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ara24

38 karma · joined June 8, 2016

An enthusiast of the internet world and hacker culture. A programmer, system administrator, and an advocate of the unix ecosystem.

-- A fan of the underdog

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ara24··on Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator
Don't use it in case of a fire
ara24··on How Controllers Maximize SSD Life (2012)
Given the rate at which we are progressing on SSD endurance, these methods will become irrelevant. Even 5 years back, the old tech report article showed that for an average user, they could handle a lot of writes.

https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experi...

ara24··on Renaming files with mv without typing the name two times
As has already been said, bash brace expansion is quite powerful. It has many usecases, such as,

  diff file{.original,}
  mkdir -p path/{a,b,c}/folder
  for i in image{001..060}; do echo $i; done
Parameter Expansion is also equally useful, like changing a few characters in long names,

  mv ${i}.png ${i/imaeg/image}.png
ara24··on DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use
I have been using duckduckgo on all browsers, including mobiles, for 2-3 years now. There are occasions when I don't get good results. But when I try the same query on G, the results are equally useless. So, I have since stopped using anything else.

Although, I should say, bing was equally good when I used it before duckduckgo, until they added that horrendous news feed in the bottom.

ara24··on Memcached 1.5.18 can now recover its cache between restarts
This is great! In my case, only reason for choosing Redis over Memcached was persisting to disk. With memcached being multi-threaded compared to Redis being single-threaded, I see a big win in simple use-cases for Memcached.
ara24··on Introduction to Computer Organization with X86-64 Assembly Language and Linux
I look forward to read this. Thanks for posting the link.

> "You might well ask why you should study assembly language, given that I think you should avoid writing in it. I believe very strongly that the best programmers have a good understanding of how computer hardware works. I think this principle holds in most fields: the best drivers understand how automobiles work; the best musicians understand how their instrument works; etc."

ara24··on Why I’m Using a Flip Phone
There are new feature phones available in the market, with the benefits of modern technology such as better display, keyboard, battery.. Its probably not advertised much, but it is still there, and very much available.
ara24··on Reserve the 418 status code
We can never fix the "Referer" header, and we have accepted it! So, why not accept 418 for what it is ? Let it at-least complete its 20th year.

HTTP/1.1 418 I'm a Teapot

ara24··on The world in which IPv6 was a good design
I think, he explains it early in the article,

"The problem with ethernet addresses is they're assigned sequentially at the factory, so they can't be hierarchical. That means the "bridging table" is not as nice as a modern IP routing table, which can talk about the route for a whole subnet at a time."

ara24··on The .feedback scam
Browsers should just s/.feedback/.com/, problem solved.
ara24··on The .feedback scam
Link is 404, include the period '.' when copy-pasting.
ara24··on An ex-cop's remorse

  > this was a case of mistaken identity. “I always
  > wondered—and it sounds weird—how did it feel to
  > these guys who arrest the wrong guy?” Forcelli
  > told me. “It feels terrible.”
Sad Story, free Garry.
ara24··on India's Misguided War on Cash
The article is far from ground reality. Comparing India to Nigeria, just for the topic of corruption, is nonsense.

The main problem with the current demonetization is cash availability. If the ATMs had worked and the cash was available in lower denominations, demonetization wouldn't be such a big issue.

ara24··on India raises withdrawal limit as rupee anger mounts
It was primarily intended to bring out undeclared income and wipe out counterfeit notes.

However, IMHO, undeclared income facilitates corruption.

ara24··on Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight
wow, birds can auto-pilot.

if two halves of the brain can work independently, wouldn't there be a sync problem! I wonder how the brain handles it.

ara24··on WoSign and StartCom: Mozilla’s proposed conclusion
Is there a governing body or regulatory authority which looks over the process followed by CAs ?

As a fan of firefox, I am happy that as a community, Mozilla has done the necessary ground work to reach this conclusion. However, as long as PKI remains a highly profitable business, more and more such events are going to happen.

I don't think all CAs should be trusted equally. Right now, AFAIK, my browsing experience is only as secure as the weakest CA. Hopefully, HPKP can put an end to this.

ara24··on While open source is free as in beer, it’s also free as in baby (2014)
may be, you are right, users are as good as their reinvestment, with regards to open source. However, reinvestment doesn't necessarily have to mean code, money, bug reports or something similar. It could be as simple as, spreading the word. I really appreciate those who share their experiences with a project. It helps make long term decisions easier.
ara24··on While open source is free as in beer, it’s also free as in baby (2014)
An open source project is as good as dead without users. Whether they are complaining or not, if someone gives you a piece of their valuable time, that should be appreciated.
ara24··on If your code accepts URIs as input, filter out “file://”
This is no different than failing to validate input parameters, and letting an attacker take a dump of your database. A service connecting to a remote location should have checked the URI scheme.
ara24··on Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
well written story.

with all the troubles, I wonder how the founder could just keep going. may be it is as the story says, "default human condition to not give up" but at what cost.

ara24··on Goldman Scraps On-Campus Interviews for Undergraduates
> Robo-Recruiting

In my opinion, unless the new hires are going to work with robots, this is not going to work as they expect. And, this seems more like a cost-cutting solution than becoming “school agnostic".

ara24··on What Happened to All 53 of Marissa Mayer's Yahoo Acquisitions
53 acquisitions in 4 years (13/year) seems like a lot. I wonder if they kept track.