sxan

joined 2 years ago
[–] sxan@midwest.social 48 points 1 day ago (20 children)

The possibility of being stationed in a submarine is one of the many reasons I did not choose to join the Navy; it's a nightmare scenario. This sort of incident makes me feel sorry for Chinese submarine crews - it's a bad situation made worse by destroying any shred of confidence in the engineers.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The dozer has an enclosed compartment, but that like like a pretty violent tumble. Was the driver's compartment (which isn't really identifiable) enough to protect the driver, or is s/he now part of the machine?

Also: Badger 288 would have simple eaten the dozer, and added it to the souls its already reaped.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 9 points 1 day ago

No, no; it means that all Lemmy users are now on Tumblr.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 6 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I... I don't get this. The trains are functioning as batteries? Regenerative braking is nice, but why is only a third going to power the trains themselves? Why not 100%? TFA says they're issuing the "spare electricity" in the grid; "spare?"

These aren't perpetual motion machines; they're not violating the third law, and they consume more energy than they produce. Most off these article is about the (obvious) benefits of adding regenerative braking to subways around the world, regardless of cost; what confuses me is: why are they spending money and effort to route regenerative braking into other uses, which is what the title literally says ("trains", not "train power grid"). It seems like an inefficient and circuitous way to tap other demands into a subway power grid.

Unless what's really happening is that Barcelona is just tapping other demands into the (robust) subway power grid, and coincidentally adding regenerative braking, and someone decided to make the wild conceptual link that the power being fed back into the grid by braking is part of the overall power being used by new sinks. Which is like saying that my piss is being used to provide drinking water, because it goes back into the overall water cycle one way or another.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 4 points 1 day ago

You can't improve on perfection.

Should I add a /s? I'm not sure myself whether this is /s

[–] sxan@midwest.social 4 points 1 day ago

I, for one, have never seen that bumper sticker. So you're good with me.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 16 points 1 day ago

They should have kept them there, like badges. Collected more and gotten totally blinged out. It should have a badge for WWII.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 day ago

$70 isn't going to get you much of an espresso machine, unless you're talking about a moka pot, and I'd challenge you on that one. You can make very fine espresso with a moka pot.

And Aeropress aren't known for making espresso; there's not enough pressure from proper espresso extraction, and I'd expect espresso from an Aeropress to be under extracted and pretty horrible, Aeropress advertising notwithstanding. Most people use their Aeropress to make coffee; it's apples to oranges.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 day ago

Oh. But, the glass isn't for longevity. It's to provide insulation and prevent the plastic from (imperceptively) breaking down and leaking microplastics into your coffee. I didn't mean the plastic would fail. In fact, I'd expect the plastic to last longer than the glass, just by the sheer probability of accidents over the lifetime of the device.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 1 day ago

Ah, yes, but that's just packaging. Did you ever stop to consider how they are harvested and processed to give them that crunch?

[–] sxan@midwest.social 6 points 2 days ago

I can't speak for other Americans (USA, in particular, which is who I assume you meant), but for me it's the nature of the oligarchical regime and their views on individualism. I've read the Chinese CSL, and spent a couple of days in a session presented by international lawyers and security professionals explaining what it meant for our business, how we needed to navigate it, and how it was being implemented. It's scary.

Information is power; specific information about you is power over you. It's control.

As for the government, I think it's more a matter of the fact that China is far more well positioned and equipped to surveil US assets. Russia is bumbling, pre-occupied, and doesn't make any computer components we use. Chinese chips, on the other hand, are in everything. The US is worried that, in a conflict, we could discover that China is able to simply... turn off all of the F35s. Or shut down or coopt firing systems on our war ships. Or disable coms or NV gear of ground troops. All of our modern equipment is computerized to more or lesser degree, and the failure of even seemingly simple resisters, sourced from China, could result in misoperation of gear, at best. If the espionage is more sophisticated, with more important components, it's conceivable China could locate and monitor assets; missiles which ignore counter measures and always hit because the target is broadcasting a homing signal.

Most off these hypotheticals are probably not within the realm of current technology, and that what access China is able to embed in computer components is far more limited. But we don't really know, and it's far more dangerous to underestimate than to overestimate capabilities.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 8 points 2 days ago

Agreed. By @FundMECFSResearch's distinction, you (well, Americans) could choose to not pay taxes. You literally are able to not do it. Of course, you then have to deal with the consequences, but it falls in the same category of "optional."

Gender-affirming surgery is "optional." Eating food other than cat food is optional. Simply having the ability to make a choice between two options is not sufficient to justify saying both options are satisfactory.

 

I know it's tragically pedestrian; and I know there's supposed to be a 4 in 2025; and I also know there's many a slip twixt cup and lip, and the gaming industry is going through some pretty radical changes... but all I really want is another Borderlands.

There's not much they can do with it, not many places to go, and I'm sure everyone who's worked on the series over the years is thoroughly sick of it. But, damn. Every one of the main games (at least; I haven't loved every in-between spin-off) has his a sweet spot of mindless fun, funniness, and replay-ability. I've played 3 so many times through, and spent so many hours just running around in every location, even I can't work up much enthusiasm to fire it up anymore.

There's an occasional game that fills the same niche; Bullet Storm was pretty fun, but with low replay-ability. I just want a game where I can turn off the higher brain functions and run around killing stuff in interesting ways.

Thanks for attending my Ted Talk.

 

Rook provides a secret service a-la secret-tool, keyring, or pass/gopass, except backed by a Keepass v2 kdbx file.

The problem Rook solves is mainly in script automation, where you have aerc, offlineimap, isync, vdirsyncer, msmtp, restic, or any other cron jobs that need passwords and which are often configured to fetch these passwords from a secret service with a CLI tool. Unlike existing solutions, Rook is headless, and does not have a bespoke secrets database full of passwords that must be manually synchronized with Keepass; instead, it uses a Keepass db directly.

Rook is in the AUR; binaries are available from the project page.

From the changelog, since the last Lemmy release announcement (v0.0.9):

[v0.1.3] Mon May 20 17:12:25 2024 -0500

Added

  • status command, a more lightweight way of testing if a DB is open. Using this instead of info in e.g. statusbar scripts greatly reduces CPU load.
  • case-insensitive search.

Changed

  • removing some nil panics that could occur when DB is closed while a client call is being processed.

Fixed

  • a hidden bug in the OTP pin code.
  • some errors being ignored (and therefore not logged)
  • TOTP attributes getting missed by otp generator check

[v0.1.2] Fri Apr 26 15:13:55 2024 -0500

Added

  • one-time pin soft locking
  • installation instructions for distributions that have rook in a repository
  • more of the special autotype {} commands are supported (backspace, space, esc)

Changed

  • getAttr adds a little delay before typing, allowing initiator tools (like rofi) to close windows before text is output
  • cleans up code per golint/gochk

Fixed

  • an autotype bug in outputting literals

[v0.1.1] Sun Mar 17 13:44:54 2024 -0500

Added

  • the original source rook.svg
  • ability to start the rook server passing in the password via stdin pipe.

Changed

  • assets moved to directory
  • documentation referenced Keepass v4; there's no such thing, it's v2.
  • license, was missing (c) from original
  • stop trying to remove the version number from build assets
  • documentation to clarify when the master password exists as plain text, in response to questions from @d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz

[v0.1.0] Fri Mar 15 14:03:25 2024 -0500

Added

  • nfpm file
  • logo

Changed

  • clears out the password so it's not being held in plain text by the flags library.
  • some of the documentation, and fixes the duplicated v0.0.9 entry in the changelog.
  • CI build targets are more limited, but also include some distro packages
  • better README documentation

Removed

  • the monitor attribute was taken out, as rook no longer busy-polls the DB
 

Rook is a lightweight, stand-alone, headless secret service tool backed by a Keepass v2 database. It provides client and server modes in a single executable, built from a reasonably small (auditable) code base with a small and shallow dependency tree - it should not be challenging to verify that it is not doing anything sketchy with your secrets.

Reasonable auditability, the desire to use KeePass files, and to do so through a headless tool that doesn't spawn off the better part of a DE through otherwise unused services, were the main motivations for Rook.

You might be interested in Rook if one or more of these are true:

  • you use KeePass v2-compatible tools to store secrets already
  • you are not running a DE like KDE or Gnome (although Rook may still be interesting because of secret consolidation)
  • you prefer to minimize background GUI applications (KeePassXC is excellent and provides a secret service, but doesn't run headless)
  • you run background applications such as vdirsyncer, mbsync (isync), offlineimap, or restic, or applications such as aerc that can be configured to fetch credentials from a secret service rather than hard-coded in a config file.

Pre-built binaries for limited OS/archs are built by the CI, and Rook if available in AUR. There's an nfpm config in the repos that will build RPMs and Debs, among others. I consider Rook to be essentially free of any major bugs and fit-for-purpose, although I welcome hearing otherwise.

Utility scripts in zsh and bash are available for providing autotyping and entry/attribute selection using xdotool, rofi, xprop, and so on; these are YMMV-quality.

Changes from v0.1.1 are:

Added

  • one-time pin soft locking
  • installation instructions for distributions that have rook in a repository
  • more of the special autotype {} commands are supported (backspace, space, esc)

Changed

  • getAttr adds a little delay before typing, allowing initiator tools (like rofi) to close windows before text is output
  • cleans up code per golint/gochk

Fixed

  • an autotype bug in outputting literals
5
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by sxan@midwest.social to c/coffee@lemmy.world
 

Update

On a whim, I tried searching YouTube instead of search engines and found a short video which led me to this shop in Etsy. It looks quite promising, so I'm going to update the title as "solved."

Original post

I've had an Elektra Micro Casa Leva for a number of years, and a while ago I bought a naked portafilter for it. It was (and still is, on the product site) as "for the Micro Casa." It is, without a doubt, one of the poorest quality things I've ever bought. The wood appears painted, not stained; it's been resistant to oiling, and lately the paint has been flaking off leaving what I assume is cheap pine. The wood itself has been cracking and splitting. The portafilter itself is painted to look like brass; I can tell this because that paint has started chipping and peeling. It looks as if it's some type of steel underneath -- I'd suspect aluminum, except for the weight and I assume the maker would be concerned about having one literally melt on a user. In any case, it's horrible. The handle is not screwed in, or else it's screwed & glued; if the metal weren't so obviously crap, I'd consider routing out the handle and replacing it myself; as is, it's so poorly made it hardly seems worth the effort. Regardless, I've been using it for a few years and it hasn't outright broken yet, but with all the paint chipping and peeling, it's looking really rough, and you don't own a Micro Casa Leva for the convenience.

The Elektra takes a non-standard 49mm portafilter, which can make finding parts challenging. Is there a company that makes decent portafilters that fit the Leva? It's possible I simply haven't delved the depths of the web deeply enough. Or, is there a craftsman in the community who does this sort of work -- making nice handles, sourcing appropriate baskets, etc? Failing all of that, is there a place I can buy a naked portafilter of good quality for the Leva, and is there anyone making good handles for portafilters? I'm no craftsman, but I can manage sanding wood to fit a hole, and I can mix epoxy.

What I'd really like to end up with is a brass portafilter with a beautiful wood handle with a nice grain and stain. I'd settle for a naked portafilter for the Leva that isn't a cheap piece of garbage.

 

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/9890016

Rook, a secret service backed by Keepass 4.x kdbx

Howdy Lemmy,

I'm announcing Rook v0.0.9, software that provides a secret service a-la secret-tool, keyring, or pass/gopass, except backed by a Keepass 4.x kdbx file.

The problem Rook solves is mainly in script automation, where you have aerc, offlineimap, isync, vdirsyncer, msmtp, restic, or any other cron jobs that need passwords and which are often configured to fetch these passwords from a secret service with a CLI tool. Unlike existing solutions, Rook is headless and does not have a bespoke secrets database, full of passwords that must be manually synchronized with Keepass; instead, it uses a Keepass db directly.

While the readme goes into more detail, I will say the motivation for Rook evolved from a desire to use a Keepass db in a GUI-less environment and finding no existing solutions. KeepassXC provides a secret service, but is not headless; it also provides a CLI tool, but this requires the db credentials on every call. kpmenu exists, but is designed specifically to require human interaction and is unsuitable for cron environment scripting. Every other solution maintains its own DB back end, incompatible with Keepass.

Rook also benefits from minimal external dependencies, and at 1kloc is auditable by developers - I believe even by ones who do not know Go (the language of implementation). Being able to verify for yourself that there's no malicious code is a critical trait for a tool with which you're trusting secrets.

Rook is fit for purpose, and signed binaries are provided as well as build-from-source instructions (for auditors).

The project contains work in progress: credentials are limited to simple password-locked kdbx, and so doesn't yet support key files. Bash scripts that provide autotyping and attribute/secret selection via rofi, fzf, and xdotool are provided, for GUI environments; these have known bugs. Rook has not been tested on BSD, Darwin, or any other system than Linux, but may well work; the main sticking point is the use of a local file socket for client/server communication, so POSIX systems should be fine, but still, YMMV.

As a final caveat: up until v0.0.9 I've been compressing with brotli, which is very nice yet somewhat obscure. With the next release, everything will be gzipped. Also included in the next release will be packages for various distributions.

 

Howdy Lemmy,

I'm announcing Rook v0.0.9, software that provides a secret service a-la secret-tool, keyring, or pass/gopass, except backed by a Keepass 4.x kdbx file.

The problem Rook solves is mainly in script automation, where you have aerc, offlineimap, isync, vdirsyncer, msmtp, restic, or any other cron jobs that need passwords and which are often configured to fetch these passwords from a secret service with a CLI tool. Unlike existing solutions, Rook is headless and does not have a bespoke secrets database, full of passwords that must be manually synchronized with Keepass; instead, it uses a Keepass db directly.

While the readme goes into more detail, I will say the motivation for Rook evolved from a desire to use a Keepass db in a GUI-less environment and finding no existing solutions. KeepassXC provides a secret service, but is not headless; it also provides a CLI tool, but this requires the db credentials on every call. kpmenu exists, but is designed specifically to require human interaction and is unsuitable for cron environment scripting. Every other solution maintains its own DB back end, incompatible with Keepass.

Rook also benefits from minimal external dependencies, and at 1kloc is auditable by developers - I believe even by ones who do not know Go (the language of implementation). Being able to verify for yourself that there's no malicious code is a critical trait for a tool with which you're trusting secrets.

Rook is fit for purpose, and signed binaries are provided as well as build-from-source instructions (for auditors).

The project contains work in progress: credentials are limited to simple password-locked kdbx, and so doesn't yet support key files. Bash scripts that provide autotyping and attribute/secret selection via rofi, fzf, and xdotool are provided, for GUI environments; these have known bugs. Rook has not been tested on BSD, Darwin, or any other system than Linux, but may well work; the main sticking point is the use of a local file socket for client/server communication, so POSIX systems should be fine, but still, YMMV.

As a final caveat: up until v0.0.9 I've been compressing with brotli, which is very nice yet somewhat obscure. With the next release, everything will be gzipped. Also included in the next release will be packages for various distributions.

22
Help with QMK issue (midwest.social)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by sxan@midwest.social to c/mechanicalkeyboards@lemmy.ml
 

I assume this is QMK, because changing the settings clears or introduces the issue. I'm using Vial for the programming/configuration.

I have a key configured tap-dance, like many others: - on tap, and ctrl on hold. The issue is that most of the time when I type something like -p, I get only the -. Then, the next time I type p, I get 2 of them. So something like this will happen:

I type foo -p bar baz, but don't notice the p is missing until after baz, cursor left and type p again, and end up with -pp

Most of my keys are tap-dance of some pattern: on tap, layer shift in hold, on tap-hold. I've noticed this buffered character after - on other characters; it isn't just p. Changing the timeout does affect the frequency, but doesn't entirely eliminate it. I haven't noticed it on any other combo, although they're all of the same pattern; it seems to be only happening with the -/ctrl tap-dance. Removing the multitap on - eliminates the issue.

This is my first QMK. I'd been using an Ergodox for years, and kmonad on my laptop for a year or so, although I recently switched to kanata (fantastic piece of software, incidentally), so I'm more or less familiar with the world of layers, multi-tap/tap-dance, combos, and so on. This one has me stumped, though.

I've checked and there's no combo defined that involves dash. I've never created a QMK macro, but it occurs to me that I didn't check if there are any defined.

Does anyone have a suggestion of how I can debug this? Could there be some bug, some bit that I accidentally set, that's causing this? Is there some QMK feature that does exactly this thing, and I've somehow enabled it? I've power cycled the keyboard, although I haven't yet tried a hard or factory reset.

Any ideas would be appreciated!

Edit corrected "multi-tap" to "tap-dance", as QMK calls it the one thing and not t'other

 

I've been looking around for one; search (in my Lemmy client) doesn't find one, and while there seems to be at least one in Reddit, the only communities listed on qmk.fm are Reddit and Discord.

Is there a good place to ask questions in the Fediverse?

 

I have been using a piantor built for me by beekeeb.com, and am enjoying the more agressive stagger than my previous Ergodox. However, my typing experience is being spoiled by how tight the key spacing is. I have large hands, and can span an octave on a full-size piano; the Piantor is downright cramped.

In looking for a possible replacement (the Kyria was my primary option, but I guess splitkb.com has entirely given up on selling pre-builts, and I don't solder), what should I be looking at for specs to get some wider spacing on the keys? Is it simply "key spacing?"

Most commercial keyboards are fine; my prior was an Ergodox and the spacing was fine. The Piantor supplies that - it might even be a touch too much, but it's still better than the tepid stagger on the Ergos.

 

What are the terms for language anachronisms?

I had a conversation about a year ago with someone about anachronisms in language. We both felt that there were terms for these things, but could neither recall nor find (via web search) satisfying answers. This came up again recently in a different discussion in a Lemmy community, and it's driving me a little nuts. Help me Linguistics-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope.

So we have the term "skeumorphism," which refers to oramental anachronism. I may be using "anachronism" incorrectly, but it's the hammer I have. Skeumorphisms, in computers, refer to the graphical representations of things, but not the underlying concepts. There are similar linguistic anachronisms that I feel also have specific labels:

  • "disks" which are still in use, but are largely being replaced by solid-state, rectangular SSDs; but most people still call all persistent storage devices "disks."
  • "film" to refer to movies, regardless of the media (increasingly digital and having nothing to do with film).
  • "rice" to refer to the process of fancifying something, like computer desktops
  • "desktops" to refer to computer GUI window managing interfaces
  • "files" and "folders" in computers

Are these all the same category of things? Is there a term for them?

 

A recent update to Droid-ify has improved the user experience in a confusing way.

This is the new package installation modal confirmation dialog.

 

There was an owl hooting outside our house earlier, and it occurred to me that every other bird has a high-pitched call.

Ravens have a croak that could be considered low, but their loud call is a caw that's higher. I can't think of another bird with a call nearly as low as owls'.

Search engines are no help, mostly duplicates answering why they hoot. Why are owls' calls so much lower than other birds?

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