Have you ever wondered what a #solar powered #meshtastic node would look like if way too much time and effort were put into it, but it was made entirely with things lying around the house? #decentralize everything!

Open source version of the great firewall of China. https://gfw.dev "Bring the thrill of cyber-sovereignty right into your home router and start filtering like a pro - you too can play Big Brother." Uses cases include "Help you fulfill your dictatorial ambitions" Not quite #FreedomTech 😅 but it's #sovereign for sure. #sovereignty

I always find it peculiar that highly technical people complain about DNS not working instead of running their own. I don't know if they don't know how to run reliable DNS servers, or what but at this point I'm afraid to ask. I've had more problems from faulty UPS taking down the network than DNS.

This is why we can't have nice things. An article supposedly last updated in Feb 2024, whose title and content talks about 2025. Talk about proof of NOT doing the work. Pure garbage.

Huge shout out to Félix and anyone else involved in the latest GitLab Patch Release for specifying on every vulnerability whether it could be exploited by unauthenticated attackers or if the attacker had to be authenticated. This is the level of quality I expect in a disclosure, and I'm glad to see you're delivering. Thank you. 🙏

GitLab Patch Release: 18.5.1, 18.4.3, 18.3.5

Learn more about GitLab Patch Release: 18.5.1, 18.4.3, 18.3.5 for GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE).

@ManiMe have you been getting my DMs? Xan you see this post. Amethest seems to be u reliable when it comes to DMs ever since they added 20 different types of relays for inbox, outbox, shoebox, drafts, and all the other complicated stuff. DMs wormed fine 100% of the time for me prior to those updates. I'm sure it still works fine if you're a nostr developer, but not for the average user.

Brilliant business idea for someone who wants to put in the work: Make a local Frigate instance accessible to people who don't know how to set up a Docker container, read or write JSON, or log into their home router. A real CCTV system is more reliable than a cloud-based one. It's more secure in that you won't be affected by breaches of these cloud services and their partners. It provides piece of mind that your security camera footage isn't being shared with other companies, or sold to the highest bidder for Lord kniws what (AI training, purchased by law enforcement without your knowledge or consent, extremely creepy data brokers, etc.) You don't have to worry about some megacorporation jacking up prices or deciding they want to sunset that service. It has a lot of advantages. The disadvantage is the setup cost. With the commercial cloud junk, they can have the device phone home to their server and have you log in there. Very simple setup. With Frigate, you have to know Docker, JSON. And with Frigate or any other CCTV system, you need to know the bizzare RSTP URL that is likely not even documented by the camera manufacturer, the IP address of your cameras, which you also have to set up, and you have to be comfortable logging into your router to do that and heaven forbid that the IP address ever change... And all of that is for the most basic setup of just having live streams. If you want to record, have motion detection, alerts, object recoginition, or amything fancy, that's an even bigger investment of time and learning about the software. This experience may be tolerable for geeks, but for the person who wants to go from opening the box to having something that works in 30 minutes, it falls flat on its face. If there's anyone out there who actually serious about making this a thing, I'd be willing to be your technology partner. I already have scripts to set everything up for myself, it isn't a big deal if I let other people benefit from them. I've got enough projeta going on that I don't want to take on any more, even if they are to support the #FreedomTech cause.

I wanted to share my thoughts with @Bitcoin Beans and the rest of the world on my household's chocolate powder purchasing decisions. All dollar prices here are in USD. We pay $5.60/lb for 100% cocoa powder and have no idea about the heavy metal content. The brand that got good marks with their chocolate bars in terms of heavy metals is Ghirardelli, and their cocoa powder goes for $10.59/lb on sale ($14.12/lb for people who pay regular price). We don't actually know the heavy metal levels on this product, but we're making an educated guess that they use their own cocoa powder to make their chocolate bars. So that's what you're up against. Sell for under $5.60/lb and dominate the market. Price it over $14.12/lb and see if it sells. Personally, we ain't rich, and we consume far more cocoa than average. That's why we get the cheap stuff. But if you can do like 10 lbs shipped to the USA for 100K sats, I'll commit to it right now (as long as this year's heavy metal tests look good). What I'm saying here is that I'm willing to double my costs in order to directly support a small farmer who actually tests their crops. 🤙

Is it true that both the number of #lightning channels and the total amount of coins held in channels has been going down for years?

The Mempool Open Source Project®

Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.

It is so amazingly useful to spin up a fresh VM in under 10 seconds. It makes reproducing issues in a clean environment so much faster. And there's no question as to whether the issue is affected by a chroot, or dockerization, or running in a different kernel namespace which has different permissions. No, it's s real VM, running on a real CPU. And when I close the program (the terminal, bowser or what have you) everything gets automatically cleaned up. I ❤️ you, #QubesOS

@Whitepaper Books If you are open to suggestions on what to carry in your store, I'd like to submit this for consideration: "Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World" by David Friedman It's from 2008 and talks about encryption, surveillance, virtual reality, AI, ecash, and contracts in cyberspace (& more). I'm not through the entire thing yet, but it's been interesting so far, especially with the benefit of hindsight.

Is it just me or is this a hilarious topic to put in... a book?

Growing our own stevia. When it gets bigger, I plan on drying the leaves and grinding them into a powder.

Practical Self Reliance

How to Make Stevia Extract (Liquid or Powder)

Learn how to make stevia extract—simple methods for creating liquid or powder stevia from fresh leaves, perfect for a natural, low-calorie sweete...

#SelfReliance #SelfReliant #DIY #homestead #homesteading #homesteaders #gardening #hydroponics

I accidentially found the ghee last night in the grocery store and HOLY SMOKES, it's expensive. $12.49 for about $3 worth of butter! Ghee is super easy to make: simmer butter in a pot on the stove, strain out the solids. That's it. There's literally one ingredient. Like, who buys this? Obviously it's people who know how to cook, since that's the only reason to have ghee in the first place. This is absolutely perplexing.

It might be a good idea to level up your repair skills right now. You never know when supply lines will get jammed up again and replacements, and even the proper parts, will be unavailable. Even if there isn't a supply crunch in the next 12 months, guerrilla repair skills can still come in handy. Not just when parts are discontinued, but it enhances your ability to improvise, adapt and overcome.

Bent a rim yesterday. It was bad enough that I had to immediately disconnect the rear brake to continue onward. Took it to the bike repair project and got a used rim, but didn't have time to fix the broken spoke or replace the bearings. Will do that on my next trip.