Posts by jake

Re: 50 years ago, when I was 11

Evaluating stuff downloaded via FTP, and thus residing on my system, doesn't require the help of anybody else's server.

I AM thinking, B1FF.

Re: Soon HTTP as well?

And of course using the cloud increases the size of the attack surface immeasurably.

OK, maybe it's technically measurable ... but do you really think your cloud provider is going to let you audit their internal processes?

Re: You can't sell Advertising

Way to miss the point.

As a side note, there weren't enough phishing scams for them to have a name back in the '80s. That didn't occur until AOL inflicted the online world with TheGreatUnwashed in the mid '90s.

Re: Overkill for many sites

I agree that there are reasons to protect some users from some things ... but I totally reject the argument that all users need protecting from everything.

Re: Overkill for many sites

If you can't trust your ISP (social media provider, OS provider ...) to not snoop-and-augment user traffic, you have far more interesting problems than "which file transfer protocol should I use?".

Re: Overkill for many sites

The adage doesn't contain anything that needs obeying. It's an observation, nothing more.

FTP existed long before the Web existed. In fact, FTP existed before TCP/IP existed.

Re: It might still creep back...

I still pull files off read-only FTP sites occasionally. Mostly drivers/shims for ancient hardware, zipped or tarred files containing technical documentation, photos of old boards and wring, and that kind of thing.

My FTP server has family photos and the like uploaded by various family members to their own space. Other family members can browse the individual collections if they are logged onto the server. Security implications are minimal. We did have one teenager park some Pr0n on his space ... he's lucky I found it before his grandmother did.

FTP moves files around internally in my private USENET system, when I'm not using UUCP.

::shrugs::

Re: 50 years ago, when I was 11

If I didn't, I'd probably pack it in.

Re: git, wget

I use command line FTP daily.

Re: You can't sell Advertising

As a software developer who had multiple titles available via anonymous FTP in the early years of FOSS, I can assure you that almost nobody reads the README file ... or any other text file distributed with the code. Gawd/ess knows why the kiddies were so excited to get access to the source. I remember one friend included the comment "If you read this, you've won $100! Contact the author directly to be sent a check." in a header file ... he got no takers for the ten years that he owned that email address.

Re: Overkill for many sites

Godwins "Law" isn't actually a law, it's an adage. It reads "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

And that is all. Mike was just trying to get people to think before making daft comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis, he was not suggesting any mention should somehow automagicaly close down the conversation.

Re: It doesn’t need a new name

I didn't say anything of the sort. All I suggested is that they go home. Nowhere did I comment on the location of that home, nor what they should do for employment once they got there. Not my issue. The way I see it, their home town spawned them, their home town should be able to take care of them when their ad-iverse implodes.

Please note that mine only applies to the companies that exist purely for advertising and marketing purposes. The real high-tech Silicon Valley is not universally hated here, just the ad-iots.

Re: It doesn’t need a new name

"What about the employees?"

As a Silly Con Valley native, the most common suggestion I've heard is that they all just go home. Same for Alphagoo, et ali. We never asked for them, they just showed up and started trashing the place while driving up prices. Worst thing that ever happened around here.

Re: Poor little Alice.

Excepting Alice.

Re: What's the problem?Jenny Agguter

Since the late '00s or early '10s, the term has been used to debase anyone who didn't march along in lockstep with the speaker. Worse, the original meaning has been perverted specifically to create a new "us vs them" scenario, and as such it is despicable. Far from being a term of inclusion, it has become a term of exclusion.

My biggest issue here is that these folks are attempting to get rid of words, assuming that when the words go away, so will the deeds.

Unfortunately, the deeds will remain ... but if the nay-sayers have their way, we wont have the words to easily explain why the deeds are not something that humans should be doing. Until, of course, we invent a new word for subject matter that already had a well known word. Kinda pointless, no?

For info on Zappa's views on Censorship, one could do worse than hitting YouTube for "Congress Shall Make No Law...".

Re: Use the local language...

I don't give a rat's ass if TheGreatUnwashed choose to program their own computers. In fact, I'm all for it! The more people who make the attempt, the more REAL programmers we'll (eventually) have. This can only be a good thing.

Just one caveat ... as long as nobody attempts to force the rest of us to use the code produced by.the amateur shade-tree programmer. That way lies madness.

Re: more pc crap

Over most of the non-Catholic United States, it was Dick and Jane. And sister Sally. And dog Spot. The Catholic kids had to suffer with Saint's names, of course.

Re: What's the problem?

A friend of mine who owns an indie auto parts store reports that people come in daily asking him for master and slave brake cylinder parts without batting an eye. He and most of his employees are black, most of his customers are not. Nobody involved has any issue with the nomenclature.

It would seem that the woke set don't work on their own cars. It probably gets in the way of telling everybody else what they should be offended by.

Re: What's the problem?

"Yeah, that thing that definitely happens."

Perhaps you should Wiki Book Burning.

"Fuck me blind."

Did you bother thinking about how offensive that might be to the partially and non-sighted?

Omission of Portuguese and Dutch noted.

Re: Totally American

I used the last names of the members of Tower of Power for one installation in '87 :-)

I had a nice man from what sounded like Malaysia call to tell me that my Windows was spreading viruses all over the Internet, He started the conversation with "Hello, this is Martha from Microsoft Security ...".

Bob Marley's dad Norval was from Crowborough, East Sussex.

Re: What's the problem?

"I support eliminating "slave" in general"

Really? Why? Would that make the evil things that humans have done to humans go away? More to the point, will it make the evil things that humans are STILL doing to humans go away?

Maybe if we ban the term "Covid-19" it'll make that go away, too.

I know, we should ban the words war, poverty, illness and pain! WOW What a wonderful thing you've discovered! When I become Dictator For Life I will implement this immediately!

Re: Anybody read what they're commenting on?

Naming things after Tolkien characters became old after I ran across the fifth server named "Bilbo" in a single day (two at Berkeley, one each at Stanford, San Jose State and Mission College). That was in roughly 1980.

Bullying? They can do that ...

They are bullying people into changing the language as she is spoke into something that better suits their easily trampled feelings.

Next, they will be bullying people into re-writing the books.

Then they will be bullying people into burning the old books with the old language.

After they start burning books ...

Not really.

"Alice and Bob are both humans."

Not in this case. Alice and Bob are just convenient easy to remember handles used when discussing a concept which some people find to be prohibitively complex otherwise.

Re: my wife

The Wife doesn't find it insulting at all ... she is THE wife, after all, there is only one, and will never be any others. Likewise, I'm the husband.

Tracey is a man's name in GB, too. Came over with the Normans (placename, from any one of a number of Tracys in France), or possibly with the Romans a thousand years earlier (man of Thrace). Seems to me that there are also Gaulish, Celtic and Irish versions that differ in derivation, but I can't be arsed to look it up (my Big Dic is down at the Sonoma property).

Re: Poor little Alice.

Cooper.

Re: Desnapify ubuntu

Thanks, but I much prefer Slackware.

Avoiding annoying software is easy ... Slack is still free of the systemd-cancer. It also doesn't mandate Wayland, although Slack makes it optional if you like. GTK is included, but no Gnome desktop. Snap was looked at, laughed at, and summarily ignored. What's not to like?

Re: "Great Unwashed"

The V-chip is completely opt-in, per household. It is used by almost nobody. Quite frankly, I had forgotten that it even existed until you brought it up. A quick call-round to a dozen friends with kids between 4 and 11 years old returned the following: 9 "What's a V-chip?", 1 "I thought that thing died a death years ago!", 1 "I see no need", and last but not least, 1 "Hell no!".

Do with that what you will.

_{Seems to me that TehIntraWebTubes has put the kibosh on such things ...}

Re: Law of unintended consequences

Because jake what?

Re: Law of unintended consequences

Hello. Running out of people to talk to?

Re: Law of unintended consequences

How? The OP wrote "I'd settle for being allowed to do anything I want with anything I own."

I answered "I pretty much can[0]", and added an example of a thing I can't. In other words, we have laws to (hopefully) protect people. We don't need Apple (or any other tech company) protecting us from ourselves. Next thing you know, hammers will come with built-in padding so we can't possibly hit ourselves in the head and hurt ourselves, and Xacto knives will come unsharpened. Chainsaws will be right out. They are already banning the sale of gasoline powered garden tools here in California (thus opening up a HUGE grey market, which I intend to get filthy rich from ... ).

The nanny-state is upon us, aided and abetted by the Tech world. Are you sure you want that?

Re: Law of unintended consequences

Out of curiosity, do you honestly think that replacing the i with a 1 somehow sanitizes the meaning behind your post?