Yes, you can host your own PDS. You can also host your own blog. But try hosting your own PDS and NOT hosting a relay or AppView and you can't do much.
Blogs are decentralized, Google is not.
PDS'es are decentralized, Bluesky is not.
How Decentralized Is Bluesky Really? https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/
A technical deep-dive, since people have been asking me for my thoughts. I'll expand a bit on some of the key points here in a thread. 🧵
A thermostat using the #esphome climate platform.
Gets temp data from a #homeassistant entity that is the average of many temp sensors. If that's unavailable, it uses the on-board temp sensor.
Could be minimized to just the #esp32 and relay, and use home assistant's interface but I want a device that can also be used if my #homeassistant is down.
Parts: Lolin C3 pico, a relay, SHTC3 temp sensor, OLED display, buttons.
yaml: https://gist.github.com/tkroo/014696aeb0e760bbe80b2a31aa90603d
Interesting discussion of different end of life methods and their environmental impact:
"Living Planet: Deep Dive: How eco-friendly funerals are changing traditions"
https://www.dw.com/en/deep-dive-how-eco-friendly-funerals-are-changing-traditions/audio-70524933?maca=en-podcast_living-planet-948-xml-mrss
Turns out the human composting is still illegal everywhere in Canada (but not some states like Washington), but embalming and licensed funeral services are not required:
https://www.ontario.ca/page/arrange-funeral-burial-cremation-alkaline-hydrolysis-or-scattering
If you're on BlueSky and want to bridge to Mastodon, follow @ap.brid.gy
That's it. Nothing to install, no terms of service to sign, no complicated garbage. If you want to stop, just block @ap.brid.gy
Details here: https://fed.brid.gy/docs
If you want to bridge your account to BlueSky, simply follow this account: @bsky.brid.gy
Why am I encouraging this? Because when BlueSky inevitably goes bad, people there will have friends in the Fediverse to help them move here.
Just found out about the IKEA Inspelning electrical plug that can integrate with #HomeAssistant and is relatively inexpensive but immediately available.
Will need to give one a try. I don't yet have any zigbee devices, so open to suggestions on the best way to integrate those into the system.
https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/inspelning-plug-smart-energy-monitor-90569846/
@underlap if privacy is a concern, then avoiding centralized services based in the Unites States is probably a good idea. There are many alternatives with self-hosting if you're able, or using services based in the EU which have stronger privacy laws and enforcement (which also affects US-based services but generally only for people residing in the EU).
Some alternatives to the common ones are listed at: https://switching.software/
New* on the blog: “Privacy, Why?” https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2024/11/14/Why-Privacy
It argues that a lockable front door is a key benefit of civilization. And I think it offers useful talking points for anyone who finds themselves having to defend their desire for privacy.
[*Well, not *that* new; it’s adapted from a piece I wrote in 2013 but published elsewhere.]
"It took 68 years for the world to reach 1 terawatt of solar PV capacity. It took just two years to double it"
@dangillmor My experience is that any article with Twitter embeds isn't an article at all, it's a "some people are saying" listicle. I might as well be watching a local weatherman doing man-on-the-street interviews about how wet the rain is.
"Nothing of value was lost", in other words.
@uint8_t In March 2024, the was a ruling by the European Court of Justice, which basically said that all standards that are mandatory for products must be free of charge.
I just looked up what's the current state of this:
There is now an official web site where you can request free access to european standards, and access those that were sucessfully requested by others: https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/documents-request/home
It explicitly says that everyone may use it, not just people in the EU.
@tasket @murena @e_mydata @gael the Murena 2 was sold in the US, and the kickstarter says still available, but it's not present in the Murena shop. It's not clear if that's a supply issue or something else going on.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/murena/murena-2-switch-your-privacy-on
1. interview with the vampire
2. HR screening with the vampire
3. technical interview with the vampire
4. team interview with the vampire
5. Good evening vampire, unfortunately we're not able to extend you an offer at this time. We'd like to keep in contact and notify you of any available positions in the future
Anyway, TL;DR, impressed and fascinated as I am by LLMs and GPTs as technology, the things we're using them for are just dumb and, in many cases, dangerous.
The more of these artificial liars get rolled out, the more we have to choose between believing everything the machine says -- which is lunacy -- or believing nothing that it says -- which is exhausting.
6/