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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • You know, I wish I could enjoy IRC - or chatrooms in general. But I just struggle with them. Forums and their ilk, I get. I check in on them and see what’s been posted since I last visited, and reply to anything that motivates me to do so. Perhaps I’ll even throw a post up myself once in a while.

    But with IRC, Matrix, Discord, etc, I just feel like I only ever enter in the middle of an existing conversation. It’s fine on very small rooms where it’s almost analagous to a forum because there’s little enough conversation going on that it remains mostly asynchronous. But larger chatrooms are just a wall of flowing conversation that I struggle to keep up with, or find an entry point.

    Anyway - to answer the actual question, I use something called “The Lounge” which I host on my VPS. I like it because it remains online even when I am not, so I can atleast view some of the history of any conversation I do stumble across when I go on IRC. I typically just use the web client that comes with it.





  • Another vote here for Fastmail. I also like Posteo, Mailbox and mxroute, but these are not as fully featured - which may be perfect for you if you’re after email only. What I really like about Fastmail is that on top of being a customer-focused business (rather than a customer is the product business), they offer a really snappy web interface with excellent search - and they are extremely compliant with email standards, building everything on JMAP.

    I do not like Proton or Tutanota. I have used both, including using Proton as my main email account for the past two years. I do believe they are probably the best when it comes to encryption and privacy standards, but for me it’s at far too much cost. Encrypted email is almost pointless - the moment you email someone who isn’t using a Proton (or PGP encryption), then the encryption is lost. Or even if they just forward an email to someone outside your chain. I would argue that if you need to send a message to someone with enough sensitivity to require this level of encryption, email is the wrong choice of protocol.

    For all that Proton offer, it results in broken email standard compliance, awful search capability and reliance on bridge software or being limited to their WebUI and apps. And it’s a shame, because I really like the company and their mission.










  • Let’s number the dudes in your image form left to right: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

    Dudes 3 and 4 have no useful information. They stay silent.

    Dude 1 can see one of each hat colour on the dudes in front, but cannot determine their own colour without knowing the hat colour of dude 4. They stay silent.

    Dude 2 can see the hat colour of dude 3. They can determine that either they themself or the dude behind must have a different hat colour. The dude behind - dude 1 - can see both of the hat colours in front, but stays silent. This lets dude 2 know that they and dude 3 must be different colours (otherwise dude 1 would have known their own hat colour).

    Therefore, dude 2 knows their own hat colour must be different to the dude in front and announces the colour of their own hat.


  • Good question. I am now a software developer, but in a previous career I was a logistics manager. In that job I had a lot of repetitive report downloading and creating. It would take hours each day. I used techniques taught in that book to automate downloading reports directly, as well as generating some in SAP by automating mouse and keyboard movements, as well as generating CSVs and Excel spreadsheets. In all cases I either cut the time required or at least the time I had to be physically present. Many jobs could have similar applications of a little Python, I imagine. Certainly not all jobs though, of course.




  • It’s not even that these evangelizers think we should all be using the same browser. It’s that there are currently only two realistic choices: Chrome (and it’s derivatives) and Firefox (and it’s derivatives). There is safari too, of course, but it hardly compares to either in it’s current state.

    Given those two choices, only one of them is in support of the open web. The other is literally trying to add DRM to the web.

    As to your first point: I agree that here it may be preaching to the choir and that we all get it. But it has such a small marketshare, I’m not sure it is good for those encouraging it to be quitened.