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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • It’s not. I carry one(mix 3s) as a pocket laptop for when Im going out but might need to do some work urgently and also as a lightweight backup in case something happens to my main laptop. For the former, it’s been great and saved me many times, but for the latter… this did once happen when I bonked the entire screen out. To say it was a painful week while waiting for the replacement would be an understatement. My back was killing me the entire time, and the thing is so underpowered it was easier to remote into that screenless pc rather than trying to launch stuff locally. And even with that, the thing whirred like crazy. It’s fine for a few minutes at a time but hearing it sll fay got annoying quick. And dont even get me started on the keyboard…





  • Some Russian ones:

    недоперепил: недо - not quite, пере - overdid, пил - drank. Sounds weird due to opposing suffixes, basically means “haven’t drunk enough to get completely wasted”, in my circles we use it to describe displeasure when the alcohol runs dry on events we’ve set to get wasted all along.

    опердень: Due to how it’s only used in professional circles and how language is structured, someone hearing it for the first time might think it’s a word rooted from “пердеть” (to fart), and based on the suffixes assume it relates to some kind of creature that farts (or get farted) all over. But it’s actually a shorthand for Операционный День (processing day) which is how finance guys call their banking software as it basically replaced said processing day in their work.

    Same for “опсос” - sounds like “someone who sucks all over something” but is just a shorthand for “оператор сотовой связи” - phone service provider.





  • Let’s say the US gov starts agressively prosecuting dissidents and certain minorities (they already do): can and should we still use signal in this case?

    Definitely no. Russian government already is aggressively prosecuting dissidents and you can’t join Signal there. I don’t know whether it’s due to sanctions or if the government is blocking 2FA SMS messages. In either case, it is impossible to join without a phone number confirmation. At least I wasn’t able to. I don’t see the USA being that far off with all the recent TikTok drama.






  • People can get used to weirdest stuff. Like my former coworker who uses mouse upside down, like, fingertip grip on the buttons and cord under palm. Said he used to love playing aerial combat simulators, but couldn’t get used to inverted controls, so he just flipped the mouse and learned to use it inverted for everything else. Havent played videogames in decades but it’s still stuck to him. The only problem is that he was a CEO at tech company, but from a passerby perspective it always looked like it’s his first time using a PC.


  • I did exactly that many years ago. Ditched my phone and went with x86 UMPC with builtin 3G modem, the name of which I don’t remember because it was some random Chinese no-name. Unfortunately that experiment coincided with the era of “fuck websites, we’re going app-only because we’re so hip”. I was in a world of pain right off the bat when I got a carrier plan, specifically marketed for usage on PC’s, and it did not work. I called them and they said to me:

    • Do you have Android or iOS?
    • I only have Windows
    • Windows phone?
    • No, Windows 8…
    • Well, you’ll have to use the app to activate the SIM card…

    Turns out, the usage on PC’s meant tethering…

    Lots of online things, if they were even available as websites, were highly cut down versions of apps. And SMS 2FA, goddamn. I remember not being able to buy booze and shoes because, apparently, phone confirmations were required in those establishments. Good thing they’re fading out in favor of TOTP and passkeys. But, at a time, I had to swtich to a carrier that allowed me to use “corporate” features like SMS forwarding and SIP telephony. Also, fuck WhatsApp, that shit can burn in all fires of hell.

    On the other hand, I really miss that time. It was liberating, just not having like, a few dozen malwares in my pocket tracking me down just to track someone’s dog, or a bus, or to spy on someone’s buying preferences or whatever. But things have gotten quite a bet better over the years, so I’m kind of inclined to repeat the experiment with my new-ish OM3S which I carry because I still cannot imagine going out without a proper PC on me (don’t buy it, though, it is severely underpowered, better get something GPD instead).




  • Tailscale… is not that good. The underlying wireguard is robust, but tailscale control plane is completely proprietary, as well as their DERP servers that it too often uses completely needlessly. They can also block you off from downloading it, updating, or logging in, if you happen to be in a wrong country.

    I’m myself looking for an alternative to it, but having trouble finding something I could share with non tech savvy friends while not being as complex on my end as, say, open/strongswan ais. Any suggestions welcome.