N3M

joined 2 years ago
[–] N3M@reddthat.com 1 points 1 month ago

Looks like a cross between Zot and Nostr. It looks like it's got some interesting features, namely the key based identities, easy migration, and it being designed around implementing custom features into the protocol while hopefully remaining compatible with other poly servers.

But I'm not really sure there'd be too much of a point in using it. Zot, Nostr, and AT (Bluesky) both already have the former two - with Nostr having the latter as well, and AT having a limited amount of the latter (Lexicons add flexibility but break compatibility). Although I only skimmed through the docs I can't see features big enough that would make someone implement polyproto over using an existing protocol that already has a userbase.

It might be handy as a server that is centered around polyproto, but compatible with other software (kind of like how Friendica isn't actually activity pub, but bridges things internally). That way you'd get the benefits of polyproto when talking with others on poly, while still being able to communicate with others on other protocols. But it doesn't look like they're aiming for that - I'm not a cryptography expert, but they're using X.509-based keys. Both Nostr and AT use secp256k1, so had they used those you'd be able to use the same identity across multiple platforms (even if the posts had to be bridged/translated since the json formatting would be different).

If you're looking for a central home server, private key powered accounts hidden behind a domain based username, the ability to instantly migrate servers, and a protocol that supported heavy customization, I'd recommend looking into ditto. It's built on Nostr, but it's built around being a more Activity Pub style home server (and it even works with Mastodon API capable clients). Ditto is nearly 1:1 with what it looks like polyproto wants to build, and it already exists right now on a protocol with an active userbase, so I'm not quite sure what the goal would be in making another protocol.

Or maybe I'm just being dumb and there's more to polyproto than I realize.

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 32 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Like others have said, it's way more resource intensive than text based systems. Even discounting higher res vids, if you go to any random larger YT channel and download all their videos in 144p 480p and 720p it'll be quite a lot larger than you might expect. Sure, if you're serious about it you could get an array of hard drives and a small server, but you're talking hundreds of bucks and lots of upkeep. Outsource it to a VPS and AWS buckets and you've still got upkeep but now you've added an extra 0 to your bill.

There's not enough charitable nerds on the internet to host even a fraction of 1% of Youtube. It's even worse if self hosting instances is pushed. Even as a fellow tech nerd, no way I'm hosting my own instance just so I can share a video once in a blue moon. Something that always gets my goat in fediverse discourse is when people always jump to saying something along the lines of "just host your own" then wonder why AP went from ~2.5M users to 0.8M users.

There's also some Fediverse specific issues that hold back a more mainstream audience. There's some fringe political stuff on both sides of the isle which can pretty easily scare off people, and defederation combined with peertube's more siloed approach makes discovery near nil. (can't see content from remote peertube instances unless somebody has already subscribed to that channel on the remote instance from your local instance AFAIK).

Then there's the new platform (or in this case many platforms connected via one protocol) issues. Lack of users, limited/no monetization, limited development/support, and very few pros + a lot of cons at first glance from somebody who doesn't consider tech a hobby and is comparing it to established platforms.

Edit: Can't remember who, but iirc a peertube user I follow who regularly deletes their videos because their host doesn't give them too much space. It's great for a less big tech way to see their latest videos, but not acceptable if anyone's gonna bill something like that as the next big video platform.

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 1 points 3 months ago

While it's probably not exactly what you're looking for, I wanted to give vibe coding a try and wound up making a discord like client if you think it might be handy. It's not actually a chat server, it's just a client that uses a chat style layout to display posts under the mastodon api.

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I've got an interest in the decentralized protocols and have written about them before, so I've got a bit of a disorganized treasure trove of articles, opinions, and blog posts I've gone through at some point. As a side note, shutout to the single file plugin for Gecko & Chromium based browsers, it's a great way to grab an archive of anything you might want to reference later.

I went through my list of archives plus a few things that came to mind that I've read/watched, below are things that (at least in part) take a more critical look at Activity Pub as a protocol or community.

Blog Posts & Articles:

Lemmy Threads:

Vids, Social Media Posts, & Misc:

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There's a few technical and non technical reasons someone might be on Bluesky/AT instead of Activity Pub. Protocol specific there's:

) Account ownership (theoretically at least, migration is still in development). Though it's hidden behind domain based identification there's a cryptographic key that let's you migrate to another PDS even if yours is down or banned you.

) Performance. Hosting something like a PDS is lighter than an Activity Pub instance.

) User level configuration. Bluesky let's you set custom moderation lists and algorithms, something you can't on Activity Pub.

) Compatibility. Building something like a link aggregator on AT that is compatible with a microblogging platform like Bluesky is likely a lot easier then Activity Pub since AT is broken up into PDSs and Relays. (To be fair compatibility does work on Activity Pub, but it's got jank).

There's also some less technical reasons as well:

) Bluesky is a platform and you don't need to learn a protocol to use it. Yeah it's not that hard to learn how any of the big three protocols work, but it's also not that hard to change your car's oil or sew ripped cloths instead of replacing them - but how many people do those? I'd guess 80% of Lemmy is an IT guy between 20-45 so it can get a little echo chambery on how easy tech is. One if the reasons Threads makes up 99.5%+ of the fediverse.

) Defederatiation is becoming a mess. If some random Joe has a friend on Bluesky & Nostr (both bridged), a few on threads, and a few spread across different instances; yet he can't reach all but 1 or 2 of them from the instance he chose to join on joinmastodon it might be time to reconsider how things are done. Techy people might have no problem sifting through a long list of servers to find the right one, but somebody who's already on the fence is probably going to quit at that point.

) Bluesky has a more mainstream culture, while the fediverse has very specific thoughts and ideas. Had I said I was on Windows you all might have put a hit out on me 😆

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Cool

I tested/wrote about it recently, you're welcome to copy my metaphorical homework if you want

Friendica Side

(I'm getting an Nginx error trying to load Nerdica, hopefully it'll be back up soon)

Lemmy Side

Cross Compatibility portion of blog post

The long in the short of it is that Lemmy can communicate with Mastodon & Friends, though since Activity Pub servers handle everything and microblogging platforms have no clue what Lemmy is doing there's a bit of jank.

You can post to a community by "@"ing it, although it can only be a text based submission. You can follow a community by following it's name (say @fediverse@lemmy.ml) and you'll get submissions in the form of boosts/reposts. You can also grab a link to a post or reply and search for that on a microblogging server to reply to or like.

My test went pretty well, although the post I made was slightly wonky (title and "@" appeared in the post text). I also didn't see all the Lemmy replies make it back to my home server. If nomadic identities make their way to activity pub most of the jank could be resolved.


As for a testimonial about compatibility something that sticks out is cross compatibility between Activity Pub, Nostr, and AT (BlueSky). I'm usually on Nostr, but I follow Activity Pub and AT accounts; and thanks to a copying of a json file you can search out the same username on Activity Pub or Nostr and find my Nostr account.

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Hello me, testing replies

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 7 points 1 year ago

I'm far from an expert, but anything on standards JIS X6257 / ISO 18630 would probably be a good start. It's an open standard for 100+ year discs.

Otherwise probably best to look into accelerated aging studies. For technology that's less that 100 yrs old to claim 100 or 1000 is a bit uncertain but accelerated aging is probably the closest to a best guess. I recall skimming over a third party lab saying Verbatim gold foil archival DVDs were estimated to last 30-120 years depending on storage methods and luck, but never saved the link.

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 1 points 1 year ago

Oh yeah, stick it in the sun or a damp box and either will probably be bad in weeks instead of decades or centuries. But supposedly they'll meet those lifespans good at room temp

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 19 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Kinda funny, I was just writing about archival media this morning. Verbatim makes DVDs & Blue Rays that last ~100 years, and M-DISC makes ones that'll last ~1000 years. And the Verbatim Blu Rays run ~$0.036 per gig.

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The account ownership one is definitely my first thought too. Using keypairs to identify accounts controlled by the user would be great. You can hide it behind a normal looking username with your (or a third party's) domain on both Nostr and AT (though AT's not fully developed, but it's totally in control of the user and doing that with activity pub could hand the metaphorical keys of your account to you instead of the server. Another way would be to allow users to use their own domain with an existing third party server, or use something similar to Zot's (Hubzilla) "Nomadic Identities" that let you mirror your account on another server.

Implementing quote posts is a little above my pay grade, but I actually think that the link option might be a great idea. Nostr does quote posts by just embedding the post into your post where the nevent is pasted in, making both regular quote posts and the general ability to embed any post anywhere in your post. That sort of functionality, just using links to posts instead of nevents could be neat to standardize into activity pub as well, especially if all the other activity pub software already is doing that. Though again, not exactly a dev, so who knows if that'd break things.

[–] N3M@reddthat.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I assume Lemmy and Mastodon are the same way in that they won't search outside their databases when logged out? If so that'd explain why. Thanks!

19
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by N3M@reddthat.com to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
 

I was having some issues finding myself in the search on other instances and wanted to see if I'm doing something wrong or if somebody has advice to fix it. Long story short, I'm a fan of Nostr so I'm usually on there. It's bridged to the fediverse, so that usually gives me my microblogging fix on both sides of the distributed micro blogging protocols but most servers have a hard time finding my account.

It's supposed to come up by searching @910af9070dfd6beee63f0d4aaac354b5da164d6bb23c9c876cdf524c7204e66d@mostr.pub or https://mostr.pub/users/npub1jy90jpcdl447ae3lp4924s65khdpvnttkg7fepmvmafycusyueksrvllx9

(Yes, it's abnormally long, cost of identifying an account with a key pair).

It comes up in some instances, but not most. Some instances defederate with the bridge, but on some instances I confirmed are federated with the bridge (and that show other mostr.pub accounts in the search) can't find mine.

I wrote it off as maybe the bridge being slow or janky, so I also created @nate0@nerdica.net (friendica). I figured I could throw on my blog incase anybody wanted to ping me or use it if I want to reply to anybody if their instance blocked the Mostr bridge. However, I seem to be having the same thing: on servers I know are federated with nerdica.net (and that show other nerdica.net accounts in the search) @nate0@nerdica.net still shows no results.

I made a few posts and let it sit for a while with no luck. Just wanted to check in and see if I'm doing something wrong that's perhaps obvious to everybody but me or something?

Thanks

Edit: the links above to my profile won't work on lemmy since it's expecting the profile at /u/ on Lemmy instead of the mastodon link structure. Others they're not broken and I can confirm they work sometimes.

30
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by N3M@reddthat.com to c/android@lemmy.world
 

So I was drafting a blog post about an x86 tablet and was quickly going to mention running x86 versions of Android like Bliss as an option, but I can't seem to figure out exactly what/if active projects are out there.

I know the Android x86 project was discontinued, and as far as I'm aware wasn't forked or restarted right? I also found out tonight in a VM that Bliss OS is based on the now defunct Android x86 project and is putting out updates for the moment, but Android 11 support is going to end soon so I'm not sure if they're going to stick around or not.

So yeah, I guess I was wondering what the state of Android on x86 hardware was nowadays. Can't seem to find much, so guessing it's not much or I just can't find the right search terms.

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