Okay, I need to figure out the actual issue here so I can troubleshoot it effectively, but for now, I'm going to just scream into the void.
I cannot, for the life of me, seem to get my #selfhosted home server to stop timing out. I want to set up the Friendica phpmailer addon so I can send emails via an external SMTP relay, but every time I send test emails, the server chokes and Cloudflare informs me a timeout occurred. If I try to update something from my YunoHost admin panel, the GET request usually leads to a timeout.
I've fiddled with Nginx settings. I've tried to increase PHP-FPM settings. FastCGI seems to be implicated. I'm messing with all these config files for programs I don't understand on multiple machines and I can't figure out, for the life of me, why sending a few emails via SMTP relay would be so resource-intensive that my server would not only think for several minutes, but choke up in doing so.
I just want a server that works reliably again, but I don't understand enough of what's goi
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Okay, I need to figure out the actual issue here so I can troubleshoot it effectively, but for now, I'm going to just scream into the void.
I cannot, for the life of me, seem to get my #selfhosted home server to stop timing out. I want to set up the Friendica phpmailer addon so I can send emails via an external SMTP relay, but every time I send test emails, the server chokes and Cloudflare informs me a timeout occurred. If I try to update something from my YunoHost admin panel, the GET request usually leads to a timeout.
I've fiddled with Nginx settings. I've tried to increase PHP-FPM settings. FastCGI seems to be implicated. I'm messing with all these config files for programs I don't understand on multiple machines and I can't figure out, for the life of me, why sending a few emails via SMTP relay would be so resource-intensive that my server would not only think for several minutes, but choke up in doing so.
I just want a server that works reliably again, but I don't understand enough of what's going on to even understand the problem, let alone troubleshoot and fix it. 😩
I want to never again see an Nginx "upstream timed out" error. These are the bane of my amateur-server-admin existence and I can't for the life of me seem to quash them. 😩
I am frustrated enough with my current hacked-together email relay system for my home server (which largely doesn't work) and curious enough that I'm strongly considering setting up a little Mail-in-a-Box instance on some rented cloud storage space. And yes, I recognize that anything involving self-hosted email is usually met with a chorus of "Email is dark sorcery, don't do it!" 😂
Has anyone used Mail-in-a-Box before? How do you like it?
I've been hosting my own email for over 10 years now. I originally used Hmailserver for Windows, switched to mail in a box couple years ago but only used it for about 1 year. I'm currently using modoboa and it's been fine and solid ever since. It's pretty much the same stack as mail in a box.
I'm not. I originally used Amazon SES, which worked fine for years. I recently started using sendgrid and they're free tier is just fine for me. I basically relay through their SMTP server. DKIM is configured on my DNS to make emails appear to come from me.
never used it, but extremely suspicious of the quality of code of the project; their installation instruction contain "curl -s mailinabox.email/setup.sh | sudo bash" ...
me: I saw this meme about therapy that made me afraid of being invalidated therapist: the "isn't real and can't hurt you" therapist isn't real and can't hurt you
Project NISEI, the fan-made extension of Android: Netrunner, has given new life to the popular Living Card Game discontinued in 2018. It has even helped to keep the competitive scene moving along.
One thousand curses to the inventors of proprietary connectors. I am trying to declutter my office and I have no shortage of cables I just cannot identify. 😡
I'm the Community Manager for Project NISEI, and I'm looking for a home for us on the Fediverse.
NISEI is a volunteer, non-profit fan collective dedicated to continuing the cyberpunk card game #Netrunner after its previous corporate publishers officially called it quits four years ago. We loved this game too much to let it die, so we banded together and formed an organization to keep it going.
We are legally incorporated as a non-profit, so while we sell products, not a single person is making a dime off of that. All the money we make goes back into operations and funding our next set. We're also a bunch of queer lefties with a strong radical bent—after all, we refused to accept a big board game corporation's cancellation of our favorite game and just kept it going on our own—so nothing we make is pay-gated; every one of our sets is available as a free print-and-play on our website.
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I'm the Community Manager for Project NISEI, and I'm looking for a home for us on the Fediverse.
NISEI is a volunteer, non-profit fan collective dedicated to continuing the cyberpunk card game #Netrunner after its previous corporate publishers officially called it quits four years ago. We loved this game too much to let it die, so we banded together and formed an organization to keep it going.
We are legally incorporated as a non-profit, so while we sell products, not a single person is making a dime off of that. All the money we make goes back into operations and funding our next set. We're also a bunch of queer lefties with a strong radical bent—after all, we refused to accept a big board game corporation's cancellation of our favorite game and just kept it going on our own—so nothing we make is pay-gated; every one of our sets is available as a free print-and-play on our website.
We genuinely aren't aiming to make profit here, we just want to share this awesome game with people.
So. The point of this post:
I'm looking for a server with a #boardgames, #cyberpunk, or #anarchist focus and a strong Code of Conduct dedicated to combating harassment, where NISEI could set up an account. We'd definitely like to use our account on this server to spread the word about our sets and news, but we'd also just like to talk about Netrunner and cyberpunk with people who share those interests.
If you think your server would be a good match for us, please let me know. While we'll likely keep using the birdsite and Facebook, I would personally love us to be a little more present here on the Fediverse, 'cause I think Fedi peeps are the kind of people who would love Netrunner.
Hey, I'm actually on the Board of Trustees for the Global Operations Team doing similar things for the A Game of Thrones Card game! Glad to meet you!
That said, Tabletop.VIP is a small server, but you're welcome to check out the code of conduct and you'd know that the Admin is someone enthused about that type of project.
Aaahh! NISEI and the fediverse! My two favorite things! Welcome!
I must recommend my own instance, tabletop.social. Been hanging out here for several years. There's a little more emphasis on ttrpgs than board games but still plenty of people posting about both.
I'd definitely eyed tabletop.social before. The server has a very clear set of guidelines about marketing and promotion that honestly made me a bit nervous! It's good to hear you think we'd fit in there, though!
While I was temporary disconnected from the Fediverse, my favorite board game review channel shared a video about my favorite board game, #Netrunner.
If you don't know, I'm a member of Project NISEI, the volunteer fan project that has provided ongoing support for Netrunner after the previous publisher officially discontinued it. It's surreal to see a review site I've followed for years talking about a project I'm part of.
Support the Show: https://bit.ly/SupportSUSDBuy This Game: https://nisei.net/Visit SU&SD for more cardboard antics: http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/---FOLLOW...
Also: I have a video call scheduled with one of my favorite board game designers tomorrow, to talk about writing rulebooks, and, like, I guess I'm in the board game industry now????
Even though I don't understand a damn thing about Go, I actually had pretty decent luck translating it into a Hugo template! There are a lot of fiddly bits left to do, and I need to build some more page designs, but I'm beginning to see the shape of this project.
I did! It's a work in progress still, so it only lives on my local computer. Right now, it's messy and unpolished, so probably not in a state to share, but I'll make some noise when the site is live, and when that happens, please feel free to ping me again to ask for the theme!
I love the seasonal themes idea too and am thinking about implementing it.
For a couple months, I've been, against my usual better judgment, interacting with suggested posts on Instagram. Blame it on boredom. And for a brief moment, I was getting stuff I found interesting.
But it's way, way too focused on that content now. Instagram has decided I want nothing more than posts about mental health, especially issues of trauma and attachment, so it's serving me that every chance I get. So much so that when I opened the app just now, the very first post in my feed was a suggested post that read (I'm paraphrasing): "Things I didn't know about [a deeply traumatic experience] until it happened to me".
That was a really fun thing to be confronted with the moment I opened an app I use for mindless feel-good scrolling. 🙄
The effect now is so much worse than before I ever interacted with these suggested posts at all. The hyperspecific model that the algorithm has made of me looks nothing like my actual interests. I could retrain the algorithm by hiding posts, and I do some of that, but like so much of interacting with algorithms thes
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For a couple months, I've been, against my usual better judgment, interacting with suggested posts on Instagram. Blame it on boredom. And for a brief moment, I was getting stuff I found interesting.
But it's way, way too focused on that content now. Instagram has decided I want nothing more than posts about mental health, especially issues of trauma and attachment, so it's serving me that every chance I get. So much so that when I opened the app just now, the very first post in my feed was a suggested post that read (I'm paraphrasing): "Things I didn't know about [a deeply traumatic experience] until it happened to me".
That was a really fun thing to be confronted with the moment I opened an app I use for mindless feel-good scrolling. 🙄
The effect now is so much worse than before I ever interacted with these suggested posts at all. The hyperspecific model that the algorithm has made of me looks nothing like my actual interests. I could retrain the algorithm by hiding posts, and I do some of that, but like so much of interacting with algorithms these days, that amounts to extra work and providing more information just to make the algorithm provide an experience that's not actively unpleasant.
This technology does nothing to make my life better than if it didn't exist at all, and requires considerable effort to prevent it from actually making my life worse.
"How can I make a feed of exactly what I want to see?" is a solved problem. The answer is RSS.
But you can't sell that. So instead, we now spend hours of our precious human lives forking over personal data to these behemoth corporations so they can attempt to build profiles of us which they can sell, and the end result is that sometimes, they manage to show us a feed that partially consists of what we want to see.
Tried a new (to me) recipe for an old-fashioned tonight and it is easily the best old-fashioned I've ever made. Nothing fancy, no frills, just exactly what I expect from this cocktail.
2 oz. whiskey 0.25 oz. 1:1 simple syrup 3-4 dashes Angostura bitters 1 twist orange peel
Stir liquid ingredients with ice. Twist orange peel over the glass to express the oils, then drop it in.
What recipe was I using earlier, if this was so notable to me? My bartending bible tends to be Mittie Helmich's Ultimate Bar Book, whose old-fashioned starts with muddled fruit. I'm a fan of that approach sometimes, but this recipe makes a much cleaner, crisper, simpler drink, and it's definitely the template I'm going to use in the future.
If you use Venmo, a recent update to their Terms of Service includes a binding arbitration clause. Continuing to use the service means waiving your right to a class-action lawsuit and a court trial.
If you don't like that, you have the option to opt out of the binding arbitration, but you have to do so quickly (by the middle of May 2022, roughly). This article has more information.
If you use Venmo, you probably received an email explaining that the company is adding a fairly onerous arbitration clause to its user agreement. We’ll tell you how you can opt out.
The Fediverse is probably not the target audience for this informative site, but hey! If you've heard about #RSS but aren't sure what it is, or if you have friends or family members who might benefit from that knowledge, check this out!
If you, like me, love pins and supporting artists and think NFTs are a fucking scourge, might I interest you in this lovely design? Mine just arrived yesterday and I'm very pleased.
I just saw a thing boosted about Mastodon's rules about no NFTs. A friend of mine manufactured a "KILL NFTs" enamel pin - I just got mine this week. He sells them on eBay. ebay.com/itm/125187728709
For my money, Cole Wehrle is one of the most interesting and thoughtful #BoardGame designers working today. His design diaries, which you can find here, are a great read.
I’m at around 15 plays of Oath 😅 and with my copy of the Marauder’s expansion in hand, I’m scheming to do a Root series. And then there is John Company, hopefully later this year…
There's a field in my city across from the fairgrounds. For about a week each summer, it's parking for the state fair; the rest of the year, it's untouched save for geese and dog-walkers.
This last week, I've noticed swaths of blue flowers when I drive past, and today, I investigated further. Turns out, it's camas. From what I've learned, camas was a staple food crop for the indigenous people of this region before white settlers came and, well, did their settling thing. This wide meadow, I've read, was once full of camas—now it's a once-a-year parking lot and suburban neighborhood.
Seeing these blue flowers today helped me feel a little more connected to the land I live on.
One of the small joys that I've had on the Fediverse that I don't ever recall having on Big Social sites is the serendipity of crossing paths with someone who you knew from a very different walk of life.
Not that it's impossible on Big Social, but through automated friend suggestions and "link your address book to find your friends" prompts, those spaces tended to edge out serendipity in favor of ubiquity.
This is the damage and legacy of DnD to me, and I'm glad this person said this, as monsterous as this statement is, because it reveals what the fuck is at the heart of the TTRPG Community, no matter how hard folks try to fight it.
1/?
Oh boy this was upsetting to me. Not that fictional races can be inherently evil, but that fictional universes have to model real life, with the horrifying implications in this case.
I don't yet have the technical knowledge to employ this, but one of the reasons I want to get my #hamradio license is so I'm better equipped to make and maintain a community mesh network in case of catastrophe. This looks like the thing.
Self-configuring, encrypted and resilient mesh for LoRa, packet radio, WiFi and everything in between - GitHub - markqvist/Reticulum: Self-configuring, encrypted and resilient mesh for LoRa, packet...
Make sure the encryption is optional if you plan to use something like this on the ham bands. Some countries blanket ban all encrypted communications (USA for example)
The signatures might be OK, but I'm not a lawyer.
It'd be cool to run some of these as an application on AREDN mesh nodes too. 😀
I might just be misunderstanding what this does, but have you looked at Meshtastic? Removes most of the requirement for technical knowledge, typically needing only to solder 4 pins to connect the display to the board (if you want a display) and then install an app on your phone. Easy text w/o cell network/wifi when traveling or in emergency.
As more people get introduced to the Fediverse—hi! welcome!—one thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that not all of us are using Mastodon!
My instance here, Motley, is actually running a different system, called Friendica. I chose Friendica because it better fit the type of community I wanted to build. Because Friendica and Mastodon both use the ActivityPub protocol, you can see my posts from your Mastodon instance, and I can see yours. Neat, huh?
This actually allows some really cool things that you don't see elsewhere on the siloed, Big Social sites. Pixelfed is a photo-sharing site like Instagram, also built on ActivityPub—which means that you could follow someone's Pixelfed account from your Mastodon account, and like or comment on their photos without ever needing to create an account on their Pixelfed server.
That does mean, however, that not all of us will be using exactly the same to
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As more people get introduced to the Fediverse—hi! welcome!—one thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that not all of us are using Mastodon!
My instance here, Motley, is actually running a different system, called Friendica. I chose Friendica because it better fit the type of community I wanted to build. Because Friendica and Mastodon both use the ActivityPub protocol, you can see my posts from your Mastodon instance, and I can see yours. Neat, huh?
This actually allows some really cool things that you don't see elsewhere on the siloed, Big Social sites. Pixelfed is a photo-sharing site like Instagram, also built on ActivityPub—which means that you could follow someone's Pixelfed account from your Mastodon account, and like or comment on their photos without ever needing to create an account on their Pixelfed server.
That does mean, however, that not all of us will be using exactly the same tools. For instance, when I write posts in Friendica, I do not have an easy option to create content warnings the way that Mastodon does. I tend to make manual content warnings at the beginnings of my posts when necessary, but please keep that in mind: if someone's doing something a little differently, it might be because they don't know how to use the tools, but it also might be because they have a different set of tools altogether. I also don't have the capability to easily add custom emoji the way Mastodon admins do. Sadly. 💔
Be patient and generous with one another when you can. Even though we're all gathered here now, we may have taken very different routes and may have different tools at our disposal. ❤
You actually can use the abstract tag to make what Mastodon calls CWs!
It took me a bit to figure out!
However, a lot of us feel like content filtering should be done by the receiver not the sender! Because uh... I don't wanna have to add an additional click to every post to see it, I want to filter out posts mentioning self harm and stuff like that.
Ah, yes. I figured it was probably technically possible, because the ActivityPub messages being sent and received probably follow the same structure no matter their origin, and I think I'd heard about that use of the abstract tag.
I guess this post is a little misinformed, but I hope the general thrust stands.
Yeah, not having to think in threads is a nice perk. I like the creative writing aspect of it, but that's about it. Although I'm cross-posting to Twitter so I often end up having to be mindful about post length!
There's a new influx of people to the #fediverse today, and rightly so! Figured that's as good a time as any to make a new #introduction.
I'm Spencer (he/they). I run Motley, which is my name for this little Friendica instance. It's mostly just me here these days, although I still have dreams of one day helping my friends find digital community here.
I made myself a home on the Fediverse because I wanted to distance myself from the big corporate services. I care about #decentralization and #selfhosting, as I believe more people running smaller personal servers will help break the stranglehold of big tech companies.
My ideal world is one much freer of coercive hierarchies. It's smaller-scale, more cooperative and communal, and more deeply connected to the earth. I'm kinda #solarpunk
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There's a new influx of people to the #fediverse today, and rightly so! Figured that's as good a time as any to make a new #introduction.
I'm Spencer (he/they). I run Motley, which is my name for this little Friendica instance. It's mostly just me here these days, although I still have dreams of one day helping my friends find digital community here.
I made myself a home on the Fediverse because I wanted to distance myself from the big corporate services. I care about #decentralization and #selfhosting, as I believe more people running smaller personal servers will help break the stranglehold of big tech companies.
My ideal world is one much freer of coercive hierarchies. It's smaller-scale, more cooperative and communal, and more deeply connected to the earth. I'm kinda #solarpunk, I suppose. I care about freedom, tempered with an ethic of compassion for one another and the world we live in. I also practice #polyamory. I find that inextricable from my values.
I dabble in way too many hobbies, and it's delightful. I love #boardgames, especially #Netrunner, which I maintain is the best game ever. I'm a member of the volunteer fan organization keeping that game alive—ask me about it and I'll gladly talk your ear off. I enjoy amateur #mixology. I started learning #lockpicking last year, and am also working on becoming licensed as a #hamradio operator. I'm interested in community-focused approaches to #preparedness, because I don't think the odds are good for the uncomplicated continuation of this late-capitalist "normal", and when things start to fall apart, I don't want myself, my family, or my communities to be caught off-guard.
Over the last couple of years, my own spiritual growth has taken me in a location that might look bizarre from the outside: I still firmly identify as a secular humanist who does not believe in the supernatural, yet I'm also increasingly an intentional practitioner of "#magick". I occasionally read #tarot for myself, have cast a couple of spells in my time, and generally see the playful fantasy of magick as psychologically useful and spiritually rewarding. I run a Friendica forum about it, in fact, though, like many things here on Motley, it's fairly dried up.
My posting is eclectic, and I tend to share to a followers-only audience by default. I strongly believe that arguing with me is a privilege reserved for those I already have a relationship with, so I have very little patience for strangers who comment on my posts in an attempt to provoke a debate. I don't know you—why would I waste my time and energy in a fight I don't know is safe? This is my little corner of the Fediverse, and I choose not to spend it interacting with fascists, bigots, conspiracy theorists, Web3 shills, or generally anyone I find unpleasant. Because of that, I'm slow to accept follow requests until I can peruse your public profile and get a sense of who you are.
I'm sure I could go on forever (haha already have), but that probably gives a good start. I'm always down for new connections, since that's what makes the Fediverse thrive.
Hello Spencer, I'm excited for the #fediverse also, especially given we as friendica users can use mastodon clients. in regard to hosting, do you recall how you configured smtp for outgoing email? I've attempted editing a config file but the entry somehow breaks friendica. I'd imagine this is a common thing given port 25 is disabled by hosting providers and VPNs. EDIT: just noticed you mention hamradio. Are you familiar with AREDN?
Hi there! I don't recall precisely how I got SMTP configured, unfortunately. However, you're asking at a good time, because I need to go poke at that part of my configuration. It may be several weeks, since I'm juggling way too many tasks, but when I do, I can ping you with what I've found. You might also try the Friendica Admins group; that's been very helpful to me!
thank you! that is much appreciated. AREDN is the 'Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network' or mesh, using wifi over ham radio bands. As I understand it, its a fork of openwrt so it works on many openwrt compatible devices. including small travel routers.
I'm finally goofing around with building a new personal website, with the hopes of eventually switching from WordPress to Hugo. It's fun to sling HTML and CSS around again.
Random thing I'm appreciating about Netrunner today: AI icebreakers.
Netrunner has a sort of lock-and-key system where the Corp player can defend their side of the board with three types of ice: barriers, code gates, and sentries. Each functions a little differently. The Runner player usually needs specific icebreaker programs to get past those ice: fracters for breaking barriers, decoders for breaking code gates, and killers for breaking sentries.
I love the unique places that AI design goes, because there are so many creative ways to offset the flexibility and efficiency of a card that breaks the "rules".
Thanks for the rabbit hole this post sent me down on NetRunnerDB with the linked cards in the reviews. Like Legend of the 5 Rings, Android: Netrunner is a card game that I really like on paper, but lack pretty much everything required to play it (cards, partners, time) on a regular basis.
So the well-written reviews on this website helped me experience the game without playing it. Although the most recent reviews seem to all be from 2016, what happened after this fateful year?
I don't think anything happened in 2016. The publisher, FFG, pulled support for the game in 2018, but a certain volunteer fan organization has been providing ongoing support since then.
I've seen reviews since 2016, so it might just be the cards you picked. I think there's a "Reviews" link in the navigation bar that will show you the most recent reviews, should you be interested. 🙂
It is so frustrating that if I drive an hour north, I'll end up in a state with a robust smartphone tracking app for COVID-19 exposure, but my home state has completely failed to implement anything similar.
God, looking at a drawer of app icons on Android is so sad and monotonous these days. Visually interesting, unique silhouettes are completely a thing of the past; now it's just row after row of logos on flat circular backgrounds.
Do any clever electronics wizards have any idea why dimmable LED bulbs would still flicker something fierce in my dimmable floor lamps, and what, if anything, I could do to fix that?
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