neelc

I could be wrong, but I hold the opinion that ATProto is the CDMA (3GPP2) of social media protocols, while ActivityPub is GSM (3GPP).

CDMA had better radio tech than GSM, but at the expense of openness. Qualcomm basically owned CDMA, and still does, while GSM was cross-licensed among everyone.

Likewise, ActivityPub is truly open while ATProto is "open" but you're basically a prisoner to Bluesky Social, the way CDMA put you in Qualcomm's prison.

Bluesky has the initial lead, but it's Twitter's estranged child. People used to Twitter find Bluesky an easier replacement. CDMA was also an easier upgrade from analog 1G networks than GSM was, due to re-using the back office systems and ESN identifiers.

Yes, Bluesky has a better experience. But maybe future ActivityPub releases will catch up for a large part. UMTS caught up to CDMA while being more open, and LTE became the universal 4G standard, with GSM-centric IMEI and SIM cards and such. And maybe PDS implementations will converge to ActivityPub with an ATProto fallback.

Keep in mind that I know nothing about the protocols, so I could be missing what makes ATProto a better tech, or not.

It's a cutting-edge distro with 6-month release and 13-month support cycles.

Whereas Debian/Ubuntu have 5 years and RHEL/Alma/Rocky have 10 years.

Mac Mini/Studio has an integrated power supply, but other Mini PCs do not have the same luxury. It doesn't matter if you're Minisforum or HP.

Minisforum probably reused the x86 power supply for ARM. The x86 MS-01 and MS-A2 supports GPUs after all.

I'm not a hardware engineer, I've failed miserably in software engineering and now run a VPS host.

In the US, many refurbished Pixel phones are Verizon variants which disallow OEM unlocking.

When was in college and had Sprint this was a nightmare since then I wanted root for unlimited hotspot (Sprint made it easy that way), but most refurbished Pixels were Verizon variants.

And I couldn't just use OnePlus because they were only designed GSM networks or later Verizon CDMA-less. Then, new Pixels were unaffordable for me, but parents insisted on using Sprint.

I ended up getting a Pixel 3 off Mercari (which I still own) just to keep root.

Now, I can afford a Pixel 10 Pro new (which I am right now), alongside spare Pixel 9 and OnePlus 13R units. But even then (a) my income is lower than when I worked at Microsoft and (b) The OnePlus was from a trade-in deal.

About his comment:

Unfortunately, I must recommend Windows 10/11 here, because then you don’t have to mess around with any drivers; it’s the simplest option.

When I worked at Microsoft but ran FreeBSD at home, I often used my work Windows laptop to install custom ROMs. This is because FreeBSD was finicky with adb.

Now I run Fedora and the Android drivers are pre-installed. I installed GrapheneOS on both a Pixel 10 Pro (main) and Pixel 9 (spare) that way.

On Windows, I've had more trouble with Android drivers than I did on non-Windows.

I previously ran another VPS host who did the same exact thing (before OVH did it?).

Unlike Fourplex.net which uses modern ASRock Ryzen 9000 servers, Qeru.net used older HPE DL360 Gen9 servers.

I gave 3GB of RAM for $3-4/mo then. But these servers weren't very fast. I ended up selling the business, and am happy I did.

This.

When I worked at Microsoft, I seldom used Azure for personal use due to it being expensive and complicated.

Whereas I have plenty of Fourplex.net servers because even on half the salary, it's affordable enough for 16 Tor exit relays and two personal web/email/Mastodon servers.

For providers like us, we have to lease IPv4. We came long after IPv4 was already depleted. IPv4 prices did go down. Despite that, the $15/year 128MB BuyVM plan is long-gone.

But for a new provider like us, we'd have to spend more than an established player like BuyVM or RackNerd who bought most of their servers pre-AI-boom.

I am very hopeful of CXMT. But then then it could take a while for them to ramp up production. Maybe by then, the AI bubble would've burst.

One problem with US sanctions is it could hurt US companies too, like in the case of cutting-edge EUV and CXMT. This is when China is actually a hero and not a villain.

This is true.

We use ASRock Rack servers, mainly because the only option for our industry are OEMs like Supermicro and ASRock. Dell and HPE are non-starters, except for our "storage" offering.

Back in 2019, HPE was a good midrange option. Then came ASRock Rack who obliterated HPE with the X470D4U, relegating HPE to high-end enterprise servers. But also made Ryzen-based VPS hosts including yours truly, BuyVM, et al.

The funny thing is, I used eSIM on a Pixel 3, since it was the easiest way to activate on Sprint. Now, no big carrier will use a Pixel 3's eSIM.

But then on Sprint, they tried to copy the CDMA activation system on LTE whereas everyone else just used SIM cards directly. Sprint was very progressive on eSIM even if they were slow to VoLTE.

My Pixel 3 moved to a physical SIM due to switching to T-Mobile 3 months before the merger, and I've mostly used physical SIMs before the Pixel 10 Pro outside of international travel. I avoid MVNOs as my primary service because of the specter of eSIM-only phones, and that was pre-Pixel 10.

And yes, if my Pixel 10 Pro had a physical SIM card slot I'd use it.

At the present moment I live in a place in NYC without fiber. Manhattan row townhomes are notoriously hard for Verizon to install FiOS in. I chose 5G over DOCSIS simply because of upload speeds.

T-Mobile (both TMHI and Calyx Sprout SIM) has 40-75 Mbps uploads versus 20-35 on Spectrum.

It also helps that I use a L2TP VPN to a BGP VPS to get myself a public IPv4, otherwise I'd have Spectrum for no CGNAT.

Yes, I'd much rather have fiber with symmetrical speeds and low latency. Heck, if Spectrum had high split or even mid split I'd have that.

Cable hyped their "10G" upgrades but it's basically vaporware while non-cable ISPs actually showed up with fiber and/or 5G. Trump's tariffs are also punishing cable ISPs.

In case you were wondering, there is a 50% off coupon code: 50OFF_FEB25

Source: https://lowendspirit.com/discussion/9168/l2tp-static-ip-tunn...

There is a mis-feature on the ONT called "Broadcom Packet Flow Cache". It apparently speeds up TCP sessions but at the expense of allowing a large amount of then.

Lumen fortunately moved off these ONTs. However, the new Smart NIDs have their fair share of issues from what I heard. I moved out of Lumen territory so have no experience with them.

When I had CenturyLink, I replaced the ONT via a JTAG cable on the new ONT. The stock CL ONT (Calix 716GE-I R2) had a 16384 connection limit, which prevented me from running high-bandwidth Tor relays. The new ONT (Calix 803G) did not.

Calix for some reason makes it easy to clone some models.

I have a post on this: https://www.neelc.org/posts/clone-calix-ont/

Now I'm in NYC with Verizon Fios where I don't need a cloned ONT. Woo! The Verizon ONT is big and has a huge power brick, presumably because of RFoG alongside GPON.

Modern AT&T isn't really Ma Bell, it's SBC who bought AT&T and kept the AT&T name. That's why AT&T is based in Dallas and not New Jersey.

Ma Bell today is really AT&T, Verizon and parts of Lumen, Frontier and Consolidated.

AT&T also is worth less than Verizon due to bad mergers (DirecTV and non-cable Time Warner) which added a lot of debt, money that should've been used for fiber and 5G or even a bidding war against T-Mobile for Sprint if you had to buy your competitor.

The reality is, when a CDMA carrier deploys LTE without deploying UMTS, there are usually compatibility layers between CDMA and LTE such as CSFB and eHRPD for when VoLTE is absent. CDMA was never designed to interoperate with LTE as LTE was built around IMEIs and SIM cards but CDMA was built around burned-in ESNs and PRLs, so LTE support was hacked on.

This is why Sprint and Verizon used whitelists: they literally couldn't accept GSM-only devices because you wouldn't be able to make a phone call (the phone would try UMTS but only the non-supported CDMA2000 can be used to actually call, so in turn no phone calls).

Sprint went further by using the CDMA provisioning system on top of LTE instead of just using SIM cards and 3GPP provisioning like most GSM and CDMA carriers. This was a nightmare for custom ROM users like me as custom ROMs were designed for GSM carriers in mind and Sprint was at best an afterthought.

I've seen those at Costco stores also.

Whereas in indie coffee shops they use a Square tablet and in Apple stores the store people just use iPhones with special cases. Best Buy or Walgreens uses POS tablets with a relatively ugly GUI.

Legacy apps never die. Charles Schwab might use mainframes while Robinhood won't but Schwab won't move off because it's too hard for an established firm. Same with Costco TUIs.

In the US, you could still use cash or debit/credit cards. Not everyone uses mobile payments, my mom and brother use cards but I use Google Pay on my OnePlus 12. You could live a smartphone-free life in the US, but the US is super iPhone-heavy.

In Germany, I know they prefer physical cash the last time I checked. Maybe move there?

The reality is, many Lenovo customers buy their laptops just for Linux. In turn, Lenovo knows they need to cater to Linux users. Same with Dell.

It's not most of their customers, but it's the most loyal customers. Customers who won't switch to HP, Asus, or Surface.

In comparison, HP knows only a few of their customers use Linux, so they can be mostly-Windows with so-so Linux support.

Before switching to a M2 MacBook Air, my HP Spectre's Linux support was behind my work ThinkPad. Not being a huge ThinkPad person myself is why I bought many Spectres. But for most people, if a ThinkPad works better, they'll buy it.

I daily drive a OnePlus 11, but I really miss my Pixel 3's compact size.

I still have my P3 but am not into using tech until it dies. For me I just accepted mega phones won.

Yes, I know the Pixel 8 is smaller, but I tried it and screen size aside it's not as good as my OP11.

Maybe unrelated, but I have a Deciso DEC2752, which is an OPNsense firewall appliance. For some reason Deciso made it in the Netherlands instead of China or Taiwan. I don't know for sure how much cheaper, or more expensive it would be if it was Asian-made.

It's unique for sure. It's a bit pricey but other firewalls were less-than-statisfactory. Chinese Mini PC boxes were too little, Supermicro Front I/O boxes were too much. I don't exactly like Netgate's alternative either.

I WORK at Microsoft 365 (not on Word), and it's actually good LibreOffice can read old Word files even if Word can't. I wasn't even born until 1997, tho when I was young I played a lot with MS-DOS and Win9x, since my toys were old PCs.

The reality is, both MS Office and LibreOffice are legacy messes. In the 90s MS aggressively broke compatibility to get users to upgrade, which is why LO can read it. Now MS is excellent at compatibility, because the focus is subscription software your employer pays for.

I was a subscriber of Maximum PC until 2014, when I realized I get all my information online.

Nowadays, the people who would've subscribed to computer magazines go online. PC Magazine and PC World moved online and it worked very well for them.

There's far more online, but also misinformation.

I've run into business that list their supported systems just based on what they test for

I bet that Chase is probably using a FOSS library that didn't whitelist FreeBSD, but whitelisted Linux and Chrome OS, and that while Chase only tested Windows and Mac the real "supported" systems is the FOSS library.

They may claim "our website is working as designed" since it's a FOSS library or proprietary service outside Chase's control.

It's absurd if Chase wants to block FreeBSD, but easier to understand if a third-party service or library blocked BSD. Or maybe Chase expects BSD users to use user agent switchers.

Reminds me of an issue with CenturyLink, where it actually was the Calix ONT causing a TCP connection limit (and a JTAG cable solved with cloning the ONT).

I also remember when Verizon blocked Tor middle relay IPs from their website, but Verizon was very good in escalating it to the responsible security vendor.

I think when you decide to use something like FreeBSD you also sign up dealing with some things like this.

That's true. I have met many software engineers who don't know what FreeBSD is, namely web developers. They can't test a system they have no clue about.

Many people inside Microsoft (where I work) know what FreeBSD is, but at smaller tech companies, they have no clue. They know about Linux, heck my high school economics teacher knows what Linux was. I could ask a few questions about Kubernetes and they could easily answer, but FreeBSD, and "what's that?"

When I was younger I ran FreeBSD for a while, but as I got older it wasn't worth it to me.

I've run FreeBSD for many years, being a committer myself, but am getting more involved in the Android modding scene which makes me have to maintain a Linux partition. Not that I really did anything in the Android world yet, it could also fall of my radar and I give up, but still.

I boot into Linux LiveUSBs when I want to flash and root my Android phone, or install LineageOS, mainly since FreeBSD's adb package has been broken for years and I never bothered to fix it myself.

I can admit being a BSD user is tough. BSD is 10 years behind Linux and Windows in terms of polish, due to a small userbase. Sometimes I think about switching to Linux, but nothing ever comes of this.

On an old "free" ThinkPad picked from my workplace's recycling bin, FreeBSD runs perfectly, with blazing fast (meaning 150 Mbps real world) Wi-Fi. But on a $1500 HP Spectre, there are a couple of papercuts, mainly unreliable ADSL2+-speed Wi-Fi.

This. The sad thing is that people like the convenience of centralized systems.

Humans are lazy. They'll go with the #1 option, even if it means building a centralized monopoly.

I should've made this point clearer.

Note: I am the article's author.

I only joined Microsoft not because I wanted to, but because I really had to. I was a pretty die-hard *nix/self-hosting person for many years, and years of habits and conditioning can't be unwinded so easily.

I use Git in a cmd even when doing code done in VS, since I'm used to doing it that way.

The center of my digital world is a home server and not some cloud subscription service.

For years I got angry when my dad wanted me not to use FreeBSD (or Linux) and just user Windows. We clashed with each other for this.

I don't intend to stay with MSFT forever, nor do I want to. My parents pushed me towards staying, but I eventually want to work in a more *nix-environment. But then my dad is extremely change-averse when I'm not, well unless I am really in love with something (like FreeBSD or self-hosting) when I become more partial.

I'm willing to use the less popular software for the sake of it in many cases (unless I literally can't) when my dad just sticks with the familiar.

Heck, he can afford a uber high end Gaming PC with a Threadripper and RTX 3090 Ti, and he still uses an entry-level Core 2 Duo Dell desktop from 2009 which shipped with Vista (and was upgraded to W10 with an eBay key).

From the perspective of market fit and success, there are countless less-technical business users who swear by Outlook.

And I find Outlook painful enough that I use Windows Mail at work. That only because my team disabled EWS for using about anything else.

They are not familiar with anything other than the kind of endless thread top-posting in odd encodings that Outlook all but ensures users will do -- that's e-mail to them. Why stop selling it to them?

Ahhh, the old "embrace, extend, extinguish" by breaking other email clients among other things. For Corporate America (as opposed to startups), Outlook is email.

Well, Gmail, Yahoo, Thunderbird and Roundcube can view Outlook-composed email fine now since IE stagnated and Firefox/Chrome beat it. (assuming Outlook used IE for rendering, I don't work on the Outlook desktop client and joined after Edge went Chromium).

And Outlook still can't inline post, because Microsoft borked the "standard" and built an email client for corporate users not Unix nerds.

Yes, and that.

I don't use Outlook/Exchange outside of work, frankly never did, but did read from time to time the issues with Outlook norms versus *nix email norms.

I didn't need Outlook before I joined Microsoft, every student in my high school used their personal email (despite the school having an Exchange server), and my college used Google Workspace (I'm not that old TBH).

I also lived entirely on FOSS software before joining MSFT, so to move every piece of personal self-hosted infrastructure to Microsoft's cloud services would be too painful and I have better things to do in my free time.

I *work* at Microsoft 365, and yet my personal email is self-hosted Postfix and Dovecot. Why?

Self-hosting email has been a part of my life since my high school days, I have a sort of attachment to it. I know "you shouldn't run your own email", but to take that away from me after deeply wanting one is too much.

In comparison, my job is just a job, I'm personally not too enthusiastic about it. I eventually plan to move to InfoSec or networking.

While I *could* move my domain to M365, I simply won't for my personal email.

I have ADHD, and don't want to make a mistake with two Outlook instances, one personal and one work. I'm a privacy nut, and want to separate my work and personal emails (Microsoft is better than Apple in this regard, but still).

I also contribute to FOSS projects, and using Outlook is an impediment to projects whose mailing lists are based on inline posting, like the FreeBSD and Tor mailing lists. I hate Rainloop (which I switched to after nasty Roundcube attachment bugs), but at least I can inline post.

(well, even at work I use Windows Mail instead of Outlook).