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The December blog is out!

Hello, so, I have been self-hosting some basic stuff recently, including data storage so i don't have to rely on external services like google drive.

It's working fine, but I wondered what would be the best backup solutions in case something unexpected and unfortunate happens (accidentally wipe out everything, drives dying, electrical issues, house burning down, that sort of thing).

I was wondering if more experienced self-hosters had recommendations about that ?

Maybe storing a physical drive in an especially sturdy box ? Perhaps using distant cold storage solutions ? Or even something I have never heard of ?

RIP Arthur D. Hlavaty

Please read the whole question carefully, I am looking for a very specific functionality

I am looking for a self hosted pocket alternative

There are quite a few out there that I've looked at however I have quite a specific requirement..

When using pocket I used a firefox extension / add-on: In My Pocket

This extension / add-on had a relatively simple feature which is essential to me

It has a buttons which summons a little drop-down menu which lists all your saved url

It has a search box and every url has a button to remove it from the list

Does anyone have any recommendations for a self hosted application which has a Firefox extension / add-on including this functionality? (Dropdown, search box, button to remove url / bookmark)

Thanks in advance!

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🙏🙏 (idk if this is real)

NEW YORK (AP) — For one Wisconsin couple, the loss of government-sponsored health subsidies next year means choosing a lower-quality insurance plan with a higher deductible. For a Michigan family, it means going without insurance altogether.

For a single mom in Nevada, the spiking costs mean fewer Christmas gifts this year. She is stretching her budget already while she waits to see if Congress will act.

Less than three weeks remain until the expiration of COVID-era enhanced tax credits that have helped millions of Americans pay their monthly fees for Affordable Care Act coverage for the past four years.

The Senate on Thursday rejected two proposals to address the problem and an emerging health care package from House Republicans does not include an extension, all but guaranteeing that many Americans will see much higher insurance costs in 2026.

edit: many, not most

Based on a few quick searches, here's what I came up with. You can tell that I got pretty bored once I got to the Lanthanide series and beyond. The ones without ":" are the ones I didn't check, as I doubt there's any software called "Dysprosium" and "Roentgenium", but I would love to be proven wrong!

One thing of note, I included a few racehorses are named after elements (most of which from the 1800s, which is interesting)

1 - H - Hydrogen: open-source drum machine

2 - He - Helium: Chromium-based browser, "Helium10" is e-commerce software

3 - Li - Lithium: "Li3", formerly "lithium", is a PHP web framework, optimization mod for Minecraft

4 - Be - Beryllium: proprietary lathe software written in Python

5 - B - Boron: N/A?

6 - C - Carbon: C-based API developed by Apple to port classic Mac apps to MacOS X, programming language developed by Google to be interoperable with C++, "Karbon" is some accounting management software

7 - N - Nitrogen: Financial planning software (previously "Riskalyze"). Funnily enough, there is also a racehorse called "Nitrogen" which, according to Wikipedia, was the 2024 "Canadian Champion Two-Year-Old Filly"!

8 - O - Oxygen: default font in KDE, "OxygenOS" is the skin of Android in (global) OnePlus phones. "Oxygen XML editor" is self-explanatory. Again, there is a racehorse called "Oxygen" which Wikipedia says was regarded as the "leading two-year-old filly in the South of England in 1830"!

9 - F - Fluorine: some productivity app

10 - Ne - Neon: game engine, music visualisation software, "KDE Neon" is a distro developed by KDE

11 - Na - Sodium: Minecraft optimization mod, MMO game for PS3, and interestingly enough, another racehorse!

12 - Mg - Magnesium: port of the "Sodium" Minecraft optimization mod for Forge

13 - Al - Aluminium: Google's "Aluminium OS" (replacement for ChromeOS), various software designed for manufacturing/designing aluminium parts

14 - Si - Silicon: "Silicon IDE" is self explanatory, "Silicon Labs" is a Japanese technology company, Apple's processors are known as "Apple Silicon", you of course have "Silicon Valley"

15 - P - Phosphorus: some IoT enterprise solution. This is also yet another racehorse, which won the 1837 Epsom Derby despite having a leg injury!

16 - S - Sulfur/Sulphur: a modern old-school action-adventure game, codename for Fedora 9. "Sulphur Nimbus: Hel's Elixir" is a game on itch.io where you control a hippogriff, interesting!

17 - Cl - Chlorine: library to interact with OpenCL devices

18 - Ar - Argon: CAD modelling software, tool for developing Roblox games. "Argon2" is a cryptographic key derivation function that won the 2015 Password Hashing Competition

19 - K - Potassium: "Kalium" (where we get the symbol "K" from!) is the name of a web framework that handle asynchronous microservices

20 - Ca - Calcium: digital health software, web calendar by "Brown Bear Software"

21 - Sc - Scandium: Automation tool for software testing. One thing of note, a company called "Element 21" (a golf and fishing equipment company) paid the Russian Federal Space Agency to launch a golf ball into space!

22 - Ti - Titanium: Sophisticated malware discovered in 2019 by Kaspersky Lab. "Titanium SDK" is used to develop native Android and iOS apps using JavaScript.

23 - V - Vanadium: Browser developed by the GrapheneOS team

24 - Cr - Chromium: The backbone of all the modern browsers, aside from Firefox and its forks, OpenGL implementation

25 - Mn - Manganese: Codename for Windows 10 20H2 apparently?

26 - Fe - Iron: C# library company (they have a suite of .NET apps prefixed with "Iron"), "IronFox" is a privacy-focused Android browser

27 - Co - Cobalt: codename for v6.0 of PalmOS, action side-scrolling game developed by Mojang, CAD modelling program

28 - Ni - Nickel: some payment processor

29 - Cu - Copper: some web-based project management tool

30 - Zn - Zinc: "Zinc Application Platform" is used for creating GUI apps. "OpenZinc" is a project to preserve v1.0 to v4.2 of the former. It's also ANOTHER racehorse!

31 - Ga - Gallium: "Gallium3D" is a set of open-source graphics drivers that is part of the Mesa library of graphics drivers. "GalliumOS" is a discontinued OS targeting Chromebooks

32 - Ge - Germanium: Codename for Windows 11 24H2

33 - As - Arsenic: audience response system (whatever that is?), some online gaming website

34 - Se - Selenium: software testing framework

35 - Br - Bromine: codename for Windows 11 26H2 (an apt name, it sounds very smelly with lots of AI "features"...). "Bromite", the Chromium-based browser, is pretty close but is an ion containing bromine (BrO2-)

36 - Kr - Krypton: a programming language

37 - Rb - Rubidium: N/A?

38 - Sr - Strontium: Russian hacker group "Fancy Bear" is sometimes called "STRONTIUM"

39 - Y - Yttrium: Russian hacker group "Cozy Bear" is sometimes called "YTTRIUM"

40 - Zr - Zirconium: N/A?

41 - Nb - Niobium: N/A?

42 - Mo - Molybdenum: N/A?

43 - Tc - Technetium: N/A?

44 - Ru - Ruthenium: N/A?

45 - Rh - Rhodium: N/A?

46 - Pd - Palladium: A 1958 CIA program to study and interfere Soviet radar (yes really)

47 - Ag - Silver: 2nd gen Pokemon game, various video game characters named Silver

48 - Cd - Cadmium: N/A?

49 - In - Indium: N/A?

50 - Sn - Tin: newsreader software

51 - Sb - Antimony: CAD software

52 - Te - Tellurium: some Python package about biology stuff idk

53 - I - Iodine: some AI software used in hospitals, idk

54 - Xe - Xenon: Dutch software used in 6 countries to find tax evaders (yes really), codename for Xbox 360

55 - Cs - Caesium/Cesium: library specialising in "3D geospatial visualisation" (i.e. globes)

56 - Ba - Barium: N/A?

57 - La - Lanthanum: N/A?

58 - Ce - Cerium
59 - Pr - Praseodymium
60 - Nd - Neodymium
61 - Pm - Promethium
62 - Sm - Samarium
63 - Eu - Europium
64 - Gd - Gadolinium
65 - Tb - Terbium
66 - Dy - Dysprosium
67 - Ho - Holmium
68 - Er - Erbium
69 - Tm - Thulium
70 - Yb - Ytterbium
71 - Lu - Lutetium
72 - Hf - Hafnium
73 - Ta - Tantalum

74 - W - Tungsten: "WolframAlpha" is a supercharged version of the calculator ("Wolfram" is where we get the W!), "Wolfram Language" is used in the computing program "Wolfram Mathematica"

75 - Re - Rhenium

76 - Os - Osmium: N/A?

77 - Ir - Iridium

78 - Pt - Platinum: 4th gen pokemon game

79 - Au - Gold: 2nd gen Pokemon game and its protagonist

80 - Hg - Mercury: software developed by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre to analyze crystal structures

81 - Tl - Thallium

82 - Pb - Lead: N/A?

83 - Bi - Bismuth: programming language, tiling windows add-on for KDE Plasma

84 - Po - Polonium: N/A?

85 - At - Astatine
86 - Rn - Radon
87 - Fr - Francium
88 - Ra - Radium 89 - Ac - Actinium
90 - Th - Thorium
91 - Pa - Protactinium

92 - U - Uranium: backup software

93 - Np - Neptunium: N/A?

94 - Pu - Plutonium: Call of Duty mod

95 - Am - Americium
96 - Cm - Curium
97 - Bk - Berkelium
98 - Cf - Californium
99 - Es - Einsteinium
100 - Fm - Fermium

101 - Md - Mendelevium: N/A?

102 - No - Nobelium
103 - Lr - Lawrencium
104 - Rf - Rutherfordium
105 - Db - Dubnium
106 - Sg - Seaborgium 107 - Bh - Bohrium
108 - Hs - Hassium
109 - Mt - Meitnerium
110 - Ds - Darmstadtium
111 - Rg - Roentgenium
112 - Cn - Copernicium
113 - Nh - Nihonium
114 - Fl - Flerovium
115 - Mc - Moscovium
116 - Lv - Livermorium
117 - Ts - Tennessine

118 - Og - Oganesson: free open-source cache deleter? Weird

Is this the right community to post this in? It's not really a meme, but it's not very serious either...

Now I need to get back to doing chemistry homework...

Companies tend to be rather picky about who gets to poke around inside their products. Manufacturers sometimes even take steps that prevent consumers from repairing their device when it breaks, or modifying it with third-party products.

But those unsanctioned device modifications have become the raison d'être of a bounty program set up by a nonprofit called Fulu, or Freedom from Unethical Limitations on Users. The group tries to spotlight the ways companies can slip consumer-unfriendly features into their products, and it offers cash rewards in the thousands of dollars to anyone who can figure out how to disable unpopular features or bring discontinued products back to life.

“We want to be able to show lawmakers, look at all these things that could be out in the world,” says right-to-repair advocate and Fulu cofounder Kevin O’Reilly. “Look at the ways we could be giving device owners control over their stuff.”

Fulu has already awarded bounties for two fixes. One revives an older generation of Nest Thermostats no longer supported by Google. And just yesterday, Fulu announced a fix that circumvents restrictive digital-rights-management software on Molekule air purifiers.

Fulu is run by O’Reilly and fellow repair advocate and YouTuber Louis Rossmann, who announced the effort in a video on his channel in June.

The basic concept of Fulu is that it works like a bug bounty, the long running practice in software development where devs will offer prize money to people who find and fix a bug in the operating system. Fulu adopts that model, but the bounty it offers is usually meant to “fix” something the manufacturer considers an intended feature but turns out to be detrimental to the user experience. That can mean a device where the manufacturer has put in restrictions to prevent users from repairing their device, blocked the use of third-party replacement parts, or ended software support entirely.

“Innovation used to mean going from black-and-white to color,” Rossmann says. “Now innovation means we have the ability to put DRM in an air filter.”

Fulu offers up a bounty of $10,000 to the first person to prove they have a fix for the offending feature of a device. Donors can also pool money to help incentivize tinkerers to fix a particular product, which Fulu will match up to another $10,000. The pot grows as donations roll in.

Bounties are set on devices that Rossmann and O’Reilly have deemed deliberately hostile to the owners that have already paid for them, like some GE refrigerators that have DRM-locked water filters, and the Molekule air purifiers with DRM software that blocks customers from using third-party air filters. A bounty on the XBox Series X seeks a workaround to software encryption on the disk drive that prevents replacing the part without manufacturer approval. Thanks to donations, the prize for the Xbox fix has climbed to more than $30,000.

Sounds like a sweet payout for sure, but there is risk involved.

Fixing devices, even ones disabled and discontinued by the manufacturer, is often in direct violation of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 1998 US law that prevents bypassing passwords and encryption or selling equipment that could do so without manufacturer permission. Break into a device, futz with the software inside to keep it functional, or go around DRM restrictions, and you risk running afoul of the likes of Google's gargantuan legal arm. Fulu warns potential bounty hunters they must tackle this goal knowing full well they're doing so in open violation of Section 1201.

“The dampening effect on innovation and control and ownership are so massive,” O’Reilly says. “We want to prove that these kinds of things can exist.” Empty Nest

In October, Google ended software support for its first- and second-generation Nest thermostats. For lots of users, the devices still worked but couldn’t be controlled anymore, because the software was no longer supported. Users lamented that their fancy thermostats had now become hunks of e-waste on their walls.

Fulu set up a bounty that called for a software fix to restore functionality to the affected Nest devices. Cody Kociemba, a longtime follower of Rossmann’s YouTube channel and a Nest user himself, was eager to take the bounty on. (He has “beef with Google,” he says on his website.) After a few days of tinkering with the Nest software, Kociemba had a solution. He made his fix publicly available on GitHub so users could download it and restore their thermostats. Kociemba also started No Longer Evil, a site devoted to his workaround of Nest thermostats and perhaps hacks of future Google products to come.

“My moral belief is that this should be accessible to people,” Kociemba says.

Kociemba submitted his fix to Fulu, but discovered that another developer, calling themselves Team Dinosaur, had just submitted a fix slightly before Kociemba did. Still, Fulu paid out the full amount to both, roughly $14,000 apiece. Kociemba was surprised by that, as he thought he had lost the race or that he might have to split the prize money.

O’Reilly says that while they probably won't do double payouts again, both fixes worked, so it was important for Fulu’s first payout to show support for the people willing to take the risk of sharing their fixes.

“Folks like Cody who are willing to put it out there, make the calculated risk that Google isn't going to sue them, and maybe save some thermostats from the junk heap and keep consumers from having to pay $700 or whatever after installation to get something new,” O’Reilly says. “It's been cool to watch.”

This week, Fulu announced it had paid out its second-ever bounty. It was for a Molekule Air Pro and Air Mini, air purifier systems that used an NFC chip in its filters to ensure the replacement filters were made by Molekule and not a third-party manufacturer. The goal was to disable the DRM and let the machine use any filter that fit.

Lorenzo Rizzotti, an Italian student and coder who had gone from playing Minecraft as a kid to reverse engineering and hacking, submitted proof that he had solved the problem, and was awarded the Fulu bounty.

“Once you buy a device, it's your hardware, it's no longer theirs,” Rizzotti says. “You should be able to do whatever. I find it absurd that it's illegal.”

But unlike Kociemba, he wasn’t about to share the fix. Though he was able to fix the problem, he doesn’t feel safe weathering the potential legal ramifications that he might face if he released the solution publicly.

“I proved that I can do it,” he says. “And that was it.”

Still, Fulu awarded him the bounty. O’Reilly says the goal of the project is less about getting actual fixes out in the world, and more about calling attention to the lengths companies are allowed to go to wrest control from their users under the auspices of Section 1201.

“We need to show how ridiculous it is that this 27-year-old law is preventing these solutions from seeing the light of day,” O’Reilly says. “It's time for the laws to catch up with technology.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/54907251

The Hungarian government has launched a residential energy storage program with a budget of HUF 100 billion. Under the initiative, households can install 10 kW battery energy storage systems, with a non-refundable subsidy of HUF 2.5 million to support the purchase.

Ukrainian president says plan would not be fair without guarantees that Russia would not simply take over zone

The US wants Ukraine to withdraw its troops from the Donbas region, and Washington would then create a “free economic zone” in the parts Kyiv currently controls, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

Previously, the US had suggested Kyiv should hand over the parts of Donbas it still controlled to Russia, but the Ukrainian president said on Thursday that Washington had now suggested a compromise version in which Ukrainian troops would withdraw, but Russian troops would not advance into the territory.

“Who will govern this territory, which they are calling a ‘free economic zone’ or a ‘demilitarised zone’ – they don’t know,” said the Ukrainian president, speaking with journalists in Kyiv on Thursday.

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