Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Richard Guy Briggs
On 2022-11-04 15:56, Tug Williams wrote:
> 
> On 04/11/2022 15:24, Richard Guy Briggs wrote:
> >Bitcoin or dollars are only valuable because enough people think they
> >are.  Gold does have other uses.
> 
> Bitcoin are valuable only because enough people think they are.
> 
> Dollars have value because millions of legal contracts require people to pay
> or receive them in lieu of goods or services, so their value is real, backed
> by the goods and services of our complex society. Dollars are an IOU from
> society. When was the last time you were able to barter a few lines of code
> for your weekly groceries?

Inflation puts the lie to that.  In a society with runaway inflation,
barter is more useful.

> Regarding gold, though it can be misplaced, it cannot be destroyed, at least
> not by you or me.
> 
> But I think we're drifting further and further away from Twitter / Mastodon
> here...

We're talking about value, any of which is ultimately perceived rather
than real.  Gold cannot be eaten.

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Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Tug Williams



On 04/11/2022 15:24, Richard Guy Briggs wrote:

Bitcoin or dollars are only valuable because enough people think they
are.  Gold does have other uses.


Bitcoin are valuable only because enough people think they are.

Dollars have value because millions of legal contracts require people to 
pay or receive them in lieu of goods or services, so their value is 
real, backed by the goods and services of our complex society. Dollars 
are an IOU from society. When was the last time you were able to barter 
a few lines of code for your weekly groceries?


Regarding gold, though it can be misplaced, it cannot be destroyed, at 
least not by you or me.


But I think we're drifting further and further away from Twitter / 
Mastodon here...



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Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Richard Guy Briggs
On 2022-11-04 15:09, Brett Delmage wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Nov 2022, Richard Guy Briggs wrote:
> >I'm not saying [twitter] isn't but why was it valued so high?  (That's
> >rhetorical.)  Even if it loses money, it is still likely be quite valuable
> >to Musk as a tool to facilitate other goals.
> 
> Any social media property/corporation is only valuable as long as bazillion
> target users are engaged, giving up their privacy, and reading ads or
> content that the owner wants to influence them with.
> 
> And users are free to trivially disengage or leave, as they have on other
> social media in the past.

Bitcoin or dollars are only valuable because enough people think they
are.  Gold does have other uses.

> Nothing else matters.
> 
> Of course U.S. government TLAs may value a social media property which has
> bazillion users spilling every moment of their lives and being geo-tracked.
> Who's to say an agency doesn't have a hand in the current twitter situation?

That is absolutely possible.

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Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Richard Guy Briggs
On 2022-11-04 15:00, Brett Delmage wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Nov 2022, Richard Guy Briggs wrote:
> 
> >On 2022-11-04 13:50, James wrote:
> >>Nov. 4, 2022 10:25:49 Richard Guy Briggs :
> >>>How does paying for the account prove any trustworthiness?
> >>
> >>It is only to make money.
> >
> >That was my assumption, because I don't see the connection between the
> >two.  But it could also be used as a weeder, hedging that it will result
> >in a certain distribution of payers and those who care about the status
> >of that checkmark.
> 
> or being more trustworthy.

Maybe statistically-so, but certainly no guarantee.

> Right now a Twitter verified account (blue Verified badge) has very specific
> requirements to obtain which are specific to the class of account:
> 
> https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twitter-verified-accounts
> 
> A monthly payment requirement may get rid of many trolls and bots, which are
> certainly a problem on almost every social media.

Yes.  It may also get rid of many legitimate users.  Who is to say where
this balance lies?

> I do not see how Mastodon is better than this at all. Does it have any web
> of trust like PGP/GPG signed keys?

It would not be any worse than current email systems.  Depending on the
size of the domain in terms of number of users, and reputation of the
domain, you can choose to trust a domain more than others.

> Won't Mastodon be overrun by Big Domain Name owners who already have name
> recognition of the domain part of the account handle? e.g. microsoft.com?

But this is the beauty of federation.  It delegates that authority and
reputation.  Smaller communities tend to be more accountable to each
other.

Do you trust email from @gmail.com?

> What is stopping *anyone* from setting up a "Linux Ottawa" or "OCLUG" domain
> on Mastodon and abusing it? (the only effective remedy that I am aware of
> for domain squatting is trademark law and protection).

That is already a problem for email and is already dealt with in terms
of reputation and trademark law.

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 --  \___   o \@  @Ride yer bike!
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Vote! -- _GTVS6#790__(*)__(*)(*)(*)_

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Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Brett Delmage

On Fri, 4 Nov 2022, Richard Guy Briggs wrote:

I'm not saying [twitter] isn't but why was it valued so high?  (That's 
rhetorical.)  Even if it loses money, it is still likely be quite 
valuable to Musk as a tool to facilitate other goals.


Any social media property/corporation is only valuable as long as 
bazillion target users are engaged, giving up their privacy, and reading 
ads or content that the owner wants to influence them with.


And users are free to trivially disengage or leave, as they have on other 
social media in the past.


Nothing else matters.

Of course U.S. government TLAs may value a social media property which has 
bazillion users spilling every moment of their lives and being 
geo-tracked. Who's to say an agency doesn't have a hand in the current 
twitter situation?



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Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Brett Delmage

On Fri, 4 Nov 2022, Richard Guy Briggs wrote:


On 2022-11-04 13:50, James wrote:

Nov. 4, 2022 10:25:49 Richard Guy Briggs :

How does paying for the account prove any trustworthiness?


It is only to make money.


That was my assumption, because I don't see the connection between the
two.  But it could also be used as a weeder, hedging that it will result
in a certain distribution of payers and those who care about the status
of that checkmark.


or being more trustworthy.

Right now a Twitter verified account (blue Verified badge) has very 
specific requirements to obtain which are specific to the class of 
account:


https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twitter-verified-accounts

A monthly payment requirement may get rid of many trolls and bots, which 
are certainly a problem on almost every social media.


I do not see how Mastodon is better than this at all. Does it have any web 
of trust like PGP/GPG signed keys?


Won't Mastodon be overrun by Big Domain Name owners who already have name 
recognition of the domain part of the account handle? e.g. microsoft.com?


What is stopping *anyone* from setting up a "Linux Ottawa" or "OCLUG" 
domain on Mastodon and abusing it? (the only effective remedy that I am 
aware of for domain squatting is trademark law and protection).


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Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Richard Guy Briggs
On 2022-11-04 13:50, James wrote:
> Nov. 4, 2022 10:25:49 Richard Guy Briggs :
> > How does paying for the account prove any trustworthiness?
>
> It is only to make money.

That was my assumption, because I don't see the connection between the
two.  But it could also be used as a weeder, hedging that it will result
in a certain distribution of payers and those who care about the status
of that checkmark.

> Isn't the platform losing money?

I'm not saying it isn't but why was it valued so high?  (That's
rhetorical.)  Even if it loses money, it is still likely be quite
valuable to Musk as a tool to facilitate other goals.

  slainte mhath, RGB
--
Richard Guy Briggs   --  ~\-- ~\ 
 --  \___   o \@  @Ride yer bike!
Ottawa, ON, CANADA  --  Lo_>__M__\\/\%__\\/\%
Vote! -- _GTVS6#790__(*)__(*)(*)(*)_

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Re: [linux] Meeting chats

2022-11-04 Thread Katherine Mcmillan
Thanks so much for sending this Dmitriy, it’s very helpful.

-Katie

From: Dmitriy Korovkin 
Sent: Thursday, November 3, 2022 8:46:28 PM
To: Linux-Ottawa 
Subject: [linux] Meeting chats

Attention : courriel externe | external email
Colleagues, as requested, here is the chat log:

far
https://imgflip.com/i/3sfi6r
far says:that sounded clear
19:04
JF Messier
JF Messier says:I can hear you
JF Messier says:
19:10
Rob-ish Enterprise quote
Rob-ish Enterprise quote says:Lots of people are blaming Red Hat. I would blame 
IBM, or, perhaps "I Blame Mercantilism (IBM)".
19:23
far
far says:RockyLinux has core developer from CentOS project - so a critical mass 
could be said to exist at this time to carry it forward as a stable option - 
merging changes  as necessary
19:40
Ian M
Ian M says:I have been using Ubuntu for the last 2 1/2 years, currently 22.04.1 
with 5.15.0-52-generic kernel on a Ryzen 5 3600.  This is for personal use, I 
am quite happy with it.
19:46
far
far says:There are differences in library support, package names/dependencies 
and gcc/glibc in terms when going from CentOS to Ubuntu server - however 1) 
many packages are binary rpm 2) recompiling to Ubuntu has a few differences if 
config/make doesn't find them already for particular code.  Ubuntu can deliver 
newer pkg in some cases, but that might cause an issue for some older code
19:46
Rob Echlin, exploring stuff
Rob Echlin, exploring stuff says:Thanks, Richard, for clarifying that the 
changes to CentOS were so soon after IBM buy of RH.
19:46
far
far says:Use KVM/qemu and libvirt to host Ubuntu22 for checking compat
19:48
Rob Echlin, exploring stuff
Rob Echlin, exploring stuff says:Is there such a thing as a set of guides for 
migrating between each of the major Linux versions?
19:49
JF Messier
JF Messier says:When choosing between Ubuntu (or other Debian-based OS) and 
RedHat (or other OS based on it), this is something that gets more important as 
the number of servers grows.
19:53
far
far says:In some federal env there are both RedHat/CentOS and Ubuntu
19:54
JF Messier
JF Messier says:There are also SLES-based depts too.
JF Messier says:This gets interesting when supporting different distros of 
linux that have their own ways of managing the packages, as well as managing 
the licenses.
19:56
Ian M
Ian M says:If you don't mind a rather dry read, try this tome...
Ian M says:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

20:01
far
far says:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Linux

20:01
JF Messier
JF Messier says:Red Hat offers free accounts for up to 16 servers, provided 
that those are using the LATEST version, and that there is no formal support 
(like you cannot open an incident). You have access to some knowledge base, but 
that's about it.
20:05
far
far says:Some users of centos include HPC as the licensing costs add up when 
you have 256 servers in a cluster.
20:06
JF Messier
JF Messier says:It should still be available to developers, AFAIK.
JF Messier says:
JF Messier says:Select the text with the mouse, copy/paste in a text editor and 
save.
JF Messier says:Not very nice text, would require *some* formatting.
JF Messier says:I would recommend considering Mint. I use it as my main driver 
for multiple hings, including VMs and VPNs and it works very well.
JF Messier says:Things change a lot over 4 years 
20:12
far
far says:How often does gentoo portage have to be update before it is a major 
chore?
far says:Is it now stable enough to emerge after a long time with-out fearing 
it gets stuck
20:14
Rob Echlin, exploring stuff
Rob Echlin, exploring stuff says:Rocky Linux: Looking at the web site, I found, 
in the FAQ, that there is indeed a foundation, with the intent that no one 
entity or org can control it.
Also, I could not find any way to pay support to Rocky Linux.
However, some of the sponsors provide support contracts.
20:20
far
far says:Does truth social implement a reputation system or shun it like a 
communist "truth broadcaster" would?
20:28
JF Messier
JF Messier says:@Richard and Katie. You are not muted. We can hear you/

Regards,
/Dmitriy


Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread James


Nov. 4, 2022 10:25:49 Richard Guy Briggs :
> 
> How does paying for the account prove any
> trustworthiness?
It is only to make money.
Isn't the platform losing money?

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Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Tug Williams

https://wiki.linux-ottawa.org/doku.php?id=meetingpresentations2022


or you can go straight to the mastodon's mouth... 
https://docs.joinmastodon.org/



I'd recommend the mastodon's mouth.


Tug


On 04/11/2022 11:26, Katherine Mcmillan wrote:

Hi Tug,

Thank you very much for your presentation and for this follow-up - I 
found it fascinating.  I am interested in finding ways to leverage 
Mastodon; I like the whole "fediverse" concept.  Would you be able to 
share the slide with me where you broke down "federated" vs. 
"distributed" vs. "centralized"?


If you have a couple of free minutes, I recommend checking out the 
song "Carmen" by Stromae.


I agree that charging for the "blue ticks" makes them totally pointless.

Do you think we should make a Mastodon for the OCLUG? Should we offer 
to make one for Twitter itself (does anyone here have a Twitter and 
can send Elon a message)?


Cheers,
Katie



*From:* Tug Williams 
*Sent:* 04 November 2022 10:05
*To:* linux@linux-ottawa.org 
*Subject:* [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk
Attention : courriel externe | external email

I heard an interesting item on the radio this morning, relating to the
pending firing of lots of Twitter staff. There was an interview with a
journalist (with a Twitter blue tick), who said she'd not be paying for
the blue tick, because if it can be purchased, then it loses it's
meaning of proving trustworthiness.

Tug


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Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Katherine Mcmillan
Hi Tug,

Thank you very much for your presentation and for this follow-up - I found it 
fascinating.  I am interested in finding ways to leverage Mastodon; I like the 
whole "fediverse" concept.  Would you be able to share the slide with me where 
you broke down "federated" vs. "distributed" vs. "centralized"?

If you have a couple of free minutes, I recommend checking out the song 
"Carmen" by Stromae.

I agree that charging for the "blue ticks" makes them totally pointless.

Do you think we should make a Mastodon for the OCLUG? Should we offer to make 
one for Twitter itself (does anyone here have a Twitter and can send Elon a 
message)?

Cheers,
Katie



From: Tug Williams 
Sent: 04 November 2022 10:05
To: linux@linux-ottawa.org 
Subject: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

Attention : courriel externe | external email

I heard an interesting item on the radio this morning, relating to the
pending firing of lots of Twitter staff. There was an interview with a
journalist (with a Twitter blue tick), who said she'd not be paying for
the blue tick, because if it can be purchased, then it loses it's
meaning of proving trustworthiness.

Tug


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Re: [linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Richard Guy Briggs
On 2022-11-04 10:05, Tug Williams wrote:
> I heard an interesting item on the radio this morning, relating to the
> pending firing of lots of Twitter staff. There was an interview with a
> journalist (with a Twitter blue tick), who said she'd not be paying for the
> blue tick, because if it can be purchased, then it loses it's meaning of
> proving trustworthiness.

Yeah, we were chuckling about that at the restaurant last night when you
raised it on your slide...  How does paying for the account prove any
trustworthiness?

> Tug

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[linux] Follow up on last night's Twitter / Mastodon talk

2022-11-04 Thread Tug Williams
I heard an interesting item on the radio this morning, relating to the 
pending firing of lots of Twitter staff. There was an interview with a 
journalist (with a Twitter blue tick), who said she'd not be paying for 
the blue tick, because if it can be purchased, then it loses it's 
meaning of proving trustworthiness.


Tug


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[linux] Big thanks to Scott for fixing the mailing list!

2022-11-04 Thread Tug Williams
One thing that I realised with this week's flurry of emails, is that my 
emails are getting through to the mailing list again.


I wanted to thank Scott (Murphy) for spending time to resolve whatever 
the problem was with the SPF records. It seems to have resolved the 
issue for me, at least.


If anyone is still receiving error messages about messages not being 
deliverable though the mailing list, please email directly, otherwise we 
will assume all is working correctly again.


Thanks again Scott maybe a talkette about it sometime?

Tug


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