cfabbro's recent activity
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Comment on CrowdStrike global outage to cost US Fortune 500 companies $5.4bn in ~tech
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Comment on Taskmaster NZ Series 3, Episode 1 - 'F*** golf.' | Full episode in ~tv
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Comment on So what do political parties spend all that fundraised money on? in ~talk
cfabbro Link ParentNot OP, but at a guess, I would assume it was a similar product to this: https://www.cailabs.com/aerospace-defense/laser-communications/line-of-sight-optical-terminals/ Cool tech!Not OP, but at a guess, I would assume it was a similar product to this:
https://www.cailabs.com/aerospace-defense/laser-communications/line-of-sight-optical-terminals/TILBA®-LOS is designed for 10 Gbps point-to-point atmospheric links over distances exceeding 10 km. This solution enables the deployment of robust, highly secure wireless communication networks due to their invulnerability to interception and resistance to jamming. In addition, since optics are free from spectrum licensing constraints, the communications enabled by TILBA®-LOS exceed the main technical limitations of standard radio frequency signals currently used for free-space communication. Cailabs’ TILBA®-IBC technology is integrated into TILBA®-LOS. This technology uses incoherent combining based on Multi-Plane Light Conversion (MPLC), enabling atmospheric turbulence management at transmission. It increases the reliability of point-to-point optical links through the atmosphere over distances of up to 10 km, making the beam more robust to turbulence and enabling more resilient strategic links. TILBA®-LOS optical terminals are compatible with conventional telecommunications infrastructures, making them easy to deploy. They can be custom-designed for use in harsh conditions, such as mobile, maritime and airborne environments.
Cool tech!
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Comment on Investigating corrupt Winamp skins in ~tech
cfabbro Link ParentI haven't used anything but Windows Defender in years, and have yet to encounter any viruses during all that time. But I also don't pirate games or apps anymore, which was the biggest threat...I haven't used anything but Windows Defender in years, and have yet to encounter any viruses during all that time. But I also don't pirate games or apps anymore, which was the biggest threat vector for me. ;)
YMMV, depending on what you regularly download and the kind of sites you visit though. If you frequently pirate stuff like I used to, it's probably still a good idea to have a second antivirus running, but otherwise it's likely overkill nowadays.
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Comment on Investigating corrupt Winamp skins in ~tech
cfabbro (edited )Link ParentBecause Malwarebytes is absolute shit these days? I had no warnings pop up, and absolutely nothing shows up on a VirusTotal scan of the site:...Because Malwarebytes is absolute shit these days?
I had no warnings pop up, and absolutely nothing shows up on a VirusTotal scan of the site:
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/1913da405bf59e5d5f33dccba7856d171980a0239daaab1d2f5598f35b8386abp.s. You can report potential false positives here:
https://forums.malwarebytes.com/forum/122-false-positives/ -
Comment on Personal blogging in ~tildes
cfabbro Link ParentA number of years ago, @Deimos actually mentioned considering making a ~blog group for exactly that purpose:My post wasn't to use tildes as a blogging platform (something I have considered for myself multiple times)
A number of years ago, @Deimos actually mentioned considering making a ~blog group for exactly that purpose:
Deimos June 4, 2020
I've mentioned it vaguely a couple of times before, but I think it would be interesting to try having a group like ~blog where people can just post about whatever they want as text posts. It would be kind of like letting people host a blog on Tildes—there's good text formatting, a commenting system, etc.
I think we need some better capabilities for being able to select or filter topics for it to work well though. People will probably want to be able to subscribe to only certain users' ~blog posts, or filter some users out, and there's not currently a good way to do that.
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Comment on Has sexual content invaded too much of the internet? in ~tech
cfabbro (edited )Link ParentYeah, phreaking was pretty cool and super interesting, but slightly before my time. I remember watching a documentary when I was a kid on phreaking in the 1960s-80s, but I can't remember its name,...Yeah, phreaking was pretty cool and super interesting, but slightly before my time. I remember watching a documentary when I was a kid on phreaking in the 1960s-80s, but I can't remember its name, and can't seem to find it via google. :( And I remember hearing about Joybubbles, a blind phreak who could mimic phone system signaling tones by whistling, and used that skill to make long distance calls for free. Fun stuff!
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Comment on IOC enters a new era with the creation of Olympic Esports Games – first Games in 2025 in Saudi Arabia in ~games
cfabbro (edited )Link ParentIf you think Virtual Taekwondo is dumb, wait til you see Tic Tac Bow, the archery mobile game that was created for the Olympic Esports Series. ;)If you think Virtual Taekwondo is dumb, wait til you see Tic Tac Bow, the archery mobile game that was created for the Olympic Esports Series. ;)
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Comment on How the news broke on X. The epistemology of an assassination attempt. in ~tech
cfabbro Link ParentDone. I added the video description tagline to the title to help clarify it.Done. I added the video description tagline to the title to help clarify it.
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Comment on IOC enters a new era with the creation of Olympic Esports Games – first Games in 2025 in Saudi Arabia in ~games
cfabbro (edited )Link ParentThe only Olympic approved "fighting" game I know of so far is Virtual Taekwondo which looks pretty stupid to me. Real life Taekwondo is already in the Olympics. So why would anyone want to watch...At the best some fighting game might make it in, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to watch this.
The only Olympic approved "fighting" game I know of so far is Virtual Taekwondo which looks pretty stupid to me. Real life Taekwondo is already in the Olympics. So why would anyone want to watch two people performing similar moves against thin air, with the hits only being simulated in a virtual environment? I genuinely don't get it. It feels like making shadow boxing an Olympic event.
But AFAIK there are, as yet, no other fighting games being considered by the IOC. And sadly, I doubt any of the kind most gamers/esports fans would think of as fighting games, based on fantasy, and played via a controller, are likely to ever get approved. For whatever reason the IOC seems to think Olympic esports should be entirely based on already established real life sports.
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Orbiform d4
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Comment on A hacker ‘ghost’ network is quietly spreading malware on GitHub in ~tech
cfabbro Link ParentNP. I've done that a few times over the years, myself. :PNP. I've done that a few times over the years, myself. :P
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Comment on Microsoft’s ‘World of Warcraft’ gaming staff votes to unionize in ~games
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Comment on A hacker ‘ghost’ network is quietly spreading malware on GitHub in ~tech
cfabbro LinkMirror: https://archive.is/DwbmN (was originally submitted as the topic link, but Tildes policy is to submit original sources, even paywalled ones)Mirror: https://archive.is/DwbmN
(was originally submitted as the topic link, but Tildes policy is to submit original sources, even paywalled ones) -
Comment on Microsoft’s ‘World of Warcraft’ gaming staff votes to unionize in ~games
cfabbro LinkMirror: https://archive.is/pi67FMirror: https://archive.is/pi67F
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Comment on Has sexual content invaded too much of the internet? in ~tech
cfabbro (edited )Link ParentAccording to Wikipedia, "By 1995, AOL had about three million active users" and "[CompuServe]'s number of users grew, maximizing in April 1995 at 3 million worldwide" So it wasn't super super...According to Wikipedia, "By 1995, AOL had about three million active users" and "[CompuServe]'s number of users grew, maximizing in April 1995 at 3 million worldwide"
So it wasn't super super uncommon, but the net was definitely far far less populous back then. But I was actually online even well before that though, back in the BBS days. My elementary school friend's older cousin ran a multi-phone-line BBS out of his basement with about 300 total users, only 10 of which could be online at the same time. So there being millions of people on the internet throughout the day, and several thousand in the various chat rooms and IRC channels I joined felt like a LOT in comparison to that.
was it really like the "I put on my robe and wizard hat" chat logs, sans the hilarious bits?
LOL. I wouldn't say it was sans the hilarious bits. The whole cybersex thing was pretty absurd to begin with, not really knowing who you were flirting over text with, and them not really knowing who you were either. And there were also plenty of trolls... myself included occasionally too. So there were plenty of super awkward, bizarre, and hilarious moments. Trying to make people laugh was part of the fun, IMO. ;)
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Comment on Has sexual content invaded too much of the internet? in ~tech
cfabbro (edited )Link ParentThe $X/minute they supposedly charged was more than enough to scare even horny adolescent me away from those kind of services entirely, so I don't know how they actually worked. But I assume they...The $X/minute they supposedly charged was more than enough to scare even horny adolescent me away from those kind of services entirely, so I don't know how they actually worked. But I assume they had to take someone's credit card info before they started. I know when texting finally starting getting popular in the late 90s certain services started popping up that could charge your phone account directly after you texted them. However, I honestly don't know if there was a way for services to charge phone owners' accounts directly before that. You could pretty easily spoof outgoing phone numbers back then though, so I doubt it.
But TBH, I never really saw the point of those sex chat services. Why would I pay for something like that when I got plenty of people offering me the same sort of thing for free every time I joined an IRC channel, or went into an AOL chat room. If I had a nickle for every "A/S/L?" I was sent over the years, I'd probably be a millionaire. ;)
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Comment on Has sexual content invaded too much of the internet? in ~tech
cfabbro (edited )Link ParentLOL, yep. 1-900 was mostly for sex lines and psychics when I was growing up in the 80s/90s, and they advertised on the web, radio, and even on late night TV. It was a wild time, and it all seems...LOL, yep. 1-900 was mostly for sex lines and psychics when I was growing up in the 80s/90s, and they advertised on the web, radio, and even on late night TV. It was a wild time, and it all seems so utterly bizarre now, in retrospect. :P
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Comment on Has sexual content invaded too much of the internet? in ~tech
cfabbro (edited )Link ParentYeah, same. And even back before the web really took off, even the most innocuous searches on Usenet inevitably ended up with at least some porn or erotica in the results. alt.binaries was...I absolutely saw very explicit material when searching for very mundane things
Yeah, same. And even back before the web really took off, even the most innocuous searches on Usenet inevitably ended up with at least some porn or erotica in the results. alt.binaries was especially rife with it. And half the time you didn't even realize it was actually porn you had downloaded until you extracted the files and loaded them up, since assholes would rename everything to something else they knew people would be searching for instead. Maybe back when only academic institutions had access to Usenet in the early 80s it wasn't like that, but by the time I started using it in the late 80s/early 90s it was.
And the early web of the 90s was absolutely riddled with sexual content too. There were ads for porn sites, boner pills, escorts, and sex chatlines practically everywhere, since the mainstream, sanitized ad networks hadn't yet taken over. So the only way for people to make money from ads on their sites was to allow the more unsavory ads to be displayed occasionally too.
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Comment on Are smartphones driving our teens to depression? in ~health.mental
cfabbro LinkMirror: https://archive.is/T2E6RMirror: https://archive.is/T2E6R
I'm not saying Microsoft is correct (I think it's a pretty flimsy excuse on their part), but what you suggest is not really how things end up working. EU regulations tend to have a worldwide effect. Just look at the GDRP, or the USB-C charging port requirements. Sure, companies could only apply changes to the products they sell in the EU to meet the regulations there, and keep things working differently elsewhere in the world. However, it's typically far easier and cheaper for companies to roll those changes out worldwide instead of treating the EU as an exception. So that's what they all generally do instead.