HorstG

6 ms·

1.
by HorstG 7y ago
I disagree. I really think doing an intentionally crappy job is acceptable. Not even pretend. I think it is okay to really half-arse it. Or break it. Or be lazy. Or whatever. Except maybe intentionally harm someone.
2.
by HorstG 7y ago
No. Just no. They may do so to the worst of their abilities. Thats their prerogative. The only limit might be publishing something that is actively intended to do harm. But I can't imagine a plausible example of that...
3.
by HorstG 7y ago
GDPR binds an operator of a service. The developer can do as he likes.
4.
by HorstG 7y ago
Just as you shouldn't eat everything you just picked up from the sidewalk, you shouldn't just use any code thats available out there. check, check and check again...
5.
by HorstG 7y ago
Security isn't a special license for being nasty. Criticism is fine, even with some urgency due to security being important. But software done for free by volunteers carries no obligation of a legal or even a moral kind, whatsoever. Th
6.
by HorstG 7y ago
Defense would actually be quite easy. Just undesirable. There are working antisat weapons in the major powers' arsenals. However, they would produce nasty debris clouds. And then there is also the vulnerability of the lauch site and co
7.
by HorstG 7y ago
Launch capacity scaling isn't only possible through useless comsats. And astronomy is still an extremely important component for becoming space-faring. No use in going somewhere blindly when you can have a look first. But if there is n
8.
by HorstG 7y ago
Theoretically yes, through interferometry. But that is really difficult when there is relative motion within the constellation such as with starlink.
9.
by HorstG 7y ago
one gets time signals from photomultipliers, but those are too bulky for traditional pixel sensors. And something as bright as a satellite flare might fry them at an unexpected moment. They are usually built and tuned to be able to observe
10.
by HorstG 7y ago
Well then, we should also have Elon pay rent for use of space...
11.
by HorstG 7y ago
Depending on the type of measureme t taken, a dark transient is also harmful. However, by far not as bad as a bright transient.
12.
by HorstG 7y ago
It will kill astronomy pretty good. The key point is usable observation time. Our current handful of satellite telescopes provide 24h of time a day. Each terrestrial telescope provides maybe 8h. However, there are a magnitude more telescope
13.
by HorstG 7y ago
Modern astronomy works at the edges of whats possible, a single frame might take hours. Needing multiple frames would mean multiple days per observation. It would mean no longer seeing faint and distant objects, limiting us to younger, clos
14.
by HorstG 7y ago
Yes, but stability against vibration and thermally induced warping is also important. So you could make the mirror thinner than on the ground, but not really thin.
15.
by HorstG 7y ago
Cherenkov telescopes for neutrinos do look down for reasons of schielding. Neutrinos can pass the earth, other particles not so much. But those are a special case, air cherenkov telescopes are looking for "less weird" particles li
16.
by HorstG 7y ago
Gravity is an issue for mirror production. But it is far less of an issue than tension and deformation during the months- to years-long cooling of the substrate. The temperature and environment control to do that is challenging on earth, fa
17.
by HorstG 7y ago
Because cherenkov radiation is only observable in a transparent medium like air or water. Space doesn't work because the speed of light in space equals the speed of light in vacuum, therefore no cherenkov radiation.
18.
by HorstG 7y ago
There is CSS media query for exactly your use-case. No need for sniffing, round-trips or any server-side activity at all.
19.
by HorstG 7y ago
Sites need to be told to obey DNT with a legal sledgehammer. Still hoping...
20.
by HorstG 7y ago
Exactly. That is also why "logging in to Chrome" or rather Google is such an insidious misfeature. Soon they will be the only ones with cross-site tracking and third-party-cookie equvalents in the leading browser. That would be ch
21.
by HorstG 7y ago
Agreed, for things like autoplay. But dual-use features like feature detection that also enables fingerprinting cannot be replaced by randomized misinformation because that would really randomly break legitimate stuff. The only privacy-cons
22.
by HorstG 7y ago
Also, "please upgrade, then call back" is always the first point on any support call checklist.
23.
by HorstG 7y ago
Yes, but unfortunately using the user agent for only non-stupid reasons is a postcondition for the hell freezing over.
24.
by HorstG 7y ago
That would still cause pages to do evil things if users set their privacy budget to "0/paranoid" or anything below "11/just gimme all". Just as with adblockers users will be nagged about "please turn that
25.
by HorstG 7y ago
Client hints are not any more useful than traditional UA for privacy or progressive enhancement. Its the same content, just split up. Any browser not sending everything will have atrocious permission UX, nagging websites or just get the bro
26.
by HorstG 7y ago
Yes, but the fear remains that all sites will just always request everything from ua-client-hints. It is also totally unclear how browsers will handle this. I think making this permissioned will just add to the PrivacyNagOverload. Also, bro
27.
by HorstG 7y ago
If you need a portable replacement, there is Perl. Available since the last century. If you don't care about obscure Unixes, there is also Python and a whole bunch of other scripting languages on more modern systems.
28.
by HorstG 7y ago
I agree that 5 to 10 lines might be a sensible upper limit where a shell can safely be used. Basic does have Goto, but modern dialects do have all the usual control structures. Perl has weird syntax, but far less dangerous footguns: e.g. th
29.
by HorstG 7y ago
There are lots of those footguns in shellscript. One should always try to avoid any shell and rather use python, tcl, perl or powershell. Any criticism one might have about insecure and broken by design languages apply doubly to shell. A sh
30.
by HorstG 7y ago
Depends. But usually being first author counts for more in most fields. However, e.g. in particle physics papers with hundreds of authors are common, alphabetically sorted. Sucks to be Z. Zymmer, nice to be A. Aaronson. People from the fiel

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