if you’re a mastodon user on tilde.zone (the tildeverse mastodon instance), you might’ve noticed some downtime recently.

here’s a quick recap of what went down during the upgrade process.

i'm concerned that this effort to change the language used is ultimately a symbolic gesture to avoid scrutiny into actual change (notably github's push for this change and continued contracts with ICE).

however, it's an easy change to make.

let's have a look at how to change it for new repos:

mkdir -p ~/.config/git/template
echo "ref: refs/head/main" ~/.config/git/template/HEAD
git config --global init.templateDir ~/.config/git/template

note that you can put this template dir anywhere you like.

you can also set this system-wide (not just for your user) in /usr/share, but note that this might get overriden by package updates.

echo "ref: refs/head/main" | sudo tee /usr/share/git-core/templates/HEAD

the next time you git init, you'll be on a branch named main.

to change an existing repo, you can use the -m switch of git-branch:

git checkout master
git branch -m master main

push with -u to your remote if needed and update the default branch in the repo settings in the hosting platform of choice.

it's a relatively easy change, but don't kid yourself that it makes any real impact. go protest, donate and sign petitions, and get out there to fix the actual problems.

tags: git, linux, dev

i've been playing with gruvbox-css, decided to switch my blog to use it and finally realized it's been almost a year since i posted anything at all.

i don't have anything in particular to post today so i figured it would be good to give a general update since the last time i posted.

what options do you need to set? what plugins? what scripts?

i'll go over some of the most essential of these, and share my full configs.

i awoke, not suspecting anything to be amiss. as soon as i logged in to check my email and irc mentions, it became clear.

tilde.team was at the least inaccessible, and at the worst, down completely. according the message in my inbox, there hade been an attempted "attack" from my IP.

the travel plan was rome -> venice -> florence -> naples -> pompei/vesuvius -> capri -> amalfi

this is the roman forum (with colosseum in the background) as seen from the palatine.

no matter how i found it, i still decided to add it to my blog here with bashblog. utterances is a commenting system that leverages github issues. so, for example a comment on a post shows up on github like this.

now we just need to figure out if it can be pointed at a gitea instance like tildegit. might be time for a PR!

tags: blog

i figured i should probably get some notes down about moving off google.

to start, i'll get a list of the things i was able to easily replace:

• gmail => @tilde.team mail
• google drive => syncthing (with a persistent node running on my personal vps)

i'm still using:

• gplay music/youtube
• google maps (open streetmap isn't good enough to replace it)
• google photos - but this is going to be replaced long-term with syncthing

tags: linux, net-neutrality

tags: dns, linux, tilde

i've been thinking about transferring my domains off google domains for some time now, as part of my personal goal to self host and limit my dependence on google and other large third-party monstrosities. along that line, i asked for registrar recommendations. ~tomasino responded with namesilo. i found that they had $3.99 registrations for .team and .zone domains, which is 1/10th the cost of the $40 registration on google domains.

i started out by getting the list of domains from the google console. 2 or 3 of them had been registered within the last 60 days, so i wasn't able to transfer those just yet. i grabbed all the domain unlock codes and dropped them into namesilo. i failed to realize that the dns panel on google domains would disappear as soon as it went through, but more importantly that the nameservers would be left pointing to the old defunct google domains ones.

i updated the nameservers as soon as i realized this error from the namesilo panel. some of the domains propagated quickly. others, not so much. tilde.team was still in a state of flux between the old and new nameservers.

in a rush to get the dns problem fixed, and under recommendation from several people on irc, i decided to switch the nameservers for tilde.team and tilde.zone to cloudflare, leaving another layer of flux for the dns to be stuck in...

of the five domains that i moved to cloudflare, 3 returned with a dnssec error, claiming that i needed to remove the DS record from that zone. d'oh!

i removed the dnssec from those affected domains, so we should be good to go as soon as it all propagates through the fickle beast that is dns.

tags: linux, sysadmin, tilde, dns

i'm not sure how i'll need to configure the network settings on the host machine (now that we're running ubuntu 18.04 and it uses netplan for configs and not /etc/network/interfaces). another confusing thing is that the main config in /etc/netplan says that the network config is handled by systemd-networkd...

at least i have through the end of the year when my current vps runs out to get this up and running.

ping me on irc or email if you have experience with this.

tags: linux, sysadmin, ubuntu

now i just need to figure out why my ssh config doesn't copy/symlink my config to ~/.ssh when it already exists.

tags: linux, dotfiles, git

it will now make sure that your ~/public_gopher exists and symlink your blog into it with a nice gophermap to list all the markdown styled posts.

try it out and let me know if there are any problems!

tags: tilde, blog

more here

tags: dji, drone, photography

among those are gitea and the new link aggregator (which runs the same source as lobste.rs).

i've also started a phlog in my gopherhole with ~tomasino's new burrow gopherhole tool!

i'll try to post a bit more often too with updates from the tildeverse!

Tags: tilde, internet, links, git

it seems that i haven't written anything on my blog in quite a while...

time to fix that! i've been quite busy in the last month or so with a lot of new ideas an energy for tilde.team.

after rediscovering my account on tilde.town, i hopped in the irc there and my enthusiasm translated into a couple new members over here on the ~team.

our irc has been somewhat more active recently which is awesome:)

some of the new updates in the last month:

• tildegit (our own gitea instance)
• tildemail with postfix and dovecot for smtp/imap as well as local command line mail in mutt and alpine
• tilde user script wrapper with submission and approval flows
• password auth disabled

i'd like to make use of our new mailserver, so shoot me some mail. i never get enough personal mail. it's all still privacy policy update notices. :(

see you soon!

tags: tilde, sysadmin

A common and seemingly reasonable argument for white pride or white nationalism is: why cant I be proud of my culture?

Well, you can. Always have been able to. We have Irish pride celebrations, we have German drinking festivals, we have Serbian food festivals. Any European culture you can think of has multiple organizations in North America dedicated to taking pride in their heritage and NO ONE gives them shit for it.

But, you see, when you start talking white pride, that's not a culture. That's a skin color. There is no white culture, never was. There is no pan-European culture, never was. Europe is a continent, not a culture or ethnicity.

Now, some of you are probably about to go, but wait! Black pride! How is that okay? Well, easy. Go find a black person and ask them if their ancestors were slaves. When you find one who says yes, proceed to ask them what country in Africa were your ancestors from? Do you know what their answer will probably be? I don't know. This is because their culture was taken from them. It was beaten out of them. They were enslaved, Christianized, and then white washed. The one unifying feature they have as a people is that history of slavery and that history of being black. They cant have Liberian pride, or Congolese pride, or insert African country pride because they have no fucking idea where their ancestors came from other than the broad region of West Africa.

Meanwhile us white people can often trace our ancestors to specific cities and regions. I can trace my mothers maiden name to a single fucking village in Ireland. I know where I came from. I don't have white culture, I have Irish culture.

So that's why white pride makes you an asshole but black pride actually makes sense.

Tags: politics

the first step was to switch out the css to the tilde.team standard and update the classes for bootstrap. once i got it going and integrated with the tilde.team linux auth service, i asked other tildeans for input and suggestions.

~micaiah was interested in helping, but also wanted to learn a new language and/or framework, so we decided to start over, recreating the entire forum with elixir/phoenix. we'd discussed elixir previously, but never had a convincing use case to force us to learn it.

the project is live, with the source code on github.

the thing that i'm most impressed with is the speed of the erlang runtime :D

check out these response times. sub-millisecond!?!?!

give it a look, and join the tilde.team if you want to come hang out!

tags: internet, dev

just heard the latest episode of on the media. this is a super helpful guide i found on their twitter.

tags: podcast

Tags: quotes

JavaScript code is much more expensive, byte for byte, than an image, because of the time spent parsing and compiling it.

It's possible to parse and compile wasm as fast as it comes over the network, which makes it much more like an image than JavaScript code.

Game changer!

— Yehuda Katz (@wycats) December 19, 2017

this will make so many things possible in the browser that never were before!

i decided to follow this tutorial and ended up with this.

i don't know what to do next. any ideas?

Tags: wasm, dev, internet

hint: it's not. it's the witcher 3. and it looks like a real place.

Tags: 4k-gaming, gaming, gtx1080ti, pc-master-race

~/.ssh/config

Host gh
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/gh_key

you can now use gh:username/repo as the remote in place of git@github.com:username/repo, which is much shorter and easier to type many times!

git clone gh:benharri/learngit

there are many other use cases for the ssh_config file. for example, here is my config for the tilde machine for easy ssh connections.

Host tilde
HostName tilde.team
User ben

then use ssh tilde to start a new ssh session. this also works with scp: try something like this scp file.txt tilde:workspace/. in place of scp file.txt ben@tilde.team:workspace/.

the ssh_config file is super useful. check man ssh_config for a full list of options!

tags: git, ssh

i'm so done with winter

tags: cold, weather, winter, snow

take the quiz here

my results again as a link

tags: 8values, ideology, politics

i started hosting a mastodon instance at social.tilde.team.

check it out if you want some federated open source social goodness :)

send me a toot @ben@tilde.team (from any mastodon instance!)

thanks!

tags: social-networks, mastodon, tilde

sauce

tags: jokes, humor

it was half christmas present. these are some of the games that i'm most excited for:

• elite dangerous
• lone echo / echo arena
• dirt rally
• gun club vr
• eagle flight
• robo recall

have you played any other cool vr games lately? are there any that i should check out?

let me know!

Tags: vr, virtual-reality, gaming

1. Go to gofccyourself.com (the shortcut John Oliver made to the hard-to-find FCC comment page)
2. Click on the 17-108 link (Restoring Internet Freedom)
3. Click on "express"
4. Be sure to hit "ENTER" after you put in your name & info so it registers.
5. In the comment section write, "I strongly support net neutrality backed by Title 2 oversight of ISPs."
6. Click to submit, done. - Make sure you hit submit at the end!

Copy and paste this into your own status update! Seriously, this is simple and so important. Do it.

tags: net-neutrality, internet

episode 5 was uploaded today.

“The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, the effect of which is like having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.”

tags: beer, hhgtg

i've got nothing to say don't be a coconut

Ask Me Anything - The Strokes (on First Impressions of Earth)

tags: music, lyrics, words

Tags: thought-of-the-day, words

Tags: social, contact

i plan on posting some random thoughts here from time to time. thanks for checking in.

tags: blog, update

Tags: thought-of-the-day

tags: german, jokes, antiwitze

Tags: thought-of-the-day

tags: nonsense, words

Tags: nonsense, quotes

Drinnen saßen stehend Leute, schweigend ins Gespräch vertieft, als ein totgeschossner Hase, auf der Sandbank Schlittschuh lief.

Und der Wagen fuhr im Trabe, rückwärts einen Berg hinauf. Droben zog ein alter Rabe grade eine Turmuhr auf.

Ringsumher herrscht tiefes schweigen und mit fürchterlichem Krach, spielen in des Grases Zweigen zwei Kamele lautlos Schach.

Und auf einer roten Parkbank, die blau angestrichen war, saß ein blondgelockter Jüngling mit kohlrabenschwarzem Haar.

Neben ihm ne alte Schrulle, zählte kaum erst 16 Jahr, In der Hand ne’ Butterstulle, die mit Schmalz bestrichen war.

Droben auf dem Apfelbaume, der sehr süße Birnen trug, hing des Frühlings letzte Pflaume und an Nüssen noch genug.

Von der regennassen Straße wirbelte der Staub empor und der Junge bei der Hitze mächtig an den Ohren fror.

Beide Hände in den Taschen hielt er sich die Augen zu. Denn er konnte nicht ertragen, wie nach Veilchen roch die Kuh.

Holder Engel, süßer Bengel, furchtbar liebes Trampeltier. Du hast Augen wie Sardellen, alle Ochsen gleichen Dir.

Und zwei Fische liefen munter, durch das Blaue Kornfeld hin. Endlich ging die Sonne unter und der graue Tag erschien.

Und das alles dichtet Goethe Als er in der Morgenröte Liegend auf dem Nachttopf saß Und dabei die Zeitung las.

tags: german, words, poetry, nonsense

Tags: thought-of-the-day, quotes

tags: german, words, linguistics

Tags: thought-of-the-day

tags: links, bookmarks, save-for-later

you are here.

i like to mess around with linux sysadmin shtuff. tilde.team is my baby. let me know if you want to get involved.

thanks for being awesome. keep it up.

tags: linux, sysadmin, ubuntu, tilde