smiletolerantly

joined 1 year ago
[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Thanks for reading my rant lol :D

Yeah, it's really nice to get up and running with a language you know nothing about yet. It's probably not really helpful though if you already know it a small to moderate amount.

While I'm paying for their subscription, I do need to point out that, should you be inclined to sail the high seas, bounty is easily found; after all, it's really just some audiobooks.

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Love Death Robots

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm currently re-reading Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos, and something struck me. If this had been made into an HBO/... show, like, 8 years ago, it could have been a genre- and generation defining TV event akin to Game of Thrones.

But if it was to be produced today? It would be a cringe, plastic-feeling knock-off akin to Netflix' Last Airbender.

Github, Lemmy, my blog.

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 19 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Sauerkraut and mashed potatoes were my absolutely favorite dish as a kid.

Am German though, so...

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Funny. I'm German, and in German it's actually a rule that the word after the ":" must be capitalized. I always have to go back through my English writing and un-capitalize those words because I just can't get used to not doing it.

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 3 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Thanks! :) Yes, definitely not dropping it :)

Pimsleur is actually a rather "old" program, originally devised just as a kind of audiobook, but now they also do have an app. It's 30min/day and basically only teaches you to speak. They do not make any claims about getting you to a point where you are fluent, can read, write, reason about grammar, or anything the like; but they do, very very quickly, get you to actually talk and to understand other people talking.

I initially started learning with them, 20 days before a vacation to a notoriously non-English-speaking country, and it was actually great to, at that early point, already be able to get across what you needed to say and to understand what was being communicated to you in 95% of situations, AND not be hampered by the usual shyness to speak in a foreign language, because I was already so used to actually speaking out loud in it.

I've since added a more traditional grammar/vocab curriculum, but continued Pimsleur precisely because I'd be lacking speaking exercise otherwise. So, yeah, no, I'll probably continue on with it.

What I actually dislike about it is

  1. they do not teach you any systematic grammar (which is OK!), but then also think that therefore, you cannot pick up on patterns. The consequence of this is that ~90 lessons in, if a new verb is introduced as vocabulary, then I can be certain that the vocab section for that lesson will contain that verb, that verb as a question, that verb in the past tense, and that verb negated, even if those forms are 100% regular. Which would not be a problem, EXCEPT they put a stupid 10-vocab-cards-per-lesson limit upon themselves, so now whenever a new, actually difficult form or concept is introduced, it is never in the vocab and I have no way of revisiting things I did not understand. (The same, btw, is true for numbers. Literally every number from 1 to 100, and basically every multiple of 100 up to 10.000 is in the vocab at some point, despite it being crystal clear how to form numbers once you have seen 1-20, 100, and 200. Yesterday - again, 90 lessons in!! - my vocab included the word for "twelve".)
  2. their "spaced repetition" is a joke, because a) its "spaces" are way, way too big and b) obviously do not adapt to your skill/gaps.

So, yeah: really nice to get talking quickly and to help with pronunciation and getting used to speaking; really bad for everything else.

That's a pretty apt description, I'd say! Getting everything you ever wanted and still feeling like you don't belong and cannot be happy.

IDK if you've seen the show, but if not: that's definitely still a big theme there, but while it is never dropped completely, it is alleviated somewhat because the characters grow closer as a group than they did in the books. Can highly recommend both.

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 4 points 3 days ago (6 children)

Meh... Lacking motivation this week. Also starting to feel like Pimsleur is a bit pointless.

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

It is, and I read them. The series creators were very faithful to the general feeling and atmosphere of the books, but most of the plotlines and character beats are show-only. Makes for two very different (but both good!) stories.

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 11 points 4 days ago (5 children)

The Magicians (2016): It often gets pitched as "Hogwarts for adults" because it features a magic college/university, but honestly that is just the initial backdrop and a massive undersell.

It is the rare show where the creators were seemingly handed a blank cheque to be as creative as they want to be, and they make full use of that in more ways than I can list here (but which definitely includes both the magic system itself, and the hilarious nonchalance towards the consequences of magic being a reality); yet all the while, they stay true and fiercely loyal to their characters, who are all deeply flawed, but which you can't help but want to see succeed; plus they managed to write genuinely great humor.

The best summary of the show comes from one of the characters themselves: "Magic doesn't come from talent. It comes from pain."

Be warned: the first few episodes, and possibly the first season, are the weakest and roughest of the bunch, which probably really hampered viewership. They do still manage to find their own tone, but it's nothing compared to seasons 3-5.

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)
 

If you've been selfhosting conduit or conduwuit, you probabl are aware that the conduwuit project was discontinued a couple months back.

I've been holding out on updating my matrix homeserver until it becomes clear which fork(s) will survive long term.

I feel like I can't put off updating for much longer now, plus the tuwunel nixpkg and -module were merged yesterday, so now the two most promising forks are both options for me.

Still, I'm unsure what route to take. Here's my thoughts:

  • not going through another round of this in a couple of months from now would be great, so stability and long-term maintenance promises would be great
  • I assume incompatibility between the forks, if not now then very soon; this is a "pick an option, then stick with it and pray" situation
  • tuwunel apparently has a full-time paid dev working on it now, which is great; at the same time, that means features will follow the priorities of the (as of now unknown) sponsor of the project
  • it is, however, the officially endorsed successor
  • it also seems like few other people are actively involved, putting in question development practices, reviews, and what happens should the lead dev throw in the towel
  • lastly, while there's been a lot of apparently rapid progress (with releases 1.0.0, 1.1.0, and 1.2.0 at quite a fast pace), the repo itself seems... empty? Few issues, few PRs, commentlessly-deleted issues
  • on the other hand, continuwuity seems more active by commit/contributors count, but is seemingly 100% volunteer work
  • they do seem to backport tuwunel changes and features, which is great!
  • they are not officially endorsed

In short: I fucking hate community drama. What fork did you go with? Is there anything else to consider? I just want an up-to-date matrix homeserver, and not to have to tell my users "sorry, starting from scratch because we picked the wrong fork..."

Update: there's been some back and forth on the nixpkgs PR, esp. one user who posted a lot of receipts here:

@scvalex @queeek180 @Askhalion you wanted links, here's some links :)

claim legitimacy over or de legitimise other projects:

https://matrix.to/#/#ping:maunium.net/$V9aN1Wn0pId-JWbxH1WV5I8PAVMajooX7WMFKmDyh6E
https://matrix.to/#/#ping:maunium.net/$IsfOfe8anRYqbRAwj7OdlX_hS-kBbHUJTVhQW-32Etk
https://matrix.to/#/#ping:maunium.net/$-Bswk96jj3ns8xpSISKH0Y24pXZ2Xcd6Rwl8mRZQIaM (ironic)
https://matrix.to/#/#meowlnir:maunium.net/$zOmf7-NIHfQ_f_Ku9Q794GeKyu8n9v2MAvPtYjlGJIE (ironic that he asked https://matrix.to/#/#meowlnir:maunium.net/$nE57Bi_DmvodZJe7JDPS7NxUBlxeDLUBhYIWNzgNk0g despite having cherrypicked a bunch of fixes from continuwuity already)
https://matrix.to/#/#tuwunel:grin.hu/$svIUeuWfm2VWuHGSUMeT5VWWcZclraKcmUaDK3NiYEM ("June and I dealt with another "continuwuity" called "grapevine" last year")

threats against the project:

https://matrix.to/#/#ping:maunium.net/$o27P102ebbFa9U80e-FK-DxGTupy8IJ3TSWFYJm6hIs
https://matrix.to/#/#ping:maunium.net/$priRlTsBuH2YfTo_pb04xHUJpTeU2DKXdJ7tAVrR5w4

personal threats:

https://matrix.to/#/#ping:maunium.net/$5YefXN_uVR5WiGfj32j3Po9Q1JMKuTTfxve_8IHp1J8
https://matrix.to/#/#ping:maunium.net/$L-dXYMXucfJiLkyc5dvv4t7pQqUKMwnLEd9zzLjZlu0

attempting to get security details released early (knowing only he and three other servers have finished implementing):

https://matrix.to/#%2F%21NasysSDfxKxZBzJJoE%3Amatrix.org%2F%24_d2wJk45JtwblMHRVBdfeEV1cAU5flPuRebTAvfOr-s%3Fvia=nexy7574.co.uk&via=matrix.org&via=element.io
https://matrix.to/#/#tuwunel:grin.hu/$mgi2dDGnL-L9Jqjm_YZPhu4NoAx8q3OMF9KIfRiGwFs

other trivia:

Jason getting his server ACL'ed from all foundation rooms:
https://matrix.to/#/!WuBtumawCeOGEieRrp:matrix.org/$u8YRBq_s-OrOpl4IGt15iUHPBKubKa4A_n-u_WbgqAU` - zemos.net ban
https://matrix.to/#/!WuBtumawCeOGEieRrp:matrix.org/$l8pKC-mR0tjLFnbnmi_8xSXbHGA3vgew-QTRWAk-kCs - wildcard ban on his domain

if any of these events get redacted, feel free to reach out and I will provide the original events - unredacted. just as another layer of certainty, when i provide the events, you can verify the server signing keys yourself, fairly trivially, as well as calculate the event ID (which is a hash). fetching the event from your $CONDUWUIT_DESCENDANT homeserver is as simple as running @conduit debug get-pdu $id in your admin room, as well as checking validity with @conduit debug verify-json or @conduit debug verify-pdu.

UPDATE: i've just been informed json signing is based on the redacted event, not the full input.

Honestly, that first link is all the info I needed. Keep reading, <100 messages and it becomes clear that I do not want to put the continuation of my homeserver into Jasons/tuwunels hands. Going to migrate to continuwuity later today.

84
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by smiletolerantly@awful.systems to c/ich_iel@feddit.org
 

Danke!! Endlich sagt wer was!

 

Schadenfreude 🙂

 

Five years ago, I bought a Supernote A5. It was (and mostly still is) a great device for reading and writing on an eInk display, and it runs plain old linux.

The deciding reason I went for this device instead of the competition is that I was "under the impression" that they were about to enable full SSH access to the device! Awesome!

"Why were you under that impression?", I hear the skeptics ask. Well, their spokesperson has stated that they would do so. Via mail, and on reddit, publicly, multiple times. I was still torn, so sent them a DM, asking if this was ineed factual. "Yes", they said, "the next quarterly update will enable SSH access!".

Great!

Well, it's been 5 years. They did not follow through. A couple updates were published, none contained the promised functionality, the spokesperson stopped answering questions about SSH. The last software update I received is from 2.5yrs ago. Mentions of the original Supernote A5 have largely been scrubbed from their website.

Let me be clear, the device still functions perfectly. But it is in danger of becoming e-waste because it is so needlessly complicated to get stuff on the device. I'm currently in need of an ebook reader with (ideally) OPDS capability, and I am pretty confident I'd be able to get something like koreader running on this, or at least just run a script to sync files over SSH. Also, I frankly feel wounded in my pride having a Linux device in my possession which refuses to do my bidding (I'm joking of course, but also I am 100% serious).

Here's all I know:

  • plugging it in via USB, the device reads as an MTP device, with access only to the documents/books/... stored on it
  • you can place an update.zip file (obtained from the SN website) into the root of that MTP directory, and upon reboot, the device will update. To me, this appears to be the most promising route of gaining access.
  • unfortunately, the zip file is encrypted. The decryption key clearly has to be known to the device, but since I have no access to it,...

I'm a software engineer, but I have zero knowledge of the "dark arts", so to speak. If anyone could help me (or point me into the right direction!), I would really be grateful. I don't want this (generally nice) product to turn into a paperweight instead of a paper replacement :(

 

Basically, the title. After years of inactivty, I'll be taking music (cello) lessons again, with my teacher of yesteryear, from whom I've moved half a country away.

She has suggested Zoom but is open to alternatives. I don't particularly like Zoom, plus I have a feeling better quality can be had through a custom solution - but I'm at a bit of a loss as to what exactly would be a good fit for this project.

Maybe Jitsi? Does someone here have experience with it and could tell me if it's possible to set something like a "target" audio quality?

For hardware, I basically have two options. Both are already in use, for different things, and have sufficient processing capabilities - albeit no GPU:

  • host everything at home. Plus: lowest possible latency from me to the server. Not sure how much that is worth though.
  • root server in the Hetzner cloud: much faster network speed. Again though, not sure how beneficial that is, the ultimate bottleneck will always be my upload speed (40Mbit)

OK, I realize that this post is a but of a random assortment of thoughts. I'd be really happy about suggestions and / or hearing about other's experiences with similar use-cases!

 

Hi,

not sure where else to post this. For a while now, I've unsuccessfully been trying to get WireGuard to work with Crunchyroll.

Setup is as follows:

  • dedicated server hosts a wg-quick instance in [neighboring country]
  • OPNSense acts as peer on a single IP
  • I have a rule for routing the entire traffic of some source device via that IP

This works just fine. Handshake successful, traffic is routed via the server. traceroute shows the server as the hop immediately after my device's local gateway. The connection is stable, and fast.

...except for Crunchyroll. The site / app itself is fine, but I can not, for the life of me, get a video to play. It just keeps loading forever.

I don't think this is an issue with CR recognizing that I'm not where I say I am - looking online, it seems pretty easy to use CR with a VPN. I've also tried from multiple other devices, all with the same symptom.

If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them 😅

EDIT: ~~It was MTU. Had to manually set it to 1500 on both devices.~~

Nope, still the same issues. I was using the fallback interface there briefly.

EDIT: It WAS MTU related, I had to enable MSS clamping on the OPNSense.

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