Remember that the 14KB rule is for the first 10 TCP packets combined.
This is a thumb rule. Some servers might send up to 30 packets.

True to what it preaches, this website does load very fast.

Prefectural University of Hiroshima had to shift to online classes at the beginning of the pandemic. They were evaluating various real-time video conferencing solutions for this purpose. The students stayed on campus and had poor Internet connectivity. The paper is a comparison of using Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Big Blue Button for this purpose.

Though the three solutions do not significantly differ in terms of features, BBB can work with a smaller bandwidth consumption. It is advised to not move the pointer on the slides since that would turn a mostly static image into an expensive video stream.

The findings are not surprising since BBB is a custom software built for this specific purpose, whereas Zoom and MS Teams are general purpose software for video conferencing and messaging. Teachers should be trained to use BBB effectively for its intended purpose.

Since nearly half of all carbon emissions in video conferencing happen on the network, self-hosting a video conferencing server like BBB as close to the users as possible can a have significant reduction in emissions.

This talk was recommended to be me by the Irreal blog. This is my running commentary of the video.

Emacs use cases

• Using emacs as a PDF editor and viewer. Is it really as efficient as Evince or Okular though?
• Using emacs for mail. Seems legit. I didn't setup mine yet (mu4e).
• magit. duh! It's better than the Git CLI itself.
• Spreadsheets! I did use emacs for tables, but not really doing calculations on them.
• Browsing the web. Yeah, I did use elinks for as long as my emacs mastodon client worked.
• Coding. Of course! Didn't get to write much Clojure yet, but I heavily use Emacs for Python.

Literate emacs configuration. Too much work!

Emacs info manuals. I didn't use them in years.
Emacs is from 1976! GNU Emacs is from 1985. The mother of all free software.
Emacs is a real-time display editor that is extensible.

M-x describe-gnu-project - opens a webpage on GNU website.

Playing as adults, within constraints. Playing an instrument. Playing is the original definition of hacking!

mu4e + org-capture is a great combo for creating task lists.
Narrowing the buffer is something I have to learn. Also, using org-mode hyperlinks more.

Once I had to do a lot of configuration modifications on a server. I installed emacs on it and also copied my configuration over, instead of just using stramp.

eshell is the only really portable built-in emacs shell, because thes script is all in elisp.

Check out impatient-mode for viewing changes without browser reloads. I was usingentrfor this so far.

The vim people in the audience were probably not impressed by editor macros, but the people who use neither vim nor emacs must be.

I didn't use winner-mode for anything more than shifting between splits. But it can also store the configuration of window splits on a stack.

Undo-tree. Never used this, but I should. It's a built-in feature.

Emacs had hooks before they were cool. "Advising" a function allows you to add before and after hooks to a function.

Emacs is great for most dynamically-typed programming languages. Opening a REPL in another buffer and moving code snippets back and forth is quite fun.

Emacs is a Lisp REPL.

This is compressed wisdom. Read it once in a few months.

An interesting blog post about debugging an issue with log files, discovering the bug in the Linux kernel, discovering that it is a vulnerability and subsequently fixing it.

The description of their access logging system is quite interesting too.

CVE-2022-0847

A list of desired features for the next generation of Fediverse platforms, from a user's perspective. Non-technical.

Talks about some of the features from older platforms like diaspora*, Friendica and Hubzilla.

Related: Bonfire Networks

"While the Rabbits are clear that theirs isn’t a reproducible lifestyle for everyone, their offline computing microcosm is an extraordinary fusion of philosophy and practice that’s hard to find in a world where convenience is king."

"In an age where constant connection is a default way of life, the Rabbits’ offline-first philosophy is a curious but compelling form of technological radicalism that feels like a more thoughtful, evolved Luddism. Because the Uxn is designed to stave off bitrot — the digital decay of old information that we can no longer read — its significance to art preservation, creativity, and sustainability is more powerful than anything being peddled on a blockchain."

Summary (from the PDF)

"The human and economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic has been staggering, in terms of lives lost, human suffering, and economic damage. As we enter the third year of the pandemic, we still find ourselves on a rollercoaster of lockdowns, variants, and broken promises. Inequality has actively prolonged the pandemic, devastating lives and livelihoods. Women have shouldered an especially heavy burden."

"While effective vaccines provide hope, their rollout has tipped, from a natural desire to protect citizens, into nationalism, greed, and self-interest. Large numbers of people in low-income countries face the virus unprotected and millions of people would still be alive today if they had had access to a vaccine. Big pharmaceutical corporations have been given free rein to prioritize profits ahead of vaccine equality. As we mark two years since the official pandemic was declared, we still have a chance to gain the upper hand on the virus, but only if everyone, everywhere has access to vaccines and treatments."

Decentralized food ecosystems built on an open platform.

Social tools built for and by communities.

This article is unfortunately published on a cringe-worthy website that's otherwise full of blockchain bullshit, but it is worth reading by every software engineer who isn't working for Big Tech.

Jean Yang articulates well what the rest of us have been trying to say without much success. The context in which a problem is situated is an important factor to be considered while coming up with a suitable solution for it.

Evgeny Morozov's project to curate knowledge around the topic of big-tech and surveillance capitalism.

The guides are quite good.
Every hyperlink in each guide is also worth reading.

Probably the first blog post about systemd. Contains a good overview of the features.