Gabriele Svelto

Old school nerd.
Knows things about computers that would drive you insane.
Hacks on Firefox at Mozilla.

web: https://setphaserstostun.org
github: https://github.com/gabrielesvelto
gpg: https://keys.openpgp.org/vks/v1/by-fingerprint/D71D73D63144D1AD45F71705763A5AD66BC5A398
pronouns: he/him

Public Key

npub179qwtqyzg6z9acq8p5pw2rdxwztn2lw6mfngqz8t9500nfk555sq92qp89

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs0zs89szpydpz7uqrs6qh9pkn8p9e40hdd5e5qpr4j68he5m222gqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsdgzefn

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub179qwtqyzg6z9acq8p5pw2rdxwztn2lw6mfngqz8t9500nfk555sq92qp89

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Last Notes

2024-07-22 11:16:53

Can someone explain to me the doomerism regarding the next US election? I remember reading a mountain of doomerism about the last mid-term elections and how it would be a red wave, and it turned out an absolute disaster for them. Same for the elections in France. If you go out and vote, shit simply doesn't happen, no matter how many bad takes you see in the corporate press or on xitter.

2024-07-13 15:56:13

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I'm very happy about how the fediverse works, this is one of the few spaces that's ad-free, but I've been contributing to my instance, and I hope that my contributions make it possible for other users who can't afford it to join the fediverse too. Is this sustainable? Honestly I don't know. What I know is that browser development is not sustainable with contributions alone. Not by a long shot. 7/11

2024-07-13 15:56:01

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But what if you don't want to see ads at all? You can totally do that! There are very good and effective ways to block ads, and it'll make for a better online experience. But don't be under the illusion that will somehow change the current dynamics. Most services you'll see will still be ad-funded, and they won't be able to survive if they can't serve ads. Alternatively you'll have to pay to access them. Which brings us to another topic: donations. 6/11

2024-07-13 15:55:26

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And it's not just Google. Every ad network is going to extreme measures to track you, because it is *profitable* to do it. And as long as there's an economic incentive, they'll do it. The only way to stop this is by removing the economic incentive to tracking. You'll still be served ads, but at least they'll be generic then. I don't know if PPA will achieve that, but the status quo won't. I'm 100% sure about that. 5/11

2024-07-13 15:55:02

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The reasons why it's bad are rather obvious: most ad networks know more about you than yourself. Google in particular has an incredible view of your life, they probably know more about you than yourself, because they meticulously tracked and stored every interaction you had with them for as long as you've been online. 4/11

2024-07-13 15:54:52

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So let's get that out of the way, Mozilla hasn't become an ad company, it already was. pretty much always has been. The company didn't really want to talk about it in these terms though. Which brings us to the second topic: ads are now heavily reliant on user profiling and tracking. That's bad. 3/11

2024-06-22 14:23:05

Earlier this year I finally found some time to play Children of Morta (only 9 years after chipping in to their crowdfunding campaign) and it's such a good game! The combat is varied and interesting and the way it drops small story elements between every dungeon run keeps it interesting even when you fail. It also has some of the prettiest pixel graphics I've seen in the last few years.
#indiegame #indiegames
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2024-06-18 18:25:03

In the never-ending debates about #SystemD one argument that is often brought up is how many people whine about it but aren't willing to put in the work for a valid alternative.
Well, here's the thing, systemd development is entirely corporate-backed. It's done by people who are paid to do it. The alternative would be an entirely community-based project.
That's not the same thing neither from the point-of-view of available resources nor of how choices are made. 1/2

2024-06-08 13:29:51

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You can't make this stuff up. Sending hundreds of thousands of people to their death, or a future of crippling disability, becomes an achievement in lowering unemployment rates.

2024-06-08 13:28:23

Today's assessment by the ISW is really quite something. Here's three things that give you a perfect idea of how deep is the degeneration of Russia as a country:
- Putin touted Russia's "record low" unemployment
- Putin attempted to introduce his children [...] to set conditions for them to eventually assume high-profile and powerful roles in the Russian government
- The Russian Supreme Court declared an organization that does not exist as "extremist"
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-7-2024

2024-05-20 23:27:26

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This was achieved via the Copper - one of the Amiga coprocessors - and is not an easy trick, requiring careful coding and precise timing.
Anyway, this demo is fantastic, the authors have amazing skills and the hardware was so much ahead of its time. And if you want to read more about it Wikipedia has a very good article about HAM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold-And-Modify 6/6

2024-05-20 23:26:57

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It's worth mentioning that the demo probably uses one of the craziest tricks that the Amiga hardware had up its sleeve. The color registers could be modified between the scanlines during the horizontal blank, that is during the time the monitor's electron beam moved back, right to left, after having painted a scanline.
Since nothing was being displayed during that period this could be done without the user noticing, yielding a new set of colors per line. 5/6

2024-05-20 23:26:47

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Which leads us to this demo: what makes it amazing is that it does plenty of dynamic rendering in HAM mode, without even the slightest trace of color banding or horizontal artifacts. It's mind-blowing!
To be fair, this is the post-compo version. One of the effects in the compo version (the rotating bars) would exhibit banding, but still, it was amazing. 4/6

2024-05-20 23:26:33

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By accurately choosing the 16 base colors, and precomputing the color offsets one could display a lot of colors, obtaining remarkably realistic static images.
However the fact that the adjustments needed to happen horizontally meant that it was hard to use for drawing independent objects, or moving ones. Horizontal banding artifacts would usually appear as one was forced to change one channel at a time to reach the target color. 3/6

2024-05-20 23:26:20

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The original Amiga OCS chipset had a palette of 32 color registers which was the maximum that could normally be displayed at the same time, using 5 bits per pixel to index them plus 1 bit that could be used to halve the brightness of the color.
In Hold-And-Modify mode these 6 bits weren't used to encode a color, but a command. You could set the value of a pixel from a 16 colors palette, or copy the color of the previous pixel while changing one of its components. 2/6

2024-05-20 23:25:55

I've just watched the #Amiga demo HAMazing by Desire and I want to say a few words about it. The first ones are: it's insane what hardware that's almost 40 years old could do. It blew my mind as a kid and rightly so.
The demo is all about leveraging HAM mode, which allowed you to display up to 4K colors simultaneously. Let me explain how that worked and how remarkable this demo is. 🧵 1/6
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=i0gilhsxaEA
#DemoScene

2024-05-07 21:08:42

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BTW what shape was it in? Did they clean it up? Did they replace the TIM?
If you'll be installing Linux here's my guide on how to monitor your ECC memory for errors: https://www.setphaserstostun.org/posts/monitoring-ecc-memory-on-linux-with-rasdaemon/
To the best of my knowledge it's the only exhaustive one there is on the topic.

2024-05-07 18:49:39

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an absolute beast, I've used one of their workstations in a previous job and the only criticism I have of them is they tend to be a fair bit noisy

2024-04-29 18:40:51

This is gonna be fun: OpenAI runs afoul of the GDPR because it generates false information about individuals and they don't have full access to the data that pertains to them.
From the article:
> Maartje de Graaf, data protection lawyer at noyb: “The obligation to comply with access requests applies to all companies. [...] It seems that with each ‘innovation’, another group of companies thinks that its products don’t have to comply with the law.”
https://noyb.eu/en/chatgpt-provides-false-information-about-people-and-openai-cant-correct-it

2024-04-15 14:40:10

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wait, what?

2024-04-15 06:49:48

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AI has become the palm oil of tech. It'll make your product look bad regardless of what it does or how it's made.

2023-06-13 22:44:13

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Let me introduce you to Muad'Dib's World
Possibly the biggest, dumbest contribution I made on #Dune sietchposting until now
#meme 26/
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2023-05-23 09:37:38

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Today's #Dune sietchposting #meme
With all this talk of "fixing" Paul Atreides I'm starting to have a really bad feeling about Dune: Part Two
24/
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2023-05-09 22:24:55

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Tonight in #Dune sietchposting
He wishes to inform you that Vendetta — as he puts it, using the ancient tongue — is still alive
#meme /22
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2023-04-18 15:12:51

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I made a really, really dumb #BIFAR (Bring in Feyd and Rabban) #meme for #Dune sietchposting the other night. I'm probably way too proud of this one given how dumb it is.
Gotta bring 'em all! 21/
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2023-03-29 16:46:05

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Moar #Dune sietchposting.
My name is Paul Muad'Dib and I want to be a prophet!
#meme 20/
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2023-03-10 11:40:38

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Friday morning #Dune s̶h̶i̶t̶p̶o̶s̶t̶ sietchpost.
The poor duke had no idea was he was getting himself into.
c/w toilet humor and mild spoilers 18/
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2022-12-31 19:46:39

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End-of-the-year #Dune s̶h̶i̶t̶p̶o̶s̶t̶ sietchpost. I'm joining the global chorus of people thanking #gretathunberg for ridding the world of #andrewtate. What a great way of sending of 2022 12/
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2022-12-23 22:41:34

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Friday night #Dune s̶h̶i̶t̶p̶o̶s̶t̶ sietchpost. Listen to your mentat. 11/
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2022-12-21 14:43:49

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Wednesday #Dune s̶h̶i̶t̶p̶o̶s̶t̶ sietchpost. Some activities just aren't compatible. 10/
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2022-12-12 11:53:39

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Monday morning #Dune shitpost.
Stills from Mel Brook's Spiceworms (1984) 8/
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2022-12-07 09:46:20

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I know many of you are worried about the potential implications of using #gpt for nefarious purposes as well as its tendency to produce reasonable-sounding bullshit. But I see enormous potential for shitposting. Take this for example, it would have totally averted interplanetary jihad
#Dune #shitposting 7/
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2022-12-03 17:08:19

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Saturday's #Dune shitpost. In which we discover how Paul Atreides became known as Paul Muad'Dib 6/
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2022-11-30 22:01:27

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Tonight's #Dune shitpost. The first step in avoiding a von Trapp is knowing of its existence.
(If you look carefully you'll also find a BIFAR meme hidden in this one. Memes within memes, y'know) 5/
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2022-11-27 22:08:55

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More #Dune shitposting, the gripping dialogue with the navigator continues with a mandatory Airplane! reference 4/
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2022-11-25 21:39:43

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More #Dune shitposting tonight, I'm particularly proud of this one 3/
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2022-11-20 22:46:41

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Let's keep those #Dune shitposts going.
Frank Herbert's notes are very clear on the fact that before getting into politics Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen headlined an underground rock band on Giedi Prime 2/
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2022-11-18 22:12:09

Alright, let's start with a #Dune shitposting thread because it's easier. This was my first contribution to Dune Sietchposting 1/
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