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billfor

736 karma · joined October 28, 2014

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billfor··on Windows 11½
I have a microsoft account but I use a local account for Windows 11. I always had MSDN and had a pro key so maybe its an enterprise thing. It is a legit copy. I don't use onedrive or 365. When I go to Accounts it has a blue button to Sign In, so maybe local accounts don't get ads.
billfor··on Windows 11½
I have Windows 11 Pro and I've never seen an ad. I don't remember turning anything off but I did upgrade from Windows 10, so maybe that had something to do with it, unless it's just that Pro doesn't contain ads. I also don't use it with a microsoft account and don't have any "services" from them, so maybe that helps.
billfor··on SpaceX's Starship launching to orbit for first time ever today
I think somebody on the livestream said 60x capacity over Falcon.
billfor··on SpaceX's Starship launching to orbit for first time ever today
What was interesting is how short the single engine burn was to bring it from suborbital to orbital. It was just a few seconds. I'm not even sure I saw the altitude change.
billfor··on SpaceX's Starship launching to orbit for first time ever today
The live channel has some video of recovery of the last starship which is pretty cool - it remained floating so they crawled up and removed some of the tiles to see how they performed, and actually reinstalled a few of them for the upcoming flight. So this mission will actually see some of the tiles flying for a second time.
billfor··on US Revokes Limits on Power Plants' Climate Pollution
According to Al Gores movie (shown to US students) we were already supposed to be beyond 2C by now. When the ClimateGate "hide the decline" emails were released that also raised a few eyebrows. So saying the world is now going to 3.5C rings on deaf ears. That's not science that's just the fact of what actually happened so far.
billfor··on What we have learned at OpenShell applying formal methods to control AI agents
Yeah they could have picked a better name. OpenShell/ClassicShell have been around for a long time (before them).
billfor··on How the Disaster of "Forever Chemicals" Was Kept Secret
The "interview" format is a bit difficult to read.

Assuming they did keep it a secret, we had so many other hazards that were (and still are) in common use: lead, mercury, tobacco, chlordane, asbestos, etc... So even if true; even if you accept this as some conspiracy, it would seem to pale in comparison to the list I just gave. We seemingly survived and thrived with with substances far worse than a little plastic running around in our bloodstream, yet this remains the topic of the day and it makes me wonder how real the outrage is (proportionate to other hazards) or if this is just liberal minded "see the big companies are out to get us and this is just the current example". It would be far more persuasive imho to just argue the later point independently, because the plastic (using the term loosely) topic comes up so frequently that to some of us it is just repetitive and not really constructive.

billfor··on Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business
The principal is it's OK if a democrat does it. For example: It's OK to rename something named after a Republican president who was shot (Mt Mckinley). It's not OK to rename or change something about a Democratic president who was shot (ie. The Kennedy Center).
billfor··on Xiaomi: New CPU matches Apple cores single threaded, much faster multithreaded
Just to be accurate, they don't say that it's made in the USA. They only say its assembled in the USA. Perhaps in the past they made some statement that it would have been, but the current box and marketing don't.
billfor··on Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down
Time for War Plan Crimson. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/war-plan-red-cri...
billfor··on Finger: Social network that never died
Don't forget Zephyr as well - the original AIM....
billfor··on Abdominal fat predicts heart disease risk better than BMI
I just want to know why FEASTS was capitalized, otherwise good for submission….
billfor··on Pixel 11 Pro Fold
My Nexus 5 had that feature and it was really useful to see if the phone had a message pending. They also did the same thing for wireless charging, dropping it and then bringing it back. The PM probably gets paid good money to go in circles.
billfor··on England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C
It didn't start out as liberal/left, so a lot of the people that have been here since 2010 want to keep most politics out it entirely. After all the name of the group is "Hackers". Most of the people in compsci/engineering were libertarian prior to 2007 anyway. It's really undergone a shift which is fine, but it actually adds absolutely nothing, from an intellectual point of view imho. It would be nice to at least send a warning note, to any accounts that solely post political stuff here - or give them their own subgroup. For God's sake if you are going to talk about Hepatis-C then talk about here, rather than using it to bring up issues with an administration you don't like.
billfor··on Amazon backs power plant that may become top source of US climate pollution
A surprisingly small number though. 15%.
billfor··on Tuxedo No. 2 – Cocktail recipes
A drink with bourbon and rye makes no sense imho. A rye is just bourbon with a higher percent of rye and less corn. You might as well call it blending your own whiskey.
billfor··on Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
That's the key one -- it should be first and maybe the only one on the list. Japan is mono-culture and high-trust. They are all on the same page. You can't replicate that in western cities any more, such as the US or Europe. In some ways it's at odds with the idea of globalization and multiculturalism.
billfor··on The lost civic life of movie rental stores
You forgot the $2 charge for rewinding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K97bkACYWLY
billfor··on Trump administration needs to stop 'public harassment' of Fauci and scientists
I find it wildly disturbing that a government official in his position would use his work computer to store private notes, that in some cases appear to directly contradict what he said in public about the same matters. It calls into question his entire thought process and judgement "in general" -- if he can't think through on separating his personal and work life, how could he be trusted to make judgements on what to do about COVID.
billfor··on How to Block Some of the Bots
I just use fail2ban and it seems to do a pretty good job, but you do need to pay attention for the first couple of months, to tune it to your situation. I use one filter that is really just failregex = ^<HOST> - \S+ \[\] ".*?" 40[034], and then if that catches something I add it to another more specific list. So far I have about 80 specific regex's and it has stopped all of the traffic. I haven't had anything fallthrough to the 40[034] filter in a long time. Of course the problem with fail2ban, and also OPs solution, is that it become a pain if you are handling things through a load balancer / proxy, since you need a way to get the real ip.
billfor··on Canada is taking an outsized role in the construction of the post-American world
What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

billfor··on The Price of Happiness (2024)
Was this AI written? It seems confusing to me but I'm not an economist. I think another way to look at happiness and money is that while money doesn't necessarily buy happiness, it avoids unhappiness. So you remove a negative factor -- not having money, which is a position nobody wants to be in. This is similar to your overall health, friends, love, etc.. It's not that you need tons of them , but not having any of them is a problem, especially health.

"When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both, it's health. If everything is simply jake, then you're frightened of death."

billfor··on The death and rebirth of my home server
I have a rasperry pi 2 and 4 that have been running on the same size uSD (reputable brand) for 5 years and haven’t had any issues. I have swap turned off. You just have to be aware of the i/o and not do anything stupid. Clearly for heavy i/o with multitasking they are not ideal.

You can buy cards that support SMART if you want to track wear, but they are expensive.

billfor··on The US grocery slowdown is real
They should just lead with saying that obesity rates have tripled since the 1960s and maybe they will start declining a bit now.
billfor··on 1,300 Beautiful Wildlife Illustrations from the 19th Century Now Restored
This belongs with my other Taschen art books.

Can anyone that bought the book of plates comment on the quality of printing (binding, color and paper)? It seems like they use a printing on demand system instead of a publisher.

billfor··on Is The Economist Always Wrong?
We do read the Economist in the US, and Lexington in particular in the US section. I use the US definition of right wing because I'm in the US and didn't want to confuse Europeans that have a different definition of what "right" is when I use it in a sentence. All I was doing is correcting (and providing evidence for) the reference that they are "quite centric". They are not anywhere near the center of issues consistently. If you want more evidence, Allsides also rate it left of center, https://www.allsides.com/news-source/economist-media-bias

I notice it because I've been reading it for 20+ years. In the last 10 years it has taken a notable turn to the left. Whatever your viewpoint, the "tone" and "lean" of the magazine has shifted in the last decade. It's still a good source of information and I do read it every week.

billfor··on Is The Economist Always Wrong?
They are not "quite centric" politically, unless you are a liberal. Contrast the number of times the phrase "far-right" appears with the equivalent (far-left, progressive, radical left, etc..). They go out of their way to use negative adjectives describing right-wing (US definition) people or concepts, but not so much the left. The "Lexington" column is completely devoted to liberal (not classical liberal) ideas, and I would challenge anyone to note a right of center view (US definition) in that column over the last ten years. I've subscribed to the Economist on and off for twenty years and definitely noticed a change in bias when Zany took over.
billfor··on Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July
Just as you don't need to be a vet to know the difference between a dog and a cat.

I own a dog and it's common sense that a dog is a reflection of the owner, and when you have a dog you know every other owner and dog in the neighborhood (and the ones that use fireworks have dogs that don't mind fireworks). If you don't enjoy fireworks then you tend not to introduce the dog to fireworks at a young age, and the dog will tend to be afraid of them. Look up "optimal age to train a dog".

billfor··on Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July
Good thing we didn’t have too many of those people during the revolution or we would still be part of Great Britain.
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