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brbsix

1,188 karma · joined August 23, 2015

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/brbsix; my proof: https://keybase.io/brbsix/sigs/_5MazWs2y3t6nvyPTTOsKtZTjxiF0BqQ2VcTO8yxazw ]
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brbsix··on The app that lets you pay to control another person's life
Livestreamers have it bad enough already when they allow viewers who donate to play audio or TTS over their speakers.

Here is one hilariously tragic example with a Seattle livestreamer who went by the name "Arab Andy" while in a UW classroom. Hint: it landed him in jail.

https://www.bitchute.com/video/VOI9sw3MmDM/

brbsix··on U.S. Labor Secretary throws support behind classifying gig workers as employees
Uber doesn't inform drivers what they will be paid for a trip. Except where mandated by state law, they don't even inform them of the trip duration or destination until after it is accepted. It is hardly a marketplace when one side of the exchange knows next to nothing about what they will selling until after it is sold. Uber may not "fire" them, but failure to accept gigs will significantly impair your ability to be offered more in the future.
brbsix··on U.S. Labor Secretary throws support behind classifying gig workers as employees
Except where mandated by state law, gig workers do not receive the gig description until after it is accepted. There is no transparency about details such as price or duration when they must make the decision to take it or leave it. Failure to accept a gig will result in penalization that significantly reduces your ability to receive more offers in the future.
brbsix··on US investigating possible mysterious directed energy attack near White House
Assuming these reports aren't psychosomatic, it is beyond implausible to believe that the CIA is uninterested in determining the source of something specifically targeting their own personnel. Not to sound too conspiratorial, but this sounds like the pretext to funding portable detection devices for all state personnel (both at home and overseas) in addition to years of both defensive and offensive research.
brbsix··on The health benefits of better air
Pretty close to being on the list. "Have a really smoky fire at home. Life cost: 1 day"

Considering the close association of food, warmth, security and socialization with the habitual use of fire for at the very least several hundred thousand years of human history, is it really any surprise that some people still enjoy the practice?

https://dynomight.net/air/#:~:text=Have%20a%20really,1%20day

brbsix··on Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab
Sikh temples unconditionally offer free meals to all without concern for a recipient's religion or economic status.

Religion and charity are voluntary. You can choose to donate to charities that will most effectively utilize your donations. You don't have that choice with a state, and the outcomes are not always good. Even in Democracies, the state social services are often such inefficient massively entrenched institutions that they are resistant to change.

Religions also serve as bulwarks against increasing state power. Depending on your perspective this could be a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm more concerned about the great harm an unrestrained state can inflict on the world than what good it may be able to do.

brbsix··on Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab
If the technology were readily accessible to conceive what could be referred to as a "super human" (without genetic disorder, resistance to disease, no predisposition for mental illness, superior athletic ability, high IQ), would it absolutely be immoral to conceive a human being via an entirely natural process?

If it is absolutely immoral to genetically engineer a human being that would require an organ transplant then it would seemingly also be immoral to not utilize readily accessible technology that could have prevented such a disorder, no?

brbsix··on Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab
Research is already performed using human fetal tissue obtained from aborted fetuses. How is this significantly different?

"A majority of people would find it unethical to continue to develop viable embryos" seems contradictory to the current legal status of abortion in the US. Perhaps it is unethical but worth doing regardless?

brbsix··on Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
I have Electrum open, with the "Coins" tab visible. I see a lengthy list of unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) which I am referring to as coins. These are coins that I have received. I can very easily craft a transaction with specific coins. I can select the coins that my friend Bob sent me last year and send those specific coins to my friend Dylan. https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-spend-specific-utxos-in-e...

Admittedly that link was a terrible example. Block Explorer only shows the address associated with the transaction input but if you want to see the origin of specific coins regardless of whether an address is being reused, you can get the information from the "list of inputs" field in the raw transaction.

In this overly contrived example with single input transactions, if Dylan wants to recurse up tx inputs to the tx between Bob and me in order to verify that he received some of the same coins, he can do the following:

    uptx(){
        curl -sS "https://api.blockcypher.com/v1/btc/main/txs/$1" | jq -r .inputs[0].prev_hash
    }

    uptx "$(uptx f57cd4acc4b67d819f78d6cd7f17d1dded436735a6c7765afe40269581d2098a)"
    > 32c8f56bbee2b79f71b285697f3b41990091ddc37b667aeb4cb83c1d7be2a847
brbsix··on How to navigate directories faster with Bash (2015)
Binding Ctrl-R to `fzf` for fuzzy history search is a killer feature.
brbsix··on How to navigate directories faster with Bash (2015)
I use `autojump` (aliased as `j`), which sounds quite similar as it also records your most frequently visited directories. It's as simple as entering `j down` to enter /some/path/to/MyDownloadFolder.

For exploring massive file trees, a terminal file manager that allows you to preview the contents of subdirectories without entering them is huge time saver. I use `lf`.

https://github.com/wting/autojump

https://github.com/gokcehan/lf

brbsix··on Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
Yes, absolutely. I'm not sure why I have been downvoted for this, as I haven't exactly said anything revelatory.

However I just want to give an obligatory caution that this is a very contrived answer. In the real world it can be difficult, there are typically many inputs and outputs to a transaction (and we are rarely able to associate names with addresses). There exists an entire field devoted to this called blockchain analysis or chainanalysis.

You can see for yourself. Choose any address on the BTC blockchain. See the transactions it has been involved in. You can inspect inputs and outputs. Here is an example: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1CUTyyxgbKvtCdoYmceQJ...

brbsix··on Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

    If you own 2 BTC, there aren't specific Bitcoins that are marked for you.
If you mine 2 BTC, you posses the private keys to two very specific BTC (unspent outputs) on the blockchain. No one else may spend them without the private keys.

If you own 2 BTC in an exchange then it is true that you are unlikely to own any specific 2 BTC but that's an entirely different subject. At that point you don't really own them.

brbsix··on Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

    Even its strongest selling point, absolute privacy, is mostly a lie
That only became a supposed selling point among the uninformed as a result of widespread misrepresentation in the media. At least from my perspective, nobody using it very early (i.e. 2011-12) was ever under any illusion that privacy or anonymity were a feature. People using it for illicit purposes have never been. Mixing services and informal brokers willing to exchange cash for BTC were widely available for that reason even then. Later of course BTC->XMR->BTC and then CoinJoin et al.
brbsix··on My Son, the Organ Donor
I don't think that's an American sentiment. I've heard people cite religious reasons or conspiratorial suspicions about being left to die in the hospital after suffering a serious injury, but nothing even remotely echoing what OP posted.

I'd prefer not to name specific countries, but there are certain overseas markets with thriving black market organ trades. That is what first came to mind when OP expressed the desire that his family be compensated for his organs. Considering some of these cultures have arguably similar existing customs (e.g. intentionally killing a pedestrian that you have accidentally injured but offering the family a large sum of money in exchange for silence) what the OP stated may not be considered unreasonable to someone looking at the world through that lens.

brbsix··on Rapid global heating is hurting farm productivity, study finds
The phrase "It guarantees to everyone: Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work" originated from the "What is the Green New Deal?" FAQ page published by AOC.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190207191119/https://ocasio-co...

The exact text within the final resolution is: "providing all people of the United States with economic security"

brbsix··on Improving Shell Workflows with Fzf
There's an easy workaround. I use a keybinding such that when searching through commands with Ctrl-R I can press ? to display the the full wrapped command in a preview window at the bottom of the screen.

My Ctrl-R config is at https://gist.github.com/brbsix/5e4f18833133b3accac78e3331292... but the line below is the relevant bit:

    # View full command in preview window (?)
    export FZF_CTRL_R_OPTS="${FZF_CTRL_R_OPTS:+$FZF_CTRL_R_OPTS }--preview 'echo {}' --preview-window down:5:hidden:wrap --bind '?:toggle-preview'"
brbsix··on Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast
The laser was targeting rockets fired by a Soviet BM-21 truck-mounted multiple rocket launcher. The rockets are used like artillery, not for targeting drones. Presumably if the laser is able to destroy 40 incoming rockets then it would be able to destroy much larger numbers of relatively slow drones.
brbsix··on Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?
YouTube Vanced[1] for Android is awesome. It supports background playback and allows you to block all ads as well as community posts, surveys, premium movies, and just about anything else. They recently integrated SponsorBlock[2], which allows you to block in-video intros, outros, sponsored sections, and subscription reminders.

However it uses microG, which has long had an open issue with v2 of Google's Cast API. The issue was recently closed however I don't believe it was solved. However it is still possible to work around this. I ended up writing a quick script on my phone that uses pychromecast to initialize the cast so that it can be passed off to YouTube Vanced.

It's been a while since I've cast anything but are you certain that ads are blocked when casting from an app that blocks ads? In my experience with casting, the video is always streamed directly from the content provider's servers (YouTube) to the cast receiver (smart TV) with ads intact. You would need to mirror your phone's display in order to block ads.

[1]: https://vancedapp.com

[2]: https://sponsor.ajay.app

[3]: https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/issues/79

brbsix··on Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?
SS lists the most popular male names in the US over the last 100 years as James (4.7M), John (4.5M), Robert (4.5M), and Michael (4.3M).[1]

Using standard US mortality data, Wolfram Alpha reports estimates of 3.853M and 3.26M for Michael and John respectively, currently alive in the US.[2][3]

[1]: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/century.html

[2]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=michael

[3]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=john

brbsix··on U.S. life expectancy falls by a full year
People put off seeking medical attention for other illnesses. Increased consumption of drugs and alcohol. Increased mental health issues including suicide. I expect that life expectancies will continue to drop.
brbsix··on Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips
This sort of behavior is so widespread, I now just assume that it is a given with any delivery service. This is why I only ever tip with cash, despite it usually being forbidden to do so.
brbsix··on Librem 5 Mass Production Phone Has Begun Shipping
The author of that forum post is unwilling to publish video of the device.
brbsix··on Librem 5 Mass Production Phone Has Begun Shipping
You could address the substance of my comment by providing evidence. I'm trying to be polite about it, but the astroturfing is obvious.
brbsix··on Librem 5 Mass Production Phone Has Begun Shipping
Given their extensive history posting similar promotional material every time that they run out of cash, it would be wise to remain skeptical of this announcement.

For the unacquainted, they've made outrageously false claims like this more times than I can count. I don't have the time or interest to outline all the lies but here's when it "began shipping" back in 9/2019.[0][1] As to the one person in the forums who claims to have received it, and the other on reddit who claims to have a tracking number, we've seen that before as well.

[0]: http://archive.today/2019.09.06-222312/https://puri.sm/posts...

[1]: "The Librem 5 smartphone. Now Shipping" 9/25/2019 https://youtu.be/AuT2w6BkT-k http://archive.today/S7lCT

brbsix··on /.bashrc VS –/.profile VS –/.bash_profile
These rules of thumb are useful, but in the real-world I find the use of startup files to be very inconsistent across different platforms. Oftentimes I someone will override the default behavior, sourcing files in different conditions or order than you would expect. There's really no substitute to reading all the startup files in /etc and ~. Sometimes it's even necessary to inspect the binary itself when you find that a shell has been compiled with non-standard paths.
brbsix··on Chess’s Cheating Crisis
It would be easy enough to have a remote friend watching a mirror of your screen. Use an inductive loop earpiece hidden inside your ear hooked up to a phone and they could read out your next moves. I suppose you could write a program using CV to decode the opponents moves on screen and translate them into chess software in lieu of a friend performing the same task, but that's a bit overkill.
brbsix··on Cups Printing System Open-Source Development Has Seemingly Dried Up
There are a number of occasions where I need to print copies of things that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing on a public printer (bank records, tax returns, 2-factor backup codes, paper copies of private keys for crypto wallets, gpg).
brbsix··on Magicimport.py: Python code that fetches its dependencies without complaining
I can't say I really like the idea of a "magic" import, but I'm sure some people might find it handy. It just sounds like a recipe for having things break later in mysterious ways but if it's just a one-time use sort of thing I can see the appeal.

Personally I've been really happy with with pyenv[0].You can install multiple different versions of Python side-by-side and it does a great job managing virtualenvs.

pipx[1] is also pretty good for managing virtualenvs to install applications in but IMHO less so for doing actual development. You can use it to seamlessly install venv'd Python apps or spin up apps in ephemeral environments.

[0]: https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv [1]: https://github.com/pipxproject/pipx

brbsix··on Witeboard
That stopped it from conversion to perfect circles or elongated rectangles, but I still have issues drawing anything with smooth curves. E.g. Here's a side by side just drawing "o's" at varying speeds on witeboard and ziteboard.[0]

To get anything remotely legible on witeboard, I have to be exceptionally slow. Even then, it's not a great result.

[0]: https://imgur.com/a/QqJ3vpq

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