Topher 🌱🐧💚

🙇 person/x-generic (they/them; mode=permissive)

🔐 Digital #privacy advocate

🌻 Love #gardening, #solar power, #renewables & #sustainability

🌿 12+ year #vegetarian who enjoys growing much of my own food

🐧 #Linux desktop & server user, supporter and (unofficial) ambassador

🖥 Constantly scavenging and fixing old tech to reduce e-waste

👨‍💻 Don't work directly in, but follow and regularly share things relating to #infosec and #cyberSecurity

♥ Likes salads, sunlight and skeuomorphism

Public Key

npub18qjfrh7h26lthueyf7v727f743vy29fycu4d7jn5zlljdr0m073shu3qy2

NIP-05 Address

topher_at_mastodon.online@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsrsfy3mlt4d04m7vjylx090yl2ckz9z5jvw2klff6p0lex3hahlgc64jye6

Author Public Key

npub18qjfrh7h26lthueyf7v727f743vy29fycu4d7jn5zlljdr0m073shu3qy2

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Last Notes

2023-12-29 22:51:32

@npub12f7…lkxh
I swear you are the only person who gives me any hope for any of this stuff.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/85#note_1860318
Thank you, thank you, a quadrillion times, thank you. :ablobcatheart:

2023-12-22 04:43:52

Why does Joe Biden get to violate the CAN-SPAM act?

2023-12-02 17:27:29

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@npub12f7…lkxh @npub1z5n…x86x
Could you just grow a live mint plant and cut a few fresh leaves whenever you brew something?
I do this all the time with tea and mocha and it's delightful.

2023-11-26 04:17:30

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@npub18yv…xxyn
What I want to know now is how many people will end up watching that as a direct result of this 😅

2023-11-20 04:31:09

No more internet-connected mobile smartphones.
Let's all switch back to Palmpilots.
Let's all reclaim our sanity back.
Let's re-embrace devices and software we actually liked that were easy enough to use, weren't inundated with big tech malware, and didn't make us want to throw them into a volcano daily.
#palm #palmpilot #smartphone #internet #TechDystopia #retrocomputing

2023-11-18 14:37:15

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@npub1cmg…rzd2
The easy life hack for this is to simply never put anything in your calendar - then every day says "there are no events today"
They don't actually exist as long as you don't put them in your calendar, right? 😂

2023-11-16 04:33:05

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@npub12f7…lkxh @npub1uvy…r55q
Would there be a way to disable this for someone like me who would not want it to do that on its own?

2023-10-10 15:47:37

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@npub1dm5…5sqe
Worthless, or full of potential?

2023-10-06 16:43:21

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@npub12f7…lkxh
Because you have org.freedesktop.appearance.color-scheme ?
The problem is even on the new Debian Bookworm that key doesn't exist - so Chromium just borks and ends up half light, half dark
Personally I am a fan of always keeping a CLI override no matter what, anyways. That should 1) still exist and 2) take precedence, even on systems that do have that key (my personal attitude) 🤷

2023-10-06 16:40:20

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I will say @npub12f7…lkxh that it feels like a tremendous amount of frustration (and push-back), I know personally on my side, but also suspect for a decent chunk of users, would be avoided if a lot of the in-progress type of things - often great ideas like this one - or transitioning desktop apps one-by-one to GTK4, a few each time instead of all at once - were held back a bit and never made it in partial or not-yet-universally-adopted-and-ready states into production, stable distros and releases.

2023-10-06 16:26:59

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@npub12f7…lkxh
Yeah, see, that's what I understood to be the case as well.
So I wasn't complaining about the existence of the spec (the idea of which I like quite a bit in fact), but rather that a non-GNOME app running outside GNOME should ever be concerned with org.gnome.desktop dconf values
(that also haven't even been introduced or exist under LTS versions actively in use!)

2023-10-06 16:19:39

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@npub12f7…lkxh
You know I (almost) never mean to be deliberately insulting :)
Or at least I hope you do! I often just become very frustrated with these sawblade cuts trying to do what I would hope would be extremely straightforward.
And I do love the idea of the universal spec, just to add that.
But, is it still a org.gnome dconf setting if you're not in GNOME?

2023-10-06 16:03:39

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@npub12f7…lkxh
How backwards-compatible is that fairly-newly-introduced spec with older releases and LTS before it was standardised?
I don't even have org.freedesktop.appearance in dconf
Even despite installing a full gnome-session in desperation and manually editing the org.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme dconf setting, no luck
What's worse is chromium has long had --force-dark-mode but now it's ignored instead for the newer standard that I think is only recently implemented, right?

2023-10-06 15:40:26

Dear #Chromium on #Linux developers
Please do not make your application dependent on some arcane #GNOME specific setting, even in non-GNOME desktop environments, that doesn't even work and isn't respected even within most of GNOME itself half the time anyways
And please don't remove the previous command line flags that worked prior to this nonsensical nonsense
Now the only way to have dark mode consistently within Chromium is to export GTK_THEME session-wide in ~/.profile
Please do not

2023-09-30 17:39:08

I'm sure so much of what I say here comes across as hostile, petulant ranting, when in reality it's largely due to accommodating the arbitrary character limit and being forced to shave away all the pleasantries that would normally provide fuller context and demonstrate sensibility and reason and not just come across as an angry tantrum.

2023-09-29 02:51:10

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@npub18yv…xxyn
In 2024, I will happily accept whatever random old stuff I scavenge from dumpsters on account of the release of the above :)

2023-09-15 16:12:56

We need twice as many infosec people and half as many people introducing new "features" and changes to software all the damn time

2023-09-12 16:21:58

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@npub1xm9…26zl @npub1dgs…nfw8
We mustn't lose the cat vote, at any cost, or else we are doubly doomed.

2023-09-10 02:04:17

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@npub1j46…3gm7
Shall I take this as an indication to wish you a very happy birthday?

2023-09-06 19:13:01

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@npub1l3g…vu48
Guess the mystery icon
Hide and seek menus
Oh it's a blast

2023-09-06 00:21:47

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@npub1zpu…qh6x
Compliments of the indomitable @npub1dgs…nfw8 from a few days ago
Ties in quite nicely :)
https://infosec.exchange/@catsalad/110987269294026885

2023-08-29 14:12:30

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@npub1dm5…5sqe
I have a 9-pin serial cable I use with an old Pentium IV, personally, but I did grab a 9pin serial to USB and in theory should be able to make it work on newer. I just haven't bothered yet.

2023-08-28 01:36:36

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@npub1qty…w38h
I'm holding out for the upcoming release which will be based on Debian instead of Ubuntu.
I love what they are doing with immutability and a deb equivalent of rpm-ostree, and Mirko is a genius so I expect great things to come from the project

2023-08-22 00:25:34

My spirit is exhausted and my soul depleted. I don't know how some of you do it.

2023-08-21 03:21:16

I've observed a really distasteful, and ironically hypocritical pattern here in the fedi of a significant audience repeatedly celebrating harm / illness / death when it happens to people they don't like.
I'm really not a fan of this.

2023-08-21 02:56:39

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@npub18yv…xxyn
Hey, that's the far preferable story to tell afterwards, compared to the alternatives!

2023-08-21 02:34:52

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@npub18yv…xxyn
Happy you're safe, my friend.

2023-08-20 00:17:28

Sometimes I think about how many people are getting their very first introduction to the concept of alt text because of the #fediverse

2023-08-19 22:23:50

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What to expect on #Mastodon
Goofy nerds constantly sharing their ridiculously awesome projects
A continuous flow of amazing artwork and photography
Badass pictures of mushrooms and moss ( just follow #mushtodon and #mosstodon )
Legendary experts you can admire and learn from
Lots of jabs and schadenfreude when big tech does big stupids
#TwitterMigration

2023-08-19 22:05:46

Newcomers to #Mastodon I promise if you are patient and give this place a chance you will find tons of value here.
No, it's not the same as the X-crement you're accustomed to on Twitter
That's very much intentional.
Be patient, give yourself a moment to adjust and learn the ropes, and while I can't promise what you will or won't like, I can at least say I'm reasonably confident that you will discover you far prefer it here.
#TwitterMigration

2023-08-11 00:42:38

Funny how people always go with the classic,
"If you're not doing anything wrong, you should have nothing to hide."
over a far more sensible:
"If I'm not doing anything wrong, you should have no reason to spy on me."
#privacy #surveillance

2023-07-07 17:45:04

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@npub18yv…xxyn
Ok, let me rephrase then.
Why are we *inviting* corporations into our corporation-free zone?

2023-07-07 05:30:07

Why are we letting corporations into our corporation-free zone?

2023-07-05 17:53:20

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cc @npub1e2p…aqmc

2023-07-05 04:05:06

@npub1e2p…aqmc
Just came across this future newest addition to your library.
https://leanpub.com/nixos-in-production

2023-07-04 22:10:09

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@npub1usw…a0na @npub1fmx…rhhz
Mint (assuming primary version and not LMDE) uses the same Ubuntu repositories. You could just remove the Mint APT sources and then install the session metapackage of your choice and should be fine.
Or not even remove the Mint sources, if you wanted to use their customised builds of some of the Xfce packages.

2023-07-03 19:10:40

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@npub16mz…hm5n
No specific recipe - I just kind of throw stuff together by feeling (hah) - but my magic tip would be to add a pinch of nutmeg :)

2023-06-28 20:43:32

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@npub1e2p…aqmc
Is it actually not on the internet or can it just not reach connectivitycheck.gstatic.com
I'd look at DNS settings specifically and see if something got wonky there

2023-06-28 18:23:26

Fuck computers.

2023-06-24 00:43:24

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@npub1e2p…aqmc
Once again I'm here repping for Bluefish hahaha

2023-06-02 15:59:15

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@npub1e2p…aqmc
I have about three different pieces of software whose tray icons don't work in GNOME no matter what I've done.
You can try experimenting AppIndicator vs. Top Icons Plus or some of the others, but in my experience trying to use GNOME as a desktop OS always has razor cuts like this no matter what you do, and likely it will break the next time the shell and/or extension versions update.

2023-05-18 14:51:18

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@npub1dlh…mtks
As someone who manually strips all EXIF data from everything I ever send or upload anywhere, yes, I see this as a problem and one that, whether or not LinkedIn changes metadata policy, at the very least that should make very clear to users while they are uploading a photo, every single time.

2023-05-13 22:02:04

The number of people for whom #encryption and #privacy will be a matter of life or death is increasing and this trend will only continue to intensify.
For the sake of your #safety and that of your loved ones, please prepare now.
This needs to be a pervasive conversation people keep hearing from every direction so they realise this is real and not some paranoid nerds just being weird.
Start refusing to discuss sensitive topics through insecure means. Don't allow people to endanger themselves.

2023-05-01 23:22:16

Monumental shoutout to @npub1gzc…fsz3 for including OpenPGP support on the Windows builds.
Evidently I completely missed when that happened, but super thrilled I can begin coercing some people into using E2EE now that I came across this!

2023-04-25 18:44:53

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#[0]
iMac G3 would like to have a word with you, Mike.

2023-04-25 00:46:51

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#[0] #[1]
Yes, that does seem like two very different things. Was this example specific to a niche photography community or something to that effect?

2023-04-25 00:41:05

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#[0] #[1]
Bear in mind they were here first, those tools exist for a reason, and that respectful, courteous use of the platform involves following these community established socially-acceptable practices and expectations.
I don't think it's unreasonable.

2023-04-22 03:08:10

You're not a *real* Linux user unless you:
• Use desktop environment x
• *Don't* use desktop environment x
• Use 100% CLI
• Use Arch
• *Don't* use Arch or any distro and only compile from sources
• Don't use anything that isn't 100% FOSS even if you require it and it works smoothly for you and you need it for your workflow
Enough of this shit.
If you use a device powered by the Linux kernel, you're a Linux user. I hope you enjoy it and want to learn and immerse yourself even more over time!

2023-04-18 02:10:12

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#[0]
I'm a bit surprised to see Windows on there since I've observed Lowe's tends to run Linux on a lot of their in-store stuff.
Water heater troubles?

2023-04-16 17:45:24

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#[0]
God every single one of these guys companies' products/services is absolute rubbish too...
edit:grammar

2023-03-30 02:02:39

Can I just remove the line for _flatpak in /etc/passwd on a system that doesn't have or use flatpak?
I nonetheless just purged the flatpak package entirely for good measure and yet it's still in there
Or do I need to do this a different way?
#[0] #[1] #[2]

2023-03-09 23:31:39

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#[0]
Commercial software and operating systems becoming spyware themselves.
At that point, I'd long seen enough.