neelc

I could be wrong, but I hold the opinion that ATProto is the CDMA (3GPP2) of social media protocols, while ActivityPub is GSM (3GPP).

CDMA had better radio tech than GSM, but at the expense of openness. Qualcomm basically owned CDMA, and still does, while GSM was cross-licensed among everyone.

Likewise, ActivityPub is truly open while ATProto is "open" but you're basically a prisoner to Bluesky Social, the way CDMA put you in Qualcomm's prison.

Bluesky has the initial lead, but it's Twitter's estranged child. People used to Twitter find Bluesky an easier replacement. CDMA was also an easier upgrade from analog 1G networks than GSM was, due to re-using the back office systems and ESN identifiers.

Yes, Bluesky has a better experience. But maybe future ActivityPub releases will catch up for a large part. UMTS caught up to CDMA while being more open, and LTE became the universal 4G standard, with GSM-centric IMEI and SIM cards and such. And maybe PDS implementations will converge to ActivityPub with an ATProto fallback.

Keep in mind that I know nothing about the protocols, so I could be missing what makes ATProto a better tech, or not.

It's a cutting-edge distro with 6-month release and 13-month support cycles.

Whereas Debian/Ubuntu have 5 years and RHEL/Alma/Rocky have 10 years.

Mac Mini/Studio has an integrated power supply, but other Mini PCs do not have the same luxury. It doesn't matter if you're Minisforum or HP.

Minisforum probably reused the x86 power supply for ARM. The x86 MS-01 and MS-A2 supports GPUs after all.

I'm not a hardware engineer, I've failed miserably in software engineering and now run a VPS host.

In the US, many refurbished Pixel phones are Verizon variants which disallow OEM unlocking.

When was in college and had Sprint this was a nightmare since then I wanted root for unlimited hotspot (Sprint made it easy that way), but most refurbished Pixels were Verizon variants.

And I couldn't just use OnePlus because they were only designed GSM networks or later Verizon CDMA-less. Then, new Pixels were unaffordable for me, but parents insisted on using Sprint.

I ended up getting a Pixel 3 off Mercari (which I still own) just to keep root.

Now, I can afford a Pixel 10 Pro new (which I am right now), alongside spare Pixel 9 and OnePlus 13R units. But even then (a) my income is lower than when I worked at Microsoft and (b) The OnePlus was from a trade-in deal.

About his comment:

> Unfortunately, I must recommend Windows 10/11 here, because then you don’t have to mess around with any drivers; it’s the simplest option.

When I worked at Microsoft but ran FreeBSD at home, I often used my work Windows laptop to install custom ROMs. This is because FreeBSD was finicky with adb.

Now I run Fedora and the Android drivers are pre-installed. I installed GrapheneOS on both a Pixel 10 Pro (main) and Pixel 9 (spare) that way.

On Windows, I've had more trouble with Android drivers than I did on non-Windows.

I previously ran another VPS host who did the same exact thing (before OVH did it?).

Unlike Fourplex.net which uses modern ASRock Ryzen 9000 servers, Qeru.net used older HPE DL360 Gen9 servers.

I gave 3GB of RAM for $3-4/mo then. But these servers weren't very fast. I ended up selling the business, and am happy I did.

This.

When I worked at Microsoft, I seldom used Azure for personal use due to it being expensive and complicated.

Whereas I have plenty of Fourplex.net servers because even on half the salary, it's affordable enough for 16 Tor exit relays and two personal web/email/Mastodon servers.

For providers like us, we have to lease IPv4. We came long after IPv4 was already depleted. IPv4 prices did go down. Despite that, the $15/year 128MB BuyVM plan is long-gone.

But for a new provider like us, we'd have to spend more than an established player like BuyVM or RackNerd who bought most of their servers pre-AI-boom.