I’m the administrator of kbin.life, a general purpose/tech orientated kbin instance.

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 29th, 2023

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  • The government absolutely uses sql frequently, even if they still have older mainframes with some other database architecture.

    This makes more sense. But even then they would surely transfer data from the old system over.

    I mean I’m liking the idea that they went down into the basement, started up an old mini computer, with “superman 3” magnetic tapes with data from the 1980s to force them to try to integrate with that and only after transferring the data at 1000cps, find out it’s entirely out of date.

    I mean, it won’t be the case, but I’d really like it to be. 😛


  • It’s a terminology thing really yes. I mean a database (SQL or not) shouldn’t need de-duplication by nature of how the record index/keys work.

    If they’re not using a form of SQL though, I’d be very interested in what they are using. Back in the 90s I was messing around with things like Btrieve and other even more antiquated database engines. But all the software I used that utilised such things was converted to use a form of SQL (even if in some cases there were internal wrappers to allow access in the older way too via legacy code) over 20 years ago.

    If I were an American though my biggest concern would be that Musk is able to know the structure AND content of the social security database. His post (if we believe it) demonstrates he must have access to both pieces of information.



  • I think their auction servers are a hidden gem. I mean the prices used to be better. Now they have some kind of systrem that resets them when they get too low. But the prices are still pretty good I think. But a year or two ago I got a pretty good deal on two decently spec’d servers.

    People are scared off by the fact you just get their rescue prompt on auctions boxes… Except their rescue prompt has a guided imaging setup tool to install pretty much every popular distro with configurable raid options etc.


  • I feel like the only even remotely acceptable way to do this is to show the ad, prompt for the answer for 10 seconds. They can log the right/wrong answer or if the time expires the lack of one and must move on.

    I can imagine metrics knowing if your advertising is actually reaching people is valid. But to make people answer and especially make them watch more if they answer wrong is about as dystopian as it gets.

    If (and I say if, I really don’t want to believe it is) that is the case, the only correct response is to uninstall Hulu immediately and put on your pirate hat.


  • For threadiverse (lemmy/mbin et al) there’s not much in it. It’s fairly easy for an operator to curate their instance by pre subscribing to a whole bunch of communities. I run my own instance, barely any users and I’m constantly banning and deleting them for advertising. But I have plenty of content.

    I made my own mastodon instance and connected to a bunch of groups. Only two or three are active. There’s not really an easy way to get content without following a lot of people. So anyone visiting my instance will see virtually nothing. If they go to social they will see plenty.

    So it’s a bit of a no brainer for most I think.




  • So on my mbin instance, it’s on cloudflare. So I filter the AS numbers there. Don’t even reach my server.

    On the sites that aren’t behind cloudflare. Yep it’s on the nginx level. I did consider firewall level. Maybe just make a specific chain for it. But since I was blocking at the nginx level I just did it there for now. I mean it keeps them off the content, but yes it does tell them there’s a website there to leech if they change their tactics for example.

    You need to block the whole ASN too. Those that are using chrome/firefox UAs change IP every 5 minutes from a random other one in their huuuuuge pools.


  • Yeah, I probably should look to see if there’s any good plugins that do this on some community submission basis. Because yes, it’s a pain to keep up with whatever trick they’re doing next.

    And unlike web crawlers that generally check a url here and there, AI bots absolutely rip through your sites like something rabid.


  • If you’re running nginx I am using the following:

    if ($http_user_agent ~* "SemrushBot|Semrush|AhrefsBot|MJ12bot|YandexBot|YandexImages|MegaIndex.ru|BLEXbot|BLEXBot|ZoominfoBot|YaK|VelenPublicWebCrawler|SentiBot|Vagabondo|SEOkicks|SEOkicks-Robot|mtbot/1.1.0i|SeznamBot|DotBot|Cliqzbot|coccocbot|python|Scrap|SiteCheck-sitecrawl|MauiBot|Java|GumGum|Clickagy|AspiegelBot|Yandex|TkBot|CCBot|Qwantify|MBCrawler|serpstatbot|AwarioSmartBot|Semantici|ScholarBot|proximic|GrapeshotCrawler|IAScrawler|linkdexbot|contxbot|PlurkBot|PaperLiBot|BomboraBot|Leikibot|weborama-fetcher|NTENTbot|Screaming Frog SEO Spider|admantx-usaspb|Eyeotabot|VoluumDSP-content-bot|SirdataBot|adbeat_bot|TTD-Content|admantx|Nimbostratus-Bot|Mail.RU_Bot|Quantcastboti|Onespot-ScraperBot|Taboolabot|Baidu|Jobboerse|VoilaBot|Sogou|Jyxobot|Exabot|ZGrab|Proximi|Sosospider|Accoona|aiHitBot|Genieo|BecomeBot|ConveraCrawler|NerdyBot|OutclicksBot|findlinks|JikeSpider|Gigabot|CatchBot|Huaweisymantecspider|Offline Explorer|SiteSnagger|TeleportPro|WebCopier|WebReaper|WebStripper|WebZIP|Xaldon_WebSpider|BackDoorBot|AITCSRoboti|Arachnophilia|BackRub|BlowFishi|perl|CherryPicker|CyberSpyder|EmailCollector|Foobot|GetURL|httplib|HTTrack|LinkScan|Openbot|Snooper|SuperBot|URLSpiderPro|MAZBot|EchoboxBot|SerendeputyBot|LivelapBot|linkfluence.com|TweetmemeBot|LinkisBot|CrowdTanglebot|ClaudeBot|Bytespider|ImagesiftBot|Barkrowler|DataForSeoBo|Amazonbot|facebookexternalhit|meta-externalagent|FriendlyCrawler|GoogleOther|PetalBot|Applebot") { return 403; }

    That will block those that actually use recognisable user agents. I add any I find as I go on. It will catch a lot!

    I also have a huuuuuge IP based block list (generated by adding all ranges returned from looking up the following AS numbers):

    AS45102 (Alibaba cloud) AS136907 (Huawei SG) AS132203 (Tencent) AS32934 (Facebook)

    Since these guys run or have run bots that impersonate real browser agents.

    There are various tools online to return prefix/ip lists for an autonomous system number.

    I put both into a single file and include it into my web site config files.

    EDIT: Just to add, keeping on top of this is a full time job! EDIT 2: Removed Mojeek bot as it seems to be a normal web crawler.




  • I think it’ll be a “we’ll see” situation. This was the main concern for y2k. And I don’t doubt there’s some stuff that was partially patched from y2k still around that is still using string dates.

    But the vast majority of software now works with timestamps and of course some things will need work. But with y2k the vast majority of business software needed changing. I think in this case the vast majority will be working correctly already and it’ll be the job of developers (probably in a panic less than a year before as is the custom) too catch the few outliers and yes some will escape through the cracks. But that was also the case last time round too.


  • You’re right on every point. But, I’m not sure how that goes against what I said.

    Most applications now use the epoch for date and time storage, and for the 2038 problem the issues will be down to making sure either tiime_t or 64bit long values (and matching storage) which will be a much smaller change then was the case for y2k. Since more people also use libraries for date and time handling it’s also likely this will be handled.

    Most databases have datetime types which again are almost certainly already ready for 2038.

    I just don’t think the scale is going to be close to the same.


  • Not really processor based. The timestamp needs to be ulong (not advised but good for date ranges up to something like 2100, but cannot express dates before 1970). Or llong (long long). I think it’s a bad idea but I bet some people too lazy to change their database schema will just do this internally.

    The type time_t in Linux is now 64bit regardless. So, compiling applications that used that will be fine. Of course it’s a problem if the database is storing 32bit signed integers. The type on the database can be changed too and this isn’t hard really.

    As for the Y10K problem. It will almost entirely only be formatting problems I think. In the 80s and 90s, storage was at a premium, databases were generally much simpler and as such dates were very often stored as YYMMDD. There also wasn’t so much use of standard libraries. So this meant that to fix the Y2K problem required quite some work. In some cases there wasn’t time to make a proper solution. Where I was working there was a two step solution.

    One team made the interim change to adjust where all dates were read and evaluate anything <30 (it wasn’t 30, it was another number but I forget which) to be 2000+number and anything else 1900+number. This meant the existing product would be fine for another 30 years or so.

    The other team was writing the new version of the software, which used MSSQL server as a back-end, with proper datetime typed columns and worked properly with years before and after 2000.

    I suspect this wasn’t unusual in terms of approach and most software is using some form of epoch datatype which should be fine in terms of storing, reading and writing dates beyond Y10K. But some hard-coded date format strings will need to be changed.

    Source: I was there, 3000 years ago.


  • Resistance alone doesn’t cause heat. Drawing current through resistance causes heat at the point (or points) of resistance. Which is why I clarified that it’s not likely so much a problem on small loads.

    This is why resisters come in different physical sizes. Because they have differing abilities to dissipate power as heat.

    A good example is of dummy loads in radio use. Which needs to dissipate the power output of a radio. That can be anything from milliwatts to a kilowatt. Up to probably 50w they will have a basic heatsink. I’ve seen huge drums filled with oil as 50ohm resisters to handle up to a kilowatt of dissipation.


  • I think a lot of people are mostly on the money here. It’s to do with resistance. Now, I’m not a qualified electrician, but I’m an amateur radio license holder and a lot of what you learn for that is applicable here.

    The main problem as many have said is resistance. This comes about from both the length of the conductors but also from every plug/socket connection adds resistance. Also in the case of the non extension socket multipliers, as you add more the weight bearing down would also likely start to make the connections less secure causing more resistance and possibly adding to the problem through arcing.

    Now the resistance alone on small loads likely wouldn’t be a huge problem. But if you had a large enough load (specifically at the end of the stacked connectors/extensions), or a fault that caused a larger than expected load the current would cause the resistance to generate heat.

    There’s a lot of ifs and maybes involved, but really why do it? There’s really no real world situation to need to have a dangerous amount of extensions like this though.

    For larger loads here in the UK there’s some very specific other concerns when dealing with ring mains. But really you’d need to do really weird/unusual things for that to become a problem.