dorotaC

Greybeard but revolutionary. 80-char lines are good for museums.

My tech writing (hire me): https://dorotac.eu/
Open bike computer: https://jazda.org
dcz on libera.chat

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dcz@fosstodon-org.mostr.pub

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nprofile1qqsxkgwqd3t6egfv3kcpqlsxrd5vr0n5hwtfelxklddjlr7q9wuz4nsay4xr7

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Last Notes

2026-01-09 14:10:55

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@nprofile…wn0a You can't control for the wind - no posture improvement. You can't improve your handling, either. Indoors will not prepare you for 100% outdoors riding.
And outside the few people of huge discipline who only need the training, you have the people who need extra motivation. Some psychological aspects can't be replicated. The smells, the sights, the variety that comes with unpredictability, the taste of fruit on the tree when you decide to pause.
And have you seen the snow today? Woo!

2025-11-16 07:51:32

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@nprofile…u9ev It's a community-built, nonprofit open source platform for sharing open source code.

2025-10-11 12:03:41

Hey @nprofile…vcea you heard that I made a #kdeplasma plugin.
How the heck do I publish it correctly?
I managed to guess my way around, but when I try to install the archive I uploaded, I get this:
> Installation of /tmp/ZAxSMp-master-kwlejka.tar.gz failed: The new package has a different type from the old version already installed.
???
Maintainers: would you link/include my tutorial somewhere prominent if I wrote one? (But please help me make that work first.)
#askfedi #kde #linux #linuxdesktop

2025-09-07 10:41:07

Hey #rust community, crazy idea:
A crate registry without #Microsoft as a gatekeeper.
If I started one, would you publish your library there?
What should I name it?
Background:
you can't publish on crates.io without #Github account = #microsoft's permission.
https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io/issues/326
As we all know, Microsoft has a history of supporting #Linux and we should trust them.
https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/
pffft lol. Just no.
#opensource #community #floss

2025-08-01 12:46:57

#Wayland input methods.
I'm sorry to say #iced doesn't have enough people with review/merge rights, so my work making #Chinese and #Japanese #input good on Wayland is going nowhere.
What are other #Rust #GUI libraries I could contribute to instead?
#cjk #opensource #nlnet

2025-07-31 19:45:39

@nprofile…y5ug I noticed osm.org now uses #WebGL for the slippy map.
Having worked with #GPU drivers I keep that crap off on the web browser (which is as much an an untrusted context as it gets) for paranoia reasons :P
Is there a fallback that folks like me could activate?
#mapping #opengl #security #openstreetmap

2025-07-31 19:40:33

I learned #welding . It's awful! Now my head has more space for nonsense ideas no one needs!
Like, leaf spring #suspension for a #bike trailer.
Has anyone ever tried that?
Is spring steel required?
deflection = FL³/(4Ebh³) , right?
I'm getting over 10mm thickness for 100kg load which is a bit crazy...
Would be nice to learn from some mechanical engineer about that problem :P
#engineering #mechanicalengineering #materialscience #steel #bicycle #cycling #biketooter

2025-07-24 07:11:45

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@nprofile…43zw I'm kind of surprised that Microsoft is pushing for open source. Should EU start from funding LibreOffice?
Perhaps Microsoft is not as uniform ideologically as it appears.
TBH the report doesn't mention supporting github. It's just going to happen because of market share.

2025-07-14 12:06:53

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@nprofile…6vaa Shoot me any questions you have. It may be challenging at first because libobscura has a couple of experiments at first, but there are open issues to try.

2025-07-14 12:03:54

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@nprofile…6vaa More like dormant?
It's still a good idea IMO, there just doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest (and no wonder, it's missing some crucial features), and I'm busy with something else.
I'll be publishing more in-depth articles about the last period of work, and maybe that makes people more interested again.
For now, though, I'm working on mobile input and input methods on #Wayland if anyone's interested.

2025-07-14 06:03:33

Remember #libobscura ?
The project didn't attract a huge community, but it did teach me stuff so obscure that few people apart from the authors understand it.
So I started writing it down, for everyone's benefit.
If you had questions about #DMABUF, I try to explain it on my #blog :
https://dorotac.eu/posts/DMABUF/
Thanks to all the people who explained it to me. Some parts are really confusing.
(Please report mistakes.)
#linux #kernel #graphics #camera

2025-07-08 19:58:43

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@nprofile…s5sj How old is your laptop? It took over 10 years on mine when it fell off last year.
The Windows and Lenovo ones are still there.

2025-07-05 18:09:00

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@nprofile…gh3e shouldn't a debug build run correctly as well? Or do you mean it was too slow and the device couldn't process the incoming data fast enough?

2025-07-05 16:11:58

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@nprofile…c3f0 Ah, I see now. So it is checking the propagation through external systems.
I think this UI is going to be frustrating to the people who don't know what's going on because it's still occationally "flaky" by returning unstable results. On the other hand, it's going to be frustrating to those who know what's going on because it's a little paternalistic with "nope, I'm not letting you see the result immediately".
I'd look for a solution in setting expectations rather than hiding complexity.

2025-07-05 14:51:21

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@nprofile…c3f0 I don't think I understand the context because the extra delay doesn't feel like an improvement.
What does "current value" mean and does the delay make it more stable?
If it waits for DNS to propagate, the proper delay that doesn't cause confusion could be measured in minutes.

2025-06-21 08:28:01

Attention all citizens, several UFO cases have been spotted over East Germany.
Sadly, no footage has been captured.
Recordings follow.
Rewards will be issued for identifying the sounds.
#audio #audacity #sound
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/720/404/929/209/900/original/d5b2b52ad69d93cd.mp3

2025-05-17 15:26:34

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@nprofile…mwxa How much is a Li-Ion 18650 compared to a bullet of similar size?

2025-05-06 11:31:14

Hey electrofedis,
anyone able to say if this is LVDS or eDP?
I suspect 4 differential pairs is too much for eDP for 1024x600, but I couldn't find any datasheet to confirm it.
The display is KD101N7 from an Android 4.1-era Archos tablet.
#askfedi #electronics #repair #upcycling
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/460/656/153/771/058/original/f4fdb84c695fd6c8.jpg

2025-04-23 12:55:59

4 hours of work, 28 lines of code.
So it goes.
At least I'm getting somewhere.

2025-03-18 07:30:06

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@nprofile…h5yr It's a kernel violation that directly contradicts your premise as stated.

2025-03-18 07:08:08

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@nprofile…h5yr "If a hardware device intends not to be modified or inspected, you aren't going to find a coreutils suite installed on it at all."
https://lkml.org/lkml/2003/6/7/164

2025-03-18 06:48:11

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@nprofile…h5yr I think you ignored my question, because I have seen countless cases of devices I can't fix/modify/inspect because ex-open source software is being provided without sources and I worry about that trend. Yet you say it's not an issue without explaining why.
So I'll just stop my side of the discussion here.

2025-03-16 17:20:06

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@nprofile…h5yr I mean, I don't know the answer, but I feel LLVM and Mesa are a little less relevant than Busybox. (Let's not forget that GPUs from the leading GPU vendor barely run under Mesa, and the Android mess.)
I'm still not convinced about the absurdity of the worries. Forking and closing is a commonplace pratice, even when the license forbids it (see recent FritzBox fiasco, half of Android).
Do you think it's unreasonable to worry that MIT makes "patch and distribute closed" easier?

2025-03-16 17:06:17

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@nprofile…h5yr I don't think anyone's worried about Ubuntu or Fedora. They are good community members.
I'm worried about hardware manufacturers.
You're saying that they will not start using a closed fork of uutils, so there's nothing to worry about. I'm not so sure. my experience with Rust is that uutils will be be better in many ways and soon will start getting adopted, regardless of what happened the past.
Better reference point: how often is busybox etc. patched by hw vendors?

2025-03-16 16:43:06

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@nprofile…h5yr I read the whole chain, but I'm not really seeing the relevance of it to hardware manufacturers' choices.
You cannot close a project, but you can close a copy of software that you distribute, making it harder to understand how it works or how to replace it.
From a user's perspective, you lose when the only information on how exactly your device works is machine code.
So if there's only one standard coreutils which is GPLed, it's harder for manufacturers to obscure this from users.

2025-03-16 15:29:44

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@nprofile…h5yr What makes you think it's absurd?
The way I see it, people are worried about easily-closeable softwares displacing non-closeable ones in an area where user freedom struggles (hardware).
That sounds reasonable to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

2025-03-15 19:05:49

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@nprofile…9p8d Where are you? I don't think I've ever seen something I could call an overstock store.,

2025-03-15 11:50:31

Has everyone noticed?
Here in #Germany almost all #supermarkets use #epaper displays to show prices. They look great. It's hard to notice that it's not ink on dead trees.
That's thousands of displays per shop. Times thousands of shops in the entire country.
Some of those displays break or otherwise get replaced.
So there must be piles of used displays around the country... but where?
Does any of my fellow #hackers know how to get some of that #trash treasure?
#recycling #upcycling

2025-02-26 13:55:50

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@nprofile…8cku Display cards have a limited number of hardware (Cathode Ray Tube Controller, CRTC) that can scan out buffers to display ports.
On Haswell-era Intel hardware it was 3, so max displays was 3.
I never used more than 2 displays on my X230, so it's at least 2 but maybe not more :)
You could probably look it up how many there are.

2025-02-15 17:48:59

Turns out I created a toot I can't delete.

2025-02-12 13:15:17

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@nprofile…8l8f @nprofile…8x0h Are there any descriptions of the attack? Right now the only possible motivation is a second-hand description by codeberg themselves.
It makes me wonder: why did codeberg not explain what they think the rationale was?
Was it because the messages contained abuse?
If I wanted to hide the real reasons or techniques of my attack, would be enough to fill it with abuse and people would purge it before letting the public analyze it?
That sounds like an exploit against moderation.

2025-02-12 12:21:03

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@nprofile…46cg If every post was encrypted with all the subscriber public keys, you'd have no ability to track which subscribers actually use the service.
Zero-knowledge subscription!
I'd pay for it. Maybe. We don't have zero-knowledge payments yet :(

2025-02-11 14:17:47

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@nprofile…vl6k What formats do you have that mpv, vlc, or ffmpeg can't handle?

2025-02-09 10:33:36

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@nprofile…j0sv Funny idea, but how often does a hit-and-run happen to you?
I never had one I couldn't avoid (and that one was from the side).

2025-02-08 07:31:14

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That post should have been the reply to https://fosstodon.org/@dcz/113967066011866283

2025-02-08 07:29:19

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@nprofile…khtw Don't train to be demolished, train to demolish!

2025-02-08 07:26:54

How much do #Python clocks progress in "60 seconds"?
CLOCK_BOOTTIME 60.6
CLOCK_MONOTONIC 60.6
CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW 56.0
CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID 0.000952
CLOCK_REALTIME 60.6
CLOCK_TAI 60.6
CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID 0.000952
Only CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW is tracking the hardware #clock correctly.
So if you actually want to measure #time accurately, use that one.
#linux #monotonic #ntp #rtc

2025-02-08 07:23:40

I pressed the #turbo button on my laptop.
(edited for clarity)
$ sudo hwclock && date && sleep 60 && sudo hwclock && date
22:50:48.433491+01:00
02:29:53 CET 2025
22:51:44.397740+01:00
02:30:54 CET 2025
It can now finish a minue in 56 seconds!
#time #linux #ntp

2025-02-07 12:27:48

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@nprofile…v02e @nprofile…0dse @nprofile…x4va @nprofile…dvqh That can also be seen as a benefit. Face to face conversations have no history, either, which opens them up to the ephemeral. You don't have to worry about being too off-topic, polluting the history, or being told off for not reading the backlog.

2025-02-03 11:41:49

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@nprofile…x4va @nprofile…dvqh
And my own thought: if your #FOSS project's #chat is on #Discord , I will not join.
I already know it will get enshittified. I will not give them a phone number, I don't want to get tracked and my data sold as a price of contributing to FOSS.
So yeah, I've been mostly absent from the #bevy #community for that reason.
I hope that changes one day.
#proprietary #Enshittification #freesoftware

2025-02-03 11:37:09

Are you using #github for #FOSS ?
Small request: could you use FOSS instead?
Don't make #Microsoft your gatekeeper, use like #forgejo #codeberg or something.
https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/
Thanks to @nprofile…x4va 's @nprofile…dvqh , Denver Gingerich and Bradley Kuhn for the #FOSDEM talk.
#fosdem2025

2025-02-03 09:34:31

#FOSDEM is over.
How many of you have seen Bad Apple running on an e-paper screen, smoothly?
Because I have, at a private presentation in one of the sitting areas, and, friends, it blew my socks off.
Let me tell you, it's funny to see something cast a shadow on a computer screen.
Apparently the driver is running a custom FPGA and plenty of it is open source.
Good luck @nprofile…tp4t . I want to get one now. https://www.modos.tech/blog
#epaper #eink #freesoftware #fosdem2025 #wayland

2024-10-05 16:38:08

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@npub1vg4…2yt8 When it goes more loose, it starts whacking against the frame :P
Surprisingly, if you just wrap reflective tape over the spokes, it holds much better. Nearly a decade later and none ever fell off.

2024-02-22 03:08:21

How to check the maximum safe voltage which an unidentified #circuit can handle?
Is it possible without destroying it?
#electronics #circuits #ReverseEngineering #askfedi #askfediverse