Mixtape

Just to supplement your point with an anecdote: my first "proper" Jellyfin host was a retired Optiplex 3020. I added a 128GB SSD through one of those silly CD drive bay adapters and threw in a Quadro P400 that I bought off of eBay. On top of that, the actual server ran Proxmox with Jellyfin nested in an LXC container. By all accounts, the machine was a janky pile of e-waste given a new, horrible life through sheer stinginess.

There were quirks (mostly self-imposed ones) to getting the whole thing set up, but it ran like a champ for the better part of a year. Hardware transcoding really does make a world of difference, even in the worst of cases.

Their articles seem to load fine in my reader (Fluent) if I fetch them as they're published. Beyond that though, if I try to fetch the full content or open the article in my browser, I hit the paywall. It seems like either their paywall takes a few minutes to apply to their new articles or they deliberately make them accessible to RSS users fee-free.

2019-23.

It's worth noting that GroupMe sticking around was honestly probably a byproduct of my own circles and the specific campus culture to a certain extent.

When I finished my undergrad a few years ago, we were relying heavily on GroupMe chats, with the occasional Slack and one or two LinkedIn groups mixed in. Discord was just starting to exit the gaming sphere and hit the mainstream though. I'm willing to bet it's absolutely dominating the space now.

Great. As if Learn articles weren't already a mess to begin with.

A few weeks ago, I needed some syntax information to help with building out a PowerShell script. The input and output parameter sections each included "{{ Fill in the Description }}"[1] in lieu of any meaningful content. There wasn't even a link to the data type's description elsewhere in the Learn database. I was ultimately able to get done what I needed to do, but it really irked me that whoever developed the article would publish it with such a glaring omission.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsof...

Adding onto that, the last quarter or so of the article is spent quoting William Rampe of the Institute for Energy Research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Energy_Research

IER is often described as a front group for the fossil fuel industry. It was initially formed by Charles Koch, receives donations from many large companies like Exxon, and publishes a stream of reports and position papers opposing any efforts to control greenhouse gasses. Thomas Pyle, president of the IER and its offshoot American Energy Alliance (AEA), was appointed to the US Department of Energy's transition team after the 2016 United States elections.

Regardless of whether or not the buses proved effective, it's pretty obvious to me that this isn't neutral journalism. It seems like the author approached it first as an opportunity to echo anti-EV talking points and second as a noteworthy story.

Wouldn't that imply that >80% of all monitored telnet sessions were exploit attempts for the specific CVE in question? Even with the scale of modern botnets, that seems unrealistic for a single vuln that was undisclosed at the time.

In no particular order: 404 Media, Ars Technica, BleepingComputer, The Register, The Verge, and Tomshardware.

These usually sit in the corner of my screen through the day. Some are better than others for work purposes. The Verge could probably go, and 404 is a bit more socially-focused than the rest. In particular though, having rapid updates from BleepingComputer and El Reg is a great way for me to learn about new vulns, issues that might affect my users, etc.

Seconding this. I have one for my work desk, where (surprisingly enough) it made a lot of sense. The DPI isn't as big of an issue as people make it out to be if your workflow doesn't depend on high density, but the curvature definitely could benefit from being a bit tighter. You need a fairly deep desk or a keyboard tray if you don't want to be turning your head a bunch.

That being said, having this in combination with PowerToys FancyZones has been fantastic. At any given time, I'm usually running 1-4 main working windows plus Signal, Outlook, and an RSS reader. This gives me more than enough real estate to keep them all available at a moment's notice. I have roughly 40% of the screen real estate dedicated to Signal, Outlook, and my RSS client, with the interior 60% being hotkey-mapped to divide in different proportions. Compared to my old setup (one ultrawide plus two verticals) it's been awesome.

Just a nitpick: analog NTSC was roughly 480i at (just under) 30 FPS. The latter is significant, as 3:2 pulldown (as would have been necessary if the station's cameras were scanning at 24 FPS) would have introduced judder and made tracking even harder. To its credit, interlacing also improved motion clarity at the expense of loss of detail, but whether that's a net benefit ultimately amounts to a matter of preference.

Just a guess, but Google Maps has (had?) an integration with Spotify that adds basic playback controls below the map view during navigation. It's meant to keep you from needing to switch apps while driving.

IMO, poor website UX plays a big part in this too. People are far less likely to Google "[city] public works" if "public works" is a top-level menu item on the city website. When you first need to click a hamburger menu, hover over the "departments" entry, select "other departments", and then pick "public works" from the site header though, Joe Public is just going to do a search.

You are correct. This is a consideration at all levels of government currently, with faith in those grants' persistence varying based on an individual recipient's responsibilities.

Absolutely, and that's a risk that we carry, especially in the public sector. That being said though, I don't know if adopting a better-regulated domain is itself enough to alleviate that.

The very unfortunate reality is that many (most?) users evaluate phishing attempts with the null hypothesis that "this is trustworthy". They are looking for evidence that something is wrong and assuming all is well if they don't find it. To that sort of user, the thinking goes something like:

* Some trustworthy sites use .com.

* My municipality is trustworthy.

* My municipality uses .com.

If you draw out the venn diagram, there's a clear gap in that line of thinking. That doesn't matter to someone's Great Aunt Linda though. She just knows that .com is what goes after Amazon and Google, so it must be good.

With that in mind, could using .gov help to protect those folks? To a certain extent. I can see the argument for keeping the more discerning few from getting scammed. For the broader group though, it won't change anything.

Offhand, the alternative solution that I'd offer would be providing clear communication standards to the public. Specifically, defining when, how, and from whom municipal notifications go out. Think of it like the IRS only sending physical letters; archaic as it seems, it makes it pretty obvious that an email "from them" is bogus. The clearer someone's understanding of where to find us is, the more optimistic I am that they'll get where they need to be.

Just my $0.02 as a net/sysadmin for a small municipality in the US:

A big part of why we haven't been able/bothered to migrate to a proper .gov domain boils down to the amount of technical debt we'd need to pay back in the process of doing so. Everything that we do uses our non-.gov domain, namely our Office 365 connectors. On top of that, end users' day-to-day communications with the public make use of the existing domain. Modifying that in any capacity could prove disruptive to ongoing communications and potentially render them liable for dropping the ball somewhere. Not to mention that every single internet account ever created by staff using the current domain would need to be migrated or risk being lost forever.

Additionally, we're a small team. Only myself and one other individual would really have the technical knowledge to migrate our infrastructure. The opportunity cost involved would be massive. There are grants available to help us with this, but obtaining/using those can get complicated at times.

Ultimately, the pros just don't outweigh the cons enough to make a huge difference. From a purely academic angle, should we have a .gov TLD? Absolutely. In practice though, the residents and staff are familiar enough with the current one to render it a non-issue. The average non-technical user doesn't "see" "[municipality].[state].gov". They aren't familiar with the concept of a domain hierarchy at all. They just memorize "[municipality_website]" and move on with their day.

The time to do something to standout is while you are working.

This is an issue I ran into recently during my post-undergrad job hunt. Having exited college without an internship, it was difficult to distinguish myself in any meaningful way. In my opinion, major, career-defining work needs to be at least six months' worth of dedication to be of any importance on a resume. Most people don't have the savings to go that long between jobs.

I was fortunate enough to secure a well-paying internship over the next six months, but in all honesty I think I got lucky. It's tough out there if you don't have the existing background to set yourself apart.

While I have the chance here, I want to say thanks to you and your team for the amazing work that you all are doing. I doubt you need further validation, but believe me when I say that the ideas you're describing do work. My entire career in CS started with Scratch in intermediate school (somewhere between 2010 and 2012). Having an interface with a low barrier to entry, particularly for someone whose economic situation didn't allow for engagement with more sophisticated tools, allowed me to begin engaging with computing in ways that I'm not sure I would've been able to otherwise. It was also a bonding experience for my peer group and provided me with a shared interest to meet people over. At the precipice of graduating with a bachelor's in CS, I've been reflecting a lot on how I get here, and Scratch certainly played no small part in that process.

Would you be willing to elaborate on what you've seen a bit? I'm on the last semester of my CS degree now and have definitely seen a lot of similar effects as a result of Zoom courses and general isolation during COVID lockdowns. There's generally less willingness to reach out to people than there used to be, and people seem to prefer dividing up tasks and working independently over collaborative work (e.g. each person in a group project having a "role" rather than working jointly on a large segment). There's also a general preference towards working at home without any external interaction whatsoever and a lack of willingness to form study groups. As I start moving into the job application phase of things, I can definitely see how these traits can be seen as off-putting to hiring managers, and I'd like to avoid falling into similar traps. Is there anything else you've noticed that would be worth avoiding?

This is fascinating and absolutely could be its own submission. Excellent work.

This is doubled by the fact that lots of boaters will try to keep their phone as far from the water as possible for safety's sake. In practice, using your phone is better than using nothing at all, but a dedicated waterproof device that you can clip onto your clothes and forget about is by far the better option.

If my memory serves, every boat I've ever been on has had one. In my experience though, it rarely gets used, especially if the individual driving is also fishing. The article states that Scheller was trolling at the time, so he likely wanted to be able to leave the console and grab his rod at a moment's notice. Reckless as it may be, driving with the power key attached to the console in some way rather than yourself makes that process faster and much easier. It's a trade-off between convenience and safety that, unfortunately, leads many to favor convenience a majority of the time.

Slightly unrelated, but I had no idea that Techmoan had a second channel. I wonder if he'll use it more in the future.

Something like this happened to me this past Fall. I took an undergrad fundamentals of networking course that was honestly fairly surface-level and simple, but the professor put a significant focus on developing the proofs for the course concepts through homework rather than in-class lectures. In theory that's fine, but the issue was that in a time-sensitive setting (i.e. assignments or exams) it became extremely stressful to just not understand where to begin with certain problems. Combine that with the fact that, in my experience, proofs often lead to understanding of a concept rather than the other way around and you had a lot of people going into office hours basically asking for a solution.

I would be very interested to see a study on the relationship between time costs sunk into learning a concept through proofs and students' understanding of the concept as compared to when a proof is simply provided. I'd hypothesize that letting students discover the reasoning behind things on their own would be more likely to develop a deeper understanding, but I question whether there's enough time in a single semester to drive a curriculum that way.

The best these people may have tried, and failed to ever reach and enjoy the true quality, having - indeed - some complexity behind it, is in visiting Starbucks.

This is a tangent from OPs point, but I would push back on this idea slightly. To be clear, there is absolutely a large number of people in the US who use coffee as a tool more than an experience and treat it as such. A frightening majority will shell out a few bucks on the daily for coffee from gas stations or chain restaurants, all of which will serve you the sort of over sweetened, watered-down coffee experience you'd expect in the US.

However, I'm of the belief that there are undercurrents of a strong coffee culture in the states as long as you're willing to look for it. I recently took a trip along the east coast and, while searching for souvenirs, found a bag of locally roasted beans that I decided to take home. They weren't necessarily my favorite roast that I've tried, but the fact of the matter was that I was able to taste a local cultural staple and identify what made it unique for relatively low effort. Likewise, there are a growing number of locally owned and run coffee shops popping up across the country using machines similar to those you described above (my local favorite uses a Slayer [1]). The Starbucks-ification of coffee and inflation have unfortunately normalized $5 16oz house blends at many of these places, but the experience is still far more authentic and feels like a deliberate choice rather than a passive act.

I apologize in advance for taking a "not all Americans" stance on this, but coffee is something that I'm genuinely passionate about despite living somewhere that tries not to be. I want other people who care to share these experiences too, but many just assume that every stateside coffee shop is the same. Hopefully this will help illuminate some other options.

[1] https://slayerespresso.com/

For a high-quality brew, you absolutely want to buy whole beans and grind them immediately before use. However, you definitely can buy pre-ground beans in the states or grind them in-store if the market offers a grinder. Though, I think the point of the response above is more to demonstrate that either option is impractical in waiting rooms since you either have to ask a guest to grind their own beans or serve them grounds that have likely gone stale from lack of use. Either is a subpar option.

This is very similar to my upcoming senior design project! We're making a learning tool that will allow you to write up tabs, play them back with production audio, and then play along with them. Once the play-along is complete, we'll be implementing a system for evaluating your performance accuracy using some basic numerical analysis principles. It's a big project, but we've got the entire semester ahead of us and a lot of passion behind it. If you're interested, let me know and I'll link you to the repo once we're underway.

As a college senior myself, I think it's a bit of both. I think a lot of students buy iPads for the social appeal, and there's definitely something to be said about the impression that having a well-organized digital device gives that paper can't necessarily accomplish in things like interviews. That's not something that the STEM-brained among us care to admit, but fitting in socially can make or break your chances of advancement sometimes. I also see a lot of people cite genuine organizational advantages, which I can definitely understand. Being able to sort and access notes/assignments without having to scan them is a nice perk, as is being able to screenshot slides and record lectures (the ethics/efficacy of which are both up to your interpretation.) Color-coding is helpful to some people, as is being able to resize content on the page as needed. Then there's always the perk of having an internet-connected device on-hand for things like watching Zoom lectures, submitting assignments, etc. Being able to tackle all that on-the-go without relying entirely on your phone is nice.

There are occasionally some arguments put forth about environmentalism and saving the trees, but given the environmental costs of battery production, I really don't see it as a good reason.

As for my thoughts on the matter, I've honestly always thought that investing in a high-end iPad for college alone is (for me) a massive waste of money. My campus has plenty of computers available through their AD, so finding somewhere to get online is rarely an issue and is often easier than depending on our subpar mesh network. That's also how I access my textbooks, all of which are either online or (conveniently) located on my OneDrive. (Side note: I was also the idiot that didn't consider the combined weight of my gaming laptop and its massive charger when buying it at 18, so not having to carry it around campus on 95% of days does wonders for my back health.) Pen-and-paper has always worked fine for me, and the two little journals and pens that I carry around are plenty functional for my two in-person lectures. I have a huge problem with staying focused during lectures, so not having another device to yell at me or send me notifications in the middle of when I'm taking notes is a huge perk. If I really need to check an old set of slides or look something up, I have my phone for that. Finally, there's always the fact that not having another $1k+ device in my bag to break when I fall off of my skateboard, get stolen, etc. keeps a lot of pressure off of my day-to-day activities.

That being said, it really comes down to how the individual student uses it. If it's the main hub for all of your notes, assignments, meetings, calendar, etc. and that's all you need to get through the day, all the more to you. $1k over the course of a 120 credit degree is around $8.33 for every 3 credit class, so as long as it's providing that value, it's well worth it. I take issue with people suggesting that it can revolutionize your classroom experience because I find that with education the system that works best is the one you know. If I were to try to make the switch, I know it would end up being another source of distraction more than anything else. I may not be the norm though, and that's perfectly fine.

From a sales-only perspective, this article makes sense, but the very obvious influence of TikTok seems noticeably absent from the analysis.

TikTok, by nature of its scale, has completely changed how the music industry works. If you want to prove this, check the top 40 chart of your favorite music streaming service or listen to your local top 40 station for a bit. Both of these were originally designed to provide a good metric on what songs people enjoy listening to from beginning to end. However, they're now almost entirely populated with songs made popular by 30 seconds to a minute of their content rather than the entire work.

TikTok has created a fundamental shift in the metrics by which people collectively evaluate music's popularity. Forty years ago, what was most "safe" for radio (in the sense that it was palatable enough for most people) was what got played. Now, the shareability of even a single segment of a song is its entry point into the feedback loop of exposure that creates viral hits.

Whether this is a good or bad thing is honestly subjective (and likely polarizing to some) but the article's failure to recognize it feels significant. In a system where the extent to which people get bored of listening to a song in its entirety is no longer a concern, people are revisiting old releases and finding that they perform extremely well under the current metrics. That's why we have Kate Bush and Metallica in the top 40. Their songs performed well under the previous system before fading into irrelevance, and they just happen to perform well under this new system as well. Stranger Things may have given them the push they needed to re-enter the public conscience, but what followed was the same process that would have happened if their music was released, say, ten years ago rather than 40. Age itself is secondary when shareability is king.

Personally, I'm of the belief that this will stabilize in the long term if short-form shareability remains the dominant metric of a song's popularity. In the same way that radio stations stop playing songs as people get bored of them, so too do older songs fade from popularity on TikTok as they begin to become tiresome to enough people. Combined with the fact that this happens at an extremely fast pace and that the amount of legacy pop music is finite, this means that TikTok users are bound to run out of sufficiently popular legacy content to use eventually.

Slightly off-topic, but I've recently heard from some corners of the collecting world that this is a major issue for video game resellers on Amazon (and other platforms) as well. People regularly receive flash carts with stuck-on labels (i.e. stolen trademarks) on them and a pirated ROM running on counterfeited hardware. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible in some cases to identify a well-crafted fake from a genuine copy before purchase, and the burden is thus placed on Amazon to take action against sellers of the products. Given that the loss of one consumer in a relatively niche yet very competitive market will not deal significant damage to Amazon's overall profits, (and that Amazon can feasibly shift blame towards the seller,) the issue persists.

All of this is to say that the idea of pirated books proliferating on Amazon is entirely feasible if electronic devices can be so successfully faked. However, what's not lost on me is the irony of Amazon, a marketplace whose initial success was anchored by trust in its ability to deliver books, falling victim to such schemes in this specific market space.

I was in almost the exact same position all day. What made it worse though was the fact that this happened right in the middle of my attempts at curbing my browsing habits. Once my app timers for Reddit is Fun, Instagram, and Twitter were up, it was time for HN... except there was no HN. What that meant is that I was reaching for a stimulus and then not getting it, the same way that an alcoholic wouldn't feel satisfied by, say, a can of soda. It was weird to experience, but very enlightening. It both made me realize how subconsciously my addiction is reinforced and reaffirmed to me that it is, in fact, an addiction. I'm not going to stop using HN of course, but I'm definitely going to be more aware of how I use it (e.g. passively vs. intentionally) from now on.