OCTADE (@octade@soc.octade.net)

@alameth @duckyd oh my gosh, that’s crazy to learn 😵‍💫
Following the paper trail of my grandmother’s side of the family was quite easy because the Mexican records are superb. They list the entire names of everybody on both sides and are quite helpful, assuming the documents are correct about paternity that is of course. But the U.S. records really suck. We have a name, a very common name and that’s it. It’s possible that some records we need could be Indian reservation records and not accessible though some are in the data base. I thought it would be so easy that surely numerous relatives would pop up but it ended up to be just two people. They are local so that was interesting and supposedly they are my 1/2 first cousins or first cousins once removed but I can’t figure out how :(

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Carl S. Gutekunst » 2025-09-06
@alameth@sfba.social

@Catlynn @duckyd Yeah, it sounds to me like you're doing this the right way. You might find useful records in familysearch.org, the LDS site, although I've found their error rate is high: you might find leads there, but back them up with other sources. More recently I've been using the search bar in newspapers dot com a lot, which is harder than you'd expect because it's really fussy about its keyword searches. But I have found many records that way that Ancestry did not. Similarly, I've found records in findagrave via direct search that Ancestry did not, especially when searching specific cemeteries. There are also a lot of city libraries, particularly in the midwest, that have records that are not shared with Ancestry.

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@alameth @duckyd I’ve gone on the LDS site, it’s pretty cool! It’s just easy to get caught up on a wild goose chase and follow the wrong lead. I just check back on Ancestry now and again to see if anything new pops up but it hasn’t :(

Carl S. Gutekunst » 2025-09-06
@alameth@sfba.social

@Catlynn @duckyd Funny thing about my great grandfather: no one on my side knew about it until I uncovered it. EVERYONE knew about it on her side, and she paid a very high price. It was clear she was ostracized by the family, and what followed is generation after generation of broken and unhappy marriages. (Think John 8:3. Makes my blood boil. I swear, Jesus was writing in the dirt “where is the man?”)

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@alameth @duckyd oh man. Yeah, these tests can open a GIANT can of worms 😬

@alameth @duckyd A kind of crazy thing I discovered - my maternal grandmother’s family was quite easy to trace. As I was following the documents the place of birth on some was Modrel Station and that piqued my interest. Their last name was Modrell, changed from Modrel to Americanize it. So what was Modrel Station? It was like a safe house of sorts in Kentucky where people on the road to moving out west could stay to defend against “the Indian menace” 🤦🏻‍♀️ That was an unpleasant surprise!

@alameth @duckyd I did notice in the old Mexican records that it was not uncommon for a man to marry his brothers wife after his brother died, you know, back when people died young all the time. Like before vaccines. I guess we might have to bring this back in the near future 🫤

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Carl S. Gutekunst » 2025-09-06
@alameth@sfba.social

@Catlynn @duckyd 😢

That's actually mandated in the Old Testament; some Christian traditions have maintained it, especially among Roman Catholics.

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@alameth @duckyd Aha! I saw it quite a few times.

#genealogy #FamilyHistory #Ancestors #Ancestry #FamilyTrees

@alameth @duckyd I think perhaps I should hire a genealogist, this can’t be too hard. If Lola is my 1/2 first cousin that means MY grandpa is HER grandpa, right? Or just let it go, but I am just curious. Curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back!

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OCTADE » 2025-09-06
@octade@soc.octade.net

Did you check https://www.familysearch.org ?

AFAIK the Mormon church has the most extensive collection of open genealogy records in the whole world. Genealogy is a BIG part of their religion so they archive every scrap of genealogical data that comes their way.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfehGfSTu70

@octade I did use the LDS archives, they are a wonderful resource. It was actually an LDS member that told me about them who I met volunteering at a food program. Say what you will about the Mormons, but our local Mormons are EXTREMELY generous in our community and very organized. They descend by the car load, dropping off complete buetifully packaged home made three course meals for those in need and they are always happy to donate new sleeping bags and blankets or whatever is needed. They really moved me by their generosity.

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in reply to »

OCTADE » 2025-09-05
@octade@soc.octade.net

I would look into unique key derivation per message or unique IV and MAC for each message.

Such a large number of texts being ciphered with the same key presents fodder for a fund of attacks. Key re-use is dangerous in such a scenario.

A master key is can be combined with a unique sub key or salt for each message for individual key derivation per message. The unique sub keys can be encrypted with the master key for additional security. Such keys and salts must be RNG sourced.

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Zack Weinberg » 2025-09-05
@zwol@masto.hackers.town

@octade Yah, I'm familiar with the usual cryptographic requirements for disk sector encryption. What I'm pondering is what *changes* when you relax the *operational* requirement that encryption be length preserving. It's very hard to find any discussion of disk encryption that doesn't assume length preservation is an absolute requirement.

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OCTADE » 2025-09-04
@octade@soc.octade.net

Why Americans Eat What Europe Bans

#slop #FakeFood #nutrition

OCTADE boosted

squirrelygirl » 2025-09-02
@Catlynn@nerdculture.de

Sometimes a squirrel comes along that really likes me. This is my current buddy squirrel. She’s always up there watching me. She doesn’t have a name, I think this will be my Queen Maxima. I’ll ask her today what she thinks about it

Alt...

A female fox squirrel sploots up on a pepper tree branch. One front paw rests on a jutting tree nub like shes revving a motorcycle, vroom vroom. Green fronds hang around her shading her from the sun

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Older...

Wurzelmann » 2025-09-02
@wurzelmann@mastodon.wurzelmann.at

@Catlynn what an absolute cutie pie 😍

🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦 » 2025-09-02
@ZDL@mstdn.social

@Catlynn I have the same weird thing going on with the local azure-winged magpies.

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squirrelygirl » 2025-09-02
@Catlynn@nerdculture.de

@ZDL That sounds like a beautiful bird, please post a picture if you have one ☺️

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🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦 » 2025-09-02
@ZDL@mstdn.social

@Catlynn These little fiends are super camera-shy. Or are messing with me. As soon as anything with a lens is out, they're gone.

I think it's telling that the only pictures you get of them online are clearly taken with a telephoto lens …

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@ZDL Maybe that’s why I’ve never seen one! 😄

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@Catlynn You may also not be in their range.

There's a lot of pictures of them online, e.g.: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Azure-winged+magpie&ia=images&iax=images And as you can see most of the pictures (perhaps all?) are taken with telephoto lenses. These birds are *smart* and playful. I think if they see a lens they play hide and seek or something.

But they're also pretty good at judging which people are "nice people who feed them" because my crowd remembered me from my feeding them last year when they returned this spring.

Alt...

A map showing the range of the azure-winged magpie, taken from Wikipedia. It highlights central Japan, central China, the Koreas, north-eastern China, and a strip along Russia and northern Mongolia.

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@ZDL oh yeah, I am definitely out of range. I just checked and we have ONE magpie species I could possibly see about an hour north. It’s a beauty too!

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@Catlynn Magpies in general are really quite handsome birds. (And, as mentioned, incredibly smart.) They're very social, playful, curious, and, unfortunately for my 2005 Spring Festival sausage curing, also very good at solving puzzles.

(I now cure my sausages indoors because I got tired of the escalation in the war against the smart birds.)

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@ZDL Oh no what? They ate your sausages? Naughty kids! 🥹

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@Catlynn 2005 was my Year of the Bird. My SO and I started hanging sausages in 2003. We hung them on the balcony for two years without incident, letting them cure just in time for Spring Festival.

In 2005 the magpies found them. We replaced them and hung netting around to keep the birds away. They figured out how to unhang the netting. Four batches with increasingly complex protections were sacrificed before we moved the curing indoors.

They were adorably cute, though, so I forgave them.

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@ZDL Those must be delicious sausages!! I put three zucchini out for the raccoons last night and all they did was roll them around in the dirt 😀

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@Catlynn Rub them in bacon fat. They'll wolf them down in no time flat! :D

Colin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇳🇿 » 2025-09-02
@ColinW@mastodon.scot

@Catlynn How big is your place that you see all this wildlife?

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