The Molly fork of Signal now has a variant that supports UnifiedPush, but it requires a helper called Mollysocket to be installed on a server somewhere. I can't get my head around the (we'll call them 'lean') docs, and I've never encountered such a helper for other UP apps. They just ask what to attach to, and they attach.

Has anyone fought through this?

i hadn't fired up my python project in an age, probably two vscodium updates. when i did, i had no more syntax checking and the alert window showed errors reaching the 'jedi' server.

downgrading the vscode-python extension to 2023.16.0 was seen as the surefire way to clear this. it worked for me, too - got my syntax error highlighting back and no pesky errors in the alert pane.

they created a new issue against the extension, or the packaging system, or something, which was closed immediately though the problem still persisted. the chatter was about a cache, somewhere, with a lot of 'perhaps' and 'if'. one day i'll try bumping this back up, maybe after vscode-python passes the problematic 2023.18.0 version.

every so often someone posts a link and someone else asks, where can i get a link that's on a different service? songwhip is an aggregator that provides a page with links to multiple services. obviously if you want to post the exact video or the exact remix, a direct link is what you need. but it's quite useful for 'joe bob says check it out' scenarios.

A few updates ago Pop started nagging me to accept firmware updates. My layman's reading of the release notes is that it's a Microsoft package that can block boot based on an ever-increasing number of packages they don't like.

Is it safe to take an update like this? Unlike a kernel change, I don't know how to recover if this goes wrong.

ooooh, give you up

h/t @[email protected]

https://mastodon.social/@cmconseils/111284052730734939

Chromium derivatives like Vivaldi and Brave decried the Google Web Environment Integrity… um, 'feature', at varying volumes, back in the summer when it became widely known.

But can any Chromium-based browser actually avoid implementing this? Have there been more recent statements?

Since the integrity environment gunk, I've switched all boxes over to use Firefox as primary. This took a lot of configuring, as Firefox out of the box brings… a lot of stuff I don't want.

One of those things is telemetry — whatever that means to Mozilla — that was tamed only with a combination of an enterprise profile (hi sudo!) and user.js hacks.

However, the policy and user.js changes don't work on the Ubuntu box, where I've installed Firefox from the PPA to get it out from under Snap (and thereby usable with a password manager). The policy locks down and disables the right configs and the configs all have the right settings, but it keeps pinging incoming.telemetry.mozilla.org. Two Macs and a Pop!_OS box don't ping Mozilla at all with these settings.

No harm no foul, I just blocked them in NextDNS and laugh in their general direction. I just wonder what else is different in the PPA.

Every few Firefox releases there's one where they helpfully throw new junk in your face or mess with your settings. Firefox 118 is both.

Mozilla has added a translation engine that they say is client-side, based on an engine called Bergamot that they created. They removed all languages other than the one I'm writing in from my settings, even though I read (poorly, and for sport) in other languages. And then they put a pop-up over every page that's not in English - including some I've deliberately switched to other languages - offering to translate it.

Getting rid of this requires an about:config hack that I saw only on The Site We've Chosen Not to Use. So here's the incantation:

browser.translations.automaticallyPopup false

and if you're really angry

browser.translations.enable false

And put back any languages it removed from your site preferences.

Honestly, if I didn't know these people weren't Google, I'd be really suspicious. But with Chrome's stellar Ad Privacy, I have to put up with Mozilla's crap, as the clock has to be ticking even for the 'good guy' Chromium derivatives.

on a block of downtown san francisco, there are two block-long lines labelled 'address interpolation'. there aren't many nodes along this block, but the ones that exist mostly have explicit addresses assigned.

these were created 14 years ago (potlatch 0.10f). what do they do, are they valuable to renderers or to the map itself?

just saw katy's vegas residency. i was expecting decent, with a back-of-mind fear of cringe, but it was really an amazing show. she said she's been battling a cold and one could hear that, but the staging and production values were top-notch.

a couple of sections meant to provide her a breather were a little too long and not that engaging. her voice (barring the cold), her dance moves, and that face of a silent film star added up to a great show, a good deal better than i had expected and light years away from what i had feared as worst case.

… Swift’s team worked around the major studios—represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP, in the ongoing labor negotiations—altogether when it came to producing and releasing Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. The film was self-funded, with Swift reportedly spending $10 to $20 million to produce it and her parents working directly with AMC Theaters on distribution. … Though Swift’s film may not do Barbie numbers, she is set to break even more records when it opens next month. Already, it’s on track to make up to $100 million in its first weekend—and could open as high as $145 million, according to BoxOffice.com. That’s unprecedented for a concert film, and would put it in the top five theatrical openings this year.