ReneeVandervelde
Renee Vandervelde

https://reneevandervelde.com

Engineer @ Block; Bitkey 🪨

Friend of Open Source.
Passionate about Kotlin, Security, and Plants 🌱

Public Key

npub1csswqp5vhqc2gq7y057r9c5nvrdu0agzrfc67209vxnfghy5x4rs7cs2wn

NIP-05 Address

reneevandervelde.com

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsvgg8qq6xtsv9yq0z860pju2fkpk7875pp5ud098jkrf55tj2r23chscflx

Author Public Key

npub1csswqp5vhqc2gq7y057r9c5nvrdu0agzrfc67209vxnfghy5x4rs7cs2wn

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Last Notes

2024-08-30 00:33:00

I just want a small phone that runs LineageOS 😔

2024-08-25 14:16:10

I worry that GrapheneOS is developing an openly hostile relationship with much of the engineering community and will motivate someone to burn Graphene to the ground at the first opportunity rather than contribute.

2024-08-20 00:38:04

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The point of Google's Play Protect is to protect Google from competition.

2024-08-20 00:11:39

I need someone to sue Google over this bullshit Play ""protection"".
#note1p2c…cvy9

2024-07-05 18:04:23

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This is also ~pretty much true of all single-sign-on schemes like Apple/Google's.
I've been annoyed for a long time that logging into YouTube on a device also technically logs me into Gmail.
Unique sites should get their own unique secrets.

2024-06-27 17:21:52

I did a code audit of Ionspin’s KMP-Libsodium library.
Here's what I found:
https://reneevandervelde.com/publications/expect-fun/audit-ionspin-kmp-libsodium.html

2024-06-18 19:49:41

Revolt against Google Docs.

2024-06-14 21:58:16

Happy Flag Day.
Here's a blog I wrote with some critical thoughts on Feature Flags in applications.
https://reneevandervelde.com/publications/generically-typed/feature-flags-antipattern.html

2024-06-12 22:41:15

Anyone else feel like the fediverse bridges kinda degraded the usefulness of search and tags on Nostr?

2024-06-12 17:30:56

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Yeah, I'm not convinced that many of nostr use cases are made better with data streams, in general. And I makes a lot of functionality pretty wasteful.

2024-05-31 22:07:04

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👀
Roughly how much of the app would you say is multiplatform-ready today?

2024-05-29 17:34:02

My hot take is that I think CSS is quite nice to work with.

2024-05-27 13:26:56

iOS Engineers must be the most patient forgiving people on the planet to deal with Xcode 🫠

2024-05-26 17:24:47

Doing #Kotlin K2 upgrades this weekend on my libraries. Going smoothly 😀

2024-05-10 23:51:36

Something neat about nostr is that, by receiving a note like this, you received an app hash that's already signed by the creator 🤯
#note1z28…v4vk

2024-04-27 16:55:35

I've been complaining about this for years.
Finally someone else cares.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/google-says-its-fixing-a-nasty-android-tv-account-security-loophole/

2024-04-27 13:24:28

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I mean in general for accounts. You can't make a Google account without a phone number, can't create a telegram account without a phone number. Hell, even Signal requires a damn phone number. It sucks.

2024-04-27 04:37:57

It's time to end phone numbers as a kyc login.
I hate this dystopia where creating an account requires a carrier number with all my info and even the burner/virtual numbers are typically blocked or used up by spammers.
Just stop. Find a better way to fight spam.

2024-04-02 13:45:52

Inflation is a property of markets, not currency, and that's the last I'm talking about it.

2024-03-31 01:48:21

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Nostr is decentralized. It's not evenly distributed. That's the distinction, to me.
The same is true about git. Git is still decentralized even if most repos are on Github.
You don't *need* Github for your code to survive. That's what matters.
Git and Github are both still great. Decentralized protocols don't need to be evenly distributed.

2024-03-23 18:11:07

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In a sense, data ownership on traditional platforms like Facebook and Twitter is governed by a terms of service, but on Nostr, it feels somewhat closer to publishing to the public domain.
It doesn't feel forthcoming to compare Twitter's ability to delete your data upon request to Nostr's. Someone could, theoretically, be backing up your tweets, sure. But large platforms do quite a bit to prevent that, it's against their terms, and anyone using it would or should know that the data was obtained in bad faith. On Nostr that's not the case. Nostr's operating model has no real agreements. And the core idea of the model is that anyone can and should be backing up that data on their own servers. It seems much more reasonable for someone to think that the data could be used for whatever they want in that model. That is the de facto ownership model on Nostr and fediverse content right now. You own the identity, but you don't own your data.
To be clear -- I don't think that's bad. I *like* the idea of that data being free and open when it's published -- who owns your words after you say them aloud?
But it does inform what data I put here. And I think that's a big shift for most people coming from large traditional platforms. We should embrace that distinction to help people's experience here.

2024-03-21 15:21:51

LETS 👏 FUCKING 👏 GO
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/us-sues-apple-alleging-it-illegally-monopolized-the-smartphone-market/

2024-03-20 13:46:53

I really want to dig into "you own your data" on nostr.
Do people feel like that's true?
I certainly don't feel like that. I feel like I can author whatever data I want, but once I publish it I don't have any control over it anymore. My data gets published to many relays in control of many different people with different ideas of how the ecosystem works. I generally have no way to delete or modify the data. I have access to my data whenever I want, but so does everyone else. And that data can be used for seemingly whatever purpose anyone that receives it would like. I'm not sure what would stop a company from using that data to, say, target ads at me.
It's not even really clear where the authority to do any of this comes from. There's no user agreement or anything. If I do own the data, it's certainly not treated that way.
I don't believe any of this makes the system *bad* per se. It just feels like something we haven't figured out yet.
#note1q37…53zw

2024-03-14 00:16:16

The most satisfying feature in any hardware. #bitkey
https://m.primal.net/HkXp.mp4

2024-03-13 12:06:44

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👀 https://bitkey.build/bitkey-starts-shipping-today/

2024-03-12 23:37:23

I want to use GrapheneOS but I absolutely refuse to give Google money to buy a Pixel 😞

2024-03-12 13:23:33

What are some good alternatives to Google Calendar?

2024-03-11 21:58:21

Now that Google banned my account, I'm *all-in* on Obtainium 😂
#note1dzw…sjel

2024-03-11 19:02:01

✨ Web 2.0 is going GREAT✨
Update: I finally found a phone number that works with Google's account sign-up.
.. then hours later I'm banned for too many sign-up attempts 🤦‍♀️
*Love* having a centralized single-sign-on account authority with a company that's got too much power and virtually zero customer support.
Sick of this. The internet needs more open protocols with account portability.
https://m.primal.net/HjsM.jpg

2024-03-10 01:56:35

✨ Web 2.0 is going GREAT✨
I haven't been able to replace my Google account, and I've tried multiple phone numbers from friends and family now.
Even if you're willing to put up with their verification bullshit, you still don't get to create an account because every phone number has accounts associated with it or been churned through by spammers.
https://m.primal.net/HjPP.png

2024-03-09 15:05:18

I tried to move my account off of Google Workspace, and they banned my phone number.
So now I have no Google account at all, and can't create one.
Web 2 is going great.

2024-02-20 23:43:44

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Apple pay is not a good product. Apple knows this. If they believed it was a good product they wouldn't need to try so hard to prevent competition.

2024-02-20 03:51:24

ChatGPT is so lame
https://m.primal.net/HdtB.png

2024-02-16 03:33:14

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Obtainium is great though. Bit of a clunky ui, but great concept.

2024-02-16 03:31:29

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I'm close to buying a pixel just for graphene but not quite there. Hoping they expand someday.

2024-02-14 18:05:34

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Switch platforms to allow-list models instead of block/deny lists.

2024-02-14 16:21:02

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You can, but most users won't, and maybe even shouldn't.
The message does not need to be designed this hostile, though. The 'Install' button is completely hidden, and designed to look exactly like text when you find it.
Also the title refers to the app directly as "unsafe" which Google has no way to reasonably conclude. That feels like slander.
Unrecognized? Sure. Untrusted? Maybe. Unsafe? No.

2024-02-14 15:24:46

Google's app sideload blocking is extremely hostile. This sucks.
https://m.primal.net/HcnQ.jpg

2024-02-14 13:26:11

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T👇H
👉 👈
I 👆S

2024-02-14 03:12:32

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I set my phone up to send all calls to voicemail immediately and turned off notifications for SMS.
It's still there for the things that I need it, but it's not a good way to contact me.

2024-02-14 02:43:36

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You have to assume there's so little going on over there that they need some way to entertain themselves.

2024-02-13 18:57:09

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Time to build a radio based protocol implementation of nostr. I knew it would come to this 😌

2024-02-12 15:48:35

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I love that word, it also stuck with me for similar reasons. I like your connection to the human story with it. Humanity is so cool when you step back and look at it. Big fan.
My favorite term from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is 'anecdoche', maybe you'll like that one too.
> anecdoche
> n. a conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is listening, simply overlaying disconnected words like a game of Scrabble, with each player borrowing bits of other anecdotes as a way to increase their own score, until we all run out of things to say.

2024-02-11 16:15:31

Shout out to the Java engineer that made the Calendar implementation's month zero indexed. You never know when we're going to add a few billion more months in the calendar year.
Really thinking ahead; Every bit counts.

2024-02-08 02:01:58

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I doubt nostr will ever be the new Twitter. (I actually suspect microblogging is dying altogether) but the ideas made here have potential to impact future software designs unlike anything in Bluesky. And I think that's cool.

2024-02-08 01:56:57

Nostr has its problems, but at least it's interesting. I don't get the appeal of Bluesky. There's just not many new ideas in the product.

2024-01-30 16:06:02

It's always tempting but incredibly rare that I actually want the kotlinx.serialization `polymorphic()` modules.

2024-01-29 14:31:00

They're going to be so embarrassed when they realize git is already decentralized.

2024-01-14 19:36:20

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The only thing cookie banners have accomplished is training literally everyone to click 'Accept' to *absolutely anything* that appears in the bottom portion of a website.

2024-01-14 15:35:36

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👋

2024-01-12 17:11:58

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You could do some neat stuff with this, like zaps for tips to the developers. Reviews and comments would be fairly straightforward. And you'd be free of unfair competitive app store policies and censorship.
I'd probably be willing to help build this, but couldn't do it alone.
#nostr #android #dev

2024-01-12 16:19:05

I want a good decentralized App Store on Android.
Has anyone tried to do Android App distribution via Nostr?
I know the last thing Nostr needs is *another* implementation. But it would be really powerful to use the platform to publish metadata and URLs for a store to do automatic updates from arbitrary URLs, signed by the publisher 🤔
#nostr #android #dev

2024-01-11 16:46:51

Nobody can predict the future, least of all tech enthusiasts.

2023-12-30 23:44:26

I finally released the ham radio APRS application that I've been working on for years now. It's not perfect, but it's nice to finally have a baseline release in the wild.
If you've got an amateur radio license in the States, maybe check it out.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inkapplications.ack.android

2023-12-25 14:43:26

Still in progress.
https://m.primal.net/HVKx.png

2023-12-24 19:50:00

Google Home's API intentionally doesn't provide a way to get or send the home/away status for a location, so I'm exfiltrating the data by tweaking the brightness of a Hue light bulb now and it works great.
This is the best and dumbest hack I've ever written.

2023-12-24 19:26:35

I keep running into this error after upgrading Kotlin:
ClassNotFoundException: javaslang.λ
I feel like I need an entire post-mortem on what the hell went wrong with that error message.
(fyi, You can fix it by changing the JDK variant, in my case from AdoptOpen -> Oracle, though I'm unsatisfied in that long-term)

2023-12-24 19:19:01

If you want to talk about more than just bitcoin and nostr on here you can follow me for more absolute bangers like this.
#note1xme…p3qs

2023-12-24 19:17:40

I wonder if I'm the first person to put Angostura bitters in their Metamucil

2023-12-14 17:51:24

I'm starting to think 'AI' is just what we call computers now.

2023-12-11 15:59:26

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Try switching to it for a month! Using a popular phone that has different constraints than high end phones can offer a lot of design perspective.

2023-11-11 04:05:32

👀 Hello World