octorian

17 ms·

121.
by octorian 7y ago
Yeah, the exploit has absolutely nothing at all to do with message encryption. It's just your run-of-the-mill security hole that happens in other software all the time. As such, most of the comments in this thread are completely off ba
122.
by octorian 7y ago
Except Marc's team actually had highly detailed mechanical drawings of those parts, so the only hard part was finding someone who could manufacture them. Thankfully they had connections in that area.
123.
by octorian 7y ago
Yeah, and its a good thing that video is now an option. When I was a kid, often in the position of helping old people with computers, there was a major behavior difference I often observed. I looked at the screen "globally", and w
124.
by octorian 7y ago
This actually reminds me of an episode that happened to me many years ago. Back then, it was "web anonymizers" (not VPN providers) that were all the rage. These programs would maintain a database of open proxies, and route peoples
125.
by octorian 7y ago
I was in the middle of college when that bubble burst, and I kinda felt like I was being cheated out of the opportunities I was expecting to have when I went in. Most of this centered around the internship/early-career period that is q
126.
by octorian 7y ago
Good 'ole San Francisco... A city that's such a pain in the arse to get in and out of by car that I basically avoid going there at all. I just wish that getting in and out of SF by public transit wasn't a 2+ hour adventure (1
127.
by octorian 7y ago
> I have a 32-bit application I use regularly to interface with old hardware And the relevance of this use case is something that "using a laptop in a coffee shop" Apple users seem to be completely and utterly oblivious to. Yet
128.
by octorian 7y ago
"The point is, some products are sold directly to the end user, and are forced to prioritize usability. Other products are sold to an intermediary whose concerns are typically different from the user's needs. Such products don&#x2
129.
by octorian 7y ago
I should add that this very problem also exists with video. What makes it worse is that "smartphone" video apps started regularly using video orientation metadata years before desktop video apps even seemed to acknowledge that it
130.
by octorian 7y ago
I still remember thinking that having a Das Keyboard was a splurge. But in this world, it might as well be a Logitech that no one talks about. (That being said, I've only used Das Keyboards at home and work for the past 6-7 years or so
131.
by octorian 7y ago
> When eBay first started, I loved the idea of auctions as a way to set market prices. From an economic and game-theory perspective, it is so optimal! > Clearly as later examples like Amazon have shown, auctions don't make sense
132.
by octorian 7y ago
I have many more Sonos units than that. The majority are Connect:AMP devices (connected to the in-wall speakers my home came with), but some are their standalone speaker units. For me, the biggest gripe is that its a pain in the arse to get
133.
by octorian 7y ago
Open, unencrypted, easy to reverse engineer with a packet sniffer. I hope it stays that way, because I built a project[1] that kinda depends on it. Should that change, my project suddenly requires a fair amount of annoying and complicated w
134.
by octorian 7y ago
They to make "passive" noise cancelling earphones. Basically, headphones that are thick and insulated enough to block surrounding noise without needing to cancel it. (Also sold w/o speakers as something construction workers w
135.
by octorian 7y ago
Same here. I feel like I went to school just before teachers caught on to the issue. Either that, or I just got lucky.
136.
by octorian 7y ago
During weekend installfest/hackfest events at a LUG that I used to attend, there was always this one guy who would sit in front of a pair of laptops and code in Ada. One thing I remember about it is just how much it reminded me of Pasc
137.
by octorian 7y ago
This is also what I do. Password managers are one of those few applications where I find it vitally important to not be subject to the whims of a particular company. Even semi-abandonware (like some things I used pre-KeePass) is preferable
138.
by octorian 7y ago
> a cometivtive open source mail (web) app Yes, this is a big deal. So many web applications provided by companies as "cloud services" are orders of magnitude better than equivalent web applications you can run on your own damn
139.
by octorian 7y ago
> If you just want a reliable mail service, just use https://fastmail.com . If you want even more freedom and configurations, do try to set up a mail server. But it is hard. A bit hard. I used to run my own mail server, but I
140.
by octorian 7y ago
I've definitely kept all my stuff from those days. I even once decided to throw some of it (with little organization beyond a few projects) on my public website: http://www.logicprobe.org/~octo/history-code.shtml
141.
by octorian 7y ago
> (Maybe IMAP is a text format too, so this isn't an advantage inherently) Actually, IMAP is a binary format that looks like a text format. This distinction is extremely important when you want to make a reliable Email client. There
142.
by octorian 7y ago
Its still far better than POP. Its really nice how you can let the server decode the structure of a message and then selectively download only the parts you actually want to display. (Yes, I once wrote a mobile IMAP client.)
143.
by octorian 7y ago
> it’s probably never going to compete with the private sector where you need great UI/UX if your competitors have it. That's another problem with the gov't sector. You don't actually have competitors. Or more specifi
144.
by octorian 7y ago
This complete separation of "customer" and "user" is one reason I disliked working in the gov't contracting world.
145.
by octorian 7y ago
In my own experience, any software developed under government contract has horrendous UI/UX. Probably because it's hard to specify "don't suck and be pleasant to use" in terms of formal system requirements.
146.
by octorian 7y ago
> Does it really matter when 80% of these will be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic The acceleration needed to get press coverage? Absolutely not. The other qualities of a good EV? Absolutely yes. Having driven a Tesla Model S for severa
147.
by octorian 7y ago
One thing that's easy to miss, is that there's a lot of background processing essential for usable E2E that doesn't actually result in a user-visible notification. Much of this involves the local app doing some sort of server
148.
by octorian 7y ago
> Insurance is not supposed to make routine things more affordable. It's supposed to spread the risk of catastrophic loss from unlikely events around to a large group of people so you don't have to worry about losing your house
149.
by octorian 7y ago
Yeah, if discounted rates were illegal, then some of the more simplified Republican arguments against requiring and/or subsidizing health insurance might actually make sense. This whole system of discounted rates is why you're pre
150.
by octorian 7y ago
I'm not talking about workplaces. Having slow charging at workplaces makes the most sense, because you actually will be leaving the car there for 8 hours.

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