An interesting new license for hardware designs, with a thoughtful blog post and example use cases on its Github. "A license file doesn’t magically appear on a patent clerk’s desk in Virginia." 🧙♂️ Has a license requiring preemptively sending material to patent clerks been tried?
"By requiring users to agree not to patent derivatives, violations become breach-of-contract issues, which are faster and cheaper to litigate than patent disputes." xitter.cf/i/grok/share/LC2rwDCHX…
James retweeted
I see the world in price per lb.
A Tesla Model 3 costs less than Camembert. We pull sand, oil, and ore from the earth and transmute them into machines cheaper than aged milk.
James retweeted
Vibes of Manhattan project buying up all the uranium.
The before and after at the end of this guy's rusty lawnmower restoration shows the massive difference all that effort made. Preventing rust and replacing worn cables and switches can also add up to longer-lived tools. youtube.com/watch?v=bl1InUhv…
Each time something like this comes up reminds me how few exceptions there are for radio which is both encrypted and unlicensed. Governments used the aftermath of the Titanic sinking to really crack down on amateur radio. Niches have been carved out for Wifi, BT, and little else.
James retweeted
When we first started many didn’t believe it could be done. An all American made organic pillow with real American wool. We were told American wool was a dying industry and that we weren’t big enough to meet order minimums for American grown organic cotton. We were told that bootstrapping (literally building everything from scratch without any real funds) wasn’t going to be possible.
I thank God for our stubbornness and our belief that you can do whatever you put your mind to. We put our heads down and have busted our asses to get to where we are.
We now have our very own wool mill (1960s American made machinery to vertically integrate) and our own property with a sew shop and a space for wool processing.
This is just the beginning and you can expect big things from The Woolshire going forward. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for your love, prayers, and support.
Happy 3 year birthday, Woolshire.
Advent of Code starts in a few hours: a coding puzzle per day for the first twelve days of December (plus a second challenge, usually). I'm glad they aren't doing the global leaderboard this year, for people who felt rushed by it. A nice chance to practice or try a new language.
James retweeted
This is something not a lot of folks know. Static from running wool batting can build up to dangerously high levels.
Instead of spraying an anti-static agent (chemical) on the wool which is done commonly in the wool industry, we have an anti-static bar that creates an ionized field of positive and negative ions, which in effect neutralize the static charge when the wool passes over it.
It is also grounded 8 feet deep in the earth.
James retweeted
It is time for our first giveaway.
We're giving away a Librem 14 from Purism. It's a fancy expensive $1,400+- laptop.
Requirements:
- Follow @ddd1ms on Xitter
- Comment below
Librem is a pro-privacy laptop that unironically comes with a fuckin' kill switches for mic, bluetooth, camera. It has Intel Management engine disabled. It runs PureOS, with app sandboxing, adblocking, tracking protection, etc.
This laptop is basically a privacy nerd laptop. It also comes with a bunch of NSA stickers, HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) stickers, FBI Most Wanted stickers, etc.
I forgot to ask for the specs on the laptop, but I'll get that stuff later on. Attached image is the laptop he'll mail to your home.
"640k ought to be enough for anybody." "Huhuhuhu"
Copper wire EDM converted to brass rod EDM. Robust desktop functionality. I wonder how the brass rod holds up vs the rate at which the wire would be consumed.
James retweeted
My favorite kind of tech story is when unexpected capabilities arise from something a human would never try.
In the late 90s, Dr. Thompson was experimenting with genetic algorithms on FPGAs.
The goal was simple; distinguish between two audio tones, 1kHz and 10kHz.
He wanted novel solutions, so he severely restricted scope. The chip was crippled to a maximum of ten cells wide, and 10 cells tall, with *no system clock*.
- An typical EE student might use a few hundred gates
- An expert might get it down to ~100
- Thompson’s genetic algorithm found a solution with *32 Gates*.
James retweeted
BOOOOOM!
Oh you know what else I found—but we were all told was lost?
NASA Saturn V complete detailed engineer documents and testing research!
All on Filmsort microfiche.
NOT classified and THROWN AWAY, saved by me.
It will ultimately be open sourced as the AI will be.
James retweeted
We no longer have any active servers in France and are continuing the process of leaving OVH. We'll be rotating our TLS keys and Let's Encrypt account keys pinned via accounturi. DNSSEC keys may also be rotated. Our backups are encrypted and can remain on OVH for now.
Our App Store verifies the app store metadata with a cryptographic signature and downgrade protection along with verification of the packages. Android's package manager also has another layer of signature verification and downgrade protection.
Our System Updater verifies updates with a cryptographic signature and downgrade protection along with another layer of both in update_engine and a third layer of both via verified boot. Signing channel release channel names is planned too.
Our update mirrors are currently hosted on sponsored servers from ReliableSite (Los Angeles, Miami) and Tempest (London). London is a temporary location due to an emergency move from a provider which left the dedicated server business and will move. More sponsored update mirrors are coming.
Our ns1 anycast network is on Vultr and our ns2 anycast network is on BuyVM since both support BGP for announcing our own IP space. We're moving our main website/network servers used for default OS connections to a mix of Vultr+BuyVM locations.
We have 5 servers in Canada with OVH with more than static content and basic network services: email, Matrix, discussion forum, Mastodon and attestation. Our plan is to move these to Netcup root servers or a similar provider short term and then colocated servers in Toronto long term.
France isn't a safe country for open source privacy projects. They expect backdoors in encryption and for device access too. Secure devices and services are not going to be allowed. We don't feel safe using OVH for even a static website with servers in Canada/US via their Canada/US subsidiaries.
We were likely going to be able to release experimental Pixel 10 support very soon and it's getting disrupted. The attacks on our team with ongoing libel and harassment have escalated, raids on our chat rooms have escalated and more. It's rough right now and support is appreciated.
"He then turned to the teacher who was so hysterical about our son and told her that her oppressive behavior was "villainous". She started crying..." Planning to never live anywhere but the US.
This is the story of how I nearly lost everything to activist Swedish Social Services.
In 2017, my family and I were living in Sweden.
I had lived there before as a single man. We thought it was the safe, stable, open society everyone in the West keeps praising.
What happened instead nearly destroyed us.
I am a former Marine with a couple combat deployments to Afghanistan (this detail matters) and was part of Marine Corps Forces European Command in Germany. I worked for Amazon Web Services with a Nordic focus, staged in Stockholm
I managed teams across Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland.
We lived in the countryside, paid taxes, followed every rule. We even insisted on speaking the local language.
We tried to be the ideal expat family.
