bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦

Software developer, entrepreneur, former government regulator, current government advisor, amateur scientist.  https://berthub.eu/

Website: https://berthub.eu/
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6317-0670
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bert-hubert-b05452/

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npub1579yezsv64rkghcezalde636kasdazzpnehtl99wt4g9d62ac0aqu5sp9g

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nprofile1qqs20zjv3gxd23mytuv3wlkuagatwcx73pqeum4ljjh965zka9wu87spz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds9arp9e

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Last Notes

2025-05-14 09:26:20 GMT

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the data is valid for 4 hours. But “it is complicated “

2025-05-14 09:17:50 GMT

Hi everybody - this account will soon migrate to [@[email protected]](https://eupolicy.social/@bert_hubert ) - with many thanks to the fosstodon.org maintainers for many years of great service.

2025-05-14 08:47:14 GMT

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The status display on https://galmon.eu/ is none too happy. Every row with an IOD > 127 means a satellite is broadcasting 'vintage' orbital data. As in, old.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/505/313/028/006/182/original/2124fcc6527c5b4e.png

2025-05-14 08:27:04 GMT

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https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/mch-dna-and-gps-gnss-talks/ has a video & links to text.

2025-05-14 08:21:37 GMT

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Here is what the Galileo agency mailed round last week. Not easy to understand what they mean, and I guess this is by design:
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/505/211/114/152/336/original/a0537e05cef3a373.png

2025-05-14 07:21:32 GMT

The bot is making a lot of noise about Galileo, the EU GPS. This is because Galileo is being very weird and is clearly running on outdated orbital data. It might still be accurate enough though. This was announced very cryptically last week that there would be “deviations”. Galileo communications remains absolutely terrible.
From: [@gnss_changes](https://bot.country/@gnss_changes )
https://bot.country/@gnss_changes/statuses/01JV6RDHRHXPQ88WTNXJP4AXFM

2025-05-13 21:24:16 GMT

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True - I do keep track of if people make it to the end of articles. This informs me if I should spend more time on making things readable or not. https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/tracking-free-audience-statistics/

2025-05-13 21:17:25 GMT

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Thanks, been at it for a bit! I also took a lot of inspiration from your talk in Rotterdam many moons ago on the whole spam ecosystem. Was an eye opener. The conference with the boat where I understand you had an interesting meeting afterwards!

2025-05-13 11:16:49 GMT

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oh it is great! I'm very happy that these older posts apparently still get read!

2025-05-13 10:48:41 GMT

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good to hear, thanks!

2025-05-13 08:42:06 GMT

As I type away into the void, hoping to achieve something, I sometimes wonder if it is worth it. Do people read this stuff? There are now 222 articles on https://berthub.eu/articles/ and sometimes one of these gets read really well. But what about the "back catalog"? Turns out that a lot of traffic is in fact coming from the 200 older pieces:
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/499/615/087/350/437/original/ef2a27f9c669685a.png

2025-05-12 06:19:19 GMT

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I celebrate my 50th birthday today 🥳! I used to be quite dramatic about this prospect but thanks to some recent health setbacks in my family (from which we are now thankfully recovering well it appears) I’ve come to realize that my life, even at 50, is quite a feast!

2025-05-11 20:06:34 GMT

I too have an important announcement tomorrow! It is good news, so no worries.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/490/995/238/878/605/original/045e694111b847b5.png

2025-05-10 07:49:09 GMT

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hele matige journalistiek dit. Wat is het nou.

2025-05-09 08:32:21 GMT

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I have improved the cloud overview article with headlines that should make things somewhat clearer. Previously it was a bit of a wall of text. https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/cloud-overview/
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/476/942/371/682/117/original/eaa29dd000026560.png

2025-05-08 20:12:54 GMT

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would be nice if they knew even. Means they could reproduce.

2025-05-08 18:28:02 GMT

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yes. On every page.

2025-05-08 12:57:17 GMT

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I can recommend reading some of the articles I linked to. Most users are now relying on higher level services than you describe. “We” can’t just change that.

2025-05-08 11:09:23 GMT

I've written an unhealthy amount of words on "the cloud" and specifically Europe's woes. In the post below I tie many articles together into a hopefully useful overview. It may be good to know that nothing what I write on the cloud is novel or original, I mostly hope to report things as they are. Which is scary enough already! https://berthub.eu/draft-klad-tijdelijk-draft/cloud-overview.html

2025-05-08 06:58:08 GMT

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we used https://cryptpad.fr/ in the preparation of this posed, it is also indeed almost there for simple needs.

2025-05-07 19:55:06 GMT

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could be weeks or months…

2025-05-07 18:32:47 GMT

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the bandwidth cost often is only a tiny fraction of the rework cost to move to something else. Unless you are storing petabytes of course. But even 100s of thousands of euros/dollars is not a lot compared to the manual labour required..

2025-05-07 18:07:24 GMT

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I have an upcoming post on this too. I've radicalized on the topic of the techno-illiteracy. But I'm waiting for the Dutch cabinet to fall before I launch my rant on this ;-) For now I can only function on the outside by writing very plain blog posts...

2025-05-07 07:34:20 GMT

Everyone agrees something needs to be done about our total dependence on US clouds. But what? And who should do it? Ample words have been written on the 'why', and we also have a lot of text on our values and that *someone* should do *something*. Here I elaborate on an earlier suggestion with a coherent strategy that is concrete enough to disagree with. This reads well with the latest Euro-Stack letter also: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/a-coherent-non-us-cloud-strategy/

2025-05-06 20:18:15 GMT

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so views were started because the number of processes you could run was limited. It is sort of a virtual machine in your nameserver. It makes everything pretty complicated. You might also get surprises if you mess it up even slightly. I'm not much of a fan.

2025-05-06 19:21:19 GMT

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I’m mostly out of dns. So while I might have ideas they aren’t current. Sorry!

2025-05-06 14:45:36 GMT

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indeed.

2025-05-05 12:47:34 GMT

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It really is worth it to read the whole 1939 article. https://www.lehman.edu/faculty/rcarey/BRSQ/06may.orwell.htm

2025-05-05 09:57:15 GMT

"Underlying this is the idea that common sense always wins in the end. And yet the peculiar horror of the present moment is that we cannot be sure that this is so. It is quite possible that we are descending into an age in which two and two will make five when the Leader says so." - George Orwell in https://www.lehman.edu/faculty/rcarey/BRSQ/06may.orwell.htm

2025-05-04 13:22:21 GMT

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a giant meteor will be with you soon to compensate:-)

2025-05-03 08:28:59 GMT

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I just die inside when that happens! That was the reason for writing this also.

2025-05-03 06:50:07 GMT

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he’s very right. He could start his presentation like this because the audience was clearly already in awe of him. But he still needed a nuclear start to get everyone hooked!

2025-05-02 18:53:08 GMT

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always works great yes ;-)

2025-05-02 18:48:41 GMT

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Thanks for spreading the word! And also please know I appreciate your thoughtful and often touching posts on your life experiences. I often fondly recall similar things from my life based on what you write. Sometimes brings a tear to my eyes even.

2025-05-02 18:27:42 GMT

Quick note on giving talks. It is not enough to have great content. Expectations are low. When you start off, quickly establish some kind of bond with your audience. Once that is in place, your listeners will give your presentation a decent chance: https://berthub.eu/draft-klad-tijdelijk-draft/but-first-connect-with-your-audience.html

2025-05-01 19:33:59 GMT

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in my world this is known as the screwdriver theory, that no computer is secure in the face of someone with time and a screwdriver. With very rare exceptions this is true.

2025-05-01 19:31:05 GMT

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that is just terrifying. I often wonder if we can keep it together when significant fractions of the population have just checked out of reality.

2025-05-01 09:27:08 GMT

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All these Microsoft assurances that it really won't be so bad with Trump remind me of this John Cleese sketch where the pilots tell the passengers that the wings are NOT on fire: https://youtu.be/XfLdFZ4my9g?t=35

2025-05-01 07:39:59 GMT

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Thanks! There is a weird sentence in there "vaccine were legeoss protected". Otherwise great!

2025-05-01 07:06:39 GMT

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Danke!

2025-05-01 05:43:57 GMT

«Die Cloud» ist nicht nur Server. «In die Cloud gehen» kann auch bedeuten, einen ewigen Dienstleistungsvertrag abzuschliessen, schreibt Bert Hubert.
https://dnip.ch/2025/05/01/die-cloud-der-unkuendbare-subunternehmer/

2025-05-01 05:38:47 GMT

I just read Microsoft's post on how much they love Europe & that they are not the same as Donald Trump. As far as I can tell there is nothing new in there, no new/useful protections, no guarantees. It rehashes already debunked things like the "Microsoft Lock Box". The story mostly serves as a reminder of how worried we should all be about basing our governments & societies in companies far away under questionable legal regimes: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/04/30/european-digital-commitments/

2025-04-29 18:19:29 GMT

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the next exciting thing is unfurling the scary antenna...https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/c0jzy3g0zx2o

2025-04-29 15:37:48 GMT

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last time round I wasn’t EU enough for them somehow.

2025-04-29 11:57:36 GMT

I recently wrote a bit on how you can easily get stuck on a cloud. [@Quinnypig](https://awscommunity.social/@Quinnypig ) got there way ahead of me in 2020 and this is a very worthwhile piece on cloud-based workers & why they'll try their hardest to stick with their favorite cloud: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/the-lock-in-you-dont-see/

2025-04-29 11:11:23 GMT

If I wanted to leave fosstodon.org, where should I go? I need a very boring server with no surprising moderators causing upheaval..

2025-04-29 10:42:00 GMT

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especially when they don’t explode!

2025-04-29 10:16:38 GMT

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but is this biologically plausible? Is it statistically likely that a single chromosome would end up being sequenced like this?

2025-04-29 08:59:24 GMT

In 15 minutes Europe will hopefully launch its next climate satellite. The launch can however only be watched via YouTube since we apparently can’t do that ourselves and have to put our government info next to the antivax promo. https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/ESA_Web_TV

2025-04-28 17:44:05 GMT

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this is partially addressed in this article which is also linked from the post: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/your-tech-my-tech/ - it is also true for large enterprises these days…

2025-04-28 15:21:44 GMT

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and followed back!

2025-04-27 18:58:24 GMT

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we similarly see former leaders here just giving up. It is quite the bet...

2025-04-27 07:21:58 GMT

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I'm slowly also coming to that conclusion...

2025-04-27 07:11:22 GMT

“Going to the cloud” can mean renting services/servers that you could get from anywhere. There’s little lock-in. The same four words “going to the cloud” might also mean locking your operations to a specific cloud provider, forever. This difference vital, yet often ignored: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/beware-cloud-is-part-of-the-software/

2025-04-26 09:51:36 GMT

deloitte.com. 3600 IN TXT "\226\128\156atlassian-domain-verification=TERygaFH40lyOd2hmJGtCA2w1aJwx6y7tFKDkgG/KbegUOj0NrRxiWP9wM6y3e4H\226\128\157"
#smartquotes

2025-04-25 12:17:09 GMT

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I am not the EU., perhaps ask them.

2025-04-25 08:27:07 GMT

In small scale research, it was previously found that immunotherapy *before* cancer surgery appeared to be wildly more successful than after. Below Derek Lowe (read everything he writes) reports on another exciting result in this direction. Surgery as an adjuvant is what tihs smells like. https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/new-glioblastoma-treatment

2025-04-24 08:46:25 GMT

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google also typed in the their stupendously dangerous webp parser and Apple senselessly allowed their users to get compromised for ages by relying on that dangerous component outside a sandbox, exposing it to zero-click content. I'm not so convinced that Google and Apple know what they are doing.

2025-04-24 07:40:15 GMT

"Three of the four most exploited vulns were zero days, all were in cybersecurity products (Palo-Alto, Ivanti Connect Secure, Ivanti Policy Secure and Fortinet)." https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/114391474274944937

2025-04-23 14:03:59 GMT

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so my terrible theory is that we infantilize as long as there is no huge crisis, and focus on trivial short term things. Meanwhile the big things get no attention and drift into a worse and worse state. And just when things reach a breaking point, we have no skills left with decision makers to do anything about it. And perhaps then we get an extremely painful crisis or war and the cycle can start over. Probably at a startling human cost.

2025-04-23 13:13:04 GMT

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indeed
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/387/450/552/002/442/original/4d89493cf30470e5.jpeg

2025-04-23 10:26:56 GMT

With some luck, I'll be presenting tomorrow. And I'll again be talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures "So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had"
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/386/791/205/456/433/original/fec14fa1265d9554.png

2025-04-23 09:49:59 GMT

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it does nothing for them to care. Means more work. To protect you from some abstract problem you never notice..

2025-04-23 09:09:02 GMT

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it is the incessant crawlers and scanners you are seeing. Quite fun to analyze even for a dormant domain. "What is happening".

2025-04-23 08:38:08 GMT

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I said nothing like that.

2025-04-23 08:14:51 GMT

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Thank you everyone. The answer to 'does the Microsoft Customer Lockbox protect your data against the US government' is a resounding NO. According to Microsoft that is. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/customer-lockbox-requests#does-customer-lockbox-protect-against-data-requests-from-law-enforcement-agencies-or-other-third-parties
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/386/275/480/267/391/original/ca3acda8f5793a03.png

2025-04-22 16:36:45 GMT

People, a Microsoft (re)seller is telling governments you can put your MS 365 email in a "Microsoft Lockbox", and that this will protect you form US government spying. Is there any truth to this? https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/windows-365-customer-lockbox-generally-available/4077641 (reposts appreciated - it is somewhat time critical).

2025-04-21 07:41:05 GMT

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Danke!

2025-04-20 20:29:42 GMT

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YEAH! Dank je!

2025-04-20 20:01:41 GMT

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DANK U!!

2025-04-20 18:50:23 GMT

If you've seen me drop out of presentations or obligations over the past few weeks, here's a little bit on why. Plus I try to share some experiences on how the little things in life are the big things: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/out-of-office-in-every-life-some-rain-must-fall/

2025-04-20 13:30:11 GMT

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maybe.. I do know that people are hunting genomes for contamination with previously unknown human DNA, so an effort is underway to improve things. But I hadn't heard about ICSP yet. Thanks!

2025-04-20 13:02:56 GMT

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Indeed - which also requires a different style. We're trying to convince the audience.

2025-04-20 11:44:01 GMT

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same. I know of a bunch of Archaeal reference genomes that at least statistically look nothing like archaea. But will have to take a really good look to be sure.

2025-04-20 10:54:04 GMT

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I've found that the level of care on published genomes varies enormously. People are not always overly interested in hearing they/their former postdoc etc messed it up. Might even ruin a whole publication. Or career.

2025-04-20 07:48:08 GMT

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For example, telling someone a specific paragraph confused you & suggesting how to improve it. That is helpful not helpy. Or if you know of previous articles making the point better, do supply links which could be added to the post! Only suggesting these articles exist is '#helpy'. I deeply appreciate people being helpful. But 'helpy' is pure frustration. 2/2

2025-04-20 07:45:23 GMT

"Learn the difference between 'helping' and being 'helpy'"
~ @wendynather at #BSidesSEA - this is very useful. Just pointing out that an article does not make a specific point you'd like to see is "helpy". Pointing out that many people already knew what an article states also does little for the world. Being actually helpful looks different & is more work. 1/2

2025-04-18 15:53:54 GMT

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it is a big problem. I try to remind myself that I have limited expertise and that anyone from the field will always know more. I recall last time I failed at that though. So I try not to repeat that ;-)

2025-04-18 12:59:21 GMT

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Relevant for parent post.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/359/083/413/965/438/original/e23b4e877c1aae72.png

2025-04-18 08:55:05 GMT

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Amerikanen noemen me ook heel vaak "Burt". Ze hebben er niet zoveel op met namen die ze niet kennen gemiddeld.

2025-04-16 14:38:28 GMT

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does it do AI suggestions already? Probably next.

2025-04-16 09:42:42 GMT

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I haven't tried though!

2025-04-15 18:07:45 GMT

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or cowards.

2025-04-15 17:59:53 GMT

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also not true. https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/dear-hosting-providers-you-sell-lumber-and-not-furniture/
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/343/279/043/777/428/original/3661eaa81fc0cea8.jpeg

2025-04-15 16:49:21 GMT

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"Are you going to the cloud? Or is the cloud going into you?" - the difference between renting compute/standardized services, OR, building your future on bundles of powerful but proprietary services, effectively making a specific cloud your eternal subcontractor.

2025-04-15 06:48:44 GMT

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bit too tricky I think. But good inspiration!

2025-04-14 21:13:38 GMT

A fascinating read: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/apr/10/deep-cover-kgb-spy-recruited-son-peter-herrmann-illegals

2025-04-13 08:02:59 GMT

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wow, yeah that is a great comparison...

2025-04-13 08:02:12 GMT

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it is also not helpful for them to put up warning signs "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"!

2025-04-13 07:40:40 GMT

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it is definitely not in their interest to warn you you are about to enter territory from which you can never leave again...

2025-04-13 07:34:50 GMT

Regarding the previous post https://fosstodon.org/@bert_hubert/114326762794571784 I find it interesting that apparently there really is no distinctive name for "going deeper into the cloud than only using commodity services". PAAS has been mentioned but the various clouds use that term inconsistently.

2025-04-12 21:45:29 GMT

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AWS also does not follow or use this definition. https://aws.amazon.com/types-of-cloud-computing/

2025-04-12 21:40:57 GMT

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not so sure if this is a widely used definition. I've been reading what Google and Microsoft describe as PaaS it is not so clear cut. PaaS is described as being some kind of development environment. https://cloud.google.com/learn/paas-vs-iaas-vs-saas https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-computing-dictionary/what-is-paas

2025-04-12 19:59:17 GMT

"Going to the cloud' can mean anything from renting a VM, deploying containers, or building on top of advanced (hyperscaler) cloud services (queues, buckets, customer IAM etc). Is there a good term to describe the latter development style, going all in on cloud services? I've used 'cloud native' before but the meaning of that is not clear or useful. Better suggestions very welcome!

2025-04-12 16:20:30 GMT

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have you actually tried this since these options do not appear on iPhone signal.

2025-04-12 14:41:38 GMT

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same. And I don’t know what to do about this. Seems this is by design. I have to first uninstall all kinds of other things now and then update.

2025-04-12 11:15:01 GMT

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the problem is that many developers are not building on containers. They are building on larger services like Cognito, SQS, RDS, SNS, Dynamo DB etc. And these you can't just migrate.

2025-04-08 13:14:40 GMT

Maintenant aussi en français!
https://www.levif.be/belgique/pouvons-nous-encore-faire-confiance-aux-services-cloud-americains-nous-avons-collectivement-pose-notre-tete-sur-le-billot/

2025-04-07 06:32:30 GMT

Despite everything science still marches on. Here a report on a possible “universal Paxlovid” that might work even on as yet unknown corona viruses: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/new-pan-coronovirus-protease-inhibitor-possibility (also everything written by Derek Lowe is worth reading).

2025-04-06 20:40:30 GMT

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aardige aan deze is dat hij actief is op gram positieve en gram negatieve bacteriën, en ondertussen de meeste van onze darmflora met rust laat. Uiteindelijk gaan we het groots winnen van de bacterie, maar we zijn er nog niet, maar dit is weer een mooie stap.