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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 28th, 2023

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  • Device-wise, have you considered separating your project and personal computer? You could coreboot a small light Chromebook as a personal, ultraportable device, and get a hefty laptop or even a desktop for the hard stuff.

    Chatwise, there’s Matrix, XMPP and SimpleX at least. And Briar and Session. But Signal with its phone number registration is the easiest for others to jump to.

    And yes, it’s a constant balancing act between privacy and convenience… and the IA of the security triad, and open source principles. Just like with most things, there’s no perfect solution, you just learn to live with the least bad ones.


  • To me the value has come mostly from “ok, so it sounds to me you are saying that…” and the ability to confirm that I haven’t misunderstood something (of course with current LLMs both the original answer and the verification have to be taken with a heaping of salt). And the ability to adapt it on the go to a concrete example. So, kind of like a having a teacher or an expert friend, and not just search engine.

    Like the last time I relied heavily on a LLM to help/teach me with something it was to explain the PC boot process and BIOS/UEFI to me, and how it applied step by step on how successfully deal with USB and bootloader issues on an “eccentric” HP laptop when installing Linux. The combination of explaining and doing and answering questions was way better than an encyclopedia. No doubt it could have been done with blog posts and textbooks, and I did have to make “educated guesses” on occasion, but all in all it was a great experience.





  • Eh, users can still learn a little, and fiddle with their personal stuff. My little “corebooted Chromebook running Q4OS Linux looking like Windows XP, with background from Apple and the start menu labeled as Finder” brings me joy every time I use it. It was and is pure fun.

    And the great thing about enthusiastic devs is that they tend to be happy to spread the joy of their own personal projects and help, unless they get overwhelmed by help requests.



    1. “Easy and painless” depends on your point of view, and we here tend to be biased. For example, just a couple of months ago I had to explain to “a normal person” how to make backup copies of a folder to a pen drive. She did not want additional backup software (and I still don’t know if W10 would have had the functionality out-of-the-box). Copypasting files was too difficult. In the end she decided to go with “save as”, which sounded like a horrible idea to me, since she’couldn’t remember how to open anything in Word that wasn’t in the recently used list when starting the software, and she is going to lose track of which file is which at some point. I doubt it would be “easy and painless” for people like her, who are very common outside our little bubble.

    2. Making someone change their opinion is not a sprint, but a marathon. State your opinion openly when relevant, don’t get into an argument, let it brew, mention it again when it comes up, live as you “preach”. That person I mentioned? Happily using Signal with me. Eager(!) to try Linux once W10 support runs out. I’ve told her I’ll install Mint DE on my laptop and loan it to her for unhurried testing and learning this summer while having her familiar backup to lean on if it gets difficult, and to install the same on her own computer when the support runs out, if she still wants me to.



  • Ditto. My partner and I are well into our 40s, mortgage paid off, etc. Childfree. Living in a one-story attached house in a sort of suburbs, 20 minutes to city center by bike or bus. So, not a city apartment, and could have a decent car if we wanted to.

    I never even bothered with getting a license, do not want to be responsible for a tonne+ murder machine.

    We rent a car twice a year to visit relatives in the countryside, often one or two times more if there’s a family event or other need. I take a taxi sometimes to go to the vet. Otherwise it’s cycling (very bicycle-friendly city) or public transportation (also well arranged), and train & public transportation for other national travel. Transporting furniture is sometimes a hassle, but how often does one need to do that? Way more carefree and cheaper than owning a car.



  • Ehhh.

    As much as the traditition of yearly votes on some version of Chat Control sucks, it’s just two mentions (The Register missed the reference to COM (2022) 209 under “Fighting serious crimes/child sexual abuse”, because of course it’d be there) in a document with way juicier tidbits. Like

    • actual enforcement of the DSA (finally some consequences for social media giants gleefully profiting from manipulation, or an affront to freedom of speech, depending on your opinion)
    • overhauling Europol’s mandate to make it “a truly operational police agency”, whereas the current mandate doesn’t cover such things as “sabotage, hybrid threats or information manipulation” (cool or creepy)
    • “strengthening border security”, “countering weaponised migration”, “security considerations in EU visa policy”, and “revision of the Visa Suspension Mechanism” are all probably necessary steps, but taken together paint a picture of something that shouldn’t be allowed to go too far

    The DSA enforcement is something strongly opposed by social media giants, so I’d expect more denigration of the document as a whole in the future.






  • Same. Hetzner has a solid business in hosting, they don’t make their money from mining my data. They’d hand it over for a lawful request, but the data is not -that- secret and thus possible false accusations aren’t really an issue.

    I’ve barely hosted anything and those must have leaked like a sieve. Trusting Hetzner way more.