NikolaNovak

Thanks for the response :)

That's the approach I took when I had VPN to my LAN ~20 -> ~10 years ago; now I worry about the massive "unknown unknowns" - sure, that Linux box doesn't have access to anything else... officially. But what vulnerability is there on that Linux box, or on the plex server, or anything else on your network, that might enable massive expansion of access?

And not just "against policy but unenforced and whatever" - for most large orgs I've been with, it's a serious, "conditions of employment" issue. There ARE innocent usages of personal VPN on work computer, but the risk and impact of the nefarious ones massively outweighs them.

I've had a question for a long time: I've been involved with infra most of my life but not strictly networking. Given the vulnerabilities, AI adversaries, etc; understanding I'm a tiny fish in a massive pool; it's still been 15 years since I've felt comfortable allowing external access through VPN into my home network (which has my NAS etc).

I have a friend who does, exposing his Synology NAS and Windows server through Ubiquiti UDR7 on Bell Gigahub, but honestly, I feel he's doing that more out of different risk assessment / "Little knowledge is a dangerous thing" rather than sheer expertise and assurance.

For those who allow VPN access from outside into your home network - how do you have confidence that your configuration is correct, you understand all the config options and their interplay on your modem/router/firewall/OS stack, you're up to date with vulnerabilities and permissions, trust the apps and containers, etc? Are you network admin during daytime, or have fully nerded out about it for years, or have a risk threshold that's met, or something else? :)

Would they have legal right to do that, out of curiosity?

Hired oentest has company permission to do stuff on company property. I do not imagine they have right to do so to personal property.

I'm in the other boat, I've been pondering de-Googling to either FastMail or ProtonMail, and struggled to make a decision.

Now it's been made for me and I can plan my migration to FastMail :-).

The problem is how do you define a "purchase"?

The agent crawls some websites and reads some stuff and pushes some buttons. It's my limited understanding that you have

1. Hard limits like "file system permissions" (* never mind it going around for sake of this conversation)

3. On other hand of spectrum, fundamentally soft limits like a prompt "and ask me before you purchase "

2. And then in the middle you have harness enforced limits like "it won't do X with approval"... Those are being sold as hard limits but frequently they have classifiers and heuristics that essentially try to figure out which button on some third party website constitutes a "purchase" and triggers the harness limit.

Bottom line - I don't think such limits are as 100% fool proof as they are advertised / interpreted.

Very happy to be explained wrong :).

... why the blockchain? And which one? That seems a needless techno-complication, especially if you're trying to spread this advice wide.

Right; what I don't recall - once we had the 486 DX/2 and DX/4, I don't think Turbo button did anything about the multiplier between CPU and mobo. I think to your point it would do overall clock and other things to try to slow it down, with limited success.

Ahh the good old times :-)

I was a kid then but my memory of 80286 was:

* Turbo was default ON and was the regular marketed speed the cpu was designed to run on, for my (dad's:) PCs it was 12 and 16mhz I think

* Turning turbo off reduced speed significantly for software written with original cpu timing in mind (I think 8088 but that was just outside of my direct experience).

So perspective on turbo button is a little bit philosophic, is it half full or half empty:). But it did not give you any EXTRA boost, like over clocking OVER manufacturer design cpu speed.

Appreciate that these things have orthogonal measurements; with that in mind, given that the name signifies size, what does version number signify?

I.e. are all version numbers independent and Model X 7.5 is not necessarily of the same generation or cut off as Model Y 7.5? Or do all of your 6.1 models have something in common - cut off data, generation, baseline technology, approach, architecture, or something else?

Thanks! :)

So "Up to" 39 weeks of base pay, let's say 9 months.

In this job market, that may not be enough time to feel comfortable and safe taking the offer (if you're a super-employable hotshot with offers awaiting in your LinkedIn, you're probably not the likely target for the offer)

I've never been involved in such a situation, but I assume part of individual's calculation is: If I indicate interest, but the company doesn't accept it or go through with it and keeps me... am I now viewed as a disloyal, detached worker?

Fair - thank you for that context! :)

That's the thing - I genuinely don't understand the user or usage Venn diagram : when and who will 1. Have an expensive ipad with them and require a good big camera, but 2. Not have an equivalently competent phone with them?

Don't get me wrong, I understand it happens - back when I did wedding photography, one of my massive pet peeves were the uncles and grandparents who stepped into the aisle with their massive tablets just as bride is starting her walk... But I do not understand it at all :-/.

I'd absolutely happily completely kill the rear facing tablet camera. I've had at least a dozen android and ipad tablets and I genuinely don't think I took a single photo with them - it'd feel weird and awkward and so ostentious.

(As always as a consumer, clearly I'm in minority here :-})

* I don't feel that's a charitable interpretation of the OP's comment. I have seen people print emails just to read them, including a page of CCs they discard, or 37 version of the draft slide decks, etc. And that's on their own printer - the office printer pre-COVID was just always printing random pointless stuff (as witnessed by the volume of it that was never even picked up!:). I don't have particular urge to print randomly, so I probably fit into the "unless absolutely necessary" group, but goodness there's a lot, and I mean a LOT of paper waste that doesn't provide entertainment value of nascar or B&N.

* (Bitcoin, I'll agree, is an even more massively irrational and wasteful human endevour, but that doesn't mean all printing is awesome:)

* This is not to say that some webpages shouldn't be printable, I agree that they should - for a lot of the webpages focused on displaying information rather than interaction, making them print consumable is good. Just that parent's comment doesn't make them the buzz-kill party-pooper, necessarily :)

That's awesome.

I just purchased commodore 64 ultimate last month, for myself and my 8 year old to geek out on.

I miss the days of:

1. Platform you can understand and own fully with some effort

2. Hacking hardware through software and doing weird things to it.

I never owned a c64 as a kid, so this is new to both my son and I. I loved his joy when he did the most basic loop of two print statements (10 print "bey blades", 20 print "rule!" 30 goto 10) and saw something that he did work :).

I'm excited that the community is growing just as we are joining it!

(A lot of what I am seeing is of course AI assisted, ranging from pure AI slop with no real human value, to experts of old using AI to speed up some truly amazing works of craft and art. I'm personally at a stage where I'm using AI as a mentor to learn and supplant books, while crafting code by hand, until I have enough knowledge and confidence to involve ai more fully while still feeling in control)

Same here in Ontario Canada fwiw

Absolutely agreed that effort is needed to reach ranks above beginner; my main point/peeve is the steepness of the curve from "nothing" to "beginner", not the work definitely required to go from "Beginner" to "intermediate" let alone "Expert".

My approach, from "nothing" to "beginner", is to give a taste of the "target" - how fun and rewarding it can be. A 7 year old kid who learns how to play Mario Galaxy theme on piano, gets motivated and excited, and then goes through the effort; vs the 7 year old who's sent to music lessons and they spend 2 months on perfect finger positioning for C-major scale. Similarly for adults and guitar - I find teaching them 4 simple chords and strumming which cover 40% of pop songs in 2-4 weeks, gets them hooked and willing to then invest the effort, vs starting with notation and theory and picking hand positioning etc on day 1.

As specific to singing matter at hand, it is my understanding that pitch training will have an immediate, early, quick, and lasting benefit (which is, however arguably, benefited by the app in the post), vs saying "well you can't sing if you don't also do these 5 intermediate-level things right away" (unfair representation, but I've been on the receiving end of it:).

I have a close friend who's an opera singer, and absolutely did proper training from early age, daily, for years -- but, most of us aren't and won't be; my primary point is that early stages of training/learning shouldn't necessarily be the same.

If you're willing to elaborate - For what goals and stages, do you require these?

----

Background to my question: I was looking for music teachers for myself and my kids (guitar and piano), and I found two types:

1. Royal Conservatory Curriculum, Lesson 1, Page 1, firmly, formally, and without deviation: You MUST learn notation, theory, and proper everything, first. THEN, 5 years later, you get to have fun :)

2. Let's have fun! If you like it and stick with it, we can tackle advanced topics in a customized manner and see where it takes us :)

I find approach #1 is only valid for people who know they will go far and stick with it (either because their parents force them, or for some other, rare, intrinsic motivation); but it hugely discourages huge number of people who don't have such long-term motivation and dedication yet - it postpones the rewards and makes the initial curve super steep.

So my question is: For a completely casual, random person who sings terribly and wants to get "a little bit less embarrassing / dip their toes"; isn't pitch training usually the first step for them to enable their hearing, rather than the complex vocal techniques?

Certainly possible to induce it, but I do not believe it's the only path. I do believe current consensus is that e.g. autistic people find need for emotional regulation as a baseline as well - but as with everything in sociology/psychology, it's hard to control the variables.

(FWIW, I personally think of it analogous to psychosomatic side effect of allergies - I can be induced into sniffles by convincing me my pillow is stuffed with cat hair, and there's a legitimate underlying physiological thing :).

(and to clarify, I personally had about 2 runs of the above game before my brain caused stress/anxiety that I'm wasting my time and life is limited and I'm not using it productively and I'm not accomplishing anything meaningful aaaaaaack; not sure if that's ultimately healthier or not - clearly, spending time on hacker news doesn't trigger the same reflex :-)

>>YouTube removed the 1-5 scale for the same reason, people have no idea what to do with it.

As always, I'm in a minority - I have a VERY clear idea what to do with it :-).

(1/2 - never ever show me crap like this again. 3 - decent mainstream stuff. 4 - This meets my interests, is good, and I'd like more of it please. 5 - this is endorphin analog candy for me. Scott Pilgrim, Hunt for Red October, Neuromancer, Dune grade content :)

I am constantly arguing with all of my friends and family who believe primary way to loose weight is to exercise more.

Exercising is great, absolutely, but eating less is the actual primary method. While acknowledging complications of metabolism and psychology and weird states body goes through when it's hungry, primary part is to reduce calory intake vs expenditure.

So as snide and silly as it may be, in my neck of the woods, I would agree, lots of people don't believe eating less is the primary method of losing weight.

Wow, I'm not sure "not judging anyone here" is really working out that well ;), but different people live differently and have different needs & priorities.

Note that for a lot of people, a period of emotional regulation with repetitive, low-intensity activity is literally what the doctor ordered. If you're not one of those people, you may not fully understand or have the empathy, so take it on a rational level then. While ab-so-lutely any activity can be used and abused, I don't think this is a strictly black & white binary proposition. And as something built on a lark (presumably heavily AI assisted), it's kinda cool and quite a bit more sophisticated than it has ANY right to be :-). I'm also shocker there are not cease & desist letters yet :(

Myriad ways, pretty standard on most corporate networks, to restrict access to corporate devices. I cannot access any of my client's resources, including Web apps, without their laptop.

Simple method is IP whitelisting, easy in some ways painful to keep updated. Vpn is another easy option. But then you can have client side certs, hardware tokens, and endpoint security mechanisms which are probably more robust. Either way, it's not a weird unique thing, it's pretty ubiquitous :)

This is awesome!

I just got a commodore 64 ultimate last week to play with my son but also nerd out on - the more I use ai at work, the more I miss the pleasure of hand coding and fully owning / understanding a piece of hardware. I wrote my first BASIC program in 35 years last weekend, a version of wordle for his birthday with special birthday cake PETSCII art if his name is entered. I never really geeked put about hardware at such physical / electrical level, so this'll be fun to play with :).

There's so much AI slop everywhere, including c64 community now, but gems like this also come out so I suppose / hope it balances.

I love seeing helpful people create this moment :)

https://xkcd.com/1053/

Interesting, though on initial scan I could not easily determine who made it, why, what's the future for it, any terms or licenses, etc. With complex html and downloads, I have no idea what else may be sneaking in and/or phoning home :-/

Massively not an expert, but at that level, things are not a binary "good/bad investment". Financial institutions have policies regarding finely sliced debt types, ratios, risks, lengths, sectors, etc.

I personally think it's all hugely overcomplicating things but that's the way modern world works.

(until it every now and then, on regular intervals, doesn't:)

I would agree in principle, but from outside at least (I'm in Canada), BOY did President Trump and the accompanying cohort bring in some change. It's just... not even remotely change I would have personally sought. But USA's reputation, and relationship, with huge number of countries has changed significantly. This will have short and long term impact (positive or negative) on USA citizens - imports, travel, cost, employment and otherwise. The "new normal" of insance news, complete corruption, blatant lies from official sources, decimation and mistrust of both scientists and competent personnel, dismantling of regulations, completion implosion of the health department, etc... this feel like changes from the outside, but perhaps it's all business as usual and feeling the same on the inside :)

What made a significant jump from WSL2 to WSL3?

Unless I'm mistaken, WSL to WSL2 was massive change in complete architecture, with WSL2 now requiring virtualization and making your host-OS run on top of hypervisor, with potential tradeoffs not many users are typically aware of. Basically, WSL and WSL2 were different beasts entirely :)

Was there anything that big or note-worthy from WSL2 to WSL3? Or just a natural evolution/upgrade?