SimpleX, MCP, Docker, Signal, MinLZ, SSE, LCNC, RCS

1. Tested SimpleX version with PostgreSQL (psql) based message queues, aka smp-server-postgres-ubuntu-24_04-x86-64. Excellent! This is something I've been asking for a long time. Because this allows the platform to utilize database with NVMe storage, which is way more efficient (in terms of costs!) than storing all messages and queues in RAM as the standard version without the Postres (@ Wikipedia) flag does. New option in configuration: store_queues: ['memory', 'database']. - Why this? Well, the languages which use garbage collector, do not usually work well in situations where there's lot of memory being used, with significant swapping. GC (@ Wikipedia) can trigger serious swap trashing, even if the data wouldn't be otherwise needed.

2. MCP Server - Interestingly, I just thought a few days ago, why hasn't anyone developed an API for AI? I mean an API for AI to use, not an API that allows you to use AI. It allows AI to interact with other things. I just didn't know the term for it. I don't know how I ended up encountering the Model Context Protocol (MCP) (@ Wikipedia), and that's exactly what I have been thinking about.

3. Docker and administration. - A friend took production down. Haha, I did have something like that a a while ago. It was like, I just quickly update and restart the production. - But in the process PostgreSQL was bumped from 16 -> 17, and funny thing is that it doesn't contain any automatic migration, which is kind of confusing. But that's just the way it seems to be. - Well, things got effed up. It took a while to realize why it wasn't running, then I down graded it. Learned how to do the PSQL upgrade migration correctly in test environment and finally updated the production. - Classic fail, I'll just quickly get this done and boom. As well as example why, you should know your tech stack very well. That's why I dislike quick suggestions, like use X instead of Y, it's so much better. Yet it involves inherent risks if you don't know how X works. As example "assuming" that databases provide always serializable isolation level and or transaction safety, can lead to ahem, interesting problems. kw: Docker (@ Wikipedia)

4. That Signal leak interestingly revealed many flaws in Signal (@ Wikipedia) as proper membership / group validation. Allowing information leaks. Platforms designed to be actually secure, wouldn't make it that easy to make "such mistake". Proper user related ACLs and controls should be in place.

5. MinLZ is very nice compression, when you need a really fast (almost real-time ie memory bandwidth limited) data compression - https://github.com/minio/minlz (@ GitHub, obviously)

6. Travel data backups, how do you deal with it? It seems that many people nowadays travel with "mobile blah blah". And when you're in middle of nowhere, your mobile device isn't available anymore? How to recover? This is similar to the "house burns down" fictional story, but slightly different. When you're in middle of 3rd world country, and your mobile device gives up, gets lost or stolen. It's the device which nowadays basically contains "everything". How do you recover from that? If you haven't thought about that yet, maybe you should. I do have my own tested and well planned "disaster recovery" plans for that. Only thing that is hard to plan against, is memory loss. Especially if and when traveling alone. I'm often have the most essential information printed on paper, which makes me feel like a real dinosaur. And maybe QR code(s) to encrypted online backups where I can safely download all the key information if necessary to recover.

7. Lightly explored Server-Sent Events (SSE) vs WebSockets: Key differences and use cases for different projects. Well, as expected for tech people the name already tells a lot, SSE pushes events from server to client and websockets provide sockets / bidirectional TCP-stream like pipe. Both can be used to achieve "same" end result, but implementation details differ. In case of the SSE of course the return channel needs to be as example HTTP POSTs, but so what, it works that way as well. I tested SSE with Nginx and Flask & Python Client. I've used WebSockets earlier with as example SimpleX Chat and OpenBazaar kw: SSE (@ Wikipedia) / WS (@ Wikipedia)_

8. Had a long discussion with friends how Low-Code/No-Code (LCNC) / BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) might change how uh, programs are developed. I mean often program is just part of larger business process. There are necessary inputs and outputs, is it always necessary (technically actually not!) to dig down into dirty details, when from higher level the execution details are irrelevant as long as it works reliably and performs reasonably well. - I also did just see news about Firebase Studio, but haven't had time to test it out. Links: Low-code development platform (@ Wikipedia) / Business Process Model and Notation (@ Wikipedia)

9. I haven't been using RCS messaging at all. But now I've enabled it and got interoperability confirmed between iPhone and Android. Great! kw: Rich Communication Services (@ Wikipedia)

2025-12-07