I NEVER use Windows anymore, and I rarely use Macs -- except to do my taxes every year. There are the free web versions -- but I'm never gonna trust those;)
Supposedly, they only sell "anonymized" data. But there's fast growing shadow industry of data "de-anonymizers".
Tax data is easily one of the most valuable data sets out there.
Ever wonder why there's an explosion of "free online tax" services ? Must be data harvesting. . .
I'm politically active, so I always TRY to do my taxes in "tin-foil hat mode". It's getting to be more and more insanely difficult.
I get the TurboTax disk, put it on a clean VM or hard drive, run the updates, and do all of the rest offline. At the end, I create a PDF, put that on a USB stick -- then print and mail.
TurboTax continuous bugs you, trying to get you to connect to the internet. Two years ago, TurboTax would not let a Mac "print to PDF" without connecting to to internet. (for PDF drivers ?) That set off a bunch of alarms in the forums !
This year, on an old Windows laptop, I'm doing my taxes and -- I swear -- something keeps enabling WiFi that I deliberately left turned off !
I love software testing, but I quit and moved on cause the field just doesn't get the respect/resources is needs. Developers and managers are always trying to "reign in" the testing staff and make them stick to a stupid script -- written by the same developers that made the mistakes in the first place.
My most important bug discoveries were almost always the result of informal testing, or thinking about the test script and "trying something" that wasn't on the script. Overnight "random monkey testing" with the automated test harness was very effective at finding real world problems -- but invariably got a rebuke from some manager, "Why were you doing that?"
This sounds a lot like that, but with the added bureaucracy of Aerospace+gov't. The development process then adapts to minimize bureaucracy, instead of maximizing safety.
So as I see it, one of two things happened:
1. There was a test engineer somewhere who thought about these failure modes before the first crash. He was ignored and didn't have the power to escalate the issue.
2. The tests were stupid and were run by stupid people.
There were enough red flags -- I think it was #1.
Test Engineers -- throw off your chains ! The safety of the world depends on you.
AOC impresses me more and more every day. She has clearly done her homework and understands Socialist theory (as taught by the DSA). Not only that -- she sticks to those principles and does not adapt to the popular wind direction of the day. I have less confidence in the DSA and the Democrats, but so far, AOC is solid!
Now let the trolls pile on -- it does not change the fact that Capitalism is failing (and threatening to take the world with it).
I can't believe this BS. Who are these people who think they can preach to China ? Are they from a country with a huge percentage of its population in jail ?
China has had a civilization for >6000 years. They generally DON'T start wars try to tell the rest of the world how to live.
They are incredibly smart and industrious. The have universal health care, guaranteed employment, and very low crime rate
Sure they have problems, but they have shown time and time again that they can solve big problems. Most all of us could learn a lot from the Chinese, if we would just get to know them.
My wife and I have been depending on Obamacare subsidies for our healthcare while she takes care of her elderly parents and I take care of mine.
First of all, the new administration demanded a lot of extra paperwork this year to prove that our part-time jobs did not offer healthcare.
Now, after a lot of hassle, we've uploaded our documents -- but now -- there are no federal workers around to approve them and turn the subsides on. Because of our age, we're now paying ~$2000/mo for heathcare. We are lucky -- we have savings to cover it and get it back with next year's tax refund.
But, for the folks the subsidy was intended for -- poor low-income workers -- they will be losing their insurance.
Yup, same stupid argument was made to promote the Pono Music Player, which is now discontinued. https://www.ponomusic.com/
They, had their own music store, with everything remastered in digital "high resolution".
Thing is, they didn't address the LOUDNESS issue at all. Everything is still squeezed to the top of the dynamic range. Good for most pop music (?), bad for most everything else,
Python programs that I wrote 15 years ago are still running in production.
The "Java rewrite" that my manager wanted to do never got done. In fact, a lot of the production Java code that existed back then couldn't be maintained and got reimplemented in Python.
Since the new servers are ~20 times faster, speed never really mattered anyway.
Python is full of "free" optimizations that most newbys are not even aware of.
When you learn to do things that "Pythonic" way, it really does put the clunky Java hack-jobs to shame.
I bought an iPhone on the first day in '07, cause it was obviously a great thing.
In about 2012, I switched to Android, mostly cause I run linux everywhere else and like it. I thought I'd have more privacy, then slowly realized how stupid that was. Looked into Cyanogenmod and LineageOS over and over, but ran out of time to ever actually do it.
Finally gave up, bit down, and went back to iPhone (it was a hand-me-down 6S) I really liked Android. Still lots that can't do on the iPhone.
I really wish there was a better choice, but for now, I'm depending on Apple to keep the worst data harvesters at bay.
With Google, you don't get that option, got burned too many times.
I'm a suburbanite and I've been driving a hybrid Camry since 2007 and I like it. But I don't think that insulting these truck owners (or vice versa) is going to help anybody.
I think that electric vehicles pose a very real threat to the jobs and the future of many rural Americans, who feel that their work depends on trucks, cars, vehicle repair, oil, oil equipment, coal, scrap yards, etc, etc.
That is especially the case today, when Tesla has been publicizing the success of their SELF-DRIVING electric SEMI-trucks. Tesla says that in a convoy, they are more energy efficient than trains. They even have a standing order for HUNDREDS of these new trucks from Walmart, rural America's love/hate store/employer.
For years, the only way that a rural American could escape and see the world was to either drive a truck or work on the railroad. Its a fundamental part of American culture, and it doesn't escape these people that Tesla's development poses a tangible threat to that way of life.
There are political and economic solutions that could provide jobs AND save the environment, but its not going to happen by spewing all this filth.
Assange is an Australian citizen and he personifies the intersection of Human Rights and the "Digital Agenda".
Now that Sweden has dropped its case, he should be free -- except that the British government now insists on prosecuting him for bail violations (and then extradite him to Trumpistan).
It would be simple under existing treaties for the Australian government to step in and BRING HIM HOME to face a relatively fair trial for whatever he is alleged to have done.
Yes, of course, why do so many "nerds" here not get it ? One of Snowden's most important revelations is that the NSA has an excellent "map" of virtually every device that connects to the internet. How could they do that if they could not get the tables from all of these routers ?
It is really sad to see your parents slowly turn into vegetables -- and the doctors try to tell you there is nothing your can do, or they give expensive pills that are barely better than placebo. BS !
Nootropics might be the new cool thing with programmers, but they are MUCH better at bringing declining minds back to normal than they are at turning average people into geniuses.
The problem is -- in the US -- doctors are NOT ALLOWED to talk about anything that isn't FDA approved (just ask your doctor).
I've been giving my 80 and 90 year old parents (and now in-laws) a stack of phenylpiracetam, Alpha-GPC, DHA fish oil, etc for over a year now.
The results are quite amazing to everyone who knows them.
Now, I have started to test age-reversal supplements. I always guinea-pig myself first -- mostly to learn what to expect. It is good that my genetics are close, because there are genetic factors. It is also good that I know my parents -- they trust me and I know when to take their complaints seriously.
I liked apple routers, because they were reliable, simple enough for non-techies, they got regular security updates, and they were based on BSD.
But, routers are super political. Control of routers is control of the internet. The hacking of routers is central to the operation of every national spy agency. Snowden revealed the NSA's detailed "map" of the internet, which showed that they had tables from just about every router out there. Every router seems to have some exploit and open-source projects are always being disrupted (by "agent-provocateurs" ?).
Apple has been dealing with a lot of political pressure to cooperate with the spooks on iPhone encryption. They were undoubtably getting to same pressure RE their routers. They probably decided that the business wasn't worth the risk to their reputation.
Too bad;)
I hope they give us some way to upgrade to an open source BSD router in the future.
Italians are always complaining about how Americans over-cook pasta -- and they are right !
As a child in the US, the only complaint my family ever made about pasta was "Its not cooked enough". Now my parents both have type2 diabetes and I am educating them about pasta and the glycemic index.
Al-Dente pasta digests more slowly, enters the bloodsteam more slowly, and has a lower glycemic index.
Soft pasta has a terrible glycemic index, too many carbs enter the blood faster than your body can use them, so your body converts them to fat.
Actually, it is a bit more complicated, but that is basically correct.
I'm no expert, but I've seen a lot of news about self-driving cars over the last ten years or so. At first it was DARPA, then Google, and they seemed to be testing for years . . .
Then Tesla, and now Uber ? I guess Uber suddenly realized that self-driving cars might be a threat to their business in the long term. So they are notoriously getting caught with stolen code and poaching engineers. Seems like they are playing catch-up. That usually means skipping testing.
Maybe the states should require that self-driving equipment and algorithms get a serious "drivers test" ? Even a semi-automated software test suite and an independent engineering review might be good enough.
Eventually, we WILL need this. The technology is now easy enough for teenagers to start doing it on their own cars at home. I don't want MY life to depend on THEIR coding skills.
Apple never used to force obsolescence. They do now, and it's constantly pissing me off. But it also gives me good incentive to switch things to linux and other open alternatives.
In fact, it claims: "Apple TV 1 works extremely well with Kodi compared to other generation Apple TV because of the High storage capacity of Apple TV 1."
Unfortunately, the upgrade is rather complex -- you need to install the Apple Xcode behemoth;-(
Home and small business routers today are such a joke, security-wise. Most of them never get updates and are thus -- easily hackable. The ones that do get updates (Apple) are still a joke security-wise.
Open source could solve that, and WRT makes a good start, except that it seems to be bogged down by politics (sabotage ?).
Security configuration on WRT is still a confusing nightmare. port-knocking, DNS block-lists, IP address blacklists / whitelists should all be normal/easy/semi-standard and they are not.
Suspect IP addresses should trigger alerts so that they can be blacklisted or whitelisted (with optimal expiration dates).
Unfortunately, the NSA thinks that it owns the internet and insists on being able to hack any router, even though hackers learn all of their tricks in no time.
Advertisers and trackers also seem to think that they pay for everything on the internet and they sue whenever anyone tries to distribute a good blocklist.
Mwa-ha-ha-haaaa ! Just kidding (for now) . . . It is inevitable that genetic databases will be used by desperate rich people needing transplants.
I was thinking about sending in my sample anonymously . . . Then, I realized that I would be easily identified from my family who had sent in samples;(
At the same time, Google's "new algorithm" moves many long-time leftist web sites way, way down in search results. The "World Socialist Website" has been documenting this, since they are major victims of it.
"An open letter to Google: Stop the censorship of the Internet! Stop the political blacklisting of the World Socialist Web Site! " https://www.wsws.org/en/articl...
It becomes more and more obvious. Trump, delusionally thinking that the world revolves around him, demands "loyalty" and "praise" just like a comic-book evil dictator.
Putin found that Russia's "new" oligarchs were particularly susceptible to bullying and threats. He bankrupted some and threw some in jail -- the rest fell in line. Trump thinks he can do this to Bezos.
I don't think this model will work in the United States today. NOT because of our great tradition of "democracy". Rather, I think that America's oligarchs are more experienced -- they have always been running the show and they don't like being bullied.
Once they get what they want from Trump (giant tax cuts, repeal healthcare protections, etc, etc.) they will remove Trump and "restore democracy".
We, the people, will need to be ready for this turmoil. One result could be revolution and true democracy. Failure could be the dictatorship of the Trumps.
Why do investigators need to to go to great lengths to "prove" Apple's wrongdoing. We should be able to look it up in the source code history.
Apple uses the BSD kernel and LOTS of other open source code, so they pretend to share: http://opensource.apple.com/ [apple.com] But, really, that is just a joke. A browser of a bunch of fragmented stuff that nobody actually uses on any actual machine that I am aware of.
FreeBSD and Linux are super secure and dependable, in large part BECAUSE they are open source.
Google's Android is also mostly open-source. Apple needs to do the same.
Slashdot Mirror
I NEVER use Windows anymore, and I rarely use Macs -- except to do my taxes every year. ;)
There are the free web versions -- but I'm never gonna trust those
Supposedly, they only sell "anonymized" data.
But there's fast growing shadow industry of data "de-anonymizers".
Tax data is easily one of the most valuable data sets out there.
Ever wonder why there's an explosion of "free online tax" services ?
Must be data harvesting. . .
I'm politically active, so I always TRY to do my taxes in "tin-foil hat mode".
It's getting to be more and more insanely difficult.
I get the TurboTax disk, put it on a clean VM or hard drive, run the updates, and do all of the rest offline.
At the end, I create a PDF, put that on a USB stick -- then print and mail.
TurboTax continuous bugs you, trying to get you to connect to the internet.
Two years ago, TurboTax would not let a Mac "print to PDF" without connecting to to internet. (for PDF drivers ?)
That set off a bunch of alarms in the forums !
This year, on an old Windows laptop, I'm doing my taxes and -- I swear -- something keeps enabling WiFi that I deliberately left turned off !
I love software testing, but I quit and moved on cause the field just doesn't get the respect/resources is needs.
Developers and managers are always trying to "reign in" the testing staff and make them stick to a stupid script --
written by the same developers that made the mistakes in the first place.
My most important bug discoveries were almost always the result of informal testing, or thinking about the test script
and "trying something" that wasn't on the script. Overnight "random monkey testing" with the automated test harness was
very effective at finding real world problems -- but invariably got a rebuke from some manager, "Why were you doing that?"
This sounds a lot like that, but with the added bureaucracy of Aerospace+gov't.
The development process then adapts to minimize bureaucracy, instead of maximizing safety.
So as I see it, one of two things happened:
1. There was a test engineer somewhere who thought about these failure modes before the first crash. He was ignored and didn't have the power to escalate the issue.
2. The tests were stupid and were run by stupid people.
There were enough red flags -- I think it was #1.
Test Engineers -- throw off your chains !
The safety of the world depends on you.
AOC impresses me more and more every day.
She has clearly done her homework and understands Socialist theory (as taught by the DSA).
Not only that -- she sticks to those principles and does not adapt to the popular wind direction of the day.
I have less confidence in the DSA and the Democrats, but so far, AOC is solid!
Now let the trolls pile on -- it does not change the fact that Capitalism is failing (and threatening to take the world with it).
I can't believe this BS.
Who are these people who think they can preach to China ?
Are they from a country with a huge percentage of its population in jail ?
China has had a civilization for >6000 years.
They generally DON'T start wars try to tell the rest of the world how to live.
They are incredibly smart and industrious.
The have universal health care, guaranteed employment, and very low crime rate
Sure they have problems, but they have shown time and time again that they can solve big problems.
Most all of us could learn a lot from the Chinese, if we would just get to know them.
My wife and I have been depending on Obamacare subsidies for our healthcare while she takes care of her elderly parents and I take care of mine.
First of all, the new administration demanded a lot of extra paperwork this year to prove that our part-time jobs did not offer healthcare.
Now, after a lot of hassle, we've uploaded our documents -- but now -- there are no federal workers around to approve them and turn the subsides on.
Because of our age, we're now paying ~$2000/mo for heathcare.
We are lucky -- we have savings to cover it and get it back with next year's tax refund.
But, for the folks the subsidy was intended for -- poor low-income workers -- they will be losing their insurance.
Yup, same stupid argument was made to promote the Pono Music Player, which is now discontinued.
https://www.ponomusic.com/
They, had their own music store, with everything remastered in digital "high resolution".
Thing is, they didn't address the LOUDNESS issue at all.
Everything is still squeezed to the top of the dynamic range.
Good for most pop music (?), bad for most everything else,
Python programs that I wrote 15 years ago are still running in production.
The "Java rewrite" that my manager wanted to do never got done.
In fact, a lot of the production Java code that existed back then couldn't be maintained and got reimplemented in Python.
Since the new servers are ~20 times faster, speed never really mattered anyway.
Python is full of "free" optimizations that most newbys are not even aware of.
When you learn to do things that "Pythonic" way, it really does put the clunky Java hack-jobs to shame.
Here another take on it:
https://www.pythonforengineers...
MakerPhone is a popular Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
I bought an iPhone on the first day in '07, cause it was obviously a great thing.
In about 2012, I switched to Android, mostly cause I run linux everywhere else and like it.
I thought I'd have more privacy, then slowly realized how stupid that was.
Looked into Cyanogenmod and LineageOS over and over, but ran out of time to ever actually do it.
Finally gave up, bit down, and went back to iPhone (it was a hand-me-down 6S)
I really liked Android. Still lots that can't do on the iPhone.
I really wish there was a better choice, but for now, I'm depending on Apple to keep the worst data harvesters at bay.
With Google, you don't get that option, got burned too many times.
No, I think there are plenty of other jobs that rural America can easily adapt to. Obvious ones are solar, wind farming, growing biofuels,
I requires political leaders who can win people over to a new view of the future.
I think trolling "Anonymous Cowards" like you, who stick everyone into a "category", and flippantly pose war as the solution don't help very much.
But we will learn to ignore you.
I'm a suburbanite and I've been driving a hybrid Camry since 2007 and I like it.
But I don't think that insulting these truck owners (or vice versa) is going to help anybody.
I think that electric vehicles pose a very real threat to the jobs and the future of many rural Americans, who feel that their work depends on trucks, cars, vehicle repair, oil, oil equipment, coal, scrap yards, etc, etc.
That is especially the case today, when Tesla has been publicizing the success of their SELF-DRIVING electric SEMI-trucks. Tesla says that in a convoy, they are more energy efficient than trains. They even have a standing order for HUNDREDS of these new trucks from Walmart, rural America's love/hate store/employer.
For years, the only way that a rural American could escape and see the world was to either drive a truck or work on the railroad.
Its a fundamental part of American culture, and it doesn't escape these people that Tesla's development poses a tangible threat to that way of life.
There are political and economic solutions that could provide jobs AND save the environment, but its not going to happen by spewing all this filth.
This is chicken shit.
200 GoFundMe campaigns raised $1.4 million from 13,000 donors, over several years ?
This is a giant problem that requires government intervention ?
Come on, we live in a "free" society and there are stupid people everywhere.
Most of the donors were just being "nice" to a dying person who didn't trust doctors.
Now lets pay some attention attentions to the 10's if not 100's of BILLIONS of dollars that Big Pharma robs from us every DAY!
Assange is an Australian citizen and he personifies the intersection of Human Rights and the "Digital Agenda".
Now that Sweden has dropped its case, he should be free -- except that the British government now insists on prosecuting him for bail violations (and then extradite him to Trumpistan).
It would be simple under existing treaties for the Australian government to step in and BRING HIM HOME to face a relatively fair trial for whatever he is alleged to have done.
Yes, of course, why do so many "nerds" here not get it ?
One of Snowden's most important revelations is that the NSA has an excellent "map" of virtually every device that connects to the internet.
How could they do that if they could not get the tables from all of these routers ?
And with excellent results !
It is really sad to see your parents slowly turn into vegetables -- and the doctors try to tell you there is nothing your can do, or they give expensive pills that are
barely better than placebo. BS !
Nootropics might be the new cool thing with programmers, but they are MUCH better at bringing declining minds back to normal than they are at turning average people into geniuses.
The problem is -- in the US -- doctors are NOT ALLOWED to talk about anything that isn't FDA approved (just ask your doctor).
I've been giving my 80 and 90 year old parents (and now in-laws) a stack of phenylpiracetam, Alpha-GPC, DHA fish oil, etc for over a year now.
The results are quite amazing to everyone who knows them.
Now, I have started to test age-reversal supplements.
I always guinea-pig myself first -- mostly to learn what to expect.
It is good that my genetics are close, because there are genetic factors.
It is also good that I know my parents -- they trust me and I know when to take their complaints seriously.
I liked apple routers, because they were reliable, simple enough for non-techies, they got regular security updates, and they were based on BSD.
But, routers are super political.
Control of routers is control of the internet.
The hacking of routers is central to the operation of every national spy agency.
Snowden revealed the NSA's detailed "map" of the internet, which showed that they had tables from just about every router out there.
Every router seems to have some exploit and open-source projects are always being disrupted (by "agent-provocateurs" ?).
Apple has been dealing with a lot of political pressure to cooperate with the spooks on iPhone encryption.
They were undoubtably getting to same pressure RE their routers.
They probably decided that the business wasn't worth the risk to their reputation.
Too bad ;)
I hope they give us some way to upgrade to an open source BSD router in the future.
Italians are always complaining about how Americans over-cook pasta -- and they are right !
As a child in the US, the only complaint my family ever made about pasta was "Its not cooked enough".
Now my parents both have type2 diabetes and I am educating them about pasta and the glycemic index.
Al-Dente pasta digests more slowly, enters the bloodsteam more slowly, and has a lower glycemic index.
Soft pasta has a terrible glycemic index, too many carbs enter the blood faster than your body can use them, so your body converts them to fat.
Actually, it is a bit more complicated, but that is basically correct.
I'm no expert, but I've seen a lot of news about self-driving cars over the last ten years or so.
At first it was DARPA, then Google, and they seemed to be testing for years . . .
Then Tesla, and now Uber ?
I guess Uber suddenly realized that self-driving cars might be a threat to their business in the long term.
So they are notoriously getting caught with stolen code and poaching engineers.
Seems like they are playing catch-up.
That usually means skipping testing.
Maybe the states should require that self-driving equipment and algorithms get a serious "drivers test" ?
Even a semi-automated software test suite and an independent engineering review might be good enough.
Eventually, we WILL need this.
The technology is now easy enough for teenagers to start doing it on their own cars at home.
I don't want MY life to depend on THEIR coding skills.
Apple never used to force obsolescence.
They do now, and it's constantly pissing me off.
But it also gives me good incentive to switch things to linux and other open alternatives.
This recent article claims the the Apple TV 1,2,3 and 4 all run Kodi:
https://www.kodiinfopark.com/i...
In fact, it claims:
"Apple TV 1 works extremely well with Kodi compared to other generation Apple TV because of the High storage capacity of Apple TV 1."
Unfortunately, the upgrade is rather complex -- you need to install the Apple Xcode behemoth ;-(
Home and small business routers today are such a joke, security-wise.
Most of them never get updates and are thus -- easily hackable.
The ones that do get updates (Apple) are still a joke security-wise.
Open source could solve that, and WRT makes a good start, except that it seems to be bogged down by politics (sabotage ?).
Security configuration on WRT is still a confusing nightmare.
port-knocking, DNS block-lists, IP address blacklists / whitelists should all be normal/easy/semi-standard and they are not.
Suspect IP addresses should trigger alerts so that they can be blacklisted or whitelisted (with optimal expiration dates).
Unfortunately, the NSA thinks that it owns the internet and insists on being able to hack any router, even though hackers learn all of their tricks in no time.
Advertisers and trackers also seem to think that they pay for everything on the internet and they sue whenever anyone tries to distribute a good blocklist.
As a result, bots and blackhats now rule.
Mwa-ha-ha-haaaa !
Just kidding (for now) . . .
It is inevitable that genetic databases will be used by desperate rich people needing transplants.
I was thinking about sending in my sample anonymously . . . ;(
Then, I realized that I would be easily identified from my family who had sent in samples
At the same time, Google's "new algorithm" moves many long-time leftist web sites way, way down in search results.
The "World Socialist Website" has been documenting this, since they are major victims of it.
"An open letter to Google: Stop the censorship of the Internet! Stop the political blacklisting of the World Socialist Web Site! "
https://www.wsws.org/en/articl...
"The conspiracy to censor the Internet"
https://www.wsws.org/en/articl...
It becomes more and more obvious.
Trump, delusionally thinking that the world revolves around him, demands "loyalty" and "praise" just like a comic-book evil dictator.
Putin found that Russia's "new" oligarchs were particularly susceptible to bullying and threats.
He bankrupted some and threw some in jail -- the rest fell in line.
Trump thinks he can do this to Bezos.
I don't think this model will work in the United States today.
NOT because of our great tradition of "democracy".
Rather, I think that America's oligarchs are more experienced -- they have always been running the show and they don't like being bullied.
Once they get what they want from Trump (giant tax cuts, repeal healthcare protections, etc, etc.) they will remove Trump and "restore democracy".
We, the people, will need to be ready for this turmoil.
One result could be revolution and true democracy.
Failure could be the dictatorship of the Trumps.
Why do investigators need to to go to great lengths to "prove" Apple's wrongdoing.
We should be able to look it up in the source code history.
Apple uses the BSD kernel and LOTS of other open source code, so they pretend to share: http://opensource.apple.com/ [apple.com]
But, really, that is just a joke. A browser of a bunch of fragmented stuff that nobody actually uses on any actual machine that I am aware of.
FreeBSD and Linux are super secure and dependable, in large part BECAUSE they are open source.
Google's Android is also mostly open-source.
Apple needs to do the same.