dlitz

19 ms·

151.
by dlitz 13y ago
This basically shoots the messenger. NPEs just expose a greater problem with the patent system, which people like rms and others have warning about for years. What we need is actual reform of the patent system, not just sweeping the proble
152.
by dlitz 13y ago
To avoid this sort of thing, I have an editor macro that puts a comment like this at the end of the current line: alert("Fuck"); // DEBUG FIXME(dlitz) You can't see it here, but the comment also includes a
153.
by dlitz 13y ago
47 U.S.C. § 230 (1996) basically covers online forums from being responsible for what other people post on those forums. From what I can tell, it doesn't necessarily protect a person who uses one of those forums to post libelous claims
154.
by dlitz 13y ago
No, I wouldn't call that a complete misunderstanding; I'd call it a minor simplifying inaccuracy. Quoting Dr. Royce: > Management of software is simply impossible without a very high degree of documentation. How much documentat
155.
by dlitz 13y ago
I don't think the law of libel works that way.
156.
by dlitz 13y ago
> The reality is that strong random numbers is a precious resource, and you can't use it willy-nilly. Furthermore, the strength of random numbers is a continuum; it is not a binary "strong" vs. "not strong" disti
157.
by dlitz 13y ago
> Perhaps because the division between the language, and the filesystem, is arbitrary and drawn by OS vendors, not language users? Wow, that comment is a textbook example of this: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles&#x
158.
by dlitz 13y ago
Oh, cool! Have you considered making changes to the interface that's presented to userspace? As a crypto library author, I have a few gripes about the current interface: 1. The distinction between /dev/random and /dev&
159.
by dlitz 13y ago
Do we really need a separate package manager for every programming language? They all seem to have their own, which creates pressure to "re-implement ALL the things" every time a new language becomes popular. In 2013, why can I
160.
by dlitz 13y ago
One fact that people seem to be ignoring is that SSL private keys are used for authentication . Having an SSL private key doesn't automatically give you access to a user's data; it gives you the ability to impersonate a trusted
161.
by dlitz 13y ago
Hopefully, this will just involve transferring the governing authority away from the U.S. government without changing how the IETF/IANA are actually operated. It would be bad if the traditional, international standards-setting organiza
162.
by dlitz 13y ago
That's true for CO2, but CO is actually slightly less dense than air (1.20 kg/m^3 vs 1.23 kg/m^3 according to Wikipedia), and tends to mix with air or rise slightly above it: http://www.ehow.com/way_5545497_pr
163.
by dlitz 13y ago
https is useless for package management, given that most people are downloading from mirrors. What you want is a signature over the entire repository, like Debian and Ubuntu do (not just signing individual packages, like Fedora does). Onc
164.
by dlitz 13y ago
One third of British Muslim students say they support killing for Islam. What about their actions, though? Cognitive dissonance is pretty common among religious people. A lot of Christians agree with the statement, "If your right
165.
by dlitz 13y ago
Hasn't it been tested in Canada, too?
166.
by dlitz 13y ago
My high-level impression (based on a small amount of experience) is that if you want to ship a modified distro, it's easier to base your work on Debian than to based it on Ubuntu. The Debian project puts a lot of effort into making
167.
by dlitz 13y ago
Those reasons aren't good enough reasons to split the community. They're reasons to negotiate and to help improve Wayland.
168.
by dlitz 13y ago
Everyone is talking about the Internet of Things. I wonder when we're going to start talking about firewalls harm the Internet by breaking end-to-end connectivity.
169.
by dlitz 13y ago
I disagree: - Ruby isn't UTF8-only, but Rails is. - Unless I'm building a site that caters to CJK languages where Han unification is unacceptable, I'm not going to need to deal with non-unicode text. In 4 years of Rails de
170.
by dlitz 13y ago
> There's no inherent, fundamental reason in the universe other than momentum that says you've got to use an 8-bit encoding. "Other than momentum"? That's a double-standard: Momentum is the only reason why UTF-1
171.
by dlitz 13y ago
Imagine a world where we don't have to convert between multiple charsets, or even think about them, beyond "text" vs "binary". That world is perfectly achievable, it's basically already happened outside the Mi
172.
by dlitz 13y ago
In practice, you always know the byte alignments at the level of abstraction that ASCII and UTF-8 occupy.
173.
by dlitz 13y ago
IMHO it's completely fair to criticize others for the externalities that they create. UTF-16 is a design flaw, and Microsoft repeatedly decides to release a new version of Windows that fails to meaningfully address that flaw. To date
174.
by dlitz 13y ago
This isn't just about surreptitiously installing a compromised PCI card into a desktop PC. It affects every machine with a FireWire, Thunderbolt, or PCMCIA/ExpressCard port, i.e. most stolen corporate laptops. https://
175.
by dlitz 13y ago
Corporate espionage isn't exactly rare, and it can affect any employee (usually the least important employees, since they tend to be the least careful).
176.
by dlitz 13y ago
It's basically true, though. Google install arbitrary Android apps on nearly any Android phone without user interaction. Source: If you log in to https://play.google.com from a desktop computer, you can install apps on you
177.
by dlitz 13y ago
> why would you choose to trust all instructions but rdrand Presumably, there are limits to the amount of silicon that Intel/NSA can devote to backdooring everyone. Since other instructions are supposed to behave deterministically,
178.
by dlitz 13y ago
Even with a short timeout (say, 10 seconds), it could be useful for a maintainer who pulls from several other users' GitHub repositories. Instead of establishing a new SSH connection for each remote, a complete "git remote update
179.
by dlitz 13y ago
> Don't get it by skimming? Must be crap code. Well, there is some truth to that. Anecdotally, most lines of code will be read many times before they are changed/discarded, and most of this reading will be skimming, where the
180.
by dlitz 13y ago
> A public or private organization's best defense against whistle-blowers is to refrain from doing things it doesn't want to read about on the front page of the newspaper. I feel like this hasn't been said enough in the de

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