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octo888

601 karma · joined May 10, 2025

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octo888··on Pixel 11 doesn't yet meet the GrapheneOS security standards and may be skipped
Haha yeah nah meanings of words don't change when people get accused of them with solid evidence
octo888··on Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act
Sigh. It's been 42 years since it was cleared up and that most people became citizens. Can we stop with that remark already
octo888··on Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia
Let's hope so
octo888··on Vodafone admits 'major outage' as more than 130,000 report problems
Wonder if it's anything to do with the in-progress merging with Three?

I've noticed my MVNO Vodafone service, which was faultless, suddenly declining. Random dropouts are fairly common, no connection inside some big buildings (whereas Vodafone's infrastructure is known for being better inside and Three's much worse. Makes me think I'm being shunted onto Three's infrastructure)

octo888··on Fastmail desktop app
Fastmail servers are in the US btw

And the company is based in Australia.

They're not at the top of the list for anyone concerned about privacy

octo888··on Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left
And then from Edinburgh to Manchester (184 miles) instead of Newcastle (91 miles) or Teeside (125 miles), both airports Ryanair operate out of.
octo888··on Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left
I wonder if the pilots considered Newcastle (or Teeside)? The METARs showed favourable weather conditions at Newcastle and many planes landed there that day without issue I believe. Also far closer to Edinburgh than Manchester. I wonder if they thought that Manchester being further south, had a better chance of better weather?
octo888··on Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left
Yup. They also popularised excessive baggage under the seat, and I routinely used to see obvious hazards that would impede an evacuation. Staff would turn a blind eye. Probably still do

Further, with the baggage being there in easy reach under the seat, I reckon people would be more tempted to take it with them when evacuating.

That they're are a safe airline seems to be incredible luck - they have all the components for it not to be.

octo888··on Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left
> Under FAA rules this was a screwup

An oversight I'm sure they can fix ;-)

FAA as a yardstick? Hm

octo888··on A story about bypassing air Canada's in-flight network restrictions
Do consumer rights exist in the skies? Genuine question!
octo888··on Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?
Yes hah.

> I’m more interested in the 3.14.15

That was indeed the joke

octo888··on Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?
Here's hoping they make 16 patch versions
octo888··on Why Self-Host?
[warning: old man rants at clouds]

Maybe I'm getting old, but I think at this stage I want the third, often-unspoken route: no data.

Let go of things

No need for infrastructure when you have nothing to host. And data that doesn't exist is the most secure in the world.

Is my home a home – or the premises of a small-business? Racks, servers, cables, smart devices, the fan noise etc!

It does feel like we are operating our lives more and more like a small business these days: managing data, managing logins, "B2B" with hundreds of companies (EULAs, contracts, invoices, subscriptions...), files, archives, backups, contacts, appointments, app after app after app...on and on.

I wish life were simpler. Maybe a lot is in our control, more than we realise

octo888··on Why are so many pedestrians killed by cars in the US?
I'd love more of this kind of frank discourse because I'm tired of decades of political pearl clutching "even just one death is a tragedy"
octo888··on Why are so many pedestrians killed by cars in the US?
How have touchscreens had such a free pass compared to mobile phones?!

Just kidding I know the answer is lobbying

octo888··on Bank of England flags risk of 'sudden correction' in tech stocks inflated by AI
Interesting. Thanks!
octo888··on Discord says 70k users may have had their government IDs leaked in breach
Fingerprints are not required in the UK to apply for a passport (for UK citizens who didn't apply for naturalisation etc). Biometric doesn't just mean fingerprints.
octo888··on Bank of England flags risk of 'sudden correction' in tech stocks inflated by AI
Wow position 140 on HN after about about 3 hours. Brutal lol
octo888··on A mechanic offered a reason why no one wants to work in the industry
Yeah nobody is willing to give up the revenue/tax from someone driving a car. In fact, I bet electric vehicles will end up more expensive per mile, mark my words.
octo888··on Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)
Many TLS deployments still leak the hostname in plain text as part of SNI
octo888··on The dangerous intimacy of social location sharing
Same here. On my WhatsApp, read receipts and online status are off, and have been since I first found the feature. The way "they left me on read" has found its way into common English is disturbing.
octo888··on Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account
> Not sure Microsoft realizes the damage they're doing to the Windows brand

Well their stock certainly isn't tanking. Do they care about anything else?

octo888··on Indefinite Backpack Travel
Yeah, excessively sweaty feet.
octo888··on Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)
Not universally true. The Mullvad client has lots of additional features to enhance privacy. Killswitch, split tunnelling (you might otherwise disconnect the VPN to use a certain app, so it can overall improve privacy), Shadowsocks, Lockdown mode etc

It's extremely high quality on MacOS in my experience. It's never crashed for example whereas Airvpn's crashes daily. It connects almost instantly. I don't think I've ever seen it give an error

octo888··on Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)
There was a bumpy ride with CF a while ago but they seem fine now (still plenty of captchas, of course)
octo888··on It's just a virus, the E.R. told him – days later, he was dead
They especially love "According to ChatGPT..." these days. Make sure not to even make it a question
octo888··on It's just a virus, the E.R. told him – days later, he was dead
If in the UK, you better have some tact, otherwise it'll go down like a lead balloon !

Personally I'd make up a lie: "Oh! What a great idea those posters are...I lost my dear brother to sepsis...they told us it's so easy to miss..."

octo888··on Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)
Not for feature parity.

And I find there's a good correlation between the quality of the apps and the overall quality of the company. No surprise that the Mullvad VPN app is excellent

octo888··on Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)
TLS doesn't hide which websites (hostnames) you visit
octo888··on Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)
Are we allowed to discuss (edit: if it's not too political?) if Kape Technologies has any connections to Israeli security services, given the nature of VPNs and given the amount of data that can be trivially collected, and:

"Being from Israel, Teddy Sagi had connections with the Israeli military intelligence sphere and was able to procure himself a real-life cyber spy [his co-founder] from the famed Unit 8200 (kinda like Israel’s version of the NSA)" [0]

?

[0] https://windscribe.com/blog/what-is-kape-technologies/

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