I won't want to pester the Illumos folks, but I really wish they'd come out with a no-slop contributor policy. It's such an important symbolic move.
DragonFly BSD too.
Does anyone know of that sort of thing happening in either of those communities, or in the Illumos distribution communities?
The more things change, the more they stay the same. From the episode The Green Death.
Here's a great example of what Debian's GR outcome has ushered in:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-wnpp/2026/08/msg00526.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-wnpp/2026/08/msg00528.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-wnpp/2026/08/msg00529.html
For the people who voted pro-slop, what's the copyright situation going to be here? Whose code is going to be regurgitated by this thing? How was it licensed originally?
I saw a terrible message from DigitalOcean yesterday. I was helping a co-worker learn to do SASL authentication with Postfix, using Dovecot to do the heavy lifting, (second co-worker this week! Breaking people free from Google!) and we got to the point where we were ready to have him send out a test email - a reply to an email I'd just sent him that exercised all the moving parts of his inbound path.
But when he tried to send, he couldn't talk to my email server. I checked to make sure he wasn't being firewalled, but he didn't show up in my abuse listing. But then on poking around, it became clear he couldn't talk to ANY port 25 ANYWHERE. And I thought, "Oh, right, they've got that blocked. Le'ts find an article talking about how to unblock it." Not too uncommon. So I looked for their docs on unblocking 25.
Turns out, there's no automated way - not even a support ticket type for the purpose. You have to open a general request.
But man, they REALLY don't want you opening a general request! This is a masterpiece of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/why-you-may-not-want-to-run-your-own-mail-server
Without meaning to, they've eloquently captured the essence of everything we're seeing with the destructive corporatization and centralization of online services. They say:
"In many ways, mail server stacks represent a collision between the tools and values of the early internet — self-hosting open source software using well-defined standards and interoperable protocols — and the reality of the modern internet — a few centralized, trusted authorities."
This, not to put too fine a point on it, is BAD FOR US.
We need *more* selfhosting. I was a customer of theirs for a few years, but I stopped after they had some catastrophe that prevented me from accessing my server console for more than a week. Their support was underwater and I didn't get any movement until I decided to publically name and shame them with details of the incident.
This kind of attitude should make anyone hesitant to sign up for services with DigitalOcean.
Obligatory Codeberg link for pinning:
Can someone recommend a decent quality USB switcher? That is, I plug my keyboard and mouse into it, and then at the whack of a decent-quality button that'll last for years, it flips and flops back and forth between two systems into which it's plugged.
I've got a cheap one coming from eBay, but on reflection I probably want to have a quality one, after which I keep the cheap one as a back-up or use it on another system.
But what constitutes quality? For that I'll lean on your advice.
FWIW, USB2 is fine because this will literally be for a keyboard and mouse, so it can be slightly older if need be. Also, I don't need the monitor part of KVM, as this will be for multi-monitor desktops. (Why not just use Synergy/Barrier/input-leap, you ask? Good question. But for now I can't.)
Saw-horses, or IPv6? You be the judge!
I've updated the alt text to be an exact rendering of his words. But to preserve it, here's the summary quote I had initially:
'Belief Systems contradict both science and ordinary "common sense." B.S. contradicts science, because it claims certitude and science can never achieve certitude: it can only say, "This model"- or theory, or interpretation of the data- "fits more of the facts known at this date than any rival model." We can never know if the model will fit the facts that might come to light in the next millennium or even in the next week.'
Robert Anton Wilson on belief systems.
(Thanks @slashdottir for making me think of this.)
I want to break a local community free from Signal, and I've been thinking about XMPP. In reading some analyses I found this gem:
https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/matrix-vs-xmpp/
I stopped using Signal because I just don't trust it. Why so many updates with no explanations? Is it so unstable and insecure that it needs them? Also, check out search results for running your own Signal server. Technically it's free software, but practically, good luck.
So I guess I need to figure out persistence and E2EE for XMPP, and land on a server and clients. I'm inclined towards ejabberd, because Erlang!
I'd welcome thoughts.
Crowing as a Service.
#chickens
Oh, look, I completely forgot to include school shootings.
In addition to calling your state rep and your two senators asking for strong gun regulations, please consider financially supporting this organization. Catherine didn't live to see her dream of kindness to animals enacted, as she was only six when she was murdered in the mass killing at #SandyHook, but this is done in her name and it's worth supporting.
There are so many competing components of the #polycrisis that it's almost overwhelming sometimes, and it's often difficult or impossible to rank them.
Is ICE/ASS (the American SchutzStaffel) a bigger issue than the genocide in Gaza? It is for the people being hunted and killed by them, probably. How does global warming compare to each? That's killing people. How does the social and environmental catastrophe of large language models compare? How about the utter lack of a social safety net in the US, combined with rampant and growing unemployment? How about the creeping spread of fascism in the US government, targeting minorities, gay folk, and trans folk? How about that good old COVID pandemic, which is still killing people daily when it's not disabling them in various unpleasant, life-altering ways? (Mask in public and see what kind of reactions you get.)
There were grim jokes going around in acivist circles before the US presidential election: "If Trump wins, Palestinian children will die *twice*.'
Or another one, "What we need today is to come together. I am talking to both Kamela and Trump supporters. Dem voters and repub voters. There are a lot of things that make us all Americans. Values we all agree on. Whether you voted for Kamala or Trump, reach across the aisle and say to someone on the other side, 'At least we all agree that little Palestinian kids are Hamas.'"
I personally think what will fix many of the issues we face is ranked choice voting, as it encourages platforms that represent and support the people, rather than creating bogeymen and driving votes to extremist candidates. But we don't have that, and I struggle to get away from the notion that "if you vote for the lesser evil, you've still voted for evil." So I don't vote for evil, and I'm vocal about that, and you've doubtless seen the abuse that invites from folks.
-----
Douglas Adams said it very well:
“I come in peace,” it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, “take me to your Lizard.”
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.
“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…”
“You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”
“No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
“I did,” said ford. “It is.”
“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”
“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?”
“What?”
“I said,” said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, “have you got any gin?”
“I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards.”
Ford shrugged again.
“Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them,” he said. “They’re completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it.”
I've had a number of accounts follow me recently that seem to exist to request financial support for folks in Gaza.
Please note that I am not in a position to support individuals. When I am able to donate money, it goes to the UNRWA, the World Food Programme, and to Doctors Without Borders, as that is the way to have what I can give support the largest number of people with the greatest efficiency.
My family actively works to try to end the genocide, but we're all but tapped out now in several ways and I don't want folks following me with hopes I won't be able to fulfill.
I can't pin a boost, but I can pin this:
https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/against-stocking-frames/
#llm
Second chicken of the day! This chicken is notable in that we were not sure this was a viable egg, but we left it in just in case. And we're so very glad we did...
#chickens
I've been pondering professional folk being hesitant to engage in the issues that will define our day in the history books, and I realized there is precedent. From George C Scott's A Christmas Carol:
