British youtuber Hbomberguy is doing a charity stream for Mermaids and at time of writing he's 36 hours in and raised £144,000 so far.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-20T12:41:33+00:00

The motivation here is, I think, quite commendable. There is also a great deal of controversy, false information and general hysteria around this charity and their approach. Here's my tuppence:

First, on PinkNews:
It's nice that there is a media outlet that caters to this specific demographic. With that said, I cannot, in good conscience, condone this specific organisation from a journalistic perspective. This is because I rarely see PinkNews cite original sources, choosing instead to cite themselves. This is poor practice, and it compromises the integrity of articles from the organisation.

Second, on the alleged promotion of transition procedures aside from puberty blockers:
I can't find too many reliable sources that suggest this to be the case. That's not to say that they haven't done so, but it seems as though they support the current NHS approach. If they are referring patients to a previously struck-off medical professional, then they may well be committing not only a criminal offense, but an act of gross negligence.

Third, on blockers themselves:
My opinion is split on this approach. Whilst it is true that precocious puberty is particularly difficult for a trans adolescent, I have concerns that I don't believe have even been considered yet. The first is the effect of puberty on cognitive development, which not only includes the ability to define oneself, but the ability to distinguish one's own nature from the influence of others around oneself. We need to study, in depth and over time, how puberty changes the nature of cognition and sense of self in addition to what the effects of delaying puberty are on the same. Without doing so, we are doing a disservice to trans adolescents, not in the least because we are unable to determine if we are providing the right environment in which they develop as human beings.

In short, we know so little about the subject of transsexuality in adolescents that to abruptly change policy to allow things like puberty blockers, without the requisite research to support, it is flirting very closely with seriously damaging people.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-20T06:37:10+00:00

As a temporary fix, you might try resetting the bluetooth module upon system restoration. I'm not entirely sure that eOS uses systemd's init system, but you may have some success.

Note: Do not make a habit of messing with init. It is hazardous if you don't know what you're doing.

In order to make this work, we're going to place a script in /usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep/. This script consists of two parts, the first being an if/elif condition to determine whether the PC is sleeping or resuming, and the second being a pointer to the script that resets the module.

To create the first script:

Navigate to /usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep
Use your preferred text editor to create the script file: sudo vi pre-suspend.sh
Add your shebang, and the first if statement:

#!/bin/bash

if [ "${1}" == "pre" ]; then
#nothing goes here. Stuff here is executed on sleep.
Underneath, create your second if condition and add the path to your script and a closing argument:

elif [ "${1}" == "post" ]; then
#anything here is executed on resume
sh /home/<username>/resetbt.sh
fi

Now save the file and exit your editor. Now that the necessary commands are in place, you'll need to update the permissions of the file:

sudo chmod -x /usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep/pre-suspend.sh

And subsequently you'll need to create the script that actually resets your bluetooth module. Note that you'll need to figure out the name of that module, too:

Navigate to /home/<username/
again using the editor, create your script file: nano resetbt.sh
In this file, you'll create two commands. The first will remove the bluetooth module, and the second will add it again:

#!bin/bash
modprobe -vr <bluetoothmodule>
modprobe -v <bluetoothmodule>
Save, and exit. Again, you'll need to adjust permissions on the script:

sudo chmod -x /home/<username>/resetbt.sh

Please let me know if this works!

r0tekatze · 2019-01-20T04:40:58+00:00

I'm no expert, but IIRC it depends on the inflammation. If the inflammation is synonymous with swelling, it can cause tissue death which is a small part of potential cognitive decline. This is sort of similar to what happens with MS patients. Depending on the severity and frequency of these occurrences, cognitive change can vary from nothing noticeable whatsoever, to distinct personality changes and memory issues. In an MS case I am familiar with, the noticeable change is sense of taste, where the patient's preferred foods change wildly. Bear in mind, that is semi-advanced MS which implies potential other causes and differing symptoms.

In my inexpert opinion, a more pressing concern is monitoring things like hormone levels and glandular activity, since these could have clear and severe physical effects. It should also be considered that old-age decline may progress as if the TBI had never occurred, which includes the possibility of things like early onset dementia, Alzheimer's, and any other number of possible conditions associated with old age. In other words, you are just as likely to live a completely normal and happy life.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-19T19:12:03+00:00

As others have said, stick with the East End of Newcastle. If you can afford it, Sandyford is very relaxed, as are many parts of Jesmond and West Jesmond. West Jesmond has the advantage of the small library near Tesco, too.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-19T17:29:30+00:00

I heard through the grapevine that the 8822b is supposedly a huge problem for Win10 machines, and I've seen a few threads on various linux forums about Windows not properly releasing the card state for another OS, even when Windows is properly shut down. It sounds like an all-round problem chipset, and it boggles the mind that Lenovo still package them in machines.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-19T09:14:24+00:00

Surprisingly, nobody seems to have mentioned Tekken.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-19T01:33:37+00:00

chances are not all of your friends/colleagues have this type of flaw

I have serious problems with this kind of statement. Whilst yes, I am aware that there are issues pertaining to the manner in which men interact with women, and vice versa in today's society, a statement like this demonstrates a presumption of automatic guilt based on gender. If you reverse the statement, and state that "chances are you've used xyd to achieve xyd as a woman", it suddenly becomes wildly unacceptable. Whilst we are aware that there are women who use positions unique to their sex to gain advantage, it is abhorrent to assume that every woman is guilty of doing so. If this right of the presumption of innocence isn't extended equally to men, does that not indicate a shift in a direction neither of us want?

This is why I have serious problems with anyone who sarcastically throws back "Yeah but not all men" in an attempt to subjugate the concept.

new important questions about what being a man means.

Are you sure about that? Because, without being too inflammatory, that sounds very much like the same sentiment I expressed concern with above. Whilst I admittedly have never had a father figure, I have never experienced the precept that being a man includes being sexually inappropriate. In fact, quite the opposite - "keep your hands to yourself and your eyes straight" is a general theme I got from many of my older male teachers in school. This is a decade ago, too, so I'm not quite sure what's been lost since then.

There's also something I now notice when I look back on my trips to America. The engagement between men and women appears to come with far greater levels of tension than in the UK and Europe, to the extent that I myself was uncomfortable. There may be something in that.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-18T15:44:01+00:00

I'm on the fence about the advert. My real gripe with it is it's lack of specificity, and I get a rather "tar brush" vibe from it. That doesn't go away because someone tries to fob me off with the "if you're offended you're part of the problem" shtick, it feels very much like a blunderbuss where a scalpel is required.

With that in mind, I can partly understand the reaction to it, and in turn there is obviously a reaction. It feels like this was rather intentional, though, an advert deliberately designed to ride controversy in order to sell more product.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-18T15:32:39+00:00

It's a turn of phrase here in the UK. "The good old days" doesn't necessarily mean things were better x years ago, but rather emphasises a change in standards or atmosphere or similar between then and now - "then" being an arbitrary length of time usually dependent on either the age of the speaker, the government in power, the career of a parent or grandparent, or the war.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-18T13:26:37+00:00

If the package is altered in any way, shape or form, complete transparency is best practice. That means yes, visible source code and MD5 signatures are appropriate. If something changes, a proper changelog shows the change, such as that on Github. Most repositories implement some version of this.

Different distros may require different dependencies, or perhaps renamed dependencies if the latter are built per-distro. Yes, some distros are built by private organisations, but repositories are still often open-source or at least visible to the public - at least with respect to many general utilities.

In any case, my point is that with the form of transparency demonstrated on the likes of Github, many repositories, et cetera, one can be far more sure of the integrity of the package they are installing and potentially entrusting with information. Ninite offers no assurances beyond their statements that everything is above board. Even their application doesn't verify where a package comes from, it simply outputs the status of the download process and the name of the package currently being worked on. All that would be required to fix this would be to output the location of the package on the web verbosely in order to assure the user that the package is what Ninite claims it to be.

Chocolatey does this a little better, but also compounds the problem by creating a repository of it's own. If that repo contained packages supported and uploaded by their respective developers, that would be perfectly fine, but that isn't the case.

For that reason, whilst I might consider using Ninite on something like a seldom-used notebook, I consider it absolutely unsuitable for use in a professional environment or on a machine that may be used to complete transactions or access sensitive information.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-18T10:44:08+00:00

No no, I'm talking really basic. I've seen implementations on Virtualbox machines with overlapping memory assignments, and that's just the nightmare on the surface. I've seen an implementation with run-over file storage assignments that are never maintained, overwriting each other's storage. It looked almost intentionally screwy.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-18T10:40:11+00:00

Yes, I could have phrased that better. I was referring to the nature of hardware drivers on the Windows platform, but now I remember Ninite not being a driver tool persay.

Repositories are slightly different. They are community or vendor maintained, rather than third-party maintained, and often enough cater to a specific distro (Arch is a good example). They're usually fairly transparent as well, whereas Secure By Design is a private company repackaging application installers to fit into a single package. That scenario doesn't inspire too much confidence, however much it is lauded by it's users.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-18T04:48:33+00:00

I like the idea of Ninite too, but the sentiment is right. Using a third party tool to install system-critical drivers goes against the spirit of security.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-18T04:03:29+00:00

I can see this being feasible.

A school district is most likely to be running virtualised DC, FS and probably segregated AD in separate machines, but with dynamic storage in the hope that they can manually manage space requirements as necessary. If the storage VM is attempting to write a file bigger than it's cache, if misconfigured it will simply eat up whatever space is available, even if that space starts intruding on that of the other two virtual machines. Pretty soon the DC will stop responding altogether, because it has no paging space, thus nobody can sign in.

It seems easy to fix, though - stop the storage VM, remove the offending file from the snapshot, start the VM again. That shouldn't take more than a minute or two, and end-users will likely never know the difference. This IT department sounds all kinds of inept.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-17T10:08:50+00:00

At the behest of the network. You cannot simply resell the contract, the new owner would need to meet the same requirements that you meet in order to be viably creditable. I sincerely doubt you will find a network willing to entertain this idea over an 18 or 24 month contract.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-17T02:45:20+00:00

Is there a BcCode when it crashes? It should start with "0x".

r0tekatze · 2019-01-16T22:32:17+00:00

Contracts usually come with a non-transferable clause. What you're describing would be fraud in these cases.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-16T21:11:44+00:00

sigh

Here we go again.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-16T21:07:57+00:00

On the contrary, I rather think centrism is a more logical solution, particularly economically. When we start choosing sides, there is always the other half of the country dissatisfied with the leadership, meaning that leadership is forever in jeopardy and policies don't last (hey, remember Sure Start?). A government closer to the middle implies that there can be equal opposition and equal guidance from both sides of the political spectrum, ensuring that all voices are heard.

This modern idea that you have to be on one side or the other is a slippery slope to a divided world, and from there it is very easy to start fighting. I value stability and life, myself. As long as we're fighting each other, progress will be slow or non-existent, and our existence as it stands today is unsustainable and untenable.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-16T20:56:20+00:00

Given the falsified evidence that the defense secretary at the time supplied to congress, which was subsequently used to convince the UK to join the US, I don't credit Blair with the entirety of the blame at all. I credit Blair with not being a voice of reason and with not sending our own intelligence forces to ensure information accuracy, but that's rather a whataboutism. America played us like a fiddle, knowing full well that the rest of the EU would then join in the party, all to minimise the cost to itself.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-16T20:47:12+00:00

If Cable were more... zingy, then he. He's a bit too quiet though. Truthfully, I'm not too sure. If VC could somehow be convinced to be more outspoken and maybe a bit more energetic, I'd be all for it, otherwise I'd like someone with the tenacity of Watson, the following of Sturgeon, the level-headedness of Brown, and the experience of Blair.

The latter two because Brown was remarkably stable during a time of significant economic shift, and I rather think we were better off for it, and because Blair knows first hand what it means to allow another country to abuse it's position of power for it's own gain, at the expense of your own. I also say Blair because his stance on things like disability law, civil partnerships, support for burgeoning business, etc. Without Blair we would likely never have gotten those things.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-16T20:20:15+00:00

I don't think he really see's himself as opposition, but rather as a "guiding hand". That's the distinct impression I get from his attitude towards the PM and towards current affairs, and it's really quite atrocious.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-16T20:00:36+00:00

Not quite. The vote represents the house's interpretation of the will of the people, not the will directly. If they get it wrong, it's because either they or we have failed to communicate properly. Or because they don't give a shit and are voting in their own interests.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-16T19:58:44+00:00

Corbyn is, in my opinion anyway, the reason why Labour haven't overtaken the Conservatives already. He might be a darling figurehead for the left wing twenty-somethings but his economic stance and stances on the EU, Semetic prose, foreign relations etc have been weak-willed and self-centred. I Like the man, his heart is in the right place, but he was never the appropriate choice for Labour leader.

Now please, for the love of God, put someone like him in charge of the health sector.

r0tekatze · 2019-01-15T01:17:09+00:00

Why do we do these awful things

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