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wmblaettler

419 karma · joined March 11, 2009

Web and iOS developer based in Lancaster, PA email: bill.blaettler@gmail.com
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wmblaettler··on Feature: TLS Encrypted Client Hello (ECH)
One of my client's sites stopped working in Chrome 117 (ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH) due to either a bug in Cloudflare or in Chrome due to this TLS 1.3 ECH feature. I spent many hours troubleshooting a very basic/default setup with Cloudflare in front of our website and with Chrome 117, and finally was able to fix the issue by disabling TLS 1.3 (for now) in Cloudflare since they currently have a beta of Encrypted ClientHello (ECH) enabled in all Free zones. Hoping this comment might help any other devops / network administrators out there with this problem. I've submitted a bug report to both the Chrome team and to Cloudflare.
wmblaettler··on 1-on-1 meeting questions
Individual Contributor
wmblaettler··on How The New York Times Verified the Iran Missile-Strike Footage
Apparently there were two missiles fired, this video could have been of the second one with the person starting to film after having seen or heard the launch or impact from the first one.
wmblaettler··on Asking ‘What questions do you have for me?’ instead of ‘Any questions?’
I use this exact phrasing when conducting interviews, since most of the time it is me asking the candidate questions. It's an opportunity to hand control over to the interviewee. "Any questions?" seems very abrupt and I feel would put the interviewee on edge. Not wanting to make a mistake - they'd likely respond with "No" or at best "What are next steps?"
wmblaettler··on The 5 foot ground rod and its use in the National Electric Code (2018)
^ THIS - Go watch at least first video "Grounding - Safety Fundamentals" This was a very eye-opening video. I totally misunderstood grounding before watching this.
wmblaettler··on Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
Years ago when working in Microsoft SharePoint, I noticed this method: SPUtility.HideTaiwan [1], which would hide the Taiwan calendar option in China, Hong Kong and Macao.

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/de...

wmblaettler··on Coldfusion is “Unpopular” – I don’t care
Perhaps proper spelling/casing: ColdFusion. Though the title here mirrors the article's title.
wmblaettler··on California jury says Bayer must pay $2B to couple in Roundup cancer trial
Something I have yet to find is how much these people have been exposed to the chemical. Are they farmers that are spraying it in large quantities throughout the season or just regular folks at home spraying a little here and there on a weed? The difference is 100's of gallons vs less than 1 gallon. Also, are they then handling, processing and possibly eating food crops that have been previously doused with it? Sort of critical information to make educated choices on what's a "safe" amount vs "risky" amount.
wmblaettler··on Astronauts escape malfunctioning Soyuz rocket
A little more footage from moments before the failure of the booster which happens sometime between 3m39 and 4m39s in the video, listen to the Russian comms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0l5QBmqQoI&t=3m38s
wmblaettler··on 'Siri I'm getting pulled over': New shortcut can automatically record the police
I've often thought about the use of Facebook Live video in this situation. If I have done nothing wrong it would only be minimally embarrassing to have friends and family see the encounter, on the other hand to have a silent witness with redundant friends, family and a preserved recording of it would be useful in the case of abuse of power or worse. Of course along with this thought, I've done mental exercises of how to address an officer with respect and how to not make sudden moves which would cause increased concern.
wmblaettler··on Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
Indeed, the article does not give any reason for its removal, other than the fact that it was removed. My guess is that it was in disrepair and/or they deemed it ineffective since there were landings in the years preceding the removal.
wmblaettler··on Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
The very first thing I thought of upon reading your comment "The list of things tried so far to resolve the issue..." was "What about a big lighted 'x'?" then I clicked the link.
wmblaettler··on iOS 12 released
It does plane detection and can place a 3d object on that plane, scaled accordingly. You can move the phone around the plane (floor, tabletop, etc) and the object stays fixed as if it were physically in that place. The 3d object is also textured and takes into account ambient lighting to shade it. The result is actually rather impressive!
wmblaettler··on iOS 12 released
In part, I would think they are referring to CoreML, onboard machine learning framework.
wmblaettler··on The new Apple Watch 4 face is a design crime
While cluttered and busy, yes, this shows all possible complications on the watch face. You can choose a very minimal display to this and everywhere in between.
wmblaettler··on The Safe, Boring, and Extremely Cheap Drug That Could Cure Aging
It seems there is a whole class of supplements and drugs that are being researched for this very effect: Calorie restriction mimetics [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caloric_restriction_mimetic

wmblaettler··on The Safe, Boring, and Extremely Cheap Drug That Could Cure Aging
Calorie restriction has shown anti-aging benefits as well, does metformin mimic this by restricting glucose/calorie absorption? Does this mean you can have your cake and eat it too?
wmblaettler··on Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data
I have to wonder about the "findings" regarding sleep of 7 hours being a causation for a lower RHR. Could it be that the cohort of those who are getting up early to exercise regularly are trading an hour of sleep in order to do so? To assume that "too much sleep is bad for you" seems incorrect given just the aggregate of all data with so many other variables.
wmblaettler··on Show HN: Make a business model canvas in your browser
In your browser's LocalStorage as a base64 encoded JSON string
wmblaettler··on Slack Is Buying HipChat from Atlassian
There is an open source alternative to Slack that can be self hosted called Rocket Chat: https://rocket.chat/
wmblaettler··on Spotify hits 83M paying subscribers, more than double Apple Music’s 40M
FTA: Spotify operating at a $460m loss up from $220m a year ago...
wmblaettler··on Proper Sleeping Posture for ‘Brain Drain’
Probably to help align the hips and lumbar spine, otherwise the top leg would twist your pelvis and spine with the downward pressure.
wmblaettler··on iPhone crashing bug likely caused by code added to appease Chinese government
Reminds me of a method found in the SharePoint SDK called HideTaiwan() [1]

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/de...

wmblaettler··on Playing Atari with Six Neurons
A story from the GP: http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=987
wmblaettler··on Apple introduces macOS Mojave
Doubtful. Night Mode will most likely only affect application chrome and menus that use Dynamic System Color [1] named colors, not the actual content within the app (i.e. images, webpages, documents, etc)

Websites will be entirely unaffected as they have they're own custom CSS palettes.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

wmblaettler··on Facebook employee fired over bragging about access to user information
This is the very scenario that gives rise to the question "Who watches the watchers?"
wmblaettler··on Facebook Q1 2018 Earnings Slides [pdf]
Slides means the slide deck, not an observation on growth or decline of earnings. I misread the title too.
wmblaettler··on Facebook Q1 2018 Earnings Slides [pdf]
Sorry, the I misread the title, it's literally the "slides" (slide deck) of Q1 earnings. Not a observation on a decline in earnings.
wmblaettler··on Facebook Q1 2018 Earnings Slides [pdf]
How do you interpret an earnings slide? They seem to have a stronger Q4 YoY - presumably due to increased ad spending leading up to the holiday buying season, with a retraction every Q1. There was an 8% decline from Q4'16 to Q1'17 and only a 7% decline from Q4'17 to Q1'18.
wmblaettler··on Socioeconomic group classification based on user features [pdf]
I'm honestly curious what the aversion is to reading patents and patent applications. Is it to avoid suspect patent infringement by being able to claim ignorance? i.e. "I have not read any patent that relates to some work that I've created wholly on my own that out of coincidence achieves the same as a patented work." Does that actually hold up if defending IP?
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