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1,747 karma · joined July 4, 2013

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computer··on Silk Road 2.0 Launches
With good opsec (i.e. only PGP-encrypted messages) sellers should still be able to operate safely.

Buyers slightly less, considering that the sellers might be cops (which is also the case on a non-honeypot site), or because the PGP-keys of the sellers might be fake (for MITM).

But considering that feds generally seem to target sellers, I don't think the usefulness of this as a honeypot would be huge. But it's definitely possible, especially given that the feds have the source code and all.

computer··on Debian: Change default desktop to xfce
Ugly and outdated? I use the theme from Xubuntu [1] and there's nothing outdated about it, besides not being adjusted for tablets.

[1] http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/199/e/d/xubuntu_13_04...

computer··on Dear Google, Thanks For Copying My Startup But You’re Doing It All Wrong
Given the probably smallish market for helpouts for a giant like Google, I think we should see Helpouts more like a marketing thing for Hangouts than a full-fledged competitor in this space?
computer··on Avoiding Heart Disease
Do you have a link with more information on how to go about getting this done?
computer··on Moving from Ubuntu to Debian
Arch is one. Continuous updating (never having to reinstall, nor running an LTS with 4 year old software), pretty much any software you might ever need in the official repositories or in the AUR (Arch User Repository), lots of freedom to tinker.

Updating it needs some care, since once every few months a breaking change is announced requiring some manual intervention. But that's not a problem if you subscribe to the mailing list.

computer··on Don't use autofill in your browser
It's an issue for me with the Lastpass addon in Firefox, if I use the Lastpass autofill. That doesn't make it a Firefox issue, of course.
computer··on MongoHQ Security breach
Have you considered not outsourcing critical parts of your company to startups that are iterating fast and potentially breaking things? Could you share the reasoning behind Buffer choosing to store their customers' private data with MongoHQ, instead of your own secure infrastructure?
computer··on Firefox 25 is released
> "Auoera(sic) " [sic]

You mean Aurora, and I'm not sure why you use "(sic)" here. It means "that's how it was written upstream, I didn't invent this!"

computer··on Spyder – Scientific Python Development Environment
Indeed. Spyder is the RStudio[1] of Matplotlib + Scipy.

[1] http://www.rstudio.com/ide/

computer··on TSA Admits In Leaked Doc: No Evidence of Terrorist Plots Against Aviation in US
You know what the answer is to 9/11-style events? Locking cockpit doors. And that's what they did after 9/11. Passengers now know what's at stake too. So, while bad things can happen, another 9/11 can't happen again (and as such, the TSA does nothing to prevent it anyway).
computer··on Eliezer Yudkowsky asks about automation
Or do we just need fewer people in the world? Once much is automated, you no longer need a lot of people to sustain the luxurious life styles of the rich (with fewer people: of everybody).
computer··on f.lux has been updated to a new version
The technology is patent-pending, so I suspect they want f.lux as widely used as possible so they can license the patent to device makers for a lot of money once they are well-known enough.
computer··on Think You Can Live Offline Without Being Tracked? Here's What It Takes
The irony of course being that Hackernews too is social media, and you still just "bragged" about the experience you had!
computer··on Inside 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki's $99 DNA Revolution
The insight needed here (and alluded to by GP) is not into startups and emerging markets: it's about what you can actually do with DNA and the DNA analysis that's being done by 23andme.

In my opinion (as a statistician with minor bio experience) the future of predicting health things based on just DNA is uncertain, except for direct remedies for known current conditions like certain forms of cancer. (i.e. as a response to disease, in actual personalized medicine)

computer··on Visualizing The Matterhorn as an 860,000 point cloud
I applaud the makers of this demo for adding a gif-based fallback on the error page for those of us who have no WebGL support. It shows:

"Your browser does not support this demo. Here is what you are missing:"

[https://www.mapbox.com/pointcloud/matterhorn/css/error.gif]

computer··on Silk Road Update: Federal Prosecutors File Separate Forfeiture Complaint
A way that would work: decide (by coding it into the clients and protocol) that future transactions from the seized address are not honoured by the network, and any chains that contain such a transaction are ignored.
computer··on My embarrassing picture went viral
Is there anything inherently wrong with intelligent objective "vigilante justice", especially in minor cases? Just because a judge won't look at a case doesn't mean it's inherently wrong to take action.
computer··on My embarrassing picture went viral
But the goal is not to control the thyroid issue by diet, the goal is to control weight by diet.

But I don't disagree that the thyroid issue makes diet harder, for reasons like increased hunger, less energy, etc(?)

computer··on Nest introduces their Smoke Detector
It was a badly ventilated gas heater (in an old house) in my friend's case, in a room nearby the bedroom where she was asleep.
computer··on Yahoo Mail turns 16, gets a makeover
When I visited the article I immediately thought I was looking at a screenshot of Gmail, until I noticed the ugly Yahoo banner ad on the right.

I guess Gmail is succesful and popular enough that copying them makes a lot of sense.

computer··on Nest introduces their Smoke Detector
Note that a smoke detector should be on the ceiling, and a carbon monoxide alarm at ~1.5m high on a wall. Putting it on the ceiling as well could very well result in late alarms.

(Source: a friend who nearly died from carbon monoxide poisoning)

computer··on My embarrassing picture went viral
Question: if not partially caused by diet, does that mean weight gained by people with a thyroid problem is all water weight? Because otherwise you'd still need 9 kcal/g of fat gained?

I tried googling, but the results aren't very useful with regard to the exact mechanism how thyroid problems cause weight gain.

Edit: From more reading I now believe that it's still a diet problem, but the thyroid issues seem to make it harder to eat less.

computer··on How Lavabit Melted Down
Great!

It's because the private certificate was forcibly supplied to the government. No longer secure => revoke it.

computer··on Data-driven fallacy
Notice also that they plotted exactly 6 bars.

Choosing the start point is also a way to magnify perceived growth-- perhaps the growth was much stronger before that and is actually levelling off? Of course, if they had drawn 8 bars I could have said the same, so I'm not accusing them of anything; I'm simply pointing out the possibility.

computer··on How to Corrupt an SQLite Database File
See this 3 minute presentation fragment about the "Do not use JSLint for Evil" license clause: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hCimLnIsDA
computer··on Melatonin
> Nightmares in response to melatonin suggests low serotonin.

Could you please provide a source for that statement? :)

computer··on Feds: Silk Road boss paid $80,000 for snitch’s torture and murder
Did you read the indictment? Unless they are just making everything up, it's pretty detailed: https://ia601904.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.mdd.238...
computer··on FBI raids alleged online drug market Silk Road, arrests owner
The servers are still hidden, it's simply proxy software that trades user anonimity for convenience (and speed I believe, since the tor2web software uses fewer tor relays in its circuits, not trying to be anonymous)

See http://tor2web.org/

computer··on FBI raids alleged online drug market Silk Road, arrests owner
Clickable link without tor: https://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion.to/
computer··on Crysis-inspired Menu / Navigation
For what it's worth, a small bug report: the menu doesn't appear in the right place if you click before having moved the mouse after loading the page (Firefox); it appears in the top left corner.
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