news
today's leftovers
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Server
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Steven Deobald ☛ LocalFirst: You Keep Using That Word
Under local-first ideals, owning your data is essential. If someone else can rug-pull your data out from under you, that software is objectively not local-first.
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Audiocasts/Shows
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The BSD Now Podcast ☛ BSD Now 644: Holidays 2025 - What you been do'in?
Holidays 2025 - What you been do'in?
What tech did we enjoy playing with or found interesting in 2025?
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Instructionals/Technical
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Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Fonts on Linux Mint
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Distributions and Operating Systems
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Debian Family
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Stardust to Crans-Montana, Le Constellation: cover-up already under way
It is entirely possible that people have committed suicide due to the financial and insurance crisis in Switzerland. These deaths are every bit as bad as the deaths in Le Constellation.
When people like Mr Pocock try to offer professional advice, for example, after the Debian suicide cluster, they are subject to public humiliation and threats of violence (recorded). The lawyers, politicians and small business owners are a group of kissing-cousins. Protecting the reputations and business interests of their families and friends is inextricably intertwined with covering up all the people who failed to prevent this disaster.
Look at the mayor of Basel, Diana von Bidder-Senn. They tell us that she has a PhD in cybersecurity from ETH Zurich but she didn't realize that her own husband was under the influence of social engineering. Can there be any more extreme example of social engineering than a victim who dies by suicide? IBM's annual Cost of a Data Breach report regularly concludes that social engineering is the number one risk for their clients.
JuristGate reports have been published in the hope that Swiss authorities can raise their standards in relation to both cybersecurity and fire safety.
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Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications
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Rui Carmo ☛ eSIM is still only convenient for carriers
With eSIM, the swap becomes a workflow—and if it fails at the wrong time you can end up locked out of your own number (and everything that still treats SMS as a magic identity token), with the delightful resolution of “go to a store and wait”.
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Consortia
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Standards
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Chuck Carroll ☛ How to Build a Time Machine
During my holiday break, I built a Stratum 1 NTP server in my home lab. Ordinarily, we get our time from internet-based NTP servers which usually Stratum 2 or 3. With Stratum 1, I can get significantly more accurate time directly from the Stratum 0 GPS satellites orbiting above me. On these satellites are atomic clocks which are the most accurate timekeeping devices humanity has ever created.
First off, time tracking that's this precise and reliable is overkill for my needs, but it's a fun project and a great learning experience. For this project I used a Raspberry Pi 5 (which I already had), a GPS module, GPIO wires, and a better antenna. I followed some guidance from a colleague, but much of this has been based off of a post on NetworkProfile.org. However, what I've put together below has some differences that I felt was worth documenting. For example, I'm using a newer Raspberry Pi 5 and AlmaLinux 10.1 as opposed to a Raspberry Pi 3 and RaspberryPiOS (Debian). As such, some of the instructions, commands, and insights are different, but the original is well worth the read.
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Kevin McDonald ☛ Months Considered Harmful
The calendar we all live by is a shambling mess. It has arbitrary month lengths, misnamed months, and rules so absurd we rely on nursery rhymes just to remember them. For something that structures our lives, it is clunky and illogical. This post is my attempt to design something that actually makes sense.
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Jamie Zawinski ☛ Eargapping
I don't like to talk in absolutes about security, but... my headphones are 100% immune from the latest exploit, via this One Weird Trick!
Now hear me out...
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