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dd9990

173 karma · joined February 12, 2015

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dd9990··on Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps
Appears to be fixed in Gnome under Arch for me. It picks Calculator as I use it more often.
dd9990··on Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps
Web Browser: Firefox (unmodified, no pre-installed Ubuntu extensions)

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Gnome Terminal or Tilix [0]

IDE: Gnome Builder

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: N/A

PDF Reader: Okular

Office Suite: LiberOffice Fresh (preferably via a snap to keep updated)

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: Gnome MPV with youtube-dl [1] or VLC

Music Player: VLC

Photo Viewer: Digikam

Screen recording: N/A

[0] https://github.com/gnunn1/tilix [1] https://github.com/gnome-mpv/gnome-mpv

dd9990··on How the Arab World Came Apart
>After WWII a considerable amount of support was put behind Israel (and rightly so).

I'm guessing those who lost their families and homes at gunpoint would disagree with that being "right". Each intervention creates more victims, it's just that some are more easily written out of history.

dd9990··on 23andMe Is Monetizing Your DNA the Way Facebook Monetizes 'Likes'
Anonymization of data is not a simple task. Even with the noblest of intentions things can go wrong. See the problems with the sharing of medical data in the UK and examples from the US [1].

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/09/your-secrets-live...

dd9990··on 23andMe Is Monetizing Your DNA the Way Facebook Monetizes 'Likes'
Even with the best of intentions things can go wrong and there are lots of unanswered questions in this emerging field. I'm sure the medical organizations involved are very aware of these problems, like protecting the privacy of those in the datasets. We've seen medical data de-anonymised in the past - it's not a trivial problem to solve. Likewise there are moral issues. What happens if you discover X% of people in the study have an extremely high risk of developing Parkinson's? Do you contact them? Do they have the right to know? Do you have the right to tell them? Would they even want to know? These are questions we're only starting to think about now.
dd9990··on New Hillary Clinton emails about Iraq released
Nothing surprising, although "rightdoing" sounds like it's straight out of 1984. Of course any administration is going to say all its actions are good. Things are bad, like spying on your citizens or negotiating away their rights, when other countries (who are not your allies and sharing data/trading with you) do it.
dd9990··on “I have a copy of a Terrorism Blacklist. Should it be shared?”
It's not accurate. See [1]. Some of the material is sourced from PR statements from foreign governments like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

It's ironic that an anti-terrorism list is been used by brutal, foreign regimes to co-op British banks and institutions into harassing people whose only "crime" has been becoming members of groups they don't like.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/28/finsbury-par...

dd9990··on The Brexit Possibility
> Those who would tear up the social contract ought well consider what wind they would sow.

Which is exactly why the Brexit happened.

dd9990··on The Brexit Possibility
>We will see the IRA resurge

I doubt it. They completely lack the community support they had in the past for any sustained anti-government action. Sinn Féin are only posturing on the border poll idea and they know they would lose by a wide margin anyway.

dd9990··on Announcing .NET Core 1.0
Yes. It's bad when Microsoft does it this way because it's opt-out. IntelliJ/Android Studio prompts you and asks you your preference first. I think Eclipse is opt-in but could be mistaken.
dd9990··on NSA Looking to Exploit Internet of Things, Including Biomedical Devices
Source? The Guardian reports:

"Coroner's investigators said the drugs likely did not contribute to the June crash, which they classified as an accident. "

"Hastings had been using the hallucinogenic DMT recently, though the drug was not detected in a blood test after the crash." [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/21/michael-hastin...

dd9990··on Credibility and trust: Microsoft blows it by forcing Windows 10 on users
Undocumented registry edits based on peoples guesses and other hacks from random blogs are not a solution.

Microsoft has used updates to change service and update names related to Telemetry already. Some of the "tips" in the comments are also wrong, like using the hosts file to block certain domains which Telemetry services don't respect.

Unless it's a documented method from Microsoft it doesn't count. Their stated aim is that all non-Enterprise customer will take part in "Basic" telemetry. Until they change that stance, random hacks from the blogosphere are at best unreliable and at worst dangerous and give a false sense of privacy and security.

dd9990··on Credibility and trust: Microsoft blows it by forcing Windows 10 on users
Only Entreprise customers can fully opt out of all data collection. [1] All other users can only disable a subset and their PCs will submit "Basic Telemetry" regardless of what they do. Microsoft has defended this:

" Windows 10 still phones home to Microsoft with telemetry data including an anonymous device ID, information about the type of device that's being used, and data from application crashes. That sort of data has been key to solving problems with the operating system and other applications, according to an explanation published Monday from Microsoft Corporate Vice President Terry Myerson."

[1] http://www.infoworld.com/article/2987175/microsoft-windows/m...

dd9990··on Mozilla and Palemoon – Mozilla losing their temper?
What I really mean is morally good. Call me naive but I think the majority of employees at Mozilla do want to make the world a better place. Mozilla doesn't sell your data or undermine your privacy unlike its main competitors. It doesn't want to lock you into their ecosystem and hold you or your data prisoner. They have a core mission to bring people access to the web and not have it controlled by a few select companies. I think they're fighting the good fight.

I disagree about power users to a small extent. Rust has to be one of the best things Mozilla has ever been involved in. Servo looks really promising. e10s has actually worked out and Web Extensions will finally make addons secure. It's not an easy path or transition. Constantly modernising such an old codebase is a huge challenge I don't envy. I think the criticism levelled at Mozilla is too harsh some times. They've taken risks and sometimes it doesn;t always work out, like FirefoxOS phones.

dd9990··on An unintended side effect of kosher law: better tasting food
Unfortunately some religious rules require inflicting extreme and unnecessary suffering on animals in the way they are killed. Interestingly some abattoirs have created loopholes to these religious laws (to comply with the food production laws, but maintain religious certification) by having the machines that stun and kill the animals in the normal humane way "blessed" and prayers said.
dd9990··on Mozilla and Palemoon – Mozilla losing their temper?
I'm not a Mozilla employee. It's sad to see one of the very few genuinely good companies get attacked by uniformed users looking for controversy to get worked up about. Creating an account to post this link here and the comments in the linked thread are perfect examples of that.

We don't know what Mozilla said, officially or unofficially. We don't know if it was a random employee or an official company statement. They also haven't been given a chance to defend themselves. Let's not assume the worst because it gives people something new to rage about on twitter.

dd9990··on Meter Feeder (YC W16) lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS
You collect a lot of data about people - their location (and therefore travel patterns), license plate etc. What's your privacy policy with regards to location data collected? Will you disclose if your database is requested by the authorities? How long is the data stored for? Will you be monetizing that data? Your FAQ doesn't address this.
dd9990··on GitKraken: git GUI Client for Windows Mac and Linux
Not strange at all. Getting to know a tool and building muscle memory is also an investment you don't want to waste.
dd9990··on A Modern App Developer and an Old-Timer System Developer Walk into a Bar
And likely C89... certainly not Go.
dd9990··on UCOP Ordered Spyware Installed on UC Data Networks
GPG and HTTPS are just band aids over a far more serious problem. They don't protect meta data. Knowing what sites you connect to and who you email and how often is more than enough to seriously undermine privacy and chill discourse. The real solution is a political one, not a technical one.
dd9990··on GoQt
I'm moving towards using Qt at work. My understanding is that nothing major changed with regards to licensing recently. Why do you think it is now more restrictive?
dd9990··on Ask HN: What are your predictions in technology for 2016?
3) Why Europe? The US and Australia have more powerful copyright and publishing lobbies and far worse laws as a result. Adblock Plus has already successfully defended itself from publishers in court in Germany.
dd9990··on To defend the free web, save Mozilla
I think you're misguided in defending Pocket by focusing an implementation details. You're ignoring that user data and freedom is also at the heart of the discussion. Mozilla put Pocket right in front of their users and actively encouraged them to use a US-based, proprietary service.

> The Pocket client code is free and open source

That's meaningless in the bigger picture. Defaults are powerful. Mozilla added a feature to Firefox (arguably bloat by making the UI more complex) which encouraged their users to give their data to a third party company, one not bound by Mozilla's goals of openness, transparency and freedom. The alternative was to wait and build a similar feature into Firefox Synx which offers true user freedom (self hosting) and really respects freedom (no data harvesting). See the discussion in the bugtracker. That's why users like me disagree with the Pocket decision. The client code is irrelevant.

dd9990··on The kernel of the argument over Linux’s vulnerabilities
"Versions of Linux have proved vulnerable to some of the most serious bugs in recent years, including Heartbleed and Shellshock. AshleyMadison.com, the site that facilitates extramarital affairs and suffered an embarrassing data breach in July, was reportedly running Linux on its servers, as do many companies."

This from a reporter who's "specializing in privacy, security and surveillance.". How sad.

dd9990··on Neovim public release 0.1.0
That changed recently to follow XDG specifications. Simuink locations should be changed accordingly. See https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Following-HEAD
dd9990··on Amazon’s $50 Fire tablet reviewed
Wrong tablet/forum link I think. See: http://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire (situation is not much better).
dd9990··on Tame() – bad kitty, no socket for you
It's a running joke. Included on some of their slides and webpages is the disclaimer: "This page scientifically designed to annoy web hipsters. Donate now to stop the Comic Sans and Blink Tags "
dd9990··on The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
Ireland. The main humanist group [1] is in Dublin but there's a few smaller groups popping up, for example in Cork [2]. It's mostly an excuse for a chat over pints, but there's also some campaigning, e.g. for a secular education system.

[1] http://www.humanism.ie [2] http://corkhumanists.weebly.com/

dd9990··on The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
>An initiation ceremony for secularism?

Nothing of the sort. It's a secular christening, .i.e. a party for friends and relatives after the baby is born. I think some European Humanist groups call them naming ceremonies but I haven't been to anything that formal.

dd9990··on The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
I'm the opposite - I miss the community and its events. There's a growing Humanist community where I live precisely for that reason. The vast majority of the population are Catholic so life revolves around Catholic rituals, whether we like it or not. It's great to have secular alternatives for marriages, funerals and baptisms.
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