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Defletter

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Defletter
·il y a 23 jours·discuss
Of course, it's a largely hobbyist venture, which also inadvertently makes it more difficult to audit. But the software engineering aspect was not really the point, just the context: the vast majority of people will just blindly install anything (regardless of whether it's open or closed source), clicking through the installation wizard, accepting the prompts for admin privileges, etc, without a care. But even within the minority of us end users who know what "open source" even means, there's a shocking amount of people who assume that an open source project is necessarily safer because, well, the source is publicly available... someone must've already done an audit, therefore it's safe.
Defletter
·il y a 23 jours·discuss
> You've been living on such a principle? That sounds insane

Fun fact, I've spent the last few days fretting over whether to add H2 to my FabricMC mod. The problem being that I don't know what class-loading shenanigans could possibly occur if I jar-in-jar include it: what happens if another mod has H2 jar-in-jar included? Will my mod only reference its own version of H2? What implications [if any] would that have? Or will the Fabric Loader pick one? What if another mod has H2 shaded instead? Will the classes clash differently? What if, instead of jar-in-jar including it, I shade and relocate it? Does H2 or JDBC rely on reflection or services that would render it non-functional?

All recommendations point to using/creating a mod specifically for that library and depending on it. As luck would have it, one already exists on Modrinth. Except... I'm then requiring anyone who trusts my mod to also install this other mod that I have no control over. I just looked at the source code and it looks fine, but that's if you trust that the published jars are the exact result of that source code: maybe there's something malicious in the Gradle Wrapper binary. This mod could at any time become malicious and how would I detect that?

Guess what? I asked around and was summarily told to stop worrying, that it's fine. We on this website need to realise that we're a minority: NO ONE is routinely (or even occasionally) scrutinising the source code of the stuff they install from third-party websites. I have never, not once, seen anyone hash a downloaded file to check that it matches what's on the website. At the very most, I've seen people find the Github repo, see that it has a lot of stars, and then assume it's safe.
Defletter
·le mois dernier·discuss
It probably depends on the bank, but setting one's overdraft limit to zero doesn't necessarily help and may actually make things worse: some payments may still go through even if you don't have the funds, putting you in unauthorised overdraft, which tends to have a high daily fee.
Defletter
·le mois dernier·discuss
Who'd've guessed that the profit motive being the primary if not sole concern would sometimes (often) create incentives that are hostile to humanity.
Defletter
·le mois dernier·discuss
Huh, I didn't know how much I needed a "todo" type until now. So often I'll be defining a packet sumtype, or a collection, and not have created the type yet, so just use ubyte, or Object, or whatever. Having an explicit "todo" type would be amazing in other languages.
Defletter
·le mois dernier·discuss
The problem is compounded with NPM though thanks to lifecycle scripts: yes, any and all package managers create a risk of supply-chain attack, but NPM makes it dangerous to merely open a project up in an IDE.
Defletter
·le mois dernier·discuss
The two main points are that wasm is entirely sandboxed and that it's designed to be streamed, and to start up very quickly. The official Java youtube channel coincidentally posted this two days ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy0KyGLrbJo - which includes some interesting details.
Defletter
·le mois dernier·discuss
Sorry, I'm still failing to see how someone rough-sleeping on a bench is in anyway comparable to blocking a road and obstructing travel. The actual equivalent would be laying across the track... which is not what's happening. I have seen disturbing images of places who so acutely fail to support their homeless populations that they have no other choice than to sleep in the roads, but even then they're up against the curb, not actually blocking the road.

At this point, I'm beginning to think you consider the mere presence of a rough-sleeper at a train station to be blocking the use of that train station, regardless of what it is they're actually doing.
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
Sorry, different person here, why does "sleeping at a train station" imply "setting up a queen bed in the middle of their lane on the highway" or anything of the sort?
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
It's morbidly interesting to watch public discourse on what is and isn't considered a solely-parental responsibility. For example, we seem to have more or less accepted that comprehensive sex education should be taught in school (thank goodness), in part because it cannot be assumed that all children have a parent or guardian who can or will teach them these things. And yet this same consideration barely comes up when discussing internet safety.
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
I just think it's incredibly funny how you assert you're being intellectually honest and then in the same breath do something incredibly intellectually dishonest. But whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
@grok could you please find the part where I said that free speech is the cause of all the evils in the world?
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
If all you have to offer is mere ideological preference, then I think this conversation has reached its limit of what it'll be able to achieve.
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
Okay, so let me make the question plain: what would American-style freedom of speech fix for the UK that isn't also a problem in the US despite having said freedom of speech.
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
The reason why it would be worse is not because American-style free speech is good actually, but because you fundamentally lack the tools to hold your politicians accountable. Not only do US federal districts contain ~10x more people than UK constituencies (thus your voice is 10x smaller), but the US is suffering extreme jerrymandering, which the Supreme Court has conveniently made unconstitutional to prevent. It's also extraordinarily difficult to remove Presidents.

As for the Epstein point, I cannot say I'm aware of the full saga given that it's been a multiple-decade scandal at this point. But the files were released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Translate this to the UK and Parliament passing a law mandating their release would be unquestionable. No lawsuit would survive the briefest scrutiny once Parliament willed it. I also think it's worth mentioning that Prince Andrew, our most prominent associate with Epstein, began facing repercussions for that association in 2019, years before the files were released.
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
This is where the propaganda surrounding American-style free speech clashes with reality. Many people assume it protects all speech unless it's incitement to imminent lawless action, "fighting words", etc. But that is simply not the case. This is in large part due to how American law doesn't do what it says. Read their First Amendment, actually read it: it's a limitation on Congress. It's become much, much more than that because their Supreme Court is a de facto legislative body.

This is how you get the Red Scare; that money is speech (Buckley v. Valeo); that legal entities are people with free speech and thus campaign donations cannot be restricted (Citizens United v. FEC); that retaliatory arrests for speech are fine so long as there's probable cause for something else (Nieves v. Bartlett); that therapists have a right to convert their underage gay clients (Chiles v. Salazar); etc. Did you not hear about Mahmoud Khalil? Or Alex Pretti? Ect?

The whole "objectionable tweets" thing is so overplayed too. British pundits like to wax poetic about the apparent persecution of people for political speech, and the "political speech" is, for example, Lucy Connolly calling for the burning down of a hotel building housing asylum seekers.

The biggest sufferers under UK speech restrictions are not tweeters, it's protesters, and yet the examples are always tweeters. Isn't that interesting?
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
Have you not noticed what it's done to their country?
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
Ditto, but also the so-called "Free Speech Bill" advocated by the publisher which explicitly attempts to import America-style free speech into the country as law. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be something Parliament is entertaining, at least not yet.
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
While I sympathise with the sentiments here, it's just not true, or at least is a gross exaggeration. While IANAL, nor have I read every jurisdiction's laws, I'm fairly certain we have yet to see someone prosecuted for sharing a Netflix password. This place would've been inundated with posts about it.

Also, the EU and other jurisdictions have already passed laws and regulations about dark patterns, and continue to do so. iirc, there are jurisdictions considering laws regarding content algorithms. There are laws regarding certain addictive patterns (remember the whole debacle regarding micro-transactions targeted towards children?). None of this is to say that these things don't still happen, but rather to refute the notion that these patterns are merely frowned upon.
Defletter
·il y a 2 mois·discuss
I'm pretty convinced the only reason people care is because it's been memeified, and to be fair, the running gag of someone chugging a bottle of water before giving a lacklustre response to an easy question is pretty funny. But this sudden care for water consumption despite the public's general apathy towards it with regards to literally everything else (mining, livestock, textiles, energy generation, Coca Cola, etc), just seems manufactured.