neelc

I could be wrong, but I hold the opinion that ATProto is the CDMA (3GPP2) of social media protocols, while ActivityPub is GSM (3GPP).

CDMA had better radio tech than GSM, but at the expense of openness. Qualcomm basically owned CDMA, and still does, while GSM was cross-licensed among everyone.

Likewise, ActivityPub is truly open while ATProto is "open" but you're basically a prisoner to Bluesky Social, the way CDMA put you in Qualcomm's prison.

Bluesky has the initial lead, but it's Twitter's estranged child. People used to Twitter find Bluesky an easier replacement. CDMA was also an easier upgrade from analog 1G networks than GSM was, due to re-using the back office systems and ESN identifiers.

Yes, Bluesky has a better experience. But maybe future ActivityPub releases will catch up for a large part. UMTS caught up to CDMA while being more open, and LTE became the universal 4G standard, with GSM-centric IMEI and SIM cards and such. And maybe PDS implementations will converge to ActivityPub with an ATProto fallback.

Keep in mind that I know nothing about the protocols, so I could be missing what makes ATProto a better tech, or not.

It's a cutting-edge distro with 6-month release and 13-month support cycles.

Whereas Debian/Ubuntu have 5 years and RHEL/Alma/Rocky have 10 years.

Mac Mini/Studio has an integrated power supply, but other Mini PCs do not have the same luxury. It doesn't matter if you're Minisforum or HP.

Minisforum probably reused the x86 power supply for ARM. The x86 MS-01 and MS-A2 supports GPUs after all.

I'm not a hardware engineer, I've failed miserably in software engineering and now run a VPS host.

In the US, many refurbished Pixel phones are Verizon variants which disallow OEM unlocking.

When was in college and had Sprint this was a nightmare since then I wanted root for unlimited hotspot (Sprint made it easy that way), but most refurbished Pixels were Verizon variants.

And I couldn't just use OnePlus because they were only designed GSM networks or later Verizon CDMA-less. Then, new Pixels were unaffordable for me, but parents insisted on using Sprint.

I ended up getting a Pixel 3 off Mercari (which I still own) just to keep root.

Now, I can afford a Pixel 10 Pro new (which I am right now), alongside spare Pixel 9 and OnePlus 13R units. But even then (a) my income is lower than when I worked at Microsoft and (b) The OnePlus was from a trade-in deal.

About his comment:

> Unfortunately, I must recommend Windows 10/11 here, because then you don’t have to mess around with any drivers; it’s the simplest option.

When I worked at Microsoft but ran FreeBSD at home, I often used my work Windows laptop to install custom ROMs. This is because FreeBSD was finicky with adb.

Now I run Fedora and the Android drivers are pre-installed. I installed GrapheneOS on both a Pixel 10 Pro (main) and Pixel 9 (spare) that way.

On Windows, I've had more trouble with Android drivers than I did on non-Windows.

I previously ran another VPS host who did the same exact thing (before OVH did it?).

Unlike Fourplex.net which uses modern ASRock Ryzen 9000 servers, Qeru.net used older HPE DL360 Gen9 servers.

I gave 3GB of RAM for $3-4/mo then. But these servers weren't very fast. I ended up selling the business, and am happy I did.

This.

When I worked at Microsoft, I seldom used Azure for personal use due to it being expensive and complicated.

Whereas I have plenty of Fourplex.net servers because even on half the salary, it's affordable enough for 16 Tor exit relays and two personal web/email/Mastodon servers.

For providers like us, we have to lease IPv4. We came long after IPv4 was already depleted. IPv4 prices did go down. Despite that, the $15/year 128MB BuyVM plan is long-gone.

But for a new provider like us, we'd have to spend more than an established player like BuyVM or RackNerd who bought most of their servers pre-AI-boom.

I am very hopeful of CXMT. But then then it could take a while for them to ramp up production. Maybe by then, the AI bubble would've burst.

One problem with US sanctions is it could hurt US companies too, like in the case of cutting-edge EUV and CXMT. This is when China is actually a hero and not a villain.

This is true.

We use ASRock Rack servers, mainly because the only option for our industry are OEMs like Supermicro and ASRock. Dell and HPE are non-starters, except for our "storage" offering.

Back in 2019, HPE was a good midrange option. Then came ASRock Rack who obliterated HPE with the X470D4U, relegating HPE to high-end enterprise servers. But also made Ryzen-based VPS hosts including yours truly, BuyVM, et al.

The funny thing is, I used eSIM on a Pixel 3, since it was the easiest way to activate on Sprint. Now, no big carrier will use a Pixel 3's eSIM.

But then on Sprint, they tried to copy the CDMA activation system on LTE whereas everyone else just used SIM cards directly. Sprint was very progressive on eSIM even if they were slow to VoLTE.

My Pixel 3 moved to a physical SIM due to switching to T-Mobile 3 months before the merger, and I've mostly used physical SIMs before the Pixel 10 Pro outside of international travel. I avoid MVNOs as my primary service because of the specter of eSIM-only phones, and that was pre-Pixel 10.

And yes, if my Pixel 10 Pro had a physical SIM card slot I'd use it.

At the present moment I live in a place in NYC without fiber. Manhattan row townhomes are notoriously hard for Verizon to install FiOS in. I chose 5G over DOCSIS simply because of upload speeds.

T-Mobile (both TMHI and Calyx Sprout SIM) has 40-75 Mbps uploads versus 20-35 on Spectrum.

It also helps that I use a L2TP VPN to a BGP VPS to get myself a public IPv4, otherwise I'd have Spectrum for no CGNAT.

Yes, I'd much rather have fiber with symmetrical speeds and low latency. Heck, if Spectrum had high split or even mid split I'd have that.

Cable hyped their "10G" upgrades but it's basically vaporware while non-cable ISPs actually showed up with fiber and/or 5G. Trump's tariffs are also punishing cable ISPs.

In case you were wondering, there is a 50% off coupon code: 50OFF_FEB25

Source: https://lowendspirit.com/discussion/9168/l2tp-static-ip-tunn...

There is a mis-feature on the ONT called "Broadcom Packet Flow Cache". It apparently speeds up TCP sessions but at the expense of allowing a large amount of then.

Lumen fortunately moved off these ONTs. However, the new Smart NIDs have their fair share of issues from what I heard. I moved out of Lumen territory so have no experience with them.

When I had CenturyLink, I replaced the ONT via a JTAG cable on the new ONT. The stock CL ONT (Calix 716GE-I R2) had a 16384 connection limit, which prevented me from running high-bandwidth Tor relays. The new ONT (Calix 803G) did not.

Calix for some reason makes it easy to clone some models.

I have a post on this: https://www.neelc.org/posts/clone-calix-ont/

Now I'm in NYC with Verizon Fios where I don't need a cloned ONT. Woo! The Verizon ONT is big and has a huge power brick, presumably because of RFoG alongside GPON.

Modern AT&T isn't really Ma Bell, it's SBC who bought AT&T and kept the AT&T name. That's why AT&T is based in Dallas and not New Jersey.

Ma Bell today is really AT&T, Verizon and parts of Lumen, Frontier and Consolidated.

AT&T also is worth less than Verizon due to bad mergers (DirecTV and non-cable Time Warner) which added a lot of debt, money that should've been used for fiber and 5G or even a bidding war against T-Mobile for Sprint if you had to buy your competitor.

The reality is, when a CDMA carrier deploys LTE without deploying UMTS, there are usually compatibility layers between CDMA and LTE such as CSFB and eHRPD for when VoLTE is absent. CDMA was never designed to interoperate with LTE as LTE was built around IMEIs and SIM cards but CDMA was built around burned-in ESNs and PRLs, so LTE support was hacked on.

This is why Sprint and Verizon used whitelists: they literally couldn't accept GSM-only devices because you wouldn't be able to make a phone call (the phone would try UMTS but only the non-supported CDMA2000 can be used to actually call, so in turn no phone calls).

Sprint went further by using the CDMA provisioning system on top of LTE instead of just using SIM cards and 3GPP provisioning like most GSM and CDMA carriers. This was a nightmare for custom ROM users like me as custom ROMs were designed for GSM carriers in mind and Sprint was at best an afterthought.

I've seen those at Costco stores also.

Whereas in indie coffee shops they use a Square tablet and in Apple stores the store people just use iPhones with special cases. Best Buy or Walgreens uses POS tablets with a relatively ugly GUI.

Legacy apps never die. Charles Schwab might use mainframes while Robinhood won't but Schwab won't move off because it's too hard for an established firm. Same with Costco TUIs.