drpixie

7 ms·

301.
by drpixie 4y ago
It's a great article, and it raises many major issues with our current model of computing. But it's obviously triggering, and lots of people are rushing to defend their comfort zone. Think outside the box people ... "files&qu
302.
by drpixie 4y ago
and files are one-way sockets. They lied when they said "everything is a file", but it's almost true that (for Posix) "everything is a handle."
303.
by drpixie 4y ago
(smirk) You've noticed that there are lots of kiddies, getting all hot under the collar, who haven't noticed that a counter-example does not refute the global mindset that is Posix ;)
304.
by drpixie 4y ago
Yes. And not much point in all that careful checking against the RFCs - many email servers use, accept, and correctly process email addressed to technically invalid addresses. This library runs the risk of blocking actual, working email add
305.
by drpixie 4y ago
In some ways it was! Blockchain is (in essence) a signed ledger of double-sided transactions (that happens do be duplicated for error/fraud checking). The first part of that (ledger of double-sided transactions) has been around since t
306.
by drpixie 4y ago
HTTP might now be used for other things but right from the beginning (check the RFCs) HTTP stood for "Hypertext Transfer Protocol", the RFC was written by Berners-Lee. HTTP and HTML did come together, and from the same person.
307.
by drpixie 4y ago
I'd feel much more secure, from extensions and websites if those permissions just didn't exist. I can only turnoff what I know about, but not those new things quietly added with each update.
308.
by drpixie 4y ago
I'd like a fork of chrome which removes all (or at least most) the "features" mentioned - a browser that renders well but just doesn't support these masses of unsecure features. If you want to give 3rd parties access to
309.
by drpixie 4y ago
Open only the minimum ports that you need (eg. only 80 & 443 for a web server). Run simple software (eg. nginx) and keep it up to date. Minimise the impact of searching bots (eg. fail2ban). Avoid running scripts (eg. take care with ph
310.
by drpixie 4y ago
Agree - an up-to-date system running only nginx and fail2ban is likely to be more secure than some vendor's who-knows-what's-on-it image which exposes various "services".
311.
by drpixie 4y ago
I think a UPS a good idea for Raspberry Pis. They are rather sensitive to power transients, and anything that causes a crash and leaves the SD in a not-happy state means it won't boot! (A known issue with the Pi.) I use a UPS and log2r
312.
by drpixie 4y ago
and you have all that GPU processing power for compressing & decompressing :)
313.
by drpixie 4y ago
... but enormously disappointing to see the way so many people have been taken in. The number and strength of defensive statements on hacker news is appalling. Aren't we supposed to be the smart people who know what's going on ...
314.
by drpixie 4y ago
If electricity was actually free and unlimited - all that energy goes into heat. We're worried about warming from CO2, imagine the energy output from everybodies every whim!
315.
by drpixie 4y ago
It would encourage terrible levels of self-indulgence. Imagine: * "It costs nothing so I air-condition the entire town." * "It costs nothing so I have my smart car follow me around 24x7, in case I want it."
316.
by drpixie 4y ago
All because ChatGPT is a language model , not an knowledge model . LLMs are designed to produce output that is similar (in language terms) to that its training saw in similar circumstances ... Yes, LLM work on many indistinct levels; Yes,
317.
by drpixie 4y ago
Personally, I have my own server running mail-in-a-box ... but that does require some tech know-how. If you don't have a tech background, I select a provider that: #1 charges a fee (so it's worth them keeping you around), and #2 h
318.
by drpixie 4y ago
Use a different and more responsive email provider, a provider that provides human contacts!
319.
by drpixie 4y ago
You’re correct in thinking that there is nothing magical about LSB or MSB. As long as everything agrees, we get the results we’re expecting. Though for serial communication, networking, and similar, don’t assume anything :) Historically, or
320.
by drpixie 4y ago
Agree. The vast majority of complaints about C are actually complaints about the standard library. It's library - if you don't like it, use something better :)
321.
by drpixie 4y ago
So use ChatGPT by all means, but include a tag: #TL;GPT (text from ChatGPT, looked good, may be complete garbage)
322.
by drpixie 4y ago
I'll agree with everything but "fairly good anyway" - I see most web pages and apps as only adequate, but they follow the current fashion (sigh) By "only adequate" I mean full-of and/or based-on bad design patt
323.
by drpixie 4y ago
Presumably the result of Google making Chromium more and more like a whole OS (and everyone else following along). Is it ridiculous to give a browser such fine-grained access to your computer? If we were actually designing web standards for
324.
by drpixie 4y ago
Too late - it's gone past 747 points :(
325.
by drpixie 4y ago
#TL;DR Seeing as ChatGPT is being used to generate pronouncements/articles/assignments where it's been given nothing about the actual situation/news/subject, perhaps it's time we instituted a flag ... #TL;GPT .
326.
by drpixie 4y ago
... except it will be difficult to judge the correctness of something you make up - better to ask it something you know, so you can evaluate the meaning, not just the wording.
327.
by drpixie 4y ago
Agree. But not sure what you mean by the "top 5%". Google have deliberately stopped trying to provide an index of the web. They now focus solely on revenue (advertising) maximization. A search will show paid sites, then popular si
328.
by drpixie 4y ago
Another strong agree. These models don't understand anything, they just produce something that is statistically (at many levels) close enough that it will fool most of the people, most of the time. For those that are increasingly happy
329.
by drpixie 4y ago
From an old guy who can remember pre PC ... Yeah! And all the assumptions of carefully considered invention/design for PC Basics ... ha ha ha ;) The various BASICs were copies of what came before, and what came before had line numbers.
330.
by drpixie 4y ago
Since the dawn of computing, hardware (computer & memory) has been getting cheaper. And software has been filling the gap. So if throwing effort at hardware no longer improves things, it must be time to put real effort into improving so

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