Nostr notes by Danie

Looking good!

2026-05-20T16:07:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…2mje
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Looking good!

Large Study Finds That Replacing Workers With AI Is Backfiring ...

2026-05-14T18:56:21Z

Large Study Finds That Replacing Workers With AI Is Backfiring Badly

“A new study from Gartner immediately caught our eye. As Fortune reports, the research and advisory firm surveyed 350 global business executives whose companies are pulling in at least $1 billion annually to investigate whether all these AI layoffs are paying off in the real world.”

The bottom line right now seems to be that replacing workers with AI gives no real benefit (let's not go into those businesses that lost data by letting AI actually manage their data), and in fact a business loses a lot of experienced workers. Where AI has actually been beneficial from a business perspective, is where it was used by workers themselves to enhance their work capability.

See https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/layoffs-ai-automation-backfire

#technology #AI #workplace

South African universities developing their own ChatGPTs that ...

2026-05-10T15:26:59Z

South African universities developing their own ChatGPTs that better understand local languages

“From Cape Town to the Free State, local educational institutions recently announced work on language-focused AI models that better understand local languages compared to international giants like ChatGPT. On Monday, researchers from the University of Cape Town (UCT) announced that they had developed a new AI language model specifically trained on South Africa’s 11 official written languages.”

I'm really glad to see this for two reasons: We should not just be blindly adopting a dependence on foreign owned AI tools, and secondly, we need to develop our own LLMs that can better understand the local cultures and nuances of our country.

This is a practice that should be more widely adopted throughout local industry, and not just for LLMs. It enhances the innovation we have and encourages local skill building. Of course, it will also bring a lot of meaning and involve non-English language groups too.

See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/ai/645787-south-african-universities-developing-their-own-chatgpts.html

#technology #AI #SouthAfrica

25 years later, is it time for a new iPod? “After being ...

2026-04-23T17:08:56Z

25 years later, is it time for a new iPod?

“After being essentially flat for five years, Google searches for MP3 Player tripled since last fall. A Reddit group for fans of digital audio players is now attracting 90,000 visitors per week on average. And this spring, The New York Times published a trend piece on how iPods are suddenly in fashion with teenagers.”

I can imagine many today want a device that plays music without distractions, and where you can buy and install your own music with it being yanked back by some streaming service.

My original Apple iPod still powers up and works just fine today, and the music I had back then, is all still there.

The Sleevenote integrates with online services (for purchasing music and downloading) such as bandcamp, qobuz, amazon music, beatport, bleep, and quite a few more.

See https://www.theverge.com/column/917369/sleevenote-new-ipod-streaming-bandcamp-music or https://sleevenote.com

#technology #music

Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out, ...

2026-04-15T20:42:17Z

Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out, According to an Independent Audit

“An independent privacy audit of Microsoft, Meta, and Google web traffic in California found that the companies may be violating state regulations and racking up billions in fines. According to the audit from privacy search engine webXray, 55 percent of the sites it checked set ad cookies in a user’s browser even if they opted out of tracking. Each company disputed or took issue with the research, with Google saying it was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how its product works.”

Yes, I know this is no surprise to anyone. I suppose one just hopes are many years of fines and negative feedback, there would have been some change.

Other countries, like South Africa, have pretty advanced privacy protection legislation in place too, but there seems to be little evidence of South Africa actually hauling any of these companies over the coals. For example, Meta's T&Cs for WhatsApp clearly state they'll share user metadata with partners.

See https://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit

#technology #BigTech #privacy

If everything were centralised yes. But many of these are ...

2026-04-13T11:17:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…v6hw
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If everything were centralised yes. But many of these are transactions that also happen at 3rd parties so they are not in the stock exchange, and that is why some equities take 2 days to clear. These are separate ledgers. Centralising gives the stock exchange total control over everything and 3rd parties are often not for that. A centralised system means all control is central, 3rd parties could be locked out, have no control over escalating costs, etc.

Centralised control was very much the mainframe era of operations (or possibly that is actually coming back with cloud computing now) but many things have decentralised for good reasons. I am not at all a fan of centralised systems having total control over costs, lock-out, access to my data, etc.

Instead of upgrading your motherboard you may be able to use your ...

2026-04-11T14:20:52Z

Instead of upgrading your motherboard you may be able to use your spare PCIe x1 slot

It's true that most often we just use one slot for the video card and there are another two or three empty slots waiting to be used.

Such a slot can easily accept a card that will provide upgraded Wi-Fi, Ethernet ports, extra USB ports, allow mounting on NVMe drives or extra SATA drives, and more.

It's not going to make your CPU faster, but it could mean not having to replace the whole motherboard and matching CPU in the shorter term. I did realise this when I wanted to install a NVMe drive a year back. Mounting a single NVMe drive on my motherboard meant giving up two of my SATA drives (their share the same data lanes), but buying an add-on card could have allowed the mounting of multiple extra NVMe drives without sacrificing my SATA drives.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/pcie-x1-slot-more-useful-than-many-pc-upgrades

#technology #upgrades

There can still be scenarios apart from decentralisation e.g. 1. ...

2026-04-11T10:47:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…7tm0
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There can still be scenarios apart from decentralisation e.g.
1. Quicker settlements in equity markets where intermediaries like clearinghouses are involved (these settlements are currently often take a day or two).
2. Assets (equities, bonds, ETFs, private equity) can be issued as tokens on-chain enabling fractional ownership.
3. Where I was specifically thinking of it though was: multiple parties (brokers, custodians, clearinghouses) maintain separate ledgers that must be reconciled (and that is not centralised).
4. But also for automating corporate actions like distributing dividends and stock splits and even managing shareholder voting.

There are probably more examples, but it is really where multiple parties are involved and ensuring traceability, timestamping, and being immutable.

So yes not for actual decentralisation of a stock exchange itself, but more its decentralised activity tracking, reporting, etc.

Immich Kiosk turns any screen into a photo display “No ...

2026-04-11T10:26:47Z

Immich Kiosk turns any screen into a photo display

“No processing happens on the tablet, it is just a display for the image output. In fact, you won't even have much of configuration options since all of that is done through a config file. My tablet, which feels sluggish for practically everything, can handle this within the browser just fine. It loads quickly, transitions are smooth, and it doesn't crash. What else can you ask for?”

Any old tablet that at least has a browser on it, can run this kiosk mode view of Immich photos, albums, people, memories, and a lot more. Good to see in the config that you can limit it to specific albums or people only, or hide specific albums or people. So the admin will just need to apply their mind to that side of things.

Another alternative to this is Immich Public Proxy which requires each album to be configured and shared manually, but has the ultimate security as a result.

Immich Kiosk's website also has a demo that you can try to see how it actually works.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/turned-old-tablet-into-immich-powered-photo-display or their project site at https://github.com/damongolding/immich-kiosk. I did a video about Immich Public Proxy at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkPtL4lxszA

#technology #Immich #opensource

This Bicycle Bell Can Even Be Heard by People Wearing ...

2026-04-10T20:59:49Z

This Bicycle Bell Can Even Be Heard by People Wearing Noise-Cancelling Headphones because its 2026

“The unique Škoda DuoBell bicycle bell is a classic example of a completely analogue solution to a problem caused by digital innovation. Its ringing sound bypasses the noise-cancelling capabilities of modern headphones, which often isolate the wearer from outside noises all too well.”

LOL we need new solutions to 2026 world problems. I'm wondering if cars won't also need something like this fitted. ANC headphones and ear pods are definitely becoming more prevalent. Seems the low frequency used here, is something that ANC does not easily mask.

Although it is a frequency tone, bells have long been tuned for specific frequencies, so an analogue device can actually do this perfectly well.

See https://www.wired.com/story/skoda-duobell-bike-bell-can-be-heard-by-people-wearing-noise-canceling-headphones

#technology #cycling #ANC

Thing is though that statement can be quite correct. Blockchain ...

2026-04-10T19:40:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…lk93
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Thing is though that statement can be quite correct. Blockchain is a broader concept than just finance or currency itself. It can be used in logistics or artwork or for tracking any changes in anything. One application is for financial value and yes then there may be many different names and implementations.

But if a stock exchange wants to use blockchain on the broader sense to track all financial transactions and movements say of stock, that is a valid concept as I understand it. It does not mean the stock would be traded in Bitcoin or whatever. The currency of blockchain is anorrower scoping of the broader use of blackchain.

France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, calling US ...

2026-04-10T17:12:35Z

France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, calling US tech dependence a strategic risk

“The French government has decided that enough is enough. It has announced that it will shift away from proprietary technologies from outside the European Union and focus more on open-source solutions — and part of that means ditching Windows for Linux.”

The South African government made the same statement in the mid-2000's but mysteriously abandoned the implementation after the success of the pilot project. Brazil, Russia, China, and some others had also committed to similar objectives and have actually been making some stead progress.

So time will tell in this case too. That said, it is actually right and proper that any government should want to invest money in localised efforts and ensure the digital sovereignty of their data. From the beginning I've not been a proponent of external cloud services. Ideally a government should consolidate all its various departments onto its own platforms, or at least have them fully managed locally by local companies.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/frances-government-ditching-windows-for-linux

#technology #France #opensource #Linux

LinkedIn secretly scans for 6,000+ Chrome extensions, collects ...

2026-04-10T16:58:58Z

LinkedIn secretly scans for 6,000+ Chrome extensions, collects data

I initially ignored the first post about this after LinkedIn had stated it did not dispute that it detects specific browser extensions, telling BleepingComputer that the info was used to protect the platform and its users. The company also claimed the report was from someone whose account was banned for scraping LinkedIn content and violating the site's terms of use.

But others have been digging deeper into this issue, and it does appear that the data collection is a lot broader than the reasons that LinkedIn gave. For example LinkedIn is scanning for over 6,000 extensions (most of which have nothing to do with scraping of data from websites), and they do this by scanning the files on the drive for those extensions, as well as collecting other data about the user's machine.

It was not verified though that LinkedIn is actually sharing this data with any other parties. My own website's Matomo stats engine for example does also collect machine data (type of device, browser, pages visited, and city) but the data stays on my platform and I don't identify anyone from it.

It is just worth remembering that there are some companies who do aggressively collect data and some (like Facebook) who openly state they share that with upstream providers and 3rd parties (yes you can assume data brokers). If I ever visit a Facebook page it happens in a private browser via a VPN.

In LinkedIn's case I suppose we do need to remember it is owned by Microsoft, and they have an AI service. Their record around security and privacy has also not been great over time.

See https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/linkedin-secretly-scans-for-6-000-plus-chrome-extensions-collects-data

#technology #privacy #LinkedIn

Yes playing on noStrudel browser client but not on Jumble browser ...

2026-04-10T16:29:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…qqec
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Yes playing on noStrudel browser client but not on Jumble browser (gives open link option but just shows text in browser page)

You Should Be Using Reddit on Your RSS Reader “You may know ...

2026-04-10T15:42:41Z

You Should Be Using Reddit on Your RSS Reader

“You may know that Reddit can be a treasure trove of useful information and opinion, and that RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a clean and straightforward way to keep up with what's happening on the web—but you might not be aware that you can combine both Reddit and RSS in numerous ways.”

So yes no real news that RSS is already baked into Reddit, and that can be a cleaner way of ensuring you don't miss posts for s specific Subreddit, or a keyword search.

But what I did not realise is you can also put some qualifiers on at the end of the URL to sort, limit the number of posts, filter on top posts only, etc. You can even combine two or more feeds into one.

See https://lifehacker.com/tech/rss-reader-on-reddit

#technology #RSS #reddit

The EFF is quitting X “Last year, our 1,500 posts earned ...

2026-04-10T15:33:27Z

The EFF is quitting X

“Last year, our 1,500 posts earned roughly 13 million impressions for the entire year. To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago.”

I don't think many legacy corporations have really been looking deeply into their numbers on X. We've seen in the past that X faked the advert views, so one also has to be careful of accepting X's numbers at face value as well. Many accounts on X today are also bot accounts and actually not real human views at all.

See https://www.theverge.com/tech/909550/eff-electronic-frontier-foundation-leaving-x-twitter

#technology #X #twitter #socialmedia

Yes Blossom shows an image / blob for my media post! ...

2026-04-10T11:45:18Z

Yes Blossom shows an image / blob for my media post!

quoting
nevent1q…u8wn
Testing out noStrudel #nostr client app. Seems to support most NIPs and also can use my self-hosted Blossom server for images and videos. Another thing it can use is the Nostr Relay that can run on my own desktop as my own private relay (I did not know about this before).

So if the image shows then my Blossom server is working I take it ;-)

Turn paper hiking maps into real-time GPS guides with Matchy Maps ...

2026-04-04T18:32:06Z

Turn paper hiking maps into real-time GPS guides with Matchy Maps

“Trails may not be visible on the digital map, but things like roads, rivers, ponds, lakes, and other natural features are. The app allows you to take a photo of a physical map in the real world—whether it’s a paper brochure or a trailhead sign—and precisely line it up with those natural features on the digital map. Then you can see your real-time location displayed on top of the physical map. It’s a great trick.”

The name actually says it all. The app superimposes a photo of a paper map, and allows you to rotate and scale it to fit precisely over the digital map. Paper maps have really great local detail which is often better than many generic global digital maps, so this marries functionality with that. A skilled navigator can certainly find their way around with just a paper map, and of course the paper map does not have a battery that goes flat either. Seeing you already have the paper map, it can still go with as a back-up.

The app is available on Android and iOS for a one-time payment of US$4.50 and there is no AI nor data collection in the app.

See https://www.howtogeek.com/turn-paper-walking-maps-into-interactive-gps-maps-with-this-app

#technology #navigation #maps #hiking

This needs to be read with some concerns raised about this ...

2026-04-03T10:27:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…8z73
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This needs to be read with some concerns raised about this service at https://www.sambent.com/proton-meet-isnt-what-they-told-you/

Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the ...

2026-04-01T19:48:38Z

Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom

So why did Sweden pivot? In an email to Undark, Linda Fälth, a researcher in teacher education at Linnaeus University, wrote that the “decision to reinvest in physical textbooks and reduce the emphasis on digital devices” was prompted by several factors, including questions around whether the digitalization of classrooms had been evidence-based. “There was also a broader cultural reassessment,” Fälth wrote. “Sweden had positioned itself as a frontrunner in digital education, but over time concerns emerged about screen time, distraction, reduced deep reading, and the erosion of foundational skills such as sustained attention and handwriting.”

Yes implementing digital devices across many schools and classrooms also comes at a financial cost, and then they get outdated, lost/stolen, have licensing costs, Internet outages, etc too. Often we have great ideas, but they may not be based on real evidence. I have seen cases where analogue technology is just more reliable and robust than the latest digital technology. I've realised too how vulnerable digital technology is — great while it works, and then we get paralysed when it doesn't.

Considering the cost etc of digital devices, have educational results noticeably improved?

See https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/04/sweden-goes-back-to-basics-swapping-screens-for-books-in-the-classroom

#technology #education

Proton launches new “Meet” privacy-focused conferencing ...

2026-04-01T13:48:01Z

Proton launches new “Meet” privacy-focused conferencing platform

“Meet provides end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) calls to protect the confidentiality of the conversations and does not require a paid plan or even a Proton account to use. It is free for one-hour meetings of up to 50 participants. Proton says Meet was created in response to the increasing need for privacy-first, EU-based alternatives that make it easier to comply with GDPR, or even CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), addressing the complexities of laws such as the US Cloud Act, and overcoming challenges posed by an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment.”

Supposedly no AI training in this video conferencing tool. Good to see adding other people is as easy as sharing a link, so no need to install an app first.

Also, Proton is not retaining records of who met with whom, and there is no sensitive data to be hacked from the servers.

Of course there is also still Jitsi Meet as another alternative which is open source and can be self-hosted.

See https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/proton-launches-new-meet-privacy-focused-conferencing-platform

#technology #privacy #videoconferencing

Dangerzone — an open source app to safely open suspect PDFs, ...

2026-03-31T19:34:39Z

Dangerzone — an open source app to safely open suspect PDFs, office docs, or images

Dangerzone works like this: You give it a document that you don't know if you can trust (for example, an email attachment). Inside a sandbox, Dangerzone converts the document to a PDF (if it isn't already one), and then converts the PDF into raw pixel data: a huge list of RGB colour values for each page. Then, Dangerzone takes this pixel data and converts it back into a PDF.

It has been independently audited and apart from the obvious use by journalists and similar professions, even every day users can be most often targeted by attachments that carry payloads of malware. This is exactly how bad actors bypass firewalls, and secure messengers like Signal.

I would not necessarily put every document I receive through this process as it does at least double or triple the size of the file (converts every page to an image). But from anyone you don't know, this is a useful tool to have ready to use. Everything is processed locally on your machine, and it will install on Linux, Windows, and macOS.

See https://dangerzone.rocks

#technology #security #opensource

Easy way South Africans can find fuel stations with the cheapest ...

2026-03-29T15:42:59Z

Easy way South Africans can find fuel stations with the cheapest diesel

“Unlike petrol prices, retail diesel prices are unregulated in South Africa. Only the wholesale price at which suppliers may sell to stations is fixed by the government.”

I thought both diesel and petrol prices were regulated in SA so this was news to me (I don't drive a diesel car). With the price increases coming, anything to improve competitiveness between suppliers is going to be good for consumers.

The linked article discusses the use of MyTank and Pitstops apps for this purpose. I actually use the Fuelio app already to track all my fill ups, and it also crowdsources the prices.

But either way, all the apps really rely on the users who input the prices, so the most used one in the country is probably going to provide the better value.

See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/smartphones/636728-easy-way-south-africans-can-find-fuel-stations-with-the-cheapest-diesel.html

#technology #southafrica #diesel

US Federal Cyber Experts Thought Microsoft’s Cloud Was Garbage ...

2026-03-19T19:07:31Z

US Federal Cyber Experts Thought Microsoft’s Cloud Was Garbage — They Approved It Anyway

“The government relies, in part, on third-party firms to vet cloud technology, but those firms are hired and paid by the company being assessed. The tech giant’s ‘lack of proper detailed security documentation’ left reviewers with a ‘lack of confidence in assessing the system’s overall security posture,’ according to an internal government report reviewed by ProPublica. Or, as one member of the team put it: ‘The package is a pile of shit.’”

Not only are many countries outside the USA very worried about potential access by the US NSA and others to their sovereign data, but even the US federal government is just as worried about the security of their own data in the Microsoft Cloud. Yet Microsoft sees no slowdown in terms of cloud adoption, probably tanks to wonderful marketing and other economic leverage that is applied worldwide.

One can also now realise why the term Microslop is taking hold so effectively in 2026.

It is all our own faults though as there are truly reasonably good alternatives to Microsoft's cloud. It is just a matter of also separating the glosssy marketing wants versus the real needs for document management. As I pointed out in another post earlier in the week, we do not all have to be on the same brand of document software to exchange documents (just think of different e-mail providers like Proton, GMail, Zoho, Outlook, and many more all talking together).

It's up to us if we want to see change.

See https://gizmodo.com/federal-cyber-experts-thought-microsofts-cloud-was-garbage-they-approved-it-anyway-2000735237

#technology #microslop #security #USA

OpenSpeedTest an Open-Source Self Hostable HTML5 Network ...

2026-03-19T18:25:09Z

OpenSpeedTest an Open-Source Self Hostable HTML5 Network Performance Estimation Tool

“OpenSpeedTest is written in Vanilla JavaScript. No Third-Party frameworks or libraries were used. The unexpected side effect of using Vanilla JavaScript is High Performance. OpenSpeedTest contains only STATIC Files like HTML, CSS & JS, so you don't need to worry about Security Updates or Hidden Exploits that may compromise your secure environments.”

You may want to use something like this if:
* You have employees working from home, and they want to do a basic speed test to the office to check their connection is OK.
* You want to stress test or benchmark your home network from various devices to a server, a media machine, etc.
* Or to test between two client devices across your LAN.
* By doing the test from various locations around the home, you can see how your Wi-Fi speed varies from different places.
* Also test from a private browser window to see if extensions are slowing your browser down.
* Do tests before and after network changes to see what impact it has e.g. when adding a LAGG interface between the server and the router.
* Host it on a public web server for users to check their connection speed.

The server side stores no data so it is just a question of spinning up a docker container, and connecting with any browser to run the test (nothing to install on the client device). My docker container used 0% CPU while not doing a test, and used about 45 MB of RAM. It jumped to 17% CPU during the test.

You can optionally save speed test results to a database, but it points to an external database that you have running somewhere.

See https://github.com/openspeedtest/Speed-Test

#technology #networking #speedtest #opensource #selfhosting

Not a Firefox or Chrome Fork! Kagi's Orion Browser Arrives on ...

2026-03-18T14:12:58Z

Not a Firefox or Chrome Fork! Kagi's Orion Browser Arrives on Linux as a Public Beta

“Orion is a web browser built on WebKit, the same engine that powers Safari, with a strong focus on privacy and customisation. Unlike most browsers you will come across on Linux, Orion is not a Chromium derivative or a Firefox fork. It is a fresh build that has earned a reputation for being fast, lightweight, and flexible, with support for extensions from Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.”

It is not really ready for daily use on Linux yet, but it is worth taking note of this browser and what it does. We hear so many moaning that everything comes back to Chromium and Firefox, so this is the opportunity to use something completely different.

The weakest point of every browser is usually it's 3rd party plugins, so we'll have to see how Orion is going to manage this.

Note though it is not open source software so what goes into it, you can't be too sure about, and it won't be able to be forked in future. It would be the end of the road if it stops getting support (like the Flock browser I used to love decades ago).

See https://itsfoss.com/news/orion-browser-linux-beta-release or https://orionbrowser.com

#technology #browsers

This is really more about having a good searchable history of the ...

2026-03-16T21:21:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…x53l
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This is really more about having a good searchable history of the sites you have visited (including content of pages) without having to bookmark anything. Hister has zero impact really on Internet data as it is getting its info locally from your browser as you browse, not going out to fetch anything.

Hister indexes every web page you visit and lets you search the ...

2026-03-15T10:39:01Z

Hister indexes every web page you visit and lets you search the full text of your browsing history offline

“Have you ever wished your browser history was more than just a collection of URLs? As it is, the standard search history is kind of useless. Sure, you can see the title of the page you visited, maybe a bit of metadata, but not much more than that. For any actual functionality, like searching for a specific page you visited that you can't quite remember the name of, your browser's built-in history search falls flat on its face (like my six-month-old did as I was writing this sentence). That's where Hister comes in. This open-source, self-hosted tool does more than just track your activity; it indexes every site you visit, capturing the contents of the page for easy search and retrieval later.”

I was a bit sceptical on first reading this, especially where browser extensions are involved, but it is an open source project, and there is this privacy statement in their documention: Hister clients only communicate with the designated server, and the server does not “phone home” or share any of your browsing history with anyone else. The source code is publicly accessible, so we can be audited by anyone who wants to check!

What is interesting is that many self-hosted server applications that do this sort of thing, have quite resource intensive browsers running, and are often fooled by anti-bot detection. Hister actually has your browser doing this so no wasted resources, and you have the full power of your main browser at hand.

The server needs to be available, but could also run on your own PC so no NAS etc setup needs to be run. However, the server side can also run in a docker container if you already have that setup. It can on something as light as a Raspberry Pi.

As far as I can see it is only saving the text of pages you visit, and not PDF or HTML archives of the pages, so again this side is extremely lightweight.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/hister-indexes-every-page-visit-search-full-text-browsing-history/ or https://hister.org.

#technology #search #history #browsers #opensource

Ah OK, yes unfortunately since I retired I've packed a lot ...

2026-03-10T20:50:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…wp4x
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Ah OK, yes unfortunately since I retired I've packed a lot onto my plate so my two servers, blocking, YT videos, disaster management volunteer work, etc is just swamping me right now. I'd certainly keep an eye on it and see where I can help maybe on promoting it etc.

Yes possibly, but what is involved?

2026-03-10T16:21:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…gzmv
_________________________

Yes possibly, but what is involved?

More than 800 gamers took an exam to prove they could complete an ...

2026-03-07T12:09:00Z

More than 800 gamers took an exam to prove they could complete an '80s adventure game without peeking at a walkthrough—and only 2 passed

“Designed by developer Woe Industries, the AGAT challenged players to complete an '80s adventure game without using a walkthrough. Players weren't told what adventure game they'd be playing in advance, and they were monitored via webcam and microphone by a legitimate online proctoring software to determine if they were looking up hints on a second window, using their phones to cheat, or getting help from someone off-screen.”

I remember playing Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, etc back in those days, probably then on my Commodore C64 or Amiga. These were more difficult than Doom as you did have to think quite a bit. These games seemed advanced back then as prior to these it was text adventure games without any graphics. Also, no Google Search so you sat for hours being stuck somewhere in the game until you got past the block.

The linked article also has a link to a Twitch stream of the game during the test. Needless to say I already thought I knew where the key was, and see I was right.

Back then it was not about the fancy graphics, it was about the storyline, the puzzles, etc.

See https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/more-than-800-gamers-took-an-exam-to-prove-they-could-complete-an-80s-adventure-game-without-peeking-at-a-walkthrough-and-only-2-passed

#technology #gaming #retro

Yes it's been around a long time and has a pretty good track ...

2026-02-14T13:09:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…rnu5
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Yes it's been around a long time and has a pretty good track record with self-hosting too.

Yes that is a good idea - I should see if I can get it to work. ...

2026-02-14T13:08:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…e98l
_________________________

Yes that is a good idea - I should see if I can get it to work. Have a good 50 containers some with ports on isolated networks, and some on host. That is where it gets messy when same ports are across different networks. Good practice is to true not expose external ports at all and only use container names with internal port number. That does keep things a bit simpler too, but there will always be external ports on the front facing stuff.

This Docker Compose visual builder is the tool I wish I had as a ...

2026-02-11T21:05:45Z

This Docker Compose visual builder is the tool I wish I had as a beginner

“If you’ve ever attempted to run too many containers on the same machine, you may have encountered failed deployments because multiple services tried accessing the same port. Fortunately, DCM sidesteps that issue by checking for port conflicts in your multi-container Compose files. Going back to our network stack example, Nginx and Pi-hole both use ports 80 and 443 on the host. If you try to deploy these services with the same Compose files, DCM detects the port conflicts and assigns different numbers to the second container.”

With over 40 to 50 containers running on one of my servers I constantly run into that ports clashing issue (when ports are exposed to the host machine). This tool does look quite interesting as well as how it handles volume mappings.

It also makes me realise how Portainer really needs to take a few steps forward with regard to better stack editing.

I'm going to be looking a bit deeper into this app. It looks like it will work in tandem with Portainer too. Basically DCM will help you create a clean and functional docker-compose file to paste into Portainer.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/this-docker-compose-visual-builder-is-the-tool-i-wish-i-had-as-a-beginner or the project site at https://github.com/ajnart/dcm

#technology #docker #selfhosting

Matrix secure chat is quietly becoming the chat layer for ...

2026-02-10T09:14:03Z

Matrix secure chat is quietly becoming the chat layer for governments chasing digital sovereignty

"Matrix is currently talking to circa 35 countries about FOSS communications infrastructure. For instance, Hodgson told us the United Nations is on board: it's using Matrix as the basis of its own in-house air-gapped communications tool, which helps it to remain independent of any country or hosting provider. It's also being adopted at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which as The Register reported in October 2025 is busily ditching Microsoft Office. After the Trump administration imposed sanctions on ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, he reported losing access to his email and banking, disrupting the court's work.”

Yes any government can host their own Matrix instance and have full control over it. Matrix is actually implemented inside of other messaging tools, so many are using it without even knowing about it.

See https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/09/matrix_element_secure_chat

#technology #privacy #digitalsovereignty #chat #opensource

Meet Roomy: An Open-Source Discord Alternative for the ...

2026-01-27T18:28:39Z

Meet Roomy: An Open-Source Discord Alternative for the Decentralised Web

“Roomy is an open-source Discord alternative built on the AT Protocol (ATProto), the same protocol that powers Bluesky, with ActivityPub (the protocol behind Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pleroma, and others) planned for the near future. Currently in alpha, it sits somewhere between Matrix and Discord in terms of its practical position in the broader chat ecosystem.”

It is built on open protocols (no lock-in) and right now you can sign into the web interface using an existing Bluesky login, to be followed soon by any ActivityPub based ID (Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pleroma, etc). Interestingly, it will be bridging many diverse and decentralised networks.

From what I understand of it, posts that each person makes to this service, physically go to their own registered servers (decentralised) with Roomy providing the merged view.

It seems there are quite a few features still to be implemented such as Fediverse login, moderation regarding removing of users from a room, encryption, self-hosting of Roomy, desktop/mobile apps, and more.

Right now Bluesky users can use their login to test it out.

See https://itsfoss.com/roomy-discord-alternative and Roomy at https://a.roomy.space

#technology #opensource #socialnetworks #decentralised

Thanks yes I think the point the article was making was, there ...

2026-01-23T13:23:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…lhzp
_________________________

Thanks yes I think the point the article was making was, there were no further follow-up audits after the last 2024 audits to verify the fixes and how the Electron vulnerabilities were dealt with. The new owners certainly need to have that done.

Instead of an index maybe read the article as they mention two ...

2026-01-17T14:44:45Z

In reply to nevent1q…570e
_________________________

Instead of an index maybe read the article as they mention two specific risks, both potential yes, but they need to be kept in mind versus the others on the list:
1. Who they and what the new owners are.
2. Since the issues from the first independent audit were addressed, there has not yet been another independent audit to verify security.

Security risks constantly are in ebb and flow situations. But they do point out there is no actual risks shown yet - that is why an up-to-date independent audit should have been done.

Threema Encrypted Messenger Service Sold to Private Equity Again ...

2026-01-16T13:27:37Z

Threema Encrypted Messenger Service Sold to Private Equity Again

“Your encrypted messages sit on infrastructure controlled by a German private equity firm whose previous acquisitions include Cloud7 premium dog beds and The Tofoo Company.”

Right now there is no immediate problem or risk identified, but the situation is that a company which now owns Threema has no real knowledge or focus on how it works, and they could change the terms and conditions that protect privacy, in the future.

So this is just something to note for now. The article does touch on some of Threema's previous security audit issues, and notes that no new independent audits have verified the fixes.

If you are concerned, then Signal, Session, SimpleX, and a few others are good alternatives. I don't find many friends using Threema or Session, but Signal and SimpleX are pretty busy for me.

See https://www.sambent.com/threema-sold-to-private-equity-again

#technology #privacy #messengers

DarkMX is a decentralised comms app that utilises Tor and I2P to ...

2026-01-12T18:48:34Z

DarkMX is a decentralised comms app that utilises Tor and I2P to have an anonymous, reliable, and censorship-resistant presence on the internet

* You can chat
* You can share files
* You can search other people's files
* You can keep a contact list and send private messages to your friends
* You can create your own custom .onion site, available to anyone with a Tor Browser

Like many services which use Tor or I2P network, users tend to remain anonymous, and pretty well much everything goes, so this is not a child-friendly network. The focus on this particular network though is more around all sorts of file sharing, with zero moderation, so you want to be careful about what you actually download.

But despite that, the app works with a built-in Tor client. If you want to use the I2P network, like I do, then you will need to install your own I2P or i2pd client app to run your I2P router node. I2P can be more private and resilient than even the Tor network. Just note that the app needs to connect to your I2P router for a good 30 minutes to discover peers and get communication going. Thereafter, it will be a lot quicker. The screenshot shows also where you can find the diagnostics for both networks. If I2P is accessible, the Tor connection is paused.

The app also plays a role as a server of files to any Tor browser. So if you want to share files, music, or whatever (legally of course) then you can turn on Web Access, and separate you files into different groups if you wish to keep some separate, and then copy the link to share.

Have a look at:
From I2P network http://mv3qjsjk4cw3oywhsgkjqumn2cdlom6y5z7cuq6f6g4vhlhrynga.b32.i2p/DarkMX/site/index.txt
From any Tor browser http://svdiwvzqmpozcicznynjxc3fcv3a4znv7c7nc6ycnrtsf677652gbzid.onion/DarkMX/site/index.txt
Or try HTM for a Tor browser http://svdiwvzqmpozcicznynjxc3fcv3a4znv7c7nc6ycnrtsf677652gbzid.onion/DarkMX/site/index.html

You should see a web page, but the DarkMX application needs to be running on my side otherwise nothing will be visible, as there is no 24/7 server service. It is PC to PC.
But it is not just files and web pages. A Channel can also be used for just chatting or discussion topics as well.

It has apps for Android, Windows, and Linux.

You will note that hidden services are sometimes mentioned. This is because the Tor as well as I2P networks are not indexed by Google and other clearnet (normal HTML TCP based web services).

See https://darkmx.app

#technology #decentralised #privacy #Tor #I2P

SSD thumb drives could be better than cheap USB flash drives ...

2026-01-11T12:55:07Z

SSD thumb drives could be better than cheap USB flash drives

“Instead of getting a cheap but very sluggish flash drive, consider buying a USB SSD that looks like a regular thumb drive but is way faster and only slightly more expensive.”

I haven't bought a cheap flash drive for quite a while, so did not really realise these SSD thumb drives were available. But they look worthwhile considering especially if the data volumes are a bit more. They are certainly a lot more compact and mobile than carrying around whole external SSD drives.

See https://www.howtogeek.com/dont-buy-a-plain-old-usb-flash-drive-but-this-instead

#technology #storage

I replaced Trello, Toggl, and TickTick with free, open-source ...

2026-01-06T17:58:20Z

I replaced Trello, Toggl, and TickTick with free, open-source Super Productivity

Well I have not done so myself, as I still see a shortcoming around not being able to set custom repeats based on a first Wednesday of every month, or the last weekday of the month. It does though have repeats based on fixed schedules as well as completion date, which is important if you want to repeat something after you finished a task e.g. cleaning my weather station 3 months after I did it last.

But apart from that it has a very nice modern look to it, and is pretty powerful in many other aspects. It has a few powerful productivity views such as Eisenhower Matrix and Kanban, procrastination buster, AI productivity prompts, etc (some are plugins). It also has a great review at the end of the day, with a lot of stats and scoring.

I like the tag and project views so you can see different groupings of your tasks. It has quite a focus on timers, taking breaks, etc too.
Migrating from a different todo planner is not so easy so as there is no importer from say TickTick at all. It seems there is no global standard for importing/exporting todos across apps. Someone has created a bridging app that may help with this, but for me to fully migrate my 149 unique tasks to this, could be pretty painful as mine have lots of custom repeats, sub-tasks, etc in.

It is free with no paid cloud sync service. It will sync via Dropbox, Google Drive, WebDAV, or local file sync (like Synthing). But it is syncing a file, so if two clients edit offline, only the last one will win on re-connection. This is a bit like I had wit Obsidian Notes when using Syncthing. So even if you self-host it in Docker, that is just a web client that must still sync to Dropbox or wherever (unlike say Joplin Notes which is a proper centralised sync server).

See https://www.howtogeek.com/i-replaced-trello-toggl-and-ticktick-with-one-free-open-source-foss-app

#technology #productivity #todo

Stop Manually Checking GitHub Releases — These Tools ...

2025-12-23T17:07:06Z

Stop Manually Checking GitHub Releases — These Tools Automatically Install & Update Apps on Linux

“Package managers are essential tools on Linux systems. They help you install, update, and remove software packages with simple commands. Most distributions come with their own package managers, like apt, dnf, or pacman. However, many modern tools are distributed as pre-compiled binaries via GitHub releases. Developers using languages like Go, Rust, and Deno often release their software this way. New projects that are not included in the official distro repository yet have to opt for this method. This creates a gap between traditional package managers and these GitHub-hosted releases.”

This is probably going to be of more interest to those using Debian and Fedora based package managers, as these are the most popular packages, which are typically generated directly on code hosting sites.

But some interesting options to consider between deb-get, Autonomix, Eget, Install Release, bin, stew, and AFX.

See https://itsfoss.com/github-binaries-tools

#technology #Linux #opensource

Windows fatigue continues to push thousands of gamers to switch ...

2025-12-23T13:33:38Z

Windows fatigue continues to push thousands of gamers to switch to Bazzite Linux distro

“Bazzite, a Linux distro that has a lot in common with Valve's SteamOS, is designed specifically with gaming in mind, offering a console-like experience that ditches the majority of Windows 11's most annoying features. In recent usage statistics posted to X, Bazzite shared weekly growth of roughly 1.25x over the past 30 days. To put the number in perspective, this means that Bazzite pulls in roughly 50,000 weekly users.”

There are tons of different Linux distros, but they can actually all do the same things (same Linux kernel underneath). The presentation, included packages, and the package manager type, are what really separates them a bit. So you can really pick any distro you want, and make it work. I use Manjaro KDE, and it is playing all the games I want (including Windows-only games), it does all my browsing, document creation and editing, video creation and editing, and lots more.

What is different about Bazzite, is that it has specialised around making gaming work well from the get-go, and it has a focus on newcomers to Linus as well. Interestingly, it also has a rollback function for any system updates that may cause problems.
Best of all, it's fast, has no adverts, no TPM v2 requirements, and no AI Copilot.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/windows-fatigue-pushes-thousands-of-gamers-to-switch-to-bazzite or their website at https://bazzite.gg

#technology #Linux #Windows11 #gaming

Portmaster is an open source application firewall built to ...

2025-12-20T11:30:43Z

Portmaster is an open source application firewall built to monitor and control network activity on Windows and Linux

“Every packet is visible to the service, and any packet can be stopped before it leaves the system. The software matches traffic to the app that created it by using eBPF and the proc filesystem on Linux or a kernel driver and the IP Helper API on Windows. This approach lets users see each connection while still setting rules per application. It also helps the service sort out unusual cases. Portmaster can recognize Snap packages, AppImage apps and scripts on Linux as well as Windows Store apps and system services that run under svchost.exe.”

I love that it shows per application how many, and what countries, connections are being made to the Internet. It also intercepts DNS queries that may have bypassed your user settings.

The linked article does link directly to the GitHub project, where you can get the files to install it.

See https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2025/12/03/portmaster-open-source-application-firewall

#technology #opensource #security

Decentralized YouTube Alternative PeerTube Adds Creator Mode ...

2025-12-19T20:00:20Z

Decentralized YouTube Alternative PeerTube Adds Creator Mode

“PeerTube is a free and open source video hosting platform that serves as an alternative to YouTube. Unlike centralized platforms, it allows anyone to create their own video hosting instance while connecting with others through federation. It is developed by Framasoft, a French non-profit organization focused on digital freedom. Before you ask, the organization keeps itself afloat on donations rather than advertising or scraping people's data. The project recently hit two milestones: PeerTube v8 was released, bringing collaborative features and design improvements. Just a week later, the mobile app received its long-awaited Creator Mode.”

PeerTube has steadily been improving this year and playback has also been getting much better. A year or so back, it was still plagued sometimes with buffering.

It works much the same way as Mastodon and other Fediverse networks do so you can host your own PeerTube instance if you want to. There are some biggish YouTube creators there too, but it does not pay money like YouTube does as there are no adverts shoved into everything.

I also post my videos there at gadgeteerza@video.hardlimit.com. But yes, my follower count there is way lower than on YouTube, because I suppose so many love the YT ads. ;-)

See https://itsfoss.com/news/peertube-8-release

#technology #peertube #opensource

Easier Than Nano! Fresh is a Fresh New Rust-based Terminal Editor ...

2025-12-17T15:13:21Z

Easier Than Nano! Fresh is a Fresh New Rust-based Terminal Editor for Linux

“Fresh is a new Rust-based terminal text editor that takes a different approach. It uses standard keybindings like Ctrl+S for saving, Ctrl+F for searching, and Ctrl+Z for undoing. It works like a GUI editor but runs in your terminal.”

Newer versions of Nano do, I think, default to similar easy to remember common keybindings. If not, it certainly can be set to use them, but every now, and again I still hit Nano with the old keybindings on some devices I work on. That said, I don't think Nano has any built-in file explorer, though.

Fresh certainly looks well worth trying out. It installs on macOS, Linux and Windows (binaries on the GitHub site).

See https://itsfoss.com/fresh-terminal-text-editor

#technology #opensource #texteditors

Valve Has the Secret to Playing Your Games Everywhere, and It’s ...

2025-12-16T16:48:09Z

Valve Has the Secret to Playing Your Games Everywhere, and It’s Not Streaming

“Last month, Valve showed off the Steam Machine, a console-like box with PC guts, along with a Steam Frame VR headset. The secret sauce of the headset is down to its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 CPU, a mobile-focused chip based on ARM microarchitecture. Valve claims the Frame will be able to play your Steam games, both over local streaming and through an open-source x86 emulator called Fex. When you put on a Steam Frame, it will be running SteamOS, same as the Steam Machine. It’s basically a Steam Deck for your face, but it’s much more distinct than that because of the underlying hardware.”

So, this could be a bit like what the Proton compatibility layer has done for Windows games on Linux (and that has been huge, with more than 24,300 games rated as at least playable with Proton).

See https://gizmodo.com/valve-has-the-secret-to-playing-your-games-everywhere-and-its-not-streaming-2000699887

#technology #gaming #opensource

Been waiting for this! Proton now has a Google Sheets clone with ...

2025-12-04T12:07:11Z

Been waiting for this! Proton now has a Google Sheets clone with end-to-end encryption

Spreadsheets are finally rolling out over the next few days for Proton users. I actually use spreadsheets more often than documents, for product comparisons or purchase decisions. So this is something that has been holding me back a bit from using Proton Drive more fully.

Yes, the feature set is going to be rather minimal right now compared to more mature products, and it also is not (yet) exporting to ODF format.

"Proton Sheets is protected by end-to-end encryption, ensuring that no one else, not even Proton, can access your spreadsheet and the information it contains. Whether you’re tracking your home budget or managing a multi-team project, Sheets can help you get the job done. Use built-in formulas to perform analysis, turn raw data into easily understood charts, and collaborate with remote teams knowing your information is safe."

See https://www.howtogeek.com/proton-now-has-a-google-sheets-clone

#technology #privacy #spreadsheets

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are better to use for major social ...

2025-11-28T20:18:17Z

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are better to use for major social network services than their mobile apps

Yes, you do lose a few things like instant notifications and some performance, but the benefits are no app in the background that tracks your location the whole time, sometimes storing masses of data on your phone, and also sometimes chewing data in the background too.

But if you are trying to break free from doomscrolling, then using a PWA instead may be just what you needed. PWA uses your browser but saves the icon on the homescreen, so it starts up pretty well much like a mobile app, and all the usual browser buttons and other menus are hidden, so it is quite a clean experience.

Importantly, a PWA is sandboxed by your browser, so now that social network service can't see your photos, texts, or other apps unless you give it explicit permission.

See https://www.androidpolice.com/delete-native-apps-hello-web

#technology #privacy #socialnetworks

Why I Ditched My Smartwatch for a Retro-Styled Casio Watch This ...

2025-11-26T11:01:02Z

Why I Ditched My Smartwatch for a Retro-Styled Casio Watch

This video takes you through my decision-making process and reasons for ditching my Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 (and other smartwatches) for a modern, retro-styled Casio ABL-100WE watch.

The video starts with the straw that broke the camel's back, and concludes with two other possibilities I'll weigh up early in 2026.

Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BtlVV-lfT0

#technology #smartwatches #retro #Casio #gadget

Viseron is a self-hosted camera monitoring app and the perfect ...

2025-11-16T14:17:53Z

Viseron is a self-hosted camera monitoring app and the perfect Frigate alternative

“If you've ever wanted to keep an eye on your surroundings without sending data to third-party servers, you've probably heard of Frigate. The open-source is a popular choice as an NVR that runs locally and taps into the power of AI to detect people, cars, and more. But Frigate isn't the only game in town. There's another contender worth looking at. It's called Viseron, and it's a self-hosted camera monitoring platform that offers a polished interface, widespread hardware support, and, most importantly, it works on your local network. Viseron is designed from the ground up to be simple, flexible, and private. There are no subscriptions to worry about, no hidden restrictions, and, of course, no cloud dependencies to worry about.”

Having any CCTV cameras running 24/7 in or around your home has to be a concern for privacy. We have seen way too may vulnerabilities, with even a website dedicated to showing you everyone's exposed cameras, which included children's nursery cams. My own cameras are restricted to a VLAN that has no Internet access (ingoing or outgoing).

So it is good to see more and more self-hosted alternatives becoming available for everyone. This one even has AI-powered object detection, which my much older Reolink system does not have.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/self-hosted-camera-monitoring-app-perfect-frigate-alternative

#technology #privacy #opensource #CCTV

If one only wanted a cheap device, yes you are quite correct. I ...

2025-11-13T20:36:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…20c8
_________________________

If one only wanted a cheap device, yes you are quite correct. I think though they were aiming at those who want the newer Wi-Fi standards every year or two as they come out (with the benefits of greater throughput, lower energy, better range, etc) and just being able to swap a module out instead of a device. Some people replace their mobile phones every two years, only to find they have old Wi-Fi routers which they don't replace as often (my previous Wi-Fi router was probably in use a good 8+ years).

I have a Protectli firewall device myself but it did not have a ...

2025-11-09T07:21:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…9j64
_________________________

I have a Protectli firewall device myself but it did not have a built-in Wi-Fi module, I had to buy an additional Wi-Fi access point to connect to it. Supposedly the Wi-Fi module that Protectli offers is firstly not a high-end one, and secondly is not recommended for heavy-duty Wi-Fi use as I understand it.

This OpenWrt-Based Router Has Swappable Wi-Fi Modules for Future ...

2025-11-08T19:59:14Z

This OpenWrt-Based Router Has Swappable Wi-Fi Modules for Future Upgrades

“Their Turris router project started as an internal research effort focused on understanding network threats that has now evolved into offering commercial products with rock-solid security and convenient features. Now, they have launched the Turris Omnia NG, the next generation of their security-focused router line. Like its predecessors, the router is manufactured in the Czech Republic.”

Yes, part of the news is the swappable Wi-Fi hardware modules, but also very interesting is that the router comes with an open source operating system based on OpenWrt. I really like that!

That means that you can do a lot more with it than just being a basic, cripple proprietary router. It can work as a NAS, VPN gateway, run LXC containers or even full Linux distributions like Ubuntu or Debian on virtual machines, or a self-hosted cloud server running Nextcloud.

Try doing that on a commercial Asus or T-Link router!

See https://itsfoss.com/news/turris-omnia-ng

#technology #opensource #routers #openwrt

No surprise: Research shows you cannot believe everything on ...

2025-10-23T19:22:15Z

No surprise: Research shows you cannot believe everything on social media

“An analysis of how tools to make non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes spread online, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, shows X and search engines surface these sites easily.”

Everyone seems to be noticing social media has just becoming worse and worse all around. If it was not trolling, it was scams and worse, it was harassment, incitements to violence, and often there seems to be a decided tendency towards trying to rile users up through the use of various triggers (politics, war, religion, discrimination, etc are all great triggers that rarely fail).

I used to blame this on just masses of people getting online, and it taking all sorts, including the bad sorts. But in fact, a lot today seems to be driven by bots and even AI.

What the study also seems to show (it does not state directly) is those networks and search engines, which use algorithms to lift out viral posts, are the very worst by a long shot. This makes sense as algorithms will exponentially raise visibility of some posts versus networks that just show who you are following with posts sorted chronologically.

The Enshitification of social networks and search engines (including manipulated AI) is truly here.

So, it is good to remember that a LOT of what you read may well be fake and just calculated to rule you up, and also that there are quieter networks where this sort of thing does not happen as much. I'm also hearing more of my friends saying they just don't read newspapers or look at social media anymore. Many have decided to just skip it all. So don't be fooled either by all those likes and reshare numbers that you see. Don't feel guilty either to just block people — no don't waste your time trying to report them as I can tell you from experience reporting posts on both Facebook and X, NEVER resulted in any positive action (“the post did not contravene our guidelines”, is the standard reply, if you get one).

The most effective way to solve such a problem, if it becomes too much for you, is to just delete your account and move to another network or search engine. There are plenty of options out there.

See https://www.404media.co/deepfake-tools-spread-on-social-media-research

#technology #socialnetworks #enshitification #deepfakes

Free Software Foundation announced its Librephone project to ...

2025-10-15T19:18:45Z

Free Software Foundation announced its Librephone project to bring mobile phone freedom to users

“Librephone is a new initiative by the FSF with the goal of bringing full freedom to the mobile computing environment. The vast majority of software users around the world use a mobile phone as their primary computing device. After forty years of advocacy for computing freedom, the FSF will now work to bring the right to study, change, share, and modify the programs users depend on in their daily lives to mobile phones.”

There are of course a few such phone freedom projects on Android, but most have a few shortcomings still, and one of the shortcomings has often been that binary blobs are still included for various firmware drivers.

Such devices of course eliminate all the corporate spyware and tracking that Google, Apple, etc tend to pack into their phones. Bearing in mind of course if you install the Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google Search, etc apps into this phone, you are just wide open again.

An issue for me though, on my last LineageOS phone, was my bank was detecting the phone was not locked down even though I had Magisk modules to mask the rooting. So we are also seeing in some cases that certain security apps may not run properly either. You just have to venture carefully into changes of phone OS and be sure what you need to use, will in fact work fine.

But more options are always good to see.

See https://www.fsf.org/news/librephone-project

#technology #privacy #tracking #opensource #android

Tecmint's 6 Best Linux Distros for Gaming and Playing Windows ...

2025-09-26T20:28:09Z

Tecmint's 6 Best Linux Distros for Gaming and Playing Windows Games

“The good news is that gaming on Linux has improved dramatically in recent years. Besides the many native Linux titles already available, you can also play a huge selection of Windows-only games using compatibility tools like Proton (built into Steam) and Wine. In fact, nearly 80% of the most popular Windows games now run on Linux with little to no extra effort.”

For myself, I've been using Manjaro Linux the last few years, and I am playing all the games I've needed to so far on Linux. My list includes:
* Snowrunner
* War Thunder multiplayer
* Ships at Sea
* Assetto Corsa EVO
* Assetto Corsa Competizione
* BeamNG Drive
* Train Fever
* Euro Truck Sim in multiplayer
* American Truck Sim
* FORZA Horizon 4
* Hell Let Loose
* Red Dead Redemption II
* Dirt Rally 2.0
* rFactor 2
* Train Sim World 5

All in all, it is 77 games, so I have more than enough to keep me playing. I've not got Microsoft Flight Sim 2024 so cannot comment on that one, but the only one that I think did not play for me on Linux was World of Subways 3.

See https://www.tecmint.com/linux-distros-for-playing-windows-games

#technology #linux #gaming

https://github.com/meshtastic

2025-09-17T20:22:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…swlh
_________________________

https://github.com/meshtastic

The Founders were immigrants themselves. I don't get this US ...

2025-09-10T21:26:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…k0e2
_________________________

The Founders were immigrants themselves. I don't get this US hang up about "immigrants" as it is probably the country most constituted out of immigrants whether they go back one or more generations back. It has long been a melting pot of different cultures, religions, etc. It's actually what gives the US the strength they have - a strength in diversity. Some immigrants were slaves, and others came from all the other continents.

In my own country, my family immigrated here back in the mid-1600's, but even that has become a debate about whether this should be my home country because my family originated from Europe, and not Africa. So the question really is when is one an immigrant, and when not?

And if so, how does anyone "go back" to a country they were never born in? They are not recognised as from that country, either. It's pretty complex.

New Movie “Python: The Documentary” Traces the Language’s ...

2025-09-10T20:04:20Z

New Movie “Python: The Documentary” Traces the Language’s Story

“Some things in the open-source ecosystem are absolutely foundational—they’ve shaped it into what we know today. One of the biggest is the Python programming language. And now, it’s giving its global community something a little different—and pretty exciting. A movie!”

This is one of the most popular programming languages in the world, and known for its quirky sense of humour. The documentary should be entertaining to watch.

There is a link to the movie in the linked article below.

See https://linuxiac.com/new-movie-python-the-documentary-traces-the-languages-story

#technology #Python #programming

Yep default should always be client, unless there is a special ...

2025-09-09T11:35:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…sz4a
_________________________

Yep default should always be client, unless there is a special purpose as mentioned for selected high sites

Pessimists Archive educates people on and archives the history of ...

2025-09-09T09:58:05Z

Pessimists Archive educates people on and archives the history of technophobia and moral panics

Pessimists Archive is a project to jog our collective memories about the hysteria, technophobia and moral panic that often greets new technologies, ideas and trends. Explore the timeline of technologies at the footer of their site.

“We believe the best antidote to fear of the new is looking back at fear of the old. Only by looking back at fears of old things when they were new, can we have rational constructive debates about emerging technologies today that avoids the pitfalls of moral panic and incumbent protectionism.”

It's quite true, I suppose that having a bigger picture context of things, does help put them in perspective. I typically think back to the early 1900s about the panic spread about motor vehicles and having to have a person walking in front of the car with a flag to warn pedestrians. Similarly, with the early steam locomotives that were rumoured to stop cows producing milk, and also travelling too fast so that humans on them would not be able to breathe properly.

So much FUD that we have just forgotten about (for good reason). And of course we must not forget that many legacy industries spread all sorts of propaganda and ideas specifically to discount some new advances, because it is in their interests financially to prevent people moving away from using their product or service.

The site really deals mainly with the long forgotten technophobia issues, and not with some of the more current ones. It is always best to look back historically, as there is less emotion and personal involvement with those times. They do interestingly enough tie some technophobia together that relates to similar fears, just which re-appear later with newer technology.

See https://pessimistsarchive.org

#technology #conspiracytheories #FUD

Yes I wonder, but in today's world it seems popularist to be ...

2025-09-08T18:33:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…ycuu
_________________________

Yes I wonder, but in today's world it seems popularist to be dissatisfied with everything ;-)

Switzerland releases its own AI model trained on public data and ...

2025-09-04T20:14:35Z

Switzerland releases its own AI model trained on public data and its open source
“Switzerland launched an open-source model called Apertus on Monday as an alternative to proprietary models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, reports SWI as spotted by Engadget. The model’s source code, training data, model weights, and detailed development process are available on the AI model platform HuggingFace.”
Of course, being Switzerland, this is an attempt to adhere to the European Union’s copyright laws and voluntary AI code of practice, which may set it apart from some other AI models. Some may argue then it is won't be as good as some other AI models, but I suppose the analogy may be a thief could be richer than most workers who earn their honest dime through their own hard work.

See https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/770646/switzerland-ai-model-llm-open-apertus

#technology #privacy #AI #opensource

But still way way better than what WhatsApp does!

2025-08-21T08:40:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…gnqg
_________________________

But still way way better than what WhatsApp does!

@nprofile…0cce too true, as mostly one does never need to ...

2025-08-21T08:37:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…zrjl
_________________________

TheDarrenator (nprofile…0cce) too true, as mostly one does never need to really go deep under the hood. Yep I remember back in the mid-2000's there were some irritations which we have all forgotten about now ;-)

Not really though - if you follow my link in the post to my video ...

2025-08-21T08:36:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…ps2m
_________________________

Not really though - if you follow my link in the post to my video I do give the link directly to the widgets page for that site. The landing page just does not really say very much as a page.

[URGENT] DEF CON Researcher Exposes How Password Managers Betray ...

2025-08-21T08:31:51Z

[URGENT] DEF CON Researcher Exposes How Password Managers Betray Your Trust

"Czech security researcher Marek Tóth demonstrated at DEF CON 33 how a single click on any malicious website can steal passwords, credit cards, and 2FA codes from 40 million users of major password managers, with vendors like 1Password and LastPass refusing to fix the vulnerabilities."

What this brings home yet once again is, in regard to security, the easier something is to use is usually not better for security. In this case, much of the issue is around the autofilling of passwords on page loading (because that is easier). So, to some extent, this is all helped along by settings we choose to set.

Again for subdomains vs exact domain, it is easier to match to just the base domain…

Many password managers will be addressing these issues in the coming week or two, but it is worth rethinking your "ease of use" settings on your password manager so long.

See https://www.sambent.com/urgent-def-con-researcher-exposes-how-password-managers-betray-your-trust

#technology #security #vulnerabilities

You can once again buy an official Commodore C64 "Basically, ...

2025-08-18T19:10:08Z

You can once again buy an official Commodore C64

"Basically, there is a whole gamut of ways to get some part of the C64 experience, ranging from emulator-only to a full hardware DIY or pre-assembled format. Each of which come with their own price tag, starting at $0 for running VICE on your existing system. With so much choice we can only hope that the renewed Commodore company will become something more than Yet Another C64 Experience."

The video in the linked article gives a good run down of the various Commodore C64 options up to now, before ending with the details and cost of the revived "official" C64. Apart from holding the world record for the most microcomputer sales of all time. I had one as well, after my ZX81, and it was a major breakthrough with colour graphics, sound, etc. I have very happy memories from that C64, although I must say I did enjoy my Amiga 500 a lot more as the game quality was just that much better, and it had a lot of games. I still play some of those Amiga games today such as Ports of Call every now and again on my Linux PC using an emulator.

So the question is, would there still be interest in 2025 for the C64? Well it certainly has been modernised a bit with regard to HDMI and peripheral support, and apparently many thousands of the unofficial C64s are still being sold.

See https://hackaday.com/2025/08/17/commodore-is-back-selling-new-c64s-but-should-you-buy-them

#technology #Commodore #retrocomputing

Homepage - An Open Source Self-Hosted Dashboard Homepage is a ...

2025-08-17T19:50:42Z

Homepage - An Open Source Self-Hosted Dashboard

Homepage is a modern, fully static, fast, secure fully proxied, highly customizable application dashboard with integrations for over 100 services and translations into multiple languages. Easily configured via YAML files or through docker label discovery. With features like quick search, bookmarks, weather support, a wide range of integrations and widgets, an elegant and modern design, and a focus on performance, Homepage is your ideal start to the day and a handy companion throughout it.

My video explains why I moved from Heimdall to Homepage. It also shows what various service and information widgets are available, what my dashboard looks like, what the various parts do, and how the configuration files work. My docker compose file is also unpacked.

Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvB0Jcn3e3g

#technology #selfhosted #opensource #dashboard

Various desktop Linux tips for newbies I'm also seeing more ...

2025-08-17T09:09:44Z

Various desktop Linux tips for newbies

I'm also seeing more and more new Linux users popping up. They're noticeable for often saying "why did they not do this earlier". The point is, today's Linux is very different from 20+ years ago. It generally just installs and works, often looking very similar to what users experienced before (meaning basically everything can be done in the graphical menus and windows).

Linux gets a bit more interesting if you venture into using the AUR or Git versions of apps (you have to enable this, as these are more bleeding edge). This is where dependencies may break, and you need a bit of terminal skill often to fix things, but the good news is, you're not losing any data.

Over the years I've also opted to having all my user data (the stuff under /home) in its own partition so that is it fully separate from the main OS. The reason was in the early years I used to format the drive and do clean installs, or was distro hopping. Nowadays, I just use Manjaro KDE, and it just keeps updating all then time - have not reinstalled for many years now (and no nagging to activate it or end of life coming).

You may wonder what happens if a distro is no longer supported? Well firstly it keeps working, and it may well still pull some patches and updates. But usually you will be able to migrate to using some other distro, and your user data all stays intact. But this is also a good reason for picking one of the many mainstream distros, that should be around still for a very long time (measuring that long time in terms of Windows release cycles).

No-one has to move to Linux, but for those curious enough to want to find out more, the usual approach is to start with a liveboot version and just run it from a USB stick or external drive to test it out a bit. The next step is typically to install it side-by-side with Windows, but I'd really recommend a separate hard drive, as Windows does some odd things to the boot partition sometimes. Linux can access the user data on a Windows drive, but I'd be careful with that, as Windows can lock the drive if it uses hibernation mode. The point is, lots of things are possible for Linux.

One will find of course that many companies only bring out their software for Windows and macOS. And example is Stream Deck. But I discovered two excellent 3rd party apps that work even better under Linux with Stream Deck. Da Vinci Resolve for example produces world-class video editing software that runs on Linux natively, but there is also Kdenlive that will work just as well for most users. So always do a bit of research before buying software or hardware to choose wisely.

Personally, for me, it's more about the freedom to what I want with it.

See https://akselmo.dev/posts/how-to-linux-2025

#technology #Linux #opensource

Using Signal groups for activism "Things are heating up. ...

2025-08-08T17:28:59Z

Using Signal groups for activism

"Things are heating up. Millions of people are taking to the streets against Trump's rising authoritarianism. Communities around the US are organizing to defend against ICE raids, to protest Israeli genocide, for mutual aid, and for other forms of fighting fascism. Signal can help people safely organize in all of these contexts. Signal groups, in particular, are more powerful than you might be aware of, even if you already use them all the time. In the linked post you'll see how."

Of course, activism is also about a much wider range of topics than the above, and many have been running for decades. Apart from activism in 1st Word Countries, there is also activism in many 3rd World Countries, which in many cases are really life and death situations if users are caught.

Signal is not THE most private network around. There are many others like Threema (not public link group invites though) and SimpleX (really open group invites with custom names per group) that enable far more anonymity. In other words, they don't require any form of registration or a mobile number to work, meaning there is even less to link back to any individual user.

But this is why I wanted to make this post. It often comes back to many people wanting to find their friends on their chat app. Yes, finding friends makes communicating easier, but that in itself does leak metadata. The reason I only have two or three contacts on Threema and SimpleX are that it is way more difficult to build out your network. This is where Signal does strike an excellent middle path - it is simpler to use and find friends, whilst also going as far as it can to guard your privacy.

It has some good group options (including an announcements only group) and most importantly where it differs from WhatsApp and Telegram, are that it's metadata cannot be accessed by Signal (WhatsApp goes as far as actively sharing users metadata with advertisers and partners, which is why WhatsApp has so many businesses on board).

Telegram may handle far bigger numbers for its groups, but the problem is users do need to set up their privacy settings very carefully, and their metadata is at the risk of being subpoenaed now, and of course Telegram's encryption is proprietary. Signal's groups are limited to 1,000 users, and another issue may be that there is one profile across all groups (unlike SimpleX where you choose a name for each group you belong to, but it does not scale well to large groups at all).

Signal does hit a sweet spot though and should really be adopted by a lot more mainstream users. Signal's user privacy is way ahead of both WhatsApp and Telegram, yet it is just as easy and intuitive to use.

But, as I mentioned above Signal is not perfect. To summarise those shortcomings, they are:
1. Even announcement-only groups are limited to 1,000 users (Telegram has 200,000 for normal groups and unlimited users for broadcast groups).
2. A phone number is required to register the account initially (SimpleX and Threema do not require anything).
3. The profile your friends see is the same profile seen in a group (SimpleX allows different names) so select your profile name with this in mind, although the phone number is hidden by default.

See https://micahflee.com/using-signal-groups-for-activism

#technology #privacy #chatapps #activism

If you find OpenStreetMap a bit difficult to plan off-road ...

2025-08-03T21:19:43Z

If you find OpenStreetMap a bit difficult to plan off-road routes, try OpenRouteService

OpenRouteService (ORS) is an open source route planner service that leverages OpenStreetMap data to provide a variety of routing and spatial analysis services. It actually uses a forked and modified version of the GraphHopper routing engine (another option that can be used, and which is present inside OpenStreetMap as a routing alternative).

I was trying to plan a 4x4 trail between two places, but was finding that OpenStreetMap was routing me via a gravel road I did not want to follow. OSM also only has one export format which is GeoJSON. Switching to GrassHopper within OSM did actually help choose the correct route, but then I found OpenRouteService.

ORS has quite a few more options for adding and moving waypoints which allows you to more precisely plan your route. It also have 5 different export options including Standard GPX which I wanted. It allows a maximum speed to be set too, but sadly the minimum is 80km/h where I'd prefer to have set it to 50km/h for the route I was taking (still I can just mentally adjust the time).

Interestingly too, you can deploy it yourself using Docker, with a Docker Compose file.

Once you can your route, you can import that into any other navigation app, and use that in your vehicle.

See https://maps.openrouteservice.org

#technology #opensource #navigation #openstreetmap

I'm finally able to use Wayland on an ongoing basis It was ...

2025-07-22T15:07:15Z

I'm finally able to use Wayland on an ongoing basis

It was the need for Waydroid only working under only Wayland, that forced me to again have another go at Wayland this week on my Manjaro KDE Plasma. Yet again I hit some issues, one or two of which were show-stoppers, but I have finally overcome them, and although there are some irritations, they are now pretty minor, and I have workarounds to make everything work now. These were all issues that made Wayland feel, for me, it was not quite ready for full prime time.

Key for me was to be sure that:
* Steam games worked
* KMyMoney finance app worked
* My hundreds of shortcuts in Steam Deck worked
* OBS Studio worked
* VLC Media player worked
* Wayland was stable without intermittent crashes

I suspect that XWayland has largely been the reason everything now seems so much better.

For KMyMoney I had long since sorted out that if I added the environment variable "QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb", this sorted out the non-display of the application. This may even not be needed any more.

My biggest challenge had been to find alternatives to the excellent xdotool utility, which I use extensively in Bitfocus Companion for my hundred plus productivity shortcuts. Not only is xdotool exclusively for X11, but it is really easy to use as it uses the key names such as Enter, Space, etc. Yes there is ydotool, but it is really difficult to do set up say 'xdotool key Ctrl_L+f' in ydotool as this must be 'ydotool key 29:1 33:1 33:0 29:0' and just don't dare forget one of the key up sequences otherwise it will all break. I started looking into dotool this week as well as other options.

Nothing beats xdotool for simplicity of use. I'm not sure why or when, but I tested out an existing xdotool shortcut... and it just worked! Wow, OK so this must be some XWayland improvement. This made me very happy, as converting everything to ydotool would be pain times 100.

Wayland still has its 'security' limitations on insertions into keyboard/mouse input, so I do sometimes get a popup that I must accept, but it works! Wayland also does not like keystrokes to be inserted into background windows, but I see there is now an application called Kdotool which I must still explore.

The other irritation was not being able to resize application windows. Normally, I'd move the mouse cursor to any corner of an app and then drag it bigger or smaller. Wayland was just not allowing this to happen. So what I've discovered to make this happen is two things:

One can hold down the Meta key and then hold the right mouse button near that corner, and then do the usual resizing quite quickly. How will I remember the key combination? Well with my Stream Deck, as I now have a key mapped to hold the Meta key down, and reminds me to right-click the mouse.

The other thing I discovered was, resizing does sort of work if you have extremely fine motor skills. You have to position the mouse about a pixel outside the corner of an app, and then you can grab and resize it like 'normal'. If you do this on the corner or just inside the app, it does not work. So the issue seems to be that the resize handle area is extremely small. I've looked inside the window theme settings and cannot seem to see anything that would make this larger. Yes, I know there is a setting called 'Enable extended resize handles' and I have that ticked already.

There is also a window menu that has an option for resizing, but that is too clunky to use, so the above two workarounds see m to work OK for me for now.

Another thing was my mouse cursor 'sticking' as it moved across screen one to two, and from two to three. It only happens when I move it fairly slowly. Turns out this is a feature for those not wanting to go past the screen edges. But there is a setting not only to adjust the stickiness, but also to disable that. So sorted too.

I have some open apps that show blank icons in the toolbar. This is not too serious, as if I hover the mouse cursor over them, their preview shows what they are. For now too, it is only my Joplin notes app that does this under Wayland.

OBS Studio works as-is. The only issue seemed to be the screen to capture. It is a super easy fix, but must be reversed if you ever use X11 again. Basically I had to just add a new screen capture and I think its properties were for Pipewire capture or something like that. Everything else worked as before.

The last thing that was broken, was VLC media player was giving codec errors on playback. The short of it was I just needed to install additional codec plugins (not sure why, as it all worked as-is on X11). Or one can also install the Flatpak version of VLC and that works out of the box (or is that inside the container?). Other media players like MPV just worked as normal without any changes.

Some screenrecorders, like Vokoscreen will work, but they lose their ability to record only a window or a rectangular area, as they are X11 specific. OBS Studio can do the job, but I also installed Kooha which does do rectangular areas under Wayland.

I've now been using Wayland for two and a bit days. No need yet to go back into X11 to do anything, and Wayland has been stable so far. I've tried two games under Steam Games, and they are working, and my Stream Deck shortcuts for those games are also working fine.

Very ironically, the Waydroid app is not starting after the second day. It was the reason for me re-trying Wayland again. But that is not really a Wayland issue itself.

It looks like I'm now fully moved over to Wayland, and my mind is at rest, at least for the showstoppers I had before with it.

#technology #Linux #opensource #Wayland

Harper is a grammar checker that is on-device and open source ...

2025-07-22T14:14:37Z

Harper is a grammar checker that is on-device and open source

"When it comes to grammar checking, Grammarly is the premium tool for it. It's a proprietary tool and it was among the first one to make a mark as a web-based Grammar checking tool. Then there is LanguageTool that is/was open source, made in Germany and offers hosted service for free or for a price (you get additional features). LanguageTool was acquired a couple of years back and since then it's privacy policy has changed as it processes data on US servers, instead of European ones."

I'm trying out Harper and although it works fine, it is a very new product (less than a year old), so there are some improvements that can be made. For example, I'd like to see auto-correction rules we can add ourselves for whenever I type teh to be changed to the. But it is being updated regularly I see.

Right now too it only supports English (but being open source I think that will change soon).

It has plugins for Firefox, Chrome, Obsidian, WordPress, and it can be integrated into various code editors as well as into JavaScript/TypeScript/Rust codebases.

There are no mobile apps as the view is that most keyboards have their own built-in spell and grammar checkers.

But the privacy-first approach does mean no data going into someone's cloud, and does mean also better speed and even working offline. That would also mean right now no syncing of personal dictionaries across devices, but I'm sure that can be added in time to use Nextcloud, Dropbox, and other personal cloud services.

See https://itsfoss.com/harper-grammar-checker and GitHub site at https://github.com/Automattic/harper

#technology #opensource #spellchecker #privacy

HA can be incredibly useful for automating and monitoring stuff. ...

2025-07-20T22:37:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…a83l
_________________________

HA can be incredibly useful for automating and monitoring stuff. I use mine a lot for announcing things audibly like when the shower water is hot. But it all starts with one thing and you just keep building from there over time.

KDE Itinerary is a digital travel assistant with a priority on ...

2025-07-20T21:25:55Z

KDE Itinerary is a digital travel assistant with a priority on protecting your privacy

This is an open source Linux and Android app, that syncs between devices using services such as KDE Connect, Nextcloud, or DavDroid.

It does itinerary planning for various modes of transport and accommodation booking, complete with map views, boarding passes, train coach layouts, etc.

It can even do real-time delay and platform change information for trains, and give weather forecasts for destinations along your trip (services permitting, I imagine).

The focus is on privacy, though, so this does not seem to be a travel sharing app that shows photos etc.

See https://apps.kde.org/en-gb/itinerary

#technology #opensource #travel

Jack Dorsey interview on the problems with Big Tech social media ...

2025-07-20T16:42:15Z

Jack Dorsey interview on the problems with Big Tech social media

Really interesting insights into the beginnings of Twitter, and why any company running a centralised social network can be a problem.
Investors/VCs = profits = permissions needed ≠ open protocols. He covers the cycle of how new profit based ventures want to lure in as many users as possible, and then close the taps and squeeze out as much profit as they can.

As much as a profit corporation (or public benefit corporation) wants to do what is right for the Internet, the problem is their loyalty to shareholders/investors comes first.

Jack explains the why's of this quite well in the interview, and the solution he sees is to have open protocols and permissionless access, as this would prevent many platforms from being able to take decisions that cause greater harm than good.

The drive toward open standards was undertaken for much the same reason when it comes to all sorts of standards, whether they be document standards, units of measure, USB interfaces, tyre sizes, etc. Open standards promote interconnectivity, more competition, less vendor lock-in, etc. All of these benefits users and consumers.

It is the same with social networks. A centralised social network is easy to target for censorship, managing permissions for access, government control, etc.

Unfortunately centralised networks with centralised control and investors/VCs, means money to advertise, create great looking user interfaces, to influence politicians and media organisations, etc to use them. But these could still play a role with open protocols and permissionless access, where they channel that money into the influencing and great UI, but still compete openly using open protocols. Users can choose to use their app or service, but they won't be locked into it.

Everything could change tomorrow if all users demanded only open protocols and permissionless access (both already exist with networks like Nostr, Secure Scuttlebutt, and others which do not require registering for an account on any server). Certainly, any social network would have to then follow the users... but that will never happen as that is not how users think or act in the real world.

One way would be for governments to enact laws that only open protocols are allowed to be used, but that also won't happen in practice. We've seen many governments enact regulations that bound them to only using open document standards, and then they continued to use .docx formats.

So it is quite clear that we know technically would be the best way forward, we also know those solutions actually exist, but how to move the masses to them to create a tipping point... Big unknown!
So where we sit right now is, many users have already opted to go the way of open protocols and permissionless access, and although these networks are flourishing in their own right, they do not represent anything close to a tipping point of change.

Part of the challenge may be that these are all separate networks (you need to choose one or more to use) and there is no network of networks (a single protocol to rule the interoperability between all networks). But despite that, the foundations are laid, and fundamental to that is that a user owns and controls their profile. No-one can take away or ban you from using your profile on Nostr, Secure Scuttlebutt, and similar networks.

I'm hoping the Revolution.Social podcast series will start to create greater awareness around this challenge, and try to establish a greater global consensus around moving towards a new tipping point for creating a protocol to rule them all, owned by no-one, but used by all. That also needs to mean that your profile is portable enough to be used everywhere, and not be locked into a single network.

But listen to episode one of this podcast to understand why this is needed and to understand why any corporation running a centralised social network, is never going to be in the interests of its users or the Internet at large.

See https://revolution.social

#technology #socialnetworks #decentralisation #openstandards

With Waydroid, It Is Easy to Run Android Apps on Linux Now ...

2025-07-19T18:32:27Z

With Waydroid, It Is Easy to Run Android Apps on Linux Now

“Want to install and run your favorite Android apps smoothly on your Linux desktop? Give Waydroid a try! Waydroid uses a container-based architecture that lets you run Android applications with near-native performance and deep integration into your Linux system. This guide explains how to use Waydroid on Linux.”

Running containers generally means a smaller footprint, lighter resources, and good integration. It also means this will only run on top of a Linux host PC and not inside a Linux VM running on Windows, for example.

Waydroid is a fully open source project.

See https://www.maketecheasier.com/run-android-apps-linux-waydroid and Waydroid's website at https://waydro.id

#technology #android #Linux #opensource

A fascinating listen into the power of Public Relations, and how ...

2025-07-14T08:57:06Z

A fascinating listen into the power of Public Relations, and how it became another term for propaganda. Awareness should be the school curriculum.

"In this episode we'll meet the godfathers of American PR, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, and explore the origins and evolution of industry-funded experts who shaped everything from the breakfast table to our understanding of the economy and science."

Listen at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/s1-ep1-fake-experts-and-real-bacon--47148620

Да, ты прав. Частные каналы ...

2025-07-10T11:07:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…g5u0
_________________________

Да, ты прав. Частные каналы означает, что меньшие группы также могут безопасно общаться.

One key difference is Briar never made it to iOS at all...

2025-07-09T16:04:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…dws8
_________________________

One key difference is Briar never made it to iOS at all...

Jack Dorsey made an open source peer-to-peer encrypted Bluetooth ...

2025-07-09T14:38:11Z

Jack Dorsey made an open source peer-to-peer encrypted Bluetooth messaging app called Bitchat

“Twitter co-founder and Block Head Jack Dorsey launched a new peer-to-peer messaging app over the weekend called Bitchat that runs entirely over Bluetooth. Bitchat relies on Bluetooth Low Energy mesh networks to send encrypted communications directly to nearby devices without requiring internet or cellular service.”

Don't be too concerned about the Bluetooth range as this app sets up mesh connections across multiple peers, much like how Meshtastic and Reticulum radio works. So, hopping across two or more peers will quickly extend this reach.

Bitchat is working over Bluetooth LE and the claims are that distance between peers could be as much as 300m. Certainly, for line of sight such distances should be easy to achieve.

The plan in future seems to be to include Wi-Fi Direct as another connectivity option. I'm wondering if this could evolve in future to work something like the Reticulum network, across all sorts of protocols.

As with Nostr and other similar projects, Bitchat requires no account creation, no servers, no e-mail or mobile phone registrations, and also it has password protected channels, and even a panic mode that will clear all data in the logo is triple-tapped.

Right now, it is working on iOS devices through Apple Testflight, and an Android client is still expected to be released in the near future. As this type of app is normally easier to released for Android, I'm wondering if it was not primarily intended right now to protect the privacy of protesters inside the USA.

See https://www.theverge.com/news/701272/jack-dorsey-bitchat-bluetooth-messaging-app and the GitHub site at https://github.com/jackjackbits/bitchat

#technology #privacy #opensource #P2P

I'm enjoying playing Ships at Sea on Steam Games I did a ...

2025-07-08T14:16:34Z

I'm enjoying playing Ships at Sea on Steam Games

I did a short summary with quite a few photos at my blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/im-enjoying-playing-ships-at-sea-on-steam-games

#technology #gaming #ships #simulation

CoMaps is a fully open source navigation app that works offline ...

2025-07-04T10:31:22Z

CoMaps is a fully open source navigation app that works offline and doesn’t track users

“Born out of governance concerns in Organic Maps, CoMaps has been created with a goal of restoring transparency, community control, and privacy-focused navigation. It’s a fully open source navigation app that works offline and doesn’t track users. A few weeks after the project began, CoMaps has officially launched with apps for both Android and iOS.”

It will look similar to Organic Maps but some key differences (apart from the governance) are that remappable left button, and some choices to reduce display clutter. I noticed too, there is an optional (off by default) choice to use Google detected Wi-Fi hotspots for assisting in location.

See https://news.itsfoss.com/comaps-launch

#technology #navigation #opensource

French City of Lyon Kicks Out Microsoft “European countries ...

2025-07-04T10:19:48Z

French City of Lyon Kicks Out Microsoft

“European countries have been growing increasingly wary of relying on Microsoft for critical government and public sector services. Concerns about data privacy, digital sovereignty, and potential governmental surveillance have led many to question the viability of depending on an American tech giant for sensitive infrastructure.”

The point is, this is actually quite possible to do. Whether an organisation invests in its own people, or employs local companies to assist, it can be done. It is the marketing machine of Microsoft that convinces executives that Microsoft is so easy, that pays to certify installers and consultants, etc. The same can be done by governments, just like the UK government established their PRINCE project methodology, which all consultants and training companies were certified against.

The same also goes for document formats. There is no reason to be stuck on .docx after so many governments committed to actually using ODF instead. Governments are not helpless, and can set standards to be complied with, and industry will conform if they want contacts. The big benefit for everyone involved is, anyone can freely download fully compliant ODF suites, and they do really work much the same as Microsoft Office does.

I know this personally as I was part of a project to ready our own government to transition away from Microsoft in 2007. Yes, that never happened, but the reasons had nothing to do with the technology not working, or workers not being able to use Zimbra mail or LibreOffice. It was all politics and backroom manoeuvring around the IT staff.

Such a change though does take guts and drive to implement, and the willingness of someone to stand up to the so-called “norm” of Microsoft. The world not only needs digital sovereignty, it also needs more competition and choices. Such choices do rest on having proper open standards for the formats of data being stored and processed. Vendor lock-in should be a major red flag for any government.

See https://news.itsfoss.com/french-city-replaces-microsoft

#technology #opensource #France #government

South Korea Brought High-Rise Fire Escape Solutions To The Masses ...

2025-07-03T09:20:45Z

South Korea Brought High-Rise Fire Escape Solutions To The Masses

“When a fire breaks out in a high-rise building, conventional wisdom is that stairwells are the only way out. Lifts are verboten in such scenarios, while sheer height typically prevents any other viable route of egress from tall modern buildings. If the stairs are impassable, or you can’t reach them, you’re in dire peril. In South Korea, though, there’s another option for escape. The answer involves strapping on a harness and descending down ropes hanging off the side of the building, just like in an action movie. It might sound terrifying, but these descending lifeline devices have become a common part of fire safety infrastructure across the country.”

Interesting that the design works in both directions, so as one person descends, the other side is going up ready for the next person to descend. It is limited to 15 stories high, but it is real food for thought for skyscraper designers regarding better planning for evacuation of taller buildings. The fact is, things do go wrong, and what happens to the people up on 30 plus floors? Many skyscrapers also have sealed windows. It's a bit like planning for the ideal scenarios, and we hope nothing else ever happens.

See https://hackaday.com/2025/07/02/south-korea-brought-high-rise-fire-escape-solutions-to-the-masses

#technology #escape #fire

EasiShop is a South African comparative groceries shopping ...

2025-06-29T09:05:40Z

EasiShop is a South African comparative groceries shopping service developed by an ex-student from Cape Town

"A former Fish Hoek High School learner is using his tech skills to help South African families stretch their grocery budgets. Tinashe Madanire, a 26-year-old student at Stellenbosch University, along with his co-founder Tendai Katiyo, launched a price-comparison website called EasiShop earlier this year. The idea? A simple website where users can track deals, build shopping lists, and find the best prices across major retailers.”

This was something I've long thought we've needed. One place to put a shopping list of grocery items together, and then have the prices compared across Pick 'n Pay, Checkers, Woolworths, etc to find where it will be cheapest to buy.

It is not yet going to be perfect, as many retailers also offer reward programs, personalised discounts, and many consumers also have additional kick backs through eBucks, GreenBacks, etc as well. Ideally, you'd want to be able to tick these relevant additional discounts too, and to also have Clicks and Dis-Chem added in future.

But it is a great initiative and something that is certainly needed. I hope that it is going to continue to grow, and to benefit many local consumers.

See the story at https://iol.co.za/capeargus/news/2025-06-24-how-a-former-fish-hoek-student-is-helping-families-save-on-groceries-with-easishop or website at https://www.easishop.co.za

#technology #southafrica #groceries

I replaced my ISP router with OPNsense months ago, and I ...

2025-06-25T19:25:00Z

I replaced my ISP router with OPNsense months ago, and I don't regret it at all

OPNsense can also be fairly simple to set up if you go with the basics (like most home routers offer). But the great thing is you can also deep dive into it and setup separated VLANs and masses of tweaks and rules.

What you need to know, though, is that you will need to run it on a separate piece of hardware (just like you'd have bought a router device) and ideally you'd want at least 4 Ethernet ports on it. The minimum is really two ports (a WAN port and a LAN port).

My OPNsense device is a Protectli with 4 ports. One is a WAN port, and I have reserved another for a LAN port, and I have the remaining two ports connected as a LAGG interface to my main switch (so it has dual links for load balancing and redundancy). But again, you don't to do this either if you want to keep it simple.

What I still want to explore with mine, is using the Haproxy plugin to do my reverse proxying directly on the OPNsense device, instead of in a container on my server. This will mean that some traffic destined for my OpenWebRx device can flow directly from the router through the main switch and to the OpenWebRx device (instead of via the server and then back through the main switch).

OPNsense (and PFsense) does mean total control in your hands, and also ongoing updates and patches for many many years...

See https://www.xda-developers.com/replaced-isp-router-opnsense-dont-regret

#technology #opensource #security #routers

Steam Now Has an Overlay Performance Monitor “Steam has added a ...

2025-06-21T18:55:45Z

Steam Now Has an Overlay Performance Monitor

“Steam has added a new performance monitoring tool to its in-game overlay, giving you information about how your games are using your computer’s resources. This should help you spot potential performance problems, although it is currently in beta. This tool shows information about FPS, CPU, GPU, and system RAM usage, making it easier for players to understand their game’s performance and fix issues.”

Mileage may vary on this one, as I'm only seeing the FPS right now. For now MangoHUD works better for me, but if you don't have MangoHUD, this is better than nothing.

The screenshot I've included shows MangoHUD at the top left, and the Steam performance overlay at the top right.

See https://www.howtogeek.com/steam-now-has-an-overlay-performance-monitor

#technology #gaming

WUD is a better alternative to Watchtower for Docker updates ...

2025-06-21T14:18:46Z

WUD is a better alternative to Watchtower for Docker updates

What's Up Docker (WUD) will notify you of updated Docker container images for installation, just like Watchtower can do, but WUD solves a number of challenges that I have with using Watchtower:
1. Shows a custom descriptive name for images, including database images.
2. This means no time wasted checking which image must be updated.
3. Updates can be run with the click of a button inside WUD.
4. Auto prunes the old images.
5. Can work with more than one remote Docker host endpoint.
6. Numerous notification services supported.
7. Can single-click to see image's change log.
8. Can optionally auto update docker-compose file with new image version.

I demonstrate a number of these features, but I did not really go through the menus, as most settings are set using the environment and label variables in the Docker files for containers (which I do show in the video).

Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmuN8cown_4

#technology #opensource #docker #selfhosting

I need to get onto it - just keep getting sucked down side ...

2025-06-20T21:34:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…waam
_________________________

I need to get onto it - just keep getting sucked down side streets with so much software to test out

This is a good overview of how regex works “Regex is a ...

2025-06-20T09:37:06Z

This is a good overview of how regex works

“Regex is a pattern-matching language; it's a way to expressively describe patterns that match strings (e.g., words or sentences). For example, say you're searching your hard drive for an image called foo, but you cannot remember if it's a JPEG or a PNG. Many utilities make use of regex for searching, transforming, and interacting with text.”

You won't be able to just effortlessly compose your own regex after just reading the linked article, but a quick read through will at least help put it in context. It also gives a feel of what regex can be used for. The reason regex persists after many years, despite looking very confusing, is that it is very powerful. With many GUI applications, you could well find regex running in the background to perform the more complex tasks.

See https://www.howtogeek.com/get-started-with-regex-in-linux-terminal

#technology #regex

ZorinOS is a worthy consideration for Windows users newly moving ...

2025-06-20T09:11:47Z

ZorinOS is a worthy consideration for Windows users newly moving to Linux

The linked article is from a Windows user's perspective, moving to Linux. The timing is good as many are faced with working hardware, but which is not compatible for Windows 11.

ZorinOS is an Ubuntu-based distro, meaning there are tons of support and advice on the Internet for anything that may need solving. It will also install and run most Windows software, using Wine (I seem to recall that is built in, so double-clicking on an EXE file, should just run).

See https://www.xda-developers.com/reasons-i-chose-zorinos-moving-windows-linux

#technology #Linux #opensource

OpenCloud is the lightweight Nextcloud alternative that runs on ...

2025-06-19T11:45:15Z

OpenCloud is the lightweight Nextcloud alternative that runs on anything

If you are finding that NextCloud is using too many resources, and just packs way more functionality than you need just for file syncing and sharing, then OpenCloud may be the answer.

You are not going to have calendar, mail, chat, etc functionality with OpenCloud, but it also does not load a bunch of other services that NextCloud requires to run.

It does have file sharing with passwords and expiring access, and interestingly it handles some basic tasks like PDF viewing on the client side. So this will happily run on a Raspberry Pi.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/opencloud-lightweight-nextcloud-alternative

#technology #opensource #filesharing

Steam's latest beta build makes gaming on Linux a breeze by ...

2025-06-19T11:19:03Z

Steam's latest beta build makes gaming on Linux a breeze by enabling Proton for all titles by default

Whilst you can still set a specific Proton version per title, for example maybe you want to use Proton GE, this default seems to default to Proton Experimental (from what I observed). This means all Windows games will now show as installable by default.

I inadvertently tried this out about 2 days back when I installed Ships at Sea and just hit the install button. I thought it was odd at the time, as I had not set any Proton version for compatibility.

Proton Experimental version is not the most stable version as it includes the latest compatibility patches, but I suppose what is nice about it, is firstly it will be the most compatible for most games, and you won't get left stuck on an older version of Proton either, as the experimental version is not fixed by any version number (it's a sort of rolling update).

See https://www.xda-developers.com/steams-latest-beta-build-gaming-on-linux-a-breeze

#technology #gaming #Linux

So way under that my Lightning Connection got deleted last week ...

2025-06-16T20:57:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…hrvu
_________________________

So way under that my Lightning Connection got deleted last week and I lost all my sats ;-)

Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 battery life hammered by Samsung Health ...

2025-06-15T19:49:06Z

Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 battery life hammered by Samsung Health Monitor app

I noticed about a month or two back that my Galaxy Watch was suddenly no longer getting its two days of use out a battery charge. I do keep my watch usage quite light, and normally have the Wi-Fi off, display set to lower brightness, etc, so 2 days is usually fine. I do use watch with the Sleep For Android app that monitors sleeping heart rate etc, and that does chew about 11-12% during the night, but that has been my normal usage.

I thought at first maybe it is the battery ageing, but it is not even a year old yet. But checking the battery usage stats showed that the Samsung Health Monitor app (not the standard Samsung Health app) was chewing the battery by a good 3%, higher than any other app. Rebooting had not helped either. Seeing that app is only used for ECG, sleep apnoea and blood pressure, not of which I had used for quite a while, that app should be idling with no battery usage.

I tried to delete the app, but it deleted off the phone but not from the watch at all. It would also not disable properly, nor could I turn off the background usage toggle. In the end, I used the ADB command to manually delete the app. And wow, now I have a full 2 days battery use again, plus a little extra.

It shows again what impact badly behaved apps have on hardware. Ideally, this app should not be using any battery power if I don’t have sleep apnoea detection active, or if its parent app on the phone is deleted.

#batterylife #samsung #technology

How To Check Disk Health In Linux: A Beginners Guide “Your ...

2025-06-14T21:11:59Z

How To Check Disk Health In Linux: A Beginners Guide

“Your computer's disk drive stores all your important files. Photos, documents, videos, and everything lives on your disk. But what happens when your disk starts to fail? You could lose everything. Worry not! Linux has built-in tools to check your disk health. You can spot disk-related problems early and save your data.”

Smartmontools is a package on Linux that provides tools for monitoring and managing the health of storage devices—such as hard drives and SSDs—using the built-in Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) system found in most modern drives.

But other tools are also covered such as badblocks, fsck, and the graphical user interface app GNOME Disks.

See https://ostechnix.com/check-disk-health-linux

#technology #Linux #diskdrives