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Salamander

@ Sal @mander.xyz

Posts
7
Comments
178
Joined
4 yr. ago

  • When is it time to switch away from youtube?

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  • I like the idea of PeerTube, but I tried running an instance and was unable to sustain the experiment for too long. I made it very open and it got quickly flooded by pirated TV series and spammy and heavy content.

    After that, I had a difficult time at some point finding an instance to host some videos I wanted to upload - and, having had that failed experiment before hand, I can see why the instances that do survive are often those with more stringent filters and less generous with resources.

    So, I am sorry to "chime in about the shortcomings", but hosting a PeerTube instance can be a demotivating experience. You set up the infrastructure expecting to contribute to a space reminiscent of the old youtube, and you see it filled with spam. The signal-to-noise ratio is just awful and it is expensive. To avoid this, you can be an aggressive gate keeper - but this makes the platform less friendly to people who are looking to find a space to share their original content. Gate keeping is also an additional effort that you need to make. In the end I chose to just shut it off as it was more of a hassle than fun. By comparison, hosting a Lemmy instance is fun, much much cheaper, and little hassle.

    I still haven't given up on the idea of Peertube, though... I have some video ideas, and when I finally get to making them I plan to make another instance to host only my channel. Then, I would be able to host my own channel using my own infrastructure via a federated network. This use case would work very well for me, and it can probably work for many others. So that is one way of building the Peertube network.

    General permissive video uploads is something that makes YouTube such a powerful platform though, and that is very difficult to replicate.

  • Lemmy community feedback: Should we fetch and combine comments from cross-posts on the post screen? · Issue #3415 · LemmyNet/lemmy-ui

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  • EDIT: After reading through the Git issue and the other comments in this thread, it is not very clear to me what "combining comments from cross-posts on the post screen" means. I understood it at first to mean that you will pool all comments together and show all of them in all cross-posts, but now I am not so sure. Still, in general terms, I think that mechanisms to share activity with niche communities are good

    I would say yes, there are cases in which I have thought that this would be a nice thing to have. Especially when cross-posting to a smaller niche community.

    I can think of a few potential small issues. For example, cross-posters can edit the body of the message, so you might in some cases end up with comments that seem out of place as they refer to the content specific to a cross-post. You also have the rare case in which the same post might mean different things in different communities.

    But, overall, I see it as beneficial. Quirks can be fine-tuned later on.

  • (EU) Cheap Prepaid SIM with little to no top up requirement?

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  • Hmm, you are right, it is possible that the initial activation is more difficult if you are not in NL.

    I found a forum post of someome having problems with a KPN sim card, but for LycaMobile I still don't know: https://community.kpn.com/prepaid-16/sim-card-activation-doesn-t-work-in-germany-591780

    I wil be going to Germany in a few days so I will bring one of those SIM cards and check what happens when I try to activate it, I'll report back.

  • Do your significant others use Lemmy/the Fediverse?

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  • Lemmy, but very rarely

  • (EU) Cheap Prepaid SIM with little to no top up requirement?

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  • I looked up LycaMobile in Germany and was surprised to find you have an entire 'Prepaid SIM' wiki, ha! https://www.prepaid-wiki.de/tarife/Lyca_Mobile

    Germany is not too far from NL. I think you can just order a Dutch SIM card. If all you want is for it to be active, I don't think it would be a problem as you would not actually use roaming services. Just top up via code every 5.5 months or so by dialing 101CODE#

    I have not tested this myself so there may be some special rules I am not aware of, but I have often kept phone numbers abroad for years - just not Germany specifically

  • (EU) Cheap Prepaid SIM with little to no top up requirement?

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  • The Pager

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  • Yeah, as others mentioned, you can get cheaper data plans depending on the monthly data you need.

    However, one of the interesting properties is that, unlike with phones, there is no restriction on the number of pagers that can listen to your assigned RIC. You can use one subscription to communicate with as many pagers as you would like, and each individual pager can be programmed using text filters such that one can implement their own sub-address system.

  • The Pager

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  • I suspect so too. I contribute to the local network with a few nodes :) In a controlled, coordinated setting it works well, but continuous reliability and coverage are still challenging.

  • The Pager

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  • Thank you for reading! Happy you find it valuable.

  • The Pager

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  • I think that the Dutch make some good/interesting infrastructure choices.

  • The Pager

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  • LoRA is sort of a slower version of wifi and as such, you should assume Meshtastic is monitored, at least for traffic metadata. The actual messages are encrypted though.

    LoRa is great in that it gives us direct control and ownership over the infrastructure. One can participate in the network without their identity being known. But, yes, traffic metadata specifying the sender and recipient identifiers are plain text and can be easily logged.

    Default configurations will have your device broadcasting often to contact new neighbors and will re-broadcast incoming messages. Since the device is quite active, and the chirped signal signal so characteristic when seeing via an SDR, someone who is actively tracking a Meshtastic device can do so very effectively.

    Still, the fact that you own fully the device and have total control over it opens up a lot of possibilities. To give one example: if the mesh around here were strong, I could make use of a device configured for Rx only as a meshtastic pager. I might set up my Raspberry pi to inject a message from a randomized sender via MQTT in response to an XMPP message. Then, I would not use any radio transmitter at all.

    For regular peer-to-peer chatting, yes, the default properties are very leaky, but we can change some of what we don't like.

    There is actually still such a thing as a satellite pager, a receive-only device that can get pages that cover regions as big as small countries. They stopped making the receivers quite a while back, but some are still around and the subscriptions are still available, though expensive. This info is itself some years old so maybe they are all gone by now.

    That is very interesting. When I looked into satellite devices I only found two way devices, like the GARMIN inReach. I figured that it made sense that satellite comms would be 2-way because broadcasting all over the world seems rather extreme.

    I have searched for these now and found the Iridium 9501 from Motorola. It is pricey, ~$680 for the device and either $90 (150 messages) or $150 (unlimited) per month for the subscription. In the description it says that you do need to program three 'Message Delivery Areas' as the messages are not broadcast globally, but I think this is acceptable.

    Thanks for pointing that out. $90/month is pricey.... But it is cool enough that I would seriously consider it if I would travel a lot for work.

    POCSAG pagers still exist in the US too, though again, they are quite expensive compared to cell phones. Their main attraction is supposed to be higher reliability, so e.g. doctors can get paged even with the mobile phone network is out. I don’t know if that advantage still exists. In the more distant past there was something called ARDIS which I think is gone now. That was quite a robust signal, so you could get paged even in sub-basements of buildings and places where mobile phones didn’t work. Repair technicians who worked in those places often carried them.

    I think that the advantage might still exist, especially in buildings with thick walls and underground floors. While looking into pagers I found discussions about them being phased out in many hospitals and replaced with 'EPIC secure chat' and with sharing private cellphone numbers.

    In the Netherlands there is also the P2000 system, which is considered to be very reliable. That network makes use of FLEX to send messages to emergency services. It is possible to easily capture those too using SDR, or to see a live dump of these messages in sites like this one: https://p2000-online.net/alleregiosf.html

    I’ve followed this stuff slightly as it’s interesting for the reasons you say, but I’d have to say it’s not really cost effective for most of us. POCSAG in particular only works in relatively localized areas like single countries. I know a guy who would want something like it, but only if it worked pretty much everywhere, since he travels a lot.

    Yea, I can see that. So, that guy might like the satellite pager, but probably will not like the price tag.

    Thanks for your reply!

  • The Pager

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  • I do like Meshtastic a lot and I am still trying to get the most out of it. But there are too many gaps around here. In the city there are more nodes, but also a lot of buildings. Outside of the city there is more line of sight but few nodes.

  • The Pager

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  • Yes, at least in the Netherlands. I was also surprised to discover this.

  • Finally correcting the Degoogling lists

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  • AMSTERDAM TRIP: 52.37952717594758, 4.898731163397595 -> 52.373726213381254, 4.8991743688343785 -> 52.37307624236834, 4.892481840346751 -> 52.375235597713356, 4.883881824117286 -> 52.364346142549444, 4.882779439603186 -> 52.358151346039655, 4.868920785661565 -> 52.36032825423474, 4.885688072103288 -> 52.38899110197864, 4.8381014035210965

  • Payment app without Google in Europe?

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  • This scanner is for 2-factor authentication in the case that one does not want to use a phone app. When you try to log in, or pay online, the browser displays a unique QR code that the scanner is able to decode.

    You would enter your pin into the scanner, scan the code, and the scanner displays a number. You then type that decoded number into a field under the QR code and your are let through.

    It can be ordered for free here in the NL: https://www.ing.nl/particulier/digitaal-bankieren/mijn-ing/scanner

    So, with this scanner as a 2FA method, the app is not needed. One can pay offline with a card, online with a scanner, and check account balances through any browser using the scanner to log in.

  • Payment app without Google in Europe?

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  • Ahh, no no. We can pay with card with no need for an app. This code reader thing can be used for 2FA when making an online payment or logging into the banking site, so one does not need to use a phone app.

  • When will we find microbial life on other planets, if ever?

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  • Payment app without Google in Europe?

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  • In the Netherlands, at least with ING, you can request standalone code reader and pay through any browser, like this:

  • Removed

    What happened to lemmynsfw?

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  • 😆

  • Let's be honest.... GrapheneOS sucks the big one

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  • OK, fine... I'll be honest...

    I have had good experiences with it. I have not had problems with apps. Most of my apps I get via Obtaininum. As for the UI, I think it is fine.

    I don't think Google will be able to lock my Pixel's bootloader, and, if they do, well it is already running the OS. So it shouldn't be a problem for a while. If at some time GrapheneOS stops being supported I will find something else. I don't need a guarantee of permanence to find it useful today.