Permacomputing

Seems relevant to this community (albeit I haven't listened to the podcast yet).

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15928804

We are excited to announce the launch of a new podcast showcasing the transformative power of “Open Source for Climate” and the people and stories behind it. The open source movement is the key to bringing trusted knowledge, technology and collective action.

Post-listen edit: a bit short and underwhelming. Then again, it seems to be more of an intro/announcement than a first "proper" episode. Hopefully the next one will be more fleshed out.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15662912

https://fosstodon.org/@bert_hubert/112444298499426055

Hi all, I'm really looking for some help. I need to create a reliable system of backing up and data storage. I'm not tech-savvy (will work on that when it's a priority in my life, which it definitely can't be right now) and I'm asking this community because it's forward-thinking and aligns with my values. There are things I have right now, on paper and digitally, that I want to be able to retrieve at least a decade from now (and we'll check in on how the situation changes and what's worth keeping or printing out etc then). Most of the stuff bouncing about in my brain is the conventional advice:

1. The age-old "at least three places"
2. Don't store what I don't strictly need
3. Accessible & simple: the less I have to fiddle, the more sustainable it is (kind of seems to conflict with 1)
4. Privacy-first, don't trust clouds, etc (kind of sems to conflict with 1, too!)

I'm not sure (a) if there are any other principles to keep in mind while designing a system that works for me or (b) how this might translate into practical advice about hardware or software solutions. If anything has or hasn't worked for you personally, please share. My daily driver is a LineageOS tablet and it's not clear to me how to best keep its data safe.

Interesting look into Dune and the Luddites, and how technology can take two forms. Apropos permacomputing I think.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/28517038

Web browsers were very limited compared to today's offerings but still very extensive when compared to other applications. Now, browsers on desktop are at a point where they're equivalent to an OS in scope.

This frustrates me as it's led to stagnation, where very few companies can hold their position. Firefox can only keep up due to preexisting groundwork and the large amount of funding from Google. Chrome had billions thrown at it to quickly enter the market.

The thing that kills it the most for me is there is no way to fix the massive amount of effort needed for a web browser. It's extensive because it has to deal with thousands of situations: image rendering, video rendering, markup language support (HTML), CSS support, JavaScript support, HTML5 support, security features, tabbed browsing, bookmarking and history, search engine integration, cross-platform compatibility, performance optimisation, developer tools, accessibility features, privacy controls, codec support, to name a few.

Now, for my unpopular opinion: stripping back a general-purpose browser to its core, forcing web redesign, and modularising the browser. Rather than watching videos in the browser, an instance of VLC would be started where the video will be streamed. Instead of an integrated password manager and bookmarks, we have something akin to KeepassXC with better integration. Markup documents and articles automatically open in word processing applications. I know this idea seems wholly impossible now, but it often crosses my mind.

I thought this video was rather interesting, because at 12:27, the presenter crunches the numbers to find out how many years it would take for a new computer purchase to be more environmentally friendly (in regards to total CO2 expended) compared to using a less efficient used model.

Depending on the specific use case, it could take as little as 3 years to breakeven in terms of CO2 if both systems were at max power draw forever, and as long as 30 if the systems are mostly at idle.

After a drop, my hard drive was making an intermittent beeping noise and not being recognized by my computer.

I decided to take it apart and found that the actuator arm was stuck on top of the platter when it should be safely docked at the orange landing tray.

I carefully rotated the platter while pulling on the actuator arm with tweezers and unstuck it, bringing it back to the landing tray.

After reassembly, I tested it out again but this time, it made a loud beep, some concerning mechanical noises, then... nothing.

I took it apart yet again and inspected the read/write heads. Well, the picture speaks for itself. They were a mangled mess.

Lesson learned: inspect the read/write heads first before attempting any kind of recovery. Fortunately, this didn't have any important info on it (hence not being backed up!). However, I'd find someone who is better at data recovery than I am to help if I couldn't afford to lose the data. You only get one shot with data recovery!

Don't use Firefox, use Lynx.

Better yet, boycott http etc entirely.

Gopher or die.

Why are you still using a backlit display? Pipe your terminal into a passive character LCD and go to bed when the sun goes down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsOaahWFfug

Alt-ASCIIart image for those already on a 20x4 display (modified to fit in a 20x4 display):

╔══════════════════╗
║Debian GNU/Linux  ║
║ttyACM0  Login: █ ║
╚══════════════════╝

This is your life now.

Modern computing has revealed itself to be mostly unreasonable.

Go outside; potatoes need harvesting, the birds are eating your tomatoes, and the chickens haven't been fed yet.

In the most recent blog post on NetBSD, they said:

And as an (unexpected) bonus support for the Nintendo Wii has been added to the evbppc port.

Looks like they have instructions on how to run it in the mailinglist https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-powerpc/2024/01/27/msg003636.html and a video of it as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-MShCcFm_w.

It's exciting that the WII can potentially be used for general computing tasks.

Short reminder:

The human genome, with all its magic, is about 3,117,275,501 base pairs long. Source: Wikipedia

If you would encode that data digitally, and store it on a SSD drive, it would take up < 1 GB.

So, if we can do so much magic with 1 GB, that should be an inspiration to all software to do more, with less space.

Thank you for coming to my talk.