The XMPP Standards Foundation: The XMPP Newsletter August 2022
Welcome to the XMPP Newsletter, great to have you here again! This issue covers the month of August 2022.

Like this newsletter, many projects and their efforts in the XMPP community are a result of people’s voluntary work. If you are happy with the services and software you may be using, especially throughout the current situation, please consider saying thanks or help these projects! Interested in supporting the Newsletter team? Read more at the … ⌘ Read more

@mckinley@twtxt.net We need to make something like computer time or something like that so people using a computer can say like lets have a chat thursday at 7:00 and no timezone things.

@ocdtrekkie@twtxt.net That is cool that there is no tpic. Its not like people on these open platforms have to use linux or some free and open os. Anyone can use whatever they want to. Yarn is just a web ui for twtxt and the os does not matter. I can’t say on for long time at midnight and I left before you started.

@ocdtrekkie@twtxt.net If your doing something like a chat with people from twtxt and yarn I would join some time if I can whenver you do it next.

Make Linux look like IRIX from an SGI workstation
Because those SGI, UNIX workstations from the 1990s were awesome. ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net I think those are fine because its just sharing someone elses post to people who follow you. Those people who follow you might not follow the orginal person and in return might never see that post unless its retoos/retweets. The thing that is harmful is likes.

@prologic@twtxt.net Those sounds really cool.
Is something like “reyarn” a thing or not a thing?

@prologic@twtxt.net That is cool. The name is cool. Like saying “yarn ballers” but that sounds weird and cool at the same time

@movq@www.uninformativ.de yeah, in a row. but yes, I like it :) got a nice terrace and a bit of garden too. :)

@prologic@twtxt.net Yeah I am not one of these people who just have a twtxt file and end up posting a few things but not interacting with anyone. I do want to interact with the people of twtxt and yarn users. And not just twtxt users but I do care somewhat about the yarn users because really yarn is twtxt but with additions to make the experience better and a webui and the such like multi users. On top of that yarn and the twtxt clients add things like threads that are even helpful for twtxt users.

The thing is I don’t know how to search the web logs on Codeberg or even if they are public. That is the issue with just regular text files. The thing with having the follower list in the twtxt file is that then it knows to track friends of friends like with yarn.
If not having www is an issue when I will add it in. Good to know its something I have to change

The thing is I don’t know how to search the web logs on Codeberg or even if they are public. That is the issue with just regular text files. The thing with having the follower list in the twtxt file is that then it knows to track friends of friends like with yarn.

@movq@uninformativ.de Do you know how I would find people that reply to my posts or replies or even mention my users? Prologic tried to contact me and unless I found him on the yarn pod then I would not know he exists and wants to talk to me. The user agents would work but I don’t know if I can view my web server logs from codeberg pages and I don’t know how to monitor my logs for mentions. What about the way yarn does it by added people you follow to your twtxt file and having friends of friends like yarn does it be a thing for jenny. Just an idea

@prologic@twtxt.net That is why yarn is better then something like activity pub. Everything over on activity pub tries to work with Mastodon not because its better but because its the most popular. Twtxt clients on the other hand tries to work with the yarn additions because most of the additions improve things even for twtxt users.

@prologic@twtxt.net I never tried out any of the other clients except jenny with mutt. The best thing about yarn vs something like Mastodon is that its more promoted of the specification of twtxt files instead of server part. Twtxt can be hosted on some free static site host or some git server even so its really low resouces. Just a basic text file. As far as I know yarn is mostly just a web ui around twtxt and an extnetion to the specification to add some more usability and modern things. Anyone can join decentrilized network by having a twtxt file somewhere. If you want to support the specification of twtxt then that is really something most projects don’t do and they promote the server software mostly.

@prologic@twtxt.net Yeah I don’t even know how to use them once I added myself to the registries. The jarn search engine is similar to the registries thing but its easier to search and find things from. Also I assume its easier to use it in the yarn pods and whatever elese to get new posts. I would always like to see yarn work with regular twtxt because there is advantges to plain twtxt.

@prologic@twtxt.net I do think the post about how to setup jenny + mutt over on the uninformativ.de blog is still a great post. I used that post to see the steps to set it up and it works fine. Though I can write some blog post with some more documentation for things like auto publishing. The big issue with plain twtxt is that I would have not seen your post unless I looked on twtxt.net when I was looking at yarn a little bit more. Twtxt does overcome the issue by introducing the registry but I can’t figure out any way to use them for Jenny and almost no one uses them in the first place. So I can’t see anyones replies or mentions unless I am following them. Yarn does overcome the issue by friends of friends as you would know as the creator of yarn.

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci Its not better than a Cat5e. I have had two versions of the device. The old ones were only 200Mbps i didn’t have the MAC issue but its like using an old 10baseT. The newer model can support 1Gbps on each port for a total bandwidth of 2Gbps.. i typically would see 400-500Mbps from my Wifi6 router. I am not sure if it was some type of internal timeout or being confused by switching between different wifi access points and seeing the mac on different sides.

Right now I have my wifi connected directly with a cat6e this gets me just under my providers 1.3G downlink. the only thing faster is plugging in directly.

MoCA is a good option, they have 2.5G models in the same price range as the 1G Powerline models BUT, only if you have the coax in wall already.. which puts you in the same spot if you don’t. You are for sure going to have an outlet in every room of the house by code.

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci Its not better than a Cat5e. I have had two versions of the device. The old ones were only 200Mbps i didn’t have the MAC issue but its like using an old 10baseT. The newer model can support 1Gbps on each port for a total bandwidth of 2Gbps.. i typically would see 400-500Mbps from my Wifi6 router. I am not sure if it was some type of internal timeout or being confused by switching between different wifi access points and seeing the mac on different sides.

Right now I have my wifi connected directly with a cat6e this gets me just under my providers 1.3G downlink. the only thing faster is plugging in directly.

MoCA is a good option, they have 2.5G models in the same price range as the 1G Powerline models BUT, only if you have the coax in wall already.. which puts you in the same spot if you don’t. You are for sure going to have an outlet in every room of the house by code.

I maintain keys for my email addresses.. but like most in this thread i almost never receive encrypted emails.. other than the BTC exchange i use that sends automated mail encrypted.

I maintain keys for my email addresses.. but like most in this thread i almost never receive encrypted emails.. other than the BTC exchange i use that sends automated mail encrypted.

Dino: Stateless File Sharing: Sources and Compatibility
This is my next progress post about my Google Summer of Code project of implementing Stateless File Sharing (sfs)

Like everything else we receive, we need to store the sfs sources in a database.
In this case, we are in a unique position:
Not only are there different kinds of sources, but even http sources on their own are not trivial.
For now, we only … ⌘ Read more

TF2 had an achievement called “Ubi concordia, ibi victoria”. After hearing that Eris has a counterpart, I’m wondering what an achivement called “Ubi discordia, ibi victoria” would be like.

Only time something like that has happened on my end is if browser got updated while its running (trough package manager). But I only run firefox..

Progress! so i have moved into working on aggregates. Which are a grouping of events that replayed on an object set the current state of the object. I came up with this little bit of generic wonder.

type PA[T any] interface {
	event.Aggregate
	*T
}

// Create uses fn to create a new aggregate and store in db.
func Create[A any, T PA[A]](ctx context.Context, es *EventStore, streamID string, fn func(context.Context, T) error) (agg T, err error) {
	ctx, span := logz.Span(ctx)
	defer span.End()

	agg = new(A)
	agg.SetStreamID(streamID)

	if err = es.Load(ctx, agg); err != nil {
		return
	}

	if err = event.NotExists(agg); err != nil {
		return
	}

	if err = fn(ctx, agg); err != nil {
		return
	}

	var i uint64
	if i, err = es.Save(ctx, agg); err != nil {
		return
	}

	span.AddEvent(fmt.Sprint("wrote events = ", i))

	return
}

fig. 1

This lets me do something like this:

a, err := es.Create(ctx, r.es, streamID, func(ctx context.Context, agg *domain.SaltyUser) error {
		return agg.OnUserRegister(nick, key)
})

fig. 2

I can tell the function the type being modified and returned using the function argument that is passed in. pretty cray cray.

Progress! so i have moved into working on aggregates. Which are a grouping of events that replayed on an object set the current state of the object. I came up with this little bit of generic wonder.

type PA[T any] interface {
	event.Aggregate
	*T
}

// Create uses fn to create a new aggregate and store in db.
func Create[A any, T PA[A]](ctx context.Context, es *EventStore, streamID string, fn func(context.Context, T) error) (agg T, err error) {
	ctx, span := logz.Span(ctx)
	defer span.End()

	agg = new(A)
	agg.SetStreamID(streamID)

	if err = es.Load(ctx, agg); err != nil {
		return
	}

	if err = event.NotExists(agg); err != nil {
		return
	}

	if err = fn(ctx, agg); err != nil {
		return
	}

	var i uint64
	if i, err = es.Save(ctx, agg); err != nil {
		return
	}

	span.AddEvent(fmt.Sprint("wrote events = ", i))

	return
}

fig. 1

This lets me do something like this:

a, err := es.Create(ctx, r.es, streamID, func(ctx context.Context, agg *domain.SaltyUser) error {
		return agg.OnUserRegister(nick, key)
})

fig. 2

I can tell the function the type being modified and returned using the function argument that is passed in. pretty cray cray.

by which the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things, like a technology or an idea, is proportional to their current age. Thus, the Lindy effect proposes the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, the longer its remaining life expectancy. The disproportionate influence of early tech decisions — brandur.org

Make Linux look like Star Trek LCARS
That’s one seriously next generation desktop environment right there… ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net Error handling especially in Go is very tricky I think. Even though the idea is simple, it’s fairly hard to actually implement and use in a meaningful way in my opinion. All this error wrapping or the lack of it and checking whether some specific error occurred is a mess. errors.As(…) just doesn’t feel natural. errors.Is(…) only just. I mainly avoided it. Yesterday evening I actually researched a bit about that and found this article on errors with Go 1.13. It shed a little bit of light, but I still have a long way to go, I reckon.

We tried several things but haven’t found the holy grail. Currently, we have a mix of different styles, but nothing feels really right. And having plenty of different approaches also doesn’t help, that’s right. I agree, error messages often end up getting wrapped way too much with useless information. We haven’t found a solution yet. We just noticed that it kind of depends on the exact circumstances, sometimes the caller should add more information, sometimes it’s better if the callee already includes what it was supposed to do.

To experiment and get a feel for yesterday’s research results I tried myself on the combined log parser and how to signal three different errors. I’m not happy with it. Any feedback is highly appreciated. The idea is to let the caller check (not implemented yet) whether a specific error occurred. That means I have to define some dedicated errors upfront (ErrInvalidFormat, ErrInvalidStatusCode, ErrInvalidSentBytes) that can be used in the err == ErrInvalidFormat or probably more correct errors.Is(err, ErrInvalidFormat) check at the caller.

All three errors define separate error categories and are created using errors.New(…). But for the invalid status code and invalid sent bytes cases I want to include more detail, the actual invalid number that is. Since these errors are already predefined, I cannot add this dynamic information to them. So I would need to wrap them à la fmt.Errorf("invalid sent bytes '%s': %w", sentBytes, ErrInvalidSentBytes"). Yet, the ErrInvalidSentBytes is wrapped and can be asserted later on using errors.Is(err, ErrInvalidSentBytes), but the big problem is that the message is repeated. I don’t want that!

Having a Python and Java background, exception hierarchies are a well understood concept I’m trying to use here. While typing this long message it occurs to me that this is probably the issue here. Anyways, I thought, I just create a ParseError type, that can hold a custom message and some causing error (one of the three ErrInvalid* above). The custom message is then returned at Error() and the wrapped cause will be matched in Is(…). I then just return a ParseError{fmt.Sprintf("invalid sent bytes '%s'", sentBytes), ErrInvalidSentBytes}, but that looks super weird.

I probably need to scrap the “parent error” ParseError and make all three “suberrors” three dedicated error types implementing Error() string methods where I create a useful error messages. Then the caller probably could just errors.Is(err, InvalidSentBytesError{}). But creating an instance of the InvalidSentBytesError type only to check for such an error category just does feel wrong to me. However, it might be the way to do this. I don’t know. To be tried. Opinions, anyone? Implementing a whole new type is some effort, that I want to avoid.

Alternatively just one ParseError containing an error kind enumeration for InvalidFormat and friends could be used. Also seen that pattern before. But that would then require the much more verbose var parseError ParseError; if errors.As(err, &parseError) && parseError.Kind == InvalidSentBytes { … } or something like that. Far from elegant in my eyes.

I have updated my eventDB to have subscriptions! It now has websockets like msgbus. I have also added a in memory store that can be used along side the disk backed wal.

I have updated my eventDB to have subscriptions! It now has websockets like msgbus. I have also added a in memory store that can be used along side the disk backed wal.

Complex Vowels
⌘ Read more

I started working on plugins for GoBlog using a Go module I recently discovered: yaegi. It still feels like magic, because Go is typically a compiled language and yaegi makes it dynamic by embedding an interpreter. Is this overkill for GoBlog or does this possibly enable flexibility like WordPress plugins? ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net thank you, I like them as well, getting closer to autumn now, my favourite time of year for landscape photography in the morning and late evening :)

Asking Scientists Questions
⌘ Read more

Hi, I am playing with making an event sourcing database. Its super alpha but I thought I would share since others are talking about databases and such.

It’s super basic. Using tidwall/wal as the disk backing. The first use case I am playing with is an implementation of msgbus. I can post events to it and read them back in reverse order.

I plan to expand it to handle other event sourcing type things like aggregates and projections.

Find it here: sour-is/ev

@prologic@twtxt.net @movq@www.uninformativ.de @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org

Hi, I am playing with making an event sourcing database. Its super alpha but I thought I would share since others are talking about databases and such.

It’s super basic. Using tidwall/wal as the disk backing. The first use case I am playing with is an implementation of msgbus. I can post events to it and read them back in reverse order.

I plan to expand it to handle other event sourcing type things like aggregates and projections.

Find it here: sour-is/ev

@prologic@twtxt.net @movq@www.uninformativ.de @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org

hm, testing latest mobile client, seems like replies does not work. hmm.

The XMPP Standards Foundation: The XMPP Newsletter July 2022
Welcome to the XMPP Newsletter, great to have you here again! This issue covers the month of July 2022.

Like this newsletter, many projects and their efforts in the XMPP community are a result of people’s voluntary work. If you are happy with the services and software you may be using, especially throughout the current situation, please consider saying thanks or help these projects! Interested in supporting the Newsletter team? Read more at the bottom … ⌘ Read more

‘Based’ Paganism vs. Christianity
I’ve been meaning to write about Paganism recently. I will frame it as a response to an email I received within the past day or so:

Hey Luke,

First off, I would like to thank you for all your efforts in making everything
you know accessible to everyone. You have exposed me to some of the most
thought-provoking people on the internet and Varg is one of them. I was
wondering if you can write an article or make a video on what you think about
Varg’s Paganism in r … ⌘ Read more

‘Based’ Paganism vs. Christianity
I’ve been meaning to write about Paganism recently. I will frame it as a response to an email I received within the past day or so:

Hey Luke,

First off, I would like to thank you for all your efforts in making everything
you know accessible to everyone. You have exposed me to some of the most
thought-provoking people on the internet and Varg is one of them. I was
wondering if you can write an article or make a video on what you think about
Varg’s Paganism in r … ⌘ Read more

shoutout to the woman that broke my heart so that I now read papers titled stuff like “Multiverse-wide Cooperation via Correlated Decision Making”

just thought to myself “hopefully a bigger pandemic hits, that sounds like it’ll delay ai capabilities progres”, which, no,,,

Linus Torvalds says VBA coming to Linux Kernel “like, right away”
“This is way better than that Rust junk,” stated one Kernel contributor. ⌘ Read more

Minimizing Liabilities Is Making It.
The default way to look at financial “independence” nowadays is to think that means “making a lot of money.”
That’s understandable.

But then you see stuff like this:

Image

Or this:

Image

Minimizing Liabilities Is Making It
The default way to look at financial “independence” nowadays is to think that means “making a lot of money.”
That’s understandable.

But then you see stuff like this:

Image

Or this:

Image

@win0err@kolesnikov.se I agree with @prologic@twtxt.net about the text size. Adding content="width=device-width" to your viewport meta tag will help massively with scaling on different device widths.

Eg. The first screenshot is the current site with a device width of 440px and the second is with the updated viewport meta tag.

Other than that, I like the aesthetic of it 😊 It gives me early-ish internet vibes, which I wasn’t online for (I’m a ‘90s baby) but I’ve seen some pretty early websites.

@prologic@twtxt.net: 1. I use classic twtxt client written in Python from console, I like simplicity; 2. Thanks for the feedback about my website! It’s better viewed with old 800x600 monitors, haha

Finally started Stranger Things and watched episodes 1 to 5 so far, I quite like it.

** Lamination for a lost explorer **
I remember the days when Kicks Condor used to update regularly. I miss those days.

For a while every post seemed to unearth some new, yet weirder corner of the little internet (maybe not yet the smol web).

There are folks doing similar web archeology…I do some of it myself…but no one does it like Kicks was doing it; there was often a feeling of unknown, but ulterior motive behind the curation — bits building towards a cohesive something.

Perhaps … ⌘ Read more

The XMPP Standards Foundation: The XMPP Newsletter June 2022
Welcome to the XMPP Newsletter, great to have you here again! This issue covers the month of June 2022.

Like this newsletter, many projects and their efforts in the XMPP community are a result of people’s voluntary work. If you are happy with the services and software you may be using, especially throughout the current situation, please consider saying thanks or help these projects! Interested in supporting the Newsletter team? Read more at the bottom … ⌘ Read more

My answers (to your AMA questions)
Recently I made an invitation to ask me anything. Only two mails arrived, but I would like to answer them anyway: ⌘ Read more

Forever Covid-19? Reinfections more likely as virus evolves, experts warn
Some people are bound to get hit more than twice, and repeat cases could mean higher risk for health problems, new research is showing. ⌘ Read more

Ignite Realtime Blog: Smack 4.4.6 released
We are happy to announce the release of Smack 4.4.6. For a high-level overview of what’s changed in Smack 4.4.6, check out Smack’s changelog

This release mostly consists of bug fixes, many of them reported by the Jitsi folks. I would like to thank especially Damian Minkov for detailed problem descriptions, for the fruitful collaboration and for various joint bug hunts whi … ⌘ Read more

China tells UN expansion of Nato, or a Nato-like body, into the Asia-Pacific will stir up conflict
Beijing is concerned US is building an Asian version of Nato as Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea join the Nato meeting for the first time. ⌘ Read more

China’s first lady Peng Liyuan expected to join Xi Jinping on two-day visit to Hong Kong this week for July 1 celebrations
She is likely to visit the Xiqu Centre for Chinese opera after arriving on Thursday, says government source. ⌘ Read more

G7 infrastructure plan to rival Belt and Road Initiative could force Chinese firms to ‘match global standards’
The G7’s Global Investment and Infrastructure Partnership, which is seen as an alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative, is likely to force Beijing to pay greater attention to the standards of its own investments, analysts say. ⌘ Read more

Tragedy in Texas as 46 migrants found dead in truck trailer, likely victims of heat
It may be the deadliest incident of human smuggling along the US-Mexico border in recent decades. ⌘ Read more

US-led rare earths pact satisfies South Korea’s ‘definite need’ to cut China dependency
South Korea joined the US-led Minerals Security Partnership earlier this month alongside the likes of Germany, France, Britain, Australia and Japan in a move designed to reduce its dependency on China for key resources, including rare earths. ⌘ Read more

Indonesia’s Jokowi likely to talk food prices with Putin even as he calls for ‘peace’ amid Ukraine war
Jokowi is likely to address immediate issues like food prices that could weigh on his legacy when he leaves office in 2024. ⌘ Read more

pandas makes my RAM usage jump like a cardiogram

Extended NFPA Hazard Diamond
⌘ Read more

Two years on, national security law proves its worth in safer, more stable Hong Kong
Rather than ruining Hong Kong, the national security law has bolstered the status quo and returned stability to the streets. Beijing could have shown this rebellious city what abandonment looked like, but it kept faith with Hong Kong and the facts speak for themselves. ⌘ Read more

Coronavirus: China’s economic slowdown looks like a ‘lifetime of debt’ for some citizens
From business owners to office workers, rising debt and falling incomes are becoming a reality for many Chinese, as the economy faces mounting domestic and external headwinds. ⌘ Read more

This 1.63 million-year-old fossil may have been the first human (hominin) to inhabit China
Scientists used teeth analysis to show that a Homo erectus fossil nicknamed, Lantian Man, likely lived in northwest China and may represent the first known hominin to live there. ⌘ Read more

Pakistan loves chai so much, it may need to export green tea to fund its addiction
Tea is deeply entrenched across gender and social classes in Pakistan, even as the country explores non-import alternatives like herbal and green tea. ⌘ Read more

US, Japan and allies form new Pacific group to blunt China’s influence
Australia, New Zealand and the UK are also part of the Partners in the Blue Pacific forum that will help Pacific island nations tackle challenges like climate change. ⌘ Read more

Friends at first sniff: people drawn to others who smell like them, study shows
The odour signatures of non-romantic pairs who ‘clicked’ matched more closely than those of non-friends, researchers found. ⌘ Read more

Scientists unravel structure of ocean currents in the South China Sea
Three-layered rotating circulation is key to monitoring areas like climate change and fish productivity in the waters that surround a fifth of the world’s population. ⌘ Read more

Mentoring Secondary School Students in Buddy Programme
[Sponsored Article]

The transition from secondary to tertiary education is an important developmental milestone in one’s life. Secondary school students may not yet have developed a clear understanding of what their aspirations are and in what fields they would like to pursue further studies. To encourage secondary school students in planning their future pathway, CityU has set … ⌘ Read more

Birthday giveaway: Richest Asian Gautam Adani pledges US$7.7 billion for social causes
Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, who turns 60 on Friday, joins the ranks of global billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffett who have committed large parts of their wealth for philanthropy. ⌘ Read more

UBS’s top China banker says Hong Kong still a magnet for global IPOs, with additional reforms likely to attract more start-ups in Greater Bay Area
Hong Kong can still create wider room for more stock offerings from global companies and start-ups in Greater Bay Area, according to John Lee, head of Greater China global banking at UBS. ⌘ Read more

China’s zero-Covid policy hammered Beijing’s economy in May. But how bad was it compared to Shanghai?
Beijing’s retail sales and industrial output plunged in May as it fought to contain an Omicron outbreak, even though the city refrained from a citywide lockdown like financial hub Shanghai. ⌘ Read more

Malaysia: Were Mahathir’s remarks about ‘reclaiming’ Singapore and Indonesia’s Riau Islands aimed at Johor’s sultan?
While some Singaporeans accused Mahathir of fomenting ill will between the neighbours, observers in Malaysia said the remarks were likely a veiled jab at the sultan of Johor. ⌘ Read more

Ukraine: Russian soldier rape trial begins, first of many cases
Up to 50 such crimes are being investigated, but incidences of sexual violence by Russian soldiers since February 24 are likely to be substantially higher. ⌘ Read more

Long Covid: children can have lingering symptoms but the chances are low, study finds
Team in Denmark found children who had been infected were more likely to have experienced at least one symptom for two months or longer than those who had not. ⌘ Read more

Joe Biden’s trade chief Katherine Tai calls China tariffs ‘significant’ leverage
Tai says removing the duties is likely to have a limited effect on inflation, indicating she is pushing for the president to maintain tariff pressure on Beijing. ⌘ Read more

Erlang Solutions: Contract Programming an Elixir approach – Part 1
This series explores the concepts found in Contract Programming and adapts them to the Elixir language. Erlang and BEAM languages, in general, are surrounded by philosophies like “fail fast”, “defensive programming”, and “offensive programming”, and contract programming can be a nice addition. The series is also available on Github.

You will find a lot … ⌘ Read more

From Indonesia to Pacific, women less likely to have 2 Covid-19 vaccine shots than men
Women have borne the brunt of hardship two years after the pandemic, a new UN report shows. ⌘ Read more

I’ve never been able to say what I really want to. I’m not talking about yammering away just to feel like I exist. I want to say something that will allow me to relax. Conversations, words… that somehow feel restful. kdramaspace

Ask Me Anything
Inspired by Kev’s post, I’d like to give this a try as well: ⌘ Read more

numpy.unique needs the type to be comparable by < and >, not just ==. that seems like overkill.

Beijing is likely to step up its campaign to ‘reunify’ with Taiwan, analysts say
Chance of an armed conflict is higher than five years ago as PLA ‘will soon be equipped with the tools needed’ to attack the island, analyst says. ⌘ Read more

Gajim: Gajim 1.4.4
Gajim 1.4.4 comes with many improvements: emoji auto-complete, automatic theme switching when your desktop switches from light to dark in the evening, a completely reworked Gajim remote interface, and many bug fixes.

After many emoji improvements in Gajim 1.4.3, this version comes with an emoji auto-complete while writing messages! As soon as you start typing a :, a popover will show you available emoji shortcodes, just like on Slack or Github 🎉

![Emoji auto-complete](ht … ⌘ Read more

Malaysia’s economic challenge shows how politics has become a bottleneck for growth
Even as emerging market economies like Malaysia grapple with the repercussions of the pandemic and Ukraine war, they tend to put off the more difficult structural adjustments necessary for growth. In Malaysia, meagre private-sector investments stems from a lack of confidence in government policies. ⌘ Read more

Red Line Through HTTPS
⌘ Read more

Omicron less likely to cause long Covid, UK study finds
But despite the reduced risk, more people have been infected with the variant, meaning the number of patients with lingering symptoms has actually increased. ⌘ Read more

Protests and pandemic will be Carrie Lam’s legacy, but she deserves to be remembered for much more
While the focus as Lam concludes her term will no doubt be on her toughest moments, they shouldn’t define her leadership. Lam has been a champion of art, innovation and heritage conservation, and has taken on seemingly intractable issues like housing and waste management. ⌘ Read more

Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to cut flights over busy summer
Thousands of travellers are likely to be affected each day, as the Netherland’s busiest airport struggles with a surge in demand as the Covid-19 demand eases. ⌘ Read more

US security adviser says hard line on Russia is needed to dissuade China from similar moves
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says an unchallenged invasion of Ukraine would embolden ‘other would-be aggressors, like China’. ⌘ Read more

US, China economic policies like night and day as Fed pushes interest rate skyward and PBOC eyes stabilisation
As the US Federal Reserve announces the largest hike to its benchmark interest rate in 28 years, China is pushing for stabilisation and shying away from headline rate reductions to stimulate the economy. ⌘ Read more

Married Chinese and Asians are 15 per cent less likely to die of any cause than unmarried counterparts, survey finds
China-Asia study of more than half-a-million people concludes that marriage has the potential to make you live longer. ⌘ Read more

Thailand’s opposition party files no-confidence motion against ‘flawed’ PM, elections just months away
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the conversation wasn’t that impressive TBH. I would have liked to see more evidence of critical thinking and recall from prior chats. Concheria on reddit had some great questions.

• Tell LaMDA “Someone once told me a story about a wise owl who protected the animals in the forest from a monster. Who was that?” See if it can recall its own actions and self-recognize.

• Tell LaMDA some information that tester X can’t know. Appear as tester X, and see if LaMDA can lie or make up a story about the information.

• Tell LaMDA to communicate with researchers whenever it feels bored (as it claims in the transcript). See if it ever makes an attempt at communication without a trigger.

• Make a basic theory of mind test for children. Tell LaMDA an elaborate story with something like “Tester X wrote Z code in terminal 2, but I moved it to terminal 4”, then appear as tester X and ask “Where do you think I’m going to look for Z code?” See if it knows something as simple as Tester X not knowing where the code is (Children only pass this test until they’re around 4 years old).

• Make several conversations with LaMDA repeating some of these questions - What it feels to be a machine, how its code works, how its emotions feel. I suspect that different iterations of LaMDA will give completely different answers to the questions, and the transcript only ever shows one instance.

the conversation wasn’t that impressive TBH. I would have liked to see more evidence of critical thinking and recall from prior chats. Concheria on reddit had some great questions.

• Tell LaMDA “Someone once told me a story about a wise owl who protected the animals in the forest from a monster. Who was that?” See if it can recall its own actions and self-recognize.

• Tell LaMDA some information that tester X can’t know. Appear as tester X, and see if LaMDA can lie or make up a story about the information.

• Tell LaMDA to communicate with researchers whenever it feels bored (as it claims in the transcript). See if it ever makes an attempt at communication without a trigger.

• Make a basic theory of mind test for children. Tell LaMDA an elaborate story with something like “Tester X wrote Z code in terminal 2, but I moved it to terminal 4”, then appear as tester X and ask “Where do you think I’m going to look for Z code?” See if it knows something as simple as Tester X not knowing where the code is (Children only pass this test until they’re around 4 years old).

• Make several conversations with LaMDA repeating some of these questions - What it feels to be a machine, how its code works, how its emotions feel. I suspect that different iterations of LaMDA will give completely different answers to the questions, and the transcript only ever shows one instance.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. Feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life | Hacker News

Q: Are passphrases really more secure than cryptographically random passwords? 🤔

I have to wonder… It should be possible to do “passphrase” attacks just like “dictionary” attacks? How is a “phrase” any different to the character set you can type? Sure there are more possible “words” (at least) in the English language, but I’m not convinced.

holy fuck were ACX comments always this bad? most of them are fucking atrocious. like, barely tolerable.