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Reminder!!! Meeting tomorrow! Topic: Macropads + Matrix + lots of other stuff!
by Tim Keller March 12, 2026

March 12, 2026

We've got a meeting tomorrow!! Date and TIme: March 12th 2026 @ 7PM Physical Location: Techncopia, 44 Portland Ave. Worcester MA Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic(s): 1. I'm going to show off the macropad I bought at Microcenter running QMK and how you go about flashing it and some of its really useful features. 2. Matrix stuff! Venus was gracious enough to get a matrix chat going, the next decision is if we stick with signal, stick with matrix or do we roll our own matrix? It's clear we need to "pick a lane" otherwise we've got 11 different chats everywhere.. 3. California's AB 1043 Age verification bullshit being pushed by idiots.. I know people have feelings.. I definitely do. 4. Kernel 7.0 right over the horizon!! 5. I guess we can talk about Kent Overstreet's AI girlfriend? Rather not.. I may or may not have a funky keyboard to show off as well..we'll see. As always after the meeting we'll head out to dinner and keep talking! I hope to see you there! Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Meeting next week!
by Tim Keller March 11, 2026

March 11, 2026

Hey Everybody! We've got a meeting next week. Date and TIme: March 12th 2026 @ 7PM Physical Location: Techncopia, 44 Portland Ave. Worcester MA Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic(s): 1. I'm going to show off the macropad I bought at Microcenter running QMK and how you go about flashing it and some of it's really useful features. 2. Matrix stuff! Venus was gracious enough to get a matrix chat going, the next decision is if we stick with signal, stick with matrix or do we roll our own matrix? It's clear we need to "pick a lane" otherwise we've got 11 different chats everywhere.. 3. California's AB 1043 Age verification bullshit being pushed by idiots.. I know people have feelings.. I definitely do. 4. Kernel 7.0 right over the horizon!! 5. I guess we can talk about Kent Overstreets AI girlfriend? Rather not.. I may or may not have a funky keyboard to show off as well..we'll see. As always after the meeting we'll head out to dinner and keep talking! I hope to see you there! Tim.

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Reminder: WLUG Meeting Feb 12th, 2026: Topic: DNS Interception.
by Tim Keller Feb. 18, 2026

Feb. 18, 2026

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting! Date/Time: February 12th, 2026 @ 7PM Location: Technocopia, 44 Portland St. Worcester MA Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: DNS Interception. Speaker: Steve Thibault At every turn, companies are looking for ways to monetize data. It should be no surprise that DNS is one of these. Recently a fellow WLUG member Steve Thibault discovered that their upstream provider was intercepting his DNS queries and worked to fight against this. Steve is going to tell us his story of how he discovered what his provider was doing and what he did to foil their prying eyes. As usual, after the meeting we'll head out for dinner and keep the conversation going! Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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REMINDER: WLUG Meeting Tonight! Topic: DNS Redirection.
by Tim Keller Feb. 17, 2026

Feb. 17, 2026

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting! Date/Time: February 12th, 2026 @ 7PM Location: Technocopia, 44 Portland St. Worcester MA Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: DNS Interception. Speaker: Steve Thibault At every turn, companies are looking for ways to monetize data. It should be no surprise that DNS is one of these. Recently a fellow WLUG member Steve Thibault discovered that their upstream provider was intercepting his DNS queries and worked to fight against this. Steve is going to tell us his story of how he discovered what his provider was doing and what he did to foil their prying eyes. We have a signal group and the invite is here: https://signal.group/#CjQKIKlVuif-XKEyM_OE5NlItazdhKRrhXlI_l6aRlYx37T6EhCAK… It's turned into a very lively space where there's always a great conversation going on. At tonight's meeting we're going to talk about it and ways that we can integrate it with email or use some other technology so that people don't get left out of the conversation! As usual, after the meeting we'll head out for dinner and keep the conversation going! Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Ripple?
by Mike Peckar Feb. 16, 2026

Feb. 16, 2026

Excited that a fiber option is coming to the neighborhood. Curious if anyone here who has switched has had any issues QOS-wise. Mike

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Feb. Talk " Your ISP Is Spying on You Slides
by steve＠patternsoft.net Feb. 13, 2026

Feb. 13, 2026

This is a reveal.js set of slides. Just open the file in a browser. Arrows move through slides. S key brings up the presenter notes. Steve Thibault

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First WLUG meeting of the year!! January 8th 2026 @ 7PM Location: Technocopia!
by Tim Keller Jan. 5, 2026

Jan. 5, 2026

Hey Everybody! This is our first WLUG meeting of the year! Date & Time: 1/8/26 @ 7PM Location: Technocopia, 44 Portland St. Worcester MA Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: Still figuring that out! Got ideas let me know. At a minimum we'll talk about what we want to talk about this year. Looking at the signal chat we can have a more thorough talk about BcacheFS vs OpenZFS vs. Btrfs. I can give people an update with my wife and her fun with Bazzite. I'm hoping I can get my hands on a couple pieces of identical laptop hardware and do a head to head performance test of CachyOS vs. some other distro to show off the greatness or lack thereof of the BORE (Burst-Oriented Response Enhancer) scheduler. We can talk about the Helium browser vs. Chromium vs. Chrome.. Lots to talk about. As usual we'll head out for dinner afterwards and we'll keep the conversation going! Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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NO WLUG MEETING TONIGHT!
by Tim Keller Dec. 24, 2025

Dec. 24, 2025

Hey Everybody, THERE IS NO WLUG MEETING TONIGHT. We will be having a meeting next week. Join the signal chat for more details. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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cool hw probe/info command: inxi
by Doug Mildram Dec. 16, 2025

Dec. 16, 2025

If this is already familiar to most/all of you pardon my excitement! I have always been interested in the ways to get info about PC hardware. ( using "cat" on various bizarre files in /proc/.... ) "dmesg" output ...so much more. Today I finally ran into inxi. One interesting flag/arg is -x ..extra level(s) of output for various options. -xx : double extra info. -xxx : triple extra info. Trivia: inxi --help outputs 549 lines on my Mint 22.2 man inxi is almost 3000 lines long..w big thanks to contributors at the end. It's a perl script! /usr/bin/ixni is over 38,000 lines long. One common choice of flags for a big picture is: inxi -Fs Here's a few sample outputs on 2011 Lenovo Thinkpad with the original SSD and original oversized battery: doug0@X230:~$ inxi -Dxxx Drives: Local Storage: total: 119.24 GiB used: 37.2 GiB (31.2%) ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: MZ7PC128HAFU-000L1 size: 119.24 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s tech: SSD serial: S0U8NSAC532113 fw-rev: 4L1Q scheme: MBR doug0@X230:~$ inxi -Bxxx Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 28.1 Wh (99.3%) condition: 28.3/86.6 Wh (32.7%) volts: 12.1 min: 11.1 model: LGC 45N1029 type: Li-ion serial: 8428 status: not charging Above, i had charger plugged in but it was fully charged =="not charging". Below, after I unplugged charger, interesting to see "power" on batt: doug0@X230:~$ inxi -Bxxx Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 28.1 Wh (99.3%) condition: 28.3/86.6 Wh (32.7%) power: 6.9 W volts: 11.8 min: 11.1 model: LGC 45N1029 type: Li-ion serial: 8428 status: discharging

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Signal channel..
by Tim Keller Dec. 11, 2025

Dec. 11, 2025

I've created a signal channel for all of us. Signal has a nice linux desktop client as well. https://signal.group/#CjQKIKlVuif-XKEyM_OE5NlItazdhKRrhXlI_l6aRlYx37T6EhCAK… Currently myself, Jansen and Evan are in it. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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REMINDER!! WLUG MEETING TOMORROW!! Dec 11th 2025! Topic: Bazzite!
by Tim Keller Dec. 10, 2025

Dec. 10, 2025

Here we are, the last WLUG meeting for 2025! Time: 7PM Date: December 11th, 2025 Location: Technocopia, 44 Portland St. Worcester MA. Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: Gaming on Linux! I'm going to be showing off my bazzite powered gaming desktop (that my wife is going to be the primary driver on) In the past I've had lots of conversations with potential linux users that go something like "Linux is so cool, but about my games.." and then the conversation gets awkward. I know there's some complicated stuff going on at Steam, but one thing they have done as a company is really pushed the envelope for gaming on linux. Bazzite aims to be a distro that just has it all working out of the box and makes use of the silver/blue bootc environment to make the machine more resilient to novice linux users that might accidentally break something or lose power mid upgrade, etc. I'm sure it's going to be a lively discussion and there will be lots to talk about. I also know that Technocopia is doing a xmas party / maker swap so we'll want to be respectful to them as well. As always afterwards we'll head out for some dinner and keep the conversation going. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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WLUG Meeting December 11th 2025! Topic: Bazzite
by Tim Keller Dec. 3, 2025

Dec. 3, 2025

Hey Everybody! Here are the details: Date: December 11th, 2025 @ 7pm Location: Technocopia, 44 Portland Ave. Worcester Ma. Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: Bazzite Wow, it's been a crazy year! I'm going to do a quick talk on bazzite. A linux distribution focused on gaming. Atomic in nature it's focused on providing a great stable gaming environment. This is a topic that's hitting close to me as my wife's gaming windows 10 machine is incapable of running win11.. My hope is that this will do everything she needs to do and more. Hopefully I'll have a demo to do as well showing off a machine running bazzite. After the meeting we'll head off for dinner and continue the conversation! I hope to see you there! Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder! Meeting TONIGHT!!! 11/19 Location: Technocopia, Topic: Jujitsu
by Tim Keller Nov. 21, 2025

Nov. 21, 2025

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting this WEDNESDAY. The fine folks at Technocopia have graciously allowed us to use their space on a non open hack night. Thanks!! Here are the details: Time: 7PM Date: 11/19 Location: Technocopia Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: Jujitsu https://jj-vcs.github.io/jj/latest/ Fellow WLUGer Evan White is going to do a presentation about Jujitsu. While using the git internals it has a different workflow than the one us daily git users are used to. Evan is going to show off how he uses it and maybe convince a couple of us to give it a try! Afterward we'll head out for dinner and keep the conversation going! Hope to see you there! Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder we've got a meeting tonight! Topic: JetKVM!
by Tim Keller Nov. 19, 2025

Nov. 19, 2025

We've got a meeting Tonight!! Time: 7PM Date: 2/13/2025 Location: Technocopia, 44 Portland St. Worcester MA. Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: JetKVM Long time WLUG Member John Stoffel is going to be demoing his JetKVM ( https://jetkvm.com/) It's a next generation KVM over IP that started as a kickstarter and is now a "real product". Fully hackable, this FOSS KVM has a bunch of neat features. As usual expect a lively conversation, a cool demo and our usual shenanigans. Afterwards we'll likely head off for dinner and keep the conversation going! I hope to see you all there! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder! Meeting THIS WEDNESDAY!!! 11/19 Location: Technocopia, Topic: Jujitsu
by Tim Keller Nov. 18, 2025

Nov. 18, 2025

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting this WEDNESDAY. The fine folks at Technocopia have graciously allowed us to use their space on a non open hack night. Thanks!! Here are the details: Time: 7PM Date: 11/19 Location: Technocopia Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: Jujitsu https://jj-vcs.github.io/jj/latest/ Fellow WLUGer Evan White is going to do a presentation about Jujitsu. While using the git internals it has a different workflow than the one us daily git users are used to. Evan is going to show off how he uses it and maybe convince a couple of us to give it a try! Afterward we'll head out for dinner and keep the conversation going! Hope to see you there! Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder! Meeting tomorrow! Topic: Jack Friment from PIRG, Right to Repair!
by Tim Keller Oct. 9, 2025

Oct. 9, 2025

Hey Gang! Just a reminder we've got a meeting tomorrow! Topic: National Right to Repair day Speaker: Jack Frimet from PIRG. Time: 7PM Date: October 9th, 2025 Location: Technocopia Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Jack Frimet from PIRG reached out to me and asked that he speak at this meeting. PIRG is an organization that among many other causes is advocating at the national level for the right to repair. As we are all aware, with Win10 reaching EOL, this is causing a tsunami of e-waste as people are forced to upgrade to run Win11. On Saturday Oct 18th, it's National Right to Repair day. PIRG in coordination with Techncopia is going to be hosting what's looking like to be a good old fashioned Install-fest. Sadly, I have a family conflict, but I'll be there in spirit! I hope to see you all on Thursday! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Re: Meeting tomorrow! Distros I suggest
by Robert N. Evans Oct. 9, 2025

Oct. 9, 2025

Lately I've been using EndeavouOS as an easy Arch variant. (Last year, when Ubuntu shipped an update that broke my bluetooth, I switched and have been happy since). For very old boxes (like a 2010 netbook, 2GB memory, atom CPU), I use AntiX linux. -BE -----Original Message----- From: Worcester Linux Users' Group General Discussion <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> Sent: Oct 9, 2025 8:57 AM To: Jansen Smith <Jansen(a)bstarengineering.com> Cc: Worcester Linux Users' Group General Discussion <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org>, Tim Keller <turbofx(a)gmail.com> Subject: [WLUG] Re: Reminder! Meeting tomorrow! Topic: Jack Friment from PIRG, Right to Repair! Awesome!! I just went to staples and bought a 10 pack of 16GB usb drives.. What are peoples opinions on what should go on them? I was thinking of making 7 out of the 10 Ventoy with an assortment of ISO's and the last three I thought I might do as bare ISO installs for stuff that doesn't like ventoy. Here's what I was thinking of putting on each Ventoy drive: Ubuntu 25 Fedora 42 Arch 2025.10.01 I know asking what your favorite distro is throwing a flare into a gasoline factory.. but feel free to let me have your unfettered opinion ;-) Tim. On Thu, Oct 9, 2025 at 8:16 AM Jansen Smith <Jansen(a)bstarengineering.com (mailto:Jansen@bstarengineering.com)> wrote: Sounds like a good time! Looking fwd to meeting Jack.I'll also be bringing a new Omarchy (read: opinionated Arch Linux + Hyprland) system for us to play with.I've got the installer on a USB-C, in case anyone would like to turn ewaste into a productivity workhorse. On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, 5:39 PM Tim Keller via WLUG <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org (mailto:wlug@lists.wlug.org)> wrote: Hey Gang! Just a reminder we've got a meeting tomorrow! Topic: National Right to Repair day Speaker: Jack Frimet from PIRG. Time: 7PM Date: October 9th, 2025 Location: Technocopia Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Jack Frimet from PIRG reached out to me and asked that he speak at this meeting. PIRG is an organization that among many other causes is advocating at the national level for the right to repair. As we are all aware, with Win10 reaching EOL, this is causing a tsunami of e-waste as people are forced to upgrade to run Win11. On Saturday Oct 18th, it's National Right to Repair day. PIRG in coordination with Techncopia is going to be hosting what's looking like to be a good old fashioned Install-fest. Sadly, I have a family conflict, but I'll be there in spirit! I hope to see you all on Thursday! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers". _______________________________________________ WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org (mailto:wlug@lists.wlug.org) To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org (mailto:wlug-leave@lists.wlug.org) Create Account: https://wlug.mailman3.com/accounts/signup/ Change Settings: https://wlug.mailman3.com/postorius/lists/wlug.lists.wlug.org/ Web Forum/Archive: https://wlug.mailman3.com/hyperkitty/list/wlug@lists.wlug.org/message/NIOBO… -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Installing Linux on Hundreds of "Obsolete" Computers
by Joshua Stone Oct. 8, 2025

Oct. 8, 2025

Hey all, I thought it was really cool to see a coordinated effort to extend the lifespan of perfectly usable computers that're only "Obsolete" because of Windows 10 becoming EOL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHLTOdsqDRg I wonder if WLUG could do something similar to make computing more equitable within the community? - Josh

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Meeting October 9th at 7PM Topic: Jack from PIRG to speak about National Right to Repair
by Tim Keller Oct. 7, 2025

Oct. 7, 2025

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting on Thursday!! Topic: National Right to Repair day Speaker: Jack Frimet from PIRG. Time: 7PM Date: October 9th, 2025 Location: Technocopia Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Jack Frimet from PIRG <https://pirg.org> reached out to me and asked that he speak at this meeting. PIRG is an organization that among many other causes is advocating at the national level for the right to repair. As we are all aware, with Win10 reaching EOL, this is causing a tsunami of e-waste as people are forced to upgrade to run Win11. On Saturday Oct 18th, it's National Right to Repair day. PIRG in coordination with Techncopia is going to be hosting what's looking like to be a good old fashioned Install-fest. Sadly, I have a family conflict, but I'll be there in spirit! I hope to see you all on Thursday! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Re: Windows 10 to Linux Repair Event
by Tim Keller Oct. 4, 2025

Oct. 4, 2025

Hey Jack! An event like this would right up WLUG's alley! Our next meeting is scheduled for the 9th. I unfortunately have a family even on the 18th and will be out of town, otherwise I would be there in spades. One of things that WLUG started out doing was "install fests" where we helped people get Linux on their desktops! We *just had a meeting* so I'd be amenable to moving the meeting to the 16th to help prep and make bootable media if that would help. I'm absolutely horrified by the immense amount of e-waste this debacle is causing, all in search of the mighty dollar.. Thanks, Tim. I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers". On Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 3:57 PM Jack Frimet <jfrimet(a)pirg.org> wrote: > Hi Tim and WLUG, > > My name is Jack Frimet, and I'm with PIRG, a consumer advocacy group > working on the Right to Repair. You may have heard from Eric Sutman, but we > are hosting an event at Technocopia on 10/18 (International Repair Day!), > where we are working to save computers impacted by the End of Windows 10 by > switching them over to Linux. > > We need some volunteers to help with actually working on the computers, > and I figured this seems right up your group's alley! I'd love to set up a > time to chat with any of WLUG's organizers to gauge interest in > volunteering for this event! Feel free to send me an email or give me a > call at 845-637-9633. > > Best, > Jack > > -- > > Jack Frimet > Right to Repair Associate > jfrimet(a)pirg.org >

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Looking for Locality Info of Apatite Specimen
by The Hammer Sept. 27, 2025

Sept. 27, 2025

Hello, I am wondering if anyone might be able to guide me at to the specific locality of a blue apatite specimen that I have. The Label says "Blue Apatite XL New York" The specimen is about an inch across at its widest point. Ron

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Sorry about the A/V troubles..
by Tim Keller Sept. 19, 2025

Sept. 19, 2025

Last night because I had the presentation full screened I failed to see that the audio had dropped out. For the next meeting I'm going to bring a dedicated laptop whose sole job is to be the "meeting" laptop that just drives Jitsi. As an aside, I'm glad everybody liked the presentation. I'll put my slides up somewhere sensible. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder!!! September 18th WLUG Meeting! Topic: Tailscale / Nebula
by Tim Keller Sept. 18, 2025

Sept. 18, 2025

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting THIS Thursday! Time: 7pm Date: September 18th, 2025 Location: Technocopia, 44 Portland St. Worcester MA. Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: Why Traditional Network Security is DOOMED! In this talk, I'll explain how we've *done *modern network security, and why tools like tailscale / headscale / nebula largely nullify some of this security. For those of us who are network / security administrators I'll talk about what we should be looking for, and I'll also show off how these technologies are amazingly useful. I will be definitely demoing Tailscale as I'm a daily driver of it and provided it doesn't break my existing stuff I'll show off Nebula. I'm sure this is going to foster a lively discussion about networking, firewalls, security in general and what security on modern networks is going to have to look like to address these new technologies. As usual after the meeting we'll go get some dinner and keep talking. I hope to see you all there! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder! WLUG Meeting NEXT Week, Sept 18th, 2025!
by Tim Keller Sept. 8, 2025

Sept. 8, 2025

Hey Everybody, Our next meeting is the 18th of September! I'll be giving a talk on tailscale / headscale and possibly nebula if I have time. The working title for the topic is "Traditional Network Security is DOOMED!" Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Next meeting will be the 18th, not the 11th.
by Tim Keller Aug. 28, 2025

Aug. 28, 2025

Hey Gang! I've got a conflict on the 11th, so I'm moving the meeting to the 18th. My plan is to talk about Tailscale / headscale and nebula to build secure networks that don't require punching holes in firewalls, etc. Let me know if you know of similar tech and I'll try to talk about that as well. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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