XKCD is amazing.
Randall Monroe has provided me with weekly nibbles of entertainment for nearly 2 decades. But this was inspired by his style, not created by him.
I realize that now. Well done!
I also did not create this.
In that case. It’s terrible! I hate it!
It’s perfectly adequate, i tolerate it.
Next you’re gonna tell us you don’t even selfhost
🤫
What is this I don’t even
You made this? I made this.
Yup
Do you remember what the original was?
I think it’s https://xkcd.com/1425/
Funny, now it’s easy to check for birds.
If by “easy” you mean someone else already spent 5 years and a nice chunk of cash training a model for it, which you get to use. And if you accept that it will not be accurate across all possible species and environments, only very specific subsets.
You’re right, but you could say the same about the National Park GIS lookup.
We spent the five years training the model. Manually. With Captcha data.
Now we’re teaching it not to run traffic signals, hit motorcycles or busses, or try to drive up stairs.
I’m waiting for the day Google Recaptcha will ask me “is that traffic light red?” and after a couple of seconds “hurry up, I’m approaching the intersection!”
But if my tesla cant go how will hit those last few pedestrian
also fooled by drawings and if it’s shit enough the model will be fooled by text saying “bird”
*yippies in image processing degree
This is original work. The source is in the post.
For a generous definition of “original”.
Edit: very generous, since it’s just new text on the second panel in https://xkcd.com/1269/
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A bit of reverse image searching reveals this was the original XKCD comic (more specifically, the top middle panel): https://xkcd.com/1269/
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
I was curious and looked up the origins of ‘ham’. Apparently it originates from “ham-fisted” describing second-rate morse-code skills of telegraphists before radio was a thing
Interesting. I’ve originally heard it loosely attributed as a kind of homophone aberration where ‘ham’ comes from ‘hamature’. But maybe it’s vice-versa, or that’s a corporate line from the organization ARRL Amateur Radio Relay League.
As a self-hoster thats also a ham…
Fucking ow.
Self hosted
Cloud provided media storage
You want to talk about it?
Don’t threaten me with a good time
It could be their own cloud. I refer to my VPSes as “the cloud” even though that’s still self-hosting. My “cloud storage” would just be a 10TB storage VPS I’ve got.
No one else uses the term “cloud” like that.
That part of this comic really stuck out like a sore thumb. I can’t tell if it’s an oversight, a comment about the challenges of self-hosting, or subtle mockery of self-hosting hypocrisy.
No one else uses the term “cloud” like that
Broadly, “the cloud” is just someone else’s computer. VPSes still fall into that definition. A lot of VPS providers describe themselves as “cloud” now too (eg one of the main hosts I use, HostHatch, describes themselves that way on their site).
If a single AWS EC2 or Lightsail server (which is essentially just a VPS in one region) is considered to be “in the cloud”, why not a much cheaper, more powerful server with a different provider?
Nextcloud can be selfhosted
My interpretation of “cloud provided media storage” in the context of self-hosting is something like seaweedfs.
I use “my personal cloud” all the time. But that’s just me.
I got another one. Self hosted but tunneled through cloudflare
I don’t like the use of the word cloud, makes it sound like some mystical virtual environment in the sky that anyone can use and it just works.
It’s someone else’s computer, nothing more
I broadly agree that “cloud” has an awful lot of marketing fluff to it, as with many previous buzzwords in information technology.
However, I also think that there was legitimately a shift from a point in time where one got a physical box assigned to them to the point where VPSes started being a thing to something like AWS. A user really did become increasingly-decoupled from the actual physical hardware.
With a physical server, I care about the actual physical aspects of the machine.
With a VPS, I still have “a VPS”. It’s virtualized, yeah, but I don’t normally deal with them dynamically.
With something like AWS, I’m thinking more in terms of spinning up and spinning down instances when needed.
I think that it’s reasonable to want to describe that increasing abstraction in some way.
Is it a fundamental game-changer? In general, I don’t think so. But was there a shift? Yeah, I think so.
And there might legitimately be some companies for which that is a game-changer, where the cost-efficiencies of being able to scale up dynamically to handle peak load on a service are so important that it permits their service to be viable at all.
Asking for a friend, where do you get a 10TB VPS and how much does it cost?
This counts as discussion of self-hosting.
My case is a variant of that - I used to host on a VPS, but the storage available was extremely expensive for, say, more than 16 GB. Tired of having to trim data literally daily, I went and purchased a home server with all the storage I would need. The problem? My home internet, being residential, is behind CG-NAT (not even a dynamic IP!), and that means renting a (much cheaper) VPS solely to expose my server to the open internet with a static IP.
For exposing your server to the internet, a $10/year 512MB RAM VPS would be more than enough. You can also get VPSes with way more storage for a reasonable price, especially during Black Friday. The VPS I’m hosting Lemmy and Mastodon on has 99GB disk space and is only $33/year, but that was part of a limited sale.
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I’m in this picture and it’s making me feel uncomfortable
And this is why I love my admin(s) be they human or ai i have no idea how or why but thank you for doing it.
i feel like i am showing up to a garden party in a nice pair of slacks, blazer, and shoes and everyone else is in a mecha
insert Thanos stone meme.
We self host an instance to share knowledge about self-hosting that instance.
Reminds me of early days of Linux.
You should ditch windows and switch to Linux! It has everything!
What I can I do on it?
You can compile your own kernel!
…
We must self host an instance to discuss self hosting instances to discuss self hosting the instance.
Most self hosting isn’t even needed but it sure as hell is satisfying
Is anything we do even needed?
This is 100% me but for Lemmy.
Can confirm, lol
LMAO. So, so true and I have no problem with it. Self-hosted seems to be one of the most active communities on Lemmy. I learn a lot and y’all all seem cool.
I’ve been self-hosting Mastodon for a while and mostly using it to share bird photography, but also to provide comments on a static site. Since Mastodon and Lemmy both speak ActivityPub, those get crossposted to /c/flashlight so Lemmy comments are also included on my site. Federation is cool.
I don’t follow many accounts that post Fediverse meta stuff on Mastodon. While I have some interest in the best examples of that content, the only way to attract a broader community is to promote accounts and content appealing to the interests of that broader audience.
Wow, that comments section is really nice! How did you implement it? Does the site also use ActivityPub and subscribe to the thread?
Mmmmmmmm Emisar… I picked up the DT8 recently and it’s absolutely hilarious. I love it so much.
I should docker a Mastodon instance behind my reverse proxy asap!
I think you a word.
Image Transcription:
A one-panel XKCD-style comic with the title “The Self-Hoster” One character is seated at a computer, talking to a second character standing behind their chair. Character one says: “It took all weekend, but now that I have a Mastodon instance running in Docker behind a reverse proxy with cloud-provided media storage, I can enjoy interacting with a federated network of other users without compromising on privacy or content moderation.” Character two replies: “Cool, what kinds of topics does your network discuss?” Character one replies: “Our experiences self-hosting Mastodon instances, mostly.”
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
The only mistake I see is attributing the work to XKCD.
Hm, I guess I assumed based on the style. It’s an edit? I’m not really sure what to call it then. I’ve edited my post but if you have any suggestions please let me know.
It’s an original work in the style of XKCD
The image is a cropped xkcd with the text replaced but the same joke.
Love it. . IMO opinion self hosted instances are the coolest thing about federated social media and it’s part of how we will take back the internet from the corporations that have captured it.
IMO opinion
You know what ‘IMO’ is an acronym for, right?
SMH my head
IMO my opinion I don’t know
In My Own opinion, lmao ass off.
Wow…you really believe this?
Only one way to find out!
Hey why the personal attack.
Collateral damage can’t always be avoided.
Meh, it’s a hobby. Lots of people talk about their hobbies.
Still a funny comic, though.