vk6flab

vk6flab , 1 day ago

For anyone reading this.

From personal experience, have a shower daily, go for a walk, even if it's only to the end of your garden or street and drink plenty of water. Sleep if you need to.

This won't fix things, but it will give you an opportunity to give yourself a break.

In my experience, beating yourself up about everything you suck at is the single biggest thing that made it worse for me.

Finally, talk to someone, anyone. In the street, at the bus, at work, friends, family, online, anyone.

This too will pass.

vk6flab , 23 hours ago

I have been there.

It's not a fun place.

In my experience the thing that gets everything else going is going for a walk. Start small. Walk to your front door and open it. Next time do it again. Perhaps take a step outside. Do it again. Then two steps, closing the door behind you - bring your keys!

The idea is to do something slightly bigger than before, but not so much that you are exhausted or afraid to try again.

The only one who is going to change anything is you, harness your energy and have a crack. Nobody is watching so no need to be ashamed.

Have at it.

vk6flab , 2 days ago

Presumably there's a record of the medication, given that someone had to pay for it.

vk6flab , 4 days ago

The business model to require paid credits in order to interact with bots is in my opinion a thing of sheer bastardry.

Apparently, this is how it works: (*)

Women were on the site for free, men were required to pay for and use credits in order to interact with women.

It appears that there weren't anywhere near the numbers of women claimed by the company. Instead bots would communicate with men, using their credits in the process.

(*) I say works, because apparently the company still exists today and I'm not aware if they ever admitted to using bots, let alone discontinuing their use. The Netflix series goes into detail, which is where I got this understanding from.

Disclaimer: I'm not a customer, have never been one and my comments are based on a single source as described above.

vk6flab , 4 days ago

Thank you for your kind words.

I have been writing for most of my life. You can for example read (a copy of) the Alt.Best.Of.Internet FAQ I wrote in 1994. [1]

[1] https://www.itmaze.com.au/articles/aboi-faq

I tend to write how I speak and attempt to create enough context so a casual reader on the topic can come away with something whilst still discussing the complexity for someone more versed in the subject.

I have written articles about identity theft, authentication over the phone, as well as other technology issues relevant to the public at large. [2]

[3] https://github.com/ITmaze/articles

I also write a weekly article about the hobby of amateur radio and have done so for over 13 years. It's published as an audio podcast, with email, video and Morse code versions. [4]

[4] https://podcasts.vk6flab.com/

As for the suggestion of a TED talk, I've considered it, but haven't found a topic worthy of the platform.

As a radio amateur I publish using my callsign, VK6FLAB, as an IT professional, it's under my company, ITmaze.

Some other articles:

• https://www.itmaze.com.au/articles

vk6flab , 4 days ago

That's very kind.

You can hear my voice any time. [1]

[1] https://podcasts.vk6flab.com/

That said, I have stood on stage many times and if I could come up with a topic worthy of the TED talk platform I'd be game.

vk6flab , 3 days ago

I re-read it and loved the: "Always fasten your seatbelt on the Information Highway", but I'm fairly certain that Malinda McColl wrote it (as part of the mini FAQ on which I expanded with her blessing).

vk6flab , 3 days ago

Hey, I resemble that remark!

vk6flab , 3 days ago (edited 3 days ago)

As it happens it's already on my radar.

That said, I'm not convinced that the YouTube video version is worthy of being transmitted on SSTV, given that it's a waterfall display of the audio.

vk6flab , 3 days ago (edited 3 days ago)

I absolutely love the question and I'm going to attempt to answer it in a way that is not a reminiscing by an "old" internet citizen, rather some of the magic and wonder that I have been fortunate enough to experience.

My first time really connecting to the Internet was in 1990. I didn't have my own account, so with permission I used the account that belonged to my boss at the time, Brian Murphy. He was a statistician and wine maker who had employed me to convert a statistics program (NANOVA) he wrote for a mainframe into something that could run on a desktop spreadsheet program that was new and exciting at the time, Wingz.

At the time the way "the Internet" worked was much more fragmented than the almost integrated experience we have today. Protocols (ways of getting information) like "telnet"[1], "ftp"[2] and "finger"[3] were how you got around, using programs that only knew how to do one thing. All of it was text-only. If you've heard of "gopher"[4], it didn't exist yet. The "Wide Area Information Server"[5] (WAIS), had only just been invented but hadn't made it to my desk.

You used text only email much like today, but addressing required that you knew how to get your message from your system to the recipient, using a so-called bang path [6] addressing scheme. This was not fun, but it got the job done. You could use tools like "finger" to determine how to get email to a person, which was a great help, but still was non-trivial. It's like putting an address on an envelope that says, send this message from Perth, to Kalgoorlie, then to Adelaide, then to Sydney, then to Ultimo, then to Harris Street, then to number 500.

Much simpler was to use "Usenet News"[7], a global messaging system where you connected to your local news server, participated in discussion, whilst behind the scenes your messages would be shared with other news servers which were doing the same.

So, I'm sitting at my desk in Brian's office with a brand new Apple Macintosh SE/30. This is leading edge hardware. I have a text-window open that is emulating a terminal (probably a VT220[8]), using telnet I'm connected to the local VAX cluster[9] that is running (among other things) our local news server.

I am not certain, but I think that this is my first ever message. It's 4 September 1990 and I'm having an issue with MPW Pascal and the piles of paper documentation surrounding me had no answers. There is no "Google" or anything like it at this point, so I had to find answers elsewhere.

I found the message in one of the "comp" groups[10], "comp.sys.mac.programmer", as opposed to an "alt" group[11] like alt.best.of.internet. These names are how you navigated the massive hierarchy of information that Usenet represents. Just like with domain names today, you specify the name by adding more dot names.

In today's terms this could be expressed as a Lemmy community or a Reddit sub. And just like with those today, each Usenet group was a community with its "in" jokes, people who knew what they were talking about and those who didn't, the whole enchilada.

Anyway, I posted to the group and asked a question about how to achieve the thing I wanted to fix. I went home and the next day I had a reply .. from Brazil, where they too had discovered this issue and had found a solution.

It .. blew .. my .. mind.

This started me on the journey I'm still on today. There is plenty more to tell to cover the 34 years since then. Perhaps a story for another day.

I debated providing links to some of the things I mention, but given that links didn't exist in 1990, finding information was HARD, I thought it would be a nice 'meta' joke to include them.

Today I am going to do something much more mundane, set-up a backup job for a virtual server that was cloned from an older system, running a web-site and database on a cloud provider platform that I can use and access as-if it's sitting on my desk while it is thousands of kilometres away. If my fingers were small enough, I could do this from my mobile phone.

So, yeah, things have changed.

o

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telnet
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_(protocol)
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_area_information_server
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT220
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMScluster
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comp.*_hierarchy
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt.*_hierarchy

vk6flab , 5 days ago

It's not real.

vk6flab , 5 days ago

I am part of the Reddit exodus. I'm here because I have no interest in promoting or supporting the atrocious policies that now govern Reddit.

The pace here is different, but the interactions feel more measured.

Based on being online since 1990, I'm comfortable with being an "early adopter", even though I've only been here for a few months and Lemmy is five years old.

Will Lemmy survive? Who knows. The horse and buggy didn't, neither did Yahoo!, MySpace or Google+, but here we are nonetheless.

I like it here.

vk6flab , 5 days ago

I think that the missing link for the fediverse is the user interface that most users see.

This is oxymoronic given that the original Reddit looks eerily similar to Lemmy today, but it's not just looks I'm talking about.

Moderation and usability tools, bots, blocks, filtering and spam control need to go through several iterations before we can actually grow this community.

Search is another issue, as is post deletion. Right now a post vanishes, but all the stuff hanging off it is still there. This makes for a complex user experience.

Finally, Lemmy appears to be run by developers who appear to be interested in their own issues and regularly appear to dismiss issues raised by users. This is not sustainable.

I consider myself a user of the fediverse before I'm a Lemmy or Mastodon user. We have a way to go before this settles down.

vk6flab , 5 days ago

So, when you use 40 or so programming languages, your employer needs to supply a mansion..

I'm okay with that.

Now, where is the boss?

vk6flab , 5 days ago

At one point, before we virtualised everything, I had a custom desk built in an L-shape. Instead of a desk and a return, I had the refurbishment team put together a desk with two desks instead. It gave me two sets of drawers, two computer cubby holes and the gap was too small for the horrible keyboard adjustable shelf that kept hitting your knees, so they replaced it with a fixed surface instead.

People laughed.

Colleagues sniggered.

Then they wanted one too.

Now I have a mobile lectern with an iMac clamped to it. Height adjustable, wheels, enough space for keyboard, trackpad and USB hub. I move around my office as the mood or light takes me.

vk6flab , 7 days ago

As a young and naive teenager I hitchhiked from Enschede to Breda in the Netherlands.

At one point I was dropped off at the flyover intersection between two freeways in the middle of nowhere - inasmuch as that is actually possible in the Netherlands.

I stood there with my thumb up for quite a while and looking around me considered just how much humanity had interfered and interacted with the landscape, roads, lights, fences, dikes, pastures, crops, all around as far as the eye could see.

In stark contrast, I now live in Australia and you can drive between where I live in Perth and an inland city, Kalgoorlie, about 600 km away. Pull over on the side of the road between towns and walk 50m off the road and there's a good chance that you're the first person to stand there in a century, if not a millennium or ever.

vk6flab , 7 days ago

"Close to public transport"

vk6flab , 13 days ago

Also, the word you're looking for is: "headless", as in, "headless install"

vk6flab , 16 days ago

What will it take until people get it through their thick skulls that ChatGPT isn't intelligent, doesn't learn and is a tool that can only generate plausible gibberish.

Using the same tools to detect such gibberish will give you more gibberish.

Garbage in, Garbage out has been true since the difference engine, it's just that today the garbage smells like English words, still garbage, but not knowledge, intelligence or anything like it.

The machine learning approach for building models, used to produce so called large language models like ChatGPT is also used to create weather forecasting models that are bigger, better and orders of magnitude faster than available until now.

The tools have changed life, but I'm unconvinced that it's a suitable, sustainable or realistic way to create artificial intelligence, despite claims to the contrary.

vk6flab , 17 days ago

You need to make an effort to put yourself in places where you can meet people. Often this takes the form of finding a community with a common interest. This could be a hobby, a lecture, a course, book club, gardening, etc.

Other places where you meet people can be a workplace, a volunteering effort, social gatherings like listening to a band, orchestra or a play.

You can go to the local coffee shop and spend time there watching people. If you do this regularly, you're likely to meet people whom you can talk to and interact with.

If you already know people, acquaintances, then organise or participate in activities with them.

Social media is an add-on to life, not life itself.

The way to make friends is essentially finding ways to interact with other humans, preferably in places where you like to enjoy yourself.

vk6flab , 19 days ago

I'm glad you defragged it, rather than fragged it..

vk6flab , 28 days ago

You used to be able to run Apple Music on Android. I used it for a while. Not sure if it still exists.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

Yes and no.

At the frequencies that HDMI operates, the path a signal takes can interfere with that signal. It's why sometimes a cheap HDMI cable causes issues, where one certified for 4K or 8K doesn't - the requirements to carry more information, means higher frequencies and thus better shielding.

A connector is a potential location where signal can be affected if the connection between two conductors is poor.

In general, less connectors and less joins will give you a higher chance of success and less chance of interference, but it depends entirely on what type of distance and signal you're trying to send across it.

In general, the shorter the connection, the less loss.

It might be that a single longer cable is worse than a connector and a short cable.

If you already have a connector and a HDMI cable, try it. If you have issues, start by reversing the HDMI cable. It won't make the electrons reverse or anything like that, but the connection might be slightly different.

If you have neither, I'd get a cable without a join. Buy from people who take returns.

Budget will be the determining factor for most people.

TL;DR; try it.

vk6flab , 1 month ago (edited 23 days ago)

Your last sentence is the answer.

Posting and sharing your experiences is how this gets fixed.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

A better headline:

"Visitor to Taiwan attempts to break biosecurity law and is hit with a fine"

vk6flab , 1 month ago

I doubt that anyone has researched the origin of such junk in detail.

If it doesn't fit in your rubbish bin, generally it costs time, effort and money to properly dispose of things. Tossing it off a bridge is efficient.

Likely there's a not inconsiderable proportion of anti-social behaviour, like stealing a bike and throwing it into a waterway afterwards.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

Actually, in my opinion, Xitter is the worst social media app for society, not just LGBTQ+ people.

vk6flab , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Can't wait to hear the next headlines:

"AP reports that their seized equipment was damaged beyond repair"

And

"IDF apologies for inadvertent destruction of broadcast equipment during seizure"

vk6flab , 1 month ago

The underlying issue with an LLM is that there is no "learning". The model itself doesn't dynamically change whilst it's being used.

This article sets out a process that gives the ability to alter the model, by "dialling up" (or down) concepts. In other words, it's changing the balance of the weight of concepts across the whole model.

Altering one concept is hardly "learning", especially since it's being done externally by researchers, but it's a start.

A much larger problem is that the energy consumption is several orders of magnitude larger than that of our brain. I'm not convinced that we have enough energy to make a standalone "AI".

What machine learning actually gave us is the ability to automatically improve a digital model of things, like weather prediction, something that took hours on a supercomputer to give you a week of forecast, now can be achieved on a laptop in minutes with a much longer range and accuracy. Machine learning made that possible.

An LLM is attempting the same thing with human language. It's tantalising, but ultimately I think the idea applied to language to create "AI" is doomed.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

The hidden content is a blessing in disguise. Consider it a walled garden that no longer is important in the scheme of things.

Just like you wouldn't click on a MySpace or Geocities link today, and like Reddit, Xitter is yet another site that came and went.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

I love the (currently one) down vote on your post. Clearly not a connoisseur of René's work.

Your shower thought on the other hand is on point!

Nicely done.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

Spare ribs.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

In trying to understand "the rules", you are attempting to understand human nature. In the fediverse there are no "rules", there isn't a governing body, instance owners and moderators essentially have "root" permissions.

Some use those for the greater good, some don't. Some react in ways that are unexpected and unfamiliar.

In other words, be kind to your community and find a place where you can enjoy yourself. Don't fret about the things that you cannot control.

If you absolutely need an answer, set up your own instance and be your own boss.

In the meantime, have fun.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

Q: How do you eat an elephant?

A: One bite at a time.

Whilst you are faced with a multitude of issues, don't get lost in the weeds by details when you are trying to untangle the past to move it forward.

A simple spreadsheet to track hardware, licenses and other details like location, specs and primary contact is a perfectly reasonable starting point.

I say that because you don't know what you don't know yet. You might for example discover that some shops are doing their own thing, regardless of company policy.

Creating a ticketing system is useful to track stuff for everyone. I settled on trax with web access to people who need it, but the computer literacy levels might prevent some from using this.

Burnout is a very distinct possibility in an environment like this, so make sure that you set aside time for you to think. Call it a meeting, call it an on-site visit, whatever you do, take time to think.

Also, remember to backup your work. It's not unheard of for it to vanish unexpectedly if you are perceived as a threat.

Source, I've been working in this profession for 40 years.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

I see this everyday.

The ticket system is for the IT department, allowing it to track activities, keep abreast of open tickets, build a knowledge base and share information with colleagues.

Users benefit from this indirectly.

Of course, some managers use ticket systems to manage performance metrics. That doesn't work, but they'll never learn.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

As opposed to the real apps that .. steal your data?

vk6flab , 1 month ago

I've noticed a sharp increase in spam and I've been reporting each one simply as "spam".

I then block the user

Many of these posts have dozens of down votes.

Several go back months, which I discover when a new variant turns up.

I'm unsure if what I'm doing is helping or not, and as an ICT professional, I'm not sure why this obvious spam isn't caught earlier.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

Is this not a slightly selfish action? It solves the problem for you, but doesn't make the community better for everyone. I feel like blocking users should be reserved for issues like harassment, not spam.

This is an aspect that I had not considered. Even thinking about it now leaves me unsure of the best way forward.

Specifically, whilst it's a valid argument that blocking the user only solves this for me, and not blocking would help me see if the issue was dealt with, I feel that leaving the user free to roam across my screen is impacting me directly and if I'm not a moderator in a community, it's not my place to second guess their decision to leave such a user and post in place.

In other words, I'm stating to a moderator that I think that this post is spam and should be dealt with accordingly, but if you leave it alone, that's your choice.

I moderate several communities outside of the fediverse and spam in my communities is a one-strike ban. That's not what everyone does.

Having now thought through this again, now in more detail, I'm comfortable with blocking the user.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

Why?

It's a serious question. What features are you missing, what do you dislike, etc.

Otherwise the answer might easily be: search for "NFC payment" in Google Play and that's not helpful.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

That's understandable, perhaps even desirable, but OP didn't include that in their requirements.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

It's ironic that Apple's single largest user base is the creative community and that as a company they haven't done anything creative since Steve Jobs died over a decade ago...

vk6flab , 1 month ago

Saying the same thing as the text doesn't help anyone.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

Indeed.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

Yes

vk6flab , 1 month ago

I'd be sharing that footage with your bank, their bank and the police.

vk6flab , 1 month ago

The term has been embraced and extended by the bandwagon of popular "journalism" in exactly the same way as "artificial intelligence", "block chain" and plenty of others before then, "interactive multimedia", "internet ready", "plug and play", "desktop publishing" and "turbo" to name a "few".

vk6flab , 1 month ago

You mean the information superhighway?

vk6flab , 1 month ago

Here in Australia, they were attempting to force us to provide Government Photo ID on Airbnb several years ago, we stopped using them instead.

There's a Know Your Customer (KYC) legislation that keeps being interpreted by numpties as requiring that they store these documents, rather than identify the user, create an account and dispose of the documents, which is making these companies rich hunting ground for infiltration by groups wanting to monetize personal data and provide identity theft services.