You’re saying targeting people who are taking steps to improve their privacy and security is ethical? Out do you just believe that there’s no such thing as ethics in CIS?

You know how popular VPNs are, right? And how they improve privacy and security for people who is them? And you’re blocking anyone who’s exercising a basic privacy right?

It’s not an ethically sound position.

That’s not what I’m complaining about. I’m unable to access the site because they’re blocking anyone coming through a VPN. I would need to lower my security and turn off my VPN to read their blog. That’s my issue.

They block VPN exit nodes. Why bother hosting a web site if you don’t want anyone to read your content?

Fuck that noise. My privacy is more important to me than your blog.

This is a really strong argument for not depending on non-federated, centrally controlled services. It doesn’t matter which country or company is behind Your Favorite Service™, they can be legally mandated to by Oppressive Regime (“it could never happen in my country!”), or they could just be arbitrary assholes.

I don’t care why Microsoft did it. I moved off Github when MS acquired them, although in this case it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. Regardless, what it proves is that you can not rely on a monopoly.

If Jekyll isn’t your jam, then Hugo probably won’t be, either.

I have a simple workflow based on a script on my desktop called “blog”. I Cask it with “blog Some blog title” and it looks in a directory for a file named some_blog_entry.md, and if it finds it, opens it in my editor; if it doesn’t, it creates it using a template.md that has some front matter filled in by the script. When I exit the editor, the script tests the modtime and updates the changed front matter and the rsyncs the whole blog directory to my server, where Hugo picks up and regenerates the site if anything changed.

My script is 133 lines of bash, mostly involving the file named sanitization and front matter rewriting; it’s just a big convenience function that could be three lines of typing a little thought, and a little more editing of the template.

There’s no federation, though. I’m not sure what a “federated blog” would look like, anyway; probably something like Lemmy, where you create a community called “YourName”. What’s the value of a federated blog?

Edit: Oh, I forgot until I just checked it: the script also does some markdown editing to create gem files for the Gemini mirror; that’s at least a third to a half of the script (yeah, 60 LOC without the Gemini stuff), which you don’t need if you’re not trying to support a network that never caught on and that no-one uses.

@Xanza’s suggestion is a good one. For me, it’s sufficient to fuse mount the backup and check a few files. It’s not comprehensive, but if a few files I know changed look good, I figure they all probably are.

Yeah, then definitely just install VLC. Far easier than mucking about with Jellyfin.

What, exactly, is your end goal? To have a way to play movies that you’re bringing with you on the hotel TV?

Ah, yes. Kobo does, indeed, support DRM. Calibre does a not. You can still use non-DRM books with both.

Also, it turns out that there is a piece of software that someone built that happens to work with the very excellent Calibre plug-in system which, if you bought the eBook and have the software proof of purchase, will strip out there DRM from books and allow you to read the books with Calibre. I’m not suggesting you do that, because the unethical and corrupt DMCA bought by from crooked politicians by the media industry in 1998 stripped owners of fair use rights which they’d enjoyed until then. But, it’s easy to find and trivial to use, and once you have it you tend to forget you installed it.

Kobo doesn’t use DRM; publishers use DRM. If the publisher publishes the eBook without DRM, Kobo sells it to you that way.

EBook stores don’t determine whether DRM of employed; only publishers do.

Calibre has a GUI desktop interface, but it can also be run headless and provide a web interface. You can even run Calibre as a desktop app, and connect it to another Calibre running in server mode, and access those books as well.

As a rule, I do not like Python applications. I find them generally pootly maintained over the long term, and prone to breakage because of dependency hell. Calibre is the exception to the rule; it’s an absolutely fantastic piece of software. So much so, that I donate to the project.

B2 warns you, in advance, if your payment mechanism is expiring. And then, they don’t immediately delete your account or data if you’re late.

If you find out they accept advance payment, let me know; and I’ll do the same. Based on their charge model, you won’t be able to pay for X months, but I’d like to, say, have an account balance they will draw on if my payments fail.

I’m in particular considering the case of my untimely death. I have instructions for my family to get at all the backups, just in case, but if I die dealing with that is going to be really low on their list of priorities. I’d like to know that, 6 months after my CC stops working, my family will still be able to access my backups if they need to.

I double back-up onto SSD, but still.

I’ve done the Arch to Artix. It wasn’t hard, per se, but it took a while. I think that should be Medium, because Artix isn’t just an Arch derivative.

In fact, might I suggest a different way of looking at the difficulties?

• Replacing the package manager: Hard.
• Replacing the package manager without a live USB: Extreme.
• Going from a basic systemd-based distro (init, log, cron) to anything else: Hard
• Going from a systemd distro that’s bought into the entire systemd stack, including home and boot: Extreme
• Going from one init to another: Medium
• Changing boot systems: grub to UEFI, for example: Easy.
• Replacing all GNU tools with other things: Extreme (mainly because of script expectations).

And so on. You get 1 point for Easy, 2 for Medium, 4 for Hard, and 8 for Extreme. Add 'em up, go for a high score.

I don’t think rolling your own is that hard, TBH, unless you’re expected to also build a package manager. If maintaining it would be harder than building it.

I didn’t mean to suggest that it was. I meant that the kind of people who voluntarily choose IRC are the same sorts of people who would voluntarily choose to is XMPP. While IRC is older than XMPP, it’s still the 1:1 chat protocol for old technical people.

For your phone, use a native app, like Image Toolbox. It has a lot of functions, two of which are resize-by-dimensions, and filesize.

For the desktop… GraphicsMagick? Unless you need a GUI, in which case either whatever graphics tools come with Gnome of KDE should do the job.

Huh. I just checked Fluffy, and it asks for location, camera, and phone. I just denied it everything but notifications, so VOIP won’t work, but all I use it for is chat rooms anyway.

In any case, it doesn’t look any better than Element, in that respect.

If Pocket ID and Passkeys are like most modern “solutions”, they ignore everything that isn’t web, or human. Have you hooked any services together using it? Like having Home Assistant authenticate against mpd?

Caddy is anything but intimidating! If Authelia is anything like Caddy in ease of use, sign me up!

Yeah, I want to keep my LDAP. Whatever sits on top has to use it as a backend.

I don’t know. I don’t use Element; I wasn’t aware it requested location service access. I switched to FluffyChat ages ago; it only asks for notification.

But that’s just for group chat. I’ve been using Jami lately, and it does ask for location access; that’s because it has a “share location” feature, that - if you use it - shows a little map with your location to the person you’re sharing with. Maybe Element has implemented something similar?