Readit News logoReadit News

Deleted Comment

alexforster commented on Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT   danluu.com/seo-spam/... · Posted by u/882542F3884314B
boomboomsubban · 2 years ago
Can someone tell me why Bing, and thus DDG, has switched to prioritizing local results? I'll search the most inane things, like lyrics to a song, and get results for local businesses containing maybe one word in common.

It's most frustrating with phone numbers. I picked up the habit of searching the random numbers that called me, to try and find out if they were possibly important. I used to get a bunch of spam sites that clearly existed to profit off me making those searches.

Both Google and DDG have removed those spam sites, even though they were useful at times. Google will tell me the number is in some random PDF that contains a few of the digits, then no other results. DDG will say the top result is my local police department, something that freaked me out the first few times.

alexforster · 2 years ago
DDG is just repackaged Bing. Always has been. I remember looking into them when I was ready to job-hop many years ago, and they asked for dedication to their search engine as their foremost requirement for employment. It's the "drop-shipping" equivalent of search engines.
alexforster commented on Open-source drawing tool – Excalidraw   github.com/excalidraw/exc... · Posted by u/dmezzetti
alexforster · 2 years ago
I'm constantly DM'd at work about how I'm able to create the "cool drawings" in my blog/wiki posts, and I enthusiastically point to excalidraw.com.

I have a background in vector illustration, which is all about creating subpixel-perfect designs. I'm also a bit of a perfectionist, which I think a lot of people here can relate to. I mention this because the reason Excalidraw really works for me is that it frees me from worrying about design. When you literally can't create something that looks "perfect", you're freed up to just sketch your idea without worrying about the visual representation.

alexforster commented on Show HN: Developed from my Prison cell: A Libcurl TUI HTTP Client in Rust.   github.com/PThorpe92/CuTE... · Posted by u/dvektor
dvektor · 2 years ago
This is particularly why I feel a strong sense of responsibility to succeed and not abuse any privileges. I think the obvious reasons that this isn't more normal, are that they would just be abused. Who on earth would trust an inmate with internet access?

So as one of the first, it's my particular duty to show that a program like this can succeed and there are many of us that could be trusted and want to change. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

alexforster · 2 years ago
That post was fascinating. You are a model example of what progressive prison reform can accomplish and your story should be getting major press coverage if it hasn't already.
alexforster commented on Nghttp3 1.0.0 – HTTP/3 library written in C   nghttp2.org/nghttp3/... · Posted by u/neustradamus
stock_toaster · 2 years ago
I think http/2 will be the odd one out (and abandoned) longer term, with http/1.1 being retained for backwards compatibility, and http/3 being more common.
alexforster · 2 years ago
I don't think it's responsible to replace http/1.1 with either of these protocols. They both seem like complex beasts with poorly understood corner cases and little consideration for the abuse potential.
alexforster commented on Vectis IP Announces Call for Patents Essential to the Opus codec   vectis.com/media/vectis-i... · Posted by u/teilo
Test0129 · 3 years ago
On one hand I believe the theoretical patent is very important to promote innovation. If you, the inventor, can get guarantees on your sales for 10 years (which is reasonable, imo) then it'll encourage people to make more stuff. I don't think patents are wrong.

However, the way patents are filed is wrong. There's so many issues with first to file. It's a good system when your office sees 100 patents a year. All of them are likely to be novel, and likely to be made by independent inventors. The problem we have now is there are entire companies (IBM, Google, RAND, TI, etc) that exist solely to farm patents. In fact, there are so many patent farms disguised as businesses I challenge you to sit, think of something, and search for a patent for it. I guarantee you one exists. Moreover, pursue the patent office if you never have. The definition of invention, especially in tech, is so vague it may as well not exist. Vomit some smart sounding stuff on paper with drawings and you've got yourself a patent that, if written correctly, will almost certainly produce a profit. Hell, take a cat and draw a stereo speaker on top of it. Call it "animal sound machine". I guarantee you if it hasn't already been done someone will do it. Better, draw a cat with a USB stick duct taped to it and call it "IP over Feline". Devise a stupid protocol. Then sue every idiot who thought it'd be funny to make one. This is seriously how lame modern patent law is. You might even be infringing on a patent with IP over Feline because someone already "invented" transportable storage.

I don't have a solution to the problem. Part of me wants to say one patent, per inventor, per term (10 years). You have the option of canceling a patent to put a new one in. But this seems like it's too strong. Maybe there's another way that legitimate inventors for an appropriate amount of time, and also disincentivizes patent trolls through some measure. Maybe we could start with "common good" patents (as determined by a board of smart people) being invalidated.

alexforster · 3 years ago
> In fact, there are so many patent farms disguised as businesses I challenge you to sit, think of something, and search for a patent for it.

Nice try, Opposing Counsel.

alexforster commented on You don’t want to be on Cloudflare’s naughty list   ctrl.blog/entry/cloudflar... · Posted by u/_fnqu
d2wa · 3 years ago
(Author here.) My router isn’t a domestic router. It’s a MikroTik running RouterOS, completely unsupported by the ISP. Outgoing connections and DNS is logged. UPnP is only allowed for the Xbox, PS4, and off-most-of-the-time gaming PC. Nothing out of the ordinary in the logs.
alexforster · 3 years ago
> It’s a MikroTik running RouterOS

https://google.com/search?q=mikrotik+botnet

These things are the absolute scourge of the internet.

alexforster commented on Richard Li owns a personal top level domain   iana.org/domains/root/db/... · Posted by u/nabla9
jesterson · 3 years ago
May I know if you are speaking from experience/knowledge?

Thinking to have root domain for a holding company, wondering the cost.

alexforster · 3 years ago
This is easily searchable, so... I doubt you're seriously looking, but...

> The evaluation fee is US$185,000. Applicants will be required to pay a US$5,000 deposit fee per requested application slot when registering.

https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs...

alexforster commented on Richard Li owns a personal top level domain   iana.org/domains/root/db/... · Posted by u/nabla9
edmcnulty101 · 3 years ago
How can I get a personal top level domain?
alexforster · 3 years ago
Give several hundred thousand dollars to ICANN.

u/alexforster

KarmaCake day631November 17, 2009
About
DDoS guru at Cloudflare
View Original