Kind_of_Ben's recent activity
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Comment on What words do you recommend? in ~talk
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Comment on ente.io as a Google Photos alternative? in ~tech
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentI think 50mb/s up is better than I what I get lol. Not really jittery here though. Let me know how it goes! RE: metadata mention in another comment: I'm pretty sure Ente accounts for the fact that...I think 50mb/s up is better than I what I get lol. Not really jittery here though. Let me know how it goes!
RE: metadata mention in another comment: I'm pretty sure Ente accounts for the fact that Takeout gives the metadata to you separately in a JSON. I don't remember having to do anything special to deal with it. AFAIK you just dump the whole (unzipped) folder(s) into Ente and they take care of the rest.
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Comment on ente.io as a Google Photos alternative? in ~tech
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentYeah, I almost mentioned that in my reply to chocobean - as I understand it, E2EE means that even if they're legally compelled, they can't hand over anything besides useless blobs of encrypted...Yeah, I almost mentioned that in my reply to chocobean - as I understand it, E2EE means that even if they're legally compelled, they can't hand over anything besides useless blobs of encrypted nonsense, because that's all they have access to. But I'm far from an expert on that topic so there could be something I'm missing.
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Comment on ente.io as a Google Photos alternative? in ~tech
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentNo problem. Hopefully I interpreted all of your needs the way you meant them lol.No problem. Hopefully I interpreted all of your needs the way you meant them lol.
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Comment on ente.io as a Google Photos alternative? in ~tech
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentIt's unclear to me, but I think the answer is "no, because they're not based in India anymore." That said, I'm not sure if it's ultimately going to be much better in the long run, because they're...does it matter where this company is based (India) when it comes to privacy?
It's unclear to me, but I think the answer is "no, because they're not based in India anymore." That said, I'm not sure if it's ultimately going to be much better in the long run, because they're based in the US now. The way things are going here.... well, we'll see. But it's also probably not that simple because their storage is in the EU.
Some quotes from their documents:
Storage Locations
(...) our current basket of replicas contains the following 3 (2 hot, 1 cold) copies:
- Backblaze, Amsterdam. Our primary hot storage.
- Wasabi, Frankfurt. Our secondary hot storage.
- Scaleway, Paris. Our cold storage. (...)
Legal stuff and areas of jurisdiction
- TERRITORIAL RESTRICTION
Our Services are available for use and download globally. If you are a resident of the United States ("US"), the laws of the State of Delaware, United States shall apply. (...)
- FOR OUR EUROPEAN CUSTOMERS AND VISITORS
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a. International Data Transfers:
We are headquartered in United States of America. Our servers or our third-party hosting services partners are located in Europe. (...) As applicable, we require that our Partners, affiliates, and subsidiaries sign data processing agreements and/or agree to the European Union's model contract for the transfer of personal data to third countries (also known as the "EU Standard Contractual Clauses," of June 4, 2021) to ensure adequate protection of your personal data. (...) -
b. Your Rights:
We agree to fully comply with the letter and the spirit of the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"). (...)
- FOR OUR CANADIAN USERS
This Section supplements the information contained in our Privacy Policy above and applies solely to all visitors, users, and others who use or access our Services, who reside in Canada ("consumers" or "you"). (...)
"India" appears nowhere in the privacy policy. So I think it depends on how things are handled in the US (HQ location) and the EU (data location)?
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Comment on ente.io as a Google Photos alternative? in ~tech
Kind_of_Ben (edited )Link ParentTo perhaps save you time on your hunt, I looked into some of these features RE: Ente. It checks most of the boxes, but not all of them. YES - Has a web client YES - Open source YES - Auth (if...To perhaps save you time on your hunt, I looked into some of these features RE: Ente. It checks most of the boxes, but not all of them.
- YES - Has a web client
- YES - Open source
- YES - Auth (if you're just referring to logging in with a password + MFA)
- YES - Has a mobile-compatible browser client (tested only in Firefox)
- YES - Auto-backup (not sure what your specific needs are on this though)
- LIMITED - Tagging1
- LIMITED - Metadata editor (name, date, and time, not sure if you need more than that)
- YES - Rotate and crop (no fine tuning rotation at the moment, just 90 degree adjustments)
- LIMITED - Easy pruning (you can examine "duplicates", "similar", and "related" items in any of the apps, but this appears to be limited to just duplicates in the mobile browser)
- LIMITED - Easy share (Sharing is great but there is no option to do so without metadata)2
1You can add both file names and descriptions and then search by strings contained in those. So not proper tagging but I think you can achieve most of the same things? I don't need that personally so I can't confirm that it would be sufficient for you.
2You can view all EXIF data, but there does not appear to be a way to strip it or edit it (aside from the attributes mentioned above). However, there is this GitHub discussion created by the founder, along with a comment suggesting that functionality. It's two years old, so take from it what you will.So I'd say it depends on how important each of those factors is to you. If they're all must-haves, then I'd say Ente is not the answer for you yet.
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Comment on ente.io as a Google Photos alternative? in ~tech
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentOf course, I enjoy talking about this stuff and helping people out. I only stopped writing where I did because it was getting too long and I was probably starting to sound like a shill lol. No...Of course, I enjoy talking about this stuff and helping people out. I only stopped writing where I did because it was getting too long and I was probably starting to sound like a shill lol. No company is perfect or deserving of blind loyalty.
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Comment on ente.io as a Google Photos alternative? in ~tech
Kind_of_Ben (edited )Link ParentGoogle Takeout: Yep, this is what I did. It worked flawlessly except for the larger videos (see final bullet). As far as I'm aware all metadata made the transition. If I go to the "your map"...- Exemplary
- Google Takeout: Yep, this is what I did. It worked flawlessly except for the larger videos (see final bullet). As far as I'm aware all metadata made the transition. If I go to the "your map" screen, it shows memories from every location I can think of, definitely including those from before I was using Ente. As far as respecting albums, I do remember that something was a little odd, but IIRC it was that Takeout created extra albums out of groups of uncategorized photos (like by year or something), so not an Ente issue. Metadata like date and time are both easy to edit (there's items for them in the standard long-press/info menus), and you can even do it in bulk.
- Downtime: Never that I'm aware of in the ~6 months I've been using it. After a very quick search in the Discord, the only mention of downtime I found is an apology from 2022.
- Mirroring deletion: When deleting anything, Ente makes it very clear which copy(ies) you'll be deleting. If an item is only in the cloud, it's a simple "yes, delete this" dialog. If it's in the cloud and on the device you're using, you get a "Some items are in both Ente and your device." message, and are offered options to "Delete from Ente", "Delete from device", or "Delete from both". There's a trash can you can retrieve items from if you ever accidentally delete something.
- Bulk uploads don't seem to be an issue, it was specifically the massive files that tripped it up (see final/next bullet).
- I have a bunch of videos from grad school that are 10-30+ minutes long, and those are what caused some problems. During my initial bulk upload (~4.4k items total) the desktop app repeatedly stalled out when it hit the huge .mp4s, even crashing a few times. I did eventually get everything uploaded, but the videos took some extra work. Images were totally fine. I can DM you the full description of the issue that I sent to support back in March if you want. I also just this week had another issue with uploading big videos, but it was much, much less of a roadblock and I got around it in about 10 minutes. I haven't had any crashes on any platform since the initial upload in March.
Other comments:
- Sharing is very good. I haven't had the opportunity to share items with other Ente users (family's still on Google Photos), but the external sharing works great. You can obviously share individual files just like anything else, but they also offer a few ways to share albums with people who don't use Ente. It generates a public link for the album, and then there's options to keep it as read-only or allow people to add photos to it.
- Family plans: Again, not actually using this, but the terms seem very reasonable. I believe the way it works is you simply invite other accounts (up to five) to share your storage space. It keeps each person's stuff separate of course, you just share a plan.
- Legacy: Includes an option to set up a trusted contact(s) who can access your account if you depart this mortal plane.
- Supports MFA and all that good stuff.
- Good duplicate/similar/related item detection for cleaning out space.
- Like I said, I never used the face tagging in Google Photos, so I guess I don't really have much to compare to, but the face recognition in Ente has impressed me. It's obviously not 100% perfect (I've been amused at its mistakes several times), but there were cases where I was very surprised it not only detected a face but also labeled it correctly. You can turn this off if you're not comfortable with it, but it looks like it's just a global "use machine learning" or "don't".
My understanding of the Kagi discount is that you just need a paid Ente plan, right? Referral code should work just fine, I'd think (definitely confirm that though). Here you go:
AUN3SI.Let me know if there's any other info you'd like!
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Comment on Is Tildes protected from malicious actors, aka paid trolls, aka bots? in ~tildes
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentWell, Deimos is BDFL, sure, but cfabbro, mycketforvirrad, and a few others have lower-tier mod powers. I don't remember the details beyond editing titles and tags and moving topics, but there are...Well, Deimos is BDFL, sure, but cfabbro, mycketforvirrad, and a few others have lower-tier mod powers. I don't remember the details beyond editing titles and tags and moving topics, but there are others helping to keep the place tidy.
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Comment on ente.io as a Google Photos alternative? in ~tech
Kind_of_Ben LinkEnte is great. I've been using it since March. It has all the features I wanted to use on Google Photos but never did because of privacy implications (face recognition and tagging, location maps,...- Exemplary
Ente is great. I've been using it since March. It has all the features I wanted to use on Google Photos but never did because of privacy implications (face recognition and tagging, location maps, "magic" image recognition search, "on this day" memories, etc). All the machine learning and analysis of your photos is done locally on your device. And as others have mentioned, it's open source and self-hostable, so if that's a route you want to go, you can.
I occasionally have issues when bulk uploading huge files (multi-GB videos) but I've never encountered problems with the routine syncing between my phone, PC, tablet, and their servers. Any time I've run into trouble (twice total), their staff were very responsive, both on Discord and at the support email address. I do get slightly tech-bro-y vibes from the company sometimes, but it seems like they take their work, and privacy in particular, seriously.
Regarding compatibility: I use Ente on a new-ish laptop running Linux Mint (the Flatpak), GrapheneOS, and Samsung's flavor of Android. All works great. It's available on F-droid too so you can completely cut Google out of the loop.
I'm not usually this guy, but if you want my referral code for extra storage, let me know. I very much don't need it (I'm currently using 55/200GB) but it sounds like you might.
I'm happy to answer any questions you have! Love to see more people ditching Google.
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Comment on What's a setting that you'd recommend? in ~tech
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentI like this! For Android friends, we can set this up too. Go to Settings > Modes and create a new mode called "Reduce Interruptions" (or whatever you want). In the settings for the new mode, turn...You still have notifications, but you get to see them on your terms instead of having an app decide it gets to distract you.
I like this! For Android friends, we can set this up too. Go to Settings > Modes and create a new mode called "Reduce Interruptions" (or whatever you want). In the settings for the new mode, turn off "Allow all notifications" - this will add notification visibility controls to the "Display settings" menu at the bottom. From there you can customize it as you wish with these options:
- Don't turn on screen
- Don't wake for notifications
- Hide notification dots on app icons
- Hide status bar icons at top of screen
- Don't pop notifications on screen
- Hide from pull-down shade
I think you need to tweak some things under each notification filter category too, otherwise I believe it will just block all notifications by default. But most categories have an "allow all/everyone" option so it shouldn't be too cumbersome.
This is on Android 16 (specifically GrapheneOS, but they're basically identical in cases like this), so it may look a little different if you're on an older version or a different skin (e.g. Samsung's One UI).
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Comment on Youngblood Brass Band - Brooklyn (Live at High Noon Saloon 2010) in ~music
Kind_of_Ben LinkI love this one so much. A college marching band I was working for a few years ago did this as part of one of their shows, it went so hard. Just last year, my old high school's stage band (think...I love this one so much. A college marching band I was working for a few years ago did this as part of one of their shows, it went so hard. Just last year, my old high school's stage band (think jazz band but more flexible) did it too, and they had the kid on the Sousa walk around the auditorium during the feature section. Included the screaming into the horn haha. I love it when you can tell the students have listened to the recording.
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Comment on Many lonely people would rather deal with a robot than interact with an actual human, according to research co-led by Newcastle University in ~health.mental
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentThat's interesting, do you have any further reading on that to share?the "depression is a mood-thermostat issue" hypothesis.
That's interesting, do you have any further reading on that to share?
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Comment on Linux noob question regarding full / partition in ~comp
Kind_of_Ben (edited )Link ParentAfter some more research, I'm starting to think you're correct. Back when I was setting the system up, it seemed like it was just a given that you were supposed to create some number of partitions...After some more research, I'm starting to think you're correct. Back when I was setting the system up, it seemed like it was just a given that you were supposed to create some number of partitions for things like
/and/home, so I spent most of my time looking to get an idea of an appropriate size for those. Kinda seems like I should have been questioning why you would do that in the first place instead. I initially thought I might be trying out distros once or twice a year until I found one I liked, but that doesn't seem likely anymore. Making distro switching easier was the main benefit of a separate/homethat I saw mentioned, but if I'm not doing that, then I suppose I don't really have a good reason for it to be set up that way.I guess I'm just lucky that I had fun learning something new and didn't break anything in the process!
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Comment on Linux noob question regarding full / partition in ~comp
Kind_of_Ben (edited )Link ParentFor the space analysis, I've just been using the included Disk Usage Analyzer. Are qdirstat and kdirstat significantly better? I don't think I really need that much out of whichever app I use; DUA...For the space analysis, I've just been using the included Disk Usage Analyzer. Are qdirstat and kdirstat significantly better? I don't think I really need that much out of whichever app I use; DUA shows a graph breakdown and you can browse through it which seems good enough for me.
what is the purpose of your snapshots of
/?To back up stuff that's critical to the system running properly, right? That's what I found to be recommended when I was setting this up back in February. I guess I don't really know what parts of
/are and aren't necessary to back up. I'm not hurting for space in/home(where the Timeshift backups are saved) but I suppose it would be nice to not have so much of it taken up by backups. Though, according to Timeshift, only one of the "snapshots" is the full directory; the rest are incremental (verified by examining the sizes). -
Comment on Subvert - The collectively owned music marketplace in ~music
Kind_of_Ben LinkI discovered this the other day, don't recall how, and have decided to keep an eye on it for the future. Could be really good! But I honestly don't know enough about stuff like this to tell...I discovered this the other day, don't recall how, and have decided to keep an eye on it for the future. Could be really good! But I honestly don't know enough about stuff like this to tell whether it has a shot at being viable or if these people even know what they're doing. Sounds like they do 🤷
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Comment on Linux noob question regarding full / partition in ~comp
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentYeah, ideally I'd have two separate drives for this setup, but it's a laptop and short of lugging around an external drive I don't think there's really a way to have that. Aside from doing some...Yeah, ideally I'd have two separate drives for this setup, but it's a laptop and short of lugging around an external drive I don't think there's really a way to have that. Aside from doing some serious hardware modding, maybe.
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Comment on Linux noob question regarding full / partition in ~comp
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentYeah, both partitions are ext4. Thanks for your effort though!Yeah, both partitions are ext4. Thanks for your effort though!
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Comment on What is a business/org that is great and ethical in so many aspects that everyone should consider using? in ~life
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentI got my dad, a recently-minted coffee enthusiast, a bag of Keats & Co. coffee for Christmas last year and he still says it's the best coffee he's ever had. +1 for good.store!I got my dad, a recently-minted coffee enthusiast, a bag of Keats & Co. coffee for Christmas last year and he still says it's the best coffee he's ever had. +1 for good.store!
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Comment on The CRPG Book in ~games
Kind_of_Ben Link ParentGotcha, I wondered if the author situation was something along those lines. Maybe the release dates missing is just an oversight.Gotcha, I wondered if the author situation was something along those lines. Maybe the release dates missing is just an oversight.
PIE == proto-indo-European?