For absolutely no reason at all, here’s a nice recent guide to setting up an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server.
Hi, I’m Phil Nelson, a writer, developer, and audio-visual maker of stuff. I have been making stuff online for over 25 years. I run RetroStrange and Set Side B. Good to see you.
Blog Archives
Category: Links
-
Build Your Own Breadboard NES
Extremely cool. You can find the code and instructions on GitHub. I would love to build something like this sometime…
-
Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month
This is just all kinds of fucking stupid. Unless you give Discord, a company which leaked 70,000(!) peoples full government IDs less than 6 months ago, now wants everyone’s ID. Don’t do it. Take your community somewhere, almost anywhere, else.
Here’s a good look at some of the top alternatives, ranked by Functionality, Openness, Security, Safety, & Decentralization.
-
Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance
Matthew Guariglia for the EFF DeepLinks blog:
Ring is rolling back many of the reforms it’s made in the last few years by easing police access to footage from millions of homes in the United States. This is a grave threat to civil liberties in the United States. After all, police have used Ring footage to spy on protestors, and obtained footage without a warrant or consent of the user. It is easy to imagine that law enforcement officials will use their renewed access to Ring information to find people who have had abortions or track down people for immigration enforcement.
Don’t use Ring. Don’t let your friends use Ring.
-
X offices raided in France as UK opens fresh investigation into Grok
The French offices of Elon Musk’s X have been raided by the Paris prosecutor’s cyber-crime unit, as part of an investigation into suspected offences including unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child pornography.
No additional comment necessary, but… why is X still available on the App Store? Apple is deliberately allowing a CSAM app to be downloaded. Their credibility is shot.
-
Icons in Menus Everywhere — Send Help
Jim Nielsen (no relation) waxes design-philosophic on the atrocious menus in macOS Tahoe. Unfortunately you can’t solve this one with accessibility settings.
-
Why Isn’t Online Age Verification Just Like Showing Your ID In Person?
A good and thorough explanation by Lisa Femia for the EFF blog, helpful even if you know the deal already.
-
delphitools – Handmade Developer Tools
A small set of privacy-first tools for makers, no logins, no bullshit. All run in the browser, no installation needed. Image converters, croppers, calculators (px to rem for example), QR code generator and more. Long live the handmade web.
-
The Secrets of the Sega Channel
The excellent Video Game History Foundation has just announced a new treasure trove of previously-inaccessible content from the short-lived Sega Channel including over 100 new Sega Channel ROMs.
