Skip Navigation
Advice Request - Lens question
  • Only certain mirrorless lenses ate compatible with teleconverters, and that one isn't. Teleconverters are also surprisingly expensive. RF mount is also expensive because Canon banned third party lenses entirely until recently and continues to heavily restrict them.

  • What camera should I buy
  • I think the the least amount of BS from a major camera company is probably Panasonic:

    • Panasonic uses two lens mounts (micro four thirds and L-mount), both of which are shared with other body and lens manufacturers
    • Old bodies get firmware updates
    • Features are rarely artificially restricted for market segmentation
    • Third parties have written apps to talk to Panasonic cameras

    The biggest downside to the brand is that until very recently, Panasonic bodies had only contrast-detection autofocus, which can pulse if used in video and doesn't track moving subjects very well.

  • Flashlight for EUC riding
  • I'm disappointed in Sofirn for not making the battery in their bike light field-replaceable without tools. They're a real flashlight company. They know how to do this.

  • Flashlight for EUC riding
  • Zebralight W51

    You probably mean H51, or H51w. The H53 series is the current equivalent.

    I think OP wants something with a little more power. Zebralight has a suitable offering in the SC700d HI. It is, by all accounts excellent, and it is priced accordingly.

  • I tried to selfhost Nextcloud at work
  • There was a recent related discussion on Hacker News and the top comment discusses why this sort of solution is not likely to be the best fit for smaller organizations. In short, doing it well requires time and effort from someone technically sophisticated, who must do more than the bare minimum for good results, as you just learned.

    Even then, it's likely to be less reliable than solutions hosted by big corporations and when there's a problem, it's your problem. I don't want to discourage you, but understand what you're committing to and make sure you have adequate buy-in in your organization.

  • What's your default pocket loadout?
    • side left: flashlight, keys
    • front left: phone
    • front right: knife
    • side right: pepper spray, coins
    • back left: wallet
  • Meet DAVE: Discord’s New End-to-End Encryption for Audio & Video
  • I'm confused by why they would do this, and at the same time, why not for private text messages.

    I'm in favor of encrypting as much communication as possible, but I don't think many of Discord's users were complaining that their voice chart wasn't secure. I'd expect more of them to care about text chart, which is less effort to spy on.

  • Threads makes it easier to evangelize the open social web with a new direct link feature | TechCrunch
  • The fact that it's been out for a year and federation is still only half-implemented suggests to me the decision to add it was pretty late in the development process, even if it was early in the marketing process.

  • Threads makes it easier to evangelize the open social web with a new direct link feature | TechCrunch
  • Threads is for whoever Meta can sell it to, and I think it was pretty far along in its development before they actually committed to ActivityPub support.

  • iFixit wants to fix the soldering iron
  • Having used a butane iron before, I don't think it would. They don't have the temperature control modern digital irons can, and they're forbidden on flights.

  • United Airlines to Provide Starlink-powered Wi-Fi For Free on all flights
  • Signal and WhatsApp work with the free messaging option. I was a little surprised by Signal.

  • Arguments why Telegram is not a good idea for anyone
  • I'm inclined to agree, and said so in the linked thread.

  • Arguments why Telegram is not a good idea for anyone
  • Lemmy thread and link.

    Basically, anyone who can read your home directory could decrypt your Signal database. That's about typical of traditional desktop applications, but questionable for security-oriented software. Mac OS and (sometimes) Linux have more robust credential management options, and Signal signaled (yes, pun intended) its intent to adopt them.

  • iFixit wants to fix the soldering iron
  • That's similar to the iFixit iron, as is the less expensive Pinecil.

    Those are probably the best options currently available, but I want something more compact and self-contained.

  • iFixit wants to fix the soldering iron
  • I would not want multiple cells for reasons of ergonomics and convenience.

    I probably don't need 100W for most field soldering. 60 is plenty, and temperature-controlled soldering irons usually don't need to pull high current continuously. It would need 60W for maybe 10 seconds when powered on, and when heating something large. The rest of the time, it takes relatively little power to keep the tip hot.

    What I'm describing is, of course not the right tool for production soldering. It's for field work.

  • iFixit wants to fix the soldering iron
  • Assuming the M12 CP1.5 battery pack, it's probably three 18650s. Specifically, it's probably three LG HB series 18650s, which handle high burst loads well, but hold only 1500 mAh. A single Sony VTC6 holds 2/3 the energy of one of those packs. Wait... why am I speculating? Youtubers tear down power tool battery packs on video all the time, and someone did that one. They're Samsung 15Ms, which are a little worse than HBs.

    Anyway, short runtimes are fine for most field repairs, which is the whole point of something entirely self-contained. Spare batteries can extend it indefinitely, but a battery soldering iron is probably not what I'd pick for extended soldering sessions.

  • iFixit wants to fix the soldering iron
  • I would accept a bit of an awkward balance for being self-contained.

  • Apps can now block sideloading more easily and force downloads through Google Play
  • Since 2014, but Android had already been out for six years at that point.

  • iFixit wants to fix the soldering iron
  • What I want from a battery soldering iron is a field-replaceable 18650 in the handle, not Webserial.

  • How do you say "[you have the] wrong number" in your language?
  • As a practical point, saying it in English will almost certainly communicate what you need to communicate. Almost everyone who makes international calls will recognize that you're speaking English even if they don't understand what you're saying, which suggests that the Russian or Korean speaking person they're trying to reach is not at that number.

  • EDC just came up in another community, so it's time for a pocket dump
    • Old leather wallet
    • Flashlight (Skilhunt H150)
    • Knife (Spyderco UKPK)
    • Pepper spray (Sabre Red, with a pocket clip from a random flashlight)
    • Phone (Pixel 4A)
    • Keys, and another flashlight (Skilhunt EK1)
    • Flash drive (Sandisk 128gb)
    • 1.38€
    13
    Recommend a server-side email classifier

    I've been self-hosting email with Maddy for a bit, but haven't shared any of the addresses widely yet in part because I haven't set up a spam filter. I'm pleased with Maddy; there's much less to learn to get a server up and running with sane default behavior than with the email software of old.

    Ideally, I'd like to go beyond just spam filtering and have something with arbitrary categories like newsletters and password resets. I would prefer that it learn categories when I move messages to IMAP folders from a mail client. Maddy can feed messages into arbitrary programs and pick a destination folder based on their output.

    Web searches turn up a ton of classification programs, most of which seem to be more interested in playing accuracy golf with well-known corpora than expanding functionality beyond simple spam filtering.

    5
    Please stop blocking VPNs for established accounts

    I often use a commercial VPN service, which I suspect is not rare among Lemmy users. Most of the time, I'm able to post to lemmy.world, but on occasion I am not. The default web UI provides zero feedback, just a spinning submit button forever, but if I look in the browser dev tools, I can see it's being blocked.

    I understand that some limitations are necessary to prevent spam and other abuse, however this is a very blunt instrument. The fact that I have a 10 month old account with consistent activity should outweigh any IP address reputation issues.

    Perhaps the VPN limitations could be narrowed in scope to cover only account creation and posts from young accounts.

    33
    Anduril firmware adds dark mode
    github.com Release 2024-04-01 · ToyKeeper/anduril

    It has been a long time coming, but today marks a monumental leap forward in the world of illumination, and I'm proud to announce an upgrade which will usher in a new era of lighting technology. Yo...

    Release 2024-04-01 · ToyKeeper/anduril
    3
    What RSS readers should I recommend to others?

    If I want to quickly pitch "you should follow X, Y, and Z using RSS because [problems with social media]" to people who have never heard of RSS, what readers should I recommend?

    I want at least web (not self-hosted), Android, and iOS options. Native apps for Mac and Windows would be nice as well. Linux users probably already know what RSS is.

    There absolutely must be a free option good for at least 25 feeds because unfamiliar tech is a hard enough sell without having to pay. I'll grudgingly accept ads if that's the tradeoff for something beginner-friendly.

    20
    Image uploads blocked by Cloudflare

    When I attempt to upload images to lemmy.world via the desktop web UI, I get the following error message:

    > SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data

    Looking at network traffic in dev tools, I see that I'm getting a 403 page from Cloudflare saying:

    > Sorry, you have been blocked > You are unable to access lemmy.world > Why have I been blocked? > This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks....

    I also get error messages when trying to upload images using Connect and Sync on an Android device. I successfully uploaded images in the past.

    6
    2000 subscriber giveaway

    We just hit 2000 subscribers! I’d like to thank everyone for showing up here to create a new community, and what better way than giving stuff away?

    I’m giving away the Nitecore MH10 v2 I reviewed. I can ship it anywhere in the USA or EU, but EU winners will have to wait until mid September. This is a basic, beginner-friendly flashlight that can accept almost all 18650 and 21700 batteries.

    To enter, leave a top-level comment on this post before midnight UTC on Sunday, August 27, 2023. Only accounts that have posted or commented on /c/flashlight prior to this being posted are eligible to win.

    50
    Webpack hashing problems after Mastodon server update

    I just updated my Mastodon server to the latest version due to a security vulnerability. I got a 500 page and error:0308010C:digital envelope routines::unsupported in the logs from mastodon-web.

    I could reproduce by running bin/webpack from the command line. Some searching led me to try Node 16 LTS, but then I get an apparently blank page when I load the site and call to eval() blocked by CSP in the browser console.

    The API works normally; this only affects the website.

    3
    Does the hard-use folder I want exist?

    I want a folding knife that can get away with most most of the things I know better than to do with a folding knife. That leads to specific criteria:

    • Price: under $100, lower is better. I might break it.
    • Lock: crossbar, backlock, compression, or something similarly strong. Not liner/frame/button. I might want to trust the lock more than is prudent.
    • Steel: tough stainless like AEB-L, 14C28N, or Nitro-V. I might baton through salt-driftwood with it and put it away wet. See toughness chart.
    • Blade: Ideally 3.25-2.5" (85-90mm) and a tip that isn't dainty. I might pry with it.
    • Pivot: washers, not bearings. I might get mud in it.
    • I dislike thumbstuds, but will accept them if they're not in the cutting path.
    0
    Update: Olight paid me

    Less than 24 hours after yesterday's post, an Olight rep got in touch by email. A few hours after that, they sent the full payment.

    0
    YSK: Your phone camera's aspect ratio is 4:3; setting it to anything else crops your photos

    Why YSK: I've been seeing an increasing number of phone photos shared online in 9:16, 9:21 or similarly tall aspect ratios, often with parts of the subject cut off. I've asked a few people why they cropped their images that way, and none of them knew they were cropped.

    8
    Pre-release: Zebralight SC65c HI, the first flashlight with a stacked LED

    Stacked camera sensors have been a thing for a while now; they have improved sensitivity to light by stacking translucent photodiodes on top of each other.

    The Nichia 719A is the inverse; translucent LEDs are stacked on top of each other (in a single package) for increased intensity.

    0
    Banner contest

    I grabbed random photos from my reviews for the community icon and banner so we'd have something right away, but I think it would be fun to have rotating community contributions.

    Post flashlight-related images that are your original content in replies. Upvote images you like. The image with the most upvotes on Monday, June 19 will become our banner for at least a month.

    Disclaimers:

    • We'll ignore downvotes
    • Images should be suitable for the roughly 3:1 crop of the desktop banner and the squarer formats used for mobile and the sidebar
    • Images should be on-topic and tasteful
    • Mods may disqualify submissions for reasons I haven't thought of yet
    0
    /r/flashlight is on strike

    Most people here are probably already aware of the situation on Reddit. This is a thread to discuss it here.

    0
    Golden hour pocket dump
    • Skilhunt M200 v3 (Nichia 519A)
    • Artisan Cutlery Archaeo NL
    • Google Pixel 4A
    • An old leather trifold wallet
    • Keys
    • Sandisk USB A/C flash drive
    • A few Euros
    0
    Zak Zak @lemmy.world
    Posts 20
    Comments 831
    Moderates