If you want to be extreme, you only use devices that you control all the software on and you are very careful about what software you run. You always use a killswitch vpn. You choose carefully the websites you use and you use all the standard counter measures (ublockorigin,DoH,uMatrix,pihole,etc) at all times. You keep another laptop that has whatever you need to install to be able to use your bank and the online shopping you can’t live without. You use it for nothing else.

Even then its not perfect. I’m pretty sure that all Android, iOS, and Windows devices track the wifi access point name and mac address of all the ones you use. They also track the location of all the access points as seen by everyone elses location enabled devices. Easy for them to combine that to basically know where every visible wifi in the world is.

They can tie it to you by cross-referencing all the signals they have about you with data collected from other data collectors and aggregators. With enough data they can connect things like browser fingerprints and so-called anonymous ad IDs with your real identity.

Keep in mind that there is a good number of technical people whose job it is everyday to continuously figure out new ways to track everything they can about every person they can. These data collector and brokers have demonstrated time and again that they don’t really care about following the rules either. Here’s a good resource for more info https://noyb.eu/en

In terms of how they use it against you, this is some good info and it applies even if you aren’t American https://epic.org/issues/consumer-privacy/data-brokers/

Like a dossier which identifies you only by some ID which is used to compile data about you but never includes your direct personal info (name, email, home address, mobile number) so they don’t have to tell you or ever delete it, even under laws like GDPR.

The Verge is a terrible source if you care about privacy. They have literally 100s of trackers embedded on every page.

Everything you type in the chat box is sent to the LLM provider but they get Duck Duck Go’s IP instead of yours.

So if you type personal things its mostly just like typing them directly to ChatGPT. However, with duck.ai your IP, Browser info, Location (if shared), etc is seen by Duck Duck Go instead of OpenAI.

I don’t think DuckDuckGo is lying when they say that they don’t use your chats to train models. However, that leaves plenty for OpenAI and Duck Duck Go to do with your chats, like building shadow profiles.

I suggest that if you want to be anonymous to Duck Duck Go, then use duck.ai via vpn or tor. Always assume the content of your chat session is being logged by the LLM provider.

alias la=‘ls -lAhF’

Perfect for those late night Zork sessions!

My work gave me a choice of a chromebook or a windows laptop when I started since the company uses the Google stack for everything.

I asked if I could get a high end chromebook and it was approved. Its easy to install linux apps in the dev container and they run seamlessly with the the chrome apps on the desktop and the window manager has multiple desktops (which is how I like to do things). Since I have to use Gmail and Google Docs for work anyway, the chromebook is really not bad and much better than having to use Windows.

I don’t think you can owe somebody for something you didn’t ask for

it happens all the time in bash. i write some and there’s no error but everyone complains that i didn’t use brainfuck

Yes, 100 projects from the Fat Head would make sense.

Do you have any way to establish that these 100 more often come from the Long Tail?

If an app includes 50 well-known big projects and 1000 small projects, the sum result can still be that small projects make up for a large fraction of the code.

I understand your point that this is possible. It is an assumption to assume it is most likely the case however.

I would expect the Fat Head of most used open source projects to make up the vast majority of the open source code included in apps. It is not a common practice to include 1000 small projects into a code base for an app, or even 100.

Is it not reasonable then to expect that the 77% of app code from open source is because the most popular app building blocks are open source? Aren’t the popular open source languages, frameworks, and databases are themselves big enough to exceed the number lines of internally written code for the app business logic most of the time?

For example, if I make a “small” electron app its going to be 90% or more open source because the electron base is so large already.

The insight that a majority of open source projects are small contributions by hobby developers, and that it is their summed joint effort what matters, is very interesting.

The vast majority of open source projects are by hobby developers but how much of those projects make up the 77% of the open source included in apps mentioned in the study?

The author assumes an even distribution but I challenge that.

The most popular (Top listed by Github, Gitlab, etc) open source languages (python, typescript, etc), frameworks (rails, flutter, react, etc), and databases (postgres, mongo, redis etc) are all either directly corporately funded (Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc) and/or have robust foundations and sustainability plans.

I would expect these to make up the vast majority of the open source code in modern apps.

Its a culture issue. Sadly, a lot of places have a very body shaming culture and raise people to be ashamed of their own bodies being seen. In my experience, cultures that include nude sauna do not have this kind of body shaming.

Imagine if you moved to a new country. When you got there you found that everyone in town shaves off their right eyebrow. They shame anyone who doesn’t. If you were raised from birth to feel that having a right eyebrow is shameful, then you would also feel shame at not shaving yours.

The good news is that you can get over body shame. Spend enough time around people who don’t practice such shame and eventually you get used to it and feel fine. Look at the complete chill at which that family does nude sauna. You are not different than them other than some of the ideas you were raised. You can change your mind if you want to.

The model of record player you choose will have a direct impact on your experience.

At the bottom you have the cheap suitcase players with built-in speakers. These will play your records but the speakers aren’t great. People often find that many records won’t play well (or at all) on these cheap players. A record players is a machine and the cheap ones aren’t very tunable and have very low tolerances for scratched or imperfect records.

A nice player with a full size platter, anti-skate, and a counter weight will happily play the same records that won’t play on the cheap suitcase players. These more expensive players will not have built-in speakers so you also need amplified speakers or an amp+speakers. The sound quality will depend on what speakers you buy but will certainly be better than a suitcase player.

Then you have the high end luxury models. These can cost more than some cars! Are they worth it, well that’s up to you and your budget!

My own solution is getting help from a trusted family member

What does “optimized for desktop use over Tor” mean? Please explain the optimizations.

I mostly look at people’s mouths when they speak. Is that weird?

They help me a lot but they aren’t a magic cure.

I want 2011-2012 on repeat