@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

ben

@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk

I'm Ben and I'm rubbish at writing bio's.

I'm a general geek, who's core skillsets boil down to trouble-shooting and reverse engineering.

I mostly talk about #Tech, #Monitoring, #SoftwareDevelopment, #Privacy & #Security

If you want to send messages encrypted with PGP, you can find my key in the links below.

My Toots auto-delete after a month (https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/opinion/arguments-for-and-against-auto-deleting-mastodon-toots.html)

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

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm just slightly too young, my parents weren't up for this or it wasn't a thing round here.

https://heatherburns.tech/2024/04/30/i-hope-you-know-this-will-go-on-your-permanent-record/

stefano, to privacy
@stefano@bsd.cafe avatar

Today I've been really busy and I'm exhausted, but I wanted to share the "gem" of the day.
A colleague (whom I've never spoken to before) calls me and explains that they need to connect a client's server with their management system. To communicate, the client's server needs to be reachable via telnet. I explain that I can't open telnet to the world, but if necessary, I can set up a VPN of their choice (Wireguard, OpenVPN, even Zerotier if it's helpful) and grant telnet access through the VPN. Not ideal, but better than nothing...

That said, the colleague attacks me: "Here you are, with these VPNs - don't you understand they're used to spy on us? Governments intercept all VPNs to steal our personal data." I try to clarify that I may not have explained myself well and that I don't mean using the famous commercial VPNs, but a private VPN access to allow the two machines to communicate securely. No luck: "Haven't you realized yet? Every time we open a VPN, they know and intercept us."

Frankly, I was speechless...

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@stefano Yet somehow that clearly couldn't happen when sending it over the net in the clear....

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

Being young's great and all that, but it's not usually until later in life that you discover you can properly headband even whilst dishing up an entire family meal.

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New Post - Ex-Owner Wants To Walk Our On His Own

Bonnies old owner got in contact last weekend to ask whether we'd be open to him taking her for a walk around town for an hour.

We replied and said that we weren't comfortable with this, which resulted in some fairly grumpy pushback.

In this post, I put my thoughts in order a bit.

I'm curious to hear whether there's anyone who would have allowed it?

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/aita-for-not-allowing-my-rehomed-dogs-ex-owner-to-walk-her.html

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@bencc Oooff. Glad to hear he's found a home that he can start to feel comfortable in.

popey, (edited ) to ubuntu
@popey@mastodon.social avatar

Two days before 24.04 LTS releases, and the upgrade process seems quite badly broken. If you're an adventurous person, I'd wait for quite some time before upgrading...

Edit: With some brutal hardcore apt and dpkg, I fixed it.

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@popey You can't fully appreciate the feeling of relief that just washed over me reading this.

The other day, I very nearly chanced an upgrade to it. I ran into some compatability issues with docker - reading online showed I needed a newer version, but apt said I was on the latest. Figured I'd have to jump up a release.

Thankfully, it turned out that in the previous dist upgrade, the file in sources.list.d hadn't updated and was still pointing at docker's groovy repo.

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : News Stopped Syncing My Feeds

In which one of @neil's old posts accidentally DoS'd my feed reader

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/general/nextcloud-news-stopped-updating-some-of-my-feeds.html

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@VModifiedMind @neil Hah, careful, he'll be coming for you next 😀

selzero, to random
@selzero@syzito.xyz avatar

Here is one for DIY Mastodon

I would like to decorate the bathroom with pages cut out of comic books all over the walls.

Obviously I need some kind of plastic covering to protect the pages from the elements.

How does one go about doing this?

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@selzero I'd test it on a page before committing to it first, but you should just be able to approach it the way you would wallpaper in a bathroom:

  • Paste it onto the wall
  • Let everything dry (avoid using the bathroom in the meantime)
  • Give it a good coat of decorators varnish

The varnish provides a water (and scratch) resistant layer.

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

It does seem, when you ask LLMs about individuals, that they hallucinate a lot of stuff (like the time that Bing talked about me playing underwater hockey)

Meta.ai: Oh My by @timbray

https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2024/04/18/Meta-AI-oh-my

overholt, to random
@overholt@glammr.us avatar

The greatest response letter since "I feel that you should be aware some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters." https://www.404media.co/lol-no-maker-of-fuck-the-lapd-shirt-laughs-at-cops-copyright-threat/ via @jasonkoebler

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@overholt @jasonkoebler That's definitely up there with Arkell vs Pressdram in my estimation: https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/arkell-v-pressdram

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

There aren't many afternoons that I've felt were quite as well spent as this one 😀

Edent, to random
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

🆕 blog! “Toilet Review! Better Bathrooms Smart Toilet Seat”
★★★★⯪

I want to make one thing very clear. Despite my propensity for IoT gadgetry, I did not connect my toilet to the Internet! It's 2024. Why are you still scraping your arsehole with paper like some kind of 20th century throwback? A decade ago, I got a cheap bidet attachment. It wasn't great. The water […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/04/toilet-review-better-bathrooms-_27403/
⸻
#gadget #review #toilet

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@Edent Does it run off a battery, or does some department at the council now have a Part P (edit: snigger... should have written Part Pee - it was right there) notification of you having installed a mains powered toilet?

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New post: Stopping from sending messages mid-codeblock

It's driven me nuts for ages, but recently I stumbled on an option in advanced options to tell slack not to invert the behaviours of enter and shift+enter once you enter a codeblock

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/documentation/general/stopping-slack-from-swapping-the-behaviour-of-enter-when-in-codeblocks.html

Edent, to webdev
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

🆕 blog! “I can't use my number pad for 2FA codes”

This has to be the most infuriating bug report I've ever submitted. I went to type in my 2FA code on a website - but no numbers appeared on screen. Obviously, I was an idiot and had forgotten to press the NumLock button. D'oh! I toggled it on and typed again. No numbers appeared. I […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/04/i-cant-use-my-number-pad-for-2fa-codes/
⸻

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@JohnJBurnsIII @Edent My other current bug-bear is things like credit-card forms that won't submit unless the javascript has seen an update event for each field.

So you have your password manager fill in the card details, only to have to go into each file, make a change and revert it.

Validate the content not what you think I have or haven't done...

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

Rolled straight out of bed into an incident channel.

So now,

  • the dogs are sulking because it wasn't me who took them out
  • the wife's a bit narked because the sulky dogs wouldn't listen to her whilst out
  • I'm knackered

The third is probably temporarily addressable: I've got 2 bottles of original recipe Irn Bru in the fridge.

But, I can't help think the whole thing could probably be better addressed by one big group nap...

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

Our local newspaper has started requiring you to create an account to view "limited" free articles, or to subscribe.

Their literature extolls the virtues of subscribing, including that you can view the content in an "advert-light" environment.

In their FAQs there's a section "What is 'Advert-light'" which they've decided to to provide an answer to - it doesn't expand at all.

Which, combined with the choice of name, kind of suggests it's not going to be nearly as advert free as hoped

girlonthenet, to random
@girlonthenet@mastodon.social avatar

Now THAT'S what I call a headline.

https://defector.com/cybertruck-deliveries-halted-due-to-car-being-a-big-piece-of-shit-that-doesnt-work

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@girlonthenet Amazing.

And the article totally delivers on justifying the headline.

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@neil I finally found out what the lawyer version of accidentally taking down production is: https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/firm-pledges-full-support-to-lawyer-over-online-divorce-mistake/5119365.article

Rather feels like the portal must be badly designed for that to be possible.

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : Automating a with

We recently got a wifi-enabled hot tub. Some enterprising soul had already created a HA addon to work with it, so I set about implementing , and .

Amongst other things, it now starts heating automatically if there's plunge pricing on Agile

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/automating-our-hottub-with-home-assistant.html

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@eay 😂 Mine has mentioned a few times that she's been saying for years thatwe should get one

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@motoridersd Oh that's a nice idea - I've got low, low temperature alerts but nothing that looks at temperature relative to earlier - thanks!

ben, to fediverse
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : Adding a Fediverse Comments Box to a Site

This documentation details adding mastodon-post (by @DavidDarnes) into a static site generated by the Nikola in order to link back to discussion in the

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/documentation/general/embedding-a-mastodon-comments-box-in-a-nikola-site-template.html

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : New 2 months in

Bonnie moved in with us on 12 Feb. In this (unexpectedly long) post I wanted to mark her progress so far.

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/marking-2-months-since-bonnie-joined-us.html

amy, to random
@amy@spookygirl.boo avatar

Regular reminder that if you don't run your site on HTTPS you're doing yourself and anyone who visits your site a disservice.

This is double extra true for anyone doing ANYTHING related to sex. Even if your hosting provider is cool with what you're hosting, you owe it to the people who use your site to protect their privacy by preventing their ISP and any intermediary from knowing what they're looking at.

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@Seirdy @dflxh @amy My "favourite" is still Verizon injecting a unique ID into outgoing HTTP requests so that it could be used for targetting ads at the servers end.

In doing so, they quietly made it possible to identify a given user across domains - https://www.techdirt.com/2015/01/15/remember-that-undeletable-super-cookie-verizon-claimed-wouldnt-be-abused-yeah-well-funny-story/

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