Michael Smith

https://social.hacktheplanet.be/@neo

Cyberpunk | Programmer | Ruby on Rails veteran | FreeBSD | Sysop | Mr. Fusion maintainer for the MiSTer project

Website: https://michaelsmith.be
GitHub: https://github.com/michaelshmitty
Location: Antwerp, 🇧🇪 Belgium
MiSTer FPGA: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

Public Key

npub1acc2dnywrwkvaydc7uy3a3ztfh7j8aqg9mwnz4ec09hppnnlg8msc9v90a

NIP-05 Address

neo_at_social.hacktheplanet.be@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqswuv9xej8phtxwjxu0wzg7c395mlfr7syzahf32uu8jmsseel5racpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsdl2jrn

Publishing to

nostr.mom

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1acc2dnywrwkvaydc7uy3a3ztfh7j8aqg9mwnz4ec09hppnnlg8msc9v90a

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Last Notes

2025-06-09 11:24:43 UTC

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dammit that’s an earworm. Thanks!

2025-06-07 16:58:43 UTC

And suddenly there it was, an accurate #FPGA implementation of the #SNES on the #MiSTer. That was an awesome moment for #retrogaming.

2025-06-05 23:31:03 UTC

Inconceivable! I watched The Princess Bride for the first time in 38 years.

2025-06-03 21:06:11 UTC

There's always another update... I remember the time before the internet and the downloading of updates. Good, quiet times.

2025-06-02 13:46:07 UTC

It's shell scripts all the way down

2025-05-31 11:15:26 UTC

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de fundamenten van de thermen van die stad zijn bewaard en te bezichtigen. Imposant, die Romeinen wisten hoe ze een badenhuis moesten bouwen! Xanten zelf is voor volgend bezoek. Daar was één of ander middeleeuws tentenkamp feest aan de gang dit weekend en daardoor te druk!

2025-05-31 10:27:03 UTC

@npub18ju…7rl6 gelandet!
https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/601/964/691/306/544/original/fb6715ad9911b83a.jpeg

2025-05-27 22:33:24 UTC

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I’m not even saying “use NixOS as base”, I am saying use #Nix (the build tool) to build your own #NixOS sibling if you want. In theory one could even build an OS based on #FreeBSD (like Dell’s ThinOS) using a reproducible build tool like Nix (not how Dell does it I assume). This notion of “Linux distributions” is so entrenched but it’s the first dogma that crumbles when looking into Nix. It’s quite refreshing.

2025-05-20 21:16:03 UTC

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exactly!

2025-05-20 21:00:35 UTC

#FreeBSD is neither dead, nor dying.
https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/the-report-of-my-death-was-an-exaggeration/

2025-05-16 14:21:15 UTC

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Magnificent city! But DO NOT attempt to take andl elephant for a ride on the Schwebebahn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuffi?wprov=sfti1

2025-05-07 22:55:01 UTC

@npub1c36…ydp2 immediately reacts to my comment: it's way past my bedtime on this side of the pond! G'night everyone!

2025-05-05 18:57:44 UTC

Maybe you don't need tools to manage all this complexity and instead put effort in reducing complexity.

2025-05-05 15:34:29 UTC

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bedankt voor de tip, doorgegeven aan de reisorganisatie (de mama van de kindjes) 👍

2025-05-04 18:35:17 UTC

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https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/114/451/003/047/416/577/original/3038bd3534f55ca0.jpeg

2025-05-04 17:29:43 UTC

Again with those date days that only make sense when you get the month and day backwards 🤪

2025-05-02 06:19:54 UTC

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2025-05-02 06:13:25 UTC

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because I assumed you’d think it a welcome suggestion and I first did a quick check to see if it supports bluray and it should. I have used HandBrake many times so I know it’s the go to tool. I haven’t used it for bluray in particular because I don’t have the hardware.

2025-05-02 05:49:47 UTC

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HandBrake: https://handbrake.fr/
Although I have not personally used it for bluray so ymmv.

2025-04-29 22:00:56 UTC

The silicon streets are paved with superfluous abstractions.

2025-04-28 20:39:20 UTC

The #Fediverse is where it’s at. Someone should tell the people on #BlueSky. Not me, I removed the app a while ago.

2025-04-25 20:27:10 UTC

I’ve just set up a classic #Quake1 #QuakeWorld deathmatch server on #FreeBSD at q1.hacktheplanet.be:27500 Come join if you want a fragging nostalgia hit so it’s not just me with a bunch of bots! You can use #ezquake (https://ezquake.com/).

2025-04-17 19:45:36 UTC

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https://youtu.be/U4WiIEGYZEs

2025-04-17 19:42:26 UTC

Guus Uitenwaard is een week of wat geleden, toen 'ie terug kwam met de trekker na 't hooien van 't land, met een behoorlijk flinke vaart tegen de koeienstal gereden. Zien trekker total-loss en zien kop in 'et verband!

2025-04-03 22:06:24 UTC

A bit of an annoying trend I’ve started to notice here on #Mastodon and the #Fediverse lately is people posting pictures of text with content I’m not really interested in to see or read. But due to it being a picture and not parsable text, content filters don’t apply. Why would one deliberately go through this trouble, reducing (self) #moderation effectiveness and waste a bunch of extra bytes in the process?

2025-03-16 20:47:10 UTC

Time to apply all that Linux system administration experience to something solid: #FreeBSD.

2025-03-09 17:06:28 UTC

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aaand it’s closed.

2025-03-09 17:03:32 UTC

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super annoying that some responses get “flagged by the community” and hidden. Fuck Discourse, seriously. What a dystopia, how ironic.

2025-03-05 16:29:23 UTC

Every #NixOS installation is a quasi-unique #Linux distribution. You’re in control of what is composed.

2025-02-27 15:30:09 UTC

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I’m starting to wonder if OP read https://nix.dev/manual/nix/2.24/language/index.html
Sure you can have doubts about syntax choices made decades ago. But any language requires you to learn it. Doesn’t look complicated to me either, but I’ve read the language manual.

2025-02-11 10:39:10 UTC

I’d love to have #nix on #freebsd.

2025-02-07 22:22:14 UTC

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C. With a modern compiler, all warnings as errors. Not so bad imho! What I love about C is its simplicity. Hard to master, sure. But what good thing isn’t worth the effort?

2025-01-25 22:55:12 UTC

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I’m a bit of a Star Trek utopia fan. So to me, no matter how unlikely this may currently look, I believe in a world where earth becomes the nation of humankind, part of a much larger galaxy. Which is what I always thought Elon Musk was talking about becoming a multi planetary species. But now he’s on about nationalism and many unique cultures protecting their values. I’m a bit of a cosmopolitan and have seen the world. What I have seen is people at not *that* different.

2025-01-25 22:43:02 UTC

I watched a completely uninformed and misguided Elon Musk stumble his way through an AfD address on X. I’m glad I don’t block this stuff out though, because it lets me form my own opinion straight from the source. I once thought he was a great visionary and I still have respect for some of the things he helped build. But I see that we do not share the same world view and he is no longer a hero of mine. Sad but true.

2025-01-23 17:41:08 UTC

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dammit me too! Hey love to meet you at #FOSDEM! Sure we’ll bump into one another. Also there’s Bytenight at Hackerspace Brussels (@npub1l24…nh9j ). All the best!

2025-01-23 13:45:28 UTC

Please let it be Twilight Princess.
From: @npub1tr4…ruu5
https://universeodon.com/@HollyCo26588808/113875512498085176

2025-01-22 17:19:33 UTC

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had a similar journey a few days ago. Unfortunately I picked a Samsung S24 which is not a friendly custom rom device at all. I find it difficult to choose a good model for custom roms.

2025-01-21 07:05:26 UTC

Yeah, that’s messed up. That guy is so off the rails and out of touch. Pity, I used to stand behind his vision for the future. Hopefully there are better people that take some of the good ideas and run with it. What a shitshow.
From: @npub1n85…umld
https://mastodon.social/@Okanogen/113864117854123766

2025-01-20 12:32:29 UTC

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I doubt every speaker at #FOSDEM is held up to an equal amount of scrutiny. What kind of metric is net worth anyway? Is the cut-off value 1 billion for moral and ethical standards? So only non-billionaires can speak? I think rules like this get arbitrary and out of hand quite fast. I rexommend protesting by staying away (possibly going to #offdem) and/or petitioning the organization.
https://fosdem.org/2025/news/2025-01-16-protests/

2025-01-20 00:10:05 UTC

Turns out #Apple #Mail on #iOS is not broken for #IMAP (anymore), but it's my #PiHole that's causing problems! https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/1hcsu9q/apple_mail_not_downloading_after_ios_182_fixed/

2025-01-19 20:00:21 UTC

@npub1av6…pcc0 how has your experience with #Lix been? Worth switching to it? I'm mainly interested in it for the potential technical improvements (if there are), not necessarily other motivations behind the fork. Thanks in advance for your insight!

2025-01-16 22:01:23 UTC

At the risk of stepping on a land mine here, wouldn’t it be better if Drew DeVault went to #OFFDEM during Jack Dorsey’s keynote instead of disrupting it? So others could have the freedom to form their own opinions on matters?
https://drewdevault.com/2025/01/16/2025-01-16-No-Billionares-at-FOSDEM-please.html

2025-01-16 20:36:36 UTC

This is going to be my booth at #FOSDEM
https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/113/839/949/137/568/030/original/efa01ea0de80ca69.jpg

2025-01-16 20:20:44 UTC

https://social.hacktheplanet.be/system/media_attachments/files/113/839/885/736/778/327/original/8737014fff331395.jpeg

2024-11-21 21:34:09 UTC

@npub1xzr…laxe #framework question. Do you have hibernation working?

2024-11-19 22:30:30 UTC

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An example is that most news I read about Starship launches focuses on the fact that it “failed”. What they don’t understand is that there is no failure here. These are experimental iterations done in the open. The data that comes back from these experiments helps them to improve the next iteration, ultimately reaching succes. That’s how you do it.

2024-11-19 22:27:19 UTC

First time I watched the Starship launch test on #X. I always had trouble finding the original feed because I was looking on YouTube. I understand why the coverage is originally on X, makes sense. And I’m glad I have an account on there and don’t miss out. Sure some part of the coverage is a promo for #Starlink, and that’s deserved. But they also really go into the reasoning behind everything they do. Mainstream media coverage of Starship mostly sucks. It’s unbalanced towards the negative.

2024-11-17 11:53:24 UTC

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do your prefer backward-facing or front-facing or are you indifferent? I used to prefer front-facing, but then I considered the plus of being pushed into your seat in case of a hard emergency brake rather than being thrown out of it, so now I favor backward-facing. Safe travels! 💺

2024-09-12 14:08:40 UTC

Michael’s law: “Most software is improved by stripping stuff out.”