morganvachon

Joined 13 years ago

Karma
4,378
Submissions
1,666
Member since
Dec 10
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Recent submissions

Comment · 4 years ago
As mentioned above that's apparently a parody account that fooled me. His real Twitter shows he's still the raging bigot he always was.
Comment · 4 years ago
I've seen that and I believe he felt he had to do so to maintain his readership after being called out for his bigotry so often of late. I for one don't believe he's changed at all, but I don't personally know the guy so I can't say for sure he hasn't. Anyway, I'll still refuse to read his articles just to be sure I'm not supporting a bigot with page views.
Comment · 4 years ago
It's not, but people should be aware of where they get their news sources.
Comment · 4 years ago
Comment · 4 years ago
This is disingenuous at best. The browser itself is open source but show me the source for your data collection servers and crypto scheme servers. What's that? It's not open source? Imagine that!
Comment · 4 years ago
I appreciate the attempt to explain your company's bad behavior, but I'm not convinced. And to be fair, you're not alone in making mistakes in the arena of privacy and security; all the major browsers have privacy-averse settings and "anti-features". The difference with your company is that you falsely advertise yourself as the one true private browser, while simultaneously profiting from your users' personal data. It's a lie, it's a scam, and it's morally reprehensible. You only fixed the issues I brought up after being caught and publicly shamed over them; if you hadn't been caught out you'd likely still be doing those things today. Shame on you.
Comment · 4 years ago
> or a privacy-focused company is snooping on your devices to steal your personal info (so they can send you mailers?)

I never said that. I don't want Brave on my devices due to their past bad behavior: lying, stealing money from creators in their affiliate program, redirecting legitimate links to shady crypto sites, running a crypto pyramid scheme, and so on. This is just the latest in a long list of reasons not to use their software.

Comment · 4 years ago
Here's the fun thing: I have opted out of blind mailers from the USPS, yet I got one of these Brave mailers last week with my name on it (I'm in the Atlanta area). Just one more reason of many for me to never, ever let Brave near any of my devices.
Comment · 4 years ago
I guess I'm really old school but I just have a spreadsheet for my budgeting, with formulas and charts I've written and maintained over the last 25 years. It's gone from old Microsoft formats (xls/xlsx) to ODS, to Gnumeric, back to ODS, and now I use Apple's Numbers since I have a Mac and an iPhone, and iCloud web works on pretty much any device with a browser I might have in front of me. If I do ever feel like ditching my Mac and going back to an open source OS, I can just export it to ODS again and all my formulas and tools transfer over (I don't use anything proprietary from Numbers, though color fills don't always match right up).

I am salaried with weekly payout, and so I have a weekly chart for where my money goes on payday (bills/loans/cards/savings), an amortization schedule for each account that allows me to see how extra payments will affect the payoff and interest, and a brainstorming sheet for planning future large purchases (cars, maybe a bigger house one day). I can do pretty much anything with this that I could with Firefly III or a paid solution, but (for me at least) this is less hassle and my data stays between me and Apple's iCloud server; I trust them enough with that basic data to not bother with maintaining and securing a VPS just to balance my budget.

Comment · 4 years ago
The difference is that this unit does the AC-DC conversion inside itself, whereas your DC-DC power supply relies on an external AC-DC brick that is likely the same size as this entire self contained unit, if not larger.
Comment · 4 years ago
Except the M1 Air and 13 inch M1 Pro reverted to left side only (the new models with M1 Pro/Max chips have an extra USB-C on the opposite side). It's my only real gripe with the M1 laptops compared to older Intel Macs.

Of course, the Framework is the polar opposite of the M1 Macs' locked down "appliance" feel. I'm enjoying the progress being made with OpenBSD and Asahi Linux on the M1 platform, but the hardware itself remains impossible to upgrade or repair for mere mortals. The Framework is the pinnacle of truly owning your laptop while not sacrificing speed and a crowd pleasing design.

Comment · 4 years ago
I'm not saying you shouldn't give up Google services; I did. I'm just saying the unfortunate reality is that you'll never fully escape them.
Comment · 4 years ago
I agree wholeheartedly in principle, but the reality is that it's nearly impossible to escape Google getting their hands on yours and your correspondents' messages at some point. So many businesses (and third party email providers!) use Google's services on the back end, and many relays out there are owned by Google/Alphabet even if it's not readily apparent, that the only way to even attempt to avoid them is using encrypted email. Unless everyone you communicate with (including companies, governments, and other organizations) is willing to only communicate via encrypted email as well, it's a lost cause.
Comment · 4 years ago
Thanks for the info. I wonder if, now or at some point in the past, Klarna had mandatory customer DOB as opt-out rather than opt-in for a default card processing setup on the merchant facing side, and many small businesses in my experience either don't have IT staff or it's their cousin's wife's uncle doing IT for them on the cheap, and they just don't see it or understand its significance.

I know there were dozens of switches to flip when we switched to a new storefront and shopping cart vendor a few years ago, and I missed a few initially despite my experience with setting those up in the past. That's what sandboxing is designed to catch, but I can picture PHBs in every industry saying "damn the testing, full speed ahead!" with no thought for consequences.

Comment · 4 years ago
Or, as with anything else privacy related, outside of intellectual bubbles like HN the vast majority of people don't think twice about giving up unnecessary PII to a payment processor because they naively think the entity won't sell or leak their information. Even those who see conspiracies around every corner somehow constantly fall victim to identity theft due to negligence, and divulge way too much information for their own privacy and safety every day.

A movie quote springs to mind: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

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