atoponce

atoponce, 3 months ago to random

Just curious what the Fosstodon admins are doing to fight the current #spam wave. Getting a little tired reporting and blocking 10 accounts per day.

@kev @mike

Some ideas here:

https://mastodon.de/@ErikUden/111940301222380638

atoponce, 3 months ago to ChatGPT

Why large language models are not intelligent, exhibit #64338.

#ChatGPT

atoponce, 3 months ago to AeroPress

$10 for 200 unbleached #AeroPress #coffee papers? Hard pass.

I get that they're more environmentally friendly than bleached, but have you tried them? I need to really rinse them before use, or your coffee tastes real weird.

So, even though they require less processing by the manufacturer, it requires more water use for the consumer.

Further, again, even though they require less processing by the manufacturer, they cost more. Weird.

https://aeropress.com/products/aeropress-paper-micro-filters

atoponce, 4 months ago to coffee

Add #coffee stains to #LaTeX documents.

https://ctan.org/pkg/coffeestains?lang=en

Screenshot of the second page of a PDF with a coffee stain.
Screenshot of the third page of a PDF with two coffee drip stains.
Screenshot of the fourth page of a PDF with a coffee drip stain.

atoponce, 4 months ago to random

Cassette tapes had a "side A" and "side B". So it's only logical that their successor would be the "CD".

#dadjoke

atoponce, 4 months ago to random

A breakdown of generic password subreddits (ignoring software-specific subs, like r/1Password):

• r/password
• r/passwords
• r/Passwords_Are_Private
• r/Passkeys
• r/PasswordManager
• r/PasswordManagers
• r/passwordmanagerapps
• r/passwordvault

Le sigh.

atoponce, 4 months ago to javascript

For creative #JavaScript #DevOps out there:

What would you name a variable that holds 1 byte?

"byte" is a reserved word since ES3. Variables cannot start with a digit, so "8bits" isn't valid.

"data", "unit", or "num" could work, although less descriptive.

Capitalizing the first character as "Byte"? IMO, looks funny and might break convention.

A homonym? "bite".

For whatever reason, my brain is refusing to cooperate with me today.

#programming #lazyweb

atoponce, 4 months ago to random

I find that I'm replacing LED lightbulbs in my house at 3-4 times the rate of CFL bulbs.

Has anyone else noticed this? Driving me crazy.

atoponce, 4 months ago to random

Given Okta's recent troubles with keeping their network secure, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this blog post.

Still, a company that supposedly markets and sells security services, you would think they would have a better handle on something as rudimentary as password hashing.

TL;DR- Use SHA-2 or SHA-3 to hash passwords.

🤦🏻

https://auth0.com/blog/hashing-passwords-one-way-road-to-security/

atoponce, 4 months ago to random

While working on my paper (yes, I'm dragging my feet—I just hate editing), I stumbled on the Squares counter-based RNG.

This is a very fast non-cryptographic RNG, but it's extremely sensitive on the key (seed):

> "The key should be an irregular bit pattern with roughly half ones and half zeros."

If you're not careful, you wind up in very non-random territory. IMO, it's as bad as LFSR zero-land.

To be fair, his reference source code does provide key generator code.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.06278

atoponce, 4 months ago to random

TIL GNOME Web, formerly Epiphany Browser, ships WebkitGTK with JavaScriptCore. Yeah, it's not Safari, but it's "close enough".

atoponce, 4 months ago to random

Unpopular opinion:

Blogs that don't allow comments aren't blogs. They're newsletters.

atoponce, 4 months ago to chrome

Google admits Chrome Incognito mode tracks users — what you need to know

"For those that are fed up with #Chrome and are looking for a more privacy-focused alternative, you might want to consider #Brave or, if you have the technical know-how, #Tor."

Can confirm. Brave is significantly more privacy-focused than any of the other #Chromium alternatives.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/going-incognito-in-chrome-doesnt-mean-youre-not-being-tracked-now-confirmed-by-google

atoponce, 4 months ago to web

What does HTML stand for? Wrong answers only.

#web #programming #html

atoponce, 4 months ago to math

Stay in school kids.

#math

atoponce, 4 months ago to Utah

I've followed these spear campaigns against municipal broadband since 2005 when #UTOPIA started laying out their fiber to cities in #Utah.

Now that I work for one of the ISPs on the UTOPIA fiber network, I have an even closer view of what Big Telecom is doing to undermine communities rolling out their own public fiber infrastructure.

"Covert" and "sleazy" is only a fraction of the terms I would use.

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/18/telecom-monopolies-are-once-again-funding-covert-sleazy-local-attacks-on-community-broadband-networks/

atoponce, 4 months ago to random

When incrementing and decrementing a variable, you can do var++ and var-- in many languages.

Am I the only one that wants to skip "int var=3; var++" and instead just go straight to "3++", or "3--"?

Heh.

atoponce, 5 months ago to random

Tomato, tomato.
Potato, potato.
Sudo, sudo.

(You pronounced each of those differently, didn't you?)

atoponce, 5 months ago to random

What did Master Yoda say when he saw himself in 4K?

HDMI.

atoponce, 5 months ago to random

Debian developer discussion on the OpenPGP schism.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2023/12/msg00078.html

atoponce, 5 months ago to random

You've heard of Pop Tarts, but why aren't there any Mom Tarts?

Because of the pastryarchy.

atoponce, 5 months ago to macos

For those with an updated #macOS on modern hardware, I'm interested in the performance of /dev/urandom. If someone could do:

$ dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1M count=1000 of=/dev/null

and report back the performance, that would be awesome.

For example, on my ThinkPad t480s with Debian, I get the ~450 MBps:

$ dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1M count=1000 of=/dev/null
1000+0 records in
1000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes (1.0 GB, 1000 MiB) copied, 2.31313 s, 453 MB/s

Just curious.

atoponce, 5 months ago to random

Can I go to bed now?

atoponce, 5 months ago to random

no-dice: Generate random numbers with strictly a pencil and paper by drawing simple curves and counting the number of intersections in the curve.

Obviously, it's not secure, but it's a creative way to get a quick unbiased random number without too much trouble.

Of course you could manipulate it, so it requires you to be honest about not paying attention to your curve or intersections, and just drawing freely.

Just don't get too crowded or it can be difficult to count.

https://github.com/schollz/no-dice

atoponce, 5 months ago to linux

2024 is the year of the #Linux Desktop. Checkmate losers.

https://www.tomshardware.com/monitors/linux-is-the-only-os-to-support-diagonal-pc-monitor-mode-dev-champions-the-case-for-22-degree-rotation-computing