#Tag · bonfire.cafe

I used to like computers a lot. Like, a lot a lot!

Then I moved to SF and got a first-hand look at how capital distorts benefit production and distribution towards authoritarianism.

And so much of computers is tied up in the capital cycle and authoritarianism.

It's just deeply deeply disappointing, and makes it hard to find what joy I used to have at computation and the digital world.

Edit: This was prompted by https://authoritarian-stack.info/

Zee

@zspencer@sfba.social replied · 4 days ago

Anyway, I am thinking of getting a cloud machine so I can fuck around with rust and self-hosting. Partly because I wanna hack on #ConjuredInk when I have hacking spoons again. Partly because I want to have a place I can deploy projects to that doesn't lock me into into Big Cloud.

It looks like #OvhCloud (https://us.ovhcloud.com) offers [a 4 core xeon with 32GB of RAM and a half-terabyte of RAID-1 for $20/mo?!](https://eco.us.ovhcloud.com/kimsufi/ks-1/)

And if you throw it in the Gravelines France data-center, it generates 10% of the carbon per kw/h as us-east-1 per [carbonaware.cloud](https://carbonaware.cloud/)...

Emelia 👸🏻 boosted

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂

@elena@aseachange.com · 3 months ago

An update about the #OVH situation (they deleted my VPS without warning because it was DDOS'd and that "violated their Tos").

I had subscribed to a basic VPS plan for 6 months and paid a setup fee. Since I had only used their service for ONE DAY before the VPS was terminated (without any warnings), I asked if I could be refunded for the 5 extra months I had paid for. See, I was elegant enough to take a hit for the first month and the installation fee. Well well well they responded (in French, translated in English):

"We understand your desire for more information, but as this breach of contract is due to a failure to comply with the terms and conditions of use, no refund for the remaining months can be considered."

Then they linked to a page with the terms of service which is so hard to read because it's inside a frame. Stellar customer service, I tell you!

Beware of #OVHCloud! Never again.

a screenshot of OVH's contract details... a wall of text inside a frame you need to scroll down, with no formatting, just lots of legalese in Courier typeface.

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂

@elena@aseachange.com · 3 months ago

MAJOR Plot twist!

I'm sure you're having a better morning than me because I was greeted with an email from #OVH (the VPS provider) that started with "Hello Mr. Rossini" and informed me that the VPS was stopped because they suspected a hack - and it will be permanently deleted. "Now let us know Mr. Rossini if you'd like to purchase a new VPS plan."

30 Euros* for 4 hours of VPS experimentation with Docker! YAY (not!)

(*30 Euros corresponded to a 6-month plan, sigh)

I received ZERO advanced warnings... #OVHCloud simply deleted my VPS because of "unusual activity" and proposed I buy a new one.

I had installed #Fail2Ban on it first thing yesterday morning, but I suppose changing 0.0.0.0 with my VPS's IP4 address in one of the Docker settings... to connect it to Docker GUI did it for me.

You live, you learn.

I will stay away from OVH Cloud.

(Yes I had tried creating an account with Hetzer and NetCup before but they had a convoluted signup process and wanted too much personal info/docs, so I had given up and turned to OVH. My bad).

What will I do now?

Find a new VPS provider.

Feeling salty about the 30 Euros I spent for 6 months with OVH but honestly I feel like I dodged a bullet. I had nothing installed on the VPS, except for Fail2Ban and basic Docker. Imagine how catastrophic it would have been if they had deleted my VPS without warning if I had important stuff on it! Shivering at the thought.

Onwards and upwards, more humble than ever, with infinite respect for sysadmins 🙏

#MySoCalledSudoLife #N00b