dontbenebby (u/dontbenebby)

dontbenebby commented on Ask HN: What outdated tech are you still using and are perfectly happy with? · Posted by u/cainxinth

dontbenebby · 2 years ago

i like vi

sometimes i use macvim so i can move quickly to that program in particular and do other stuff in the terminal, since i use it for general distraction free writing

technically macvim is not vi, but i guess both are considered outdated in an age where if you tell your iphone not to sync to the cloud it erases days on notes on nazis.

(the whole point of privacy was autonomy, not shoving things up to an unencrypted cloud to get a bullshit warrant served on it and tim cook has forgotten what the world was like when storage was scarce)

dontbenebby commented on Sweden reports damage to Baltic Sea cable with Estonia dw.com/en/sweden-reports-... · Posted by u/perihelions

AndroTux · 2 years ago

Relevant article from yesterday regarding which ships were near these cables and pipeline during the time of the event: https://news.err.ee/1609134998/chinese-vessel-even-nearer-to...

dontbenebby · 2 years ago

Are we gonna do the thing where anyone who says Putin can't do whatever he wants is "in the CIA" and thus suspect and force autistic teens to look up publicly available vessel navigation data with a glorified set of links over a Youtube that is a Bellingcat cert?

This is a war, it's time to let military intelligence talk to whichever reporter they picked up at the start of their tour in a bar to feed the good leads and maybe wait a day or two for things that can wait.

dontbenebby commented on Ask HN: What are the best / most accessible languages for blind programmers? · Posted by u/0x0203

Rayhem · 2 years ago

I realize the rust evangelism strike force is a thing, but I can't help but think

    5 |     let scores = inputs().iter().map(|(a, b)| {
      |                  ^^^^^^^^ creates a temporary which is freed while still in use

is easier to make accessibility tools for than

    In file included from /usr/include/c++/4.6/algorithm:63:0,
                     from error_code.cpp:2:
    /usr/include/c++/4.6/bits/stl_algo.h: In function ‘_RandomAccessIterator std::__find(_RandomAccessIterator, _RandomAccessIterator, const _Tp&,...

dontbenebby · 2 years ago

>I realize the rust evangelism strike force is a thing

With rust there's no buffer overflows, how will folks buy supercars to crash in the desert after escaping "flyover country"

(In all seriousness, people were obsessed with it at Mozilla but also just kept hazing me I was "just" a UX researcher -- do you know of a good primer who knows the basics of languages like Python, bash, and QBASIC but struggles with compiled languages like C/C++?)

dontbenebby commented on Ask HN: What are the best / most accessible languages for blind programmers? · Posted by u/0x0203

dontbenebby · 2 years ago

python is probably a bad choice due to the white space absolutism.

compiled languages may be not fun since you have more delays than the sighted.

what did old school phreaks use when learning to program? (i was late the the game in the late 90s, and people always assumed i was older except when it was a context they'd pay me fairly for my intellect -- then it's nothing but precarious, low paying nonprofits or piecemeal consulting designed to keep me in their orbit)

there is a library for the blind in 412, but they also block tor so i have to hope what pops up in duckduckgo is accurate:

https://duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswz...

>Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped >412-687-2440 >Toll Free Phone Number: 1-800-242-0586

if they give you shit say that it's greg and you're using your one phone call, they'll help you if you don't start asking a bunch of kinsey crap, if they don't suffer a narcicistic meltdown from having to do more than show someone the braile forms for welfare.

(i have to be careful not to hammer resources intended for the visually handicapped when using tor -- my no javascript lifestyle means i often seek out things designed for a screen reader, and i've seen them get overwhelmed in ways i haven't seen since the 2000s)

in general, interpreted languages are easier to keep a mental model of, because they have been iterated on to the point you can write out code that looks like psudocode, it's why i like python

the hackers who trained me were big into perl, which has a lot of issues but the whole there's over 9000 ways to do things -- there's a big library of existing perl code, and since there's more than one way to do things and those people fucking love one liners you'll spend less time dealing with "whitespace" which, as a blind person, i'm gonna guess is a very hard thing to grok, harder than public key encryption, recursion, or the idea that we don't need john taylor gatto to tell us what hellen keller got up to.

dontbenebby commented on Ask HN: How did you pivot to politics? (NOT policy)? · Posted by u/dontbenebby

solardev · 2 years ago

Your post reads like someone who is interested in politics on the side, and has done a lot of reading on US issues, but hasn't really worked in the field. Is that accurate? If so, can you start there, working for campaigns (maybe as a volunteer/intern at first) or think tanks or NGOs/NPOs? You'll get paid a pittance at first, but it's a way in...

I don't think anyone will care about your crypto or software background, though (like maybe don't bring it up...?). Politics is its own bubble full of makers and shakers. Frankly I think you'd have to prove it to them (someone) that you're worth it, people aren't just going to care about your personal politics unless you can do something for them.

As an aside, I've met a few political types in D.C. when I was there visiting. I'd just found them on LinkedIn or on their company pages (various advocacy agencies/nonprofits) or even on dating apps, and wrote them asking if I could buy them lunch just to hear their stories, how they got in the field, etc. -- making my agenda clear upfront, that I'm just a nobody curious about the field, can you tell me more if I get you lunch? These people were genuinely impressive... friendly and willing to talk to me, despite being very busy and extremely well educated and connected.

dontbenebby · 2 years ago

>Your post reads like someone who is interested in politics on the side, and has done a lot of reading on US issues, but hasn't really worked in the field. Is that accurate?

I worked for a major K Street NGO. I was removed for refusing to weaken web standards.

I took a pause from all assistance to civil society during Trump, to make folks think and reflect about the consequences of their decisions.

(As I like to joke at open mic: your post Columbine models are broken, I don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the Solar Winds blow, and it is my inaction that will be the death of you.)

dontbenebby commented on Ask HN: How did you pivot to politics? (NOT policy)? · Posted by u/dontbenebby

h2odragon · 2 years ago

> I never had the nest egg that enables others to speak like I do in the clear, in the real.

WTF?

Only the wealthy can participate in politics or public debate?

If I was grading this; I'd give you a "D" and tell you to try again, with focus this time.

You want a job in politics, is that it?

dontbenebby · 2 years ago

>Only the wealthy can participate in politics or public debate?

Pretty much, I've seen how you're retaliated against. I spent down on a Bellingcat cert, but that's useless -- doesn't matter what I find in public view, folks don't listen.

>If I was grading this; I'd give you a "D" and tell you to try again, with focus this time.

Thanks for that feedback,

>You want a job in politics, is that it?

Consulting.

(Or a delete button tbh -- keep regretting my posts on the internet.)

dontbenebby commented on Ask HN: Do you promote your personal blog? How? · Posted by u/bovem

dontbenebby · 3 years ago

nope. i opted myself out of the wayback machine and have obliterated my online precedence as much as possible.

for those of us who began forming memories as the berlin wall fell, it's been quite a ride -- it seemed, for this brief moment that we'd all kind of live in arcologies with solar powered desalination or something and instead... [tabs over to Al Jazeera] yikes!! russia are JERKs.

strive to be the ghost in the machine if you want to be a hacker.