I also block Twitter ASN (yes, it is called Twitter ASN), and a whole bunch of IP ranges from not so democratic countries with very bad hostile actors. They don't have rule of law there, so I don't need these.
With regards to X. Blocking it serves as a good reminder to use a proxy, or try and find the source elsewhere (Blue Sky, Mastodon). More often than not, these exist.
Finally, if required I can use Tor Browser. No cookies, no profiling, no ads.
Out of interest, those IP ranges that you’re blocking… is that at DNS level or are you doing some firewall-level blocking too?
And do you use any kind of reference for determining which ranges/countries are wise to block or has this just been something you’ve evolved over time?
Currently, I have IPv4 only (will change end of year to dual stack), and to block AS13414 (NetName TWITTER-NETWORK) blocking 104.244.40.0/21 to block x.com is suffice. However, if you follow [1] you have a more complete blocklist. In a *BSD you can use cron and curl to update these lists based on if a change occurred, OPNsense allows the same in their webUI. In that vein, I also have Tor exit node block list (this is public data), I have a Censys (& Co) blocklist. You name it.
I don't use DNS-based in this instance (I do for example, for porn, cause I have children). I use a firewall-based one in OPNsense. PF (and therefore OPNsense) have a feature called anchors (alias in OPNsense) which basically allows you to use OOP to develop lists.
I'm pretty sure Linux like OpenWrt can do the same, and you can also use DNS-based blocklists. You can even outsource the hosting to e.g. NextDNS. Because these blocklists, whether firewall or DNS-based filtering, they do use some RAM especially. Back when I started w/this in early '00s this was an issue on my Soekris OpenBSD machine. Nowadays, I assign 8 GB RAM to the VM and call it a day.
“not so democratic countries with very bad hostile actors. They don't have rule of law there, so I don't need these.”
Time to add united states to those filters.
Lots of screenshots circulating of posting the word "Cisgender" being flagged by Twitter. Not sure if they just flag or remove it though, as I don't use Twitter any more.
This has to be a disingenuous request. X is signaling at free speech, while in practice it amplifies or suppresses content the owner agrees or disagrees with.
It runs deeper than that, during the development of WebGPU it came to light that Apple was vetoing the use of any Khronos IP whatsoever, due to a private legal dispute between them. That led to WebGPU having to re-invent the wheel with a brand new shader language because Apples lawyers wouldn't sign off on using GLSL or SPIR-V under any circumstances.
The actual details of the dispute never came out, so we don't know if it has been resolved or not.
The bizarre thing is that Apple did used to cooperate with Khronos, they were involved with OpenGL and even donated the initial version of the OpenCL spec to them. Something dramatic happened behind the scenes at some point.
My absurd pet theory is that this was related to their 2017-2020 dispute with Imagination. Apple started (allegedly) violating Imagination's IP in 2017. They were, at the very least, threatened with a lawsuit, and the threats were compelling enough that they've been paying up since 2020. It could be Apple pulled out of the Khronos IP pool to prepare a lawsuit, or to have better chances of dodging one.
Please, tell us all about how Khronos hurt Apple with free software that Apple had every opportunity to influence. Point to the boo-boo that justifies making things worse for everyone.
I can imagine a scenario: Apple donates openCL, then later suggests some changes for the next version. Khronos delays or pushes back and now openCL is stuck from Apple's perspective and they can't do anything about it.
I don't know why anyone would try to care when Apple announced they were pivoting away from OpenCL half a decade ago. The value prop of a cross-platform GPGPU API died the moment that Apple gave up, and OpenGL's treatment reflects what happens once Apple abandons an open standard.
Yes. Aliexpress is cheaper, but they have the sample problem with counterfeit and mislabeled products. Furthermore, they also manipulate ratings and comments. I got an electronic filter from there that was seriously mislabeled and sent in a comment and rating based on that. It never appeared on the product page.
Amazon's electronic parts are a complete shambles of junk. Take, for instance, this page which is selling "Germanium Schottky diodes", a thing that does not exist. They have a part number for a Germanium diode, but are apparently selling a silicon based Schottky diode instead. This is simply fraud, but only different from vats of other frauds on the site because it is so blatant. Yes, the Amazon parts are typically more expensive than the Ali parts, but there is very little reason to use either one.
If you actually want to receive the part you ordered, go to Digikey or Mouser. The prices will often be better as well.
If you are doing everything in China, you should at least go with LCSC (https://www.lcsc.com/) as they are bargain but generally not completely counterfeit.
Note: That "generally" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I'll use LCSC for hobbyist stuff or prototypes. I'll generally use Digikey/Mouser/Arrow/Future/etc. if I need intermediate production (up to about 10K units). Once you get above 100K units, you can utilize Chinese suppliers again as you have an on-site representative managing everything at that point.
They're okay most of the time for non-critical hobby tinkering, but counterfeit/clone/approximate parts are very commonplace on those platforms.
The advantage that specialty electronics distributors have is that they have supply-chain relationships directly with first-party manufacturers. A part with a manufacturer's name on it will come from that manufacturer. By contrast, marketplace-type sites don't care about an item's provenance.
