ogisan

While not exactly software per-se, I created a system of multiple text files to manage todos, long term goals, and various reminders (eg, IOUs, deadlines, etc). This was inspired initially by Jeff Huang’s blog post [1] but then grew to a complex collection of different files. A problem I ran into was building an interface for displaying and editing these text files (each file has a different width and for some files I want to have different heights when editing them). Ultimately I settled on multiple vim tabs in a terminal window. Been using this for close to five years now and I couldn’t be happier with it. However, at this point the system of files (and the terminal “user interface”) is completely customized to my life and would likely never fit someone else’s requirements.

[1] https://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file/

I disagree. Avoiding PKI and post-quantum security correlate very much. Even under plausibly post-quantum assumptions we only have a couple of assumptions from which we can build public key encryption. In contrast, here they avoid all use of public key cryptography which makes it provably post-quantum secure. It’s not using a buzzword for the sole sake of selling the paper. In general, using “minimal cryptography” (like random oracles / one-way functions) translates to real-world efficiency because you can instantiate these from a plethora of different concrete candidates.

Paywalled. Here’s the archive link: https://archive.is/aSU79

Check out Googles Topics API [1] (available in chrome). It spits out a list of advertising topics based on your browsing history. [1] https://developer.chrome.com/docs/privacy-sandbox/topics/

In the article: “The odours defied the expected effects of dilution since workers in the laboratory did not find the odours intolerable.”

I think there has to be a component of “jadedness” in this attitude, for lack of a better term. It feels as though there are so many problems in the world (income inequality, climate change, covid, homelessness, political polarization, and now the very real possibility of a nuclear war). The world doesn’t feel like a place we can save anymore, which I think can be a driver of the “bring it on” attitude you mention, not unlike the Monty python scene with the defeated knight…

You're absolutely right. It is not enough to use anonymity tools, you also have to make sure everything else around you doesn't compromise your anonymity. Made me think of a Harvard bomb threat incident where the student posting a fake bomb threat (through Tor) to avoid final exams was the only person using Tor on campus at the time, which trivially identified him.

https://theprivacyblog.com/blog/anonymity/why-tor-failed-to-...

I got into computer science by making video games for the first couple generations of the iPhone; now I’m a phd student writing papers. Things were fun and simple back then and my games were quite successful. There was something so magical about it. However, the magic was that people were actually playing my games and I could focus on making the game rather than dealing with all the crud that one has to do to ship an app now. While I still get the urge to make a mobile game sometimes, there is little real life “reward” in it beyond making something beautiful and maybe showing it off to a couple friends. Gaining visibility on the AppStore is next to impossible without turning it into a full time job (which was never my end goal). I think if there was even a small but non negligible chance that say 50k people would download and play my game (as I had with some of my old games) I would get the motivation to turn some of my ideas into reality. However, the way things are now, I would be lucky to get 1000 downloads and that would require me developing for all the different interfaces, versions, etc. making it really difficult to focus on “just the game.”

Unfortunately, this is standard practice across schools (and most big employers). This is definitely not a problem unique to Brown, or even elite schools.

There was a scandal back in 2010 where a high school in Philadelphia was accused of spying on kids through school-issued laptop webcams [1], which is arguably more egregious.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2521075/pennsylvania-s...

The NYTimes [1] did an excellent expose on this a year ago. They purchased location data on 12 million phones across the country.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/locat...

This reminds me of #SmashTheStone from a few years back when the 4chan community came together track down and prevent 9gag from burying a meme-carved rock. Video from the internet historian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzFykQv6Q08

Very cool idea and beautiful design execution!

One nitpick: it would be helpful to only have to type out the words on the page rather than different symbols (maybe having it be a toggle). For example, in The Art of War, typing out all the bullet points and numbering can be tedious and not really what I'm looking for from a typing exercise.

WebTorrent [1] can be used to run BitTorrent on the web. It's actually integrated into the Brave browser which is a nice feature. Other browsers might catch on soon.

[1] https://webtorrent.io/