I see. What a mess.

The instructions at https://docs.searxng.org/admin/installation-docker.html mention that the docker image (which that page tells you to just pull and run) has its “sources hosted at” https://github.com/searxng/searxng-docker and has instructions for running it the image without docker-compose.

But, the Dockerfile source for the image is actually in the main repo at https://github.com/searxng/searxng/blob/master/Dockerfile and the searxng-docker repo actually contains a docker-compose.yaml and different instructions for running it under compose instead.

Anyway, in the docker-compose deployment, SEARXNG_BASE_URL (yet another name for this… neither SEARXNG_URL or BASE_URL, but apparently it sets base_url from it) is constructed from SEARXNG_HOSTNAME on line 58 here: https://github.com/searxng/searxng-docker/blob/a899b72a507074d8618d32d82f5355e23ecbe477/docker-compose.yaml#L58

If I had a github account associated with this pseudonym I might open an issue or PR about this, but I don’t and it isn’t easy to make one anymore 😢

Changing SEARXNG_HOSTNAME in my .env file solved it.

nice. (but, i assume you actually mean SEARXNG_URL? either that or you’re deploying it under some environment other than one described in the official repo, because the string HOSTNAME does not appear anywhere in the searxng repo.)

https://docs.searxng.org/admin/settings/settings_server.html says you need to set base_url, and that by default it’s set to $SEARXNG_URL.

however, https://docs.searxng.org/admin/installation-docker.html#searxng-searxng says that if you are running it under docker the environment variable which controls base_url in the config is actually BASE_URL rather than SEARXNG_URL.

(possibly whichever variable it is is currently empty, which might make it construct a URL based on the IP address it is configured to listen on.)

in my experience DeepL has the best results for some language pairs while Google is better for others (and has a lot more languages).

But, these days I’m happy to say Firefox translate is the first thing I try and it is often sufficient. I mostly only try the others now when the Firefox result doesn’t make sense or the language is unsupported.

Yeah, that would make sense - language detection is trivial and can be done with a small statistical model; nothing as complicated as a neural network is needed, i think just looking at bigram frequency is accurate enough when you have more than a few words.

If that is what is happening, and it is only leaking the language pair to the server the first time that pair is needed, that would be nice… I wish they made it clear if that is what is happening 😢

Probably that’s when it does online connection?

since the help says it is downloading “partial language files” automatically, and the button never changes from “Download” to “Remove” if you don’t click Download, logically it must sometimes need to download more of a language which you have previous downloaded a “partial language file” of.

i am curious if the choice of which parts of the “language file” (aka model) it is downloading really does not reveal anything about the text you’re translating; i suspect it most likely does reveal something about the input text to the server… but i’m not motivated enough to research it further at the moment.

Wow, thanks for the about:translations tip - I was wondering how to do that!

Besides “Translate page” there is also a “Translate selection” option in the right-click menu so you can translate part of a page.

However, unless you download languages in the “Translation” section of Firefox preferences, it doesn’t actually always work while offline:

As you pointed out, the help page explicitly says there is “no privacy risk of sending text to third parties for analysis because translation happens on your device, not externally”, but, after I translate something in a new language I haven’t before, it still doesn’t appear as downloaded (eg having a “Remove” button instead of a “Download” button) in the preferences.

The FAQ has a question Why do I need to install languages? with this answer:

Installing languages enables Firefox to perform translations locally within your browser, prioritizing your privacy and security. As you translate, Firefox downloads partial language files as you need them. To pre-install complete languages yourself, access the language settings in Firefox Settings, General panel, in the Language and Appearance section under Translations.

I wonder what the difference between the “partial” language files and the full download is, and if that is really not leaking any information about the text being translated. In doing a few experiments just now, I certainly can’t translate to new languages while offline, but after I’ve translated one paragraph in a language I do seem to be able to translate subsequent paragraphs while offline. 🤔

Anyway, it probably is a good idea to click “Download” on all the languages you want to be able to translate.

except: pass

several exist already

Via the pine64 blog update about their e-ink tablet TIL about inkput (using OnlineHTR) which appears to be a step in the right direction.

How do I see all posts in all communities on a server?

By selecting “Local”. And you can sort by “New” to see them in chronological order. eg, here on your instance.

only hobbyists and artisans still use the standalone carrot.py that depends on peeler.

in enterprise environments everyone uses the pymixedveggies package (created using pip freeze of course) which helpfully vendors the latest peeled carrot along with many other things. just unpack it into a clean container and go on your way.

that flag is upside down 🤘

So, they’re going to be “sovereign” over the whole archipelago, but only as long as they don’t exercise their sovereignty over the largest island in it which constitutes more than half of its total land area (30 km² of 56.13 km²).

From today’s Joint statement between the governments of the Republic of Mauritius and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia:

Today’s political agreement is subject to the finalisation of a treaty and supporting legal instruments, which both sides have committed to complete as quickly as possible. Under the terms of this treaty the United Kingdom will agree that Mauritius is sovereign over the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia. At the same time, both our countries are committed to the need, and will agree in the treaty, to ensure the long-term, secure and effective operation of the existing base on Diego Garcia which plays a vital role in regional and global security. For an initial period of 99 years, the United Kingdom will be authorised to exercise with respect to Diego Garcia the sovereign rights and authorities of Mauritius required to ensure the continued operation of the base well into the next century.

The treaty will address wrongs of the past and demonstrate the commitment of both parties to support the welfare of Chagossians. Mauritius will now be free to implement a programme of resettlement on the islands of the Chagos Archipelago, other than Diego Garcia, and the UK will capitalise a new trust fund, as well as separately provide other support, for the benefit of Chagossians.

It will also herald a new era of economic, security and environmental partnership between our two nations. To enable this partnership the UK will provide a package of financial support to Mauritius. This will include an indexed annual payment for the duration of the agreement and the establishment of a transformational infrastructure partnership, underpinned by UK grant funding, to deliver strategic projects generating meaningful change for ordinary Mauritians and boosting economic development across the country. More broadly, the UK and Mauritius will cooperate on environmental protection, maritime security, combating illegal fishing, irregular migration and drug and people trafficking within the Chagos Archipelago, with the shared objective of securing and protecting one of the world’s most important marine environments. This will include the establishment of a Mauritian Marine Protected Area.

Nice touch making a new “Marine Protected Area” in the process; the current “Chagos Marine Protected Area” was created entirely to, well… lets let this 2009 US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks explain:

1. (C/NF) Summary. HMG would like to establish a “marine park” or “reserve” providing comprehensive environmental protection to the reefs and waters of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), a senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) official informed Polcouns on May 12. The official insisted that the establishment of a marine park – the world’s largest – would in no way impinge on USG use of the BIOT, including Diego Garcia, for military purposes. He agreed that the UK and U.S. should carefully negotiate the details of the marine reserve to assure that U.S. interests were safeguarded and the strategic value of BIOT was upheld. He said that the BIOT’s former inhabitants would find it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue their claim for resettlement on the islands if the entire Chagos Archipelago were a marine reserve. End Summary.

I wonder how the “treaty will address wrongs of the past”; somehow I doubt it will involve any mention of the CIA torture site there.

source: https://xcancel.com/Israel_katz/status/1841422324890812763

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_directory

You can use this design, but if you want it to accommodate 3½-inch disks you’ll need to scale it down to two thirds of its specified size before printing it.

Does your computer have a floppy drive? You might be able to find a copy of this at a secondhand store: