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  • Showing only topics in ~tech with the tag "survey". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. Share some of the bookmarklets you use

      javascript:window.location='[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU%27+ytInitialData.metadata.channelMetadataRenderer.externalId.substring(2)](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU%27+ytInitia...

      javascript:window.location='[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU%27+ytInitialData.metadata.channelMetadataRenderer.externalId.substring(2)](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU%27+ytInitialData.metadata.channelMetadataRenderer.externalId.substring(2)

      This puts every video of a channel into one playlist. Makes listening to music channels so much easier.

      I also use Pilgrim.

      P.S. https://tildes.net/~tech/10ko/little_12ft_io_bookmarklet

      6 votes
    2. What browser extensions do you absolutely love to use?

      I have two that I will highly recommend: Vimium has completely changed the way that I use my browsers. They have extensions for firefox and safari as well, but the link I provided is for chrome....

      I have two that I will highly recommend:

      Vimium has completely changed the way that I use my browsers. They have extensions for firefox and safari as well, but the link I provided is for chrome. If you are used to vim keybindings, it makes websites almost completely navigable using only your keyboard! Here's a video demonstration of it in case you're interested.

      My other is SponsorBlock for youtube. This one makes using youtube a little more bearable by automatically skipping the baked-in sponsorships and advertisements. It has literally cut down my viewing times of some channels by like 20%.

      Are there any other extensions that you absolutely love?

      110 votes
    3. Have you ever had your phone number spoofed?

      This is currently going on with me. Someone has spoofed my home phone number, and has been using it to call other people. Whenever the other person misses the spoofer's call they end up calling...

      This is currently going on with me. Someone has spoofed my home phone number, and has been using it to call other people. Whenever the other person misses the spoofer's call they end up calling me. I have answered quite the handful of calls from this. It has been happening since Wednesday, and it has gotten often enough that I have been carrying around a wireless phone in my pocket. I did end up reporting it to the fcc, but that hasn't done anything yet.

      Anyway this gets me wondering, have you ever had your phone number spoofed? If so, how did you deal with it?

      23 votes
    4. What password management solution do you use and why?

      For a long time now, I have been using KeePassXC for desktops and KeePassDX for Android. I keep everything synchronized neatly with Syncthing, which can be configured to operate over your WiFi or...

      For a long time now, I have been using KeePassXC for desktops and KeePassDX for Android. I keep everything synchronized neatly with Syncthing, which can be configured to operate over your WiFi or the internet through their gateways. This allows me to share a single KeePass file with another individual, provided I tell them the password.

      I have a co-worker who is loving 1Password and while it looks great, something irks me about paying monthly for a password manager. I looked into Bitwarden for a "local cloud" and have seen very mixed results as well as not being sure if I could trust my own security configurations to do so.

      I am primarily wondering what everyone else is using in search of something a bit more convenient (I'm not opposed to using the cloud) that has an app like KeePass that I can use for desktop apps, and not just in the browser (though I don't use that function often, truthfully).

      Edit: Passkey support was mentioned in this comment and made me realize how important such support will be in the coming years. For those of you with password management solutions supporting it, how has it been?

      107 votes
    5. What do you use to journal with?

      The recent PKM thread had me thinking about what folks are using as journaling app/portal. I do use Obsidian for my second brain right now and genuinely love it. But I find the mobile app on...

      The recent PKM thread had me thinking about what folks are using as journaling app/portal. I do use Obsidian for my second brain right now and genuinely love it. But I find the mobile app on Android to be a bit clunky, if I'm honest. Seems slow to open even with very few plugins. For jounaling I've used DayOne for years. I started back when it was iOS/MacOS only, but then switched phone to Android and haven't been back. But now they have an app and web app for that. What I don't like is the somewhat goofy format it saves in and it's on their servers. They used to allow you to at least leverage your own Dropbox, but no longer.

      For the past several months I've tried several FOSS options. Main criteria is that I could host it myself, supports offline entries stored in an open file format (preferably MarkDown), and had either multi platform app or a decent web app. That lead me to try these:

      Memos
      Pros:

      • Great persistent web app
      • Slick UI that is light and snappy
      • markdown support
        Cons:
      • Stuffs the .md inside a database file so can be a bit cumbersome to export data
      • No offline support. There is a 3rd party app that hopes to implement it

      Flatnotes
      Pros:

      • Incredibly simple
      • Another easily deployed app
      • Flat Markdown files
        Cons:
      • Web app on mobile is almost unusable as in it doesn't scale well to smaller screens
      • Very early development, but very likely to stay as minimalistic as it is now.
      • No offline and very unlikely to ever have it

      Joplin
      Pros:

      • Multi platform apps that perform well
      • End-to-end encryption supported
      • Could replace both DayOne and my To-do solution (Google Keep)
      • Offline support
        Cons:
      • More database stuff instead of flat markdown files

      One solution I've been testing lately is using IAWriter to write to a 'Journal' folder within my Obsidian vault on Google drive Obsidian Vault > Journal > 2023.... for example. This works surprisingly well. Of course IAWriter is a bit spendy at $29 for Android and then more $ for other platforms as they're sold separately.

      So I'm curious what other people are using for just simple daily journaling, random thoughts, etc. If there's an approach I've missed I'd love to hear it. Joplin is so dang close but not having the structure of plaintext files is a no go for me as I don't want to be trapped by any one product should something happen to the development down the road. Doesn't have to be free, but I want control of the entries either on my own server or cloud storage.

      46 votes
    6. Any ThinkPad enthusiasts here?

      My T430 has been my main PC for a while now. Since upgrading the ram to 10GB's and switching to Linux Mint, I could not be happier with it. I'm not very tech-savvy, so this whole project has been...

      My T430 has been my main PC for a while now. Since upgrading the ram to 10GB's and switching to Linux Mint, I could not be happier with it.

      I'm not very tech-savvy, so this whole project has been a great excuse to learn more about computers in general.

      What is everyone else's Thinkpad project?

      38 votes
    7. What are some interesting machine learning research papers you found?

      Here's a place to share machine learning research papers that seem interesting to you. I'm no expert, but sometimes I skim them, and maybe there are some folks on Tilde who know more than I do?...

      Here's a place to share machine learning research papers that seem interesting to you. I'm no expert, but sometimes I skim them, and maybe there are some folks on Tilde who know more than I do?

      One paper per top-level post, and please link to arXiv (if relevant) and quote a bit of the abstract.

      11 votes
    8. What Obsidian plug-ins do you use?

      It seems that Obsidian is a very popular note-taking software within the community here, so I would like to know what plugins you use for your daily workflow in Obsidian. I will start: Advanced...

      It seems that Obsidian is a very popular note-taking software within the community here, so I would like to know what plugins you use for your daily workflow in Obsidian. I will start:

      • Advanced Tables: Very useful for adding and managing markdown tables using simple intuitive keyboard strokes.

      • Callout Manager: I tend to abuse the callout function (in my academic vault, I organize any kind of information inside a callout with the source of the info as the title), so it is good to have control of the colors for different kinds of callouts.

      • Minimal Theme Settings: Nothing much to talk about. Just some eye candy to make my notes easier on the eyes. Plus, the focus mode is very good for study sessions.

      • Obsidian Matrix: Allows me to organize some mathematical LaTeX code properly.

      • Reading Time: Useful to grasp the length of a longer note at a quick glance.

      • Recent Files: Helps me set myself around my files.

      • Style Settings: Complement of "Minimal Theme Settings" to achieve maximum eye candy.

      • List Callouts: I use it only in my personal projects vault. It helps me give particular emphasis to specific topics within my lists.

      • Table of Contents: Useful for longer, heavily-structured notes.

      Aside from that, I also have four CSS snippets:

      1. Align: Aligns my linked figures to the center of the page.
      2. Callout: Specifies the size of callouts (useful, as I mainly structure my notes inside callouts).
      3. Hide: Hides my "resources" folder from the Obsidian explorer (this folder contains files such as figures and PDFs that I link into my notes).
      4. Justify: Justifies all the text in read-mode.
      18 votes
    9. Reutilizing old computers for modern use

      I really like tinkering with older PC's, trying to make them work for modern usecases which is mostly using web browser. Anyone else do this here? Or interested in it? I have old 10" netbook from...

      I really like tinkering with older PC's, trying to make them work for modern usecases which is mostly using web browser.

      Anyone else do this here? Or interested in it?

      I have old 10" netbook from 2007 or so, it has 1gb RAM and Intel Atom 32bit that barely can handle things. However, I switched it's old SATA hard drive to an SSD, and it is a bit faster at booting now! I also ordered 2gb RAM stick, so maybe that will help it a bit too. It's also running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed 32 bit, but i dont recommend this for linux newcomers since it's a bit different distro.

      If you have an old laptop or PC lying around, try breathing life into it by installing a Linux distro like Debian 12. Change a spinning hard drive to an SSD. For even older retro hardware there are even SD card adapters and such, that can work in place of old hard drives.

      My goal is to make this tiny netbook good for light web browsing and maybe even scripting on things and having a Matrix chat window open. It's perfect tablet size, but very underpowered, even during it's release, so it's a challenge. But that's what makes this kinda fun! Also it helps tone down e-waste if one can use an old device for modern things.

      44 votes
    10. How do you like your smart home setup?

      Just interested in how people's smart homes are set up and how they enjoy things or what they may dislike/wish was changed. Alexa? HomeKit? Google? A mix? Other? Glitches? Any complex or otherwise...

      Just interested in how people's smart homes are set up and how they enjoy things or what they may dislike/wish was changed.

      Alexa? HomeKit? Google? A mix? Other?
      Glitches?
      Any complex or otherwise unique use cases you've set up?

      40 votes
    11. Why does it seem that FOSS users don't value user-friendliness very much?

      The vast majority of free and open source software available is well known for being clunky, having very unintuitive UI/UX and being very inaccessible to non-nerds. We can see this in Linux...

      The vast majority of free and open source software available is well known for being clunky, having very unintuitive UI/UX and being very inaccessible to non-nerds.

      We can see this in Linux distros, tools, programs and even fediverse sites.

      I understand that a lot of it is because "it's free", but I also feel like a lot of people who make and use FOSS don't actually value user-friendliness at all. I feel like some of it is in order to gatekeep the less tech savvy out, and some of it is "it's good enough for me".

      What are the best theories for why this is the case?

      EDIT: A lot of replies I've been getting are focusing on the developers. I'm asking more why the users seem okay with it, rather than why the developers make it that way.

      67 votes
    12. What gaps for content, news, or community currently exist for you?

      I, clearly along with many others, recently left Reddit and have personally decided not to return unless it sees drastic, lasting change. However, this has made it clear just how reliant I was on...

      I, clearly along with many others, recently left Reddit and have personally decided not to return unless it sees drastic, lasting change. However, this has made it clear just how reliant I was on the site for multiple aspects of my life, ranging from local and world news, to hobby related announcements, to perspective, advice, and memes directly from marginalized communities. In Tildes I've already found some of what I've been missing, and I'm sure I'll find more as the community continues to grow, but Tildes doesn't have the same setup to allow for finding the same niche communities that I once had (nor should Tildes ever need to have that).

      With all of that said, what gaps are you currently experiencing? Have you found any good sites or resources that have helped you or might help others in the thread?

      56 votes
    13. Redditors of Tildes .. what is the thing you can live without?

      Akin to this: https://tildes.net/~tech/1670/redditors_of_tildes_which_subreddits_are_you_missing_the_most_during_the_blackout What can we leave behind? What should we leave behind? For me, the one...

      Akin to this: https://tildes.net/~tech/1670/redditors_of_tildes_which_subreddits_are_you_missing_the_most_during_the_blackout

      What can we leave behind?
      What should we leave behind?

      For me, the one BIG thing is the stupid puns.
      Threads full and full and full of puns, one after the other.

      Case in point:
      https://tildes.net/~movies/16bf/chasing_horse_faces_sex_assault_charges

      I can so live without that side of reddit.

      edit: Yeah, that "thread" is two comments long, but I just got reddit flashbacks just seeing those.

      100 votes
    14. People who have visited Reddit over the past few days, what's it like over there right now?

      What's it like over there right now? IIRC the blackout was supposed to finish today. I've decided to quit reddit unless something changes, so I want to do my best not to visit the site, but I am...

      What's it like over there right now? IIRC the blackout was supposed to finish today. I've decided to quit reddit unless something changes, so I want to do my best not to visit the site, but I am very curious about what the website and culture has been like for the past few days. And now that the initial blackout is 'over', how many subreddits have started to emerge again? Are people coming back now and acting like they've won? Has reddit responded to the blackout at all?

      45 votes
    15. Redditors of Tildes, which subreddits are you missing the most during the blackout?

      I am really struggling without r/selfhosted. I truly believe it is, by far, the best community for self-hosters that I have come across. What I am missing most of all is, whenever I search for...

      I am really struggling without r/selfhosted. I truly believe it is, by far, the best community for self-hosters that I have come across. What I am missing most of all is, whenever I search for questions to self-hosting problems - especially for smaller projects - the answers are nearly always found within posts on that sub.

      At least with things like programming, there is stackoverflow and a bunch of other small communities.

      I'm going to end up going to Discord to find my solutions, which is the next big community. But it means having to go on there and ask the question (that has probably been asked hundreds of times before), rather than just searching the issue.

      198 votes
    16. Are you using the latest Apple betas as your daily driver? How's it going?

      I immediately installed iPadOS 17 Beta 1. Apart from quirks with saving images from the browser, it's been about as solid as the latest 16.x.x. Anyone running the other betas as your daily...

      I immediately installed iPadOS 17 Beta 1. Apart from quirks with saving images from the browser, it's been about as solid as the latest 16.x.x.

      Anyone running the other betas as your daily drivers?

      I'm also eager to hear from Sonora users. Considering updating my i7 Mac Mini.

      9 votes
    17. What's the most unexpected thing you've stumbled upon on the internet?

      Mine is a Facebook group called ALDI Aisle of Shame. I don't know if it's okay to link to it, so I'll just let you all google it if you want to check it out! Not too long ago on...

      Mine is a Facebook group called ALDI Aisle of Shame. I don't know if it's okay to link to it, so I'll just let you all google it if you want to check it out!

      Not too long ago on /r/femalefashionadvice, someone mentioned a product in a comment section and I went to look for it online. This lead me to said group and the place was so unexpectedly incredibly wholesome..! It is the silliest thing. There are more than one and a half million members all praising the quality of ALDI products, and posting pictures of their hauls.

      Recently, a trend was to post pictures of your dog and even a pony in hats gotten from ALDI and it is just so much fun! Even women doing the Spiderman meme in real life as they spot each other with the same outfit from ALDI.

      PS: I am aware Tildes is text-focused so please let me know if this many images in a post is against the spirit of Tildes! Wasn't sure if it's ok to include images in a text post like this.

      54 votes
    18. What was your favorite older social media site/app? What did you like or dislike?

      +1 for slashdot, mainly because of intelligent topics and conversations about science, technology, scifi, games and all that fun stuff. Community participation and quality discourse made it...

      +1 for slashdot, mainly because of intelligent topics and conversations about science, technology, scifi, games and all that fun stuff. Community participation and quality discourse made it interesting.

      Everything on popular social media "out there" now is about click bait and sound bites, even comments and replies. Posts (and communities) are reduced to nothing more than grabbing a few seconds of attention.

      69 votes
    19. What operating system do you run your home servers on?

      I'm going to set up my first home server with an Intel NUC, but I can't decide what OS to use. Ubuntu seems popular but I like Pop!_OS and am not sure if that would be a good option. Then there's...

      I'm going to set up my first home server with an Intel NUC, but I can't decide what OS to use. Ubuntu seems popular but I like Pop!_OS and am not sure if that would be a good option. Then there's TrueNas and Unraid, but as a newbie, what's the best choice?

      I'm also just curious what everyone else is using :)

      Edit: Thank you for your great responses!

      49 votes
    20. What are you self-hosting currently?

      I recently discovered Paperless-ngx and have immediately fell in love. I must now decide whether to host it on my VPS (risky with personal documents), on a Pi at home or finally invest in a proper...

      I recently discovered Paperless-ngx and have immediately fell in love. I must now decide whether to host it on my VPS (risky with personal documents), on a Pi at home or finally invest in a proper home server (something cheap but with a bit more power than a Pi4). It can totally be run a Pi, but performance may not be as good.

      Does Tildes have a big self-hosted community? What are you self-hosting currently, and what do you enjoy about it?

      52 votes
    21. Do you go by a pseudonym or your real name (or both) for your online presence?

      Further questions: If you go by both, do you ever mix them or do you keep them totally separate? Do you let your real life friends, family and peers know about your online pseudonyms? For people...

      Further questions:

      • If you go by both, do you ever mix them or do you keep them totally separate?
      • Do you let your real life friends, family and peers know about your online pseudonyms?
      • For people building an online presence as a kind of brand, how does this impact your choice?
      58 votes
    22. What's your go-to mono font?

      Let's share our favourite mono fonts and maybe we can find some new favourites. I used to use whatever was inbuilt with Visual Studio and JetBrains' IDEs, but since JetBrains released their...

      Let's share our favourite mono fonts and maybe we can find some new favourites. I used to use whatever was inbuilt with Visual Studio and JetBrains' IDEs, but since JetBrains released their JetBrains Mono, I've started using it everywhere. I override the monospace font on every website with it. Never was a huge fan of Fira Code, Consolas, or the other popular ones. Personal taste. But somethings about JB Mono just speaks to me!

      Are you a ligatures person? Personally, I love them :)

      40 votes
    23. Where do you see the future of IT going?

      So, what's the hottest new thing in IT today, what's that coolest new tech which might prove to be a goldmine some years down the line? The way PCs, websites, databases, programming languages,...

      So, what's the hottest new thing in IT today, what's that coolest new tech which might prove to be a goldmine some years down the line? The way PCs, websites, databases, programming languages, etc. used to be in the 90s or mobile computing used to be in 00s? Early 00s gave us many a goodies in terms of open source innovations, be it Web Technologies, Linux advancement and propagation through the masses or FOSS software like Wordpress and Drupal, or even the general attitude and awareness about FOSS. Bitcoin also deserves a notable mention here, whether you love it or hate it.

      But today, I think IT no longer has that spark it once had. People keep mulling around AI, ML and Data Science but these are still decades old concepts, and whatever number crunching or coding the engineers are doing somehow doesn't seem to reach the masses? People get so enthusiastic about ChatGPT, but at the end of the day it's just another software like a zillion others. I deem it at par with something like Wordpress, probably even lesser. I'm yet to see any major adoption or industry usage for it.

      Is it the case that IT has reached some kind of saturation point? Everything that could have been innovated, at least the low hanging fruits, has already been innovated? What do you think about this?

      13 votes
    24. What do you not ask the internet about?

      This could be for any number of reasons. The reason I was thinking of this, was realizing that there are certain topics that I could probably find the answers to online, but I happen to have a...

      This could be for any number of reasons. The reason I was thinking of this, was realizing that there are certain topics that I could probably find the answers to online, but I happen to have a friend who is an expert in that field. So it's usually easier to ask them, and trust that their answer is either accurate or that they will tell me "I don't know".

      The other aspect of it was, there are certain topics that are likely to be extremely "noisy" with disinformation (intentional or otherwise) or ads online, and so I'll avoid trying to research them and instead ask a friend.

      15 votes
    25. How many battery-operated devices do you have in your home?

      A student asked me this question today. They were looking into lithium batteries and e-waste and whatnot. My initial response was something low, like maybe five or six, but the more I thought...

      A student asked me this question today. They were looking into lithium batteries and e-waste and whatnot.

      My initial response was something low, like maybe five or six, but the more I thought about it, the higher the number kept climbing — old phones, key fobs, wireless mice, flashlights, a food thermometer, etc.

      I’m not sure I have an official count yet, but the number is WAY higher than my gut reaction. I also thought it was an interesting thought experiment, so I figured I’d ask here to prompt people to do their own inventory.

      How many battery-operated devices do you have in your home? (They don’t have to specifically be lithium batteries, but if you want to limit it to just that, feel free).

      16 votes
    26. Which web browser do you use?

      Most of the world seems to be settled around Chrome and Safari these days. I remember using Firefox a long time ago myself but then everyone started switching to Chrome and that also turned out to...

      Most of the world seems to be settled around Chrome and Safari these days. I remember using Firefox a long time ago myself but then everyone started switching to Chrome and that also turned out to be a natural path of least resistance for web developers like me who had to test web apps in local environment.

      This switch happened in circa 2015-16 if I recall correctly, many other browsers have evolved since then and people are looking at alternatives. The Android Kiwi browser, for example, is a great alternative for power users on mobile who need plugins but Chrome won't allow that. Other alternatives have evolved too like Brendan Eich's Brave browser which seems to be promising. Anyone here tried that yet?

      I have half a mind to go back to Firefox but I recently learned about how Mozilla Corp is also funded by Google and that turned me off. Wouldn't you rather want to deal with the Devil directly instead of the Devil's assistant or sidekick!

      And then there are also those who use Garibaldi, Midori, etc. but I can't go that purist way. I'm way too dependent on the digital way of life and sites like amazon and flipkart won't work in those browsers. What do you think should be the right path ahead from here?

      24 votes
    27. Any Tilde Town members here?

      A few years ago when I was new to tildes a typed tildes.com directly in the URL bar. I realized I'd forgotten the correct domain extension and did a web search for "tildes community" or something...

      A few years ago when I was new to tildes a typed tildes.com directly in the URL bar. I realized I'd forgotten the correct domain extension and did a web search for "tildes community" or something similar.

      One of the results was for tilde town . At the time I glanced over it and thought about joining but I never got around to it. Last July I somehow stumbled over it again and this time I applied to join.

      It's a pretty cool place.

      The idea is that it's a Linux server that each user gets an account on. You then ssh into it - and that's where the community lives!

      They have a chat system, a forum system, microblogging that's private to that community, command line games (some of which are multi-player) and a bunch of other really neat features. Each user even gets a folder in their home directory that let's them serve up public web pages.

      Technically they have about 2,000 registered users, but the number of actual active users seems to be similar to our community here.

      The vibe reminds me a lot of what we have here except that tilde town is casual "slice of life" only and doesn't do news articals at all. Some of their forum posts are similar to our own, with posts for what people are reading and watching and what projects they are working on.

      Ive enjoyed my time there so far and I'd encourage any one who's interested to check it out. My username over there is grendel84, stop by and say hi!

      17 votes
    28. Is anyone else receiving a staggering amount of spam calls recently?

      For the record, I am Canadian and for all I know, maybe this only pertains to Canadians, maybe it only pertains to me. But I've been receiving a large amount of calls that just end up with no one...

      For the record, I am Canadian and for all I know, maybe this only pertains to Canadians, maybe it only pertains to me. But I've been receiving a large amount of calls that just end up with no one on the other end, or just sounds of busy call centers, or 'wrong number calls' which are happening far too frequently for it to be a mistake. Anyone else experiencing this?

      12 votes
    29. Slow Social networking thread

      Back in April we had this thread about Slow Social, a social media platform that only allows one long post per week. I've tried it out but friend discovery is woeful, so I think we could use a...

      Back in April we had this thread about Slow Social, a social media platform that only allows one long post per week. I've tried it out but friend discovery is woeful, so I think we could use a thread to share usernames and do some networking. See if we can't get a few of us into using it. If you like the idea and haven't made an account yet, now's the time.

      Post your Slow Social username below, and any specific topics you might be posting about.

      11 votes
    30. As of October 2021 what is in your opinion the best Reddit alternative and why? What are its best qualities?

      I obviously like Tildes, but i wonder if there are more interesting alternatives i don’t know about. I would interested in some objective analysis, I doesn’t have to be really popular , it can be...

      I obviously like Tildes, but i wonder if there are more interesting alternatives i don’t know about.

      I would interested in some objective analysis, I doesn’t have to be really popular , it can be just a place to post for some extra quality discussion.

      26 votes
    31. What's your smart home setup?

      Does anyone else here have a smart home setup? I've been building mine over the 7 or 8 years now in fits and starts. At first, it was smart lights in an apartment and then grew to include smart...

      Does anyone else here have a smart home setup?

      I've been building mine over the 7 or 8 years now in fits and starts. At first, it was smart lights in an apartment and then grew to include smart door locks. I bought a house and it now remotes, motion/door sensors, light switches, and more.

      After trying all of the platforms you can think of (Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Homekit, Homekit + Homebridge, Home Assistant, and more), I settled on Home Assistant earlier this year. As I've bought stuff over the years, I've tried to get things that support more than just one platform to avoid being too locked in to one ecosystem. Apple's Home platform is nice, but I can't use it if I want to switch to an Android phone.

      Like many of us, I've had some free time during the pandemic, so I put some work into getting Home Assistant up and running. It's definitely not for the average consumer. It requires quite a bit of manual editing of code to get it working perfectly but I've spent the past few months learning how to customize it and get things working just how I want them.

      I've also been working toward replacing the few components that rely on cloud services with equivalents that can work locally, so I'm not beholden to a cloud service that could disappear eventually.

      I also started automating more and more things:

      • I added a Zigbee controller and a bunch of motion sensors to automatically turn lights on and off as people enter/leave rooms.
      • Turn on the lights for my dogs if no one is home at dusk.
      • A very nice bedtime routine that turns off all the lights in the house, turns on the bedroom TV, arms the security system and then turns on the bedroom lights and slowly fades them out over the next half hour. That last one has been great for helping me get to sleep.
      • My favorite is an NFC tag hidden under the living room coffee table that I can scan. It turns on the TV and receiver, switches to the correct inputs and turns on the light strips I have around the living room. If my wife isn't home, it also turns off all the other lights in the house.

      I'd love to hear what other people have been doing.

      10 votes
    32. What kind of text content you like that is hard to find on the internet?

      I'm asking mainly to get an idea of what kind of content I might wanna write for my blog. I intend to share my writings on Tildes so it makes sense to know what might be of interest around here....

      I'm asking mainly to get an idea of what kind of content I might wanna write for my blog. I intend to share my writings on Tildes so it makes sense to know what might be of interest around here. Plus, Tildes is my home on the internet. It would feel weird not to consider fellow Tilderinos when creating content.

      Could be anything: a subject, a theme, a writing style, a certain length, or a combination of factors. Something that you actively seek, but that is not easy to come by.

      For example, I like shorter articles (less than 2000 words) that deal with a very specific philosophical problem in accessible, non emotional language. Philosophy articles are often much longer than that, and also quite complicated.

      7 votes
    33. What are your ISP support experiences?

      I just wanted to see what everyone else’s experience has been working with your ISP. I recently had a horrible experience and wanted to see if anyone else can relate and maybe just vent a little....

      I just wanted to see what everyone else’s experience has been working with your ISP. I recently had a horrible experience and wanted to see if anyone else can relate and maybe just vent a little.

      My recent experience: I moved to a new town, and I had been experiencing issues with my internet dropping out, as we all probably have had at some point, and I contacted Cox communications through their chat app. After multiple attempts to fix it, they finally sent a tech out to find that the coax connectors at the pole were rusted out. He replaced them but it wasn’t fixed completely. The tech dismissed it and said to just use it for now and I wouldn’t notice. So I did, and it wasn’t great at first, but it actually slowly got better and was good for a while until the last couple of weeks. This past week every single night it would drop out. I watched the connection drop while I was trying to watch mythic quest (great show btw) and every night for the past week the internet was unusable in the evenings. I then contacted Cox again multiple times, got a credit refunded back to my account and they wanted to do the whole reset modem thing again, so I did just to get to the next steps. Again they said use it and see if it improves, so I did, and it didn’t. I contacted them again, and again the modem reset, so I got fed up and filed a complaint with the FCC while I was chatting with this guy and he had the nerve to try and sell me home automation at the end of our chat!

      The next day goes by, a woman from their escalation lines contacts me about my FCC complaint and they send a new tech out. Turns out Cox never buried my original line in conduit, so the line was probably damaged underground as it was sending a weak return signal. The tech ran a new drop from a different tap and used the thickest coax I’ve ever seen. So far it’s been good after the new drop, but it took multiple chats and calls with two different field technicians and an FCC complaint to get it fixed. The worst part about it is Cox Communications is the only broadband ISP in my area other than Starlink and I seriously considered Starlink. So if you read this far, thanks! Please share your experiences if you’d like, or if you want to vent that’s okay.

      15 votes
    34. What would make app stores better?

      There was a recent discussion about the Windows App Store where people said they don't like using it. I'm in the Apple world, and people here constantly complain about the Mac and iOS app stores....

      There was a recent discussion about the Windows App Store where people said they don't like using it. I'm in the Apple world, and people here constantly complain about the Mac and iOS app stores. I grudgingly use Steam to download games that are only available there. Everyone seems to hate using app stores, but most agree that having them is better than having to find stuff on the web or in bricks and mortar stores.

      I don't tend to "shop." When I decide I need a product, I do research. I try to find unbiased sources, though that's problematic in itself. But I don't go browsing for anything because it's largely pointless and tends to drive you towards what the company that's best at selling wants you to buy rather than what's best for your needs. So for the most part, my interaction with app stores is searching for a specific program and either finding it or not.

      What do people think would make app stores better? Complaints I've heard include:

      • Too hard to find a product you want when you don't know the specific name of a particular one (like you want a photo editor that can make a photo mosaic, but don't know the name of a specific photo mosaic app)
      • You search for a specific product and the top hit is a paid placement for a competitor
      • Stores are full of crapware with similar names and similar keywords
      • Top apps are all games

      How could app store makers improve the situation? What would make using an app store a joy for you?

      21 votes
    35. Tech people of Tildes, what have you automated in your life?

      Talk about anything you have "automated" in your life. No restrictions on the tools or things to automate. You have a simple "silence your phone at work" thing? Great job! Do you have a complex...

      Talk about anything you have "automated" in your life. No restrictions on the tools or things to automate. You have a simple "silence your phone at work" thing? Great job! Do you have a complex thing with hundreds of lines of custom code? Wonderful! All are welcome!


      I myself have automated a bit of stuff, and am constantly looking for more (that's why this thread exists):

      Home:

      • My room will turn on the lights when it detects the brightness inside is going down, but will slowly do it relative to the current brightness so it doesn't suddenly turn on at once. (Tries to keep a certain brightness at certain times)
      • I can send "loff", "lon" or, "lauto" through XMPP to turn my lights off, on, or toggle the automatic mode mentioned above from anywhere. I am blocking internet connections from my smart light hub so I had to re-implement that manually

      Computer:

      • Copying any YouTube links (or Invidious links, which get translated into YouTube) will automatically prompt me about opening them under MPV

      Phone:

      This is where I do the bulk of my automation, as Tasker is a very convenient way to automate stuff.

      • Toggle full brightness and/or auto rotation on specific apps (Gallery, NewPipe, etc.)
      • A couple of Android "Share" targets for
        • Uploading dumb images to my webserver
        • Adding links to Miniflux (abusing it's bookmarklet functionality)
        • youtube-dl through Termux
      • And some (mostly gimmicky) text-to-speech notifications for calls and XMPP messages

      Planned:

      • Miniflux notifier over XMPP. My last attempt failed because Node-RED apparently doesn't reconnect over to XMPP when its connection drops :(
      26 votes
    36. How would you improve advertising on Reddit?

      Let me preface that I'm well aware that if given the choice between frequent, untargeted ads or fewer targeted ads, the average Tilderino's response would be "Neither." However, given that social...

      Let me preface that I'm well aware that if given the choice between frequent, untargeted ads or fewer targeted ads, the average Tilderino's response would be "Neither."

      However, given that social media at scale has yet to establish a sustainable business model that doesn't rely on advertising (people like free content, after all), it seems advertising has become a necessary evil (and has pervaded nearly all forms of media for the past century regardless).

      With that in mind, I think coming up with creative solutions to deliver relevant advertising while preserving user privacy and avoiding destructive feedback loops (i.e. where the search for ad revenue compromises the user base and content generation) is an interesting thought exercise. This is one of social media's largest problems, imho, but it might be easier to analyze just Reddit as a platform due to its similarities (and notable differences) to Tildes.

      A couple thoughts of my own:

      • Whitelist "safe" subreddits - A massive problem for Reddit is identifying content that brands want to avoid association with (e.g. porn, violence, drugs). While new subreddits crop up every day, the large ones do not change so fast and could be classified as safe content spaces (e.g. /r/aww)
      • User subreddit subscriptions - Rather than target ads based on the subreddit currently being viewed, why not use the subs people have voluntarily indicated they are interested in?
      • Allow users to tag content - While people can report content to the mods today, there is no ability to tag content (like Tildes has) from a user level. Content that's inappropriate for advertising may not necessarily be a reportable offense. By allowing users to classify content, better models for determining "good" content vs. "bad" could be developed using ML.
      • Use Mods to determine content appropriateness - User supplied data may introduce too much noise into any given dataset, and perhaps mods are a better subjective filter to rely on. Certain subreddits can have biased mods for sure, but without trying to overhaul content moderation entirely, could mod bans/flair be used to indicate suitable content for ads?
      • Use computer vision to classify content - While this wouldn't work at scale, an up-and-coming post could have a nebulous title and difficult-to-decipher sarcastic comments. The post itself could be an image macro or annotated video that could be used to determine the subject matter much more effectively.

      To be clear, the spirit of my initial prompt isn't "how can Reddit make more money?" per se, but how can it find a sustainable business model without destroying itself/impacting society at large. Facebook and Twitter seem to have optimized for "engagement" metrics which leads to prioritization of outrage porn and political divisiveness. Snapchat and Instagram seem to have succumb to being mostly an ad delivery engine with some overly-filtered content of "real life" influencers (read: marketers) strewn in between. None of these seem like a net-good for society.

      What are all your thoughts? Perhaps Big Tech social media is irredeemable at this point, but I'm trying not to take such a defeatist attitude and instead explore any positive solutions.

      9 votes
    37. Why don't more screens come with anti-reflective coating?

      I hate watching reflections on my screens. My old laptop had a super reflective screen. So does my tablet and smartphone, but I was successful in applying anti-glare on them. Reflective screens...

      I hate watching reflections on my screens. My old laptop had a super reflective screen. So does my tablet and smartphone, but I was successful in applying anti-glare on them. Reflective screens are annoying in any condition besides total darkness. Anti-glare is such an improvement! Yes, I lose a small amount of brightness, but I need a lot less brightness when my screen is not a freaking mirror!

      Hence the question, "Why don't more screens come with anti-reflective coating?"

      4 votes