early_riser

The attack started between 05:35 and 05:40 CDT yesterday, when the user count jumped from 387 to 909. The attack lasted until around 16:05 CDT (4 PM), when the user count dropped from 787 to 53. For the duration of the attack the user count hovered around 2000, with a maximum of 2591 users at 08:35.

When the attack concluded, I and others were unable to log in, getting a password incorrect error. I received no email notifications after being PMed, and attempts to create new accounts resulted in a blank screen. Some users were still logged in and able to post, but attempts to change passwords were unsuccessful.

The site is back up, but I'd update your passwords.

Hopefully nobody minds my spamming. Here's another story. As with the last one, alien speech is indicated with Italian quotes («»).

EDIT: classic typo in the title. Thankfully Lemmy lets you update post titles, unlike Reddit.

Some examples are linguistically universal across yinrih languages. All languages colexify various anatomical words related to limbs and extremities thanks to the yinrih being quadrupeds with highly prehensile feet. Their forepaws do just as much walking as their rear paws, and their rear paws do just as much grasping as their forepaws.

Some examples from Commonthroat:

To refer to human body parts, yinrih have to qualify these terms with words like rfbr to walk and CDq to hold, such as rnqCDqg holding paws for hands and rnqrfbrg walking paws for feet.

Yinrih also make distinctions where most human languages do not, such as having distinct words for muzzle (PMqg) and rhinarium, the wet tip of the nose (sPlqg). They also distinguish between the act of lapping (qdBq, meaning to draw liquid into the mouth by submerging the tip of the tongue and drawing it out again in a spoon-shape) and licking (NLr, meaning to drag the body of the tongue across a surface). Since kits lick (NLr) milk from their dams' paws, the word licker (NLrmg) means much the same thing as English sucker, a gullible or unfortunate person.

Like human languages, Commonthroat anatomical terms are used to derive many other words, but they may be used in very different ways thanks to the yinrih's body plan.

Because yinrih rely heavily on pheromones to communicate mood, the word for to smell like (rMP) also means to feel (an emotion).

Yinrih do not have concepts such as marriage or extended family, so they lack words for husband or wife, grandfather or grandmother, and aunt or uncle. A single word (scscg) refers to any adult associated with one's family but isn't one of one's sires or dams. And in yinrih cultures where single parents take charge of specific pups throughout their upbringing, the word scscg can even refer to one's other sires and dams who are not involved directly in one's upbringing. scscg also fills in for most of the human kinship terms mentioned above, and may also refer to older cousins.

As simple as yinrih kinship is, those kin relationships that are recognized are extremely strong. Parent-child and sibling-sibling relationships may require special pronominal forms in some languages. Outlander is the most well-known to use such a system. Second- and third-person pronouns have unique transactional, amicable, and familial forms. Note, however, that these forms indicate reciprocal relationships. Using familial forms with someone doesn't just mean "I think of you as family" but also "I expect you to treat me like family". It is considered rude or even vulgar to address someone with a more familiar pronoun, as it is seen as burdening them with unwelcome obligations or implying a level of closeness that hasn't yet been earned.

Complicating matters are that more pious dialects of Outlander use amicable forms to refer to humans when transactional forms would be used with other yinrih in the same situation.

Micro mechs[^1] started out as medical tools, but their tiny size quickly proved useful in espionage, as they allowed spies to be literal flies on the wall. From there they found their way into the criminal underworld as a favorite tool of pickpockets. Pilots could hop into a victim's wallet[^2] and copy ID or bank card numbers, then slip out undetected, possibly with a valuable trinket or two in paw.

Counter intelligence and law enforcement agencies had to develop strategies to detect, chase, and catch these lilliputian saboteurs. These hunting methods soon grew popular as sports, to the point that most micro mechs manufactured at the time of First Contact are built for recreational use rather than as medical tools. Pickpockets now favor sport mechs rather than those built for use by healers because the sport models are both far less expensive and are designed for speed and maneuverability rather than for safe operation in the delicate environment of a patient's body.

Sport micro mechs are built cheaply as they are designed to be disposable. Each manufacturer has their own proprietary control system--paw gauntlets and tail sheath for input, and a HUD visor for output, and each make and model has its ardent defenders and bitter detractors.

The most popular micro mech sport at the time of First Contact is a hunting game where one or more mechs compete to touch the nose of a participant on foot, who in tern is trying to chase down and smash the mechs. From an external perspective it looks like someone trying to chase down and squash a troublesome insect, so most people watch vid feeds from the mechs. From their perspective it's a Dark Souls style giant boss battle. Since the mechs are piloted remotely the only risk is to the "boss", who has to do a lot of leaping and brachiating. Humans refer to the sport as EXTREME snoot booping (caps and bold text mandatory).

Conventional mechs that are piloted internally are also used in fighting competitions similar to the arena from Armored Core.

[^1]: Commonthroat distinguishes between mechs piloted remotely and those piloted internally. The former are rLMg /chuff, long low strengthening grunt, short low weak growl/ literally mimic, shadow, or avatar and the latter are rGHg /chuff, long low strengthening growl, short low weak growl/ meaning heavy armor. Their pilots are in tern referred to as rLMqg /chuff, long low strengthening grunt, huff, short low weak growl/ and rGHqg /chuff, long low strengthening growl, huff, short low weak growl/. [^2]: A pocketed band worn around the right foreleg.

How would a race of quadrupedal sophonts approach the task of keeping their paws clean in places like hospitals and kitchens?

The yinrih use remotely operated micro mechs[^1] or stationary medical robots for most procedures, meaning the healer doesn't have to worry about her[^2] paws touching the patient.

In situations where such equipment is not available, the healer has a few options. The most straightforward is to avoid moving while working on a patient, making sure that any tools are within reach. The healer may stand on a moving platform that can be driven by tail-actuated controls. In want of even this, a healer will employ an assistant to fetch tools for her. The assistant will carry tools in the tail (which is sheathed much like a hand in a glove) or rest the tools on a back-mounted tray.

Paw washing is done in shallow washing pools. Front feet, back feet, and tail are washed. The palms and soles are scraped against a coarse mat to remove dirt from under the claws and from between the paw pads.

While not related directly to their quadrupedal stance, because yinrih have fur, healers take drugs to shed their coat, becoming completely bald save for the whiskers. Baldness is a sign of the medical profession, much like a human lab coat and stethoscope.

[^1]: zoomorphic drones that can range from cell-sized to the size of a small pill. They are swallowed by, or injected into, the patient to perform internal procedures without the use of incisions. The healer pilots the micro mech using a HUD visor, paw gauntlets, and a tail sheath. [^2]: As a rule, yinrih males may not become healers. Females may not become soldiers. "Men break, women fix" is the common saying about such matters.

UPDATE: I've shuttered the forum for the time being. I don't really have time to manage it, and I have no idea how to promote it. Oh well. I learned a lot about the admin side of forums though, so I don't consider it a waste of time.

If anyone is interested, I have a NodeBB instance at https://constructed.world/. For now email is not required to sign up.

NodeBB seems to be a spiritual successor to phpBB that aims to modernize the traditional forum experience while keeping the community atmosphere. It has many features that phpBB lacks, such as user mentions, a more modern user status indicator system, real-time chat, markdown formatting, and of course, it uses ActivityPub.

I think the more permanent discussion format of forums is a better fit for this hobby, personally.

Hopefully advertising another online conlanging/conworlding community isn't too crass, but I have no idea how else to let people know it's available.

Bought a bed in a box from ~~Dr. Evil~~ Amazon. It's been expanding for about a day now. How long before I can sleep on it? Do I really even have to wait? I remember hearing you have to let it expand all the way.

Flat worlds, toroidal planets, cube planets, etc.

My longest-lasting conworld existed on the inner surface of a sphere with a light source at the center. I briefly considered having Yih (the homeworld of the yinrih) be a toroidal planet, but thought it was too out there and decided to give it a ring instead.

It seems my interest in ham radio was the result of ADHD hyperfixation that ended after a few years. I primarily played with CW and digital on HF, and satellites on VHF+. My interest petered out some time in 2023, and I want to get back in but can't find something that both captures my interest and doesn't require more purchases.

Here's a list of communities related to conlanging (the art of creating languages) and conworlding (worldbuilding for its own sake rather than for a book or game.) These communities are fairly quiet, since these hobbies are quite niche, but I thought I'd put this out there.

• !worldbuilding@lemmy.world
• !worldbuilding@lemmy.ml
• !conlangs@mander.xyz
• !conlangs@lemmy.world
• !neography@lemmy.world

Maybe this is more of a home lab question, but I'm utterly clueless regarding PKI and HTTPS certs, despite taking more than one class that goes into some detail about how the system works. I've tried finding guides on how to set up your own CA, but my eyes glaze over after the third or fourth certificate you have to generate.

Anyway, I know you need a public DNS record for HTTPS to work, and it struck me recently that I do in fact own a domain name that I currently use as my DNS suffix on my LAN. Is there a way I can get Let's Encrypt to dole out a wildcard certificate I can use on the hosts in my LAN so I don't have to fiddle with every machine that uses every service I'm hosting? If so, is there a guide for the brain dead one could point me to? Maybe doing this will help me grock the whole PKI thing.

UPDATE:

Here's what I ended up doing:

1. set up cloudflare as the DNS provider for my domain
2. use certbot plus the cloudflare DNS plugin to create a wildcard cert. Because I want to use wildcard certs and because the web servers are on a NATed private LAN, HTTP-01 challenge cannot be used. Wildcard certs use a DNS challenge. From what I understand of the certbot docs, the HTTP challenge makes a certain HTTP resource available on the web server, then requests that resource, presumably via an external client, to verify that you own the domain. the DNS challenge works by temporarily placing a TXT record in your DNS server. This method requires your DNS provider to have an accessible API that allows the modification of resource records.
3. Once the cert and key are generated, I place them on the servers I want to to make use of them and set up the web server accordingly.
4. Visit the websites and confirm that HTTPS works.

There are some other hiccups that I'm guessing aren't related to HTTPS. Per My earlier question about self hosting, I'm experimenting with NodeBB. I cannot get the two test instances to federate, which I initially assumed was an issue with HTTPS. That's a question best asked elsewhere, though I thought it relevant to note because it was my initial purpose for setting up HTTPS.

Humans are members of the great ape family, and apes are a specific type of monkey, making our hands literal monkey paws.