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Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: June 28th, 2020

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  • I have one from Morefine. It works, but I hate the way these Chinese sellers put firmware on Google Drive as it feels super sketchy & lacks the source code (luckily this one doesn’t require exclusively Microsoft Windows executables unlike some other products I own).


  • When you do not include a preposition like til or past or before or after there is no way to underestand relative to which side of the hour. This is why it is interpreted differently in some cultures. This is also why no one I grew up with ever said anything other than 5:30, 6:30 PM, or 17:3:0 since—aside from the 12-hour Anglophone clock thing—you can remove both ambiguity & doing mental math (also typing less characters).

    Funny when I first read about it: https://en.m.wikivoyage.org/wiki/English_language_varieties#Date_and_time

    Which had explicit instructions

    Some of these can be made less ambiguous (for example, Americans usually say “quarter past eight” or “quarter till eight”) but others will always have the potential for confusion. Be prepared to clarify, or simply use explicit dates and times.


  • There is no reason to be unclear with folks with some weird dialectal thing that is inconsistent across cultures when you aren’t in that culture… or to keep doing something on purpose when asked to stop for a couple of months. I thought it would be a one-time thing since I wasn’t feeling it that night, but everything ended up fizzling out after I guess my no show. We would chat if we ran into each other but neither of us planned anything together after.




  • I asked someone to stop saying “half 5” as a time since it was ambiguous & confusing, especially given that we weren’t in an English-speaking country & folks come from all over (many culture this means one thing or the other, while many—including where I grew up—don’t even use it as an expression). I asked a few times, then another time we were gonna meet up, I asked him “half five ha” “so what time do you really mean?” “half 5” …so I just didn’t show up, wasn’t in the mood. We haven’t really talked since.


  • Adjacent. Matrix uses a lot more resources & storage than XMPP, making XMPP a more efficient method of decentralized, self-hostable communication (both servers and clients). Having control of your own chat server will prove important with facism on the rise, so owning your own server node + E2EE will prove important—but if the system is too expensive that everyone cannot afford to run it, it isn’t radical tech.



  • toastaltoLinuxWhat distro do you use and why?
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    5 days ago

    NixOS & OpenWRT are my two. NixOS’s Nix language as declarative config is such a great tool for setting up & maintaining a machines for the long-term that despite the initial learning curve has paid off in the long run (Guix or a Nix successor should also be in the same category). OpenWRT is the purpose-built tool it is for having an OS for a router with low overhead & a UI that can be easier to understand the config when networking isn’t something you do on the regular.


  • toastaltoPrivacyWhat is the most private phone?
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    6 days ago

    Dongles create additional & unnecessary points of failure in your setup (sometimes additional stress on the USB jack too which is usually your only I/O port (which is also making you choose charging or power)). Personal devices that play media need this standard jack that has existed for decades—& I refuse to play ball with these OEMs hurting customers.


  • toastaltoPrivacyWhat is the most private phone?
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    6 days ago

    And that is exactly what I am running—and without regret since the OEMs are screwing over users just to sell branded Bluetooth earbuds whose batteries will die & not be repairable in a year for you to buy another set. I will not participate in this.



  • Like how the GOP crumbled after two Obama losses to put in a ‘populist’ in Trump, the DNC should fold over, kick out the donors, fire everyone & let the populist movement Bernie really kicked off take over, & let Bernie lead it while he has the vigor to do the leading but not run for presidency. Neocons on both sides should be exiled (lol at taking the Cheney endorsement). A wave of young voters & workers would love to see such a populist overthrow of the establishment (even if they don’t yet understand that what they really want is to overthrow capitalism).

    Instead the DNC will adopt the Haskell programming language motto: avoid success at all costs.


  • toastaltoPrivacyWhat is the most private phone?
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    7 days ago

    Which of these smart phones lets me have a headphone jack… ’cause that is how I will choose. I can patch software & be wary about how I use the device, but I can’t just add I/O to the hardware. Until the Pixel brings back the jack, it is dead to me.