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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 4th, 2025

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  • Spot on. Anything based on the AR-18 design, which begat the AR-180 semi auto civilian version (which was promptly banned), gets rid of the buffer tube function on the AR-15 to balance the BCG. It uses the dual captive recoil springs, a design that migrated to a bunch of other modern firearms.

    I’ve been interested in the Aly & Kaufman AKB-23, basically a L85/SA80 replica lower that you throw a BRN-180 on and add some furniture to complete the look. So short version, yeah I think you could whittle a wooden lower for AR-18 style uppers. Probably only get a few shots off before it cracked though, wood can be quite brittle like that.




  • I’ll go in a slightly different direction but one that any CISO will tell you is just as important as locking down SSH, etc. Have a good backup plan

    Especially for a home server, is your biggest threat vector someone launching 0-days against it or the SD card it boots off of crapping out? Even production servers, when someone misconfigures sshd_config and locks everyone out (ask me how I know) or you get a crypto-locker run because all the configs in the world can’t save you from a supply chain attack. You’ll be glad you have backups on-site, off-site, a general DR strategy, etc.


  • This is reasonable for a hobbyist publication, it would make sense to buy ad space for a new fishing rod in Bass Fishing Quarterly or whatever. Harder when it’s something more generic as “the news”, but as a poster above said this is where quality journalism comes in. If millions of people want to read well-written pieces, advertisers are paying to get their products in front of millions of people.

    But advertisers want the most bang for the littlest buck and it’s easier to buy targeted ads in the attention economy so here we are. I have no issue with the existence of ads in certain places, moreso the whole system built to track every aspect of your waking attention.



  • Depends on the book. For stock digital graphic novels, it’s much easier on the Fold. For webcomics they are usually optimized for a narrower vertical screen. Same applies to static PDFs.

    Text really comes down to the viewer. Assuming it’s a book format that can be reflowed, reading can be just fine. I still prefer the wider format so I’m not constantly scrolling or tapping to turn pages, probably helps with eye fatigue too but not sure how long you plan to read on your phone anyway.


  • I had a ZFold 4 for a good long while before switching to a Pixel with GrapheneOS (OP is right, it’s a legal requirement when joining lemmy). I can share my experience.

    I really loved it but I also had very specific use cases. It was great for reading long-form content on the go and much more comfortable browsing websites, mostly those where they don’t have / use mobile-first design like old forums. It was also great for sharing content in person, like sharing a spreadsheet or slideshow in person became so much easier. Some edge cases were nice to have, like taking a conference call you could split screen at the crease and prop it up for a more laptop-like experience. Ultimately it did away with the tablet use case between my laptop and phone.

    Downsides were definitely price, it’s like an $1800 phone, probably more now. I kept it for probably 4 years and still use it occasionally so I feel I’m getting my moneys worth. Not sure how the durability is these days, used to have issues with screens cracking even though mine is going strong. They redesigned it from 5+ in a way that it folds fully flat now and should extend screen life.

    It really boils down to “is the screen real estate of two phones worth paying the price of two phones?” It has all the flagship features you’d expect, so you’re really buying the form factor.


  • In the US, I largely agree with you. Or use a website from a mobile browser. Different story in different countries where a smartphone might be the only compute the average person has, or where state services are tied to a mobile ID or bank app.

    Not saying that should be the case, but if the choice is between running niche FOSS apps and removing yourself from societal benefits structures, I know what most people will pick. That’s the real danger of allowing one company to own an entire ecosystem and have enough power that they have conversations directly with governments about their people instead of with their people.







  • I’ll address the second objection first regarding the phone or browser. You’re always going to rely on some technology for the solutions that use cryptography, you just can’t do those calculations long-hand realistically. That said, look up frameworks like CTAP that allow a potentially untrusted user terminal, like a browser, to interact with a trusted hardware token. Those hardware tokens can be made fairly tamper-proof, see FIPS authorized Yubikeys, such that the phone is pretty much removed from the attestation process. Yes these can still be stolen, but they make hardware keys that are fingerprint authenticated and the biometric stays on the device. Doesn’t get much more self-sovereign than that.

    The existence of a trusted credential provider is a challenge. Fully self-sovereign credentials need to either be trust on first use or validated against a larger system everyone participates in. Even if we had some system of birth certificates tied to a distributed ledger, we would have to trust the third party recording that certificate in the first place, be it a hospital, doctor, or state entity. These trust and proof systems don’t create the trust, they just allow us to extend that trust from one claimant to a verifier. Whether you place that trust in the state, an individual, or an independent third party is up to you.