activistPnk

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The rest of the world is building subways like crazy. The U.S. has pretty much given up in c/urbanism@slrpnk.net
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (10 children)

From the article:

See the U.S. flatlining in transit miles per capita

A devil’s advocate would rightfully argue that that’s expected given the much lower average population density of the US -- the same factor that made it a struggle to get broadband Internet to everyone in the US. Bizarre to use a nationwide per capita as a basis for mass transit comparisons. It should be a city-by-city comparison that groups cities by comparable population density. US cities would likely still come out behind and embarrassed, but more accurately so.

Consider the marketing angle -- instead of saying “the US is losing” (which diffuses responsibility and makes plenty of room for finger-pointing), instead say “@conditional_soup@lemm.ee’s city lost its ass in the bi-annual city infra competency competition”. Then that mayor has some direct embarrassment to pressure action.

The EU gives everyone a right to open a “basic” bank account, but some banks put the application exclusively online in c/right_to_unplug@sopuli.xyz
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)
  • Some libraries restrict Wi-Fi access to people who carry phones with GSM subscriptions that can be used for SMS verification at the captive portal -- which also excludes those whose browsers do not handle the captive portal page even if they carry a phone.
  • The IP space of public libraries (assigned to both wi-fi devices and public PCs) is treated as shared IPs, so library patrons (including myself) are sometimes refused access by website firewalls that insist on IP addresses that are unique to the visitor.
  • Some libraries have a membership fee. My local libraries just dropped the annual membership fee this year, thus not a barrier for my area but I would not assume all libraries EU-wide are fee-free.
  • Library hours of operation usually do not go outside of normal working hours, which cuts out many day workers.
  • Not many libraries mitigate the security risk of shoulder surfing. Library Wi-Fi access is also trivially MitMd with an imposter AP.

There is also the problem that online applications assume customers have online access for transactions going forward. That they have an email account that they monitor regularly. Which means it’s not just a single library visit to get the account open but continuity of access thereafter. I don’t imagine an online application that makes e-mail address optional. So this generally means people unwilling to share their banking relationship with Microsoft would be excluded as well.

More generally, US libraries have a library bill of rights which to some extent ensures inclusivity. European libraries do not, sadly enough. This enables things like deploying Wi-Fi that excludes some demographics of people in Europe.

Lemmy web UI falsely reports “incorrect login credentials” (yikes!) in c/bugs@sopuli.xyz
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net -2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I manage my own creds, which are not shared. So I would know if I changed my password.

Expiry does not lead to login denial. When a password expires the 1st login after expiry would be successful and followed by a forced password change.

SLRPNK Community Discussion - August 2024 in c/meta@slrpnk.net
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

We did some behind the scenes changes with the firewall setup which will make it easier to identify and block scraping attempts and other such abuses of our technical setup.

Why is scraping being treated as abusive? I have actually been on the look out for a tool the scrape Lemmy servers so I can grab a copy of all my own messages, replies thereto, and parent messages of my comments. slrpnk can go down at any time. It would also be useful to be able to grep my own content to recall where I discussed something and to know where to expand on past discussions.

US federal law becoming inaccessible (Cloudflare!) in c/netneutrality@sopuli.xyz
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Take a taxi to the public library and get a receipt for that. Look up the laws there. Add the taxi costs to the lawsuit. And when your case is hindered because the law you’re citing is outdated (because it’s from printed library books), then use that to bolster your case.

I’ve actually tried the library. IIRC the courthouse had a small public library just for law about the size of 2 or 3 office cubes. Finding law in hardcopy law books is very difficult for a non-lawyer. I don’t recall if I was looking for statutes or case law but it was a disaster. I could not find anything useful for what I was trying to research. I recall wondering if the relevant bits of law I was even in the library.

Lemmy has no data portability mechanism, does it? in c/bugs@sopuli.xyz
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Woah.. that question triggered a lot of homework for me and I still can’t concretely answer it. From a GDPR standpoint, I’m not sure. The Working Party 29 covers data portability in doc wp242. This bit touches on it:

By granting access to data via an API, it may be possible to offer a more sophisticated access system that enables individuals to make subsequent requests for data, either as a full download or as a delta function containing only changes since the last download, without these additional requests being onerous on the data controller.

There are requirements that the procedure be easy for data subjects. It’s worth considering the main motivation for Article 20: to facilitate competition ultimately to give consumers choice. It was written with services like Twitter and Facebook in mind, whereby a corporate commercial service wants to make it as difficult as possible to switch to a competitor.

So you can imagine that the mere existence of an API may not satisfy the requirement that a full download be easy if the API is designed to impose much logic in the consumer code. OTOH, the WP29 opinion only mentions ease for the data subject, not necessarily ease for the new data controller. So if the current data controller makes an API available but makes getting a full data set a complex task of searching for content and grabbing one record at a time, I’m not sure how that would play out in a court.

I actually think the wp242 falls short because it’s only 15 pages and leaves a lot of questions. What if a data controller offers an API, but the API includes a CAPTCHA that the new controller must solve? The new controller would have to implement code to redirect the CAPTCHA to the data subject, which the old controller could make very painful to thwart data subjects exercising their Art.20 rights.

Guess I would have to dig into case law to know more.

GDPR aside, from a practical standpoint, if the API were enough then why have clients? The API is only ½ the solution, which needs a client. If there are no clients to fetch the data, then users are not getting their data. Alternatively a Lemmy server fetching data from another in a migration would not call for a client app, but that’s not happening either.

Mastodon’s web UI includes an archive fetch feature that give users a tarball. That feature is not in the API; it’s unique to the web UI. Kensanada wrote a client to grab user’s data using the API (which has no archive interface, just an interface to search and grab one record at a time). So the mastodon API is a bit haphazard and excludes the simple tarball fetch that the web UI has. He had to write the code to detect if the same record was fetched 3 times, it then concluded that all the data has probably been fetched after a certain amount of repetition occurs. I think users can configure how many duplicates might imply that all data was grabbed, but it’s a bit shitty that the API creates that situation of uncertainty. You don’t really know if you have received all the data from the Mastodon API. It’s an example of the existence of an API falling short of expectations.

Depositing money into someone else’s bank acct over-the-counter is possible in the US -- but what about Europe? in c/personalfinance@sopuli.xyz
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I assume you’re talking about the US, right? Guessing on the basis that Europe does not seem to have credit unions AFAICT.

The ID requirement may be fair enough.. something we have to live with if it’s a legal obligation. But in Europe it’s a bit of a disaster because the post office doesn’t just accept any ID. It must be from the EU and must have a chip that their system can read, so they can collect your residential address and track payers digitally. Of course that all breaks down if the ID doesn’t have a chip, or the chip does not have the info the system is trying to extract. Then the post office just refuses the money. Staff are becoming more and more helpless when digital systems cannot handle various scenarios.

Have your say: Citizens and businesses can share their views on new EU policies and existing laws in c/europe
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

That’s the same portal that they expected us to use to report what a shit show GDPR enforcement has been the past 4 years. The irony was the site demanded more information than necessary -- thus the site asking how is the GDPR going was itself infringing on data minimisation. It’s fussy about who hosts the email address they force you to disclose. I eventually got an account after revealing more than I wanted to and then the JavaScript doc submission app gave vague errors anyway and could not be used. It also forces periodic password changes which seems a bit over the top for this sort of mission.

tl;dr: not everyone can have their say. Only some people.

I've started building a TUI for Lemmy in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 weeks ago

fwiw, here is an emacs version:

https://codeberg.org/martianh/lem.el#headline-11

I think what would be most useful would be a usenet→lemmy gateway, so that rich catalog of usenet clients can be leveraged on Lemmy.

List of lemmy apps in c/tchncs@discuss.tchncs.de
5
lemmy.sdf.org has a bad cert (edit:fixed) (slrpnk.net)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/isitdown@infosec.pub
1 comments fedilink
 

The cert for lemmy.sdf.org has issues. Not sure if it expired or what, but some apps report the key is unusable and only facilitate access after ~3-4 steps of authorizing the bad key. Some apps say the site is unavailable, full stop.. no option to continue.

This just started today.

ATMs are becoming a shit-show in Europe. Can cash back save us? Info is sparse as fuck. in c/europe
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net -1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I said it was unlikely to change, because there’s little profit in catering to such the niche crowd of cash-only tourists with incompatible cards who also

^ this is a stark good example of endorsement of marginalisation. You identify a group as “niche” and say it’s okay to fuck them over because they are a minority.

didn’t think to pick up foreign cash at home.

What an absurd attempt to declare ATMs redundant. You cannot just walk through the airport with €10k and expect no problems or questions asked. You cannot carry that around with you and claim you have the same security than if don’t. Some will go as far as to only use ATMs inside casinos because they rightfully have concern for security just along the road between the casino and external ATM.

Also, not offering a specific service to anyone isn’t “marginalizing”.

Of course it is. Discriminating against a demographic of people is obviously marginalisation.

I don’t marginalize black people by not cutting their hair, because I don’t cut anyone’s hair…

This is a fallacy of bad analogy. If you don’t cut anyone’s hair you are not faced with treating different hair clients differently. Unlike ATMs which are treating different demographics of people differently.

Seems like the US bank should make a new partnership then? It’s weird you place the onus of this entirely on the destination bank instead of your own.

It’s weird to rationalise the consequences of elimination of competition as something other than antitrust, and then misplace the onus on consumers and external banks who are the ones disadvantaged by the loss of competition as if there is no cost to that. It’s somewhat like another manifestation of victim blame. The power imbalance inherently makes negotiation unfavorable for those burdened by the monopoly. It also intensifies the damage done by the monopoly. If all banks negotiate a deal with Geldmaat, Geldmaat’s sparse competition (which only exists in some cities but not others) is not interesting for foreign banks to negotiate with.

Well no, it’s not all about getting cash. Or at least, that’s not the message you’ve been sending, from all your exceptions and problems.

Of course it is. The problem is for me to define and describe. And I have described a problem increasingly broken cash retrieval infrastructure. You saying “use a card” is absolutely not relevant to the problem. It’s an attempt to undermine the discussion of the problem as described.

It’s about getting cash while on vacation (no long-term stay)

It does not matter how long the stay is. ATM monopoly X treats people Y poorly no matter how long they are visiting.

without traveling to a specific foreign exchange machine/office (has to be within the small town you’re staying in)

Don’t try to muddy the waters because you’ve failed to defend the increasing enshitification of the status quo. FX offices are a different service with different costs serving a different workflow and cannot replace ATMs because they rely on assumptions about the sending bank that ATMs do not. Not to mention hours of operation and availability differences.

or bringing foreign currency from home (something you didn’t respond to),

That doesn’t need a response because it fails to replace ATMs. That option always existed independent from ATMs and still remains less popular than ATMs for countless reasons. To suggest OTC cash exchange is to disregard fees and various offerings by different banks. A bank with zero markup exchange on their card at an ATM will not typically give you that zero markup when you appear in person with cash.

ATMs are becoming a shit-show in Europe. Can cash back save us? Info is sparse as fuck. in c/europe
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net -1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

There are more methods of payment or ways to get goods and services than in 2015.

You can have all the smartphone frills you want. QR codes, apps, NFC, .. all useless to those who grok privacy. All the privacy-naive cashless options are rich for sure. There is no shortage of innovations to get your data. But when you break ATMs, you break privacy. All these bullshit options do not serve as a replacement for people who are not privacy-naive.

For Dutch people, that doesn’t matter at all, since to them, all those machines were exactly the same for many years,

This is a common theme in your messaging.. that it’s okay to marginalise demographics of people you are not in.. that it’s their problem for not being in your marginalisation-free demographic.

I’m not fully sure on what rates different banks used to charge foreign accounts, maybe that was different.

Different banks have different partnership agreements with US banking networks. I’m sure it’s a shit show now that competition is gone. Some US banks simply eat the ATM fee for their customers and some do not. It’s another loss of options. Some people probably have to start paying a fee once their bank’s partnership with SNS (for example) becomes useless.

But for some reason, you have a burning need to implement one specific solution (cashback) in favour of all the others. Why? What is the core of your issue?

It’s all about getting cash because electronic payment cannot replace cash from a privacy standpoint. I expect to pay cash for alcohol and marijuana. I also expect to pay cash for everything else because privacy matters. You can name off all the fancy new electronic options you want -- they do not replace cash. Cash is how Wikileaks survived when the banks blocked payments to them. Not even cryptocurrency can replace cash (though it comes the closest to being a viable alternative). Anonymous prepaid cards don’t likely exist in Netherlands, and they are not likely as free as cash transactions and would at least have the waste of expiration and unspent funds. So still lousy compared to decentralised ATMs that work.

Trading one good option for a dozen shitty inferior options that tie you to electronic records and limit your control is a poor trade-off. It’s clearly worse than it was 2015.

25
ATMs are becoming a shit-show in Europe. Can cash back save us? Info is sparse as fuck. (slrpnk.net)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/europe
58 comments fedilink
 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11819804

The trend in western Europe is banks are pulling out of the ATM business and joining consortiums. Then those consortiums deploy much fewer ATMs than the banks had. And they monopolise. If one or two ATM brands reject your card, you may be fucked if it’s a small city, as I recently experienced.

ATM alternatives are becoming increasingly essential due to ATM enshitification & sparcity. Some shops give cash back, where you have more money pulled from your bank and the cashier gives you cash from the register. The US has always been on-the-ball with cash back, even though the ATMs in the US are not the shit-show that we see in Europe lately.

So it’s easy to find cash back options in the US because there are several compiled lists showing various stores and limits, like this. Some shops have a fee and some not and the range of limits vary wildly. But at least there are published options.

I’m struggling to find information like that in Europe. In part this is because “cash back” is an overloaded term that also means rebate deals (like discounts of ~1—5%), so search results are polluted. It’s bizarre there is so little info about this. So many people have become cashless that hardly anyone even notices the shit show that ATMs have become. Hence low demand for info on cash back options.

Cash back can be interesting for foreign card holders in Europe because they avoid ATM fees. Discovercard/Diner’s Club seems to guarantee no cash back fee and at the same time no currency exchange markup. But the data on cashback in Europe is sparse and inconsistent from one country to the next.

  • Norway shops offering cash back refuse non-Norwegian cards.
  • UK stores require no purchase and have no fee, but they also discriminate against non-local bank cards.
  • Denmark: local cards only, credit cards refused.
  • Spain: no cash back service (but that article is 10 yrs old).
  • Netherlands: rumour is that Albert Heijn, SPAR, and Smullers have cash back. (SPAR advertises cashback on their UK site with a locator because apparently only some locations offer it. Yet they wholly conceal this option from their Dutch website)
  • Belgium: Aldi has it. But if you boycott Israel then you boycott Aldi North (all Belgian Aldis are Aldi North)

Mastercard has a “cashback store locator” on their US website. And apparently that db is only populated with US stores. Which is a bit shitty because MC is global and they should have that information.

I’m not getting why shops are non-transparent about this. Presumably they offer cash back potentially fee-free because they profit from whatever you’re buying. It would work on me.. if I have some confidence that I can get €200 cash back at a store, that store is sure to get my business.

Anyway, please feel free to use this thread to crowdsource cashback info.

17
ATMs are becoming a shit-show in Europe. Can cash back save us? Info is sparse as fuck. (slrpnk.net)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/personalfinance@sopuli.xyz
4 comments fedilink
 

The trend in western Europe is banks are pulling out of the ATM business and joining consortiums. Then those consortiums deploy much fewer ATMs than the banks had. And they monopolise. If one or two ATM brands reject your card, you may be fucked if it’s a small city, as I recently experienced.

ATM alternatives are becoming increasingly essential due to ATM enshitification & sparcity. Some shops give cash back, where you have more money pulled from your bank and the cashier gives you cash from the register. The US has always been on-the-ball with cash back, even though the ATMs in the US are not the shit-show that we see in Europe lately.

So it’s easy to find cash back options in the US because there are several compiled lists showing various stores and limits, like this. Some shops have a fee and some not and the range of limits vary wildly. But at least there are published options.

I’m struggling to find information like that in Europe. In part this is because “cash back” is an overloaded term that also means rebate deals (like discounts of ~1—5%), so search results are polluted. It’s bizarre there is so little info about this. So many people have become cashless that hardly anyone even notices the shit show that ATMs have become. Hence low demand for info on cash back options.

Cash back can be interesting for foreign card holders in Europe because they avoid ATM fees. Discovercard/Diner’s Club seems to guarantee no cash back fee and at the same time no currency exchange markup. But the data on cashback in Europe is sparse and inconsistent from one country to the next.

  • Norway shops offering cash back refuse non-Norwegian cards.
  • UK stores require no purchase and have no fee, but they also discriminate against non-local bank cards. Interesting that in the UK you can ask for any odd denomination including coins (unlike with ATMs and perhaps unlike cashback in other regions).
  • Denmark: local cards only, credit cards refused.
  • Spain: no cash back service (but that article is 10 yrs old).
  • Netherlands: rumour is that Albert Heijn, SPAR, and Smullers have cash back. (SPAR advertises cashback on their UK site with a locator because apparently only some locations offer it. Yet they wholly conceal this option from their Dutch website)
  • Belgium: Aldi has it. But if you boycott Israel then you boycott Aldi North (all Belgian Aldis are Aldi North)

Mastercard has a “cashback store locator” on their US website. And apparently that db is only populated with US stores. Which is a bit shitty because MC is global and they should have that information.

I’m not getting why shops are non-transparent about this. Presumably they offer cash back potentially fee-free because they profit from whatever you’re buying. It would work on me.. if I have some confidence that I can get €200 cash back at a store, that store is sure to get my business. They also benefit from a security standpoint as there is less cash in the tills at the end of the day.

Anyway, please feel free to use this thread to crowdsource cashback info.

196
Europe limits anonymous cash payments to €3k and all cash payments to €10k. Pirate party reacts. (www.evz.de)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/europe
85 comments fedilink
 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11683421

The EU has quietly imposed cash limits EU-wide:

  • €3k limit on anonymous payments
  • €10k limit regardless (link which also lists state-by-state limits).

From the jailed¹ article:

An EU-wide maximum limit of €10 000 is set for cash payments, which will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money.

It will also strip dignity and autonomy from non-criminal adults, you nannying assholes!

In addition, according to the provisional agreement, obliged entities will need to identify and verify the identity of a person who carries out an occasional transaction in cash between €3 000 and €10 000.

The hunt for “money launderers” and “terrorists” is not likely meaningfully facilitated by depriving the privacy of people involved in small €3k transactions. It’s a bogus excuse for empowering a police surveillance state. It’s a shame how quietly this apparently happened. No news or chatter about it.

¹ the EU’s own website is an exclusive privacy-abusing Cloudflare site inaccessible several demographics of people. Sad that we need to rely on the website of a US library to get equitable access to official EU communication.

update

The Pirate party’s reaction is spot on. They also point out that cryptocurrency is affected. Which in the end amounts to forced banking.

#warOnCash

3
Ban on cash payments over €3,000 will also prohibit breaking up payments to get below the limit. How does that impact salaries/wages? (business.gov.nl)
 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11683511

from the article:

They are not allowed to avoid this amount by making several smaller payments in banknotes.

What does that mean for salaries? Every salary payment can be seen as a part of an annual income. I would demand more frequent pay days just to get some freedom back -- to be free from forced banking. Of course I would say the paychecks are not part of a whole payment but each are a whole payment for a specific amount of labor rendered.

1
Netherlands plans to ban cash payments over €3,000 (business.gov.nl)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/cash@slrpnk.net
0 comments fedilink
 

from the article:

They are not allowed to avoid this amount by making several smaller payments in banknotes.

What does that mean for salaries? Every salary payment can be seen as a part of an annual income. I would demand more frequent pay days just to get some freedom back -- to be free from forced banking. Of course I would say the paychecks are not part of a whole payment but each are a whole payment for a specific amount of labor rendered.

#warOnCash

3
Europe limits anonymous cash payments to €3k and all cash payments to €10k (www.evz.de)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/cash@slrpnk.net
0 comments fedilink
 

The EU has quietly imposed cash limits EU-wide:

  • €3k limit on anonymous payments
  • €10k limit regardless (link which also lists state-by-state limits).

From the jailed¹ article:

An EU-wide maximum limit of €10 000 is set for cash payments, which will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money.

It will also strip dignity and autonomy from non-criminal adults, you nannying assholes!

In addition, according to the provisional agreement, obliged entities will need to identify and verify the identity of a person who carries out an occasional transaction in cash between €3 000 and €10 000.

The hunt for “money launderers” and “terrorists” is not likely meaningfully facilitated by depriving the privacy of people involved in small €3k transactions. It’s a bogus excuse for empowering a police surveillance state. It’s a shame how quietly this apparently happened. No news or chatter about it.

¹ the EU’s own website is an exclusive privacy-abusing Cloudflare site inaccessible several demographics of people. Sad that we need to rely on the website of a US library to get equitable access to official EU communication.

update

The Pirate party’s reaction is spot on. They also point out that cryptocurrency is affected. Which in the end amounts to forced banking.

#warOnCash

-1
Using dummy cards on ATMs to find out if they suck your card in before using a real bank card (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/personalfinance@sopuli.xyz
13 comments fedilink
 

ATMs very rarely inform users before they put their card in the slot whether it’s the kind of machine that uses a motor to suck your card into the machine. If yes, then avoiding the machine is a good idea.

The question is, how do you find out in advance whether the machine has a motor? Obviously if you test it on your actual valid bank card that you intend to use for the transaction, you may not get it back.

So my first thought was carry expired old bank cards which can be sacrificed. Stick the card in and if a motor pulls it in, hit the cancel button and try it on the next ATM until you find an ATM that does not suck the card in. This still has issues. The machine can vary well confiscate the card merely on the basis of being expired (thus invalid). Sure, it’s a sacrificial card but I don’t have 100+ such cards to spare. And also those dead cards will have my name on them and the ATM network could blackball my name.

So my next thought is to cut a rectangle from a plastic food container to use as a dummy card. It’s still dicey because criminals are deliberately sticking thin plastic sheets into card slots to cause the next real inserted card to get jammed (this is in fact one of many reasons why legit users should avoid the motorised card slots in the first place). But if you cause things to jam up, you could get treated like a criminal (camera → facial recognition.. etc).

Maybe loyalty cards.. grab a stack of loyalty cards from a grocery store and use those as dummy cards. Better ideas?

1
links.hackliberty.org down (slrpnk.net)
 

504 Gateway Time-out

5
Simply Translate gives garbage output; Lingva craps out and gives no information, often on bulky content. Translation FEs should translate text in small pieces. (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/bugs@sopuli.xyz
1 comments fedilink
 

Lingva & Simply Translate are two different front-ends to Google Translate. I’m not running the software myself because I run Argos locally (for privacy), but when Argos gives a really bad translation I resort to Lingva and Simply Translate instances.

I tried to translate a privacy policy. Results:

Lingva instances:

  • translate.plausibility.cloud ← goes to lunch
  • lingva.lunar.icu ← gives “414 Request-URI Too Large”
  • lingva.ml & lingva.garudalinux.org ← fuck off Cloudflare! Obviously foolishly purpose defeating to surreptitiously expose people to CF who are trying to avoid direct Google connections.
  • translate.igna.wtf ← dead
  • translate.dr460nf1r3.org ← dead

Simply Translate instances (list of instances broken for me but found a year-old mirror of that):

  • simplytranslate.org ← just gives a blank
  • st.tokhmi.xyz ← up but results are just CSS garbage
  • translate.bus-hit.me (ST fork mozhi) ← shoots a blank result
  • simplytranslate.pussthecat.org ← redirects to mozhi.pussthecat.org
  • mozhi.pussthecat.org (ST fork mozhi) ← shoots a blank result
  • translate.projectsegfau.lt (ST fork mozhi) ←translates the first word then drops the rest; this instance is incorrectly listed as Lingva
  • translate.northboot.xyz ← up but results are just CSS garbage
  • st.privacydev.net ← up but results are just CSS garbage
  • tl.vern.cc ← up but results are just CSS garbage

~~It looks as if Simply Translate is not keeping up with Google API changes.~~ (edit: actually the CSS garbage is what we get when feeding it bulky input -- those instances work on small input)

graveyard of dead sites:

  • simplytranslate.manerakai.com ← redirects to vacated site
  • translate.josias.dev
  • translate.riverside.rocks
  • translate.tiekoetter.com
  • simplytranslate.esmailelbob.xyz
  • translate.slipfox.xyz
  • translate.priv.pw
  • st.odyssey346.dev
  • fyng2tsmzmvxmojzbbwmfnsn2lrcyftf4cw6rk5j2v2huliazud3fjid.onion
  • xxtbwyb5z5bdvy2f6l2yquu5qilgkjeewno4qfknvb3lkg3nmoklitid.onion
  • translate.prnoid54e44a4bduq5due64jkk7wcnkxcp5kv3juncm7veptjcqudgyd.onion
  • simplytranslate.esmail5pdn24shtvieloeedh7ehz3nrwcdivnfhfcedl7gf4kwddhkqd.onion
  • tl.vernccvbvyi5qhfzyqengccj7lkove6bjot2xhh5kajhwvidqafczrad.onion
  • st.g4c3eya4clenolymqbpgwz3q3tawoxw56yhzk4vugqrl6dtu3ejvhjid.onion

Why this is a bug

Frond-ends and proxies exist to circumvent the anti-features of the service they are facilitating access to. So if there is a volume limitation, the front-end should be smart enough to split the content into pieces, translate the pieces separately, and reassemble. In fact that should be done anyway for privacy, to disassociate pieces of text from each other.

Alternatively (and probably better), would be to have a front-end for the front-ends. Something that gives a different paragraph to several different Lingva/ST instances and reassembles the results. This would (perhaps?) link a different IP to each piece assuming the front-ends also proxy (not sure if that’s the case).

1
Street Complete is basically dysfunctional. (slrpnk.net)
 

Street Complete is quite dysfunctional for me. I just get a beige background with icons (+) (-) (ø) ≡. Long tapping gives:

  • create new note
  • create new track recording
  • open location in another app

There is no way to specify a location to edit. If I go online and turn on GPS, the screen fills with questions to answer but still no map.

How do I get a map?

How do I specify a location to go to?

18
OpenStreetMaps enhancement: ATMs are a shit show and need to be reworked with more fields and criteria (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/bugs@sopuli.xyz
0 comments fedilink
 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11375008

Whoever designed the OSM db either never uses ATM machines or they have never experienced anything like the ATM disaster in Netherlands. The OSM db has most ATM brands incorrect for Netherlands and seriously needs more fields so travelers can actually find a functioning ATM.

brands are mostly incorrect

Pick any Dutch city. Search » Categories » custom search » Finance » ATM. The brands are mostly misinfo. These ATM brands do not exist anywhere in Netherlands:

  • Rabobank
  • ABN AMRO
  • Ing
  • SNS

All those banks removed all their ATM machines and joined a monopolistic consortium called “Geldmaat”. There is generally an ATM at those locations but it’s always a Geldmaat ATM. So a simple find and replace is needed on all the Dutch maps.

For indoor ATMs, the brand is often incorrectly named after the shop it’s in. That’s useful for finding it but still missing important info: the actual ATM brand. ATM brand is very important because different ATM brands give differing degrees of shitty treatment. If brand X refuses your card, all instances of that ATM brand will likely refuse your card. So the “brand” field should always reflect the ATM operator. Having a separate shop name field would be useful for locating the machine.

missing key attributes

Travelers should not have to spend hours running from one ATM to another until they find one that works. There are lots of basic variables that need to be accounted for in the db:

  • (real or fixed point) ATM fee
  • (enum set) currencies other than local (a rare but very useful option is to e.g. pull out GBP or USD in the eurozone)
  • (enum set) card networks supported (visa, amex, discover, maestro, etc)
  • (enum set) UI languages supported
  • (integer) transaction limit for domestic cards
  • (integer) transaction limit for foreign cards
  • (integer set) denominations in the machine (Netherlands quietly removed all banknotes >€50 from all ATMs IIUC)
  • (boolean) whether customers can control the denominations
  • (boolean) indoor/outdoor (if the txn limit field is empty, indoor machines often have higher limits)
    • (string) hours of operation (if indoor)
    • (string) name of shop the ATM is inside (if indoor)
  • (enum) whether a balance check is supported: [no | only some cards | any card]; this feature is non-existent in Belgium but common in Netherlands. Note that some ATMs only give balance on their own cards.
    • (enum) whether the balance is on screen or printed to the receipt, or both
  • (boolean) insertion style -- whether the card is sucked into the machine (this is very important because if the card is sucked in by a motor there is a real risk that the machine keeps the card [yes, that’s deliberate]). Motorised insertion is more reliable but carries the risk of confiscation. Manual insertion can be fussy and take many tries to get it to read the card but you never have to worry about confiscation.
  • (boolean) dynamic currency conversion (DCC)
  • (boolean) whether there is an earphone port for blind people (not sure if that’s always there)
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