2y ago

This should be a pinned post as it really captures the essence of my experience so far.

Source by joedeandev

120 comments

XKCD is amazing.
- Randall Monroe has provided me with weekly nibbles of entertainment for nearly 2 decades. But this was inspired by his style, not created by him.
  
  I realize that now. Well done!
- Do you remember what the original was?
  
  I think it's https://xkcd.com/1425/
  
  This is original work. The source is in the post.
  
  A bit of reverse image searching reveals this was the original XKCD comic (more specifically, the top middle panel): https://xkcd.com/1269/

So, basically ham radio but with more Kubernetes.
- HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
- I was curious and looked up the origins of 'ham'. Apparently it originates from "ham-fisted" describing second-rate morse-code skills of telegraphists before radio was a thing
  
  Interesting. I've originally heard it loosely attributed as a kind of homophone aberration where 'ham' comes from 'hamature'. But maybe it's vice-versa, or that's a corporate line from the organization ARRL Amateur Radio Relay League.
- As a self-hoster thats also a ham…
  Fucking ow.

Self hosted
Cloud provided media storage
- You want to talk about it?
  
  Don't threaten me with a good time
- It could be their own cloud. I refer to my VPSes as "the cloud" even though that's still self-hosting. My "cloud storage" would just be a 10TB storage VPS I've got.
  
  No one else uses the term "cloud" like that.
  That part of this comic really stuck out like a sore thumb. I can't tell if it's an oversight, a comment about the challenges of self-hosting, or subtle mockery of self-hosting hypocrisy.
  
  I don’t like the use of the word cloud, makes it sound like some mystical virtual environment in the sky that anyone can use and it just works.
  It’s someone else’s computer, nothing more
  
  Asking for a friend, where do you get a 10TB VPS and how much does it cost?
- This counts as discussion of self-hosting.
- My case is a variant of that - I used to host on a VPS, but the storage available was extremely expensive for, say, more than 16 GB. Tired of having to trim data literally daily, I went and purchased a home server with all the storage I would need. The problem? My home internet, being residential, is behind CG-NAT (not even a dynamic IP!), and that means renting a (much cheaper) VPS solely to expose my server to the open internet with a static IP.
  
  For exposing your server to the internet, a $10/year 512MB RAM VPS would be more than enough. You can also get VPSes with way more storage for a reasonable price, especially during Black Friday. The VPS I'm hosting Lemmy and Mastodon on has 99GB disk space and is only $33/year, but that was part of a limited sale.

I’m in this picture and it’s making me feel uncomfortable

And this is why I love my admin(s) be they human or ai i have no idea how or why but thank you for doing it.
i feel like i am showing up to a garden party in a nice pair of slacks, blazer, and shoes and everyone else is in a mecha

insert Thanos stone meme.
We self host an instance to share knowledge about self-hosting that instance.
- Reminds me of early days of Linux.
  You should ditch windows and switch to Linux! It has everything!
  What I can I do on it?
  You can compile your own kernel!
  ....
- We must self host an instance to discuss self hosting instances to discuss self hosting the instance.

Most self hosting isn't even needed but it sure as hell is satisfying
- Is anything we do even needed?

This is 100% me but for Lemmy.
- Can confirm, lol

LMAO. So, so true and I have no problem with it. Self-hosted seems to be one of the most active communities on Lemmy. I learn a lot and y’all all seem cool.

I've been self-hosting Mastodon for a while and mostly using it to share bird photography, but also to provide comments on a static site. Since Mastodon and Lemmy both speak ActivityPub, those get crossposted to /c/flashlight so Lemmy comments are also included on my site. Federation is cool.
I don't follow many accounts that post Fediverse meta stuff on Mastodon. While I have some interest in the best examples of that content, the only way to attract a broader community is to promote accounts and content appealing to the interests of that broader audience.
- Wow, that comments section is really nice! How did you implement it? Does the site also use ActivityPub and subscribe to the thread?
  
  It uses the Mastodon API in a client-side script adapted from this one.
- Mmmmmmmm Emisar… I picked up the DT8 recently and it’s absolutely hilarious. I love it so much.

I should docker a Mastodon instance behind my reverse proxy asap!
- I think you a word.

Image Transcription:
A one-panel XKCD-style comic with the title "The Self-Hoster" One character is seated at a computer, talking to a second character standing behind their chair. Character one says: "It took all weekend, but now that I have a Mastodon instance running in Docker behind a reverse proxy with cloud-provided media storage, I can enjoy interacting with a federated network of other users without compromising on privacy or content moderation." Character two replies: "Cool, what kinds of topics does your network discuss?" Character one replies: "Our experiences self-hosting Mastodon instances, mostly."
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
- The only mistake I see is attributing the work to XKCD.
  
  Hm, I guess I assumed based on the style. It's an edit? I'm not really sure what to call it then. I've edited my post but if you have any suggestions please let me know.

Love it. . IMO opinion self hosted instances are the coolest thing about federated social media and it's part of how we will take back the internet from the corporations that have captured it.
- IMO opinion
  You know what 'IMO' is an acronym for, right?
  
  SMH my head
  
  IMO my opinion I don't know
  
  In My Own opinion, lmao ass off.
- Wow.....you really believe this?
  
  Only one way to find out!

Hey why the personal attack.
- Collateral damage can't always be avoided.

Meh, it's a hobby. Lots of people talk about their hobbies.
Still a funny comic, though.

Hope that’s mostly a joke.
- its not.
  Edit: https://cybercitizen.group/public/local
- Of course it's a joke. We also host other things not just Mastodon. 🙄
  
  Hey… wanna start a lemmy instance?
- Me too

I was on Lemmy for a month before I realized this was a community about hosting servers, and not the Lemmy equivalent of a self.post from Reddit. 🤦‍♂️

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters

IP Internet Protocol
NAT Network Address Translation
VPN Virtual Private Network
VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.
[Thread #84 for this sub, first seen 27th Aug 2023, 20:05] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

Fewer Letters	More Letters
IP	Internet Protocol
NAT	Network Address Translation
VPN	Virtual Private Network
VPS	Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)

I feel seen.
- Privacy compromised!

I hate googling things and just being lead back to reddit... Where my account was permabanned for "Report Abuse", something literally not even discussed in their TOS
And they're not every clear on if I'm allowed to use an alternate account, they just said "If you go onto another account and continue this misbehavior it'll be banned", which sounds like I'm allowed to use an alt, but..... only if it plays by the rules, but else where I'm seeing that "Ban Evasion" is against the rules, so which is it Jim Jam?
- I hate googling things and just being lead back to reddit
  This is so far my biggest problem med Lemmy and federation in general, all content is not in one place. It was nice just searching for problem x reddit and you found a solution 9/10 times (because you had everything in one place).
  
  That and the Specific Fandoms aren't here, no FNAF, no Sonic, no Taco Bill, no Mudkips, nothing
- Their stance is that you personally are banned for life from subs regardless of which account. Would be a real shame if your IP got changed between accounts, your cookies and local storage got cleared, and you never mentioned the old account again. You could accidentally post in a sub you got banned from, and they wouldn't be able to helpfully re-ban you from the sub!
  If you were still trying to spend time on reddit in the first place at least.
  
  That's what my "friend" did. Reddit banned every account he used on his phone at once, but with a different IP, desktop browser, and cookie isolation, they haven't noticed so far. He might sound like some professional troll, but he was actually banned for a stupid reason.
  
  huh
- I genuinely think Reddit might be the worst social media site just cause of the egregious amount of echo chambering. And I'm not even talking about only one side of the political spectrum is on the site, it's sub-dependent. If you don't fully agree with anything in a community you run the risk of the ban hammer at the very least in the community and possibly even site-wide. Every single community (and apparently Reddit) has at least one rule that's vague enough for them to justify removing posts/banning people they don't like with it. And even worse, everyone on the site thinks they're the epitome of intelligence cause they've been in their circlejerk forever.
  
  The kind of people who mistake their own ass for an air freshener.
  
  tbf I feel like lemmy also has a lot of echo chambering, it's literally 70% tech nerds and nearly everyone is atheist
  
  @midas10 @HawlSera this is the reason I got rid of reddit long before last chaos. It was like everyone tried to send message "you could think exactly like us or you are traitor, crazy, human trash and you deserve the worst". It was too exhausting for me.

I don't host a Mastodon but I can feel this.

No alt-text makes me sad. Can't be an xkcd without it.
- "Found myself moderating chats about my Mastodon moderation setup."
- It's not XKCD

Now I have to self host mastodon to join the party 🥳

This sounds complicated, but it's pretty standard practice and probably a matter of minutes to set up if you have self-hosted other services before. What takes more time is the stuff that's not standard, like ominous configuration options.
- Very easy to set up and almost no work to maintain*
  If you, despite knowing better, rarely update your containers and host OS and often think about a list of other important tasks that you have yet to do.

Accurate. We care about privacy and quality. A rare breed.

Hmm... Maybe i should write a Post about my Problems with the home Assistant App ^^
But Unfortunatally i mostly think "the official forum might be a better Place?"

So true

They are laughing at you, not with you.
- All my life.

Shit I'm about to turn my old computer into a server. And tbh I don't need it but I gots to use it for something.

It's always fun when my Nextcloud server crashes and I lose calendar sync
- Or when I use my server through a VPN and fail2ban bans me

Maybe let's not suggest that all self-hosting is just container-bros and related struggles?
- ….. am i a container bro?
- Wow, gate keeping self hosting. I guess there's one in every community.

Sorry there’s a Mastodon subreddit? If it’s purpose isn’t nearly exclusively to redirect people to Mastodon then what are we doin lol
- I'm enjoying my weekend, how about you?

120 comments