davoneus

I've looked hard at the Activity Pub protocol, as well as Mastodon in the last week, and this new protocol SUPPOSEDLY has a number of advantages.

1) you can move your identity from the gitgo. Yeah, sure, AP allegedly allows this, but your are at the mercy of the server owners to cooperate. Assuming, of course, the server even is still reachable. And even then, recent (last 5 months) there are numerous examples of transfers failing badly.

2) This protocol doesn't force you to trust that the server admins aren't reading your messages. This is not the case with AP.

3) The relay system, whereby to get notices from other communities, is wildly broken, and the two largest Mastodon servers don't even support them.

I'm as skeptical of Mr. Dorsey as anyone, and the community absolutely deserves the right to see deep into this protocol. That said, implying that Activity Pub meets or beats everything this new protocol offers is not correct.

>Provided you have a working democratic state with checks and auditing, what is the problem that voting machines solve?

It solves the problem of waiting days or weeks for a result. It solves the problem of multiple languages on a ballot. It solves the problem of visually-impaired voters accessing the voting machine, it solves the problem of incorrectly filled out voting sheets (hanging-chat).

Hell, that's just off the top of my head, and I'm sure others can contribute more.

I call complete and utter BS. This is in no way different than disabling a word procesors autocorrect when a writer uses the term gender in their novel.

The programmer should be able to use whatever the hell terms they want to use in their program. If the customer base doesn't like it that's their right. But it's not the right of the damn language parser programmer.

New Side-Channel attack allows AI trained algorithms to determine individual user information from any browser.

I'd argue there is one, and it's been around a surprisingly long time: Internet Printing Protocol.

<insert XKCD reference here>

I've had to dig into this a fair bit at work, and it's rather amazing. Certainly not perfect, but basically printers which are certified for IPP Everywhere (Mopria for Android, Airprint for Apple) are required to have built-in format support for a set of given formats. For example, Mopria certification requires PCLm (a backwards-compatible subset of PDF, designed for streaming), PWG Raster and PDF. IPP Everywhere mandates PWG Raster, JPEG and PDF. Of course Apple being Apple, they have their own Raster format (urf). The printers can support more (and typically do), but they have to include the base. Also the formats (and capabilities) the printers support can be queried via standard IPP. (*)

That sounds complex, but it means that as long as the printer supports any of those standards, you have a good chance of printing to it). I've printed to some pretty strange, limited printers via IPP, and had surprisingly good luck doing so (mostly via raster-urf).

Apparently in Linux CUPS is going this way completely, and has recently added built-in on-the-fly conversion. So CUPS will query the printer, and then send documents in whatever format the printer supports. If it's an AirPrint certified printer, then it'll send raster-urf; if it's IPP Everywhere it might send PWG-Raster or PDF.

Certainly not perfect (as my testing has shown), but it's a heck of a lot better than what we had before. And I've heard that they now have a standard for 3D printing (3MF*) aiming to replace STL. Apparently developed with the Linux Foundation. I have no personal experience with it, but with the complexity of 3D printing, I'd not be surprised if it's still immature.

(*) https://openprinting.github.io/driverless/01-standards-and-t... (**) https://www.pwg.org/3d/

Too many get caught up in the "USB-C" connector, and forget about the modes and power delivery. That said, AFAICT the May 2022 revision states (pg 6):

"the devices should incorporate the USB Power Delivery (USB PD) standard (as described in the European standard EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021) and ensure that any additional charging protocols allow for full USB PD functionality (new annex Ia, part I)."

Then the referenced: "EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021" standard specifies

"To facilitate optimum charging, the specification defines two mechanisms a USB Charger can advertise for the Device to use: 1. A list of fixed voltages each with a maximum current. 2. A list of programmable voltage ranges each with a maximum current (PPS). The Device requests a voltage (in 20 mV increments) that is within the advertised range and a maximum current."

But those regs get over my head quickly, so someone else may have better luck interpreting them.

Well, it depends on what you call "Privacy". See, the Europeans (as a whole) take a completely different attitude towards Government and Private Organizations than Americans do. To many Americans, the Government is the big, bad wolf, trying to take everything from us. In Europe (to a much larger degree) they take the opposite stance. To many EU citizens, they can control the Government and it's policies at the ballot box, but not so the Corporations. That's why the best Privacy regulations regarding Corporations are coming from Europe, and not the US.

I won't say one way is better than the other, but it's telling that almost every major IT Security standard that deals with Privacy (absent NIST of course) takes its guidance from the EU.

What a load of BS. The predominant form of social organization is from a majority status. The people who voted in that government are the ones who direct the government resources, and are determining what it's polices are towards the governed.

The people in Norway have a clear and simple choice; they can sit and do nothing, or they can do something. Action might entail moving the hell out of the country and complain from a distance. They could also vote in a new government, but it's up to them.

As far as that BS idea that "They are meant to serve us", no you are quite wrong. The Government serves the people who voted it in, and gave it control of those resources. That Government, in the end, has no obligation to _anyone_ else . Its only obligation is to those who voted it in, and it uses that granted power as a proxy for those people (and corporations) to enact their will. Don't' like it? Fine, do something about it, rather than complain here about big, bad Government.

BEV Replacement costs: A 2020 Greencars report stated that a battery (66 kWh) for the Chevrolet Bolt battery costs roughly $16K USD. Similarly, GreenCars states that a Chevy Volt (16 kWh) costs roughly $4000. BMW i3: 22kwH, 8 year warranty, ~ 16K USD (various sources).

Oh, I agree that replacing a full battery like the Leaf is rare, but the costs are what the costs are. Accidents happen, and the costs aren't small, regardless of the reason why it's being replaced.

> the cost of recharging network.

Great, I'm glad your BEV is that inexpensive to charge. However, how much did that charging STATION cost? Recent estimates for Tesla's are in the neighborhood of 250K USD each. I'd argue that they are getting built, and the economics are there, otherwise they wouldn't be built. However, when BEV's first started coming out you better believe the costs to develop that network of BEV stations was widely discussed (esp. irt who would pay for them).

My point is that a lot of similar BS arguments are made against Hydrogen by BEV fan bois. I've no issue with the point that Hydrogen isn't here TODAY, and that some of the issues it faces are large. But to argue (as too many have done) that any investigation into Hydrogen is a waste of time, and that BEV's are the ONLY solution is both short-sighted and wrong.

This might be one to watch: Massive green hydrogen hub in Utah wins $504M federal loan guarantee (*)

Course this could end up like Concentrating Solar Power plants and end up on the wrong side of the cost-benefit equation, but I'd argue it is still worth a look.

(*) https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/hydrogen/massive-green-...

That's YOUR experience, but that certainly doesn't translate over to an appt dweller who doesn't have their own garage to charge their BEV with. You better believe they WILL sit for a dang good bit of time waiting for their vehicle to charge.

EV Batteries can be recycled, but finding a place that WILL is an entirely different proposition. Granted California just recently started (*), but that doesn't do a hell of a lot of good to someone in Michigan, Missouri or New Mexico.

As far as Batteries lasting 'decades', you won't get far with that argument when talking to Nissan Leaf owners who are having to replace their 9 year old batteries after 150K miles (**)

I'm all for EV's, but proponents should remember EV's started somewhere too, with lots of the same skepticism thrown their way (expensive home systems to recharge their batteries, the cost of recharging networks, cold performance, etc...) As I see it, there's way too much of the same talk coming from the Battery EV crowd when they talk about Hydrogen.

(*) https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/electric-vehicle-battery-...

(**) https://driving.ca/features/feature-story/the-big-looming-pr...

Yea, you see this all over. For example: in the US, you hear about how Nurses are in high demand. What they don't tell you is that hospitals and other for-care facilities (a great many of which are for-profit companies) keep their nursing staffing levels at ridiculously low levels. I don't know why this is, but I do know those big companies profits certainly aren't down.

I don't know what Internet hole you found yourself, but a simple Google search shows the exact opposite. A 2020 Business Insider article states "Costco is well-regarded in the retail industry for its high pay and desirable benefits." And it's not all hourly pay, but all the other things too, which include things like guaranteed hours, bonus free memberships (for friends and family), free food and a health care plan that includes vision and dental, 401K, after-hour shopping, etc..

Hell, Wall Street analysts have complained for years(*) about how generous Costco's benefits are to their employees. IMO, those WS Analysts can blow it out their backside; the employee turnover rate at Costco is ridiculously low 6% (**), and blows their competitors out of the water.

I certainly don't work at Costco, but have one relative (2nd cousin) who does, and they know it's a good thing (they bounced around retail for years before landing Costco). Of course nothing is perfect, and how Costco treats the Sampler/Tasters is less than admirable, but I won't let perfect be the enemy of pretty-damn-good.

(*) 2006 NYTimes article (**) 2020 Business Strategy Hub survey.

Bing may be that good for some, but every time I use it it stinks and I end up back on Google. Same for DDG. Then again, my queries tend to be pretty specific and are probably not a typical use case.

No, free has been an accepted paradym for for a long, long time. Simply think of a hundred years of radio advertising, and just short of that for tv.

A few come to mind: Mehrabian (1981), Fromkin and Rodman (1983), Barnum and Wolniansky (1989), Pease and Pease (2004). In regards to the face specifically take a look at Atkinson (2002), Garau, Slater and Bee (2001). The impact of Hand and Arm movement in regards to communication were studied by Mulken, Andre and Muller in 1998, and in 2002 by Craig, Gholson and Driscoll.

Of course the study with the most impact is Mehrabian's 7-38-55 'rule' (which it isn't!). It's wildly misunderstood, but his study found in any communication scenario 7% of information received is through the words spoken, 38% is through the tone of voice, and 55% is though bodily movements. Regardless of the numbers, it just points out that just because someone 'says' something, people don't believe them unless their body language agrees. If their tone, posture, eye-contact, etc.. are saying something else, people invariably believe the non-verbal regardless of the words said. It's been a while, but IIRC, the other studies never find that low of an impact with spoken word, yet it never exceeds 50% either.

Lastly, the definition of nonverbal communications can vary widely, but I like Henley's (77) (as a starting point) which lists a few areas "... body postures and movements, facial expressions, gestures, touching, eye contact, use of space, and so on".

Hope you find some of that useful.

What will change, as all similar swings in workplace attitude have shown, is that the are unforeseen costs.

Additionaly, study after study has shown that non-verbal communication between people is an enormous part of effective communication. Argue all you want, too many studies, turn all over the weekend she the same thing. And the I've thing that video conferencing does is cripple that comm channel.

I love my partial remote work schedule, and love that it exists. But I'll never assume it's the "best" way, it that it doesn't have unforseen costs to me and my coworkers

I don't care one way or another is someone works remotely or in the office. What I do care about is effective communication between co-workers. Unfortunately though, for remote workers, there is an enormous elephant in the room; namely non-verbal communications. Truth is that study after study (after study) has shown how large of a role non-verbal clues are in the human communications process (some show 90%). To my mind, argue all you want about video conferencing and chat apps, humanity is innately social, and when you cut out large chunks of that social engagement and replace it with remote-work, there will be enormous social and work environment impacts.

Of course not all shared-location work environments are created equal, and too many in management are both lazy and power hungry. They (and their companies) want to blame anything but their own horrific employment practices and lazy, out-of-date policies. So it's not all a bad thing remote-work has become as big as it has. However, like all human activity pendulums, the remote-work vs in-presence work one WILL swing back. I expect many of us will get a great deal of enjoyment in seeing it when it does.

I've not heard whether or not this factory had any shelter or not. If not, then IMO they should hang the owners in public and then get busy making sure nobody else has to suffer this lack of neglect.

However, it's tough to have a shelter-in-place that covers every eventuality. We have a large warehouse with about 100 people, and it's in "Tornado alley". Our shelter only covers to ~175mph winds, and to go higher that that was alarmingly expensive. Whether we like it or not, there is always a cost/benefit calculation on things like this.

They are a monopoly and are being accused of being so because their mandatory policies forbid the merchants from selling that product anywhere else cheaper than Amazon.

This means that if I buy the product from say Walmart or Target, then I am paying 25 to 35% more for it. This is because the merchant cannot list it anywhere else cheaper than they list it on Amazon.

That is a clear violation of monopoly laws and I applaud that AG for his efforts to abolish these "most favored nation" status agreements.

This.

We used CentOS as dev environments, and RHEL as production. It gave us the best of both worlds; an unsupported but compatible and stable dev environment we could bring up and throw away as much as we wanted _Without_ licensing BS. And when the devs were happy with it, the move of a project to RHEL was easy and uneventful.

And don't even get me started on the 'free' dev version of RHEL. It's a PITA to use, we've tried. It's also why we've halted our RH purchasing for the moment. Sure, it's caused our RHEL reps no end of consternation and stress but too bad. I've been honest with them, and told them that they are probably lying through their teeth (without knowing it) when they parrot the line that RH will have some magic answer for "expanded" and/or "reduced cost" Streams usage in "1st half of 21". That trust died when RH management axed CentOS8 like they did.

never, Ever, EVER trust Oracle. Especially with something as important as an open source product. Evidence: Oracle's Sen. VP Glueck statement that "There is no math that can justify open source from a cost perspective." No chance you'll ever see me running OEL.

Yea sure, that's the way to handle this kind of announcement. 'We're killing CentOS 8 and you need to wait several months to see the 'supposed' good things this move brings.' Yea right.... All this '1H/1Q 2021' does is let IBM/RedHat determine how bad the fallout is before trying to cover their backsides.