@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

supakaity

@supakaity@blahaj.zone

She/Her.
A woman, polyam, pansexual and transgender.
​:Blobhaj_Flag_Polytricolor:​ ​:Blobhaj_Flag_Pansexual:​ ​:Blobhaj_Flag_Demisexual:​ ​:Blobhaj_Flag_Transfemme:​ ​:Blobhaj_Flag_Autism:​

I'm also an admin of the Blåhaj Zone instance running #Sharkey (a fork of #Misskey), currently open for registration.

https://activitypub.software/TransFem-org/Sharkey

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

supakaity, to random
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

Thanks to @yessikg for designing this new pirate hat avatar decoration.

supakaity, to random
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

Over the past few days, @ada has been complaining about the constant load of processing the incoming spam.

So I threw together a little project to allow her to add md5 checksums of files to eliminate, whenever it sees them.

This one is written for our Sharkey instance, but it should work neatly on pretty much any of the *keys.

https://github.com/blahaj-zone/sharkey-spam-cleaner

supakaity, to random
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

Hey all,

As part of our upgrade to , the instance now comes with avatar decorations.

I've added a few myself, and you're free to try them out, but if there's artsy folk that want to create their own, I'd be happy to add them to the instance.

You can get the design template to help you with the size/positioning.

And once you're done creating your own designs, you can test them out using this preview tool

ada, to random
@ada@blahaj.zone avatar

I'm definitely missing some of the little Hajkey modifications that we were running now that we're on Sharkey, but I can't tell you that I won't miss Kaity having to spend so much time trying to keep our Hajkey modifications running after merging in the changes from every patch, on top of moving from Calckey to Firefish to Iceshrimp. It was getting so unwieldy!

Now, we're on stock Sharkey, and I've got a tentative promise from Kaity that the only modifications she will make going forward are pushed to Sharkey, so that she doesn't end up maintaining a fork again. But we'll see how long she holds on to that plan :P

@supakaity

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@ada I'll be good! Pwomise!

jo, to random

24 Misskey achievements unlocked in 15 minutes since first log in after migration to Sharkey. Do I win a car if I unlock them all?

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@ada @jo Better, a shonk.

ada, to random
@ada@blahaj.zone avatar

I hope you all like photos. @supakaity is entirely responsible for my newly revived obsession with photography and nature photography specifically. If you have any complaints with my recent wave of photo posts, you can blame her :P

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@ada I don't regret a second of it.

supakaity, to random
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

Last year, on Friday the 14th of October 2022, my beloved @ada asked me if I would go to parkrun with her on that Saturday.

At that time, I was extremely unfit, having spent most of my life in the computer chair.

My resting heartrate was around 100bpm, getting up from rest usually spiked me up to 125, and then back to around 112.

Walking small distances to/from the car had me puffed out. Going anywhere without the car was unthinkable.

I owned 3 vehicles. One small car for my spouse so ze could drive around, one SUV for long distance driving, and a Tesla for my daily driving.

That first parkrun (or parkwalk) just about destroyed me. I managed to do the whole 5k, but by the end I could barely stand. Avg heartrate was 132bpm peak at 145.

Tomorrow will mark the end of the first 12 months. It will be my 43rd parkrun (with 2 volunteers). My resting heart rate is now down to about 78bpm, and walking around is not just normal, but easy and fun. A typical 5k walk will have me at 105bpm avg with 120 peak.

However, these days I will usually walk a few Ks to and from parkrun, then push myself at run/walk intervals. Doing it this way, my avg rate is now about 135bpm and maxing at around 165.

I have sold 2 of my cars, getting around by walking and public transport is not a problem.

I'm looking forward to being able to run 5k completely over the next 6 months. I feel like its almost within my grasp. Then 10k over the next 12.

If anyone has been thinking about taking up exercise, I can thoroughly recommend parkrun. It's fun, everyone is friendly and encouraging. You can go as slow as you need to.

If you have any questions, feel free to message me!

supakaity, to random
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

I've considered whether to publish this or not, because I was kind of a bitch to the DigitalOcean abuse department, but I feel like if anyone is considering using them, this might be valuable information in how not to have a polite conversation with them.

So, a bit of background... during the investigation phase of choosing a new hosting provider, we were briefly considering moving to DigitalOcean (DO), I signed up for an account so I could have a look around at their UI / options etc.

Ultimately, due mainly to the price point, we decided to not go forward with this plan, and initially went with migrating from AWS to IONOS, then later moved everything (again) from IONOS to Hetzner.

However two days ago, I got a nice little notice from a friendly bot at DO informing me that my account was now locked and under review.

Hi there,

We're excited to have you as a customer of DigitalOcean and we would like to verify your account.

Because your recent account activity is atypical, we’d like to better understand your product needs. To help us in restoring access to the account, please respond to this email message with a description of the workload you’ve deployed on your Droplets and how you plan to use your account going forward.

We appreciate your understanding and look forward to better understanding how DigitalOcean can support your needs!

Regards,
DigitalOcean Security

As I wasn't actually using the account, and hadn't ever actually used the account, I was a bit flippant in my reply. Which likely didn't help the situation.> Oh, my workload is atypical is it?

Well, I haven’t deployed any workload there yet, I’m glad I didn’t now, and probably won’t be in the future anymore, based on this.

Cya!

The reply I got back was very polite, but somewhat final in its summary of the resolution to my locked account situation.> Hello there,

Thank you so much for your patience, as we investigated this incident and reviewed the information you have shared with us so far, we have come to the conclusion that your deployment and actions were in violation of our Terms of Service Agreement [1] and Acceptable Use Policy [2] and as a result, we are unable to remove the lock from your account.

I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by this.

Additionally, please note that we're unable to share details regarding what factors we considered that led to this decision or how we came to this conclusion as this is critical to maintaining the integrity of our platform security operations.

You can review our Terms of Service agreement and Acceptable Usage policy here

[1] Terms of Agreement: Legal - Terms of Service Agreement (digitalocean.com)
[2] Acceptable Usage Policy: Legal - Acceptable Use Policy (digitalocean.com)

We recommend you find a new service provider that better suits your needs as our security tooling would consider these actions when you sign up again resulting in account locks and termination of linked accounts during manual platform-wide reviews.

If you still feel this is in error we request you to share detailed information about you, your business, and your deployment with us so that we can take your explanation into further consideration and contextually analyze it with information we have on file with us to review this decision.

Kind Regards,
[REDACTED]
Customer Advocate

I love getting form replies that tell me that they've reviewed my account when they obviously did no such thing, because if they did they would see that there's literally no activity and likely that's what the bot determined correctly but erroneously as "abnormal activity".

So I shot back another quick reply.> I see, so signing up, and doing absolutely nothing, making no deployment at all is a violation against your ToS, and you conveniently can't tell me which of my non-existent actions are against this mysterious automatically detected infringement.

That totally makes sense

Thanks for wasting my time with this absolutely rubbish form reply.

Kaity. 💜🌺

Then a little later I get another reply from my ever polite customer advocate.> Hello there,

Thanks for your reply. We have reviewed this ticket extensively and are unable to accommodate this unlock request. In order to maintain the integrity of our security systems, we cannot disclose which factors were identified that led to the decision on this account. We appreciate your understanding.

Kind Regards,
[REDACTED]
Customer Advocate

Extensively reviewed, well that's put the nail in the coffin there. That's it, I'm toast now. No need to reply to this email chain anymore.

But then this morning, I get another email from them, completely unprovoked this time.> Hello there,

Thank you for following up on this request.

We apologize for the confusion; our automated security platform reviews locked the account.

After reviewing your information, we’ve determined you can activate and remove the restriction.

You should now be able to log in, but if you encounter any difficulties, please let us know so we can investigate further!

We would also like to welcome you to our community. You can find our discussion forums here! Additionally, we have a collection of tutorials available here as well!

We're always happy to help if you have additional questions, so please don't hesitate to reach out.

Kind Regards,
[REDACTED]
Customer Advocate

Okay, call me gobsmacked. I send them another quick reply, thanking them for their dilligence in redeeming my account's good standing.> Do you really think, after telling me twice that you've reviewed my account and found it to be in breach of some undisclosable part of the ToS, after I told you that I have literally done nothing on a brand new account, that I have any confidence at all in your service anymore now you tell me oops, it was a mistake, our bad?

Kaity. 💜🌺

supakaity, to random
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

Blåhaj zone will be down for database migration to the new servers in approximately 2.5 hours from now (04:00 UTC).

I am currently doing a test run to ensure successful transfer and import of the data to the new servers, and to get more accurate timings, however I am guessing at this point that the maintenance will be under 2 hours.

I will have more details on the maintenance page during the migration and update the status as the migration progresses.

maikelthedev, to random

Ladies are you ok?

It's been a while since I heard a response from @supakaity on anything, how's your ...was it the arm or the shoulder? going?

taggin myself so I can see this from account B:

@the

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@maikelthedev @the going okay. I hurt my arm accidentally last week and it has been sore again. Got my bracers out yesterday though, which is really good.

mae, to random

how do i mark all announcements as read? the little pulsing dot thing is going to drive me spare

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@mae You can disable any of them in settings/appearance, but you're right, there needs to be a mark all read button on that page.

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@ada Also, the vulnerable whilst being the most in need of protection and a safe place, are often the least able to afford to provide financial support.

Prioritising "paying" users by giving them special benefits and worrying about the loss of "income" if they need to be moderated tends towards a road that ends up with the minorities paying for it with their safety instead.

onlybrownmastodon, to random

The post linked below effectively, if unintentionally, argues that -- especially for nonwhite members of marginalised groups -- the Fediverse "almost invariably white, passionate, unpaid hobbyist who means well" admin/moderator model...

...is not anywhere near adequate for the highly-skilled, thankless, difficult, ceaseless, and beyond a certain threshold, verging into fulltime, job.

https://mastodon.social/@supakaity@lemmy.blahaj.zone

Administration/operations and moderation are professional skillsets, not idle hobbies.

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@onlybrownmastodon

I acknowledge and accept that everything you said is absolutely true.

Do you have any advice how I could have better approached that?

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@jessica @RealCelticGamer @ada

Getting hit by a car is actually a really good excuse for spotty uptime.

Actually, I came off my escooter, all by myself in typical Kaity fashion. I trip over things all the time (ask Ada), so I'm not sure why I thought a scooter would be any different.

Knowing that with the surge in users, and with 196 on-board, we'd have to move off AWS eventually, I still figured we'd have a bit of a grace period. It's a big job to move and typing is hard with a broken arm, so I figured I could wait it out and probably pay a little bit more for a few months... but I didn't expect the massive additional bandwidth charges.

I fully recognise my own contribution to this mess, and I'm not trying to excuse myself. While Ada and I do have a donation link, we don't make it easy to find. You can find it but you have to work at it.

I intended my posts to be explainations of upcoming maintenance, and not as solicitations for donations.

Additionally, I wanted to warn others about the dangers of running a large instance with lots of media content on metered connections, as well as describing how we're dealing with the issue in case anyone else faces the same issues in the future.

supakaity, to random
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

State of the nation instance

So over the last month our instances have grown substantially and while Ada and I are privileged enough to be able to cover the cost of the small instance we initially envisioned, what it has become is somewhat bigger than that.

The Lemmy side of things is currently at 6,500 users and is hosting a larger meme community which involves a lot of image downloads and a fairly substantial bandwidth cost for serving those downloads.

As we are hosting on AWS, we pay a premium for all the resources we use and the results of this are that the hosting this month has presented us with a surprise.

Our monthly bill has jumped from about $1,000 to about $3,000 a month. (See attached image)

Unfortunately while we can manage this as a once off, I can't afford to continue in this fashion, month after month, so we will have to investigate solutions to help reduce operating costs.

This will involve moving services off AWS to less premium providers, and the downtime involved while these migrations take place and we retune everything.

I apologize in advance for the interruption while we we rejig everything through this process.

Thankyou all for understanding. Please let @ada or myself know of any issues that you notice, as glitches may occur when moving things around.

​:Blobhaj_Plead_2:​

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@Aphrodite @ada

We are, and the contributions were covering most of the monthly cost before this month's explosion.

Just to be clear, we're not worried about shutting up shop or anything.

It's more of an alert for the upcoming maintenance, so everyone knows what's going on and why we're doing it, instead of unexplained ouages.

We want to be transparent, even when it makes me look silly for letting it get to this point.

supakaity, to random
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

A few people have asked us now about the future of Hajkey, given the recent changes with Calckey becoming Firefish and the Iceshrimp fork of that. So I thought I'd make a post, now that I can type again and let you know where we're at.

I have been taking a small break from adding new features to Hajkey recently because my left arm has basically been useless for the last month after breaking it, but I'm now able to partially touch type again, and my arm is incrementally better each day.

However my reticence with writing new code has been going on for a bit longer than that.

I was in a dev chat room with a few devs, trying to pursuade that the safety of a minority group is paramount whilst trying to justify the addition of a new safety feature. I was tyring to make the point that a feature which may initially confuse some people is worth it if we protect just one minority person. I also tried (without luck) to address the (valid) concerns about how to implement the feature with minimal potential for confusion.

However, I feel like while the majority of minority people present in the room agreed, my point was ultimately worn down and overruled by a single person who I feel didn't understand what such a feature would mean for the safety of those needing protection.

I am ashamed to say that I felt a lot of disempowerment and lost a lot of forward momentum when that happened, questioning my own compass which said that I should push ahead, but pushing ahead without an implementation in other instances would make my new feature a non-starter.

I don't see a lot of diverse fediverse projects around which focus on security features to protect the vulnerable or that have dev leads that have experience with existing in a society with a greatly diminished privileged status. This means that they are not as concious of the features that are important to us and other underprivileged or minority groups.

I am proud to run one myself, and as a female and transgender person (and whilst acknowedging my own significant privilege), I think that gives me somewhat of a unique and valuable perspective, so it excites me to see that there's a new project (Iceshrimp) starting, focussing more on security and safety and less on flashy new sparkles and bling. I feel like this will ultimately be a good thing for the fediverse.

In the FOSS world, diversity is, like in the real world, a fantastic thing. It drives innovation, allows greater choice, avoids stagnation, vendor siloing, narrow minded thinking and generally inproves the overall health of the entire ecosystem.

So I congratulate @april on their new project. I'm looking forward to great things from Firefish and Iceshrimp, both of which are rich with diverse developers. While Firefish can focus on the flashy usability and experience tack, Iceshrimp can help fill the sorely needed safety aspects. The good features from both will help improve the quality of experience and ultimately our end users will benefit.

As far as Hajkey is concerned, we'll still be our own fork, still doing our own little thing, but we will be directly downstream of Iceshrimp and will be pushing our changes back upstream to the 'shrimp.

We made this choice as we feel that this project more closely aligns with our overall goals and has less focus on the commercial/sponsorship side of things which we are uncomfortable with. Also this way the trademark issue (while not a blocker for us) is something we don't have to worry about biting us in the future.

We're also not planning a name change at this point. We like Hajkey as a name and don't currently see a compelling reason to change that.

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@HaruEb @april @ada I think there's some hurt feelings there which is causing a bit of a public mess that should probably be sorted out behind the scenes, that's all.

Ultimately in OSI licensed open-source projects, as all Misskey derivatives are, having different opinions and goals and sharing the end product just ends up with more choice and better cross-pollination of the end product, and the end-user wins.

The cool features from one will end up in the other and vice-versa.

Picking one or the other is more about aligned goals for us. We have been running our own fork for a while now without too much friction. Hopefully that's where the fish and the shrimp end up too, but if they don't it's no real matter either.

HaruEb, to random

@ada Is adding custom emojis from regular users here a thing? no worries if not but I'd love to use emotes like my current pfp as reactions ​:blobcat_uwu:​

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@HaruEb @ada

​:shinx_blank:​ ​:shinx_ugh:​ ​:shinx_facepalm:​ ​:shinx_fearful:​ ​:shinx_happy:​ ​:shinx_happygun:​ ​:shinx_hug:​ ​:shinx_hype:​ ​:shinx_jammies:​ ​:shinx_mad:​ ​:shinx_rude:​ ​:shinx_sad:​ ​:shinx_shiny:​ ​:shinx_shocked_zoom:​ ​:shinx_smug:​ ​:shinx_stoned:​ ​:shinx_sussy:​

supakaity, to random
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

The fire shark, or eldhaj.

WeAreBrisbane, to brisbane

Tonight's menu!

(I swear, I do eat at home sometimes)

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@WeAreBrisbane meta!

ricmac, (edited ) to threads
@ricmac@mastodon.social avatar

Poll: If goes ahead with its plan to add , will you follow one or more Threads users in your Mastodon account?

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@amyipdev @ricmac In my opinion, Threads (and other commercial ventures on the fediverse) will always prioritise making money rather than doing what's right.

This means when it comes down to banning a popular account which is making them money generating content/drama/controversy or letting them harm a minority group, they will always side with their wallet.

We've seen this already, and they're not even federating yet. They are absolutely letting LoTT and the like get away with "free speech" and "just asking questions" that is causing real harm to real people.

Their policies aren't in-line with the standards that the rest of the fediverse has already established, and I doubt they'll be responsive to or even process federated moderation reports.

I (like @ada) was willing to give them a chance and not jump straight on the preemptive ban threads.net bandwagon. However their inaction has shown us what we can expect, and that's not what we want for our fediverse.

knightofdarkness, to blahaj

Longing for buying me a , finally! After all, it's a very popular stuffed toy. After all, even adults like it. Certain adults - and certain kids - especially like it. ​:Blobhaj_Flag_Transmasc:​ Just a coincidence, really.
After all, anyone has the right to own one. ​:Blahaj:​

Do you guys give unique names to your Blåhajs? ​:Blobhaj_Ani_Hophop:​

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@ada @knightofdarkness The likely suspects from the bedroom.

(Ang, the smolhaj is on the left)

gwynnion, to random
@gwynnion@mastodon.social avatar

One thing I wish for younger trans women is that once you (re)discover your softness and vulnerability, you should work on (re)claiming your strength, confidence, and independence as well. I know society tends to hate those things in women, cis or trans, but I see too many sweet people who are stuck in a "please tell I'm a good girl" doom loop.

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@ada @gwynnion
Your fierceness, sense of justice and righteous fury make you a confident and strong woman and a fantastic role model.

I'm so proud of you.

I'm also so privileged that you let me see your soft and vulnerable side and love you all the more for it.

ada, to random
@ada@blahaj.zone avatar

blahaj.zone will also be implementing these limits

@maartje

RE: https://blahaj.social/users/maartje/statuses/110640693025794217

supakaity,
@supakaity@blahaj.zone avatar

@claire @ada @maartje

Certain cuddle requests may be batchable including up to 25 blahaj in a single request, these requests are only counted as a single transaction.

Cuddle requests are bucketed in a 15 minute sliding window, so multiple identical cuddle requests to the same blahaj/s are only counted once.

To be clear, its the cuddle requests that are limited, not the duration or total number of blahaj/s / humans involved in the request.

So if you were to use your Development CPI (Cuddle Programming Interface) Key to request a three person, 25 blahaj "cuddle puddle" from the POST /v1/puddle CPI endpoint and were to reissue that same request 2 additional times before 15 minutes have elapsed from the original request, that would only be counted once.

However if you were to change the composition of the puddles for subsequent requests or make some requests after the 15 minute expiry period, the requests would then be seen as new and count additionally towards your daily request limit.

I hope this clarifies things for you, and please enjoy the new minimally expanded cuddle request limits.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • ethstaker
  • thenastyranch
  • ngwrru68w68
  • magazineikmin
  • khanakhh
  • rosin
  • mdbf
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • everett
  • cubers
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • anitta
  • InstantRegret
  • Durango
  • tester
  • osvaldo12
  • cisconetworking
  • tacticalgear
  • normalnudes
  • GTA5RPClips
  • modclub
  • Leos
  • megavids
  • provamag3
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •