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Hosted by Ahuka on 2019-05-24 is flagged as Clean and released under a CC-BY-SA license.
Tags: Home Networks, Security.
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Series: Privacy and Security | Comments (0)
The Computer Emergency Readiness Team of the US Department of Homeland Security issues a security bulletin, ST15-002, which has tips for home network security. In this episode we review these tips and why they make sense.
Hosted by Ahuka on 2019-05-23 is flagged as Clean and released under a CC-BY-SA license.
Tags: podcasts, narrowcasting, broadcasting.
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Series: Podcast recommendations | Comments (0)
Knightwise, in HPR 2798, made the argument that podcasts are better if they are done by "pirates", i.e. not by corporations, but by individuals with something to say. While I see some merit in this view, I think the more significant feature of podcasts is that it gets us away from "broadcasting" (shows aimed at the lowest common denominator) and towards "narrowcasting", an environment where small niche interests can find an audience and thrive since podcasting does not require a lot of resources. But I do appreciate the chance to hear some radio programs that I would not otherwise be able to listen to when they are offered as podcasts.
This is rather large topic, so I split it in two episodes. Next one should follow in two weeks if everything goes as planned. First part is about modeling research, while second part concentrates on how things change over time.
There’s three types of research: engineering, natural sciences and social sciences. Research costs points that are produced by various buildings.
There’s three database tables, which are defined below:
CurrentResearch
type Technology
progress Int
factionId FactionId
AvailableResearch
type Technology
category TopResearchCategory
factionId FactionId
CompletedResearch
type Technology
level Int
factionId FactionId
date IntTechnology is enumeration of all possible technologies. Knowing these enable player to build specific buildings and space ships, enact various laws and so on. In the end this will be (hopefully) large list of technologies.
data Technology =
HighSensitivitySensors
| SideChannelSensors
| HighTensileMaterials
| SatelliteTechnology
| BawleyHulls
| SchoonerHulls
| CaravelHulls
...
deriving (Show, Read, Eq, Enum, Bounded, Ord)All research belong to one of the top categories that are shown below:
data TopResearchCategory =
Eng
| NatSci
| SocSci
deriving (Show, Read, Eq, Ord)ResearchCategory is more fine grained division of research. Each of the categories is further divided into sub-categories. Only EngineeringSubField is shown below, but other two are similarly divided.
data ResearchCategory =
Engineering EngineeringSubField
| NaturalScience NaturalScienceSubField
| SocialScience SocialScienceSubField
deriving (Show, Read, Eq)
data EngineeringSubField =
Industry
| Materials
| Propulsion
| FieldManipulation
deriving (Show, Read, Eq)ResearchScore is measure of how big some research is. It has type parameter a that is used to further quantify what kind of ResearchScore we’re talking about.
newtype ResearchScore a = ResearchScore { unResearchScore :: Int }
deriving (Show, Read, Eq, Ord, Num)TotalResearchScore is record of three different types of researches. I’m not sure if I should keep it as a record of three fields or if I should change it so that only one of those values can be present at any given time.
data TotalResearchScore a = TotalResearchScore
{ totalResearchScoreEngineering :: ResearchScore EngineeringCost
, totalResearchScoreNatural :: ResearchScore NaturalScienceCost
, totalResearchScoreSocial :: ResearchScore SocialScienceCost
}
deriving (Show, Read, Eq)Following singleton values are used with ResearchScore and TotalResearchScore to quantify what kind of value we’re talking about.
data EngineeringCost = EngineeringCost
deriving (Show, Read, Eq)
data NaturalScienceCost = NaturalScienceCost
deriving (Show, Read, Eq)
data SocialScienceCost = SocialScienceCost
deriving (Show, Read, Eq)
data ResearchCost = ResearchCost
deriving (Show, Read, Eq)
data ResearchProduction = ResearchProduction
deriving (Show, Read, Eq)
data ResearchLeft = ResearchLeft
deriving (Show, Read, Eq)Finally there’s Research, which is a record that uses many of the types introduced earlier. It describes what Technology is unlocked upon completion, what’s the cost is and if there are any technologies that have to have been researched before this research can start. The tier of research isn’t currently used for anything, but I have vague plans what to do about it in the future.
data Research = Research
{ researchName :: Text
, researchType :: Technology
, researchCategory :: ResearchCategory
, researchAntecedents :: [Technology]
, researchCost :: TotalResearchScore ResearchCost
, researchTier :: ResearchTier
}
deriving (Show, Read, Eq)Putting all this together, we can define a list of Research. Since finding an entry from this list based on research type of it is such a common operation, we also define another data structure for this specific purpose. Map in other programming languages is often known as dictionary, associative array or hash map. It stores key-value - pairs. In our case Technology is used as key and Research as value. We define it based on the list previously defined:
techMap :: Map.Map Technology Research
techMap = Map.fromList $ (\x -> (researchType x, x)) <$> unTechTree techTreeNext time we’ll look into how to actually use all these types and data that were defined.
Hosted by clacke on 2019-05-21 is flagged as Clean and released under a CC-BY-SA license.
Tags: success, self-care.
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Based on https://libranet.de/display/0b6b25a8-125c-a71f-c7ae-f1a686792961.
It’s pretty short, less than 4 minutes, but I think it’s important.
Who defines whether you are successful, or whether your project is successful, and does it matter?
Hosted by Dave Morriss on 2019-05-20 is flagged as Explicit and released under a CC-BY-SA license.
Tags: Awk utility, Awk Language, gawk,redirection.
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Series: Learning Awk | Comments (0)
This is the fourteenth episode of the “Learning Awk” series which is being produced by b-yeezi and myself.
In this episode and the next I want to start looking at redirection within Awk programs. I had originally intended to cover the subject in one episode, but there is just too much.
So, in the first episode I will be starting with output redirection and then in the next episode will spend some time looking at the getline command used for explicit input, often with redirection.
I have provided detailed notes as usual for this episode, and these can be viewed here.
You can copy and paste on Linux the same way you do on any other OS: Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste (or use the Edit menu, or a right-click menu).
However, Linux doesn't limit you to just that. The primary GUI environment of Linux (at the time of this recording) is X, and the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual defines three X Selection states: Primary, Secondary, and Clipboard. The Secondary is rarely (if ever?) used, so I don't cover it here.
The primary X Selection is anything literally selected at any given moment. If you highlight a word in Firefox with your mouse, for instance, then it becomes the Primary Selection, and it is owned by Firefox. If you press the Middle Mouse Button in any application, then that application asks the owner (Firefox, in this example) for the data contained in the Primary Selection. Firefox sends the data to that application so that it can paste it for you.
A Primary selection remains the Primary Selection until it is overwritten by a new Primary Selection. In other words, text needn't be highlighted to be retained in the Primary Selection slot.
The Clipboard Selection is data that has explicitly been sent to the clipboard by a copy action. This is usually a right-click > Copy or a selection of Edit > Copy. When another application is told to paste from the clipboard, it pastes data from the Clipboard Selection.
You can (and often do) have both a Primary Selection and a Clipboard selection. If you press Ctrl+V, you get the contents of the Clipboard Selection. If you press the middle mouse button, then you get the contents of the Primary Selection.
The xsel command allows you to retrieve the contents of an X Selection.
$ xsel --primary
dungeons
$ xsel --clipboard
dragons
GPM is a daemon allowing you to use your mouse without a GUI. Among its features, it permits you to select text in a text console (TTY) and then paste it with the middle mouse button.
Screen and tmux are "window managers for text consoles". I don't tend to use tmux as often as I should, having learnt GNU Screen long ago, so I'm not familiar with the process of copying and pasting with tmux. For Screen, you can copy text in this way:
Press Ctrl+A to get out of insert mode.
Press left-square_bracket to enter copy-mode
Move your text to the position you want to start selecting and press Enter or Return
Arrow to the position at which you want to end your selection and press Enter or Return again
To paste your selection:
Press Ctrl+A to get out of insert mode.
Press right-square_bracket to paste
I discuss the entire Spectre and Meltdown issues and where we might go post an Intel world. My objective is to encourage others to leave Speculative processing backed by management engine based chips. SCATTER HUMANS!!! WE MUST LEAVE!!!!
Knightwise wonders if we should let go of the linux desktop environments and focus on cross-platform applications instead. Please bring your torches and pitchforks.
Hosted by clacke on 2019-05-14 is flagged as Clean and released under a CC-BY-SA license.
Tags: 5g, health, radiation, pseudoscience.
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This is mostly verbatim from my Fediverse post https://libranet.de/display/0b6b25a8-165c-9c7f-b55d-c7a077813050, with a few minor edits.
The anti-5G campaign has been cooking for many years now, and at the epicenter of it all are two men, Lennart Hardell and Rainer Nyberg. It’s a Swedish-Finnish phenomenon that is now really making the rounds and spreading internationally, as actual commercial deployment of 5G networks draws nearer.
As a Swede, I apologize. These two do not represent the Swedish or Finnish cancer or radiation research community, and our media have given them far more space in the public discourse than their work merits.
They are heavily quoted in networks of pseudoscience, including anti-vaccine sites, right-wing "alternative facts" sites and Strålskyddsstiftelsen ("Swedish Radiation Protection Foundation"), a private foundation created in 2012 with a deceptive name meant to invoke authority, which has had to be corrected on multiple occasions by the actual Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, Strålskyddsmyndigheten.
Strålskyddsstiftelsen received the 2013 "Misleader of the Year" award from the main Swedish scientific skeptics' society, Vetenskap och Folkbildning ("Science and Public Education") for "[their fearmongering propaganda and biased reporting on the health effects of mobile telephony use and wireless networks]".
https://www.vof.se/utmarkelser/tidigare-utmarkelser/aretas-forvillare-2013/ (in Swedish)
These networks are part of a feedback loop where they get media attention, politicians pick up on their claims and use them to invoke the precautionary principle and get precautionary regulation in place, or judges rule based on the claims, which then gets quoted by these entities as evidence that they were right all along.
They make it very hard to find factual information on whether millimeter-wavelength radiation actually has any different effect from the centimeter-wavelength radiation that we have been using for over two decades without any documented harmful effects, because wherever you look you just find these sites claiming that we have definitely had adverse health effects for the last two decades and the new frequency bands will definitely be far worse.
When you dig deeper into the claims on these sites you find a handful of cherry-picked articles, leading back to the two men mentioned at the top, to studies with flawed methodology like self-reported surveys on mobile telephony use among cancer patients, or to the pseudoscience/media/politics/law feedback loop. And it’s all about centimeter waves, which simply have shown no conclusive sign of increasing brain cancers or any other adverse health effect related to the radiation. For every positive report made you can find one that reports brain cancer fell as we introduced mobile phones. There is a massive body of data, and if the signal were there, we would have seen it by now.
I’m no cancer researcher, but neither is Rainer Nyberg, he’s a retired professor in pedagogy. He’s a concerned citizen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennart_Hardell is an actual oncologist and professor who has studied carcinogens, but his research results on the wireless/cancer connection have been dismissed as "non-informative", "post hoc", "barely statistically significant" and "flawed" by his peers. There is nothing there.
We know that high-voltage 16.7 Hz fields increase the risk for leukemia in train drivers, but we don’t know why. I am open to the possibility that 20-50 GHz waves have different consequences from 2 GHz waves, but I’d have to hear it from a credible source.
Straight up DNA mutation is out the window, and that’s one of the centerpoints of these campaigns. This is still frequencies below visual light, it’s not ionizing radiation. No plausible mechanism has been suggested, and there is no clear data on any adverse effects.
We use millimeter waves for the full body scans in US airports. Surely the effects of those have been studied? The top search results go to truthaboutcancer and infowars and similar names I won’t even bother to click. I don’t want to read another article about how all cancer research after 1950 has been wrong, we should all just eat chalk to balance our acidity, and cancer is a fungus.
Apart from the pseudoscience sites I found one paper on the first search results page, concluding that X-ray backscatter scanners have well-known risks, but radiation levels are far below safety standards, both for passengers and for security staff, and also below the background radiation exposure while flying, and millimeter-wave scanners, while an "alarmingly small amount of information about its potential health effects" is available, "The established health effects associated with non-ionizing radiation are limited to thermal effects" and "these scanners operate at outputs well below those required to produce tissue heating", that is, we currently don’t know of a way millimeter waves might be harmful: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1687850714000168 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrras.2014.02.005)
For a guide on how to spot pseudoscience and how to read scientific papers, see ahuka’s excellent hpr2695: Problems with Studies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines
A few years ago, when you wanted to install a package on your Linux system, you had to grab the source code, and the nightmare began. But nowadays, this is over. You have deb files, and snaps, and flatpacks, and many other package formats available. On this episode, I was joined by Alan Pope, from Canonical, to talk about one of them in particular : snaps.
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