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    1. Fitness tracker recommendations?

      I'm in the market for a fitness tracker. My usual fitness activities (stationary elliptical trainer, hiking, biking) are temporarily restricted, so I've been swimming a great deal. Using a phone...

      I'm in the market for a fitness tracker.

      My usual fitness activities (stationary elliptical trainer, hiking, biking) are temporarily restricted, so I've been swimming a great deal. Using a phone isn't giving me adequate exertion tracking data for walking (stride counts and heart rate not available/accurate), and it's especially not useful for aquatics.

      I'd be grateful if anyone can recommend something they have experience with.

      My constraints are as follows:

      I'd rather not contribute to e-waste with yet another gadget du jour - service life should be at least the recharge cycle life of the battery.

      No Apple or Samsung devices. I'm not in those ecosystems, and don't plan to be because reasons.

      Should be at least IPX5, preferably IPX7 waterproof.

      Helps if it's not butt-ugly, but I'll take what I can get - replaceable bands are a plus.

      Able to fit women - I don't have issues with a larger face so much as a band that's too large to fit comfortably or provide secure contact for accurate heart rate monitoring.

      GPS and sleep tracking would be nice, but not mandatory if the device ecosystem isn't reasonably private.

      Non-proprietary rechargers preferred.

      A couple of Fitbit models seem be well-reviewed, but actual user ratings are equivocal, and quality is erratic.

      Looking forward to any contributions!

      11 votes
    2. Simple games for Android

      I've never really been into gaming on my phone, but in the last couple of weeks I've found it's particularly good for entertainment while getting the baby off to sleep. He tends to need holding...

      I've never really been into gaming on my phone, but in the last couple of weeks I've found it's particularly good for entertainment while getting the baby off to sleep. He tends to need holding for 5-20 minutes, during which time no interaction is needed and something to stave off the boredom is good.

      I've been playing Tiny Bubbles which is good because the levels are relatively short and discrete, it's challenging without being too hard (at 4am I don't want that much of a challenge), it's mostly not timing-based, I can play one-handed and drop it at a moment's notice without particularly being penalised.

      Any suggestions for other suitable games would be appreciated.

      12 votes
    3. How reliable is IP ownership information?

      I have interactive firewalls like OpenSnitch running on most of my desktop OS's. I like to see what is going on with my machines' network connections to learn about networking, infosec, and to...

      I have interactive firewalls like OpenSnitch running on most of my desktop OS's. I like to see what is going on with my machines' network connections to learn about networking, infosec, and to have have some peace of mind.

      Example workflow:

      1. Get a firewall notification of a new incoming connection to some process running on my machine
      2. If no DNS entry exists and only the IP address is provided, then I google the IP
      3. I find something like https://ipinfo.io/74.125.20.189
      4. I make a decision as to whether allow/deny based on the ownership info which I found in step 3.

      Aside from trusting the particular site presenting the ownership info, how reliable is this information regarding IP ownership?

      For example, if an IP came back as "Google" could it really be a GCP instance running a command and control server?

      Another example, I know that large corps own big blocks of IPv4, but they must lease these IP's out to whomever, right? I imagine there is some wild-west market for these with little accountability?

      Are either of these scenarios realistic? If so, is my entire workflow for "do I trust this IP" pointless?


      edit: btw, I used to catch and deny incoming connections from *.ru to the Windows legacy Skype client all the time. I cannot think of any non-evil reason why that should have been happening. That particular series of events is what really validated me doing this. If you can think of a non-evil reason for any incoming connections to skype from *.ru, please let me know.
      5 votes