Lidl, QR code, OpenPGP, EuroCloud, Matrix, WiFi
Tested the Lidl ScanGo app features. Really nice and smooth. Scanning worked well, and payment was quick and easy. There's only one pain point left: it forces you to queue. That would be technically trivial to solve by allowing checkout in the app. Well, maybe one day that'll happen.
Updated my offline QR code generator with quiet space. Now it generates perfect codes. I really hate so many QR code generators, which leak code content, and generate invalid QR codes from the standards point.
Modern times, I received OpenPGP encrypted email, but the cursed modern encodings. It's base64, when you decode that, you'll get PGP ASCII armored stuff, when you decrypt that, you'll get MIME stuff... God bleep bleep bleep. Lovely! Yeah, I've told people that email shouldn't be used for anything anymore, it's just simply a bad thing.
Secure Email - Again, wasted effort and time. It's absolutely wrong to put word secure with email. It's not, and there's no sane way to fix it. System is inherently way too brittle and bad from every freaking aspect. Do not use secure email, because it doesn't exist. Forget email, if you need secure communications.
"EuroCloud" - Let's hope something actually useful and widely used comes out of it. I just revisited topics: EuroStack, The Sovereign European Cloud API (SECA), OpenAPI Specification (OAS), Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS), Container-as-a-Service (CaaS), Kubernetes, Cloud-Init, k0rdent (DCME), PyOCI, Buildpacks
In Finland first items with GS1 QR Code started hitting stores in 2026. Yet just like with GS1-128 (EAN128) it's just GTIN (@ Wikipedia) in different wrapper. Nothing new really. As well as checked that my code handles the GS1 Data Link URI format as well as the GS1-128 based format with Application Identifiers (AI). No changes needed. It's been just a while, since I've checked that code and it all seemed good to me.
Envs.net Matrix server did shutdown, due to excessive resource consumption. Yeah, I have to say that Matrix is really resource intensive application to run. I migrated back to pikaviestin.fi but as usual, Matrix is broken. In this case login from Android app doesn't work due to OIDC error and desktop login doesn't work, because it claims it can't find default browser, which for sure works for my setup. But to be honest, the Element desktop was already ridiculously heavy and bad program. Element X on mobile was little bit better in terms of performance, but it has many other serious shortcomings, like the login flow issues. So I guess I'll be only using Matrix from desktop browser, maybe once a week. Just I did before I started using Element as my main chat app.
Yle News, American infrastructure - Is it wise for a national broadcaster like Yle to rely on Google for its backup infrastructure? While the servers are in Finland, the platform remains American. We need to discuss the risks of technological dependence on US-based corporations. kw: DigitalSovereignty, Yle, EU, Finland - - Since the previous post gained traction, here is a clarification on the infrastructure: - Primary: The main platform (yle.fi) is delivered via Amazon. - Backup: The reserve platform (vara.yle.fi) utilizes Google. - Routing: While Yle operates its own ASN (AS57066), this Autonomous System is not currently used for these publishing services.
WiFi Roaming - Again, annoyingly long discussion if "WiFi controller" required for WiFi Roaming to work. It's complicated, but answer basically is yes, there needs to be controller, coordinating the state between the base stations, yet the implementation varies between different manufacturers and product series.
Chawan - New CLI text based browser, quite nice, good for fetching data from URLs for AI processing, because it strips HTML and renders content to correct order, instead of dumping full HTML package for AI to extract data from.
Something different? - Project Nightfall - Missile system from UK. Interesting, yet this is early stages. Let's see what it actually turns out to be, if anything at all.
2026-10-18