@Danie
Testing out new the noStrudel web client
Relays (4)
- wss://relay.damus.io/ – read & write
- wss://nos.lol/ – read & write
- wss://relay.primal.net/ – read & write
- wss://relay.0xchat.com/ – read & write
Recent Notes
Google Search is likely Yahooed now
This is a lesson that you are never too big to disappear. I remember the arrival of Google Search (when that was all they did) and how it collapsed Yahoo search from the scene. Googling even became a verb.
As big and massive as Google Search was, who can say they still go to the Google search site to search, after ever having asked what they are looking for in most AI services today? Even just a year or two ago, most people would have laughed at you if you told them no-one would be actually visiting the Google Search page today.
Just a month ago I used AI to compare available TVs on Amazon Prime Day, and help me arrive at a decision to buy a new TV. It was a more intuitive and interactive process than doing a plain search.
The difference I suppose is, people know Google Search is dumb search (well apart from paid rankings) whilst AI is perceived to be “clever”. AI is not actually clever, but it is at least a step or two above basic search.
So the future battlefield for SEO and adverts will now have to be within AI. I expect the paid accounts will have non/fewer of that versus the masses using free access (the way it has always been).
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/google-search-is-likely-yahooed-now/
#ai #search #technology
This is a lesson that you are never too big to disappear. I remember the arrival of Google Search (when that was all they did) and how it collapsed Yahoo search from the scene. Googling even became a verb.
As big and massive as Google Search was, who can say they still go to the Google search site to search, after ever having asked what they are looking for in most AI services today? Even just a year or two ago, most people would have laughed at you if you told them no-one would be actually visiting the Google Search page today.
Just a month ago I used AI to compare available TVs on Amazon Prime Day, and help me arrive at a decision to buy a new TV. It was a more intuitive and interactive process than doing a plain search.
The difference I suppose is, people know Google Search is dumb search (well apart from paid rankings) whilst AI is perceived to be “clever”. AI is not actually clever, but it is at least a step or two above basic search.
So the future battlefield for SEO and adverts will now have to be within AI. I expect the paid accounts will have non/fewer of that versus the masses using free access (the way it has always been).
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/google-search-is-likely-yahooed-now/
#ai #search #technology
2
RSS-Bridge generates web feeds for websites that don’t have one
You can either self-host the service, in many different ways, or there is also an official online instance you can use. The link to that instance is on the GitHub project page at the link below.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/rss-bridge-generates-web-feeds-for-websites-that-dont-have-one/
#opensource #rss #technology
You can either self-host the service, in many different ways, or there is also an official online instance you can use. The link to that instance is on the GitHub project page at the link below.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/rss-bridge-generates-web-feeds-for-websites-that-dont-have-one/
#opensource #rss #technology
Team South Africa wins at NASA space engineering competition
“The international finals for the world’s longest-running space engineering competition were held at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre and the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida from 30 July to 2 August. Team ZA was the only African team in the competition. It was South Africa’s first time entering, and no African team had competed before.”
So yes, not a solo win by Team ZA on their own, but it shows the tremendous potential that South Africa has. If only SA could rid itself of the corruption plaguing it still, this potential could be fully realised and innovation could help spur economic growth. We owe this to our youth.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/team-south-africa-wins-at-nasa-space-engineering-competition/
#southafrica #technology
“The international finals for the world’s longest-running space engineering competition were held at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre and the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida from 30 July to 2 August. Team ZA was the only African team in the competition. It was South Africa’s first time entering, and no African team had competed before.”
So yes, not a solo win by Team ZA on their own, but it shows the tremendous potential that South Africa has. If only SA could rid itself of the corruption plaguing it still, this potential could be fully realised and innovation could help spur economic growth. We owe this to our youth.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/team-south-africa-wins-at-nasa-space-engineering-competition/
#southafrica #technology
OpenAI is giving ChatGPT free users unlimited text chats
“OpenAI is making a big change for ChatGPT users on its free and Go tiers: Starting next week, users on those tiers will be able to have unlimited text chats with the chatbot, according to OpenAI. Right now, you may run into rate limits if you do too many text chats on those tiers, but those limits, just for text, will be going away soon. Next week, OpenAI is also adding a Think button for free and Go users that they can use to access higher reasoning for harder questions.”
Which may be great for ChatGPT users, but the important thing is competition also helps push the bar up for other AI services such as Claude (who still has a hard cut-off with a rolling window).
My spouse recently needed to start using a pretty complex financial package for a startup business. Normally this would involve me being dragged in, and I'd have to set it up and try to explain how it works (after I've spent time mastering it myself). Well she used free ChatGPT and did everything herself. I'm not saying AI will magically solve everything, but it can do some amazing grunt work. Yes, it can be better to learn how to do everything from scratch yourself, but often you need an outcome to get something productive done. On her own, this would have taken way longer and with a lot more frustration.
Like it or not, AI is a useful tool to help us get stuff done. It takes dictionaries and search engines from yesteryear, to new levels of productivity. As I've stated before, I don't think AI is capable of actually replacing humans, and even the AI I use, I either paste into it what I want it to look at, or I authorise every step of changes to be made. I do not trust it to just run wild on its own. It requires oversight.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/openai-is-giving-chatgpt-free-users-unlimited-text-chats/
#ai #technology
“OpenAI is making a big change for ChatGPT users on its free and Go tiers: Starting next week, users on those tiers will be able to have unlimited text chats with the chatbot, according to OpenAI. Right now, you may run into rate limits if you do too many text chats on those tiers, but those limits, just for text, will be going away soon. Next week, OpenAI is also adding a Think button for free and Go users that they can use to access higher reasoning for harder questions.”
Which may be great for ChatGPT users, but the important thing is competition also helps push the bar up for other AI services such as Claude (who still has a hard cut-off with a rolling window).
My spouse recently needed to start using a pretty complex financial package for a startup business. Normally this would involve me being dragged in, and I'd have to set it up and try to explain how it works (after I've spent time mastering it myself). Well she used free ChatGPT and did everything herself. I'm not saying AI will magically solve everything, but it can do some amazing grunt work. Yes, it can be better to learn how to do everything from scratch yourself, but often you need an outcome to get something productive done. On her own, this would have taken way longer and with a lot more frustration.
Like it or not, AI is a useful tool to help us get stuff done. It takes dictionaries and search engines from yesteryear, to new levels of productivity. As I've stated before, I don't think AI is capable of actually replacing humans, and even the AI I use, I either paste into it what I want it to look at, or I authorise every step of changes to be made. I do not trust it to just run wild on its own. It requires oversight.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/openai-is-giving-chatgpt-free-users-unlimited-text-chats/
#ai #technology
Cool post from nostr:nprofile1qqsy9fqe0rz3evqxjkscmekfw49epcsgm5ca9pg70353qjyecxh2q0spz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhszrnhwden5te0dehhxtnvdakz7lwxnrn
nostr:nevent1qqsr339562gqj9s8azrw76pu8360m4l...
That was my turning point into there was something to MeshCore being viable
2❤️1
Spam callers face penalties of up to R1,000,000 in South Africa
So a few amendments made, but what I really am happy to finally see, is the loophole closed around marketers opting in or not: “Any direct marketer who is not registered on the opt-out registry is prohibited from contacting consumers for marketing purposes”.
They have to pay to register, and abide with monthly conditions, and of course there is now potentially a hefty fine too.
I suppose the only issue is going to be around “foreign marketing” but so far all my spam callers had seemed to be for South African companies.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/spam-callers-face-penalties-of-up-to-r1000000-in-south-africa/
#southafrica #spam #technology
So a few amendments made, but what I really am happy to finally see, is the loophole closed around marketers opting in or not: “Any direct marketer who is not registered on the opt-out registry is prohibited from contacting consumers for marketing purposes”.
They have to pay to register, and abide with monthly conditions, and of course there is now potentially a hefty fine too.
I suppose the only issue is going to be around “foreign marketing” but so far all my spam callers had seemed to be for South African companies.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/spam-callers-face-penalties-of-up-to-r1000000-in-south-africa/
#southafrica #spam #technology
LG Monitors Fill Windows PCs With Adware, and It’s Not Just Recent Displays
“If you’re using an LG monitor and you suddenly see blaring ads for McAfee scam protection, it’s not because your PC’s been hacked (or, rather, not hacked by some unknown third party). LG, the maker of popular high-end screens, has been quietly stuffing its current and even past monitors full of adware.”
I missed this somehow but heard about it this morning on the Security Now podcast. The big issue is not really the adverts at all, and if it were not for the adverts, no-one would probably have picked up on the tracking issues (thank you adverts!).
The privacy policy mentions LG can track device usage data and online activity, including what sites you visit and what activities you do on those sites. That is metadata harvesting, much like WhatsApp does, and users should have been aware of it. Although to be honest, most privacy policy issues only become known once someone has highlighted them.
It is also partly an issue with Windows updates and how they just install automatically without any highlighting of changes to a privacy policy. Microsoft has warned LG off of this behaviour, but will that just be the adverts disappearing, or the metadata tracking as well. I'd imagine (my guess here) is that LG was also sharing that metadata with advertisers, like WhatsApp states in their T&Cs as “partners”, so it is not 100% clear how far this all went.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/lg-monitors-fill-windows-pcs-with-adware-and-its-not-just-recent-displays/
#privacy #technology #tracking
“If you’re using an LG monitor and you suddenly see blaring ads for McAfee scam protection, it’s not because your PC’s been hacked (or, rather, not hacked by some unknown third party). LG, the maker of popular high-end screens, has been quietly stuffing its current and even past monitors full of adware.”
I missed this somehow but heard about it this morning on the Security Now podcast. The big issue is not really the adverts at all, and if it were not for the adverts, no-one would probably have picked up on the tracking issues (thank you adverts!).
The privacy policy mentions LG can track device usage data and online activity, including what sites you visit and what activities you do on those sites. That is metadata harvesting, much like WhatsApp does, and users should have been aware of it. Although to be honest, most privacy policy issues only become known once someone has highlighted them.
It is also partly an issue with Windows updates and how they just install automatically without any highlighting of changes to a privacy policy. Microsoft has warned LG off of this behaviour, but will that just be the adverts disappearing, or the metadata tracking as well. I'd imagine (my guess here) is that LG was also sharing that metadata with advertisers, like WhatsApp states in their T&Cs as “partners”, so it is not 100% clear how far this all went.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/lg-monitors-fill-windows-pcs-with-adware-and-its-not-just-recent-displays/
#privacy #technology #tracking
Maybe just individual websites and NomadNet type stuff will really bring the joy out again.
I found that joy browsing NomadNet, I wouldn't mind actually using it more maybe.
Having your own corner s...
Yes I liked that SA service also blocking spam callers by triggering restrictions after 10 people have reported something as spam. Not to block anyone wanting to follow, but rather blocking active promotion of the feed.
1
You know I actually did take your advice on this a while back, turns out all that was missing is a comverter cable.
But eish man, those cables are like wrangling with a poffadder, they are tight.
Wi...
Yep their bendvradiusvis much bigger. No tight turns 🤣
😂1
It Seems a Lot Like Dead Internet Has Actually Come True
“The infamous dead internet theory was originally a conspiracy that posited that the vast majority of the internet was run by bots and thinking machines. Most accounts you saw online were really bots masquerading as people — all part of some nefarious scheme to control humankind by keeping us isolated and divided. That last part is far-fetched, but the core of the idea — that bots outnumber humans online — is inexorably starting to feel weirdly grounded.”
Pretty sad. I remember the first public Internet when bulletin boards migrated onto the new web. It was mostly all human driven with lots of blogs, no adverts, no tracking pixels, and no mobile phones.
Everything moves on and evolves, that is true, but today you certainly can't trust opinions or videos that are seen on the Internet. I can't see the Internet going away, but it is going to be very interesting to see what the future of content holds.
What I'm seeing, is a hollowing out of many of the big platforms such as Facebook, Twitter (who faked numbers to advertisers), etc. Certainly there are still accounts there, but I see next to none of my real human friends or family posting there. Many have migrated off to instant messaging platforms, and the broader other social media users I see, have moved to decentralised platforms like the Fediverse and Bluesky, and the more extreme are active on platforms like Nostr, Secure Scuttlebutt, and some centralised platforms like MeWe and Reddit. LinkedIn is littered with AI generated motivational business memes.
It has all come down to gaming the system that rewards “content”. Like so many things in life, money corrupts. Exciting times, but I'm pretty sure that quality content will still find its niche audiences, and especially for those who want to share and educate others.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/it-seems-a-lot-like-dead-internet-has-actually-come-true/
#ai #bots #technology
“The infamous dead internet theory was originally a conspiracy that posited that the vast majority of the internet was run by bots and thinking machines. Most accounts you saw online were really bots masquerading as people — all part of some nefarious scheme to control humankind by keeping us isolated and divided. That last part is far-fetched, but the core of the idea — that bots outnumber humans online — is inexorably starting to feel weirdly grounded.”
Pretty sad. I remember the first public Internet when bulletin boards migrated onto the new web. It was mostly all human driven with lots of blogs, no adverts, no tracking pixels, and no mobile phones.
Everything moves on and evolves, that is true, but today you certainly can't trust opinions or videos that are seen on the Internet. I can't see the Internet going away, but it is going to be very interesting to see what the future of content holds.
What I'm seeing, is a hollowing out of many of the big platforms such as Facebook, Twitter (who faked numbers to advertisers), etc. Certainly there are still accounts there, but I see next to none of my real human friends or family posting there. Many have migrated off to instant messaging platforms, and the broader other social media users I see, have moved to decentralised platforms like the Fediverse and Bluesky, and the more extreme are active on platforms like Nostr, Secure Scuttlebutt, and some centralised platforms like MeWe and Reddit. LinkedIn is littered with AI generated motivational business memes.
It has all come down to gaming the system that rewards “content”. Like so many things in life, money corrupts. Exciting times, but I'm pretty sure that quality content will still find its niche audiences, and especially for those who want to share and educate others.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/it-seems-a-lot-like-dead-internet-has-actually-come-true/
#ai #bots #technology
3
Both antennas are up
#lora #wireless
https://npub1qhw9rp6sd6rse5vay329jlt6j8ll55g3k0r44cm3uadrusns0q0q9684c8.blossom.band/f23e27b0186ad411d90893d87ac6ef3ddc719e4237ea992c8824afb9e4e62960.mp4
If those are for 868 MHz just check what coax you use as the RG58 type is really for HF frequencies and signal loss for 868 MHz is heavy. For my 4m length up the pole I'm using LMR-400 coax which reduces loss, but even so only around 5m is recommended. The winner is to have a solar-powered node right next to the antenna.
1👍1
EskomSePush app transitioned to neighbourhood service disruptions otherwise it would have died
This is the story of how the app evolved from being a high demand app to manage the electricity load shedding across South Africa, to something completely different after load shedding went away. The app now helps communities crowdsource issue around their water, electricity and Internet outages, and also has channels for safety, weather, and other news in communities.
As I don't use Facebook or WhatsApp I like using EskomSePush as it is highly focussed on my own community and I can mute what is not relevant for periods of time. The closest that it comes to is Telegram, where a community channel could be split into different topics, and each muted if needed. I just have to laugh though at WhatsApp, because although it may be the biggest and most used platform, it really always lags a good year to two years behind its competitors. Sadly so many of its users only seem to use that one app, so have no idea of the benefits of other apps.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/eskomsepush-app-transitioned-to-neighbourhood-service-disruptions-otherwise-it-would-have-died/
#southafrica #technology
This is the story of how the app evolved from being a high demand app to manage the electricity load shedding across South Africa, to something completely different after load shedding went away. The app now helps communities crowdsource issue around their water, electricity and Internet outages, and also has channels for safety, weather, and other news in communities.
As I don't use Facebook or WhatsApp I like using EskomSePush as it is highly focussed on my own community and I can mute what is not relevant for periods of time. The closest that it comes to is Telegram, where a community channel could be split into different topics, and each muted if needed. I just have to laugh though at WhatsApp, because although it may be the biggest and most used platform, it really always lags a good year to two years behind its competitors. Sadly so many of its users only seem to use that one app, so have no idea of the benefits of other apps.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/eskomsepush-app-transitioned-to-neighbourhood-service-disruptions-otherwise-it-would-have-died/
#southafrica #technology