Olivier Forget @teleclimber@social.tchncs.de
Seeking refuge in a distributed world. Web, future programming. Building https://dropserver.org
Joined Apr 2017
Olivier Forget
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Fuck you #Apple:
Build/Products/Release/ImageOptim.app: bundle format unrecognized, invalid, or unsuitable
Command CodeSign failed with a nonzero exit code
I can't build my own program on my "own" machine, because everything is now owned by Apple, and Xcode is a broken piece of shit.
Just pushed an improved version of
The main page is now easier to scan, more colorful and generally more polished. Also added an unmissable "Project Status" section to counter any notion that the nice(r) looking site indicates the project is anywhere close to ready.
Moved some wordy stuff over to the docs/ section, which will grow in step with improvements and stability of DS itself.
If you think something could be made more clear on the site please let me know.
Olivier Forget
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alright, sorry. I've been kinda negative about some stuff recently, and I want to take a step back:
What technological/social projects are you very excited about that achieve decentralization/distance from the current exploitative systems *without* blockchain?
Olivier Forget
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@samgai Thanks. That's a bit of a bummer. I'd love to see Webauthn take off but it seems it only works really well in simplified situations.
Also I worry about people who are in situations where having one personal device is problematic. See this birdsite link for an insight on 2FA along those lines:
Olivier Forget
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Today, I am going to talk about Web Authentication (#WebAuthn), the new web standard that aims to change the way we log into web applications.
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Olivier Forget
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While these shopping holidays can be quite silly, a sale like this helps us reach new people and bring in some extra cash in a short period of time.
As always, that cash is the only way we keep the lights on. I've been able to work on this full-time for the last 3 years, only because people pay to use Write.as. So again, thank you!
Olivier Forget
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lol a news site started just selling ads themselves instead of using targeted bullshit and made so much more money https://www.wired.com/story/can-killing-cookies-save-journalism/
Olivier Forget
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Just a reminder that I run a wiki called Pass It On about where to send things at the end of their useful (to you) life.
https://passiton.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page
It's really just focused on the UK at the moment - don't know if that will change in future.
I noticed as I was researching this that almost everything about fly.io is about one year old, or less. So things are moving fast over there. Maybe in another year the platform will get closer to what I need (basically a firecracker VM as a service).
But it might not, because I can tell by reading the docs that a use case like Dropserver, that has many many small apps that need to start and stop quickly is just not a use case they're catering to.
This points to me developing fVMaaS myself 😖
Sadly it looks like using Fly.io as a platform to host a Dropserver service isn't going to work for a handful of reasons:
- min volume size is 10Gigs, which is immense for a typical appspace. This would bring my costs way up.
- Volumes can only be used by one app at a time, and each app can only use one volume, making it hard to serve static content when the sandbox is not running (a design goal of DS)
- Suspend/resume is flaky, took several seconds and it's apparently a deprecated feature.
Olivier Forget
boosted
This is a huge deal:
The Open Collective Foundation has just announced: "OCF now offers employment options to initiative workers—with health insurance!" https://blog.opencollective.com/oc-news-nov-2021/
If your FLOSS project is on OpenCollective, you can hire a maintainer as an employee! With health insurance & 401(k)!
This is such a huge step forward for open source sustainability, in particular for projects with key contributors in the United States. Let's talk about why! https://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2021/11/24/0
Julia Evans asked exactly this question over at Birdsite back in January 2021:
https://twitter.com/b0rk/status/1352314998492684292
"are there any cloud providers that have an API for starting a Firecracker VM?"
And one interesting lead from the Fly.io people:
I looked for commercial solutions but came up short. Lots of FaaS options but they aren't a good match for the way Dropserver uses the sandbox (FaaS have time limits, respond to a single request).
Lots to love about Firecracker VMs, in particular the snapshot and very fast restore is ideal for Dropserver.
What I need is "Firecracker VMs as a Service". This probably exists, but not under this description.
Did a search on here for "firecracker" (the microVM) and found one result:
https://mastodon.social/@kosinus/101377517901709322
A thread from 2019 (that I even participated in) about the challenges of sandboxing.
I spent the morning researching the tech I might use to run a hosted version of Dropserver, and this is a reminder that it's not going to be easy.
Olivier Forget
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@platypus so they created a completely dysfunctional organization and decentralized it on the Blockchain? Innovative!
Anyways, I highly recommend this podcast episode if anyone wants a taste of the mad mad world of crypto and eth stuff in the form of an entertaining story:
https://corecursive.com/064-ethereum-rescue-with-dan-robinson/
Olivier Forget
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Wonder how things are going with the guys who we’re gonna buy the Constitution with Crypto? https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb8av/constitutiondao-aftermath-everyone-very-mad-confused-losing-lots-of-money-fighting-crying-etc
Oh no. People ARE learning a lot about crypto.
Olivier Forget
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Prescott Valley, AZ is home to 150,000 people and a single private ambulance operator with the exclusive regional franchise: Lifeline Ambulance, a division of American Medical Response (AMR) - a predatory monopolist that has snapped up many smaller ambulance companies and locked in lucrative exclusivity deals with many US cities and towns.
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Olivier Forget
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climate crisis, extremism
As we move into the coming days, everyone needs to be aware of the turn toward eco-fascism on the global far-right and its increasing normalization into mainstream politics around immigration and ecological solutions internationally.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/21/climate-denial-far-right-immigration
We are likely to see more green- and ecology-movements merge into fascist belief systems, an increasing prevalence of language and policies that attempt to dehumanize and "other" various peoples, an uptick in doomerist and accelerationist narratives, and disinformation campaigns and information operations that amplifies all of the above.
Our best chance in these times is, and has always been, to support each other. Be careful out there.
Olivier Forget
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Some thoughts on recent #Linux elitism (not sure elitism is the right word, but I can't think of a better one right now) I heard on Late Night Linux. ☹️
Olivier Forget
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@cjd @anonymoose @theblockchainsocialist
Can highly recommend also. You can start with little (always important for me, as I am always reluctant in trusting such organisations at first), you read and sympathise with stories from people around the world, and then you can participate to help.
And if your money helped to bring a person successfully back on their feet, you get it back and hand it to the next person in need 🙂
Seeking refuge in a distributed world. Web, future programming. Building https://dropserver.org
Joined Apr 2017
