#tallship — Public Fediverse posts

Assholes Will Always Exist

Over the years they've been called a lot of things. Some of the terms, these miscreants actually donned like a cape or wore the disparaging noun as a badge of honor:

- #cracker
- #list_bully
- #foreign_agent
- #incel
- #phishermen
- #spammer
- #blackhat

The list is truly, much too long to collate in a single fly by topical mention; and that's really not the point of what I'm writing about here either. What is absolutely pernicious, is the #MiTM style attack on software distribution rising to a level where even the source cannot be held in high confidence.

When these atrocious acts become the commonplace verbs to the infamous nouns above it is time that each and every one of us stand vigil and at the ready to come to the aid of our community members. Here's one such place where we can begin - the #AUR: https://archlinux.org/news/active-aur-malicious-packages-incident/

#tallship #FOSS #malware

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His love of VAXen

My longtime friend and acquaintance, Dr. Bernd Ulmann, Once had so little space in his home that he had to sleep on top of the machinery he had rescued. Dubbed, "The VAXMAN" by a visiting friend of his, the name stuck, and to this day we have an awful lot of history that would otherwise not exist - but at great personal sacrifice and expense I might add.

Here's but a taste of the vagaries that cometh your way when you indulge yourself in a (worthwhile) labor of love, one that is now shared with people worldwide, but nevertheless not without great, unforseen difficulties:

Since the warehouse was quite filled with computers I asked the company to place the tiles into the cellar and decided to bring them up into the first floor when I began to glue the supports to the floor. I never thought that 5 tons of floor tiles would be so heavy! One tile weights about 13 kg and at the beginning I carried two tiles at once (by the way - to bring something up from the cellar one has to walk around the warehouse - there is no direct in-house connection) - after some time I carried one tile at a time and after two days I could barely walk with a floor tile in my hands. By the way - the special glue to fixate the support stands to the floor is a fantastic glue - it glues shoes as well to the floor as gloves, hands to gloves, everything to everything.

We won't even go into the precarious rebuild of the roof or subsequent repairs, or the catastrophe that resulted in a hockey rink in and around dozens of vintage computer systems when a water main broke whilst he was away attending a conference in the United States (Ouch!).

You can indulge yourself in the magic that resulted in his Computer Museum HERE

There's got to be one of those laws that goes something like, "Everything always runs just fine until you close and lock the door behind you for the weekend getaway"

If there's truly an attribution for that phenomena (that everyone of us knows all too well) then do let me know!

Needles to say, he know longer sleeps atop PDP-11 systems, and I think his wife Rikka had something to do with being the motivational force in the commissioning of the wonderful computing museum, effectively putting an end to his bachelor life sleeping with VAXen.

Today, Prof Ulmann is a Professor of Business Informatics at FOM University in Frankfurt, Germany (FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie und Management). His computer museum is located in Heidenrod-Kemel, in the state of Hesse, and I believe it is still welcoming visitors by appointment.

In 2023, Dr. Ulmann founded anabrid GmbH in Berlin, continuing the pursuit of his decades long passion that predates his undergraduate years - analog computing, and even its place in the application of future AI, as demonstrated in his most recent published paper HERE. As a semiconductor company, One of the obvious missions of anabrid is the manufacturing of analog computers on a chip - beyond the bleeding edge, actually.

You can browse his Analog computer collection online HERE - it's a truly amazing accomplishment, even for the lay-person to behold. Truly.

Bernd Ulmann, a remarkable steward of computing history and visionary pioneer in the applied sciences of analog computing.

Before you go you should know...

- Hey heads up everyone! I'm preparing to launch my subscription based service here, publishing unique and newsworthy insights into technology, cookbook style tutorials and howto's and things I find personally amusing and worthwhile, from the PoV of an opinionated and accomplished member of the technology sector since 1977, when I only spoke BASIC and COBOL.
- If you're interested, subscriptions are at or just below $10 USD per month - give or take - I only accept Monero ($XMR), so I"m obviously not doing this to pay for my solo-circumnavigation of the globe in an inflatable dinghy, but there are plenty of places I can spend Monero for supplies and services, which Others will be happy I did as well.
- If you would like to subscribe, but cannot find the #crypto in your pocket, on a case by case basis you can just ask for me to publish a particular article for you, and I'll more than likely be happy to do so, since the point isn't to make money, but the value in the effort and to promote the use of Monero as tender. Or, alternatively, you can wait a few months and I usually, eventually publish my articles elsewhere (mostly the tutorials, because they have the greatest value for helping people with particular projects and problems.
- So how will you know about any particular article? Easy! I publish a teaser, you know, a few lines or paragraphs of a topic and then one of those "READ MORE HERE..." things leading you to the full article, tutorial, or How-To of general interest. That link of course, only works for subscribers, and therein lies the value of subscriptions - and it's a good cause too. #FOSS is freedom, and #Monero supports that ethic.
- Not to worry! I'll still be publishing the same old drivel as usual, but I've been putting some finishing touches on the first lot of items that will be exclusively curated for subscribers. At less than the cost of two fancy foo foo coffee drinks at that Seattle based retail chain, go ahead! Give it a spin :)

** If you've got any ideas or requests, I'm down on doing the research too, so don't hesitate to ask, as long it's not centric to ewb00ntew, because frinds don't let frinds run ewb00ntew.

#tallship #analog_computing #Bernd_Ulmann #FOM #computer_museum #VAXMAN

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Backport Wisdom

"The reason is that they don’t buy the IBM answer as the only answer. The saying in the US is “nobody ever got fired for picking IBM.” That’s not a saying in Europe."
~Doug Michels, January 1987

#tallship #Microtimes #SCO #Logica #IBM #XENIX

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Backport Wisdom

"The reason is that they don’t buy the IBM answer as the only answer. The saying in the US is “nobody ever got fired for picking IBM.” That’s not a saying in Europe."
~Doug Michels, January 1987

#tallship #Microtimes #SCO #Logica #IBM #XENIX

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Backport Wisdom

"The reason is that they don’t buy the IBM answer as the only answer. The saying in the US is “nobody ever got fired for picking IBM.” That’s not a saying in Europe."
~Doug Michels, January 1987

#tallship #Microtimes #SCO #Logica #IBM #XENIX

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@marathon @begsby

Okay sounds great. If cloud storage is the biggest deal, then you should be able to find a $5 or $10 #VPS in the country of your choice that will certainly be performance enough. A few bucks more for a decent amount of storage:

https://github.com/nextcloud

If you need more than that, and you're self-hosting NextCloud, then #Wasabi can extend your NextCloud space with #S3 compatible storage buckets that you can literally just plug into your #NextCloud server for dirt cheap terabytes:

https://wasabi.com/#free-trial

This is also an excellent solution for your on demand videos (VoD) that you self-hosted on your own #PeerTube instance (You can run that PeerTube server on the same VPS as your NextCloud insurance too) 🤠.

#Degoogling.... Awesome 👍

There's several major choices and even more services that offer solutions. Some turnkey.

My two favs are #GraphineOS and #CalyxOS. I don't tend to pay too much attention to the rivalry and apparent enmity between these two camps, because they're both trying to support the same thing with respect to #freedoms, so if you already have a #Pixel I think I'd recommend:

https://grapheneos.org/ and there's literally boatloads of videos at your disposal for the DIY. I will say, that although it's quite marginal, my experience has been that this is slightly faster (responsive), but the last time I benchmarked was on a Pixel 3XL that I still enjoy as one of my daily drivers.

The #Calyx_Institute is a well known long-time champion of freedom and protections from #industrial_surveillance #dystopia and I do recommend that folks use the "MiFi" membership service. Here's a little known privacy fact #ProTip - their mobile service anonymizes you - your name appears nowhere in the 5G cellular service plan with the carrier, so you're only one of thousands of 5G devices that's identified by only, "Calyx Institute".

It's pretty much the cheapest plan available anywhere too, and gets even cheaper the second year:

https://calyxinstitute.org/membership/internet

You can also purchase a brand new degoogled phone at a great price too with CalyxOS preinstalled:

https://calyxinstitute.org/membership/calyxos - this is my personal fav, but like I said, GraphineOS and CalyxOS are both phenomenal and GraphineOS is prolly a bit more anal where you're privacy is concerned.

And there's also https://Brax.me - Rob Braxman, he sells degoogled phones and is a great resource for privacy education, but I think I'd opt for one of the previously mentioned #ROMs to flash my #Android.

If you get some time, you might be interested in reading up a bit on Nick Merrill - imagine being in the position of not even being able to attend your own court hearings because that would be a felony❕❕❕ Your attorney can go and represent you, but you cannot. You cannot even tell your own wife ❕❕

He was the first man to fight the injustice of an NSL and to my understanding, to date being the only successful person to do so, which is the only reason we are aware of it today.

It's a very scary thing and he has blogged about his fight and dilemma extensively. It's worth a deep dive and will reinforce why you are doing the right thing by eschewing Google services.

https://calyxinstitute.org/about

I hope that helps!

#tallship #fOSS #privacy

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Wheelhouse 2, The Amerigo Vespucci from Italy, Visits Los Angeles

https://welchwrite.com/blog/2024/07/12/wheelhouse-2-the-amerigo-vespucci-from-italy-visits-los-angeles-photography/

https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/717471516564209243

#wheelhouse #rudder #ship #tallship #italy #italian #tour #losangeles #california #worldtour #italia #rigging #navy

Wheelhouse, The Amerigo Vespucci from Italy, Visits Los Angeles

https://welchwrite.com/blog/2024/07/10/wheelhouse-the-amerigo-vespucci-from-italy-visits-los-angeles-photography/

https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/716712182151362050

#wheelhouse #rudder #ship #tallship #italy #italian #tour #losangeles #california #worldtour #italia #rigging #navy

Going back to Konversation for GUI stuffs. DCC file send/receive is kinda important to me. For everything else, including a lot of Matrix usage, WeeChat is still the Kewlist :p

https://bugs.quassel-irc.org/projects/quassel-irc/wiki/Migrating_from_Monolithic_to_Client+Core - just ain't gonna cut it right now.

I still love HexChat.

Honorable mention goes to Halloy, which I think looks really good, supports tiling, and says it supports DCC Send - I don't mind manipulating config files by hand, and I might check it out with a FlatPak, but if I'm sufficiently impressed it looks like I'll have to build the .deb and SlackBuild myself, ... Well? Somebody's got to! Right?

#tallship #FOSS #IRC #DCC #GUI #Quassel #Konversation #Halloy #HexChat #WeeChat

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@leftout @alex Ummm…. k,

I’mma Trekkie. All my life.

I gotta say thank you and also admit that I’m embarrassed ss a result of spreading that falsehood for prolly two decades. It was based on my direct recollection that our minds shape within us as we add and recall various experiences in life.

Let me take this opportunity to say, “Fuck your therapist” too, for had you cited, S1:E18 TNG I would have been awkwardly embarrassed, outraged at myself, and thought you a dikhed for thrashing me publicly. You are too kind, and a statesman in trekkering (if that’s even a freaking word, lolz).

Because of your subtle pointer, not pointing to the episode itself butt to the provenance of the saga’s chronology, I took your queue and went to the sources at StarTrek .com, Etc., and did my due diligence.

“Home Soil” was in fact the episode with Captain Picard and crew, and Ugly… Ugly giant bags of mostly water was the actual line converted over communication links off the Enterprise obo the:

• Crystal life form (wikis)
• Microbrains (IMDb, but I think this is wrong)
• Crystalline Entity (something from my own recollections, but I think I may be conflating with another episode again)

In the second utterance, where the quote comes from, it’s:

“Ugly bags of mostly water” which is kinda fucked up if you’re the ugly bag and you think you’re the bees knees of the universe, lolz.

Anyway, I need to go back and watch the episode again and regain my clarity.

From one Trekkie to another, thanks for the nudge in the right direction, fuck your therapist (again, cuz your instincts were better than his/hers), and here’s some personal questions, stuffs, I have for you…

My all time fav episodes:

1. The Balance of Terror (S1:E14 TOS - 1966) - Romulan Captain played by the same actor (Mark Lenard) as Sarek in later episodes, series (like TNG), and movies, through s few franchises.
2. The Inner Light - after either ten minutes or a whole lifetime, Picard returns to his cabin to play a flute bestowed upon him by a strange probe of remembrance of a people past, and sadly, extinct - he carries with him their hopes, loves, and dreams, the rest of his natural days, as a complete life experience.
3. Don’t fuck this up coz I’ll gig your ass, lolz - What we’re Captain Kirk’s last words?
4. Another major fav of mine is TNG’s, “Yesterday’s Enterprise” who’s Captain had even more balls than Captain Janeway, who in turn, had more balls than Captain Kirk, lolz.

As my profile and contact info clearly states, I’m a FOSS and Privacy Advocate, shoulder that mantle quite seriously, and even though I thought him initially to be a dweeb write in, came to appreciate Will Wheaton as Wesley Crusher and note that it was not one of our finest hours when we let the destructive child snimals out of their respective cages to drive him from the Fediverse - yeah, I was there when those teenage pieces of shit did that to him - even @Gargron , who held great sway back then, couldn’t contain or filter those 💩’s.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/9bimug/why_did_mastodon_run_off_wil_wheaton/

You have a wonderful day, evening, or afternoon, whatev time it is where you’re at and thanks again for the gentle bump to fact check myself with this errata.

#tallship #Star_Trek #Star_Trek_you_bitches #Kirk #Picard #Janeway #TOS #TNG #humanity #sacrifice #rememberance #conflation #memory #recollection #I_can_haz_Cheezburgerz? 🍔

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@killyourfm

I couldn't find a single source there that didn't try to send me to the privacy disrespecting Google Playstore to install a proprietary, closed source app.

As fellow #Fedizens, I'm wondering where the #FunkWhale link is.

Anyway, I tried, but ask I found were data mining deprecated legacy silo options.

#tallship #Fediverse #FOSS #DRM_Free

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## Two Dixie Cups and a piece of string

### Oh my goodness\!

Okay first of all, I use #Matrix and #Jabber - #XMPP w/ #OMEMO, primarily.

I typically don't even regularly give out my email address nowadays, and more and more over the past four years or so, find myself publishing a #Fediverse address for myself too as a contact point.

Most often, if you ask me for my #email address I'll give you my Matrix address.

If someone wants to email me then I figure they can get that from my #PGP fingerprint or #Keyoxide.

If they don't know what a #keyserver is or where any of them are located then I just figure they're to dumb to use email.

Yes. As a technologist, I'm at times, rather arrogant, opinionated, discriminatory, and condescending... But only sometimes. The rest of the time I'm patient, attentive, empathetic, and accommodating.

Basically, if i know you don't know shit I'm a nice guy, yet if you pretend to be an all that jazz hipster know it all, then it's quite likely you'll find that I'm pretty much a full on dikhed. Spelled just like that too.

Beginning in the later eighties I think, and then the nineties they called us #BOFH. That's an acronym for someone who might already have forgotten more than you will ever know. I knew a few old Mainframe engineers with Honeywell and IBM when I was a young programmer - those guys were Gods and could tell you how many wraps of copper to make around a toroid if you had an emergency and needed to make an in the field replacement of your memory - Gods. #SuperFreakyGeeks, having already, back then, forgotten more than you or I will ever know.

They called me #Whizkid, coz I was learning shit that they were never gonna bother with - they're gonna retire soon in Mexico with boats, babes, and beers.

But I digress. I do that.

### Back to secure communications...

When it comes to Signal, I know a lot of you really like it. I have little use for it. It bleeds my DID and farms everyone's contact databases - "bing! Ex stalker bitch girlfriend just joined signal. Say hello!" What the fuck?

Well I guess she's still got me in her contacts lolz. Fuckin' bitch.

### Ummm... Yeah I'll pass.

I actually only use Signal with people who already have my #DID (phone number) anyway.

Recently, a colleague flew a cray cray route to Thailand, via #LAX to #NYC, then #Qatar. Signal works on jetliner's #WiFi too, and isn't dependant on cellular services.

Good choice, but I'm still wondering why his "safety number" changed after he departed #New_York and before arriving in #Thailand - he neither reinstalled nor switched to a new device. But that's another matter.

Sounds a little cloak & dagger fishy to me.

Anyway, I hadn't actually used #Signal in a while, and left it muted for a few months.

To my surprise... #Stories! Yay! Stories!

Wait, what are Stories? You mean like #YouTube or #InstaSPAM? And I'm assuming like they have in #Whaaaasup (never used it, never will)?

Ummm... I just tucked that little nugget of, I guess, good news away, not really knowing even how to process news of the introduction of such a useless fucking feature.

Until now.

Without further adieu, I defer to @how , one of our more prominently distinguished members in the Fediverse community, for his novel, clever, and appropriate recommendation:

https://ps.s10y.eu/@how/109308591992363124

#tallship #FOSS #communications #privacy #shenanigans

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@kravietz @mkljczk @rdarmila @xaphanpl Well I really don’t see what the big deal is.

There’s an old saying that goes something like this:

“Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke, and choke ‘em if they can’t take a fuck”

My tendencies over the past few decades, when receiving an organized flurry of complaints effectively dog piling some unwitting (and probably innocent) user, has been, as an admin, to summarily delete, deactivate or ban the accounts of all the offending, socalled “activists”.

I don’t need that shit in my life, and i don’t like punk assed sissy bitches… Add nobody likes a snitch! If s user has a problem with you, then the first thing they should do is block or mute you. Problem solved, they no longer have to see it hear from you anymore. If they see bring stalked and continue to be so after blocking someone, then that’s what admins and moderators are for.

But when they get in their little social warrior gang of pussies and try to take down people because they don’t like the way those other people think it speak, it becomes clear that they are there cancerous rot - so…

Boom Shakalaka BOOM 💥 Banhammer time 🔨

I don’t know why I derive such entertainment from that sort of action, but it’s really funny to know that those pussies just lost their ability to spread their bigotry and hatred towards anyone who doesn’t agree to think along their “approved” narrative, and the best part, is that they can’t even complain to anyone about it because they effectively no longer have an account.

Here’s basically the same ToS/AUP that I’ve been using since around 1999 or so…

1. ) Don’t be a Meany!
2. ) No doxing, trolling, stalking, harassment, defaming, threats, or unwanted advances of any kind.
3. ) No ad hominem (adhere to the principles of civil discourse).
4. ) No other behavior we consider inappropriate in a professional setting.
5. ) When in doubt, please kindly refer to rule # 1.

• If you don’t understand the 5 rules above, this may not be a good match for you, and you may wish to consider another project instead.
• We are “Bofh”: Enforcement of these rules are arbitrary, there is no appeal process, and we kick/ban without prior notice.
• This is THE warning.

Very simple. Just five little rules that anyone but a complete moron will understand lolz.

#tallship #Bofh #ToS #CoC #AUP #wokesters #punk_ass_sissy_bitches #cowards #banhammer #God_of_Thunder #AYBABTU

#You_can_haz_Cheezburgerz! 🍔

I hope that helps!

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