ncphil

7 ms·

1.
by ncphil 2y ago
Thanks cketti, for all your toil on K-9 and Thunderbird for Android. Over many years K-9 was the only mail client that just worked for me. When I finally transitioned to a certain secure web mail provider based in CH, I had to leave K-9 beh
2.
by ncphil 2y ago
"Do Not Track" was a good standard, but on the today's global Internet, unenforceable without serious push back against non-compliant sites from either government regulators and/or consumers. In other words, privacy thea
3.
by ncphil 2y ago
Encouraged to see the skepticism here. Recalling when, after years of hype, the demand for corn-based ethanol as a fuel competed with corn for food, leading to even greater food insecurity world-wide. Grifter's gotta grift, but that do
4.
by ncphil 2y ago
It actually is as simple as that. Well, if you could actually get funding. The number one problem with our legal system is that only the rich can afford to play. Before someone says, "but... public defenders", let me suggest that
5.
by ncphil 3y ago
"Developers should test their own code" is emblematic of a juvenile mindset in people who regularly fire up their "reality distortion field" to avoid the effort of educating themselves on their own operations (and that h
6.
by ncphil 3y ago
Meritocracy is tyranny by another name. "Natural" aristocrats are still aristocrats, and being aristocrats it is their "natural" inclination to take power in their own personal and (when they are numerous enough to be or
7.
by ncphil 3y ago
This is an enormously important distinction: security ne privacy. Although you can make your own Chrome install insecure, by default it really isn't bad. Transforming it into something that isn't actively compromising your privacy
8.
by ncphil 3y ago
Depends on the model year. The one we bought in 2003 only needed regular oil changes and a new set of tires every few years. We did have to get a rebuilt transmission just before its warranty ran out, but didn't pay a dime for that (&q
9.
by ncphil 3y ago
Totally personal preference, but not a fan of the Brave UI. At least from my perspective they (like Vivaldi and Edge) are trying too hard to distinguish themselves from the outward look and feel of Chromium. It's their right as a fork,
10.
by ncphil 3y ago
Piketty's _Capital in the Twenty-First Century_, cited in the article, remains a fundamental resource for understanding how we got here. It's really essential reading. Given all that, the solutions presented in his later books app
11.
by ncphil 3y ago
Love FiraCode. Have it installed and configured for all of my terminals, everywhere. Even on Windows. In fact, the one customization I've done to my work laptop (that I otherwise leave in it's official, shipped, state), is to add
12.
by ncphil 3y ago
Interesting idea, but I think I'll stick with DNS challenge and LetsEncrypt. Lazy me really needs to finally sit down and automate the process (all the pieces are in place on my registrar's side). Did the private CA thing for almo
13.
by ncphil 3y ago
This is a good point. Of course anyone who thought the MSM, or print journalism, were in business to reveal the actual truth really needs to review their history. The worst part is that Julian (whether intentionally or not) probably made t
14.
by ncphil 3y ago
This was really funny. Got lost in it, and the site, for a while yesterday. Made for an enjoyable week end. Many thanks to the author.
15.
by ncphil 3y ago
Although I'm not a fan of the common law system, it isn't the problem here. The problem is a culture that so elevates informality that there are no guardrails left to ensure careful, thoughtful, deliberation even in business deals
16.
by ncphil 3y ago
Under the Sonny Bono Act in the US corporate copyrights were extended beyond 100 years. The original US Copyright Act was limited to 14 years, and allowed a single renewal of the same length. After that, public domain. The short term goal w
17.
by ncphil 3y ago
Visited DC in 2010 or so. Kids were eager to see Nat Geo headquarters. Turned out to be a big disappointment. Lots of empty spaces where displays had been. We were told they were renovating. Looks like they've now lost a lot of their e
18.
by ncphil 3y ago
It has been awhile (about 10 years or so), but I can recall at least two widely used enterprise access management systems that had trouble with some special characters. Access management is hard. Even those able to pour boatloads of cash in
19.
by ncphil 3y ago
Netscape Navigator -> Sea Monkey -> Opera. It was a thing. Set aside mostly to improve performance of the browser. When Firefox was first released it seemed... lacking. But it _was_ fast. That was still the Age of IE, of course. For m
20.
by ncphil 3y ago
Because they don't see technical debt as a bad thing. Go back to the original pitch for technical debt by Ward Cunningham. He was working for a finance company and used the debt metaphor to advocate in favor of "borrowing against
21.
by ncphil 3y ago
"I can't imagine that a deposition lasts more than a few hours..." Heh. No. A good litigator will be prepared with enough questions to keep him testifying for most of the day on each case. No doubt there will be many objectio
22.
by ncphil 3y ago
Anyone who rarely uses python, or who uses it all the time, should take the time to read this article and its companions in the series. Good, solid, advice that will make life easier. Just read it and try out the suggestions made. I was ama
23.
by ncphil 3y ago
Probably the most painful home Internet experience you can have is a consumer router fail. Suddenly you really need all those basic sysamin features a business system provides. I used OpenWRT on Linksys back in the day, but later had an ear
24.
by ncphil 3y ago
Because they'll (Microsoft and Github) ultimately be crushed by copyright infringement claims (even the most liberal oss licenses require attribution, which no one seems to be accommodating)? Why bother mounting an expensive antitrust
25.
by ncphil 3y ago
Think about the level of executive stupid you're dealing with when a spinoff continues using the same literal playbook -- with identical terminology and resources (linking to former parent company servers) -- in executing a painfully o
26.
by ncphil 3y ago
But a lot of US govt programs from that era spent a lot more money, and didn't deliver such impressive results: if they delivered at all.
27.
by ncphil 3y ago
I've stuck with ThinkPads for Linux over the last decade. Thanks to the OP, I'll now keep an eye on used Dells. My work issued me a later model Precision a while ago (that they require me to run Windows on: the desktop engineering
28.
by ncphil 3y ago
Thing about ThinkPads is that there's almost always a premium option for hardware like screens that can be dropped in with nearly tool-less effort. I have an old X250 that I recently upgraded from the crappy 1366x768 shipping display t
29.
by ncphil 3y ago
"The sample size could have been larger". Yeah, like _way_ larger. So could the institutions represented. _Scarsdale_? Really? What about NYC, LA, Chicago? As others have written here, you would have to be insane to think a $200 d
30.
by ncphil 3y ago
Street view for Google Mars. I think the atmosphere is too thin for those photo-taking cars to run very far. That and the lack of any streets on Mars. At least in the unclassified imagery that has been made public... (cue eerie music)

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