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spiraldancing

89 karma · joined June 26, 2015

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spiraldancing··on Open Letter: Feneas in the Future
The title doesn't make it clear. It's a fund-raiser; they need money.

Promising-sounding non-profit dedicated to advancing FOSS-based Federated Networks (Matrix, Pleroma, Mastodon, Diaspora, etc). They provide several free federated servers/services.

They're also looking for membership, costs €1/month and gets some extra perks. I'm joining.

spiraldancing··on Pop_OS 19.10
I've been using Mint and Ubuntu for the past 5 years. Installed Pop on a spare laptop 18 months ago, to experiment with.

Switched to Pop as my primary OS 3 months ago.

There isn't much that's radically different ... it's just better, cleaner, more polished, smooth.

spiraldancing··on Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
>GMail doesn't actually filter spam. It just hides it

This is not accurate. There is a long on-going issue with GMail (and others) wholesale blocking delivery of email from domains/IPs/providers it deems to be spam or otherwise inappropriate. GMail users get no indication/notification, and generally have no idea that email sent to them was simply not delivered.

spiraldancing··on Show HN: A New Tool to Understand and Visualize the News
Nice idea, I signed up.

Curious to see how you handle weighting/filtering of the sources, the whole "fake news" issue.

Not your primary concern, I'm sure, but I don't (normally) use Google, nor allow Google-tools into my browser. I am a small-but-vocal minority. There are good alternatives to Google's recaptcha, Google-docs registration, etc. Just sayin'.

spiraldancing··on Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier
Actually sounds very similar to how the rocket equation works, too.
spiraldancing··on Attempts to Censor AntiPolygraph.org
And yet we appear to be debating.
spiraldancing··on Attempts to Censor AntiPolygraph.org
Lie detectors are a measure of heart rate, respiration, and galvanic skin response (roughly == how much you sweat).

What relationship—if any—those have to the truthfulness of a person at any given moment, remains debatable at best.

spiraldancing··on Jami – FOSS, Distributed Instant Messenger
Here's a first-hand review. I posted this as a reply a minute ago, then decided to make it a primary comment.

Wire has been my go-to communications app for 2-3 years now. Running it on a Google-free phone, it has gradually become more buggy, and less reliable over time, and sadly, still the best secure/encrypted app I could find.

Testing Jami. I tried Ring 8-10 months ago. Text worked, audio/video did not.

In the past few days, trying Jami, audio-only works very well - clear, crisp, no lag - much better than Wire. Video was a bit buggy, but still decent.

Connectivity was an issue, calls froze, or got cut off a couple times. Tentatively, it looked like switching from a local WiFi to phone ISP was at least part of the problem.

Also, using the same account across multiple devices is a bit buggy. Contacts established on one device are not available on the other.

All things considered, the basic quality of the connection is very good, better than Wire, maybe better than Skype. Reliability of the connection, and the various 2ndary features that people take for granted, still need work.

spiraldancing··on There Are Whales Alive Today Who Were Born Before Moby Dick Was Written (2013)
You can add sturgeon (source of caviar, among other things) to that list. Living fossils, been around 130+M years. Lake Sturgeon[1] reach sexual maturity at ~25 yrs, only reproduce once every 4-6 yrs, and can live 150+ yrs.

They're also a popular game fish, and traditional spearfishing target of Native Americans.

[1] https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/fishing/sturgeon/lakeSturgeonLifeCy...

spiraldancing··on Pushing the Limits of IPFS and OrbitDB
Works for me now, too. Temporary hiccup, apparently.
spiraldancing··on Pushing the Limits of IPFS and OrbitDB
Original site is inaccessible for me ... is this a temporary issue?
spiraldancing··on A Year Using Matrix and Riot
Tangential shout out for a nice FOSS alternative to Patreon ... Liberapay.

Matrix has an account with them, you can support them there, and 100% of your money goes to Matrix.

https://liberapay.com/matrixdotorg

spiraldancing··on Devuan “ASCII” 2.0 Release Candidate is now available
widespread use != massive popularity

Ask your average Windows user.

spiraldancing··on Show HN: Travel spontaneously on a budget
My dos centavos ... Running NoScript, giving full js permission to the primary domain and all (apparently) relevant 2ndary domains, home page still doesn't resolve.

If you need google, facebook and pinterest just to display a landing page, I'm never gonna use your site.

spiraldancing··on IRS reminds taxpayers to report virtual currency transactions
So, reading through this discussion, I'm seeing a lot of "IRS tax law is confusing, complicated, and even contradictory on cryptocurrencies", and a lot of other people saying, in effect "well tough, it's the law, deal with it".

What I'm getting out of it all is, people who did not make money on cryptocurrencies this past year are getting some satisfaction from the difficulties of those that did.

spiraldancing··on Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
Well, apparently not impossible, if one denies hard enough.
spiraldancing··on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
Musk has actually said that he expects BFR to be cheaper to fly than their original Falcon 1 ... meaning prices in the $5-10M range, as opposed to $60+M for F9.
spiraldancing··on Forget $9,000… Bitcoin falls below $7,000
So, the latest drop seems to be triggered by credit card companies blocking purchase of cryptocoins "'cuz volatile".

Am I missing something? Since when do CC companies get to decide where you use your card? I thought it worked the other way around — businesses decide whether or not they accept CCs.

Are there other examples of CC companies blocking (legal) purchases made by people with good credit history?

spiraldancing··on Firefox 59 to strip path information from referrer values for 3rd parties
In the US, at least, the underwear drawer is a popular place to hide other things ... eg, your illegal drug stash, or the engagement ring you bought, etc. I think there's also subtextual implications of nosing about in your sex life.
spiraldancing··on How to Fix Facebook Before It Fixes Us
Just curious ... show of hands, how many people here have never been on Facebook?
spiraldancing··on Building a Home Aquaponics System: The Basics
I ran a small home/experimental aquaponics system for over a year, fed the fish, primarily, free worms out of my vermicomposters.
spiraldancing··on We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom
That just means SpaceX will become one more giant ISP that is not required to support NN in the US. I love SpaceX, and I'm optimistic that they will be a much better provider than, eg, Comcast (low bar, I realize) ... but they are not the solution to the FCC/NN debacle.
spiraldancing··on Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system
Thanks. I know about that. They used to sell Librems that had Qubes pre-installed, and they were on-track to get Librems to be the first officially certified hardware for Qubes. Then they canceled the whole thing, and now, as some kind of consolation/compromise, they offer Qubes-on-a-stick purchase option.
spiraldancing··on Ask HN: How can we stop the plan to end net neutrality?
Not (exactly) true. There are many good ideas being floated that would allow the ruling to stand, while eliminating the negative consequences. Eghttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Equality_Act_of_2017
spiraldancing··on Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system
Whatever happened to the Qubes-Purism marriage? They were on track to start Qubes-certifying Librems, and selling Librems with Qubes pre-installed ... then they cancelled the plans, and I never heard why?
spiraldancing··on FBI director: Unbreakable encryption is a “huge, huge problem”
Devil's Advocate — in the entire history of US law, if police can convince a judge that they have a good enough reason, judge can give the cops permission to break into your house, your bedroom, your diary, your safety deposit box, the safe you buried in your shed ... a judge always had the choice to decide whether or not cops get to invade your privacy.

For the first time, ever, strong encryption changes that paradigm. Personally, I'm still in favor of it, but it really is a very fundamental game-changer.

spiraldancing··on Imzy is shutting down
Ditto
spiraldancing··on Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas (2012)
2% is exponential growth; 1% is still exponential growth. Decrease from 2% to 1% is a decrease in the rate of growth, which still remains exponential.
spiraldancing··on Ask HN: Would you be interested in a “cyberpunk” inspired news site?
All things that I love. I'd read that.
spiraldancing··on I’m a woman in tech, and this is what I want in a company
So, she wants to be at a company that makes her feel welcome, supports her, helps her grow her skills. Why is any of that arrogant, selfish, dysfunctional or unrealistic?

For years now, I've been reading about how people in IT are expecting more than just a salary out of the companies they choose to work for ... why is it arrogant when a woman does it?

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