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wildfire

272 karma · joined May 29, 2012

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wildfire··on Interviews on Skype: Test candidates using a real-time code editor over Skype.
> A simple homework assignment will do much of the same and allow them to do it at their own pace and having full access to any tool, instead of during some arbitrary time limit with someone else breathing down their neck.

Who is paying for that time?

As someone who has interviewed a lot of people; if I am going to ask someone to perform some coding, I offer them the fact that my entire TEAM (5+ people) will be there for them to ask questions of.

That is us being serious about hiring. It isn't just a single person who is interviewing - but a large amount of the engineering team.

wildfire··on Terraform Gotchas and How We Work Around Them
Not true.

Terraform v0.9 only handles remote state and locking properly. Handling multiple applies of state is something scheduled for 0.10

Basically terragrunt handles some stuff today in a less robust, less portable, way that your team is likely to need today -- whilst waiting for core terraform support.

(disclaimer: I follow terragrunt and terraform very closely but do not actually use terragrunt in producution anymore).

wildfire··on Symantec Backs Its CA
You do realise that the argument that that site is presenting is false.

Firstly: "With TLS properly configured, DNSSEC adds nothing."

DNSSEC presents you with a valid, secure chain to know that the meta-data (encoded as TLSA) about the end-point you intend to communicate with is valid.

i.e. Grab the TLSA record for a hostname, validate the hostname (and TLSA record) via DNSSEC and then if the TLS certificate matches the details in the TLSA record you have confirmation that things are valid.

Secondly: "Securing DNS lookups isn’t a high-priority".

Then why there is a whole IETF WG dedicated to addressing it: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dprive/about/

Thirdly: "The real threat to CAs is “the global adversary”

i.e. organisations like the NSA, GCHQ collating everything, everywhere.

Any reasonable person could spend an afternoon - not being paid - providing a counterpoint to each item raised. None of them are (currently) relevant and the only one that is/was is actually being address in the IETF working group linked above.

wildfire··on Base-122 – A space efficient alternative to base-64
Something that is isn't really discussed is that the need for base64 arose so that binary data could transit 7-bit email systems.

Base122 does not have that property - as far as I could tell.

Whilst we are all, basically, living in an 8-bit world; I suspect it will be sometime before people feel comfortable assuming that an 8-bit transport is viable over email.

[edit: spelling ]

wildfire··on Industry Concerns about TLS 1.3
I'm both European and Australian. I have cards in both countries with Chip-only, Chip+NFC, and (still!) two stripe only.

In Australia, you can activate the card terminal by inserting it, swiping it or tapping it. There is no difference in liability shifting.

In Europe, if you insert the card you'll be prompted for your PIN. If the transactions succeeds, the liability is shifted to you (the cardholder).

It just happens to be what consumers have become used to in each country.

wildfire··on Why We Can Send to Gmail in China
There are a whole bunch already!

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/internet-services/access-via-email/

Probably worth some karma to update this 14 year old document too.

wildfire··on GitLab Master Plan
"enterprisey".

Perhaps I'm in the minority but I have actually setup my home system to use SSO (backed via LDAP).

It annoys me no end that all these services seem to think that charging to maintain my userbase is a way to get me to think they care.

What it means is it invariably the SSO support is barely tested and poorly documented. For a number of products, I've tried out the "enterprise" version and realised that their features (e.g. SSO, audit, etc.) are just not useful.

Largely because there are not enough people looking at the thing or attempting to use it.

wildfire··on GitLab Master Plan
Apart from Jetbrains, I've used all the other tools you mention.

In no way, shape or form would I sayd that Bamboo is good.

It is not any more sufferable than Jenkins. Even Jenkins now alows the build / deploy pipeline to be something stored in a VCS.

wildfire··on GitLab Master Plan
Because the feature is large? Or the developer acted normally and split thing into multiple, small, independant commits?

If the submittor then takes a lot of time between comments and performing changes, is the commentor to blame for a PR being long-lived?

Don't assume everything is bad process.

wildfire··on GNU Hurd 0.6 released
Wow. Thanks for bringing back visions of the 1990s.

These arguments were tiresome then; they are boring now.

You are conflating GNU, GPL and LGPL.

The GNU system may never be as successful as you think. But portions like The GNU Compiler Collection (gcc, go, etc.) and GnuPG (GNU Privacy Guard) and thinks like GNU Emacs are the standard which others are measured against.

Second the "absolutely awful" licenses; being under the GPL has certainly hindered Linux adoption. And Samba. And ...

The GPL and LGPL are amongst the, if not the, most successful software licences in history. What's more they are one of the few that has resulted in more freedom.

Things such as Netgear's WRT-54G are classic examples of where these "awful licences" have changed the world for the better.

wildfire··on India goes digital
Yes, we need proof.

You've asserted many things. But with no links to any proof.

Every question you asked above, also applies to the US.

I'm not going to bother providing links until you do.

wildfire··on VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation
FYI - The complaint is regarding the VMWare ESXi kernel.
wildfire··on GCC, LLVM, Copyleft, Companies, and Non-Profits (2014)
> I've talked to a few lawyers and they basically > consider GPLv3 a contract that isn't worth bothering with.

Presumably they gave you a reason, along with a sizeable bill?

You seem to have misunderstood the intent of the GNU GPL.

The intent is not to help companies.

The intent is to ensure that users (i.e. us) have continued access to Free Software.

How does the 'anti-tivoization' clause help in that? Imaging you had a device: a TV, a phone, whatever.

It is discovered that the device is actually spying on you; if the device used [1] GNU GPLv3 software you would be entitled to both the source and the keys.

You could then correct this 'mis-feature' and stop the device from spying on you.

If the device used software only under the GNU GPLv2 then you would be entitled to only the source. If the device rejected your attempt to upload new software then too bad.

[1]: A vast over-simplfication, but I hope my point is illustrated.

wildfire··on GCC, LLVM, Copyleft, Companies, and Non-Profits (2014)
> It absolutely ignores that Apple was a contributor of GCC

Actually, Apple were compelled to contribute to GCC.

That is one of the points of the article.

That an Objective-C compiler exists at all is because of GCC. The fact that we can see and examine the source is because of the GNU GPL.

wildfire··on Ori File System
www.seafile.com is another
wildfire··on The Apple Watch
I'm old enough to remember to spell, and remember when the first Mac came out.

The response has always been the same; one segment pointing out problems, another pointing out how "visionary" the new thing is.

If you are as old as you claim to be, and still fall foul of corporate machinations - then "sucks to be you". Next you'll tell us what your current corporate master told you to say.

There a many things wrong with what you wrote; the most glaring is: "haven't seen anything innovative from Google since 2001".

Later you go on to say, "unless you count gmail".

1. gmail wasn't released until 2004

2. the whole thing called "ads" wasn't available until 2001.

3. Android copied iOS. Which copied Windows. Which copied MacOS. Which copied GEM. Which copied x/PARC. Someone once said "good artists copy, great artists steal".

4. I guess you keep missing the news about Google's moonshot project (loom, wing, self-driving cars).

If you feel condemmed to define yourself by the applications and services that a particular company makes available (be it Google or Microsoft, or Apple), please understand that you are a shill.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/08/on-geek-culture/

Neither Superman, nor Google, nor Apple will save you.

Save your energy.

wildfire··on DNSSEC has failed
Well, please argue it then.

Please provide evidence that it – deployment – failed, not that it is hard to understand (69 pages of training books and multi-day training courses are understanding issues, not deployment).

I mean, it became possible to fully secure things end-to-end since 2010[1], so in about 10 years from now by your length of time theory, we should know how it works out.

wildfire··on Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
A shame.

Whilst I am always intrigued with what hits the front-page, I rather more often than occasionally, find myself getting to page 10 or so on the weekends.

Just to see what has been going on that I missed.

Your change will basically mean that someone like me who might have something to add to an existing conversation might as well not bother.

It'll be years before I have enough karma on ycombinator's hackernews >1000, and that means I might as well seek another avenue. I guess I am back to post link on social media and comment on it.

Oh well, back to the 00's I guess.

wildfire··on Ask HN: What happens to older developers?
Yes.

Totally true. IF you are a developer.

How many managers do you meet who still contribute to Free Software? Or who even look at Stackoverflow, let alone contribute.

You might, which might make you exceptional but the vast majority of managers do not. Yet you are llikely only achieving 10-15% premium over them.

Whilst you (and they) are achieving a significantly higher premium over existant developers.

The problem is that the close you are to the people are the top of the leadership chain, the more they believe you are valuable -- even when your value is motivating other people nothing particularly intrinsic to you.

wildfire··on Ask HN: What happens to older developers?
Ah, yes, that whole gov.uk thing.

I must have dreamed it then.

And so must have the 180+ people hired to work on various parts of it who are not part of EDS, IBM and BT.

wildfire··on What happens when a host cancels with Airbnb?
Hi Brian,

Your cancellation policy, as well as others are not balanced on either side.

I'm a host -- and I've been a guest. Once.

As a host, I get to choose the verification level I will accept; as a guest, I'm basically forced to hand over my government issued identification to AirBnB (to "verify" myself)

Now, I'm sure that if this was pre-Snowden, there might be some justification for this; but given that AirBnB has already had over 10,000,000 million night booked with them, it seems fairly arbitrary to require guests to provide this information.

On the other side of things, as both a host and a guest I've had exemplary support from AirBnB; perhaps when you are dealing with Europeans, you are just nicer?

A

wildfire··on Mailpile Alpha Release: Shipping Bits and Atoms
Please point me to a copy of this "Unix philosphy" you speak of.

You can't, because there isn't one.

If you were at the talk yesterday, like I was, and actually listened to what they said they explained why they chose to do things.

That was the actual point of the of the talk. Plus they want additional helps (fosdem being a developer conference).

They explained their use of own indexing system (was an experiment, is <1000 lines of codes, search <0.250ms, etc.); why they are thinking of including TOR (so you get a generated foo@<long-string>.onion address so you communicate with having to register with any service but still speak with people on gmail), why they are thinking of including an SMTP server (it means that you can directly get mail routed to you, via your .onion address; and your communications metadata is far harder to get to)

wildfire··on Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data
I think you mean, they've spent years compensating for assuming that everyone would implement the RFCs similarly.

I'm not aware of RFC breakage, do you have any pointers?

wildfire··on Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data
How do you know? Was it in click-through agreement when signing up?
wildfire··on Open-Sourcing PEPS: A modern webmail server
You present a number of licence choices but I think what you really need to consider is who you believe your potential competitors are.

Are they (small) consultants / consultanties who are likely to install your system for other to use and either provide feedback for environments you don't / won't have access to; or provide patches.

Or are they companies like Google / IBM / Oracle. If the later you should always choose a copyleft licence like AGPL.

Why?

Well all those companies, when they have the chance to release Free Software pick BSD / MIT style licences; because all of them have the engineering resources to fork something and take it in-house and improve on it AND continue to pay the 'stupid tax'.

But if look at something like the Linux kernel, which is GPL'd, all of them have had to contribute back.

You should pick the licence that makes things easiest for you.

Each comes with its own set of communities; I know people who will not contribute to GPL projects, whereas others never contribute to BSD / MIT projects.

Plenty of organisations make money from GPL software (e.g. Redhat) and plenty do from MIT (but I can't think of any atm - late night, wine, etc.)

Summary: Pick what is right for you, and ignore nay-sayers. You will have customers - if the product is good - no matter the licence.

wildfire··on Square Cash
> All forms of EFT take 1-2 business days between banks, > pretty much all the time; and they're universally free for > the payer.

Other people have already weighed in on the fact that actually not all of the payment systems are free for the payer (even EFT via a terminal costs).

But ask yourself, why does it take 1-2 business day for this to happen? In the UK, the worst case scenario is 2 hours between different banks. And if the account transfer is within the same bank, it is instant.

In AU, even between St. George accounts you can see delays of up to 1 day. Insane! Especially since the money isn't changing banks but accounts within the bank.

The AU transfer delay is bizarre.

wildfire··on Square Cash
Actually EFT does have fees. Typically between 10c - 25c / transaction.

They are minimal, but they are there.

Plus the fee for the terminal of course. Which varies significantly between banks in AU.

wildfire··on W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards
You do realise that 'mobile' now accounts for > 50% of pageviews?

Which means that your ad vendors actually about HTML5 support. They just do not know it yet.

wildfire··on What I would like to see from Microsoft regarding OSS
It is??

Great, how do I do this on my Windows Surface (ARM) device?

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