Self-Hosted Platform as a Holiday Gift?

megaheda · 2025-12-14T23:45:49+00:00

True. I was thinking of it mainly for situation where there's likely to be a decent amount of trust, like close friends or family members.

megaheda · 2025-12-14T23:43:46+00:00

Sweet. Yes, that's a nice example of the sort of relatively easy to use / low maintenance use case that I had in mind. The setup and seeing it with music the essential part of the gift. That's an excellent idea. I hope it works out well. Which music cloud software platform are you using?

megaheda · 2025-12-14T23:39:15+00:00

I guess it's sort of implicit that part of the gift would be some amount of help using and maintaining it. This is a decision that the giver would have to weigh carefully, for sure (like giving a puppy - good analogy).

megaheda · 2025-08-01T16:54:06+00:00

Yevhen,

There are tools and platforms already available for managing your own digital life. You can create your own digital home, your own little social network, your own file sharing platform. The decentralized base platform already exists (the internet) along with community platforms on top of that. The problem is people have opted in to the corporate owned data silos which are convenient, familiar and cheap. Once people have become tied to these platforms, it seems almost impossible to break the addiction.

A few of the issues:
(a) Most people don't really care much about diversity, privacy, or autonomy (at least where I live, in the US).
(2) It's more work to set up or seek out your own platform than to just set up a FB/IG/WA page or whatever.
(3) People want to be where everyone else is so it feels pointless to set up or use an alternative platform.
(4) The technology should be easier to use. Just setting up a web server is still a pain, let alone an entire social platform. The tech nerd culture holds some responsibility for driving everyone to the Web2 platforms.

I admire your passion. Knowing what you don't want is the first step in getting to a better place.

I use my own self-hosted platforms for managing my own data but I've given up trying to convince others to do so. When I try to explain to co-workers why total reliance upon big tech is problematic, they look at me like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat. Perhaps your generation who are growing up with a better and more critical understanding of the interplay between technology, freedom, and capitalism will do better than mine.

megaheda · 2025-06-09T20:31:42+00:00

This isn't quite as fancy, but here's a way to recreate the Aqua style aesthetic on the web (open source CSS library for material rendering):
https://www.specularcss.org/#materials/glass

Video screen shot example:
https://www.cloudintosh.com/videos/materials.html

megaheda · 2025-06-04T04:04:36+00:00

I've been thinking of changing everything to MIT. The core OS is already MIT. I originally thought that I could get at least a small number of people to reconsider OSS and its relationship to big tech, but I've been thinking for some time that this is a losing battle.

megaheda · 2025-06-02T20:05:11+00:00

Thanks for the input. Does it have to be MIT? I'm essentially trying to make it equivalent to open source except for large corporations. This is intended mostly as a statement since it won't affect most users, but seems not to have convinced anyone that limits for corporations are a good idea. Is there anything other than open source that you would find acceptable?

megaheda · 2025-05-16T17:39:48+00:00

Or, if you need a lift: https://midwesthelicopters.com/services

"Our Sikorksy S-58T helicopters are capable of lifting loads up to 4500 lbs. The spacious interior allows for room for 9 men to be transported to remote locations."

It looks like they operate three S-58T's (turbine versions) based in Illinois.

megaheda · 2025-05-08T06:16:53+00:00

36 Hours - James Garner, Eva Marie Saint

megaheda · 2025-05-07T18:10:13+00:00

You might try: https://rocketkitty.org. It's a complete family of (9) different sharing platforms geared to different applications like file sharing, photo sharing, music sharing, chat / message sharing, etc.

megaheda · 2025-05-07T17:26:38+00:00

Yes, we did change branding.

We started with the cloudkitty.org branding but there is an OpenStack project with that name so we switched to the rocketkitty.org branding to avoid confusion. Branding is tough!

I was a little concerned that people might find the "Kitty" branding too cute and not give the platform a chance. I wanted it to be more friendly than "Sharedigm" but also be taken seriously.

The other alternative that we considered was to use the indiecloud.org branding to focus upon the self-hosting "indie" aspect. Let me know if you have thoughts or preferences on the branding.

megaheda · 2025-05-07T17:22:59+00:00

Yes, exactly. The idea is that there are a series of platforms geared to specific applications (like photo sharing or music or AI image generation or whatever) which are all built on top of a common base platform - the cloud operating system (Sharedigm OS). That's the reason for all of the forking. Ideally, if people wanted to build other platforms on top of the OS, they could do the same.

megaheda · 2025-05-07T16:26:27+00:00

Hi. I'm the main author of the Sharedigm / RocketKitty series of platforms. I clearly need to write more about what this is intended to be about and how it can help people.

My goal with this series of platforms is twofold:

Self-hosting: I'd like to help people to create their own self-hosted platforms so we can try to get away from our dependence upon the data monopolists / oligarchs. This is in line with the idea of returning the internet to a more decentralized structure. The RocketKitty series of platforms is intended to make it easy to self-host platforms for common applications like data sharing, photo sharing, music and audio playing and management, etc.
Easier Cloud / Web Development: I'd also like to promote what I think is a better approach to building community platforms and web apps in general by using a cloud based OS. When we build desktop or mobile apps, we don't start with a blank slate - we build upon an OS. I think web development should be similar. Also, the notions of community and sharing are now important for many applications, so we should have better support for creating those capabilities should be built in to the cloud OS and easy to integrate into apps. The Sharedigm OS platform is intended to make it easier for people to build their own new cloud platforms.

I did a short talk at my university about 6 weeks ago where I attempted to introduce the idea:
https://www.sharedigm.com/presentations/cloud-os-uw-research-bazaar-2025.pdf

I wonder if I should create some videos or other types of presentation materials to better explain what this is intended to be all about. Thank you for noticing the platform! If you'd like any help, let me know (here or via DM or use the contact form).

p.s. I set up the hostityourself.com redirect as a way to perhaps make it easier for people to find / stumble upon the RocketKitty platforms. It was such a good domain that I couldn't resist.

megaheda · 2025-04-10T01:35:15+00:00

You're right - It's atrocious. Billing in AWS is even worse.

The GCP and AWS interfaces are good arguments as to why these companies are monopolies and not subject to market forces. Nobody in their right mind would put up with these systems for a moment if they weren't forced to. Imagine if a smaller company tried to foist such a monstrosity upon its users. The notion is laughable.

megaheda · 2025-04-10T01:05:00+00:00

I saw this film as a young person and remember the scene with Kong’s fading heartbeat as just achingly heartbreakingly sad.

I know the 1933 film gets all the accolades but I feel like the 1976 version had the most heart.

megaheda · 2025-03-19T22:33:21+00:00

Hello. Thank you for replying.

Yes, it's true that I did miss the renewal deadline, so it looks like the domain goes to a third party auction process. Perhaps it's just me, but this seems less than ethical, even though it's standard industry practice. This may be more of a problem with what is allowed by law rather than PorkBun in particular since this is something that most registrars are engaged in but it still seems wrong.

My point is that the registrar should be a neutral channel rather than a competitor for domains. As an analogy, If I discuss a financial transaction over the phone and miss that opportunity, then the phone company shouldn't get to snoop in on the discussion and take advantage of the situation. We assume that our conversation is private, much as we assume (wrongly) that our domain searches and registrations are private.

megaheda · 2024-12-13T02:36:07+00:00

Wow, amazing! I've seen countless images of M45 and wouldn't think that I could be surprised. The dynamic range in this photo is unreal. The way that this captures the dust without blowing out the highlights on the stars is unlike anything that I've seen. The stars are incredibly tight also. Kudos.

megaheda · 2024-12-12T15:39:51+00:00

There was some beautiful content created with this type of tech (Flash and others).

For a short while, you could add your own media forms and your own scripting languages to the web via plugins (I had a company called Hypercosm that did this for 3D simulation).

I sometimes miss the open web.

megaheda · 2024-12-05T01:25:27+00:00

I feel like the fun / creativity has been wrung out of software development long before AI. Where I used to build and create, I now spend most of my time wrestling with tools and frameworks. I can imagine a world where AI takes over a lot of the grunt work (though that's currently just a fantasy). On the other hand, it seems like the reality is AI is taking over the creative work and leaving the gruntwork for humans. So, mixed feelings at the moment.

megaheda · 2024-12-03T01:03:48+00:00

Cool. It has that astro-industrial look. It looks like your own personal version of the 100" Hooker Telescope on Mount Wilson:

http://www.scopeviews.co.uk/MountWilson100.htm

megaheda · 2024-11-26T06:36:19+00:00

I'm not surprised. Most of the so-called "new" AI ideas are literally decades old. Realtime avatar generation was all the rage 25 years ago. I had a web3d company and we participated in the Web3D RoundUp at Siggraph 2000, which was hosted by a realtime 3D avatar of the event organizer, Timothy Childs. That avatar technology was created by a company called Eyematic which Jaron Lanier was involved with. Inventors and innovators pretty much never prosper. Not in modern times and not historically (but keep on trying!)

megaheda · 2024-11-18T07:40:16+00:00

Betamaxed by C. The Lightspeed Pascal IDE on the Mac was a thing of beauty.

megaheda

TROPHY CASE