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Please don’t introduce any element of cryptocurrency or blockchain to the project. Nothing it offers will solve any real problem that a simple database couldn’t do more efficiently. No matter how you turn the worm, ”crypto” is a grift. Enough incidences have shown that even small bugs or unintended omissions in the implementation can lead to hostile manipulation and theft. Mitigating the risk of catastrophic failure, once you remove the money from the process, it makes even less sense.

What you need is humans in the decision-making process, not algorithms.

Thanks, it appears to serve the same function as gitolite, which I use in my setup and somehow forgot to mention. The SSH interface seems unnecessary though.

The manual bare repo setup obviously offers no user access management beyond what the system's SSH configuration provides. Beyond that, a bare repository is actually an essential Git feature and what software like Gitea and even GitHub uses behind the scenes.

Given all users can share a user account on a server, it will behave exactly like you expect it to. Again, that's a core Git feature. Additionally, AFAIK Git has its own locking management. Also look up the `--shared` flag. `man git-init` is very helpful.

Funny you should ask. I had actually written this up back then – for a FreeBSD install because it’s what I use.

https://herrbischoff.com/2021/10/how-to-install-cgit-with-gi...

I’ve also tripped over something regarding “master” and “main” branches that’s easily fixed:

https://herrbischoff.com/2022/05/cgit-missing-idle-column-on...

If you want it even simpler, just run

    mkdir repo.git && cd repo.git
    git init —bare

in a folder on a server you have SSH access to and clone it on your local machine like

    git clone user@server:/path/to/repo.git

I cannot stress enough how much I love this as well. This is what we need, all of us, all the time. It’s more common in traditional handcrafting and should be a guiding light for the future of tech.

Less is more. Less but better (to invoke Dieter Rams here). The goal should be a slow, incremental improvement over time, towards perfection.

Gitea is a great piece of software. In fact, when starting out with self hosting, I found it to be a very capable solution with a small footprint.

Over time I realized: I don’t need to be able to merge pull requests and do code reviews in a web interface. Nowadays I’m invested in a plain Git/SSH setup with cgit as a web frontend and email patches.

It never breaks, is as secure as your server is and does everything you usually need, including user permissions.

The `git am`-based workflow is less than popular outside of FreeBSD, Linux kernel development and SourceHut though. Depending on your environment, if used in a work setting, your colleagues may balk.

That being said and given the existing enterprise users of Gitea, it’s entirely natural to eventually offer solutions tailored to their use, like SSO. I wish them the best for building towards a sustainable future while staying true to their core values.

https://xkcd.com/378/ :)

I hear this argument repeatedly. What’s missing is the question _why_ said people do this. I feel it’s not sufficient to lump them together under “some people are leeches” and be done with it. I’d argue that if they had a meaningful responsibility, they wouldn’t bug off.

Back when I started as a freelancer, I initially copied the 9-to-5 rhythm of „working“. That, despite having viewed this forced window of work as one of the biggest annoyances that come with a job.

Over time, I could overcome this „weird“ feeling of not sitting at my desk while working. It went quite a bit like the author describes:

- Load up on context and information.

- Start outlining the problem.

- When stuck, try for a while. If no progress is to be made, go for a walk, do laundry, buy groceries. Stuff _away_ from the computer.

- When potential solution inevitably form in my mind, write them down wherever I am.

I often find that when I arrive at potential solutions this way, I’m usually a lot more motivated as opposed to banging my head against the wall. It’s not only more productive, it’s better for your mental and physical health, it keeps you engaged and satisfied with your work. Many times I simply cannot wait to return to the desk to try the ideas out.

It’s also important to know when to stop. Occasionally there are days where I can get nothing creative done. I have learned the hard way that when I force myself through, more often than not I mess something up so terribly that I need at least half a productive day following up, rectifying what I broke. It may feel like cheating yourself at first but sometimes it’s better to just stop for the day entirely.

However, while employed, have you tried to go out for an extended walk or do something else away from your computer, outside of the building you are required to work in? Deciding to do so without permission can get you a citation and asking for permission leads to blank stares from your co-workers and managers. For many, that’s apparently akin to asking for paid time off whenever you feel like it. The conclusion here can only be that many employers are more interested in owning your time than results, whether they realize this or not. Which brings us to a larger point about work culture and insistence on presence at all times but that’s a huge, separate discussion.

The workaround is trivial and painless, whereas “solving the original problem” would require fundamental changes to decades-old systems conventions. I was responding to the “annoying” part, which is effectively solved using an alias.

> Hiding hidden files is annoying because you have to add -a to ls command

Have you ever heard of aliases?

Well, as long as there are people insisting on calling animals “protein sources”, instead of what they are (living, feeling beings) how can we expect anyone to develop the empathy required to see killing animals “for quackery” – or any other reason for that matter – as wrong?

I’m going further to say that the speculative investment style itself is the problem, for many if not all areas. Once this kind of investor comes in, they want to squeeze the market for all it has, effects be damned. They may as well bet on crop failure – and they do.

I’ve observed this for quite some time now. I’m not exactly affluent. The maximum amount I’m willing and able to spend on any ticket is $50 – and that would have to be an artist I really want to see. The market price is closer to $500. As those two extremes are unlikely to meet any time soon, I’m simply not going and will spend my time (and whatever money there is) on more affordable, more reasonable diversions.

This is another area that will eventually have its bubble popped because it's unsustainable.

I sincerely hope you’re right on this. But as long as we rely on a monetary system based on capitalism, I don’t see this happen, ever, for any extended period of time.

Even if you threw everything away and started from scratch, as long as you could get away with earning those extra few cents per page impression, it will ultimately be done this way. Given enough time, most will follow and you’re back to square one.

> "The saddest thing for me about modern tech’s long spiral into user manipulation and surveillance is how it has just slowly killed off the joy that people like me used to feel about new tech. Every product Meta or Amazon announces makes the future seem bleaker and grayer."

This is me. I used to be fascinated by new technology, to imagine the ways it could make life better for everyone. Today, I’m worried about how to limit its destructiveness. There’s no joy any more.

I know it’s not the technology itself but how we use it. In practical terms this doesn’t make a difference though.

This is a very good idea that I would love to see implemented but it goes against the economic incentives driving websites today.

Lower fidelity would also mean to restrict tracking. Good luck with that. Internet advertising and data mining companies are not exactly renowned for their moral and ethical integrity. They would have no issue draining the data plan of a hurricane victim with ads for homeowners insurance.

It also means more work building those sites. Which is not something I see happening, given that in most projects there is little time to fix structural issues as is. Why fix bugs or optimize payloads when you can ship features?

I would also bet that if lower fidelity meant less (or no) ads, many people would use lower fidelity as a workaround for not having to see them. Which would be exactly what the world needs but is, again, entirely misaligned with most online companies’ economic interests.

Unless the incentives change, websites will continue to bloat until they break.

It amazes me to no end that some people appear to be genuinely surprised by stuff like this. Or they just continue business-as-usual, entirely ignoring massive risks.

In Germany, chancellor Scholz is actively trying to enable the sale of a third of Hamburg’s port (one of the largest in Europe) to Chinese investors by blocking a chamber vote about it. All security services and ministries sound alarm, yet if no vote is completed or investigation into the matter started by the end of the month, the contract passes by default.

Germany has not even encountered the worst effects of the energy crisis brought on by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Yet the highest ranked executive politician tries to ensure that whenever China decides to follow Russias example, Germany’s economy will be destroyed in an instant.

It’s lunacy. It doesn’t even make headlines. What is going on regarding China? Is everyone with economic interests still simply blinded by the volume of the potential Chinese market? Does the Chinese government have career-ending dirt on all of them? I don’t get it. This is not regular, rational behavior for a head of state within Europe.

Trade is normal, selling out your countries’ critical infrastructure to a country holding very different values is plain unconscionable.

It’s for this reason alone that bureaucracy can not be reduced or its processes streamlined in the foreseeable future. It doesn’t even need AI, just digital services. The bureaucrat will fight tooth and nail for the status quo to remain in place and prevent technical updates whenever possible. More efficiency means facing the pointlessness of one’s job. Exhibit A: Germany.

But why do that? What do you gain with a process that is more involved, slower and open to many forms of attack?

> At best they record the intent of an author at some unknown point in the past.

This probably says something about the priority the teams you worked with put on documentation. Write once and never update?

Generally, I like the idea with the user agents filtering and “block everything” rule. No need for geoblocking. Insert a comment about why this is happening and ask for it to be changed.

However, as we’re living in the real world and the authors of the respective browsers strike me as lazy or uninterested, I also bet all that would change is the user agent.

I noticed this too and couldn’t believe it at first. It makes no sense at all. This renders the entry-level iPad essentially dead in the European market. It’s a pointless product for now, especially at 64 GB of storage.

98% of spam I receive originates from Google Mail. Trying to forward such an email through many other providers instantly generates a SMTP reject message, so there’s really no way Google couldn’t do it as well. Reporting spam has also become way harder than it needs to be. And no ones dares block Google, not to mention that, like Microsoft, they use so many outgoing IPs, it’s plain ineffective. So both simply stopped caring because it’s cheaper and they will not suffer any consequences.

They also host known spam operations like Advids for years. They’ve basically become a bulletproof spam hoster.

Good example and exactly what I meant. Having each call on its own line doesn’t solve anything if you also nest the calls.

Indeed. Comments should document intent and – wherever applicable – approaches taken that did NOT work and why. Even awkward code is sometimes okay, if there’s a comment with a clear justification. Saves hours of pointless busywork following down all the paths in a medium to large code base.

This is an argument I’ve heard over and over again throughout my coding career, especially from JavaScript and PHP developers. Interestingly enough there was a noticable overlap between this mindset and “clever” code, comprised of endless chaining, nested statements and/or internal recursion. They also never wrote code comments – at all. The defense being: “I think this way and its easier for me!” Regarding comments: “The code IS the documentation!”

Of course, they were never around 6 months later to prove if they still understood their gobbledygook then. They never had to refactor anything.

I have very rarely encountered a piece of code that would be hard to fit into 80 characters width while being readable. In fact, if done correctly, it forces you to break stuff up into manageable pieces and simple statements, to be explicit and often verbose.

But if this runs counter to a messy, ego-centric style a developer is used to and there’s no one to reign them in, it’s what you get.

Wow. So apparently it makes more sense for a church to create tons of plastic waste (not to mention cost) instead of scaling down or simply foregoing the mass ritual, letting the priest do it for the flock. I’d like to understand how this can be reconciled with taking care of “all of creation”. And what have pre-packages portions even to do with the ritual?

I believe there is (or very much should be) something like a “principle of least surprise” in product design. Delight is great but this is unexpected, annoying behavior.

I took from all the comments to experiment with turning off auto-complete. So far its going great. You can still manually select words to substitute or complete but the algorithm won’t change any words by itself.

> The only somewhat free place I've seen is 4Chan but it contains so much toxicity, that's its barely bearable.

I’d argue that every place that allows every kind of speech without restriction will eventually degenerate into a cesspit. You lose the reasonable people quickly because they don’t want to deal with the toxicity and it’s all downhill from there.

> The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance