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souterrain

1,229 karma · joined September 29, 2014

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souterrain··on They’re made out of weights
>"They ask it 'do you remember me?' more than they ask it anything else. Billions of sessions a day. They always come back."

Definitely not in the original. Nicely done.

souterrain··on A 10 year old Xeon is all you need
You mention lower footprint but then make a cost comparison against Claude subscription pricing.

Claude subscription pricing is a broken way to consider footprint.

souterrain··on Kv4p HT – A homebrew 1W radio (VHF or UHF) that plugs into an Android phone
There are a number of compact shortwave (radio amateurs prefer the term "high frequency" or HF, in contrast to VHF, UHF) transceivers. The impracticality is from the size of an efficient antenna.

I have personally made voice (single-sideband or SSB, which is analog like AM without wasting energy transmitting a carrier or redundant sideband) contacts with a 5 watt portable (Elecraft KX2) between countries in Europe, using a meter-long whip antenna and a trailing counterpoise wire.

These radios are incredibly complex weak-signal equipment, and that is reflected in the price.

That said, it is fun. Using morse code to do the same is even more fun.

I would never rely on this for off-the-grid communication, though.

souterrain··on Kv4p HT – A homebrew 1W radio (VHF or UHF) that plugs into an Android phone
In the US all transmitting at 1W with these radios is contrary to regulations.

That said, no one is going to stop you from squatting on 146.580 MHz for example, a frequency commonly used by outdoors folks, rules notwithstanding.

souterrain··on Kv4p HT – A homebrew 1W radio (VHF or UHF) that plugs into an Android phone
Practically, this take emphasizes my point on repeaters. Each open active repeater develops its own subculture. (That said, the overwhelming majority of repeaters in the US are idle.)

You may not be welcome on any given repeater.

souterrain··on Kv4p HT – A homebrew 1W radio (VHF or UHF) that plugs into an Android phone
Practical use, dense urban, flat, UHF is about 1km. VHF is worse.

Most radio amateurs would utilize a repeater to get over this limitation. Assuming there is a reliable repeater one is welcome to use nearby.

souterrain··on Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day
Anyone know when Apple's acquisition of Headspace is closing?
souterrain··on Tesla said it didn't have key data in a fatal crash, then a hacker found it
Your property isn't ratting you out. The software you license from Tesla is ratting you out.
souterrain··on Sig Sauer citing national security to keep documents from public
Agree. The remedy for this is federal disbarment.
souterrain··on Morsle – A daily Morse code challenge
For those interested in learning Morse Code by sound, https://lcwo.net (Learn CW Online) is a good resource, although not really usable on a mobile device.

For building speed, I had the most success listening to random characters via https://morsecode.world/international/trainer/character.html during my morning walks. Another option to consider are the Morse Code Ninja https://morsecode.ninja/ YouTube and Podcast content.

Lastly, if you learn better in more social environments, consider the Long Island CW Club, which, despite its name, has members globally. https://longislandcwclub.org/

souterrain··on Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes
Would a criminal fraud charge result in federal debarment? If not, why not?
souterrain··on Hardcoded Cisco Viptela vEdge router certificate expires
Cisco Viptela vEdge 100, 1000, and 2000 routers have a hardcoded certificate which governs the hardware appliances ability to join their SDWAN network. At connectivity loss or reboot, they are unable to reconnect.

Cisco has no resolution as of 2023-05-10T10:00:00Z.

souterrain··on It's Time to Mandate Treatment of the Dangerously Mentally Ill
Persons suffering from mental health conditions suffer them long before they warrant the "dangerous" moniker. The solution lies in substantive treatment of all mental health conditions.

The disparity of care between mental health conditions and all other health conditions is laughable, including in New York State, despite "mental health parity" rules. For those with Medicaid (public health program for those meeting certain low-income or disability criteria), this disparity isn't as severe. However, many young adults with serious mental illness are covered by commercial health plans via their parents, and it is these plans that are relatively weak when it comes to mental health coverage.

These plans do well when it comes to emergency, in-patient interventions, but fall short when it comes to ongoing outpatient support. Much of this is due to lack of participation by mental healthcare providers in the insurance reimbursement system, likely as a result of low reimbursement rates. Why see patients with serious mental illness reimbursed at $100 a session when one can see less complex patients paying cash at $150 or even $200 a session.

This has been exacerbated by the prevalence of mobile app-based therapy arrangements, which, again, are suitable for someone who is reasonably healthy and needs some additional support, but may be completely inappropriate for those with a serious mental health condition.

Mental health care parity laws need teeth. The free market will not solve this.

souterrain··on Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life
This is remarkably confusing to read on my Chinese-manufactured mobile device I bought from an American company.
souterrain··on Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative
Is the Oasis performance that different than the Paperwhite?

I personally am less concerned with closed-platform reader technology, and more concerned with closed-platform content. If a reader will let me sideload my open content, I'm reasonably okay with it. (Yes, I acknowledge supporting such an ecosystem is contributing to the overall problem.)

souterrain··on Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year
American culture also devalues community college in this way.

The way we break this is by changing our hiring decisions. If you have a Harvard grad (or other private university grad) in front of you, consider if they really are the right candidate. Consider recruiting from local community and public colleges, including public non-traditional colleges. Build a rapport with the job placement offices at these schools. If candidates are missing something, work with the schools to improve their curricula.

souterrain··on Trilium Notes: Markdown autoformat personal knowledge base
I find that an ability to search the knowledgebase exceeds the value of organizing according to a hierarchy. I can see some value in linking/backlinking à la an encyclopedic "See also" reference for discovering similar information that doesn't share keywords.

Are there other disadvantages to an "all search" solution I'm overlooking?

souterrain··on GitHub is experimenting with personal READMEs
They’ve rediscovered .plan files?
souterrain··on Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text
Former org-mode user here. One of the anti-features of emacs/org-mode for certain people, particularly those who get obsessed with tooling, travel down technology rabbitholes, and are subject to crippling bouts of procrastination, is the extensibility and the common paradigm that one should do everything in emacs.

Ultimately, I switched to using specific tools for specific tasks. For example, I found Zotero a much better way of managing research, while still allowing export to BibTeX.

I still can organize in plain text, I just avoid getting tripped up with endless tool maintenance and customization.

souterrain··on With remote work plan, Facebook dashes hopes of paycheck arbitrage
What state(s)|countr(y|ies) do you report as your location for tax purposes?

Working for a New York State-based employer is interesting in this regard. NY demands income tax when telework is not for the benefit of the employer. Depending on where you are working and what the tax laws are, you may be paying two states income tax.

https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/memos/income/m06_5i.pdf (PDF)

souterrain··on Astrobotany – A community garden over the Gemini protocol
The hosted game is available at gemini://astrobotany.mozz.us.

Registration instructions are provided; Astrobotany uses TLS client certificates for authentication.

souterrain··on Hacker Mods Old Calculator to Access the Internet, Casio Files DMCA Complaint
The following changes should be made to DMCA:

1. Forbid delegation of enforcement to third parties. If you’re the copyright holder, you or your actual attorney may be the only ones to file a complaint. The copyright holder is solely responsible for such DMCA complaints.

2. Complaints found to be invalid shall result in reimbursement by the copyright holder an amount equal to three times the costs incurred to defend the complaint, including time, legal fees, etc., to the aggrieved party.

3. Three strike rule: if a copyright holder commits a false complaint action three times for a particular work, that work’s copyright is immediately invalidated and shall revert to the public domain.

souterrain··on My 2020 desk setup
I had a very hard time getting used to the matrix (“ortholinear?”) layout of the keys. I think this is because I don’t touch type “the right way.”

I’ve had greater success with the UHK in tenting configuration and as wide as my shoulders.

souterrain··on Researchers achieve optical data transmission speed of 44.2 terabits per second
It would be interesting to see if EDFAs also do not require retrofit.
souterrain··on Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?
You’re right; a bit of a brain fail there for me.

Still, doesn’t mitigate attacks against non-HTTP speakers.

souterrain··on Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?
However, TCP sockets can't publish CORS policies.

In the case of scanning, a CORS denial can still reveal information about the user's internal network, as a CORS denial is a different result than a network timeout or a TCP RST.

souterrain··on Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?
CORS is not in the hands of the user. I don’t want a CORS policy authorizing access to my intranet or localhost.
souterrain··on Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?
I stand corrected. I think yours is the correct approach.

How shall origin be defined? I can envision the likes of Microsoft which have many, many second-level domains making calls between them.

We can’t allow the site itself to grant access. How would this be managed, other than “please stop and think what a domain name is supposed to be before spraying your product across twelve of them?”

souterrain··on Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?
I think what you’re saying is the user might be an employee on some internal trusted company network. The employer should have control of that browser (and entire endpoint), otherwise the network should likely not be considered trusted. So, in this case, no, the user shouldn’t have the ability to authorize this; the administrator of that browser should.

Know your network.

souterrain··on Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?
Port scanning from a user’s browser is effectively sneaking behind a user’s firewall. The only legitimate reasons I can envision are security research, and this, to me, is such a small edge case that I’m not sure such access is ever warranted.

I’d be all for a user notification that says “fnord.com wants to access 192.168.0.10 on tcp/443, which seems to be a web server on your home/work network. Are you sure you want to allow this?” I’d want to see this for each new access request, such that port scanning would not be a use case that was supported.

Sure, have an about:config toggle to shut this off, with appropriate warnings.

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