Alex Vranas @Alex@vran.as

@banjofox I've mostly given up on de-googling, and started working on diversifying and adding redundancy to everything so that Google can't cause me too much grief should they kill my accounts.

Finished some major backhaul on my accounts.

I deleted 121,000 emails from my Gmail accounts this week. Finally decided to part with those digital receipts from 2004.

Set my Google account and all my passwords to transfer to my wife if I die. I didn't know I could do that!

I deleted all the dumb e-mail rules I made for sorting mailing lists and unsubscribed from like 300+ mailing lists.

For the first time in a decade, I had no unread e-mails. I woke up with only 2 new emails this morning!

@banjofox The problem with replacing Facebook is that you need everyone you know to replace Facebook with the same thing you did.

I'm certain you could wreak havoc on plenty of websites using this tool. It takes a bit of processing power, but you can take two JPEG images, and brute-force them into having the same MD5 checksum.

https://github.com/cr-marcstevens/hashclash

This 1994 company was ahead of its time.

Started playing around with Matrix, but I honestly don't see what the real benefit is. ActivityPub is so fast and seamless, but Matrix applications feel like dial-up Internet.

I do miss when the Internet was smaller and more user-driven, but I definitely don't miss when the Internet was slower...

@healyn Remember when ESA made this cartoon of the Philae lander, and then bounced it off the side of a comet and it died there?

Best Schwarzenegger film I've ever seen.

"Ultimate Reality is a collaborative performance by Baltimore’s Dan Deacon and Jimmy Joe Roche. It combines an intense musical composition for electronics and drums with a psychedelic montage of Arnold Schwarzenegger films."

https://archive.org/details/ultimatereality

@groovestomp I'm still trying to get my McBoot PS2 to load from HDD, but it is a huge headache far too easily resolved with an emulator.

There's some Windows tool that makes it look easy, but it certainly doesn't work on Wine.

Actually, it still starts off on just as much of an unintentionally funny note.

Considering watching this, but somehow I doubt the show is going to be as funny as this preview.

@isagalaev Here's the one I used: https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/mastodon

I should look around and see if there are other Fediverse servers I could tinker with.

@isagalaev it seems pretty straightforward so far. I used DigitalOcean's One-Click App, and setting things up was pretty easy.

I enjoy this kind of thing, so even if it does become a bit laborious, I'm sure I'll learn something.

How dare you sir

My pandemic hobby has been data-hoarding. I have 45TB of drives hooked up, and only have 7TB free now. I probably should try to clear duplicates, delete trash, and cull some of the stuff I'll never actually use before I buy more 16TB drives, right?

Or should I just shell out for a massive NAS and never delete anything ever again?

#introduction

I'm new to the Fediverse. Jumped from server to server, but ultimately settled on my own instance for my main account.

I work in Zero Trust networking in Seattle, and enjoy Retro Gaming, 3D Printing, and Hiking. I'll mostly be posting about those things.

@waffelo

I've been enjoying the Lagrange browser: https://github.com/skyjake/lagrange

Circumlunar Space has the best server lists, but for niche stuff you'll be doing a lot of digging: gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/

One of the neater sites I found is this one with gemini-only DJ mixes: gemini://konpeito.media/

Spent all evening messing with Mastodon and eventually setting up my own instance. Learned how to use it, and how not to use it.

Now I've got everything the way I want it and I'm too tired to post anything good.

Anyway, good night.