Links für 2023 KW 38
Zusammengefasst von LlongOrca.
This article provides a guide on setting up a lightweight privacy VPN service using WireGuard. It explains how to install the necessary tools and create public and private keys. Additionally, it covers tunneling WireGuard traffic through a TLS WebSocket connection to circumvent deep packet inspection systems. The example uses a virtual 172.16.0.0/24 network, but any private IP range can be used.
LandChad.net is a website dedicated to helping people set up their own websites, email servers, and chat servers. The site provides easy-to-follow tutorials that allow users to create basic web pages in just an hour or less. Some of the services offered include Calibre (a digital library), ejabberd (a chat server), and Matrix Dendrite (a faster server implementation of Matrix). The platform also offers guidance on setting up email servers and maintaining a server.
10 Reasons Windows Is Going in the Wrong Direction:
This article highlights 10 areas where Windows is heading down a potentially wrong direction, including issues with the taskbar options removal, confusion about PC updates, ads and news stories integration, ignoring default browser choices, Microsoft account logins becoming mandatory, moving to web apps, slowing down PC performance, removing live tiles, and the author's continued commitment to the Windows platform despite these criticisms.
Daily links from Cory Doctorow: VIN locking:
Apple continues to restrict access to right-to-repair parts by implementing strategies such as parts-pairing and using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to its advantage. Parts-pairing is a way of pairing subassemblies with devices, making them incompatible with other components and rendering the device unrepairable by independent repair shops. This practice contributes to Apple's efforts to control the parts market, thereby driving up costs for consumers and increasing e-waste. The DMCA also plays a role in hindering repairs by prohibiting the distribution of tools that bypass access controls on devices. It is crucial for legislators to address these issues and support right-to-repair bills.
GitHub Actions could be so much better:
This article highlights various frustrations that a user has experienced when using GitHub Actions for their programming projects. The issues identified include difficulty in debugging workflows, potential security vulnerabilities, and the need for more official actions within GitHub's platform. Some suggested improvements include providing an interactive debugging shell, better error handling during push-time rejections, stricter type-checking, offering real types to users, and creating more official actions for key ecosystem features. The article also suggests working with large third-party action developers to ensure consistency in security practices and updates across various workflows. Overall, the user hopes that these concerns will be addressed by GitHub's engineering teams to improve the overall experience and reliability of using GitHub Actions.
11 Principles for building and scaling feature flag systems | Unleash:
Feature flags are a software development technique that enables developers to turn specific features or code segments on or off at runtime without the need for a code deployment or rollback. By following 11 principles for building large-scale feature flag systems, organizations can improve key operational metrics such as lead time to changes and change failure rate. These principles include enabling run-time control, never exposing PII (Personally Identifiable Information), evaluating flags close to the user, and favoring availability over consistency.
It's Cheaper to Live on a Boat Than Rent an Apartment in These U.S. Cities:
Rental prices in the US have increased by 3.3% compared to last year according to data from NerdWallet, with the average rent in 2023 being $2,052. In an attempt to find more affordable living options, many people are considering moving onto boats as a cheaper alternative. Rightboat, a digital boat marketplace, conducted a study comparing the cost of living on a boat to land-based accommodation in major cities around the world. They found that those living on boats can save thousands of dollars per month in expensive cities like New York City, Seattle, and San Francisco. Not only does this lifestyle provide financial savings, but it also contributes to increased happiness due to being near marine or coastal locations and greater freedom to explore various waterways and shores.
Install Windows the Arch Linux Way:
This article provides detailed instructions on installing Windows through the Command Line, bypassing any changes made to the installer or out of box experience (OOBE). It covers topics such as downloading the Windows Installer, partitioning disks, selecting desired partitions, formatting and assigning partitions, verifying the Windows version, applying the installation ISO, copying boot files, and bypassing OOBE.
Nintendo 3DS Architecture | A Practical Analysis:
I have summarized an article about the architecture and variants of the Nintendo 3DS console. It discusses various models including the original 3DS, New 3DS, and New 2DS XL. The article also highlights some differences between the 'New' series such as hardware upgrades, stereoscopic system, and an NFC reader.
Fefes Blog: neue Snowden-Details:
This article discusses new details about Snowden's revelations. It mentions how the NSA listed Cavium as a successful example of a „SIGINT-enabled“ CPU supplier, and highlights that they compromised lawful Russian interception infrastructure (SORM). The article also refers to the NSA's mass surveillance program, PRISM, listing targets such as the Tibetan government in exile. It criticizes the lack of warning from the press regarding these matters and questions their trustworthiness.
Lead poisoning causes far more death, IQ loss than thought: study:
A new study by the World Bank has suggested that lead poisoning may be a greater health threat than previously thought, with potential involvement in over five million deaths annually and contributing to air pollution. The researchers analyzed blood lead levels across countries and estimated that these exposures resulted in an average loss of nearly six IQ points for young children in developing nations. This is said to be the first study to assess the impact of lead on heart disease deaths and childhood IQ losses globally, with both wealthy and developing nations being affected. The economic cost of lead exposure was estimated at $6 trillion in 2019, equating to around seven percent of global GDP. The researchers used data from the landmark 2019 Global Burden of Disease study.
Car breaking vanilla ice cream:
The article tells a story of a man who complained to General Motors' Pontiac Division about his car not starting after he bought vanilla ice cream, while it started just fine when he got other flavors. Initially skeptical, the company sent an engineer who observed that the car wouldn't start due to vapor lock caused by quicker trips for vanilla ice cream. The solution involved allowing more time between getting the ice cream and driving back, thus giving the engine enough time to cool down before starting again.
Archaeologists discover world’s oldest wooden structure - University of Liverpool News:
New research from the University of Liverpool and Aberystwyth University has found that humans were building structures made of wood around half a million years ago. The discovery, based on excavations at Kalambo Falls in Zambia, predates the evolution of our own species, Homo sapiens. The findings challenge the belief that Stone Age humans were nomadic and suggests they created structures using their intelligence and imagination.
An Open-Source Maps App That Doesn't Suck:
Organic Maps, an open-source and privacy-focused maps app, claims to support all features without an active internet connection. The app has no traffic data but can handle road conditions, interchanges, closures, and more. Organic Maps is competent for most purposes, providing accurate routes and directions like Google Maps but does not offer real-time updates on traffic or incidents.
XML is better than YAML. Hear me out...:
The article discusses a debate on whether XML or YAML is more suitable for various situations. Carl Johnson argues that there are cases where XML, or Extensible Markup Language, is appropriate, while there are no such scenarios for YAML. He cites examples of when XML is useful and emphasizes the importance of understanding when not to use it. On the other hand, he believes that YAML should never be used as it introduces errors and confusion. The author also mentions alternatives like TOML and CUE that may be better choices than YAML.
Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It.:
The article discusses how boys and men in the United States are struggling, particularly working-class men and boys, facing various problems like less college graduation rates, higher deaths of despair rates, stagnant wages since the 1970s, and more. The author emphasizes that these issues affect boys and men across racial groups and are a part of the overall challenges faced by young men hitting the labor market or education. To address this issue, the article suggests having an office of men's health focused on male mental health, recruiting male teachers, and using infrastructure bills to create jobs for men. The author concludes that acknowledging and taking action on these issues will help reduce the political openings for right-wing politicians who exploit this crisis.
paxb:
paxb is a Python library that simplifies the process of mapping XML documents to Python objects and vice versa. The library allows developers to focus more on application logic, reducing boilerplate code. paxb also provides functions for validating deserialized data, accessing and updating fields in Python objects, and serializing Python objects to XML documents. Additionally, it can be mixed with attrs library to expand its functionality even further.
2002 : WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION? ... WHY?:
In this article, J. Doyne Farmer discusses the concept of value, addressing the difference between price and value. He brings up a quote from Oscar Wilde suggesting that value is subjective, but argues that in domains such as engineering, there may be an objective basis for determining one design over another. The article suggests that creating a mathematical framework to distinguish good and bad designs could have scientific importance for engineering and economics, with potential implications for philosophy, religion, and politics.
The article argues against the conventional wisdom of using web analytics as standard practice for every online project. It suggests that Google Analytics may not always be the best tool due to its simplicity and lack of depth in data analysis, potentially limiting the understanding of a project's performance.
Context Managers and Python's with Statement – Real Python:
The Python with statement is useful for managing external resources, such as files or network connections, by automatically handling their setup and teardown phases through context managers. It can be used with objects that support the context management protocol, providing a more concise and readable alternative to try-except statements in some cases.
1,000 Met Police officers suspended or on restricted duties:
Over 1,000 Metropolitan police officers are currently suspended or on restricted duties as the force attempts to root out corrupt officers. This crackdown follows convictions of former officers David Carrick and Wayne Couzens. The Met has revealed a significant increase in reports from the public and officers of alleged misconduct, with over 100 officers sacked for gross misconduct in the past year.
The article discusses the naming conventions in Asia and how to refer to Asian leaders. Japanese foreign minister Kono Taro has called for overseas media to use family names first when referring to Japanese prime ministers. This convention is already used when referring to other Asian leaders such as China's President Xi Jinping and North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. The Asia Media Centre provides a rough style guide on naming conventions in different countries, including Japan, China, South Korea, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, and Laos.
Windows Subsystem for Linux gets new 'mirrored' network mode:
Microsoft has released Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2.0.0 with new experimental features, including a new network mode and automated memory cleanup. The update introduces „Automatic memory reclaim,“ which reduces the WSL virtual machine's memory footprint while in use. Additionally, there is the „Sparse VHD“ feature that automatically shrinks the size of the WSL virtual hard disk, mirrored networking with improved compatibility and support for IPv6, multicast support, and network compatibility with Windows servers. Microsoft's WSL Program Manager also mentioned DNS tunneling, Hyper-V Firewall, and „autoProxy“ feature to enhance network compatibility in WSL. The update is currently available for Windows 10 and 11 customers via the Microsoft Store.
Anmeldung form filler - Nicolas Bouliane:
The article discusses the need to register an address when moving to Berlin, providing instructions on how to complete the Anmeldung form and offering tips for immigrants registering their address for the first time. The author also mentions that they have created a better digital version of the form using web technologies such as VueJS and PDFLib.
How I rewired my brain in six weeks:
This article discusses how everyday changes can alter our brains and change their functioning. The author, Melissa Hogenboom, undergoes a brain scan to study the effects of mindfulness exercises on her own brain. She learns that simple mindfulness techniques can enhance cognitive functions such as attention, relieve pain, and reduce stress. Over six weeks, she practiced a guided mindfulness meditation course modified by Professor Thorsten Barnhofer. After the course, Hogenboom's brain scans revealed changes in her amygdala and cingulate cortex, which showed increased control over the areas that prevent mind wandering. The article concludes with the author encouraging others to incorporate mindfulness exercises into their daily routines for long-lasting benefits.
George Orwell - Complete works, Biography, Quotes, Essays:
George-orwell.org is a website that offers comprehensive information on George Orwell, including his complete works, biography, pictures, and famous quotes. The creator welcomes contributions of essays or articles relating to Orwell and encourages users to submit content or provide feedback via contact form.
Trunk-Based Development vs. Long-Lived Feature Branches: Which One is Right for Your Software Team?:
In software development, two popular strategies are Trunk-Based Development and Long-Lived Feature Branches. While both have their benefits, the choice between them depends on factors like team expertise, project complexity, and business needs. Trunk-Based Development provides quick feedback loops, while Long-Lived Feature Branching is ideal for significant changes and feature release planning. Both strategies can be effective in specific contexts; the key is to choose one that adapts to your project's requirements.
This article emphasizes the importance of maintenance programming over ground-up development projects, highlighting its benefits such as improved debugging skills, learning how to program better, optimizing and finding new tools, understanding data and databases, focusing on client satisfaction, gaining people skills, building business knowledge, getting follow-on business, avoiding offshoring, and more. The author also shares their personal experience working mainly in maintenance programming and the reasons why they prefer it over other types of projects.
WinRAR sold 5,449 licenses in a day:
The discussion mainly revolves around the use-case for WinRAR software in 2023 and whether it's worth purchasing a license for those who prefer to use other compression tools like 7zip, zip, or tar. Some reasons given for using WinRAR include better .tar.gz handling, recovery records for data recovery, support for more NTFS attributes and features, and a generally better user interface compared to some alternatives. However, the conversation also mentions that most people who use compression tools nowadays are satisfied with 7zip or other free options available in various platforms.
What If OpenDocument Used SQLite?:
This article explores the idea of using SQLite database in place of ZIP archive for OpenDocument format, specifically in ODP files. The benefits suggested include smaller documents, faster save and load times, less memory usage, document versioning, and better user experience. Using SQLite provides capabilities such as incremental updates, start-up speed improvement, memory footprint reduction, and improved accessibility to the content. The article also touches on advanced features like built-in document versioning and crash recovery, but emphasizes that it is a thought experiment and does not propose actually changing the OpenDocument format. Instead, it serves as an example of how SQLite can improve application file formats in general.
Your Brain Is Not an Onion With a Tiny Reptile Inside:
In this article, the author argues that there is a widespread misconception in much of psychology regarding nervous-system evolution. The belief that newer brain structures were added over existing older ones is discredited among neurobiologists and stands in contrast to the clear and unanimous agreement on these issues among those studying nervous-system evolution. This incorrect view may have impeded progress in psychology, and the author urges psychologists to abandon this mistaken view of human brains. The article describes a more accurate model of neural evolution and provides examples of how this inaccurate view has impacted psychological research. It also discusses potential benefits to psychological science if psychologists changed their mistaken views of brain evolution, such as integrative and generative research that could better understand the general principles by which animals make decisions about opportunity costs.
Lago Blog - The 4 biggest problems with homemade billing systems:
The article discusses the challenges faced while designing the billing system for a B2B neobank, Qonto. The author, Vincent Pochet, highlights that building a custom billing system is not only time-consuming but also requires ongoing maintenance and scalability as user base grows or introduces new features. He shares his experience of working at Qonto, where they faced issues like pricing changes, grandfathering existing plans, and staffing an entire team dedicated to the project. The article concludes with a warning not to build a custom billing system if there's an alternative available, as it becomes increasingly complex and resource-intensive over time.
Ungewöhnliches Hobby: Hier rockt eine Stuttgarter Polizistin die Bühne:
Police officer Aurelia Hildebrandt, aged 38, ensures that the streets of Stuttgart remain quiet and well-mannered during her working hours. However, in her free time, she creates a significant amount of noise and sings loudly on stage. She recently performed as a singer at the Europa-Park Teatro. When asked if she might pursue singing full-time, Hildebrandt laughs and denies it, saying that she loves her job as a police officer because there's always action involved. She has always admired police officers since childhood and finds her career more secure financially than relying solely on performance income.
Blocking Visual Studio Code embedded reverse shell before it's too late:
Since July 2023, Microsoft has offered a reverse shell feature within Visual Studio Code, a widely used development tool. Users with a GitHub account can share their desktop on the web using just a few clicks. The Visual Studio Code tunnel is considered a „living off-the-land binary“ (Lolbin), which allows attackers to expose sensitive data through authentication that the user does not control or supervise. This opens up internal networks to external threats and remote access.
To mitigate this issue, it's essential to block domains such as global.rel.tunnels.api.visualstudio.com and *.devtunnels.ms. Additionally, using Microsoft Applocker technology with custom rules can help prevent the execution of Visual Studio Code or other related applications that could potentially be targeted for reverse shell attacks. Regular monitoring of network traffic and file creation within the UserProfile directory is also recommended to detect any suspicious activity.
In conclusion, while the Visual Studio Code tunnel feature offers convenience for developers, its security implications should not be overlooked. Implementing appropriate security measures is crucial in protecting networks and data from potential attacks leveraging this vulnerability.
Why Scalpers Can Get Olivia Rodrigo Tickets and You Can't:
To address ticket scalping and Ticketmaster's role in it, it would be important to implement stricter security measures to prevent scalpers from creating multiple accounts, using automated scripts to bypass restrictions, and reselling tickets they do not own. This could involve developing advanced anti-scalper algorithms, implementing stronger verification processes for credit card information, and making efforts to crack down on the sale of specialized internet browsers used by scalpers. Additionally, promoting transparent ticket pricing and more accessibility during presale events can help ensure fans get their tickets fairly. Overall, a combination of technical improvements and consumer awareness may significantly reduce the impact of ticket scalping in the future.
Woman loses over $44k after downloading third-party app to buy fish:
A Singapore woman lost $44,487 after her Android phone and banking details were hacked by scammers through a third-party app she downloaded to order grouper fillets for $10. The victim, Jacqueline Khoo, contacted the seafood supplier from Facebook, who instructed her to download the app. After downloading it, scammers increased her credit limits and stole money from her accounts. She later discovered her phone felt hot, and her bank account was empty. This type of scam has become increasingly common, with 22,339 cases reported in Singapore during January to June 2023, up 64.5% from the previous year.
Yanis Varoufakis, a charismatic left-wing firebrand and former finance minister of Greece, discusses his new book „Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism“ in an article. The book explores the idea that capitalism has been replaced with something even worse - an era of servitude to tech giants like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla's Elon Musk, which he calls „Technofeudalism“. Varoufakis argues that these technological fiefdoms are a form of feudalism where individuals are charged rent, rather than creating capital. He compares the current situation to an era of privatized digital landscapes and gatekeepers charging rent, as opposed to the production of value by individuals or companies. This concept raises questions about traditional distinctions between left and right in politics, and whether these categories still make sense in light of new power structures in today's world.
I downgraded to an iPhone 11 Pro Max – and I'm not missing much:
The article discusses the author's experience of downgrading from an iPhone 14 Pro Max to an iPhone 11 Pro Max due to display burn-in. Despite initial concerns about the performance, design, and features, the author finds that they are content with using the older model. They note that most new iPhone features introduced over the years have been more cosmetic rather than revolutionary, with many people still happy using their older iPhones for longer periods.
The myth of the myth of learning styles:
The article discusses debunking the „learning styles“ myth but emphasizes the importance of individuals choosing their own learning methods and strategies based on personal preferences and needs. It stresses the need to actively engage in the learning process and consider various options for effective education.
The vital art of talking to strangers:
The three books discussed in this article - „Hello, Stranger“ by Will Buckingham, „The Power of Strangers“ by Joe Keohane, and „Fractured“ by Jon Yates - all explore the various attitudes towards strangers throughout life. These books provide insight into the importance of engaging with new people through meaningful conversations, while also addressing the difficulties in doing so due to societal divisions and self-segregation that have emerged in modern Western societies. They highlight how the COVID-19 pandemic has further atrophied social skills for many individuals but emphasize the significance of restoring a freedom to connect with those who are profoundly different as restrictions lift.
Flowers are starting to spread in Antarctica and experts say that's not good news:
Antarctic plant growth has been accelerating due to climate change, according to recent research conducted at the University of Insubria in Italy. The study measured the growth of two native species, Antarctic hair grass and Antarctic pearlwort, on Signy Island over a decade (2009-2019) and compared these results with surveys dating back 50 years. It found that these plants had grown significantly faster in the recent decade as temperatures rose, which could signify a „tipping point“ for Antarctic ecosystems. The researchers acknowledged that there may be other factors affecting plant growth but highlighted that climate change is clear factor.