. A lot of networks use flow control algorithms to sharply limit the top end throughput any single network thread can achieve. Are you old enough to remember "download accelerator" applications? That's the majority of what they did to speed up downloads, in the early days of broadband when they were still popular.

don't get me wrong, you could absolutely get faster speeds ...

2024-09-18T14:01:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…0kvl
_________________________

don't get me wrong, you could absolutely get faster speeds from a single-threaded nc pipe with no authentication or encryption or spoofing resistance than you can from SSH, which offers all those things. But as Alex Kretzschmar (npub1mvj…jlw0) has already pointed out, even iperf3 needs multiple threads in order to produce the speeds he's looking for, so *every* part of the transport stack used here would also need to be multi threaded to produce similar results, even absent security measures.

netcat is also single threaded. And unsafe outside HIGHLY access ...

2024-09-18T13:58:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…jqdj
_________________________

netcat is also single threaded. And unsafe outside HIGHLY access controlled networks, so you'll also need a VPN to run it across, and guess what that VPN most likely is, per network connection? I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with "dingle wedded." 🤠

replication isn't your problem, ssh is. Try scp instead of ...

2024-09-18T13:22:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…n43n
_________________________

replication isn't your problem, ssh is. Try scp instead of iperf3 as your reality check. I bet you see some very familiar numbers when you do...

Nostr event nevent1qqsdzu9yxanzwcws89zvh38tfj4y43pp04atyxl25rngscfhes2m23qzyp5qvwahe2em24xrzwydcm0xcfygkaqkmzn8d5eqap4qyrh22wtz62qu0ef

2024-08-15T02:50:50Z

no; the shirt I was wearing in the 1994 picture has wide black ...

2024-08-08T22:51:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…nnag
_________________________

no; the shirt I was wearing in the 1994 picture has wide black and purple stripes; the one I was wearing last night has narrower stripes in black, light green, and medium green.

Shame I wasn't wearing the sleeves bloused when Patrick took the pic; I still do that sometimes. :)

1994 Jimbo would not, I think, have had much difficulty ...

2024-08-08T16:05:45Z

1994 Jimbo would not, I think, have had much difficulty recognizing 2024 Jimbo.

Listening to myself talk about SSH keys, as I ...

2023-09-01T22:17:36Z

Listening to myself talk about SSH keys, as I "proof-listened" the most recent 2.5 Admins (npub1mn8…tm42) episode, I tried to hear it with newer ears, and it reminded me how long it took to grok public/private key infrastructure.

It occurs to me that we missed a MUCH better naming schema. Your private key is just a key. Keys are private by nature. Your public key is a LOCK. Locks are public by nature.

In that metaphor, you install your lock on a server so that your key will unlock it.