dedime's recent activity
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Comment on Denim heads - What raw denim are you currently wearing? What would you recommend? in ~life.style
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Comment on What Is A Secure Note-Taking App? in ~comp
dedime Link ParentSince it's just markdown, you could use any text editing software technically. It wouldn't have any of the nice features, but it might be enough for some usecasesSince it's just markdown, you could use any text editing software technically. It wouldn't have any of the nice features, but it might be enough for some usecases
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Comment on Looking for recommendations for self-hostable static blog software in ~comp
dedime Link ParentI'm also using Jekyll. I know it's not the preferred solution nowadays, but it was back when I made my site and I've had no desire to update my site for a while so it stays for now. Hosting is...I'm also using Jekyll. I know it's not the preferred solution nowadays, but it was back when I made my site and I've had no desire to update my site for a while so it stays for now.
Hosting is easy. I've set up a pipeline on GitLab.com to compile and publish my static HTML to GitLab pages under my own domain with SSL provided via LetsEncrypt. Totally free, minus the cost of the domain, and adding a post is as simple as writing a markdown file, committing, and pushing to origin.
For "newer", more generally recommended SSG's today, look at Hugo, Gatsby, or Eleventy. I don't think you can go wrong, it's down to personal choice.
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Comment on IWTL financial literacy in ~finance
dedime LinkI'm not exactly a finance guy, but I read "The Millionaire Teacher" and that was good enough for me to get going with a sound investment plan. I invest via an e-trading platform, and I maintain a...I'm not exactly a finance guy, but I read "The Millionaire Teacher" and that was good enough for me to get going with a sound investment plan. I invest via an e-trading platform, and I maintain a balance of a 50% US total market index, 25% CAD total market index, and 25% world total market index shares.
The book explains it in better, more thorough yet understandable terms, and it's been a while so I'm paraphrasing, but essentially:
- Invest your money yourself via a trading platform. Avoid managed services, e.g. mutual funds, as they get a fee. Also they probably can't beat the market, especially when you account for the fact that to beat the market, they would have perform better than the industry standard return % + their cut.
- Invest in index funds; index funds track a market as a whole rather than an individual company so the risk is quite low. Historically, index funds generate good returns over the long run - e.g. the S&P 500 had an annualized average return of around 10.5% since its 1957 inception through 2021, even including the recession etc.
- Compound interest is your friend. Start investing early, contribute often, you will see wild amounts of gains. Plug in your financial details here with a conservative 7% interest rate: https://www.getsmarteraboutmoney.ca/calculators/compound-interest-calculator/
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Comment on What were the best games you played this year? in ~games
dedime LinkI had an absolute blast playing Halo: Infinite campaign, which was released a week or two ago. The gameplay is incredibly solid, and the grappling hook is super fun to play with. Two complaints I...I had an absolute blast playing Halo: Infinite campaign, which was released a week or two ago. The gameplay is incredibly solid, and the grappling hook is super fun to play with.
Two complaints I have are that the grappling hook is too good for travel - it regenerates so quickly, it allows you to travel straight up along a vertical surface to no limit. I would have preferred if they made you ration it a bit more. My other complaint is that the limitless supply of flying vehicles later in the game makes them dominate the meta - it's way faster to collect everything while flying around, and you miss a lot of the small (and very fun) enemy encounters on the ground along the way. I would have preferred them to be rarer somehow - not just a resource you can order unlimited amounts of from base.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
dedime LinkI've been playing an ironman account on OSRS. It's been a ton of fun, for those who don't know an ironman account isn't allowed to interact with other players, including trading etc. I thought it...I've been playing an ironman account on OSRS. It's been a ton of fun, for those who don't know an ironman account isn't allowed to interact with other players, including trading etc.
I thought it would be a lot of annoying grinds, but to be honest I've enjoyed every single grind so far. I've set my initial goal to be to get the quest point cape, then get into bossing and obtain some sweet gear. Hard achievement diaries are also on my list, though to be honest I'm REALLY not looking forward to the mage training arena grind for the Lumbridge diary.
The /r/2007scape subreddit continues to be a fantastic source of drama, memes, and interesting video content, and is part of the reason I continue to play the game.
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Comment on Suggestions for things to do with a NAS? in ~tech
dedime LinkSince I've started homelabbing 6-7 years ago, I've always landed on the following necessities Jellyfin. FOSS version of Plex, I really like it. Has a Roku app which I use a lot. Pihole. DNS based...Since I've started homelabbing 6-7 years ago, I've always landed on the following necessities
- Jellyfin. FOSS version of Plex, I really like it. Has a Roku app which I use a lot.
- Pihole. DNS based ad blocking, for all the devices on my home network
- Wireguard. Super lightweight VPN. OpenVPN, which I used prior, was a behemoth in comparison.
- Caddy. Reverse proxy, provides HTTPS via LetsEncrypt and allows me to access Jellyfin / Pihole admin console.
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Comment on Attempting to cross Scotland in a completely straight line. (Part 1: Enter the factory) in ~hobbies
dedime Link ParentSpoiler Wall Absolutely gutted that they couldn't make it to the finish! In the end, I respect their decision to end their journey early, having come to an agreement with the coppers. That being...Spoiler Wall
Absolutely gutted that they couldn't make it to the finish! In the end, I respect their decision to end their journey early, having come to an agreement with the coppers. That being said, I think they learned an important lesson, though they didn't speak to it in the video - trust your gut, if you think you've been spotted, pack up and camp elsewhere. If you know you've been spotted, unless you know for a fact it's all ok, pack up and camp elsewhere.Looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next. I hope they get a chance to revisit Scotland.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
dedime (edited )LinkI made a website scraper at work. The company is working on migrating our client's websites to a new platform, using an external development agency. We wanted an easy way to provide the agency...I made a website scraper at work. The company is working on migrating our client's websites to a new platform, using an external development agency. We wanted an easy way to provide the agency with a list of pages that a website has, and a list of images that page has. My scraping tool, given a site's base URL, will reach out to that site, fetch the sitemap.xml, parse all the available URLs, visit each one and save all the images to a named folder on the local filesystem. We'll then zip that folder up and send it over to the agency.
I used golang to accomplish this. It's just an absolute pleasure to work with. It's extremely fast, and adding concurrency as an afterthought seriously took about 5 minutes.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
dedime Link ParentI use Docker a lot, but I tend to take a pragmatic approach to it. e.g., If I'm developing a desktop app, I typically don't worry too much about Docker, other than perhaps compilation (build in...I use Docker a lot, but I tend to take a pragmatic approach to it. e.g., If I'm developing a desktop app, I typically don't worry too much about Docker, other than perhaps compilation (build in Docker + docker cp resulting binary to destination). Otherwise, I do tend to build with Docker in mind. If I think I might eventually want to use the software as a container, I just make sure I use a good software architecture so I'm not shooting myself in the foot later. If I know the software is going to be used primarily as a container, I write the software POC first and get it working in a container almost immediately, and I use that going forward for testing / building.
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Comment on Attempting to cross Scotland in a completely straight line. (Part 1: Enter the factory) in ~hobbies
dedime LinkOne of my YouTube favorites! I went ahead and bought his "Mission Across Scotland" poster that he advertised in this video, merch is my preferred way of supporting my favorite creators + I get a...One of my YouTube favorites! I went ahead and bought his "Mission Across Scotland" poster that he advertised in this video, merch is my preferred way of supporting my favorite creators + I get a fun decoration for the house.
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Comment on Australian Criminal Intelligence Agency looking to expand it's intelligence gathering powers by claiming that criminals use encrypted platforms 'almost exclusively' in ~tech
dedime (edited )LinkI'm waiting for the ban on the one-time pad. Gee, sir, I see you have a block of random characters in your notebook. You wouldn't happen to be practicing... encryption... would you? Like math? Off...I'm waiting for the ban on the one-time pad. Gee, sir, I see you have a block of random characters in your notebook. You wouldn't happen to be practicing... encryption... would you? Like math? Off to the brig!
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Comment on The next great disruption is hybrid work—thoughts from Microsoft on the future of work in ~life
dedime LinkAdmittedly, I didn't read the entire thing, but their 7 stated trends ring true to me. #2 (Leaders are out of touch with employees and need a wake-up call) stands out in particular, at least for me:Admittedly, I didn't read the entire thing, but their 7 stated trends ring true to me.
#2 (Leaders are out of touch with employees and need a wake-up call) stands out in particular, at least for me:
Many business leaders are faring better than their employees. Sixty-one percent of leaders say they are “thriving” right now — 23 percentage points higher than those without decision-making authority. They also report building stronger relationships with colleagues (+11 percentage points) and leadership (+19 percentage points), earning higher incomes (+17 percentage points), and taking all or more of their allotted vacation days (+12 percentage points).
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
dedime (edited )LinkI can't really trust Google, despite all of their claims that keeping you safe online is their top priority. Get ready for a Stallman-esque rant, because true safety starts with open source and...I can't really trust Google, despite all of their claims that keeping you safe online is their top priority. Get ready for a Stallman-esque rant, because true safety starts with open source and trusting the code you're running.
Take everything I'm about to say about Google's capabilities with a grain of salt - to the best of our knowledge, this is what Google is capable of doing. This is not to say they are doing it, or are even capable of doing it, but the possibility is there and we have no way to determine otherwise.
For one, Google can log into your account. They can also provide others access to your account. Anything you have stored in your account - photos, videos, emails, passwords, search history, messages, location history, browser history, contacts, apps installed - Google can access this at any time without barriers. Crucially, this means your passwords are not secret as they are (mathematically / encryption wise, not necessarily in practice) accessible by others. If Google cared, you could encrypt all of this information with a secret key only accessible to you. In fact, AFAIK the only Google product you can do this with is Chrome's Sync Passphrase, which you can use to encrypt all your Chrome data (browser history, passwords, form data, etc.). This is commendable, except for the fact that Google Chrome is closed source with no way to reproduce their builds, so you really can't even trust that they're doing this properly / at all, unless you're down to decompile the source code and verify yourself (every release).
Two, Google is A-OK with making your account less secure without your consent. This is not a good model for security. As an example, I had a strong password to my Google account and TOTP as my second factor. TOTP is fantastic, as it relies on a shared secret with easily provable security parameters. It can be phished, but so can other second factors. Google took it upon themselves to add an additional second factor, their device based prompts. They also made it the default. This actually decreased my security posture, as now I have more second factor methods of authenticating my Google account. I also can't disable this feature. The only way to disable it would be to switch my phone from Google's Android to iOS or another OS. Why can't I disable this??? It's maddening.
Third, perfect secrecy has been solved since the invention of the one-time-pad, everything else has been icing on the cake. I'd be perfectly happy if they could use information-theoretic secure encryption. Do it right, do it in the open, let the privacy-interested people take back their privacy and security into their own hands, and offer less-secure shortcuts for people who want it to be easy. If keeping you safe online was their top priority, they would have implemented this already. Instead, "keeping you safe online is our number one priority" is a bold faced lie. They should say "Keeping your personal data minable for our own purposes is our top priority. Keeping your personal data private would be nice too, we'll try our best but please recognize we won't encrypt your data unless we can get ahold of a copy of the key."
Google doing personal data encryption right will never happen, but I still think about this a lot. There's no good (read: in my interest) reason to insecurely handle my data as they do, they just want to mine my data for money. You can provide all of the products that Google provides without violating peoples persons privacy, yet here we are. I accept of these imperfections because Google's services really are quite valuable, and I know they can't provide them for free, but it bugs me nonetheless.
TL;DR: Google says trust us, ignoring the fact that their whole business is based on you using their closed source software which by definition you cannot trust.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
dedime LinkI've made a tiny program in Go to help move a file to the right location. It's a intended to be a helper program for using Tiddlywiki. When using Tiddlywiki on Windows 10 Chrome, the default save...I've made a tiny program in Go to help move a file to the right location. It's a intended to be a helper program for using Tiddlywiki.
When using Tiddlywiki on Windows 10 Chrome, the default save location is
%USERPROFILE%/Downloads/<wiki-name>.html. This makes sense, because you're downloading an HTML page and the default save location is in a user's download folder. However, I save my Tiddlywiki in%USERPROFILE%/Tiddlywiki. It is then synced from there to my other devices so I can access it anywhere. With my syncing program, I can't select individual files from a folder to sync - I have to sync the whole folder. This is where this program comes in: It runs in the background, waiting for the watched file path to be present, e.g.%USERPROFILE%/Downloads/<wiki-name>.html. When it see writes to this file, it waits a user-configurable amount of time for the writes to finish (e.g. 2 seconds), then it moves the file to the desired location, e.g.%USERPROFILE%/Tiddlywiki/<wiki-name>.htmlI've even included a notification icon so you can quit the app when desired, and it won't take up an active window. It will just run in the background.
It's being developed on Windows, but it should technically be cross-platform - all of the libraries I've used are cross platform AFAIK. The hardest part I've had to deal with is detecting when the file is done being written to - using fsnotify, you'll see the html file being written 2-4 times before it actually stops. I set a timer in the background that resets with each write, and after the timer expires it moves the file. It works well now, but I had some serious troubles getting the one timer to be shared (required 2 goroutines + chans, which are newish territory for me)
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Comment on How to disagree in ~humanities
dedime LinkA graphical version of Graham's idea: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg/707px-Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg.png I find...A graphical version of Graham's idea: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg/707px-Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg.png
I find myself thinking of this image when judging the soundness of arguments, particularly online. I can use it to determine whether someone is arguing something in good faith, or is simply trying to squirm their way out of their position. However, sometimes, on sites I generally trust - like this one - I find highly voted responses to controversial topics that fall into the bottom 3 of this pyramid. Clearly a lot of people are perfectly happy to accept these arguments.
What do you think of this way of framing arguments? Is it a good way of judging arguments? Does it have problems?
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How to disagree
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Comment on Beyond Calibri: Finding Microsoft’s next default font in ~design
dedime LinkI actually quite like Grandview. Spacing between letters (kerning?) is bang on, unlike Tenorite and Seaford. The 'i' with a square for the dit is pleasing. Skeena's italic font is ugly, almost...I actually quite like Grandview. Spacing between letters (kerning?) is bang on, unlike Tenorite and Seaford. The 'i' with a square for the dit is pleasing. Skeena's italic font is ugly, almost like it's a computer font trying to be calligraphy. The only part I see as questionable is the ''' apostrophe, but to be honest I like it more than all of the alternatives. And there's something about it that's distinctly "Microsoft", even if I can't put my finger on it. Letter width is tight, which is pleasing to my eye.
Bierstadt is a close second, with Tenorite being my third favorite. Seaford and Skeena are right out.
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Comment on Self hosting email at home? in ~comp
dedime LinkI'll give the standard warning you'll see in response to a lot of people who want to self host email: I've been told it's very difficult, time consuming, and fraught with errors, especially in...I'll give the standard warning you'll see in response to a lot of people who want to self host email: I've been told it's very difficult, time consuming, and fraught with errors, especially in regards to spam / spam filters. If you're looking for a reliable mail solution, you should not be self hosting your own email.
That being said, for learning purposes it's an excellent exercise.
If you're looking to "own" your own email, I recommend going with a free provider of an email service. For instance, I use Zoho - they allow me to bring my own domain, and allow you to configure SPF / DMARC however you please using DNS. It's set it and forget it, I haven't had to do any admin work on it since I've set it up.
Side note - does anyone know of alternative free BYOD(omain) email providers other than Zoho? I'm pretty happy with them, but just curious.
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Comment on MathBox^2: PowerPoint Must Die in ~tech
dedime LinkI'm going to go throw rocks at my website nowI'm going to go throw rocks at my website now
Not really a denim head, but I just went to Momotaro in Osaka and picked up some jeans. I love them! So much personality in such a standard jean. The inseam stitching is pink.