Yaky

joined 1 year ago
[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 30 points 3 days ago (9 children)

IMO Snikket (XMPP) is the easiest all-in-one solution with audio/video chat at the moment. Pretty good on resources too.

I currently host a Matrix Synapse server, but:

  • Matrix seems to be expanding in the corporate / institutional direction, more services are expected for regular functionality
  • Element X (upcoming client) breaks calls compatibility with old Element, now requiring Element Call. It's kind of a mess, I presume this is to support group calls, but makes it a PITA to use currently.
  • Even with small number of users, Synapse DB grows in size due to state_groups_state table, non-deletable users, and copying ALL data from other servers' rooms (this one is by design but still...)
[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 45 points 3 days ago (11 children)

AI is a tech debt generator.

Any programmer who worked with legacy code knows a situation where something was written by a former employee or a contractor without much comments or documentation, making it difficult to modify (because of complexity or readability) or replace (because of non-existing business documentation and/or peculiar bugs and features)

AI accelerates these situations, but the person does not even exist. Which, IMO is the main thing that needs to be called out.

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 3 points 4 days ago

I ran prosody server and used Siskin IM as a client, it worked pretty well. But as others mentioned, since this is Apple, the client developer has to run a push server, no background processes and long-polling allowed. Some other XMPP clients (Secret Messenger I think) did not have that set up and do not have notifications.

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 13 points 5 days ago

Why? Programming language isn't a natural language. In fact, I think not knowing English makes it easier, since you cannot attach any preconceived notions, assumptions, or word order to keywords. I learned some Pascal, Visual Basic and whatever GameMaker used at the time without being fluent in English.

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago

Profanity for XMPP and gomuks for Matrix are both neat ncurses clients that work pretty well.

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Looks like BM818 in Librem5 supports VoLTE, but might have issues with some networks.

PinePhone's (and one of Mudita's phone's) EG25 modem technically supports VoLTE, but was very flaky for me (in a mid-low signal area)

FuriLabs (FLX1) seems to have VoLTE working.

Ubuntu Touch explicitly states that it does not support VoLTE.

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

IIRC this was partially elaborated on in Matrix 4, where

spoilermachines harness the psychological stress/torture of Neo and Trinity by putting them in a situation where their lives are entirely different, yet they occasionally interact and subconsciously remember each other.

It's the Misery Nexus we were warned about.

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 weeks ago

Nice! Writing a similar converter was my first step when I set up my parallel site-capsule.

Love gemtext, it's so simple yet pragmatic. (And there is just one version of it, unlike Markdown)

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

How did you do it? I tried convincing several people to use Matrix or Signal, and I get "who am I gonna talk to on there?" and "WhatsApp works fine".

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 weeks ago

My peeve is products made "easy" to use, in a way that makes explaining them extremely difficult. Two top examples are:

URL bar in browsers which doubles as a search bar. Good luck explaining why if you type in an exact existing address, you will get there, but otherwise (typo, extra space), you will end up on Google.

Apple's iMessage. Your message will be sent to your contact using one of three protocols: SMS/MMS, iMessage or RCS. This is almost entirely opaque, and I even had to explain to a tech-savvy person why videos they send me look like blobs.

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 33 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Me, a (mostly) backend developer, reading a Medium post on how to make your computer display a div using Awesome New Web Framework (TM)

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 25 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I taught basic computer literacy. I am a software developer. It's tough to reframe my own knowledge so drastically, but the new perspective also makes me question why so many things are wrong with current tech (particularly UI/UX).

 

Hi all!

Is it possible to prevent an Android device from providing power to a connected USB accessory? (I.e. I want the Android device to use USB/OTG devices, be charged by them, but never provide power to them)

The setup: I have a Lineage 21 / Android 14 device that is connected to a USB-C hub, which are all in a car. When USB hub has power, it acts as a host, charging the device, and everything is OK. But when USB hub loses power (car is turned off), Android device re-connects to the hub, but now Android device is powering the hub, which drains the battery very quickly.

What I want to achieve: When USB hub loses power, Android device acts as if the hub is entirely disconnected, enters sleep, and can be in sleep until it receives power again.

I did not find any straightforward solutions yet. Attempting to change USB setting for "powered by this device" did not work, nor did trying to write commands to some /sys/power files. My next thought is some form of an automatic hardware switch.

 

Maybe a strange question, but do you often have simultaneous opposing opinions on books or series that you read?

Not too long ago I read Peter Watts' Blindsight, and it has many thought-provoking ideas about conscience, the human brain, and alien life. Yet it is wrapped in a mediocre sci-fi action movie script that is difficult to follow and stops making sense toward the end. So I cannot say that I exactly liked or disliked it.

And just now, I finished Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series, and it feels like books 2 and 3 (Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy) are entirely separate story from book 1 (Ancillary Justice). The latter books are okay for what they are, but do not live up to the style, scale, and pace of the first book, and leave some of the concepts entirely unexplored. So once again, I cannot exactly say that I loved the series.

Any other books that left you with similar dual opinions?

 

A small project to help out anyone trying to keep their old devices functional.

I wrote a script to scrape pages of some popular alternative OS projects (such as postmarketOS and LineageOS), and put them into a single list. I'll try to automate and keep this up-to-date. Any additional OS suggestions and comments are welcome!

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