
kudos
"Thanks to Iain for pulling together a cogent summary, late into a Friday night and Saturday morning."
Yeah, Iain does good work here.
2726 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2007
Kudos to the judge, but I have to wonder why automated geolocation has been taken at face value in so many cases before this. It doesn't take a lot of checking for anybody (including a judge) to see the faults, and certainly that would lead to a proper professional enquiry into the subject. Yes? I guess not. (sigh)
I personally use an IP that is on a server in another country and which most geolocation tools will show as being on the other side of the continent from where the server is located. I just checked, and Maxmind is one of the ones that shows my IP like that. I don't imagine for one minute that I can't be found, but it certainly won't be by some simple IP lookup.
I usually just tell them I'm not running Windows. Next question is "Mac?". "Nope - BSD", I say. Some ignore that because they don't know what it means and I tell them they're an idiot and that's the end of that conversation. Others say "oh" and hang up.
But one time as response to "your computer is sending out viruses" I said "yes?" and he repeated the statement several times until he finally heard me. "Yes, that's what I do for a living", I calmly said. "How may I help you?" He was silent for moment, then said "just a moment, I'll get my supervisor". The supervisor came on and repeated the accusation, and I explained to him that this is no surprise since "that's what I do for a living". I could literally hear the wheels spinning in his head for a moment, and he finally said "Oh, that's fine then." ... and hung up.
In 2014 T-Mobile's 911 service was out for some hours, and it happened more than once. I believe that one cost them a few pennies. See: FCC REACHES $17.5 MILLION SETTLEMENT WITH T-MOBILE FOR NATIONWIDE 911 OUTAGES
I use a VoIP service on which I pay $1.95 per month for 911 service. I would think they have some responsibility in return for that charge. However, that's like a landline in that they have my actual physical address in their system for just that purpose. Relying on just a single and usually fragile cell phone connection doesn't seem smart to me - especially if you have the responsibility of a baby. You have to feel sorry for those parents though.
In any case, I've also got a traditional copper pair landline with one phone directly connected so as to work during power outs. But that's actually a luxury because the VoIP phones have a UPS. My point would be that I take some responsibility myself for ability to get 911 service.
". . . it is the policy of the executive branch to promote an open, interoperable, reliable, and secure internet that fosters efficiency, innovation, communication, and economic prosperity, while respecting privacy and guarding against disruption, fraud, and theft,"
So, a complete 180 then.
"Command lines are inherently unintuitive."
That's just presumptuous. Some people do have difficulty with text in general, but there is nothing inherently "unintuitive" about the command line to people who can read and write. I'm saying this, not because I think there is anything wrong with other interfaces, but because there is no need for Mr. Volum to make assumptions about other people based on his own preferences.
Not so easy to block. There's no fixed IP since many people operate servers. You could do so too if you are interested in joining. You can also just run your own without making it public. That's what I do. Another benefit of OpenNIC is that you can get free domain names, and even start another TLD if you are ambitious. We resolve our own as well as ICANN's.
"So much concern about the actors and so little concern with the content."
And as it turns out, the content is apparently mundane. Obviously Americans have a different slant on politics entirely. Also, there seems to be a lot of Trump in this one. Here's an article about the "leaks".
systemd
-free Devuan Linux hits RC2
There really is nothing available which is perfect. However, I agree with the title as do many other people - at least in principle and feel. I note that a lot of *BSD users are Linux refugees who've not liked the Windows-like direction of Linux distros in general. You may disagree with the choice of BSD but the sentiment is common.
rpcbind
I recently found a nice little Blog engine that required regular compiling to update the blog with static pages. I'm no programmer but was pleased to see that FreeBSD has a compiler for modern Fortran in the base distribution so no problem. Things don't change as fast as we tend to assume.
OK, that does it. I'm switching to Christian Linux.
He also notes that “Most software implementations have stagnated and are awkward to use and configure,”
I disagree. Security aside, just downloading with ftp is about as simple as it gets. Type "lftp filename", "ftp filename", or "sftp filename", whichever program you prefer, and that's it. And no, there's no configuration required on the client. Hard to imagine anything simpler to use.
I'd say that the people who use tags like /s and not don't get sarcasm either, since doing that negates the effect.
It is quite difficult for both machines and humans to distinguish sarcasm without context.
Perhaps therein lies the key, because nothing exists without context. Someone who doesn't get the context is probably not aware of their social or other environment in which the sarcasm is presented.
systemd
-free Devuan Linux hits version 1.0.0
Indeed, it is just a matter of interface preference. I have a liking for Firefox because of some plugins that make it work especially well for me. Nevertheless, surely I'm not the only one who runs numerous browsers because many have useful features that I like from time to time. Why only use one browser?
"It's relatively easy for a website to serve content based on IP address,"
It is easy to pretend you got it right. In the real world you will see lots of European IPs showing in the wrong country. These databases don't always get updated either. Advertising is one thing, but there is no current mechanism that is adequate for any purpose with legal consequences. On top of that, using a VPN is common and getting very popular.
I'm actually surprised more people don't get hurt by these. I've got a big commercial compressor in my workshop and it does a nice job of cleaning old computers. It's also nice for cleaning the workshop dust off my clothes when I've been in the shop. But whenever I do that I can't help thinking just how easy it would be to get too near my eyes, or even more scary, my ears. I could end up deaf in a fraction of a second if I didn't exercise care. Anyway, I highly recommend a real compressor for cleaning out dust bunnies in old desktops and for regular keyboard maintenance. One just needs to exercise a little care and pay attention to just how much stress one is putting on the item at hand.
The red serge is their dress uniform. You very rarely see it because they don't wear that for regular work. This is what you see normally.