@kikobar@acc4e.com
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

kikobar

@kikobar@acc4e.com

Human being. Temporary dweller of this planet. Permanently searching for ways of making tomorrow better than today. Open-minded. All ideas are welcome.

Opinions here are my own; I am not speaking on behalf of any individual, company or organisation.

Boosts don't mean "I support"; they mean "I think you should read this".

Posts and replies are searchable and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

fabio, to apple
@fabio@manganiello.social avatar

challenges the courts again on payments processing.

You can now show users an external link to process the payment outside of Apple’s platform.

But that comes with a new “external link fee” of 27% - to be paid on top of the fee you pay for users who still make their purchases through the App store.

I’ve said it several times, I’ll repeat it: companies like Apple can get away with such parasitic rent-seeking behavior with no added value, and with challenging courts all over the world, because they are practically above the law.

They can afford to create their own taxation system as if they were an independent country, but without being accountable to voters, and without losing a single percentage point of market share if they behave like jerks.

And any fine thrown on them by courts around the world is likely to be only a tiny part of their revenue - unless we get the balls of fining them for hundreds of billions and use that money to support more competition in the market, which would be an act of redistribution long overdue IMHO.

Apple can treat fines as small operating costs because their monopolistic behaviour is still profitable enough to pay those one-off fines many times over.

And if they are above the law, it’s because too many people bought their crap and gave them power that they didn’t deserve. And they’ll keep buying their products even if Tim Cook starts wearing a Darth Vader mask during interviews.

If you use anything made by Apple, you are part of the problem.

https://darnell.day/apple-outsmarts-court-upsets-judge-regarding-third-party-app-payments

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@fabio I am not a fan of , however the issue here seems not to be that their behavior is illegal, but that their customer base have chosen to voluntarily self-jeopardise their bargaining power. 🙄

On my little corner, I shall continue my personal apple-free life.

jwildeboer, (edited ) to random
@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net avatar

Every time a truly open protocol emerges, the vultures that shout "monetisation" will show up and demand that artificial scarcity must be created or else they will not come. But adding artificial scarcity to an open system makes it non-open. 1/7

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@jwildeboer I think this is a good question: Why did we move here?

I don't think I am clear myself... but I like it here. 😃

feliciaday, to random

Enabled fediverse sharing on Threads: @feliciaday!

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@feliciaday Welcome!

darnell, to meta
@darnell@one.darnell.one avatar

I know #WhatsApp is popular amongst Americans 🇺🇸 who travel outside of the country, but I doubt #Meta will replace #iMessage in the #UnitedStates 🇺🇸 in the near future.

#Apple has already lost to #Facebook Messenger in #America 🇺🇸, so in a sense @zuck has already won.

👉🏾 WhatsApp Reveals Biggest iPhone Update For 2024—It's Impossible To Beat https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2024/05/04/whatsapps-surprise-new-update-iphone-15-pro-max-iphone-16-pro-max/

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@darnell I can confirm @yeri perception... I haven't ever seen a single iMessage in Asia in the last 20 years 😆

fabio, to bitwarden
@fabio@manganiello.social avatar

Just migrated from to .

Same API, same features, same UI, and support for other DBs than MSSQL.

One single stand-alone application vs. Bitwarden’s 10 Docker containers. 70MB of RAM vs. 2GB. 3MB of db storage vs. 300MB.

Why was a password manager supposed to take so many resources in the first place? Just because it runs on a Microsoft-only stack and on .NET’s inefficient VM? Just because somebody thought that it was a good idea to separate everything into different containers (even icons and 2fa are modeled as separate services in Bitwarden)?

It reminds me of my recent migration from Mastodon to Akkoma. I got more features, 5GB of RAM freed up and 300GB of storage freed up almost overnight.

Writing and running inefficient software that pointlessly consumes all the resources available on a machine should be a crime in a world with limited resources.

It makes me think of how much shitty bloated software like @bitwarden, probably based on awfully inefficient languages and frameworks like Java, Ruby on Rails and .NET, is running out there, pointlessly sucking up resources for doing simple jobs that could easily be done with 99% less resources.

Today’s developers, spoiled by IDEs, powerful machines, docker-compose and shortsighted “just throw more RAM at the problem” approaches, have forgotten how to write efficient software. Time for them to learn how to write good efficient software again. Software doesn’t eat the world. Only shitty software built on shitty framework does.

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@fabio perhaps AI will takeover sooner than expected... 🙄

ben, to random
@ben@werd.social avatar

I don't like reading from an ereader - I'm one of those old-school people who prefer actual paper books - but I can no longer use a reading light in bed because it'll wake up the kid. An ereader with a backlight would be better. But I don't buy books on Amazon. What's your favorite non-Kindle reader that you've actually used?

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@ben I use Kobo. It uses EPUB instead of the Kindle format.

You can convert the formats easily using #Calibre and a couple of plugins.

kikobar, to philosophy
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

Daniel C. Dennett has passed.

He left us a long legacy of thoughts and books, which are all worth reading with attention.

We may agree or disagree with some of his thoughts, but we must acknowledge his brilliance, clarity and amazing style in his writings and debates.

Many of his thoughts are inconclusive, leaving a sort of "homework" for the philosophers who follow.

RIP.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/books/daniel-dennett-dead.html

fabio, to random
@fabio@manganiello.social avatar

I’ve decided to go full-in with my own mail server. The bridge over SSH+VPN tunnel is no substitute for a proper mail server - plus it’s awfully slow when used as a full IMAP server and it breaks the IMAP implementation in a lot of ways.

I’ve created my new domain, gone through the configuration of DKIM/DMARC/SPF like a good postmaster, just to get immediately blacklisted by @spamhaus on my first outbound email.

I’ve been through this before, but in my previous experiences a blacklist removal ticket would be either resolved automatically or within a couple of hours at most.

In this case, nearly 24h and three tickets later and nothing is moving. Not even some directions on how to get removed or an ETA. The mailboxes have already been all migrated with forwarding configured on the old addresses, but outbound email is still broken because being blacklisted by a single company means being unable to communicate with nearly any mail servers out there.

Does anyone have any tips on how a blacklist removal process can be sped up?

kikobar, (edited )
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@fabio
I run my own email server as well, and I've done so for more than 10 years.

Spamhaus has not been the biggest of my pains, that slot belonged to (particularly ) and , and it took years for them to finally accept our emails without complains.

I believe some of the problem was because I hadn't implemented DMARC fully, I made 2 big mistakes, I think:

  • Choosing 'quarantine' instead of 'reject' in my DMARC directive. I did this because I wanted to monitor before turning more strict (and then forgot). I should have gone with a more restrictive directive from day 0.

  • Choosing not to send daily DMARC reports to other domains/servers, because I thought these messages were going to increase my traffic with spam servers, so it could be counter productive. I believe it worked the other way, having not done so actually costed some reputation to my server, so if I did it again, I would be shooting DMARC reports from day 0 as well.

Note that making these 2 mistakes won't prevent you from getting 10/10 score for the email tests, however your emails won't reach to the usual suspects.

As your server is considered 'matured' by Microsoft and Yahoo, you may consider using an alternative external email service such as AWS SES. It is extremely cheap and reliable.

@djsumdog @spamhaus

eobrain, to random

Reminder, to allow your posts to flow out onto the Fediverse go to

Settings > Account > Fediverse sharing

Only about a fifth of the people I follow on Threads have Fediverse sharing turned on

(That foiled my plan to use my Mastodon client instead of Threads to follow Threads people)

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@eobrain I guess eventually most people would do it.

I am not really planning to open a Threads account, so I might keep an eye on what you do. 😉

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@eobrain I guess the opposite works, right? (following all your Fediverse people from Threads).

This would be a strong incentive for people to leave the Fedi in favor of Threads. We'll see.

Question: what happens with the # hashtags? are they followed across too?

kikobar, to threads
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

Will following accounts in #Threads from my #solohosting #fediverse site create a massive traffic to my tiny #mastodon instance?

Mastodon is famous for caching many gigabytes of posts and profile pictures that have to be deleted every day.

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@3dcandy thanks.

What do you mean by brute force implementation?

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@3dcandy oh, yes. That I understand.

My question was more about the sheer volume impact, because I worry my server would attempt to download millions of profiles.

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@gabboman Thanks! I'll just follow Barak Obama and see what happens. 😎

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@gabboman I am sure this is what I will get on my feed, which is filtered by who and what I follow, but I'd presume the server will download a lot more toots into the federated fee, which is my concern.
Anyway, I shall know for sure in a few hours. 😅

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@gabboman 24 hours after following Barak Obama and POTUS with millions of followers each, no issue at all.

Thanks!

mikestevens, to random
@mikestevens@aus.social avatar

Just a reminder if any missed it, I'm posting more at @mikestevens atm!

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@mikestevens @mikestevens hadn't noticed, sorry.

How permanent is temporary? - shall we follow the new account? 😉

kikobar, (edited ) to sustainability
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

"The Age of Resilience - Reimagining Existence on a Rewilding Earth" by Jeremy Rifkin.

A hopeful and optimistic, but still possible development of the Human journey back to be an empathic member of the Earth ecosystem.

Rifkin illustrates his assertion with many examples of real-life signals that we, as species, have started to veer in the right direction, however it remains uncertain whether we will succeed in our endeavour.

#JeremyRifkin #Commons #Sustainability #Humanity #Economics #Books

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL37809961W/The_Age_Of_Resilience

aral, to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

When privileged folks tell me at my talks “I don’t care about my privacy / I have nothing to hide / Give me one example of the ramifications of surveillance capitalism / etc.”, I tell them “you will care when your health insurance premiums go up because your Smart Fridge tells the insurance companies what you’re eating/drinking.” This is basically the same thing. Sad that it takes things hitting their own wallets for privileged folks to pay attention.

🤷‍♂️ https://social.lansky.name/@hn50/112077137922790367

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@aral too late... my supermarket has been selling this information for the last 2 decades... 🙄

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@maggiejk @aral unfortunately, unless we pay with physical cash -which is very rare these days- we are giving away the information anyway, and either them or their ERP suppliers will engage in the data brokerage without proper consent. 🙄

fasnix, to Software
@fasnix@dresden.network avatar

Question to all #software engineers (of all genders, of course):

#Microsoft offers a wide range of corporate tools, that (in parts) interact with each other, making it very comfortable for companies (of any size) to use them and thus getting "vendor locked-in".

E.g.:
Outlook connects to teams,
Edge (plans) to recommend (and connect) to teams and vice versa; logging in with MS SSO, over VPN, and so on, very strongly interconnect their different tools.

Would all that be possible - already today - using only #OpenSource tools?
With the same level of comfort and "interconnectedness" in comparably "high polished" user interfaces?

I ask, as someone some time ago stated that Microsoft would be "exceptionally good" in doing so for corporates.

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@fasnix I don't think it would be possible with the 'same level of DIScomfort'... but yes with a MUCH BETTER lever of comfort. 😉

I explain. IMHO #Microsoft is a pain even with interoperability in between different versions of their own suite. By using #OpenSource applications such as #LibreOffice, #NextCloud, #OpenProject, #Thunderbird, etc., you'll be able to interoperate with others using a far more diverse landscape of systems and applications, including Linux, Apple and old versions of Microsoft applications that they don't support themselves any more, but you'll come across all the time.

I moved away from Microsoft and used exclusively OpenSource software for almost 20 years with zero regrets.

I do this both at personal and corporate level.

The only 'downside' is that you will learn new things... 😎

To be fair, there are some niche areas where proprietary software might be the only cross-platform suitable solutions, and then you need to add those to your suite, but that has not been my experience with any of the Microsoft products at all.

Just as an indicator, on #Azure, Microsoft's own cloud computing service, 60% of the cores are running #Linux.

Now, if you are one of those people who are scared of computers, or think that software is some kind of black magic or voodoo... ok, don't try... but in any other scenario with a bit of natural curiosity, you'll be fine. 😊

kikobar, (edited )
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@fasnix sorry, there is a caveat I just remembered... Excel macros in Visual Basic... if you come across these, they won't work in LibreOffice... but honestly, I wouldn't run any Visual Basic macros that came embedded in someone else's Excel spreadsheet anyway... 😅

atomicpoet, to random
@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org avatar

In light of recent events, I’m actually thinking about defederating the “opt-in” purists for the following reasons:

  1. They did not actually opt into receiving my posts, therefore they shouldn’t have access to them
  2. They so far refuse to join or operate a whitelisted version of the Fediverse that is specifically opt-in
  3. Despite this inconsistency, they are dogpiling and harassing people who do not share their vision of an opt-in version of the Fediverse
  4. Each time someone who’s a total beginner experiments with the ActivityPub spec, the opt-in purists respond with ugliness, and this is toxic to the future of the Fediverse itself
  5. I do not want to subject myself to death threats, or worse, simply for expressing an opinion that is different from the opt-in purists

This is not something I’m going to pursue immediately, but certainly considering this quite heavily. Either way, if the opt-in purists won’t create their own opt-in version of the Fediverse, then I’m likely going to opt out of federation with them.

kikobar, (edited )
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@atomicpoet what are you referring to as 'opt-in purists'?

Anyway, the ultimate freedom is to run your own instance -as you and I do- so we can engage with as few or as many as we feel appropriate for ourselves.

I believe that most of the 'opt-in' and 'opt-out' discussions are a consequence of other people having to make federation, defederation, blocking and relaying decisions on our behalf.

However, running a Mastodon instance is expensive and overkill for a single user. What is the lightest and least resource-hungry Fediverse instance we could recommend?

timbray, to random
@timbray@cosocial.ca avatar

So… if they’re gonna dump staff who’re trying to unionize. I have my music sitting on computers in my house, 400GB in Apple lossless, I have a fast Internet connection (firewalled of course), I wanna be able to do “shuffle all songs” or "shuffle Miles Davis" while I’m driving or walking around out in the world.

Anyone out there actually done this? [Don’t wanna be rude but would prefer to avoid answers of the “this should work” flavor.]

kikobar,
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@timbray I've used 2 approaches before:

1.- Use Mixxx to generate the playlist/mix and then stream it with Icecast.

2.- Create a playlist and stream it with VLC using http.

With option 1 you would have a full-featured internet radio station at your disposal which you could use to DJ at party as well. It is more fun, but you need to setup an Icecast server, which I do in Virtualbox VM.

Option 2 is just working in a couple of clicks.

arstechnica, to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

GitHub besieged by millions of malicious repositories in ongoing attack

GitHub keeps removing malware-laced repositories, but thousands remain.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/02/github-besieged-by-millions-of-malicious-repositories-in-ongoing-attack/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

kikobar, (edited )
@kikobar@acc4e.com avatar

@michael @arstechnica pretty ugly.

Surprising that after the May and July 2023 proofs of concept were detected, no effective measures were able to be implemented. 🤔

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • magazineikmin
  • Youngstown
  • osvaldo12
  • khanakhh
  • slotface
  • tacticalgear
  • mdbf
  • InstantRegret
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • thenastyranch
  • everett
  • rosin
  • anitta
  • Durango
  • GTA5RPClips
  • ethstaker
  • modclub
  • cisconetworking
  • ngwrru68w68
  • tester
  • normalnudes
  • cubers
  • Leos
  • megavids
  • provamag3
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •