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this_steve_j

332 karma · joined December 1, 2021

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this_steve_j··on MacBook Owners with Faulty Butterfly Keyboards Begin Receiving Payouts
I just got my $125 check. Sent a MacBook Pro in for two depot repairs. Was certainly not expecting that much!
this_steve_j··on When British Railways deliberately crashed a train
Who else saw the headline and thought about this Top Gear BBC episode with a PSA for level train crossings?

https://youtu.be/ue61c6MZNQw?si=OhYXjbW_9MaPHj5k

Clarkson: “…and they weren’t even wearing any high visibility safety clothing.”

this_steve_j··on Hydrothermal explosion at Yellowstone National Park
I recently discovered the channel “Radio chatter for sleep” which contains old space shuttle air to ground link recordings. Hope you find something that works. https://youtube.com/@radiochatterforsleep?si=JafAcX4-u4fRrmL...
this_steve_j··on Banks find AML "ineffective", propose access to social media
Indeed I’d be surprised something like this doesn’t already exist. This article almost reads like a press release for the product that has been developed. What it needs is an air of legitimacy, hence the appeal to a public-private partnership.
this_steve_j··on CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops
If and when there is a US Cyber Safety Review Board investigation of this incident, documents like that are going to be considered with great interest by the parties involved.

Often it is the engineers working for a heavily invested customer at the sharp end of the coal face who get a glimpse underneath the layers of BS and stare into the abyss.

This doesn’t look good, they say. It looks fine from up top! Keep shoveling! Comes the reply.

this_steve_j··on I created the largest curated directory of cybersecurity tools and resources
That was my impression too. Better to have 500 highly enriched items with facets or tags to aid exploration and discovery.

There are more than a few Commercial tools flagged as Free, unless it means “free tier available” and not FOSS.

A tool usually fits into more than one category, so a 1:1 mapping increases the probability of not finding those tools.

this_steve_j··on iTerm2 and AI Hype Overload
Brave’s crypto reward features might be a better analogy, but I like the comparison.

Fortunately I get paid to throw shade. Here is a free sample:

“Unsupervised use of LLMs can increase the risk of exposing sensitive information. Mitigation strategies and capabilities are not mature.

“Exploiting AI requires rapidly increasing the capital expenditures (input) per worker while the horizon for productivity gains (output) is uncharted and unknown.

this_steve_j··on Tesla FSD head to head against Mercedes Driver Assist on the same road [video]
Watching this video, I am impressed by how well FSD works! Watching FSD crash videos, though, I am reminded by the many spectacular failure modes of SAE Level <4 driving systems on public roads.

The NHTSA reported in April that most fatal FSD crashes involved no driver intervention, or driver intervention only in the last 1 second, and in all cases an attentive driver could have perceived and taken steps to lessen the severity of damage and injuries in the crash.

For anything less than SAE Level 4, the human MUST take over driving when requested. The question is, can we? Sign up for the beta test and find out, I guess!

Personally I would much prefer a new Mercedes E class wagon with Driver Assist (Distronic) to a Tesla with FSD.

this_steve_j··on Tesla FSD head to head against Mercedes Driver Assist on the same road [video]
Since Mercedes Drive Assist is SAE Level 2 and supported only on highways, the high number of interventions is a feature and not a bug.

The Mercedes driver seemed to be engaged and attentive, and therefore not likely to play a video game, watch a movie, and stop paying attention causing a crash.

It would be interesting to see Mercedes Drive Pilot (SAE Level 3) compared to Tesla FSD. That feature is not generally available in the US.

this_steve_j··on Cold brew coffee in 3 minutes using acoustic cavitation
Perhaps the Yama cold brew tower CDM25 is the device you saw. It is used at many fine establishments including my kitchen, and I also have the smaller CDM8. The numbers 8 and 25 correspond to the number of cups of diluted 1:1 cold brew that it produces in a single cycle (6-12 hours).

https://yama-glass.com/collections/cold-brew-towers

this_steve_j··on Minor injuries after plane deploys parachute and crash lands
As of 10 March 2024 there have been 128 saves with 263 survivors in aircraft equipped with the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS), mainly the SR22 aircraft. Details of each deployment are published at the link below.

https://www.cirruspilots.org/Safety/CAPS-Event-History

The CAPS ballistic parachute system was also certified for the Cirrus Vision Jet SF50 in 1998, and was pulled for the first time in 2022.

The SF50 crash-landed in an alligator infested Florida swamp/lake near Orlando that has popular airboat tours. Everyone survived.

https://www.flyingmag.com/cirrus-vision-jet-pilot-pulls-chut...

this_steve_j··on 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant
I think we can both agree that online behavior can be harmful even when it is legally protected, and that free speech is a topic about which some people are very passionate.
this_steve_j··on FDA says 561 deaths tied to recalled Philips sleep apnea machines
I like the 2” x 100’ 3M surgical tape although i don’t remember what exact variant. Medipore, micropore, maybe both.
this_steve_j··on 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant
Apparently there is plenty of room for debate on this subject, and Brandenburg v Ohio — involving a KKK leader whose conviction under a state law for making threatening and racist remarks was overturned by a divided court — is still being hashed out by constitutional experts to this day.

It doesn’t invalidate the central idea that free speech is different from inflammatory speech “condoning” violence (wink wink) when it is amplified by technology to have an asymmetrical effect on the target of that speech.

And in any case, we are discussing the use of telecommunications systems for harassment and not someone shouting in a park behind a police barricade. I don’t do either of these things, so I’m admittedly not well-informed about the constitutional and case law in the US that might apply.

If I were a C-level executive I would probably aspire to higher level of online citizenry and behavior, perhaps, than a KKK leader, and hire someone else to do the tweeting.

this_steve_j··on 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant
If his rapper persona had tweeted the lyrics to a diss track but clarified the theatrical kayfabe by breaking the fourth wall, that arguably could be less of a threat but still demonstrate questionable judgment, so I agree with you there.

But violent rhetoric certainly increases the likelihood that others will escalate violence against the target, and so the risk (threat) of death and harm very much does increase as seen in many unfortunate cases.

That is how asymmetric information warfare has a chilling effect on democracy and infringes others’ fundamental liberties (life, pursuit of happiness), and is different from “free speech”.

It doesn’t require sophisticated thinking to discern the difference, but X is where discourse goes to die.

this_steve_j··on FDA says 561 deaths tied to recalled Philips sleep apnea machines
Fair point, the apparent shift in their consumer electronics division (a decline in innovation) may be partially or entirely unrelated to the factors leading to this incident.

However the brand as a whole is not enjoying its day in the sun, and I hope more people do not get hurt or worse.

this_steve_j··on FDA says 561 deaths tied to recalled Philips sleep apnea machines
TechAltar on youtube posted a video last year about the decline of Philips. They apparently just excel at toothbrushes, smart bulbs, and shavers nowadays, and cash in on the name through licensing. [1] It is an unfortunate tragedy that so many people died because a corporation did the wrong things.

The US FDA has many flaws to be sure, and they are not known for making fast decisions. It sounds like more lives could have been saved.

A member of my family fortunately stopped using their device when it was recalled and has struggled to find a replacement.

[1] https://youtu.be/WE58YisgFeQ?si=3mWRxg-b9WOPFKQm

this_steve_j··on FDA says 561 deaths tied to recalled Philips sleep apnea machines
Fellow mouth taper here! It’s a must for shared hotel rooms. I have no idea about the safety or effectiveness for sleep apnea, but it significantly (N=1) improves others’ sleep.
this_steve_j··on Thanksgiving 2023 security incident
This is an excellent report, and congratulations are due to the security teams at CS for a quick detection, response and investigation.

It also highlights the need for a faster move in the entire industry away from long-lived service account credentials (access tokens) and toward federated workload identity systems like OpenId connect in the software supply chain.

These tokens too often provide elevated privileges in devops tools while bypassing MFA, and in many cases are rotated yearly. Github [1], Gitlab, and AZDO now support OIDC, so update your service connections now!

Note: I’m not familiar with this incident and don’t know whether that is precisely what happened here or if OIdC would have prevented the attack.

Devsecops and Zero Trust are often-abused buzzwords, but the principles are mature and can significantly reduce blast radius.

[1] https://docs.github.com/en/actions/deployment/security-harde...

this_steve_j··on The invention of a new pasta shape (2021)
This pasta is not for everyone. I liked the nerdy marketing and funky shape, and found it to compare favorably to other novelty pasta of which I am a fan. Slightly undercooked, it’s fun to pretend I’m eating a sea slug or some other exotic thing.

Just bought a box at Whole Foods for $5-6.

After Halloween also I buy the Cheetos brand mac and cheese in the shape of bones (for the pasta only) on clearance at Publix for $1/box. Haute cuisine? Nope!

this_steve_j··on TampaDevs – Tampa Bay's Developer Community
Publix technology is a regular employer of .NET and big data developers, and fairly recession-resistant and remote friendly. Verizon, Geico, Amazon have offices in central Florida. Lots of e-commerce and hospitality companies like Disney, Universal, Etc. Not Tampa per se, but within the Tampa-Orlando megalopolis. No state income taxes (or infrastructure) and the weather is favorable. There are a lot of law firms, and most big 5 tech, consulting, and cyber companies have offices in the area.
this_steve_j··on Microsoft actions following attack by nation state actor Midnight Blizzard
And all things considered, an AI security assistant like Copilot might be a good investment too, if they lack highly skilled front line security staff. Not to mention, AI generated automated playbooks in Sentinel to automatically apply Zero Trust principles!

I also wonder if they had upgraded all of their Subscriptions to Defender for Cloud CSPM Tier 2 in order to use the premium Cloud Security Attack Graph explorer, and then enabled Workload protections, this tragedy could have been averted.

It’s going to take an army of motivated sales engineers to protect against these new cybernetic attacks by augmented warfighters.

this_steve_j··on Missing windows discovered on U.S.-bound plane after departing London
Indeed, the AAIB report I had in mind is purely hypothetical.

There are other organizations better-positioned to publish a visually appealing, well-written preliminary report of a non-aircraft accident. But I like the AAIB style of having concise descriptions, clear illustrations, and succinct tabular data. I prefer it to the NTSB’s standard format, and do believe I will read some more of these.

this_steve_j··on Microsoft lays hands on login data: Beware of the new Outlook
Oh wow, it posts your cleartext email credentials to an API endpoint called “/ows/beta/ShadowService/getShadowToken”.

But it least it calls the password string a “Secret” in the JSON payload so you can REST assured knowing the Shadow Service agents will handle this data appropriately.

this_steve_j··on Missing windows discovered on U.S.-bound plane after departing London
I’d love to read an AAIB report for that accident! It sounds like there were some significant eye injuries.
this_steve_j··on Missing windows discovered on U.S.-bound plane after departing London
Even with the lights operating at half throttle, there is also a significant amount of energy in the non-visible spectrum from 6 of them focused on a small area for 5 hours. It’s amazing the acrylic windows didn’t melt, only the foam seal around them.
this_steve_j··on Missing windows discovered on U.S.-bound plane after departing London
The studio lamps were placed much closer to the aircraft windows than the minimum safe distance of 10m, and there were a lot of them.

According to the spec sheet for the Maxibrute 12 lamp head [1], it has 12 1000W PAR64 halogen lamps and the surface external can reach 400 C.

The data sheet for an Osram PAR64 1000W lamp [2] has the following safety advice:

“To prevent personal injury or damage to property, halogen lamps may only be operated in suitable luminaires designed with suitable mechanisms (cover panel etc.) to ensure that in the event of a lamp bursting no parts/shards can escape and that during operation no ultraviolet radiation can escape. Because of the heat produced only heat-resistant lamp connections (holders) may be used. Do not operate near people, or any materials that are flammable, sensitive to heat or affected by drying out.

[1] https://www.filmgear.net/image/catalog/Spec/01Maxibrute/info...

[2] https://www.osram.com/appsj/pdc/pdf.do?cid=GPS01_1044353&vid...

this_steve_j··on Dietary restriction of isoleucine increases healthspan and lifespan in mice
Leucine and Isoleucine are both branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) that are found in cheese, eggs, most meats, seeds, and nuts. These foods are common in the western adult human diet, and may be more prevalent in certain protein-rich diets.

The article takes a favorable view of low protein diets, and cites other studies supporting the general idea that metabolic and longevity improvements are correlated with protein restriction. This particular study’s experimental subjects are mice and not humans.

this_steve_j··on Microsoft is retiring Visual Studio for Mac in 2024
The gauntlet has been thrown! I respectfully decline the challenge, as I am no longer a gentleman of the ViewState society.
this_steve_j··on Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991) [video]
What a trip down memory lane (no pun intended)! Rest in peace, my WYSIWYG friend.

It was a rough ride bringing VB to the web. There was VB Active Server Pages, then VB.NET Webforms, which did not always produce the most performant or secure UI code. It was like an ornery bronco in the age of industry.

The concept of Viewstate was interesting and probably looked great in demo applications, but it was ultimately not the best way to avoid writing JavaScript. Sometimes it could be tamed, but for the sly cowboy, ruby on rails was the king of RAD.

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