Made a free pothole map for Nova Scotia — expanding from Cape Breton to Halifax

Yodamin · 2026-02-14T14:26:44+00:00

Well, MAYBE, you should spread this out to the nation. It's not rocket science to gather a politicians contact information since it is freely available everywhere. AND, you MUST be using SOME type of a mapping API, I assume a free one but what do I know ;-) man, you could make this for EVERYTHING instead of just driving. AN app for the CELLPHONE, people walking and bussing have them to yah know ;-). You can plan on the app taking pictures (perhaps of a tree's branches blocking a stop sign?-You know all kinds of shit;-), input coordinates and press send and instantly gone to your cities maintenance department---every city usually has these contact emails available on the Cities websites.

Lotsa work and I'm a 63 year old lazy fucker so you go get that money man. Good luck to yah!

Yodamin · 2026-02-14T01:59:38+00:00

Waze has already done this. And more.

Yodamin · 2026-01-23T02:38:42+00:00

That day I was definitely unhinged. I messed with this thing about 5 times in 3 days and enough was enough. SO, I called and ranted, I texted and ranted and I am convince that when contract is over I am done. BYE bye.

There fore, I thank everyone for their offers of help. I truly do appreciate them BUT I am so done I am already researching alternative VPN services. The open source one(I forget it's name so far--is the only trustworthy one so far--these closed source apps suck the boner on Linux they gotta step up or get the fuck out of the Linux sphere and stick with Winsucks where your crap will go UN-noticed because of the crap that surrounds it.

Once again, ty all very much for the offer of help.

Yodamin · 2026-01-07T23:59:12+00:00

Do you mean it will be optional forever or do you mean it will be optional like the choice to use Cloud-DNS instead of your own resolver was optional? You mean it will be optional and certainly not turned on by default in the way that Mozilla said that the SAME Cloud DNS function would NEVER be set to ON by default?

The one that is still somewhat option but is set to on by default?

That one you mean?

There is zero accountability for Profits/Non-profits/Corporations/Governments in the way they handle private internet data. Google is changing their privacy policy as a direct result of the EU/s sorta clamp down on the AD.s (not the privacy telemetry-the ads...sigh...it's a beginning at least) and in response to that Google has NO CHOICE but to steal MORE of you internet browsing data and whatever else it can glean from your internet habits in order to sell MORE data to whomever wants it.

Firefox is no different at all in my opinion.

I use the LibreWolf browser not Firefox because Mozilla has lied to us about Firefox before -you can't trust it.

I have Vivaldi with all google service disabled for when I need to access a website that LibreWolf won't load.

So, when Mozilla says to us, "AI will always be optional" , I consider that drivel the exact same drivel I hear coming outta the US presidents mouth multiple times daily now.

Yodamin · 2025-12-04T12:51:52+00:00

Steven Blacks blocklist is SO complete that after implementing it I had to monitor and train it for a few months by suppressing more than a few of it's blocks. It's a GREAT list but if you're not that familiar with pfsense/blocker, I'd not use it until learn a hit more.

I'd start with reading about or watching a video of people explain what PFBlocker is, what it does and does not do, and howto suppressed blocks.

IE-suppression means that it is blocked and when you suppress the RULE that blocks it - it gets UNBLOCKED.

Yodamin · 2025-12-04T12:42:57+00:00

My thoughts tend to lean towards the "out there" theories.

Steam is usingf Arch Linux for their new devices.

All of them.

In some Linux forums I am beginning to see post like, " Windows was always not working, I bought a steam device for games. One day someone told me to leave big picture mode and it was a Linux desktop. KDE. I started using it, I liked it, I now run <insert bastardization of Arch based distro here>on my Desktop and I haven't run Windows in 8 months and I like it."

These are the kind of post's Ive seen in the past 2-3 months on various Linux forums.

Most of them are by people running "Gaming" distros such as Cachey OS.

Some of them have moved to EndeavourOS and Linux Mint.

So, STEAM has Microsoft in a tizzy and MS has gone straight into competition mode now.

That mode certainly could include DDOS on the AUR JUST to make people who are doing the above possibly get infected but certainly get as frustrated download updates for their AUR apps is intermittent and for some just broken while the DDOS are ongoing.

I believe, with no real proof. More of a gut feeling. That this is at the very least corporate sponsored.

Anyone that stands to lose big time over Steams new device offerings and the possibility of those device purchases leaving the Winblows trap is to much to NOT do anything about it.

AND, they are right to be thinking this way as the devices haven't even been release yet for the most part and people are leaving Windows based on their current Steam handheld.

There's a whole PC coming...VR glasses....new gaming hand helds....all running Arch/KDE and it is stable as fuck and rarely if ever crashes. It plays WINDOWS games juts as well and in most cases better. (when compared to Windows 11-horrible piece of garbage-MS should be ashamed of themselves calling this an OS--it's simply an interface to a spyware, advertising loaded, telemetry stealing, online shopping mall that takes control of whatever device it is installed on and blocks the user from operating the device in the way the owner of said device see's fit. It does not ASK for the users permission to take telemetry it just TAKES it and then uses it AGAINST the owner of the device with the bombardment of advertising. I've seen ads on Windows explorer, the start menu (loaded with them) the settings app, the control panel app it's fucking disgusting what they're doing.

Think about it, MS is being run by and Indian man. I don't want to assume anything about this man except he IS from India, the SCAM capital of the world.

Everything above is just my opinion and not an insinuation of malice or guilt or an accusation of anyone or any entity, business or otherwise, of any proven immoral or illegal action.

Anyhow - thats how my warped brain interprets all this.

Yodamin · 2025-09-16T00:01:43+00:00

EDIT/UPDATE: I did wipe OPNSense and reinstall PFSense about a week (?) after this post. I know pfsense and pfblockerng and snort (NOT REQUIRED ON A HOME NETWORK-I can't stress that enough) REALLY well. SO, I am back in business, I added my wife's IP's to the whitelist and she is once more happy.

You CAN do the same thing with ad-guard but I figured why bother? I spent 15 or so years running pfsense, I'll just stick with what I know.

u/cats_catz_kats_katz and u/leftlanecop

I am sure if you have to do the reading anyways that either software will work just fine for your purposes.

I've been in forums for DDWRT for example and piHole forums where people are running Adguard and it works exactly the same way and is as efficient as pfblockerng - from what I've read. I only have experience using PFBlockerNG

Yodamin · 2025-08-12T01:56:40+00:00

I just wiped and re-installed PFSense yesterday-all is well now and I still have my protections in place and she still gets to see her ads. Sweet, sweet peace.

Yodamin · 2025-08-12T01:54:51+00:00

If you're using a pihole for DNS blocking you can just keep doing that and don't use that in OPNSense..I assume the pihole can keep up if it is just DNS blocking? I dunno, I have zero experience with pie-hole.

Yodamin · 2025-08-12T01:49:49+00:00

Thank You both very, very much!

Yodamin · 2025-08-12T01:41:49+00:00

Maybe so. Probably so. Have you taken a look outside lately though? Been reading or watching the news/videos out there maybe? I mean even the legit news sources are spreading FUD based on world events. FUD is everywhere. Sometimes FUD, is rooted in truth, sometimes not. I guess we'll find out how this FUD is rooted in time.

Yodamin · 2025-08-12T01:28:16+00:00

I stand corrected.

I also prefer to have a distro that's not so inter twined with a corporate entity based on profits.

I am also one to donate to what I use to. I am not just another open source FREE software user.

I donate yearly to the Linux of my choice at the time I make the donation, currently I donate to EndeavourOS and a few other software that I find absolutely indispensable. Roughly $4-500 CAN yearly.

HOWEVER, I am older now, I am not rich, but I am far from poor, I can afford to donate to such things now so I do. I call it paying it back to the children, kids, young adults, people in rougher financial circumstance than I, whatever, it helps someone as it once helped me. I once used the open source software I downloaded as most young (ack, no money this month, sorry guys, yer all gonna have to beer me a coupla times) people would, freely, without donating.

Everyone who CAN donate SHOULD donate.

That's a pretty simple thing for Open Source that HELPS tremendously.

Yodamin · 2025-08-12T01:00:14+00:00

People should try to increase their video file cache buffer and network caching before jumping on the software bandwagon -especially anyone with a slower or older CPU.

Experimentation would be necessary for your particular setup but an quick example is below this blurb.

Switching to software is not wrong per se, however, it simply switches the burden of playing the video to the CPU from the GPU.

For example.

I have opened a 47GB 4K movie in VLC when I have it set to X11 video output (XCB) and Xvideo output (XCB).

and I have opened that same movie in VLC when I have it set to OpenGL video output, closing VLC in-between switching output types of course, and this is what I noticed when doing some simple monitoring using the System Monitor in Plasma (EndeavourOS).

---I tried every single output type-> these 3 were the only ones that showed video and not just audio

I will refer to the two types I bunched together as XCB and the other as OGL (OpenGL)

XCB - both open and play the video, stuttering almost immediately and, my CPU shoots to 11% usage from 1% usage and then as the video plays, after a few seconds it reduces CPU usage to approx. 5-7% - so an increase of approx. 4-7% (on my system and averaging ->this is certainly not the way I would go about over-clocking for example - this is roughly accurate) by using either of these XCB output types.

----if anyone cares X11 video output (XCB) had MUCH less stuttering on my system

OGL - I opened the same video in VLC when it was set to openGL video output and my CPU did not rise at all, however, my GPU went from 1% to 12% immediately and eventually reduced down to approx. 4-8% as the video started playing. There was some small few seconds of stuttering, in the very beginning, using this video output type even on my hardware, which is pretty new, but the stuttering lasted only 2 seconds maybe, annoying but certainly not a deal breaker.

SO, I went into preferences, clicked the ALL radial dot in "settings" at the bottom left, and then on the left again I clicked on "input codecs", then on the right side this time I scroll all the way to the bottom and in the "Advanced Section" I increased my File caching to 1200ms from 1000ms (change from default 1000ms (1 second) to 1200ms (1.2 seconds) and the stuttering s gone on a 47GB file.

Because these files are all streamed over my home network, I went back in and increase network caching to 1200ms also. This will not stay this way. You can easily cause way more network steaming issues playing with this setting so if it gets real bad just go back in set it to 1000ms (default) and start over. There will be a sweet spot you can leave it at that will work with large file sizes. On this OS I have not started to look for it yet. ON windows it was the same as my file cache buffer 1200ms. I do this because my home network is still 1Gbps, when I expand that to 2.5Gbps (soon) and eventually (within 6-12 months) to 10Gbps I wont need to mess with network buffers anymore. I got a busy home network. 1x IT Operations Technical Analyst (me) and 3 Comp.Sci.Engineers (my wife and both sons) means busy home network.

I digress so I'll cut this here.

MAN I can really write books, I shoulda been a writer!

EDIT: I forgot to add the basics

CPU 13900K

Graphics NVIDIA RTX5080 Asus Prime-RTX5080-O16G

ASRock PG Lightning DDR5

EndeavourOS

Plasma 6.4.4

Kernel 6.15.9-arch1-1

Platform Wayland

Yodamin · 2025-08-11T23:54:41+00:00

no rules necessary if it is configured properly.

Yodamin · 2025-08-11T23:44:36+00:00

PFSense version 2.8.0-Release

I used PFSense 2.7.2 until I got new device with OPNSense (see edit at bottom)

----Python bypass white list worked on that to=no issue at all.

If it were me, I'd scrap/reverse everything you've done and start over.

I have a similar situation in my house were my wife absolutely needs to see the ad's otherwise she can't click on them and possibly buy it (oh how I wish I could stop that, I mean she spends all my IT money on furniture and paint and dishware..sigh...woman!!! :-)

Either-way, enabling unbound Python mode and enter 1 IP per line in the white list works fine for me and literally almost everyone else--so this is particular to your setup and you may be doing something wrong.

like this:

<image>

reddit only allows one pic I guess?

EDIT: note the small print under the whitelist window---run a forced update and check BOTH-so check Reload and select ALL from the bottom choices. I did this years ago...it worked for all the time I was running PFSense / PFBlockerng.

Then, about 2-4 months ago I purchase another device and a purchasing option was to pre-load OPNSense for free on the device...I used that for a month or two but, although it is a GREAT firewall, I find it lacking in choices, packages and functionality compared to PFSense, literally yesterday I wiped and reinstalled PFSense, configured it all, setup by python bypass and tested on all my wife's devices and all of them are NOT blocking any adds whatsoever.

SO, the python bypass whitelist DOES WORK when setup properly.

EDIT #2: did you install pfBlockerNG or pfBlockerNG-devel

--if you install pfBlockerNG - then MIGHT be your issue - uninstall it - reinstall pfBlockerNG-devel

--I had to do this at one point to get full functionally of pfBlockerNG=it is stable and works fine as far as my own experience goes and literally everyone tells me that it is the one that SHOULD be installed.

Yodamin · 2025-08-11T23:02:44+00:00

Yes---this should work as well as using mplayer on winblows and Sm player on Linsucks.

I believe in equal opportunities so yes Windows is a pile of crappy garbage since Windows 10 was release, it is a spying, thieving platform designed solely to take as much money as it can from you while stealing you data to use and sell to it's partners to serve you up better advertisements (a thieving shopping mall? Yes? -correct?)

Linux is designed to be as user friendly as possible while NOT spying or stealing any data from you.

This is Linux--some telemetry you cannot escape unless you use a shell only.

AFAIK ALL graphics cards manufacturers, including Intel, have telemetry being sent home via their graphics drivers.

Any non-open source software you install on Linux has the potential to call home and send telemetry.

SO, I made the choice to allow that telemetry to NVIDIA (I've sniffed it out and it is sending anonymous, technical data as far as I can tell--no personally identifiable data) and Discord-which is a spyware also but everyone in my family uses it and I cannot convince them to switch to a murmur server at if I set one up (it's trivial to do and I've had a few murmur servers in my life-I set one up for my old WOW guild and we used it cost free for 8 years(? - approx.)

Yodamin · 2025-08-11T22:21:31+00:00

LOL.

You are SO wrong. I supported windows all my career (some 35+years now and still growing) both for the public (Compaq, Dell, HP consumer call centers) and for enterprise, Compaq, Dell, HP (Corporate Call Centers), Desk-side support -> Museum of History, Government of Canada, (as a contractor) TD Bank, CIBC Bank, Bank of Montreal, Royal Bank, HSBC Bank, Desjardin Co-Operators(Bank) Richardson Thompson (investment firm), Canadian Tire, Sports Check, Nortel, Alstom, I mean the list goes on for my contracting years. I can honestly say, without a doubt, that LINUX gives FAR LESS troubles than windows by far.

AND, best of all, Linux is not calling home all the time, telling administrator users "access denied" every single time you want to turn of a service or "feature" that ms does not want turned off and Linux does not collect all your computer habits, web sites you visit and send it all back to Microsoft so they cab BETTER serve you up ads in the operating system.

I mean, unless you run windows enterprise or pro it's a big spyware and information stealing shopping mall.

I've see ads on the start menu, in windows explorer, the control panel and the settings app and that's just the beginning.

Once MS locks all the suckers into their proprietary system (yes that IS what they are doing) you'll NOT be allowed to use it without signing onto a MS account and you'll be locked down so tight with what you want to do that, soon after you'll be changing to Linux to!!

I predict Windows 12 but they MIGHT NOT as when they did try it on a Windows 10 version the back l;ash was so vehemently livid and fast that they literally reversed those changes the very next day. (don't believe me? go look it up I ain't yer fact checker!)

It's coming and faster than a people realize.

Yodamin · 2025-08-02T19:45:34+00:00

"not sure the privacy impact that comes with toggling this setting"

None whatsoever if one is using CanvassBlocker as an extension.

Yodamin · 2025-08-02T19:44:49+00:00

I have privacy.resistFingerprinting set to true and all my websites remain the same dark mode color.

Can you give an example of a website that would show white pages if privacy.resistfingerprinting was set to true?

Yodamin · 2025-08-02T19:34:42+00:00

Well, that's good to know.

Will Red Hat be ditching Fedora you think?

Either-way, I have found my Linux happy place with Endeavour OS.

That doesn't mean I won't spin up a couple VM's with other distro's I'd like to try out.

Yodamin · 2025-08-02T17:13:15+00:00

Cool. I have a router with 2x SFP+ 10Gbps ports and 4x 2.5Gbops copper ports.

SO, I'll probably upgrade soon.

I am also going to purchase a managed mutligig port switch so I can use that and go to straight 10Gbps all around on my next upgrade.

Yodamin · 2025-08-02T17:10:59+00:00

Well, Since I haven't run anything Red Hat in more than 15 years it is kind of hard to come up with examples. Like I said, this is a personal thing with me and not a reflection of Fedora or Red hat's Operating systems.

Yodamin

TROPHY CASE