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meonkeys

206 karma · joined July 9, 2012

Adam Monsen.

My book: https://selfhostbook.com

In case anyone still trusts & uses keybase:

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/meonkeys; my proof: https://keybase.io/meonkeys/sigs/fEwfH1Pzs5TMp9n4wDRXYjpm7eNLdfKjriDGlPWdgbM ]

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meonkeys··on I Bypassed Adobe and Microsoft to Build a Git-Tracked Book Production Pipeline
I enjoyed using Asciidoctor to write a book. It necessitates using a text editor instead of a word processor so it doesn't fit DJ's use case, but it really is quite nice.

I'm also fascinated by the build for Ada & Zangemann, a FOSS illustrated full-color children's book. It looks rather complex, but it handles translations, beautiful typesetting, and was remarkably fast when I tried running the build locally.

meonkeys··on Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator
fascinating. John Carreyrou is the guy who broke the Theranos story!

But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_Electric%3A_The_Bitcoin_... is a bit more compelling. Satoshi is Adam Back and Peter Todd.

meonkeys··on Suicide Linux (2009)
If you like qntm check out SCP Foundation and There Is No Antimemetics Division
meonkeys··on What has Docker become?
What's the most important thing for Docker, Inc. to do right now?
meonkeys··on Vietnam bans unskippable ads
How about a world without money?
meonkeys··on How GitHub monopoly is destroying the open source ecosystem
For what part(s) of github?

Free as in freedom?

Many other tools/platforms provide decent source control and issue tracking. Nothing else has the FOSS project market share of github, and this matters especially when you're looking for the canonical home of a project and trying to judge how popular/active/viable it is (stars/commits/issues/PRs).

If you want exposure and participation for your FOSS project, it's harder to not use github.

FWIW, Forgejo does the source control stuff well. I love it for self-hosted local mirrors.

meonkeys··on PNG in Chrome shows a different image than in Safari or any desktop app
Try eog, if you have it. The colors look bright for me in that viewer.
meonkeys··on C100 Developer Terminal
Hard pass. Another Linux laptop with another sus distro won't teach anyone how to focus. Save a hand-me-down laptop from the landfill, install a known good distro, and do the hard work of culling distractions.
meonkeys··on Markdown is holding you back
I wouldn't use Markdown for that.

You're right to start with your requirements. Try to get detailed, like the list @WA wrote out, then match it up with appropriate tech.

I wrote a technical book and I also wanted multiple decent-looking outputs. In my case: HTML, EPUB/mobi, screen and print PDFs. I was struggling with Markdown+pandoc+custom scripts/styles, so I switched to Asciidoc. I wrote about that process here: https://adammonsen.com/post/2122/

Most of the formats came out satisfactory, but there were some gotchas. https://github.com/meonkeys/shb/#%EF%B8%8F-book-formats lists some, and https://github.com/meonkeys/shb/blob/main/issues.adoc has more. Translating from English to German went OK with asciidoc, but it might have been better with docbook and standard translation tools for working with .po files.

Here are two examples where the author used Markdown and the result was beautiful and successful (although layout for printed editions were done with extra/other tooling): http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com , http://www.craftinginterpreters.com . I'm curious if Bob would/will use Markdown for his next book. My process is different than Bob's... I didn't need literate code and I didn't want to do _any_ layout/pre/post-processing, even for print. Asciidoctor worked for this, although there were some compromises (see my links above). Print-ready layout is a lot of work, however you do it.

Is this your first book? Do you have a publisher? Will it be printed on paper? Do you have a developmental editor / proofreader / etc? Do you have a plan for what you'll do after you publish e.g. talks/promos/tour?

Contact me if you want to chat. I'm happy to share my war stories. And good luck!

meonkeys··on Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker
This is awesome follow-through by @a-fadil / @afadil. Here's a similar post from a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41465735

In the space of local-first finance apps, I've really enjoyed Actual Budget (as have many, based on what I'm seeing in other comments). I'll check out Wealthfolio but like @dw_arthur I'm concerned about looking at investments too much / too often. I try to invest based on personal experience / value and always go long. I use off-budget accounts in Actual to track investments/illiquid value changes and update them every 6mo-1yr. I'm sure a spreadsheet would work fine for this as well. But for someone who moves investments more frequently, Wealthfolio looks awesome.

For managing my life's data, this golden combination is always going to win: app that works well | full/local control of data | sane FOSS project governance | software license mitigates enshittification (e.g. AGPLv3)

meonkeys··on Email verification protocol
Skimming that I'm thinking yes, sure, why not, but this repo is missing useful context. Who are you, authors? Why should I bother learning this protocol? Is anyone using or going to use this? If it's new, has it been shopped around at conferences? Any related research?
meonkeys··on SeaGL 2025
Indeed! I was just coming back here to edit my comment. Thank you!
meonkeys··on Why Nextcloud feels slow to use
https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/stable/admin_manual/instal... is a great place to start.

So much depends on your use case. Can you say more about that? And what have you already tried? I'm skeptical their server-side tuning suggestions will improve your "initial loading delay" depending on what that means exactly. If you mean you see a slow cold cache page load of the Files app web UI (or any Nextcloud app, really) then I'd say that's common with many complex JS-heavy web apps, including Nextcloud.

FWIW, my Nextcloud web UI seems as fast as I'd expect. Roughly 5sec to load the Files app completely in Firefox (logged-in & warm cache) and this is roughly the same time Google Drive takes to do the same thing! Navigating folders actually feels faster in Nextcloud Files.

I'm not using the web UI except when I have to. I do as much as possible locally (e.g. editing docs, contacts/calendars/tasks). I mostly use Nextcloud for mobile and desktop file/calendar/contacts/photo/notes/tasks sync & share and it seems to do quite well at this. Server-side I did spend a lot of time tuning at first, but it has been stable for years once I got it to a good place.

meonkeys··on SeaGL 2025
Works for me. I'm getting a Let's Encrypt cert with CN: pretalx.seagl.org
meonkeys··on Why Nextcloud feels slow to use
PhoneTrack +1, if you don't mind some tinkering. It looks like a power tool someone made with great care.

I wish there was a better client-side view/share app. I've been meaning to try Dawarich, I've heard it does this better.

meonkeys··on Avoid 2:00 and 3:00 am cron jobs (2013)
anacron is worth a mention here for sometimes-on computers like desktops, laptops, or personal servers. It's great for ensuring something runs at the set interval, or just whenever the machine comes back online. Minimum anacron interval is one day, so this can't simply replace cron. cron might even be the most sensible thing to use to kick off anacron on your system, and it might already be in use (see if your /etc/crontab fires off anacron).

anacron won't have the OP's 2am/3am issue because it locks jobs while they run, so multiple job spawns should be no-ops. Still seems like it would be good practice to, e.g. use UTC for the host system and do whatever else might help avoid the unnecessary re-spawns.

meonkeys··on Twake Drive – An open-source alternative to Google Drive
Is this a joke?

There's lots more to hosting your own file share/sync tool than just standing it up.

meonkeys··on Ovi: Twin backbone cross-modal fusion for audio-video generation
Lazyweb: Are these related? If so, how?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45603435

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45652726

meonkeys··on Forgejo v13.0 Is Available
I noticed I was on 8 today. Running in Docker. In case this helps anyone else: Upgrade from 8 to 9 worked fine (just by switching the Docker label), then from 9 to 11 worked, and since 11 is LTS I'll stay on that for a while.

https://forgejo.org/releases/ says 11 is supported until July 16, 2026.

meonkeys··on Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI
There's... something at https://boydkane.com/index.xml

I guessed the URL based on the Quartz docs. It seems to work but only has a few items from https://boydkane.com/essays/

meonkeys··on Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI
It shows up at https://boydkane.com under the link "Why your boss isn't worried about advanced AI". Must be some kind of sub-heading, but not part of the actual article / blog post.

Presumably it's a phrase you might hear from a boss who sees AI as similar to (and as benign/known/deterministic as) most other software, per TFA

meonkeys··on The case against social media is stronger than you think
Yes, this. It's a symptom of late-stage capitalism.
meonkeys··on Fukushima insects tested for cognition
Should be: ...Tested for Impaired Cognition
meonkeys··on Mobile Voting
I'm excited about safe online voting, but where's the source code? (it could be that it is licensed open source but not distributed/released anywhere yet)

How does the Mobile Voting platform compare with Voatz and other options?

meonkeys··on The future is not self-hosted
Will you clarify "centralization of content and the licensing"? Regarding DRM, specifically. If you own said content then sure, you can E2EE and store it in whatever cloud you prefer while avoiding common attention/control/data hoarding (read: enshittification) of commercial online cloud & online services. If you're saying DRM is OK then you're conflating commercial commodities with public utilities. The point of the former is to make money, the latter is to enrich our lives by taking care of basic human needs.
meonkeys··on The future is not self-hosted
Well-said, Drew! This is inspiring.

The privileged enjoy far more privacy and autonomy and this is brought into sharp focus with wonderful hobbies like self-hosting. Perhaps it all boils down to end-stage capitalism, and perhaps there's a technical solution where selflessness overcomes end-stage capitalism. Someone else mentioned incentives and yeah, that'll help, but hopefully we'll collectively choose to do the hard thing because it's the right thing. Heck, maybe the right thing will also be the easy thing if we come up with better ideas like yours.

meonkeys··on Fossify – A suite of open-source, ad-free apps
/e/ OS installed DIY or pre-installed by Murena (especially on a Fairphone) solves many of the issues mentioned in other threads. It's an AOSP fork with a simple decent launcher and near-zero bloatware (I only chose to disable weather and magic earth maps). Built-in access to many simpler and more user-respecting apps in F-Droid. Tracker protection and other privacy features. Works well with Nextcloud if you use that.

Doesn't fit everyone's use case. No iMessage, no RCS, no visual voicemail, no spatial audio. Personally I don't need or want any of that, I just want a smartphone I can mostly control.

meonkeys··on Air India flight to London crashes in Ahmedabad with more than 240 onboard
Odd, I got a cert warning for that URL. This worked: https://xcancel.com/ShivAroor/status/1933165937399648447
meonkeys··on Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook
Why?
meonkeys··on Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot
I tried saving named links in a text file, offline reading in Wallabag, full archiving with Archivebox, and fancier bookmarking/tagging with Karakeep. I found each does a bit of what I want so I now use all four. Heh
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