macleod

@macleod@infosec.exchange

Roboticist ∧ Technician

DNX Industries CEO, an industrial robotics and security laboratory — dnxi.org.

I tend to break things, 𝘶𝘴𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 for the greater good.

Note: I am stepping away from social media effective 01/01/2024. If you need to contact me, reach out on my website. Thanks.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

jerry, to random

So, do we still love Firefox because it’s not chrome or do we hate it because Mozilla is now in the AI business?

macleod,

@jerry "hate the board, love the software"?

macleod, to mastodon

One (minified) line of CSS makes Mastodon much more normalized usable on the default skin.

.columns-area__panels {<br></br>    flex-direction: row-reverse;<br></br>}<br></br>

[ # ] ::

macleod, to Hydrogen

Writing it here for posterity: Hydrogen will be the most common, powerful, universal portable battery systems used in vehicles (all), robotics, warehouses, and industry at-large within the next century (sooner for wide-scale adoption).

Unless something similar, more powerful, and safer comes along, that is what our portable electrical needs will be focused on.

For wider scale "grid" electricity, it will be modular nuclear (fission, fusion) reactors.

[ # ] ::

BleepingComputer, to random

Meta has announced that the immediate availability of end-to-end encryption for all chats and calls made through the Messenger app, as well as the Facebook social media platform.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/meta-rolls-out-default-end-to-end-encryption-on-messenger-facebook/

macleod,

@BleepingComputer definitely a false sense of security.

macleod, to random

I think the movement needs a resurgence. Largest collective protest in history, and they've made sure that we just... forget and never talk about it again.

macleod, to random

I know no one wants to hear it, on mastodon of all things, but the ActivityPub spec is horrible. It's a bad protocol.

verge, to random
@verge@mastodon.social avatar

UK watchdog slams the brakes on Adobe’s $20 billion bid for Figma https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/28/23979260/adobe-figma-bid-uk-watchdog-cma-provisional-findings-merger?utm_content=buffer28fc5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bufferapp.com&utm_campaign=buffer

macleod,

@verge Good.

macleod, to LGBTQ

Thailand's Cabinet approves a marriage equality bill to grant same-sex couples equal rights

[ # ] ::

https://apnews.com/article/thailand-samesex-marriage-lgbtq-f14aa589cb91ce5f8d973f570ebbb065

macleod, to StarTrek

Starfleets operating system is likely a descendent of modern Linux, with LCARS obviously standing for Linux Computing Architecture and Redux Singularity.

[ # ] ::

djlink, (edited ) to random
@djlink@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Came across OneDev, an open-source self-hosted Git server, with a Kanban interface for project managing and CI/CD integration. Might be of use for some of you.
https://github.com/theonedev/onedev

macleod,

@djlink Wish there was a managed instance, like GitLab, this is what GL could have been if they just focused on two or three major features.

foone, to random
@foone@digipres.club avatar

so I've got a program that needs to monitor a serial port, which is having logs splurted at it.
I want to take that real-time output and save it in a format that gives me an idea of when each line came in, like turn:

"Turned on Motor #3"
into
"[2023-11-08 08:44:51] Turned on Motor #3"

This shouldn't be too hard to do with a script, but it also seems like the kind of thing that's probably been done already. Anybody know of a library/program to do this?

macleod,

@foone You would think so, but for the most part not really, especially as every motor driver tends to have different ways of relaying information, often with a time latency of varying degrees.

Most serial monitor software will output time received, but writing a script to monitor and grab that data and output the received time is pretty easy.

BleepingComputer, to random

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning that ransomware threat actors are targeting casino servers and use legitimate system management tools to increase their permissions on the network.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fbi-ransomware-gangs-hack-casinos-via-3rd-party-gaming-vendors/

macleod,

@BleepingComputer You would think this would be the first thing they would target en masse.

macleod, to random

Idea: A societal health metric based on the observed distributed appreciation and popularity placed on individual musical performers.

My theory is that society is less healthy when vocalists are considered more important than the instrumentalists in a musical group. There is a perfect distribution to be found here.

Solution: Teach the people how important shredding and wailing on a guitar in a solo is, and that drum solos are some of the greatest things you can do in a musical career. That goes the same for any kind of brass or wind instruments as well. We as a society desperately need solos again.

macleod,

Bring back saxophone solos, or give me death.

macleod, to Canada

Canadian government backs 2024 space accelerator in Southern California

Canadian space entrepreneurs seeking to raise $500,000 to $20 million are invited to join the 2024 SoCal-Canadian Space Accelerator.

It is open to Canadian space startups interested in “Earth observation, emissions monitoring, low-earth orbit, small satellites, flight-path optimization, artificial intelligence, deep space, space manufacturing, space mining, astronaut health”.

Applications are due November 22nd, 2023.

https://spacenews.com/canadian-government-backs-2024-space-accelerator-in-southern-california/

[ # ] ::

macleod, (edited )

@technoshaman001 I'm an acid socialist, so I absolutely 100% agree with you on more funding for focused programs, but startups do a lot of great research and development and is usually the only way to move forward on strange and forward thinking ideas.

Funding startups (especially manufacturing and research and development startups) is apropos to funding research and development academic groups. Startups help bridge that divide between the gated community of the academic world, the self-taught engineers, the dreamers, the real world hard-line engineers, and the every(hu)man. I'm all for the end of capitalism, but we live in a capitalistic world, and the more startups we have, the less monopolies we have, and overall this leads to more decentralization and lessens the gate-keeping of knowledge and industry that we have today.

Startups are a lifeline to the long tail creation of research and development institutions in a post-capitalistic world from within a late-stage capitalist society.

macleod, (edited ) to ai

I think my biggest (technical, long term) issues with current generation AI, primarily through LLMs, is that:

  1. You cannot readily replicate responses, which is the entire point of the scientific process. To ensure correct results for discovery and use is the ability to easily replicate results.
  2. They are primarily cloud based, which means you will not be able to stand them up for testing in 1-5 years and replicate any sort of results or research papers that may be discovered now. Technical, direct, or anything else.
  3. They are primarily cloud based, which means any thing you throw at them, will not be able to be tuned with similar characteristics without massive manual testing as they are internally changed all the time.
  4. They are primarily cloud based, which means you cannot have any ownership or security in the knowledge, that they are safely utilizing your data.
  5. They are primarily cloud based, which means they can price you out of their system at any time.
  6. They are primarily cloud based, which means that they will price you out of their system at any time.
  7. They are primarily cloud based, which means they will break your/their API, and there will be no recompense or ability to change providers.
  8. They are all primarily a private company, and if you build on their platform, then you have no platform of your own. Your business, is dependent on, and is their business.
  9. You own nothing. They own all of it. No matter the legal contract you have with them will protect you from that.
  10. They are primarily cloud based, they are primarily private businesses, and they are anti-scientific development as they are black boxes of inputs, controls, and outputs.

Anything you develop on them now, will not work the same, if at all, in the future. You will have virtually, tangentially, literally, no legacy or agency.

[ # ] ::

macleod,

@dean @rysiek For now... they'll bring it back with a new coat of paint and a new name within the next year.

macleod,

@4censord @dean @rysiek I can see where they could integrate and feature creep to what they really likely want, but in terms of webviews this would likely be beneficial for security.

North, to random
@North@chaos.social avatar

I just found these screenshots of a project that I started in 2017 and abandoned after deciding that creating "social-meta-media" was actually going to make things worse and not better. There may be interesting ideas in here still, but I'm glad I'm not living in the universe where I'm porting "grokk" from Twitter to Fedi right now.

The idea was to create a website that acts as a persistent context layer for micro-blogging with an associated browser plugin to add mouseover context in-timeline.

A mockup of a page called "Positions" with "Nick's Position on Breakfast Cereal" as the header. Underneath is a quote describing the position and then associated keywords and a timeline of edits to the position.
A mockup of a page that says "grokk this tweet" with an example tweet marked-up with context
A mockup of a website called "grokk" with my old avi and handle from Twitter. Underneath are two categories of tags labeled "Positions" and "Jargon" with various tags underneath

macleod,

@North It's a great idea, but man would that be horrific to moderate and run on a daily basis.

macleod, to longboarding

Skateboard exhibition displays their elevated style

The first skateboards were cannibalized from scooters and surfboards. Now, their elevated style is on display in a Design Museum exhibition in London.

[ gifted link ] :: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/fashion/skateboards-design-museum-london.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7Ew.E8IE.xpEeKoLkar3Q&smid=url-share

[ # ] ::

a skateboard form, pre-assembly, without paint or cosmetics stands vertically against a shelf in the middle of a disorganized, obviously worked in, personal workshop

macleod, to space

Home Launch System (HLS)

[ # ] :: #

TonyStark, to random
@TonyStark@progressivecafe.social avatar

Hydrogen is a clean-burning fuel, and when combined with oxygen in a fuel cell — like a battery — it produces heat and electricity with water vapor as its only byproduct.

This investment is a big deal.

Biden-Harris Administration Announces $7 Billion For America’s First Clean Hydrogen Hubs, Driving Clean Manufacturing and Delivering New Economic Opportunities Nationwide | Department of Energy-
https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-announces-7-billion-americas-first-clean-hydrogen-hubs-driving

macleod,

@TonyStark Doesn't match anywhere near the Hydrogen funding is putting into it, but we all benefit from these investments across the board. Hydrogen is by far the way to go.

Daojoan, to random
@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

I shitcanned my Twitter 2 weeks ago.

Left behind 30,000 followers.

Only have 1000 here.

But I still get more traffic to my writing...

Which should tell you something about Birdchan.

Anyway, repost to support an indie transgender tech writer and journalist! ✍️🍕🏳️‍⚧️

macleod,

@Daojoan Happy to see you here! It's been several years since we last spoke and worked together! Hope you've been well.

macleod, to haskell

Various thoughts on too many programming languages, for no discernible reason.

I have been interested in Go since it's very initial release, but their dependence on Google is uncharming to say the least. I still haven't made up my mind on its GC, but its definitely better than most.

I used to do some ML work in .NET and if it wasn't dependent on Microsoft it would be a heavy contender for a great language, but it has far too many Microsoft-isms to ever really go much farther.

Rust is great, I enjoy beating my head against a brick wall battling with the compiler, and their safety is great, but overly complicated and feature-creep is a real problem on that entire project. I do a lot of work these days in Rust, for better (mostly) or worse (mostly-ish).

C is my bread-and-butter, as is Javascript for quick prototyping.

Elixir is great, but Erlang is unwieldy, the community is growing, but not fast enough - and I just can't get my mind to enjoy the syntax no matter how nice it is.

D is a lot of fun, but their GC can be slow at times, and the community is very small and packages are often broken and unmaintained.

Python was my first true love, but I really can't stand the whitespace, again love the language, hate the syntax.

Zig is fun, but just that. Fast, nimble, but early days, a bit confusing, could replace my insistence on C for core projects, but again, early days. I love to use them as a compiler for C, much faster than the defaults on any of the others.

Odin is one I love to keep an eye on, I wish I could get behind using it for more things. When I first took notice ~4 years ago the documentation was a bit scattered, but it looks much better now. The developer behind it is incredibly cool, could be seen as the next Dennis Ritchie imo. Runes are dope. The syntax is by far my favourite.

Julia, I love Julia, but performance last I tested was a bit of a miss, and by miss, it required a decent chunk of compute for basics, but when you gave it the system to throttle, it would be insanely productive to write in. Javascript is something that I prototype even syscalls in, but Julia is just the same but much better and more productive (and less strange) in many regards. I am really hoping this takes over in the ML/Data world and just eats Python alive. I've heard there has been major work in the perf department, but I haven't had reason to try it out lately.

Ada, memory safety before Rust! Great language, especially for critical applications, decades of baggage (or wisdom), slow moving language, insanely stable, compilers are all mostly proprietary, job market is small, but well paid, great for robotics, defense, and space industry types, but the syntax is... rough. Someone should make a meta-language on top of Ada like Zig/Nim/Odin do for C, or Elixir does for Erlang.

The others: Carbon, haven't tried; Nim, prefer when they were "Nimrod" (cue Green Day), decent but not my style; Crystal, seems cool, but not for me; Scala, great FP language, but JVM; Haskell, I'm not a mathematician, but my mathematician friends love it. I see why, but not my thing as much as I love functional languages. I'll try it again, eventually. I did not learn Haskell a great good.

I tend to jump from language to language, trying everything out, it's fun and a total timesuck.

[ # ] :: #haskell #c #d #elixir #julia #nim #odin #odinlang #programming #code #rust #ada #dotnet #zig #python #txt

macleod,

@marcuse1w Not sure why I didn't see this!

Since writing this I've started looking more into Lisp, and I am starting to understand why everyone things its "gods chosen language". it's great, and you can turn/embed any language into a lisp. That's cool.

I like both Ada and C, but I work in the robotics industry, so we have to constantly switch between the two for anything hardware based. They both have their benefits, C is my preferred because of how simple (it can be, if you try...), but Ada (Primarily SPARK is what I've done work in) is great, but dated in many regards. I don't know if I've ever looked into Austral, but I'll take a look!

Haskell, tried it many times, never a good time. Ocaml isn't bad, but again, not my thing or style but definitely something I inherently understand more.

Scala, JVM, my sworn enemy. Never again. They can't get me suckered into reading Java docs again.

Elixir, great language, but I am going to agree with you - I am starting to prefer working with Erlang directly, but its early days on that. I've started looking into @lfe which looks incredible.

Nim, I dislike whitespace reqs in languages, I tend to value customization of my styles to make it all make sense to me, so Nim is too controlling for me in that regard. I read code a lot more than write it.

No real opinion on C2-3, love D, V looks interesting but not sure yet, Jai - if it ever comes out, haven't heard of Scopes, and I already mentioned Carbon.

If someone could find a way to package Rusts memory management in a tenable way to be cross-language, we would have a massive explosion of greatness. I know it's possible, but nearly impossible without some wicked genius' at the helm.

[ # ] :: #C

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