ncphil

12 ms·

61.
by ncphil 4y ago
As others have already written: If you're stuck on GoDaddy, decouple and use a different DNS. Cloudflare is pretty good for that. Adding my vote for Namecheap for all the reasons given. I use their DNS as well, and it has worked well f
62.
by ncphil 4y ago
Not in "the American system". Litigation is a rich person's game, and often used to grind down competitors: or just grift a lucrative settlement.
63.
by ncphil 4y ago
Definitely yes. Over 25 years ago I started a second career, in tech. After 6 months in a Microsoft academic program I got hired by a Big Six accounting firm to do desktop support. My previous education was completely nontechnical (a BA and
64.
by ncphil 4y ago
... and pissed away $193M when they missed/crashed into Mars because a US made spacecraft was using metric units while US-ground control was using Imperial (ironic because I thought we fought a Revolution to get out from under the Empi
65.
by ncphil 4y ago
Interesting read. This new book makes academic research from the 20th century and later available to everyone, demolishing the myths non-Roman elites like Geoffrey and descendants told about themselves. _Fall of Civilizations_ is a terrific
66.
by ncphil 4y ago
Last time I used ed was to change the network config of a Linux instance in an S/390 LPAR, mostly because I was the only one with any experience with it (an ed clone from back in my CP/M days). Not that I didn't have to scour
67.
by ncphil 4y ago
Yes. But they're testifying for the Government, the same Government that has sole prosecutorial authority in these cases.
68.
by ncphil 4y ago
Agreed. The tone was objective and factual. It's too bad the owners of LastPass failed to heed the criticisms that preceded this incident. FYI for anyone carping about LP's legal liability here: read the disclaimers (and indemnifi
69.
by ncphil 4y ago
All public infrastructure should be run using the co-op model and financed directly by government. Both private investors and government have consistently failed to "do the right thing" on almost every level. That includes electri
70.
by ncphil 4y ago
That last para is an excellent solution!
71.
by ncphil 4y ago
Is learning how to navigate the DMV system in any US state less "heavy"? I think Medium and others contribute to the problem by perpetuating the myth that ordinary folks can't do it/ it's just too hard. How we break
72.
by ncphil 4y ago
Seems an odd choice for a developer, for sure. I'm with all those who also have pointed out that self-hosting is the better route. Heck, as mentioned here, a compromise for this particular user would be to host the code on github and t
73.
by ncphil 4y ago
The whole, "did Rome fall, or did it just morph into the modern European states?" thing has sort of been overblown. Even the Medievalists (my old camp) have always recognized that the traditional story European states told themsel
74.
by ncphil 4y ago
For me, that Z80 and the ability to experiment CP/M became the whole point of owning the C128 in 1985. By '86 I'd moved on to a Kaypro 1 (which I wrote my first and last bit of assembler for: to drive a daisywheel printer), a
75.
by ncphil 4y ago
Actually, you can use Azure AD even without any Windows systems. https://canonical.com/blog/new-active-directory-integration-... . But licensing is still going to cost you. Having said that, as a former directory enginee
76.
by ncphil 4y ago
It can be if you fail to give attribution. Plagiarism isn't just unethical, unprofessional and immoral (not to mention evidence that the plagiarist is an uncreative dullard). It's illegal. How many words or sentences it takes to t
77.
by ncphil 4y ago
For the last year or so I've been using GitHub gists to record notes on various procedures in markdown to fill in the gaps between projects that have their own repos and markdown doc. Most of my casual notes get jotted down in Google K
78.
by ncphil 4y ago
My shop went from VMware to OpenShift around the time I transitioned from systems to whatever it is I do now. In my private life I've used kvm since it was first rolled out, but over the last few years have redeployed all my home servi
79.
by ncphil 4y ago
Amateurs. Samsung's identity system was f*ed even before this. Only Lenovo/Motorola were worse. _Of course_ they got hacked: they were a big fat (in a purely metaphorical sense), stupid, target. The entire executive suite and boar
80.
by ncphil 4y ago
Witch King vs Gandalf in the movie distorted a key point about the wizards: they were tasked to assist humans and elves against evil, but not to use their power to defeat the enemy on their own, or to rule over Middle Earth. Saruman tried d
81.
by ncphil 4y ago
The NYC subways alone delivered over a billion rides a year, even with Covid. Highway maintenance is anything but cheap, unless you only do the barest minimum as has been done in the US for decades.
82.
by ncphil 4y ago
In the mid-70s, I typed my senior thesis on a reconditioned manual (Underwood) and a borrowed electric typewriter. By the time I did my masters in the late 80s, all my papers were composed in vde on CP/M and formatted with TeX.
83.
by ncphil 4y ago
In the history of unions in the US, who do you think turned a bind eye to the infiltration by organized crime? During the depression labor organizing was mostly the work of people who the government persecuted after the war for their politi
84.
by ncphil 4y ago
At least they "think" that they're maintaining their status. Check back at mid-century when things _really_ start to fall apart and see where the US and those who control it are.
85.
by ncphil 4y ago
"All rights reserved" is obsolete language (there's a long boring story behind that) without legal effect. The way copyright has worked internationally since the late 70s, you don't even need a copyright notice but not h
86.
by ncphil 4y ago
Miniscribe RLL disks: destroyer of early PC building firms.
87.
by ncphil 4y ago
The Humanities are _essential_ to making rational decisions outside (and sometimes within) the sciences. Thomas Kuhn's work used to be viewed as a "bridge" between them (history + sociology of science). But in fact modern sci
88.
by ncphil 4y ago
During my college years I was fortunate to see several live performances of various Shakespeare plays every year, mostly student productions. They were all very good, and provided the context other commentors have mentioned. Back then, Oliv
89.
by ncphil 4y ago
When Gov. Whitman and her crew first implemented "leasing" of stadium names, I think it was actually Plan B. What they _really_ wanted to do was privatize those publicly funded stadiums themselves. But that wasn't something t
90.
by ncphil 4y ago
Nooooooo! First thing I do on every Ubuntu install is change the default editor to vim. Used to use the Gnome editor a lot, but since the introduction of vscode I rarely fire it up. The old editor (which is still shipping with LTS) is proba

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