FourthProtocol

Thank you. The only value I set out with when building the more recent version of the site was to share what I know. Too many people learn a thing and keep it to themselves.

I'm talking about op-sec. Network design is but a single aspect of that, and often doesn't feature at all. I mean this more in the sense described by Wikipedia¹, and not the likes of SecurityStudio²/Fortinet³ (first two search results).

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_security ² https://securitystudio.com/operational-security/ ³ https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/operational...

Yes. I assume you're asking if they're publicly available, which is a no. Is not an easy world to penetrate, for good reason.

I have some experience here, not with the NSA though. BYOD is forbidden, and checked when you enter the building. There is only wired hardware - and wireless is, well, jammed. Any software introduced into such networks is vetted before introduction/deployment. It takes time. 3rd party apps don't auto update - Microsoft for example provide updates that can be vetted before being allowed onto the network.

And this is only some bleedingly obvious stuff...

The document does not describe SECRET or TOP SECRET environments. Not even RESTRICTED. R, S and TS policies are themselves marked with protective markings, which this PDF lacks.

Governments have a lower level of protection called PROTECTED or similar that is closer to what the document describes, but even that would be protectively marked...

Looks to me like NSA is sharing some of their lesser sensitive stuff to possibly help their vendors, businesses partners and public at large. Kind of like "we recommend Joe Public do it like so..."

In my social and work bubble nobody I've spoken to about it watches live TV anymore, myself included. News is consumed online (primarily Economist, Guardian and BBC, but not exclusively). TV does XBox, DVDs (I've amassed over 1000¹) and streaming (via Xbox and an old laptop). So of course any dumb disaplay with an HDMI connector will do the job. Sports events often also stream live, or can be watched in the pub. So beyond that, does live TV offer that much value that it merits a Smart TV?

¹ Of course most won't have such a library - but it offers nothing more or less than streaming does.

Any reasonable justification for requiring sign-up/a user account?

Get out of their way. Software developers know how to develop. Your job as manager is to remove any obstacles that keep developers from developing. And so you manage interfering people away from your project. You head off anything that might distract your developers. You remove ceremony, and you take the heat when "management" has issues with your team or anyone in it. You put your team front and centre, and step into the shadows when it's time to harvest the fame. You're like a bouncer at a nightclub door, protecting all who are within.

Not the easiest one to make absolute decisions over. National lotteries fund a lot of useful stuff.

Time for everything IS running out. And no, there's no roadmap that shows you how to stop feeling lost. I'm 52 and that feeling becomes ever more intense. I wonder how I got here so quickly. I'm told THAT feeling intensifies at 70. That said, the way I deal with it is to accept. I accept my age; the feeling of time's fleetingness; that I will cease to be (god/Jesus, Viracocha, Mandaeism, Zoroastrianism... are constructs that do little to overcome this feeling).

And so I live trying to being aware of each passing moment, and thinking about how I might better use the next moment. I have a personal web site on which I wrote down every major event in my life, and when I feel low I read that. I've achieved and done a lot. And I want to do a lot more. Mostly much more loving. In the both carnal and (obviously seperately) paternal senses.

I have hobbies I love - I did not pick one randomly because one should have a hobby, but because I truly love building those things. Creating something I recognise as beautiful is rewarding as f•••.

I also keep fit and healthy and take some pride in having lasted so many years without gaining weight other than muscle mass. I've done a variety of drugs, I've broken the law, and I'm ok with all of that because I think I've loved more people than I've hurt.

All these things... there's no meaning or other weird existential shit that comes of it. Other than being at peace with myself, my place in this fleeting existence, and enjoying as much of it as I can, while I can.

In parting, try sitting in a meeting and if there are women in the meeting, watch how men just talk right over them. And then interrupt those men, turn to the marginalised woman, and tell her you found her perspective interesting, and would she mind terribly repeating her thoughts. This is a probably hugely incoherent ramble about how I have learnt to actively try to get past what you describe. Some days are rough, most days amazing.

Not in the list, Here maps (with ancient roots in Nokia Maps) is excellent.

I wonder if this is a generational thing. If there's a decent app for a thing, I use the app¹. In this case Outlook. I have 4 email addresses to manage my personal email, throw-away registrations, website comms, and website SSL/admin.

I never access any email ever from a browser - Outlook is unbelievably good, and with the .PST file size restrictions no longer being restrictions I have my entire email archive of ever in it. Been doing things like this since 2002.

¹ Social media is the exception. Where I have multiple social media accounts (Instagram) I use seperate browsers (Edge for hobby account, Firefox for personal account). This is not ideal but the workflow is easy.

Give rusty screws a shot of WD40 and let soak for a while. Overnight if it's really bad. Clean the WD40 off the screw before starting to unscrew, then proceed as required.

Before I start - by "what is a book worth in the 21st century ?" do you mean non-fiction? Because then we agree on that point. However...

There is no such thing as "intellectual superiority". All life (I will grudgingly accept limiting it to humans for this discussion) has equal value regardless of perceived intellect. I may be good at growing plants, you may be good at researching nuclear fusion. This does not make either intellectually superior (ego and god complexes notwithstanding).

Second, books in bookshelves have value beyond the $ value or content of the books in them. At minimum it's an interior design tool that brings life and warmth to an otherwise soul- and lifeless house (look at houses on YT with a value > $10m. - virtuall all of them clinically and lifelessly designed by "x" who is "amazing darling").

Books do what a drawing of your child does when framed and hung on a wall - they make a house look lived in. The people in it automatically gain depth that a framed photo by some famous photographer of a landscape or half-naked person can never deliver.

Books can give insight not found on the Internet. King Rat, by James Clavell (himself a former prisoner of Changi) gives insights that are rare as hens' teeth on the Internet, if they exist there at all. Another stand-out is The Ugly American which surfaces some uncomfortable truths that can alter lives. And they start conversations, excercising intellects.

Finally, worth. A book in the 21st century is worth at least as much as a movie. I say at least because it has secondary benefits like improving grammar, spelling and sometimes writing style. I don't believe a Twitter feed or blog can match a good book for unadulterated storytelling.

I've been vaccinated 3 times. But. 5m out of 7 billion on Earth. The WHO is making rumblings of downgrading pandemic to endemic. Your body is all you really have so if someone chooses to not get vaccinated I believe that to be their (and my) right. I won't have that decision made for me and I won't make that decision for another, except my boy, who is too young to decide for himself. Just like my parents vaccinated me against Polio without asking me first.

Understood. I chose (forgive me) 'choosing the correct tire' because not everybody in snowy areas knows they need them, and not everybody has ready access to them. There's often no legal requirement for snow tyres, and some countries (Australia, for example) don't even HAVE snow tyres even though Canberra for eg, tends to get snow at least once a year.

Snow is no stranger in Scotland either, and there's no snow tyres requirement in the UK.

Germany has a law that states you must have winter tyres or all-year tyres from October to Easter ("Oktober bis Ostern" - O to O).

Drive up to Tiffindell Ski Resort in South Affrica (8,920 ft up) in whatever you have - donkey cart, bicyle, 4x4... That gets snowed in regularly, and there's a just a hand-made "4WD recommended" sign at the bottom of the mountain.

Not sure it needs to be dialled in for social media. If you want to achieve a result like monetisation then yes, but then it's no longer social, it's just become an income-related activity (job!!) and is no longer social media -- it's now a tool to achieve a non-social media goal.

A counter case -- for sure as a consultant at McKinsey, umlaut or Accenture you'll write out a communications plan in which you detail and map project stakeholders, places/times of project news and briefings, publicity, dealing with external inquiries and so on. That's a very, very specific and detailed set of requirements for what boils down to social media at corporate level.

Way over the top for Jane and Joe Average. For whom "keep in touch with friends and family" is specific. For many the notion of not participating is unthinkable - becuase THAT's where all their family and friends are. And so it requires no additional pontification, I'd think.

What might an example of a loftier, more dialled-in purpose be?

Research is also useful -

The first key to effective snow driving is a light throttle and choosing the correct tyre. Driving in snow requires a tall tyre with a narrow section-width. This allows the tyre to cut through the crust and obtain traction on the hard surface beneath the snow (the opposite of sand tyres)...

And so on. I used to teach this stuff -- https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/offroading/Driving/Snow.html

#13. Social Media with a Purpose made me pause - I have two Instagram accounts, and a Facebook account.

Instagram 1 is for family and friends. It's snapshots of daily life for family and friends all over the world.

Instagram 2 is for others that like me enjoy making radio-controlled replica cars and trucks from flat sheets of styrene.

Facebook is to let people who know me find me.

Why would one NOT have a reason for social media? Anything as mundane as keeping up with distant friends and family is reason enough, no? And of course that's going to forever remain mimetic unless you're a business. That's why there's the word "social" in social media, or did I miss the boat?

TikTok for entertainment. Twitter to be heard... I can't believe one would have any kind of social media account without a purpose. Even if it's showing off your wealth, or pretending to be something you're not - they're all reasons, no?

Being christmas I feel being charitable is apropos. You're right, and GP means well.

This so much. My wife and son are in France with the parents in-law. I refused to go because racism and bigotry and, and, and... I have also loved being alone my entire life. I made a bird feeder this morning.

Lol you read that very correctly, but please don't take the emotion either seriously or personally.

All your points are noted. Importing ODT files into Word makes a mess of formatting and layout. I've wasted many hours fixing documents. Linux doesn't like my graphics card, and on my previous hardware setup wouldn't recognise my ELP web cam, my Windows Phone, and for some inexplicable reason, my Ergodox keyboard.

Visual Studio is software for Windows - it won't work on Linux (I see no benefit in virtualising when I have so many other issues with Linux, plus the real or imagined perf impact of virtualisation - at age 50 I'm way past the place where I spend a week on a PC build just to see if I can - I know I can, I no longer want to).

Yes, there are vocal people behind every technology. I guess I'm just tired of hearing "Linux" as the panacea for all things Windows or Microsoft. I know Microsoft's history. Better than many, having used their stuff starting with MS DOS in '84, maybe '85, and having actually worked there.

You wrote - If Windows works perfectly fine for you, then yes, Linux + VM doesn't make much sense. For the rest of us that are not fans of how Windows runs things, it's usually a last resort option and very few people use it.

You're absolutely correct in that statement. My problem with Linux isn't that. My problem is what a5aAqU did in his reply to my first comment. He suggested Linux even though my post made my preference clear. This happens almost every time I mention using and liking Microsoft products and technologies.

It's not something I'd ever consider doing to anyone saying they use/like Linux. I love when people get along, regardless of... well, anything. Diversity is beyond value. It's how we grow.

Apologies again, I did not mean to offend.

Yes I've tried Libre. ODT files don't play well with MS Office. Pivot tables in Calc are... frustrating. No OneNote, no Outlook, no Visio. Linux doesn't work on my hardware, and Visual Studio doesn't work on Linux.

The distribution fragmentation... I'm expected to install flavour X or Y of Linux not actually knowing before I start that my hardware even supports it? Brain = explode.

Joining a community (Linux) that stomps all over people that have a dissenting view (I actually like Windows - have done since I started using it in 1990) is philosophically not a community I want part of (Stallman is an exception I have a lot of time and respect for).

A VM adds complexity - why would I do that when native Windows is pain-free and just works?

And no, I don't "need" offline editing, I just want it. After all the cloud is a computer just like mine - that happens to belong to someone else. The cloud introduces a risk of data theft and complete data loss. And yes, probability is low, but impact and exposure are both very VERY high. I don't run that risk at all using my own hardware.

Always with the Linux. I can't use Linux, I work in a Microsoft world. I can turn off the keylogger, and virtually anything else I don't want/like. I cannot (assuming I used their products) stop Google from storing my (MY!!) data on their infrastructure and having their way with it.

I will stick with MS Office. I can use it when disconnected from everything, and (note hyperbole, but the cynicism is real) I avoid the creepy feeling that Google is logging every mouse movement and keystoke I make for teh ads.

In fact I welcome my evil Microsoft overlord any day before I use something from Google. I see MS as the lesser of two evils.

I have a custom electric-assist bakfiets and it's got a lock on the back wheel, and a very heavy-duty steel ring for an equally heavy-duty chain. The battery and display are removable. You're subject to vandalism of course, but this is Germany. Vandalism happens, but rarely.

Happily I have a little garden with street access, but I have parked all over Frankfurt and surrounds with no issues. I do a minimum of 32km a day on the school run (8km from home, there and back for delivery and collection), come rain, snow or shine.

Never thought I'd see the day that the BMW gathers dust.

Sooooo so many hobbies have moved from forums to first Facebook, and the last few years IG. One of my girlfriend's workflows is research on IG, buy on Etsy.

Using it daily for inspiration for radio controlled cars and trucks I scratch-build from styrene. I also use it for interior design ideas, fashion and if the odd pitcure of a VW T4 van build pops up I tend to save to a collection for when I start my own conversion in the spring.

I love it.

Reddit and I parted ways. It became an echo chamber with no original thinking, mostly intolerant of dissenting views.

The article does mention economic factors - e.g. the desire for families to educate their children, which for a family with many children is prohibitively expensive.

Well that's the thing - I'm not willing to build them. I wouldn't know where to start, even. And no ambition to learn, whilst Firefox and uBlock keep going. Seriously why should I? Maybe someone more able than I can share their knowledge with a pointer to a guide that says why this is better than what I have, and how to get it running on my Windows box.

My current position is to step wide and rather carefully around anything by/from Google.