And we will repeat again, as the vast majority of Yahoo groups have migrated to Groups.io, yet another private entity that will probably be sold and allowed to stagnate. Rinse and repeat.
A commenter on Fedi noted that he has posts from 20 years ago still available on Usenet, but recent posts on discord and phpbb web forums etc, long gone as the
individual websites and software have deteriorated, been pwned, or abandoned.
The thing is Yahoo groups, Groups.io, etc are just glorified mailing lists with additional services like file storage, wikis, etc. Could Netnews/Mailing-lists along with DAT/Bittorrent/IPFS/Datashards like file storage and websites provide a federated long-term replacement not dependent on individual corporations.
Understandably, even Usenet would be gone without entities providing infrastucture, but that seems to outlasted most web forums and Yahoo/Google groups even considering the wasteland that is Usenet currently.
It is kinda sad, but I think a lot of that was due to price. You’re targeting tinkerers who play with scrap and make things? A $15/issue magazine is probably not the best way.
This sounds super interesting. SSB is kinda cool, but does require a network connection, so something airgapped would be nice.
You may want to look into some of the work done by FreeNet, as they are able to transport FSK objects via sneakernet (Used to smuggle info in an out of North Korea).
That is odd, back when I spent more time on SSB, one of the things touted was that a network wasn’t needed. Updates could be done via a USB device by friends meeting at a pub, for instance. Has this changed?
Despite having the capability to support Sneakernet, there are very few well supported plugins or packages for SSB that reliably support this. There have been discussions about it but if you actually want to replicate your SSB feed today without ever touching a UDP/TCP stack, your options are limited.
Having a fully sneakernet-based protocol would be great for constrained / lightweight systems. Unfortunately, SSB as it is today is best suited for desktops that can run Electron type apps (or install Node/NPM). You will be able to find partial implementations of the SSB protocol in other languages, but if you read through the source, you will quickly find that they either a) only implement part of the protocol b) are just a thin wrapper to a NodeJS-based SSB server on the local machine. I think these folks are working on an early stage Rust alternate implementation. Also, projects like Manyverse are improving this situation for Android/iOS, but are still pretty early. I think the main reason for this stagnation is that SSB has a lot of moving parts and a JS-based reference implementation rather than a fully documented protocol (at least since I last checked). I also think this could be avoided by focusing only on the sneakernet-based use cases (and not worrying about the network related ones) while also designing the protocol from a spec rather than a reference implementation.
TL;DR: The SSB of today supports sneakernet in theory, but not in practice. Furthermore, it does not supply a formal specification for implementations on constrained / non-Javascript systems.
=== DISCLAIMER ===
I hope that readers of this comment do not interpret this as a criticism of the SSB protocol, but rather that I had some very specific requirements that SSB wasn’t really designed for. With that being said, it’s one of the best decentralized protocols in recent years and I use it daily. The SSBC is doing a great job of building a specific technology for a specific need
BBSes did this all the time, via UUCP and QWK packets. This sounds like a great way to implement it, seeing as UUCP is designed just for this type of not-always-on connection.
I think the original idea started out using ham radio, but then it was shot down by many people explaining the pecuniary interest part would make it illegal.
There’s quite an interesting intersection of ham radio, crypto currency nerds, and gun hoarders. I surmise it’s the whole bootstraps thing.
This is really cool, nonlinear! There are a lot of radio geeks in tildes and pubnixes, so it will be neat to see if they converge on this. If I ever have enough time to get into radio as a hobby, I will sign up too.
Sweet, I love Retro Forth. I am currently developing a signup form for the radiofreqs.space project using retro. I will be putting the source on tildegit once it is somewhat working.
You can contact the author, crc, on #retro or #forth on freenode. He is very helpful with questions and providing code examples/tips.
Oh, and the author of Retro also has many code examples, including a web server and a gopher server: http://forth.works/examples/index.html. In fact, the forth.works website is served with the Casket webserver, written in Retro Forth.
And, the author has a very nice gopher client published on the iTunes app store for iOS users.
To explore his other projects see his main site: http://forthworks.com (which is a gopher hole, served via Atua-www (written in retro) which serves gopher over http.)
Why am I not surprised here?
I’ve been warning folks against Yahoo groups for this very reason. Same with google groups.
Everything can be gone in an instant, and there is nothing you can do about it.
And we will repeat again, as the vast majority of Yahoo groups have migrated to Groups.io, yet another private entity that will probably be sold and allowed to stagnate. Rinse and repeat.
A commenter on Fedi noted that he has posts from 20 years ago still available on Usenet, but recent posts on discord and phpbb web forums etc, long gone as the individual websites and software have deteriorated, been pwned, or abandoned.
The thing is Yahoo groups, Groups.io, etc are just glorified mailing lists with additional services like file storage, wikis, etc. Could Netnews/Mailing-lists along with DAT/Bittorrent/IPFS/Datashards like file storage and websites provide a federated long-term replacement not dependent on individual corporations.
Understandably, even Usenet would be gone without entities providing infrastucture, but that seems to outlasted most web forums and Yahoo/Google groups even considering the wasteland that is Usenet currently.
Hat-tip to @freemor via twtxt
This is super cool :)
Shame that Make is gone, but awesome that the issues have been made freely available.
It is kinda sad, but I think a lot of that was due to price. You’re targeting tinkerers who play with scrap and make things? A $15/issue magazine is probably not the best way.
https://www.csail.mit.edu/news/fernando-corby-corbato-1926-2019
Interesting…
Seems the disruption started a bit before the earthquake. This could be game changing for detection efforts.
Indeed. I had posted this previously, very interesting article in the subject: Earthquakes in the Sky
https://www.space.com/lightsail-2-sends-back-first-signals.html
This sounds super interesting. SSB is kinda cool, but does require a network connection, so something airgapped would be nice.
You may want to look into some of the work done by FreeNet, as they are able to transport FSK objects via sneakernet (Used to smuggle info in an out of North Korea).
Nice find! Do you have any links to that work on the Clearnet?
Well, crap. I did at one point, but they seem dead now :(
That is odd, back when I spent more time on SSB, one of the things touted was that a network wasn’t needed. Updates could be done via a USB device by friends meeting at a pub, for instance. Has this changed?
Maybe I’m incorrect? I thought it at least needed a wifi network in order to discover neghbors.
I haven’t dug in enough to actually find process, but these two articles both reference using sneakernet as a medium for SSB updates.
https://staltz.com/an-off-grid-social-network.html
https://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/gw?gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/rusty/Post04-ssb
Despite having the capability to support Sneakernet, there are very few well supported plugins or packages for SSB that reliably support this. There have been discussions about it but if you actually want to replicate your SSB feed today without ever touching a UDP/TCP stack, your options are limited.
Having a fully sneakernet-based protocol would be great for constrained / lightweight systems. Unfortunately, SSB as it is today is best suited for desktops that can run Electron type apps (or install Node/NPM). You will be able to find partial implementations of the SSB protocol in other languages, but if you read through the source, you will quickly find that they either a) only implement part of the protocol b) are just a thin wrapper to a NodeJS-based SSB server on the local machine. I think these folks are working on an early stage Rust alternate implementation. Also, projects like Manyverse are improving this situation for Android/iOS, but are still pretty early. I think the main reason for this stagnation is that SSB has a lot of moving parts and a JS-based reference implementation rather than a fully documented protocol (at least since I last checked). I also think this could be avoided by focusing only on the sneakernet-based use cases (and not worrying about the network related ones) while also designing the protocol from a spec rather than a reference implementation.
TL;DR: The SSB of today supports sneakernet in theory, but not in practice. Furthermore, it does not supply a formal specification for implementations on constrained / non-Javascript systems.
=== DISCLAIMER ===
I hope that readers of this comment do not interpret this as a criticism of the SSB protocol, but rather that I had some very specific requirements that SSB wasn’t really designed for. With that being said, it’s one of the best decentralized protocols in recent years and I use it daily. The SSBC is doing a great job of building a specific technology for a specific need
=== END DISCLAIMER ===
Been using SSB for years now and never seen the USB approach, but I’m curious now.
This writeup had a reply that hit me:
BBSes did this all the time, via UUCP and QWK packets. This sounds like a great way to implement it, seeing as UUCP is designed just for this type of not-always-on connection.
Nothing says you cannot UUCP from a USB drive.
And an image of the solar eclipse as taken from the satellite: https://twitter.com/BY2HIT/status/1146310978050543616
Nice, I love this stuff! Posted on tilde.art.ascii newsgroup to spread the word!
From all I have been able to discern on this, it has been a problem for quite sometime, and there has been no real interest in fixing it.
I am glad to see the increased awareness of these issues.
Radio trackers can download LightSail 2’s beacon structure for help with decoding packets. Here are some additional useful parameters:
Every 45 seconds, the spacecraft transmits its call sign, WM9XPA, in morse code:
You can download audio files of the morse code beacon below, and even use them as a ringtone for your phone!
LightSail 2 Morse code beacon, WAV format
LightSail 2 Morse code beacon, M4R format
SatNOGs Grafana dashboard for the LightSail 2 satellite, showing decoded data from telemetry signals noted above.
https://dashboard.satnogs.org/d/CBwYeHSZk/lightsail-2?orgId=1&refresh=5m
Poor headline, not using ham radio, actually. Doing so could could be illegal.
I think the original idea started out using ham radio, but then it was shot down by many people explaining the pecuniary interest part would make it illegal.
There’s quite an interesting intersection of ham radio, crypto currency nerds, and gun hoarders. I surmise it’s the whole bootstraps thing.
This is really cool, nonlinear! There are a lot of radio geeks in tildes and pubnixes, so it will be neat to see if they converge on this. If I ever have enough time to get into radio as a hobby, I will sign up too.
Thank you! There are a lot of possibilities. I do hope a nice community develops.
Sweet, I love Retro Forth. I am currently developing a signup form for the radiofreqs.space project using retro. I will be putting the source on tildegit once it is somewhat working.
You can contact the author, crc, on #retro or #forth on freenode. He is very helpful with questions and providing code examples/tips.
Oh, and the author of Retro also has many code examples, including a web server and a gopher server: http://forth.works/examples/index.html. In fact, the forth.works website is served with the Casket webserver, written in Retro Forth.
And, the author has a very nice gopher client published on the iTunes app store for iOS users.
To explore his other projects see his main site: http://forthworks.com (which is a gopher hole, served via Atua-www (written in retro) which serves gopher over http.)
https://tildegit.org/radiofreqs/radiofreqs-signup-form
Looks like there is an update that removes the Google font and uses a system font instead.