biomechanica

> And to reiterate: C should finally be a real assembly language, something we not need to worry about.

Assembly is used quite a lot and if you're a programmer Assembly is very valuable to know _at least_ how to understand it.

I disagree, also, that C should go away. Saying it was never a good language is a bit harsh. It's a great language. One that industries are built on. I'd rather read/write C code than, say, Rust.

Edit: There are, of course, languages coming up that can absolutely compete with C. Zig could be one when it's mature, for instance.

Mercuriall's plugins are amazing, too. Their Spark plugin and SS-11X (can't tell the difference on that one) are so unbelievably good. If this open source one can do what Spark can do.. I dunno.. I'd shave my beard.

I'm not so sure people really give a damn about that.

See, I have the flip side.

Psilocybin has been a huge help for me. Now, the first time I decided to take it I was indeed uncomfortable. However I soon realized that I was facing my own fears and anxiety. After a while I found that my depression was considerably less and less.

Marijuana has helped tremendously, also, with anxiety.

I suppose it might depend on the individual.

Well, there was a project called GitChain*; however, it seems that the project is looking for a new leader. Was a very cool idea.

-> http://gitchain.org

This year's growing season was absolutely hideous for me. Everything was either ripe too early or didn't have enough time to produce. I even had a late frost that killed off a lot my more vulnerable crops.

I decided to try out indoor growing down in the basement. I purchased some LED 300W lights and 2 90W LED's. They're working better than I expected but the challenge now is temperature control, water and nutrient levels.

I'm going to be testing out a grape vine, actually. I'm not sure how well it'll hold up. It will be a soil based solution though, I think.

Hard times.

P.S Mushrooms are pretty easy to grow and sell quite well.

Docker seems pretty useful.

CoreOS seems pretty useful, too.

Hmm.. Yeah, Go definitely isn't going to happen. /s

Emacs recently switched to git. Emacs did not move to GitHub. There is a mirror repo but Emacs itself is not on GitHub.

I'm pretty sure Canada removed it's Hate Speech law.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/27/hate-speech-no-longe...

I remember reading discussion how to address this problem. I can't for the life of me find it, though.

As far as I can tell, uTox is written in C and uses XLib (on GNU/Linux, at least).

Wow, Evil.

I have been looking forward to this.

Of course there are a lot of features missing, but the overall feel of the application is, so far, pretty nice. It's U.I is very nice. Man, I can't wait for the final release.

I support his dicision. I just wish there was some warning so I could have prepared for losing all of my contact information, etc. This couldn't have happened at a worse time as my backup server took a rather ultimate farewell yesterday.

I really don't want to use gmail or hotmail, so what other service can I use? Ugh. It might be time to get back to the roots and invest more time and effort in decentralized services instead of relying on centralized services.

They way things are nowadays, I just don't know the answer to that anymore...

Wasn't Obama a Constitutional Lawyer? You'd think he'd know better.

Microsoft willingly developed backdoors into their systems for the NSA. They were actively developing ways to help the NSA.

Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, etc. have lost trust because of this whole spying thing. To say that these companies were somehow "victims" is troubling to me. As far as I can tell the Constitution of the U.S.A is the law. Anything introduced to purposely subvert the constitution is illegal and should be challenged.

With companies like Google who have a lot of weight (money) to just hand over anything private to the NSA without actually calling them on it, is disturbing. These NSA programs have been going on for a very long time; collecting everyone's (american AND their allies) private communications. I'm sorry, but victim? No way. Instead of keeping to the "cloud" mentality there could have been more work on protecting users with proper encryption techniques. No body has done this. Yes, Yahoo may have lost in secret, but they also didn't fight the NSA's spying by creating technologies or build upon current technologies to protect their users.

I trusted Google to keep my gmail/youtube/etc. information private for me and those whom I talk to. Advertisements bothered me, yes, so I stopped communicating about confidential things to do with business, etc. I have been a Google user since a week after gmail was introduced.

I have deleted all my connections to Google thanks to these revelations.

In order for Google, Facebook or Microsoft to gain my trust again, there needs to be innovation in the encryption world where I can seamlessly encrypt ON THE CLIENT and decrypt ON THE CLIENT machine with out storing anything to do with the private keys on the cloud or trust Google with the private keys. Would this ever happen? Probably not. Google is an Ad company. Privacy isn't exactly their biggest strong point. Same goes for the others.

When there are laws that attempt to force people to do things they do not wish to do you get a push back - you get something like Bitcoin or Tor or I2P, etc. Law is always a step behind.

What you see right now is Law trying to play catch up. However, it seems quite obvious that the people involved in creating Laws don't quite know exactly what Bitcoin is fully. We'll see a bunch of really dumb bills being introduced in retaliation then, like always, they will adapt slowly and find a way to take control.

Bitcoin isn't exempt, you're right. Though, Bitcoin can be changed or something new will come out.

If people store their coins on a central server it can happen like any other data.

Bitcoin, however, can be used without the use of a third party storing your coins.

Plus U.S law enforcement having the ability (under Canadian officers guidance) to arrest Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.

I also remember the Harper government opening up sharing Canadian citizen's personal information with the U.S border.

Canada's government right now is all about bowing down to the U.S.

As far as I can tell, the advantage of using tormail (the hidden service) coupled with GPG/PGP is simply the added layer of security (which is anonymity). Like I stated before, Tor isn't necessarily for privacy. It is all about anonymity. So if a person doesn't encrypt their messages there is a (slight?) chance of their messages being read. This could lead to compromising your anonymity and privacy.

With GPG/PGP encrypted messages, you will not have this problem as much.

If a person is only seeking privacy then GPG/PGP is more than enough to secure their messages (while keeping in mind the headers are visible - just alter it).

It think tormail is great for journalists etc. who need anonymity to protect themselves from dangerous times. That's about the only thing I would use it for.

If I'm not mistaken, I think, at least in Ontario, there is a massive amount of dark fiber just laying around not being used.

100$ a month for 50M/50M still seems pretty damn steep of a price to me; even with phone and tv. Especially compared to Google Fiber at 1G.

The point is, as it's a hidden service, you don't know. It would defeat the purpose if you knew who was running it. I know there are concerns with that, "It could be a honeypot!!" etc. Though it's also the reason why you would use GPG/PGP to encrypt your messages with the people you are conversing with. So, even if it is a honeypot, they wouldn't see your data.

I guess what we're seeing is basically, when it comes straight down to it: We are all pretty damn lazy.

Jitsi is one.

I completely agree with you except for one thing. Tor isn't necessarily for privacy. It has more to do with anonymity by taking steps so people can't see who you are. By using Tormail there is still a chance that you can leak information about yourself and your contacts. Same goes for logging in to sites that carry your personal information.

If someone wants privacy then I would suggest using gpg/openpgp encryption for email/documents/etc., make sure https everywhere plugin is installed on your browser, noscript, adblock, etc. I suppose you get the same type of protection using the Tor Browser, also.

The problem is encryption. For the average user it's a bit a pain to understand and use. Then again, I'm sure if people want it enough they will learn.

I am dismissing the "convenience" factor simply to prove a point. I am under no illusion that there needs to be better alternatives out there that fill in the gaps. However, it is also important to note that while there is certainly a convenience factor that some people (or perhaps even most people) will gravitate to, there are also other factors to consider. Freedom, being one. Now, I'm not one to badger people about what Freedoms you can/will lose while using a centralized service such as Facebook or Google, but I do think it's important to recognize the serious problems those services pose.

I also think it's important to not get off track from my original point which is: It is not the end of your social life if you decide to delete your facebook account (or google or twitter etc.). That is my point.

I emphasize "open" because those technologies are open for review by thousands of eyes. If there are privacy issues it will be known and tended to. Using something like Skype does not ensure your privacy; especially since now it is more centralized and not p2p. There has been many articles released about the privacy concerns of using Skype (wiretapping, China, etc.). I, for one, do not ever want to put my privacy in the back seat for the sake of convenience and I think it's imperative to educate or at least mention the problems with closed technologies that are supposed to be "private".

Jitsi, as far as I can tell, runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Those platforms are pretty much covered. I'm not sure if it runs on Android or iOS. Though, I'm sure there are people working on mobile solutions (I am, at least). I wouldn't dismiss it so easily. Skype runs like utter crap on Linux systems and while Jitsi may not run all that well compared to Skype, it is at least open sourced and free software so people can work on it.

Email is essentially a social network. A social network is simply, at its core, a system which allows friends/family/other to communicate and keep up to date with each other. In fact, I would go so far as to say the original social network is not Facebook or MySpace but the Internet itself.

Again, I'm not trying to suggest there are alternatives that can completely replace Facebook (or others) convenience factor. Not at all. I am simply saying, you don't need it.

Again with this notion that facebook solves the "sharing photo's" problem. It is not the only means of communication or file sharing. There are applications out there that are much better and less susceptible to unwanted eyes/abuse.

While I may not have children, I have close friends who do and family that does. So what? I communicate with them just fine and share bday photos like everyone else without a problem and without being tied to facebook.

If you have a problem with annoying photo's without facebook, then may I suggest telling those involved with sending you too much info/photo's to maybe limit it a bit? It's not hard to do and you can do it in such a way that doesn't sound mean. For such a "social network" people have trouble communicating with each other, it seems.

It is not "anti" at all. Like I wrote already, the point isn't to replace the convenience of facebook. It is to seek alternatives that will "do the job". Yes, the postal service is absolutely an alternative, whether you agree or not. It is a means of old communication. Yes, it's a bit "inconvenient" but it works.

Complacency is not a good argument: "the majority of people I know use it so it shouldn't be criticized for the sake of convenience". That's what I hear, maybe I'm deaf.

Jitsi or Ekiga or any other type of open technology can effectively replace facebook quite well. They also give you "the psychological benefits of just feeling connected". I would submit that the Internet fills that niche, not Facebook or others like it.

People can use it all they want. Fine, no problem. But to lean on the idea that it is somehow impossible to delete an account without becoming a hermit is, in my view, a complete asinine idea.

Then use other means of contact. The point isn't to replace facebook with the same amount of convenience. The point is to disable the illusion that Facebook is necessary to keep in contact with your distant friends/family.

Use a phone. Use the postal system. Yes, it's not as "instant" but it at least shows that you put in work to contact them. Or you can use open technologies like Jitsi or Ekiga to do video chat with them (if they are willing. If they aren't, then perhaps explain to them why it's important). There are options out there. Facebook isn't the ONLY technology that closes the gap.