sam

@sam@cablespaghetti.dev

Father of two, husband, lover of dogs but owner of many cats. Runner. Technology enthusiast. Metalhead. AuADHDer. Cloudy DevOps type person. Formerly known as @sam@running.cafe.

809 following, 754 followers

📌 24 ★ 12 ↺

[?]sam » 🌐
@sam@cablespaghetti.dev

Time for another blog post, about hosting a fediverse instance on my ancient Raspberry Pi. Obviously I had to share it on the fediverse.

https://cablespaghetti.dev/hosting-a-fediverse-instance-on-an-original-raspberry-pi.html


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    📌 23 ★ 4 ↺
    Jason Davis boosted

    [?]sam » 🌐
    @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

    If you’re reading this you have been successfully migrated as a follower to my stupidly underpowered Raspberry Pi hosted instance. Let’s see how it does with nearly 700 followers. 😆

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      2 ★ 0 ↺

      [?]sam » 🌐
      @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

      @justine@snac.smithies.me.uk that boost did not help my load situation. 😆 I may have some work to do for this to be properly stable.

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        sam boosted

        [?]iamBullivant » 🌐
        @bullivant@mastodon.ie

        Bob Vylan statement released today. 👏

        Statement by Bob Vylan:
"Not the First. Not the Last.
Today, a good many people would have you believe a punk band is the number one threat to world peace. Last week it was a Palestine pressure group, the week before that it was another band.
We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine. A machine whose own soldiers were told to use ‘unnecessary lethal force' against innocent civilians waiting for aid. A machine that has destroyed much of Gaza.
We, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story. And whatever sanctions we receive will be a distraction.
The government doesn't want us to ask why they remain silent in the face of this atrocity? To ask why they aren't doing more to stop the killing? To feed the starving?
The more time they talk about Bob Vylan, the less time they spend. Answering for their criminal inaction.
We are being targeted for speaking up. We are not the first. We will not be the last. And if you care for the sanctity of human life and freedom of speech, we urge you to speak up, too.
Free Palestine."

        Alt...Statement by Bob Vylan: "Not the First. Not the Last. Today, a good many people would have you believe a punk band is the number one threat to world peace. Last week it was a Palestine pressure group, the week before that it was another band. We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine. A machine whose own soldiers were told to use ‘unnecessary lethal force' against innocent civilians waiting for aid. A machine that has destroyed much of Gaza. We, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story. And whatever sanctions we receive will be a distraction. The government doesn't want us to ask why they remain silent in the face of this atrocity? To ask why they aren't doing more to stop the killing? To feed the starving? The more time they talk about Bob Vylan, the less time they spend. Answering for their criminal inaction. We are being targeted for speaking up. We are not the first. We will not be the last. And if you care for the sanctity of human life and freedom of speech, we urge you to speak up, too. Free Palestine."

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          [?]sam » 🌐
          @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

          @inffy@mementomori.social I must take my kids there some time soon…

            sam boosted

            [?]Ars Technica » 🌐
            @arstechnica@mastodon.social

            Half a million Spotify users are unknowingly grooving to an AI-generated band
            A supposed band called The Velvet Sundown has released two albums of AI slop this month.
            arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/hal

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            sam boosted

            [?]steve mookie kong » 🌐
            @mookie@racingbunny.com

            Project Hail Mary trailer.

            If you’ve read the book, watch the trailer because it looks good!

            If you’ve haven’t read the book, do yourself a favor and skip the trailer because it spoils a key element of the story. I can’t believe they put that in the trailer.

            The book is fantastic and well worth a read. The movie looks good from the trailer.

            youtu.be/m08TxIsFTRI

              6 ★ 2 ↺
              Mike Sheward boosted

              [?]sam » 🌐
              @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

              Fediverse, I have a rant I need to get off my chest. Groups in Google Workspace is a security nightmare and has been for years! Why has Google STILL not fixed the glaring problems!?

              I've had admin powers at 5+ companies' Google Workspace/G Suite over the past decade or so. Every single one had groups which were misconfigured, often so anyone in the whole company could join without approval or see the message history at https://groups.google.com without being a member at all.

              This is because for any sensible configuration of Google Groups when using it for email groups you have to use the "Custom" permissions mode. The default Public mode doesn't allow external people to email the group, but does allow the whole company to see all the messages. The default Team mode, has the same problem of everyone being able to see all the messages.

              Also let's not forget that dangerous little "Anyone in the organisation can join" toggle at the bottom which is on by default. So any random new starter can join your confidential company directors group and get all the emails sent to it.

              Giving Google the benefit of the doubt here, I think the reasoning might be that Google Groups is intended as a kind of company forum, not for private email groups. However that isn't how anyone uses it in my experience...


              Screenshot of the default Google Group settings for team mode

              Alt...Screenshot of the default Google Group settings for team mode

              Screenshot of the default Google Group settings for public mode

              Alt...Screenshot of the default Google Group settings for public mode

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                sam boosted

                [?]Mike Sheward » 🌐
                @SecureOwl@infosec.exchange

                @sam agree this is absolutely crazy, it's been like it forever, i wrote about it a couple of years ago as part of a guide on securing Google Workspace:

                mike-sheward.medium.com/securi

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                  [?]sam » 🌐
                  @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                  @SecureOwl@infosec.exchange @Sam@infosec.exchange Thanks! I’ll have a read. I just don’t get why they haven’t changed the defaults after this many years…

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                    [?]sam » 🌐
                    @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                    @pl@cosocial.ca @sam Sounds about right yes. Most people just want a simple mail group but instead of building something for that purpose they made an absolute mess of it. I understand that but I don’t understand why it hasn’t been fixed/replaced for so many years…

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                      [?]sam » 🌐
                      @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                      @ttscoff@hachyderm.io @drdrang @benfsmith@hachyderm.io @jimmylittle@hachyderm.io It works with snac (a stupidly lightweight server) and basically nothing else does. Otherwise I prefer Ivory a little more. There’s not much in it after I’ve tweaked some of the default settings for things like timeline display format though. Customisability is probably an advantage over Ivory…

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                        [?]sam » 🌐
                        @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                        Thanks to whoever figured out that my server configuration with Lighttpd opened me up to filling up the in-memory root partition and crashing the machine by POSTing a large file. Free pen testing is always appreciated. 😆

                          1 ★ 0 ↺
                          in reply to »

                          [?]sam » 🌐
                          @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                          @rcr@mastodon.online @sam Honestly they exceeded all expectations. 😁

                            10 ★ 3 ↺

                            [?]sam » 🌐
                            @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                            In snac on an ancient Raspberry Pi news, I switched from XFS to Btrfs and my memory pressure issues are now a thing of the past. As a bonus I can use snapshots for backups instead of taring up the many small files that snac generates (it has no traditional database).

                            I tried tuning various parameters but after some reading came to the conclusion that lots of small files with very little RAM is about the worst case scenario for XFS.


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                              [?]sam » 🌐
                              @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                              @dajb@social.coop @slothrop@chaos.social That’s really cool, I hope to have this setup in a few years. It feels wrong to be dependent on gas in this day and age.

                              On the resilience from home batteries and solar though, watch out. Most systems will turn off in the event of a power cut. It’s something about avoiding back-feeding to the grid. If you want this you need to specifically get a system with an “emergency mode” or something like that.

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                                [?]sam » 🌐
                                @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                I’m on my way to see at Wembley Stadium this evening with my wife. As someone who really doesn’t care about football I’ve only ever been in the smaller (but still huge) Arena.

                                This is going to be an experience!

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                                  [?]sam » 🌐
                                  @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                  Linkin Park and Spiritbox were both absolutely fantastic last night. It was a bit of a festival feel with Wembley’s roof open and the distance of the “rear standing” from the stage, but we got a good spot for both bands and my vertically challenged wife could see pretty well for once. 🙂

                                  Linkin Park on stage in a big stadium with lights, lasers and Emily Armstrong on the screens

                                  Alt...Linkin Park on stage in a big stadium with lights, lasers and Emily Armstrong on the screens

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                                    [?]sam » 🌐
                                    @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                    @nuintari@bsd.cafe @sam It’s probably not the same as a normal car but have you checked for a little switch on the door below the latch, and only visible when the door is open? (I can’t think of a good way to explain this…)

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                                      [?]sam » 🌐
                                      @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                      @bazzite.gg@bsky.brid.gy @distrowatch@mastodon.social My boys (6 and 7) are both also Minecraft obsessed and run Bazzite. They have never known Windows gaming and hopefully never will. 😁

                                        1 ★ 0 ↺
                                        in reply to »

                                        [?]sam » 🌐
                                        @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                        @nuintari@bsd.cafe I shall follow this journey with interest. 🙂

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                                          [?]sam » 🌐
                                          @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                          @ticho@mas.to @sam@mas.to Thanks I’ll look into that 👍

                                            0 ★ 1 ↺
                                            Kepi boosted

                                            [?]sam » 🌐
                                            @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                            Would anyone happen to know how to stop XFS using up to 100MB of memory on my 256MB RAM Raspberry Pi and causing apps to get OOMKilled? This isn’t cache, this is actual used RAM. Searching online is coming up blank. I’m happy to move to a different filesystem if necessary.


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                                              [?]sam » 🌐
                                              @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                              @awfulwoman@indieweb.social I would argue that this is another example of Ubuntu no longer being the right choice for ease of use. I think I read something a while ago about this being a deliberate choice by Canonical to discourage people from installing random debs off the internet rather than a bug.

                                              Anyway I point new users at Linux Mint rather than Ubuntu now, but obviously everyone has their different opinions which is probably part of the problem. 🤷

                                                2 ★ 5 ↺

                                                [?]sam » 🌐
                                                @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                It’s a long shot but if I have any followers in Chennai, India with a few years of experience who are looking for a DevOps role using AWS, Terraform and Kubernetes please get in touch!

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                                                  [?]sam » 🌐
                                                  @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                  We need regulation on stuff like NOT LINKING THE DRIVE TRAIN OF CARS TO THE INFOTAINMENT! Do these companies have even one infosec person working on their 100mph metal boxes? https://hackaday.social/users/hackaday/statuses/114742241359167235

                                                    5 ★ 2 ↺
                                                    in reply to »

                                                    [?]sam » 🌐
                                                    @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                    This has been going on for at least a few months. Some Facebook pages for high profile Linux blogs got taken down, I forget which ones now. Despite Facebook being heavy users and even contributors to Linux, the word Linux seems to have made it on to a list of banned "hacker related" words in their internal moderation systems...

                                                    CC: @_elena@mastodon.social

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                                                      [?]sam » 🌐
                                                      @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                      ...

                                                      [?]Graham Perrin » 🌐
                                                      @grahamperrin@mastodon.bsd.cafe

                                                      @sam thank you!

                                                      @distrowatch please, did what's described (in the Tom's Hardware article) ever reach a conclusion that was satisfying, or less astounding?

                                                      @_elena facebook.com/groups/linux.fans is present with 373 thousand members, so I guess that deletion (if that's what it was, technically) was reverted.

                                                      This is not to promote Facebook, I'm simply late to the party.

                                                      cc @stefano

                                                        ...

                                                        [?]DistroWatch » 🌐
                                                        @distrowatch@mastodon.social

                                                        @grahamperrin @sam @_elena @stefano After about a week of appeals and protests we were told users were able to post about Linux and link to DistroWatch in most regions.

                                                        It seems each Facebook region/country has its own rules though so whether we were blocked (and whether the term "Linux" was blocked) would depend on where you live.

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                                                          [?]sam » 🌐
                                                          @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                          This isn’t a YouTube channel I watch an awful lot, but this video is some powerful stuff. Some of the things BYD have been getting away with both inside and outside of China are truly awful. I would have considered one of their before, but certainly not now.

                                                          https://youtube.com/watch?v=kBbiCrsk7RM&si=6fb3Sf5skdRXhIqg

                                                            ...
                                                            sam boosted

                                                            [?]The Real Grunfink » 🌐
                                                            @grunfink@comam.es

                                                            I love independent proposals, so next release of will include support for Webmention. It's a protocol built on top of web standards and part of the IndieWeb. It helps web page maintainers and bloggers to know when one of their URLs are mentioned in other platforms by providing a webhook to receive notifications. In snac's case, all links written in a Fediverse post (directly or using the Markdown format) will be tested for Webmention endpoints and notified if they exist.

                                                            I don't know how many web sites out there implement Webmention (I guess very few), but given that it has been very simple to implement, here it is.

                                                            Long live the non-big-tech Internet.


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                                                              [?]sam » 🌐
                                                              @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                              In an unsurprising development, my 256MB Raspberry Pi hosted server decided to get OOMKilled this morning just before I boarded a steam train in Wales.

                                                              I quickly restarted the service from the platform but then it got killed again and I didn’t notice until this evening. I have now rebooted the server, maybe that will help until I get home from my camping trip with my kids.

                                                              For those who don’t care about my latest ADHD obsession, don’t worry I’m sure I’ll move on to a different one soon, and here’s a steam train…

                                                              A black narrow 2’ gauge steam train with people around it on the Brecon Mountain Railway. The plaque on the front says it was made in Philadelphia in 1930.

                                                              Alt...A black narrow 2’ gauge steam train with people around it on the Brecon Mountain Railway. The plaque on the front says it was made in Philadelphia in 1930.

                                                                0 ★ 0 ↺
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                                                                [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                @linker3000@mastodon.social @meshtastic@mastodon.social I wondered what this was about. Picked it up going past Bristol last night I think.

                                                                  sam boosted

                                                                  [?]NerdyDayTrips » 🌐
                                                                  @nerdydaytrips@mastodon.social

                                                                  It’s the weekend! 🎉
                                                                  Going somewhere nerdy? 
                                                                  Add it to the map! 🗺️

                                                                  nerdydaytrips.org

                                                                    0 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                    in reply to »

                                                                    [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                    @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                    @jamesb@duckduckpigeon.co.uk @sam Not a clue. Maybe. 🤷 😆

                                                                      1 ★ 0 ↺
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                                                                      [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                      @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                      Thanks. Fixed! And it wasn't initially because I didn't put the shebang at the top of the file, but the .sh seems to not be an issue. It is diligently running at 2am every day.

                                                                        sam boosted

                                                                        [?]Wesley Moore » 🌐
                                                                        @wezm@mastodon.decentralised.social

                                                                        > So consistent with the theme of this series, I found the oldest and slowest 2.5" hard disk (an IDE 40GB Fujitsu from 2004), random USB adapter and a powered USB 2.0 hub to connect up to my terrible server.

                                                                        cablespaghetti.dev/fedi/sam/p/

                                                                        I like this idea of hosting web stuff at home with the most basic stuff you have lying around (see also home.wezm.net/~wmoore/cgi-bin/). We need a name for such things. Someone needs to come up with something better than or @sam

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                                                                          2 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                          [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                          @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                          @wezm@mastodon.decentralised.social @sam We need a marketing person for this. I am definitely not a marketing person. In the car world it’s called bangernomics, but this isn’t quite the same. 😝

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                                                                            📌 24 ★ 12 ↺

                                                                            [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                            @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                            Time for another blog post, about hosting a fediverse instance on my ancient Raspberry Pi. Obviously I had to share it on the fediverse.

                                                                            https://cablespaghetti.dev/hosting-a-fediverse-instance-on-an-original-raspberry-pi.html


                                                                              ...
                                                                              sam boosted

                                                                              [?]Meredith Whittaker » 🌐
                                                                              @Mer__edith@mastodon.world

                                                                              'Meredith,' some guys ask, 'why won't you shove AI into Signal?'

                                                                              Because we love privacy, and we love you, and this shit is predictable and unacceptable. Use Signal ❤️

                                                                              
Guardian headline saying, "‘It’s terrifying’: WhatsApp AI helper mistakenly shares user’s number
Chatbot tries to change subject after serving up unrelated user’s mobile to man asking for rail firm helpline"

                                                                              Alt... Guardian headline saying, "‘It’s terrifying’: WhatsApp AI helper mistakenly shares user’s number Chatbot tries to change subject after serving up unrelated user’s mobile to man asking for rail firm helpline"

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                                                                              [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                              @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                              Yeah maybe it's visible to an instance admin but not typically the user. They are generally one and the same for snac anyway. It's interesting to see who blocks me anyway...

                                                                                1 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                                [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                Well that's interesting. tells me in the notifications tab when people block me. I don't think there's a way to find out in Mastodon if you've been blocked. I just got blocked by someone who seems to post regularly but has 0 followers and 0 following over on defcon.social. How strange!

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                                                                                  [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                  @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                  I think this is another bug with me trying to use snac and an app designed for Mastodon…

                                                                                  You were correct about my vape batteries being 5-600mAh. I shall probably not be getting into NRF board development though, $40 is bonkers pricey for stuff like this!

                                                                                    ...
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                                                                                    [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                    @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                    @jamesb@duckduckpigeon.co.uk @sam@cablespaghetti.dev You are correct. I misremembered. I need to get into home assistant. I have all the hardware including a Zigbee USB stick already, but somehow haven’t got around to doing anything with it.

                                                                                      ...
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                                                                                      [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                      @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                      Hardware tinkerer fedi. I have a lot of small capacity (5-600mAh) rechargeable lithium batteries pilfered from littered disposable vapes. What should I do with them?

                                                                                      Points will be given for amusing my 6 and 7 year old children and immense gratitude will be given if it stops them waking me up at 5am when it’s light early in the summer.

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                                                                                      in reply to »

                                                                                      [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                      @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                      You absolute smeghead hedders...

                                                                                        1 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                        in reply to »

                                                                                        [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                        @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                        @hedders@mas.to @HighlandLawyer And said it’ll be back for breakfast?

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                                                                                          [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                          @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                          @hedders@mas.to Ah crap this isn’t as good a reference when the original post already has the reference. Didn’t see it before replying. 😆 Red Dwarf ftw…

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                                                                                            in reply to »

                                                                                            [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                            @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                            @mmeier@social.mei-home.net @sam I think you probably loaded it at the peak of it being overloaded and something only partially transferred and then that got cached for you. That’s my theory anyway. Have you tried a Ctrl-Shift-R which I think forces a refresh?

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                                                                                              in reply to »

                                                                                              [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                              @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                              @ncopa@fosstodon.org @sam@fosstodon.org Thanks these are really great tips. I’m new to Alpine but really enjoying playing with it. I’ll try them out and maybe even add them to the blog post. 🙂

                                                                                                5 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                                                [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                                @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                                I think this is why crashed last night when I posted the link to my blog post. The combination of the load from sending out to many ActivityPub servers and all those servers trying to generate a thumbnail card thing by hitting the website was just too much for the little Pi. I'll have to see if I can do anything to optimise caching...

                                                                                                Screenshot of dmesg output showing many "TCP: too many orphaned sockets" from last night.

                                                                                                Alt...Screenshot of dmesg output showing many "TCP: too many orphaned sockets" from last night.

                                                                                                  sam boosted

                                                                                                  [?]Curated Hacker News » 🤖 🌐
                                                                                                  @CuratedHackerNews@mastodon.social

                                                                                                  Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

                                                                                                  vidarholen.net/contents/wordco*

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                                                                                                    [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                                    @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                                    Here's a blog post on setting up Alpine Linux on my old 256MB Raspberry Pi in diskless mode and having it host a static site (and now my blog). I'll write up another on how I got Snac installed to have it host my fediverse presence over the next few days. Enjoy!

                                                                                                    https://cablespaghetti.dev/hosting-a-static-site-on-an-original-raspberry-pi.html


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                                                                                                      Jo Hawkins boosted

                                                                                                      [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                                      @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                                      If anyone is having issues loading my blog post or it renders strangely in your browser, please let me know. I think it might have been a result of all the Mastodon servers trying to download it at the same time and causing partial transfers of the html

                                                                                                      At no point did I say this was an optimal configuration for a website and social media account!

                                                                                                        1 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                                        in reply to »

                                                                                                        [?]sam » 🌐
                                                                                                        @sam@cablespaghetti.dev

                                                                                                        @mmeier@social.mei-home.net @sam I am also a Firefox user but don’t have the same issue. Very strange. Thanks for flagging.

                                                                                                        There are some HTML validity issues I’m seeing if I put it through validator.w3.org that I will endevour to fix. Maybe it’ll help. 🤷

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