Some IT guy, IDK.

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • Gas stoves have a place, and I’m not about to take away anyone’s choice on the matter. With all that being said, to the title of this article, I say “duh”… Honestly, who thought that cooking using an open flame inside your home was somehow safer than the alternative?

    I use electric, I’ve pretty much always used electric. I will continue to use some form of electric stove. I want to have complete control over the heat going into my cookware, and while it may not be as flashy or as quick to use electric, I can’t see any situation where electric would not be safer.


  • That’s a big challenge, but a worthwhile one. The reason that Microsoft exploded in the DOS era was because it ran on everything that was “IBM compatible” aka x86. Meanwhile Apple was over there with a competitive product, but you could only run the software on their OS that ran in their hardware. People were able to get cheap third party x86 compatible computers and run MS-DOS (and later Windows), and they were not locked into a specific vendor doing top to bottom hardware/software support.

    If they do this right, they’ll be the go to option for a lot of people who generally use their PC primarily for gaming.




  • This is the risk of “trusted computing” architectures. Who is governing the “trusted” part of that.

    These cryptographic signatures are not as much of a death knell for Android as some would have you believe. The trick is to get a common code signing cert into your device, that is then used to sign any third party APK you want to run. You can avoid the Google tax this way. I assume that’s how most sideloading sites and apps are going to handle this.

    The question is, how do you add that certificate? Is it easy and straight forward (with plenty of scary warnings), as a user? Or is it going to be a developer options deal? Or will I need root to add the cert?

    I’m not sure what that answer is right now.

    I just want to finish this post with a few words about trusted computing models. Plainly: Apple has been doing this for years … That’s why you download basically everything from an app store with Apple. Whether on your Mac OS device, your iPhone, iPad or whatever iDevice… Whether the devs need to sign it, or the app gets signed when it lands on the store, there’s a signature to ensure that the app hasn’t been tampered with and that Apple has given the app it’s security blessings, that it is safe to run. Microsoft and Google have both been climbing towards the same forever. Apple embedded their root of trust in their own proprietary TPM which has been included with every Mac, and iDevice for a long ass time. Google also has a TPM, the Titan security module, I believe that was introduced around pixel 3? Or 4?.. Microsoft made huge waves requiring it for Windows 11, and we all know what that discussion looks like. Apple requires a TPM (which they supply, so nobody noticed), Google has been adding a TPM and TPM functionality to their phones for years, and now Windows is the same. None of this is a bad thing. Trusted computing can eliminate much of the need for antivirus software, among other things. I digress. We’ve been going this way for a long time. Google is just more or less, doing what Apple has already done, and what Microsoft will very likely do very soon, making it a requirement. Battlefield 6 I think, was one of the first to require trusted computing on Windows and it will, for damned sure, not be the last that does. The only real hurdle here is managing what is trusted. So far, each vendor has kept the keys to their own kingdoms, but this is contrary to computing concepts. Like the Internet, it should be able to be done without needing trust from a specific provider. That’s how SSL works, that’s how the Internet works, that’s how trusted computing should work. The only thing that should be secret is the private signing keys. What Google, Apple, and Microsoft should be doing, is issuing intermediary keys that can sign code signing certs. So trusted institutions that create apps, like… Idk, valve as an example, can create a signature key for steam and sign Steam with it, so the trust goes from MS root to intermediary key for valve, to steam code signing key, and suddenly you have an app that’s trusted. Valve can then use their key to sign software on their store that may not have a coffee signing key of it’s own. This is just one example based on Windows. And above all of this, the user should be able to import a trusted code signing cert, or an intermediary cert signing cert, to their service as trusted.

    Anyways, thanks for coming to my Ted talk.


  • Fair enough.

    I just have a hard time translating what what shown in the video to what’s actually happening. Might be a bit too much to take in at once.

    Then again, I haven’t cared much about the tides ever, and I only know that the tides are a function of the moon because of Bill Nye, I think.

    My HS “education” was pretty bad, honestly.





  • That quote is funny because the statement is clearly indicating that they are pro-choice.

    In business though, workers are not often given a choice. You either work from the office, work x days in office and y days from home (hybrid), or only work from home.

    90% of the employers that I am aware of, give one of these, maybe two (usually in office and hybrid) as options; usually only one option (in office). A few wfh companies I’ve worked for do all wfh, which is great for me, but anyone who wants to work from an office, can’t.

    By giving workers a real choice, you open the company up to a much larger pool of people who are willing/able to do the job. If they’re local to an office and want to be in office, cool, set it up. If they’re not but they prefer wfh, cool, set it up.

    In my experience nearly zero employers provide flexible work options. It’s usually one of the three, and if you’re lucky, two of the three. It is exceedingly rare to be given all three choices.


  • I both agree and disagree with the conclusions in the title…

    I agree that for many people, they’re happier, and likely more productive, working from home.

    I would also agree that for many different people, working from an office makes them happier/more productive.

    It entirely depends on the job, who you are, and the work culture. Some places are toxic and working from home to get away from it is helpful for job satisfaction. I’ve known people who simply focus better when they’re at the office since they have a lot of distractions at home. I know for me, the opposite is true. at home, I’m in control and can limit exposure to distractions, and I can be more productive, more comfortable and overall less unhappy with my job.

    IMO, this discussion is less about what companies want, whether work from home or hybrid, or in office … The main conclusion that we should be driving home is that different people need different environments to do their best work, and be happiest with their particular job. To put it simply: workers need to be able to choose.

    Until we’re at the stage where employers care less about how, and where you do the work, and they care more about the work getting done… We’re going to keep going back and forth on this.

    I like to work from home. That’s me.

    I know people who prefer to work from an office. There’s plenty of people who feel they work best from the office.

    There’s plenty of people that need to mix between home and office work.

    Bluntly: as long as you can do the work from where you’re working, and how you’re working, the rest should be flexible. We’re (presumably) adults and professionals. If we’re given work and we’re being paid to do the work, then we will do the work. We don’t need to be constantly supervised by middle management like toddlers.


  • I disagree.

    1. You already have a government space agency. Maybe give them more funding so they don’t have to rely on space-x to get their stuff into orbit?

    2. There’s a national telecom network already in place. It at least has the potential to be faster and more reliable, if it isn’t already… At least compared to low earth orbit satellite coverage.

    There’s no good reason to continue providing Elon or his companies with any government handouts. Pull that funding and give it to… I dunno, students who have more debt than homeowners with a mortgage… NASA… Literally anything that helps people?


  • I think GDPR and related laws, really tempered what Microsoft did to the whole of the European region. They didn’t want to deal with it, so they made as much as they could, opt-in. As opposed to the north american policies of either opt-out, or forced-on.

    IDK. I don’t work at Microsoft, I’m just guessing. 🙃


  • For those curious, if you can get a European Windows product key, you can install the “N” version of Windows. Be warned, it only works with certain product keys

    The standard Windows installer should give the option of “Windows 10” or “Windows 10 N” (or similar). The N version is basically bloatware free out of the box…

    The regular version has a bunch of promos pre-installed, like candy crush, and other things that most people couldn’t give a shit about…

    Recently I’ve been playing a “fun” game with my work laptop where I’ll remove copilot, and a few days later it will appear again. Weeee. In that case, it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a policy in place to enable copilot on my works systems… I’m sure someone who works here, probably higher up the food chain than me, wants it enabled, and the ham fisted policy maker can’t create a policy just for those who want it, so everyone gets it because the bosses son Shane decided that he wants to see how much of his work can get done by AI so he can do even less while on the clock.


  • From the wording, it looks like they’re just going to georestrict their content to places that are not Turkey.

    Far from a problem, unless of course, your primary following is from Turkey; or that’s where you live.

    I don’t blame bluesky here, they operate internationally, and they have to obey the laws of the locations they operate in. Personally I’m wondering what kind of Internet posts are restricted in Turkey? Who has laws to say you can, or cannot say things on the Internet? Besides… I guess, China, and obviously illegal things like CP…

    Were they posting CP?

    IDK, I’ve never used bluesky. I barely used xitter, back when it was relevant, if I were to use anything as a replacement it would be Mastodon.

    Anyways.






  • Bluntly: If you’re fortunate, you’ll have two options for internet. DSL and cable. Sometimes there’s other “options” like a WISP or starlink, or even a dual up provider, but the speed comparison is not even close, so I usually discard most of those as viable either on ping time or bandwidth.

    It’s extremely likely that only one provider services your residence with DSL, and one provider does cable. Two providers. All other options are basically a wholesale or resale of these two providers, meaning you still get service from one of those two.

    If you’re extremely lucky, you’ll also have the option of fiber. And IMO, that is the only time you really get three options.

    If you go with a third party ISP, the last mile is still one of the two that actually come into your residence.

    So the only real options you have are: do you want to buy internet direct from the ISP that owns the line to your house, or do you want to buy internet from someone who will contact that company to give you internet? If you don’t like the DSL provider, and you don’t like the cable provider, you’re completely fucked. Gg everyone.