…cogito, ergo sum…

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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: December 3rd, 2025

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  • A whole library, or a yet another ad for Python? Why not marvelous Perl, or any lovely PHP’s or a JavaScript faker?
    Why a library in the first place?

    In case of PHP (checked in v8.1)

    echo date('Y-m-d', rand(strtotime('-90 years'), strtotime('-18 years')));
    // 2007-07-30
    

    And, I had a snippet for JavaScript (tested in the current Chrome’s EcmaScript).
    We get the years in milliseconds, and substract from the current time.

    console.log(new Date(Date.now() - 365*24*60*60*1000 * (18 + Math.random()*72)).toISOString().slice(0, 10));
    // 1984-07-20
    

    In shell even! Let’s use the common suit GNU coreutils (e.g. v9.4).
    We have 90y - 18y = 72 years, that is 26,280 days or ~26,297 days (source)

    $ date -d "-18 years -$(( RANDOM % 26297 )) days" -- '+%F';
    # 1976-04-06
    

  • “You shouldn’t have to choose between open and secure.” The implementation backs that up. The friction is one-time for power users, but it’s a genuine obstacle for scammers and it makes opportunistic spyware installation meaningfully harder.

    Source

    -–

    His argument: power users absorb a one-time inconvenience while vulnerable people (scam victims, children) get protected…
    The pattern HN picked up immediately…

    That’s the true believer pattern. The argument is ideological, so persuasion is off the table. He read the laws, decided compliance was the correct response, and went to work. Every objection the community raised went nowhere: that this enables surveillance infrastructure, that lying is trivially easy, that the laws themselves are unconstitutional overreach. He’d already accepted the law as legitimate and moved to implementation…

    He hit three separate projects in one week…
    He agreed entirely, writing that the approach would be “completely ineffective at preventing anyone from lying about their age.” He called it “hilariously pointless.” Then he said Arch Linux should implement it anyway because the law requires it…

    The open source community has always relied on the assumption that contributors act in good faith toward user freedom. Taylor probably believes he does. The laws say collect birth dates, so he collected birth dates, and in his framing that was being helpful.

    The reason to name him is the pattern. The surveillance state runs on volunteers: people who do the implementation work for free, out of genuine conviction, with no paper trail connecting them to the money that wrote the laws…

    Taylor already has the resume line and knows the codebase well enough to try again. The deadline pressure only grows, the laws are real, and someone will be next. The community needs to recognize the pattern before the PR opens, not after.

    Source


  • Wonderful day!

    Just in case, there’s a term in “anglicism”:

    …word or construction borrowed from English by another language. Due to the global dominance of English in the 20th and 21st centuries, many English terms have become widespread in other languages.
    Technology-related English words like internet and computer are prevalent across the globe, as there are no pre-existing words for them.
    English words are sometimes imported verbatim and sometimes adapted to the importing language in a process similar to anglicisation.

    Source

    For more than a decade, I’ve been trying to learn Russian, mostly for the art and the job I have. And, I did notice that there are words, in common/casual speech that do indeed include pure English terms/words, or even adapted from.
    There’s a Russian page for “Anglicism”, too:
    - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Англицизмы

    It makes sense, since it’s one of the most easiest languages out there, with straightforward rules, with some exceptions you get on the road, and rare/archaic words you get eventually memorized in your own dictionary.
    The Email messages are in the common/formal form/template even, you may know, too! I.e., header/body/footer/signature.

    For example, I’ll try recalling some:

    - “гаджет” ~ “gadget”;
    - “дилер” ~ “dealer”;
    - “фрилансер” ~ “freelancer”;
    - “комп”/“компьютер” ~ “computer”;
    - “чилить”/“чилю” ~ “chilling”;
    - “таск” ~ “task”;
    - “бейба” ~ “baby”;
    - “чика” ~ “chick”;
    - “аутсорсинг” ~ “outsource”;
    - “секси” ~ “sexy”;
    - “гайд” ~ “guide”;
    - “булинг” ~ “bulling”;
    - “трабл” ~ “trouble”;
    - “маркетинг” ~ “marketing”;
    - “постить” ~ “to post” (social network posts/articles);
    - “гамать” ~ “to play a game”;
    - “клатч” ~ “clutch”;
    - “дедлайн” ~ “deadline”;
    - “бит” ~ “bit”;
    - “байт” ~ “byte”;
    - “клуб” ~ “club”;

    - or even… “эйчар” ~ “HR” (head hunter, employer)…

    These I recalled now only, and I do believe it’s possible to write/base any English word in Russian.
    Though, nowadays, my main is English, I was born in Lithuania, and Lithuanian language does also feature such words!
    For example, “skenuoti” (to scan); “baitas” (byte), “seifas” (safe/safebox); “clubas” (club); etc.

    Such a miraculous magnificent world of language development!






  • Thank you… heartfelt… for an actually mature and adequate attempt for rationalization of the state of events…
    Unfortunately, it seems the propaganda and children raising through local movies and socials with history retelling is too deep… some just do not care and consume, sorry, what they got used to and were raised with - lies, to the point they deny anything unmatching.

    His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
    ~ Walter C. Langer

    -–

    The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.
    ~ Joseph Goebbels

    -–

    History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.
    ~ Hilary Mantel


  • I did not ever initiate any such discussions, but expressed my opinions in comments only suggesting people to do their actual research. If they would, they would not say a word knowing how it’s all unobvious and intervened, where every single action is done with utter seriousness of calculation of required political, social, economical outcomes.

    Yes, I did step on fields, with numerous colleagues I share my gratitude, support, and love to. Please do stay safe, dear every single Hero…
    This is me, relatively recently:

    Still alive



  • In order to not get the “meter collapsed”, some do suggest to actually not trust news as the raw source, where every single word in line is designed for its specific reader. Regardless the amount of true intel inside, everyone will see its own, and behind the lines, too.

    In this case, I would suggest to actually personally investigate more about the situation from Russian’s, Ukraine’s, US’s, and yours country government’s side, without relying on “news” you seem to doing much, sorry. Please do consider the presence of Overton windows and opportunities to manipulate the flow of reader/nation decisions.

    Politics rarely create friendships, if compared to business benefits in long term, unfortunately.


  • Oh no no no no no…
    Please, God, no…

    I absolutely don’t want my descendants to talk with some void-empty limited nonsense… I don’t want that freaking awful nonsense to talk with my children or their children possibly framing and damaging their true memories and genuine confidence in me I had been developing the whole life… I don’t want them to remember the algorithm or some imitation of me talking with a machine or some chat bot… no… never… please no… PLEASE NO…
    No…
    No…
    Never…
    No…

    If I am dead, I am dead. I want my descendants to just remember me, talk to me in their memories, and once in a while visit the grave, at least 2-3 times per their life, if possible… and that’s it…

    Some limited inhuman stupid chat/voice/avatar/anything bot? No…
    Never…
    No…

    If I am dead, I am dead as my ancestors are, who are not dead for me being alive but in my memories or something more magnificent/supernatural, and how I remember them, where they wanted to be the best they could, respected, glorified, and admired, without disturbing them in memories, soul, and the heart they gifted me, who I will always appreciate, respect, and love…



  • If you want to actually realize the amount of possible misunderstanding in the current conversation and of what shell scriting is, please do consider joining #bash at Libera IRC. Please do also mention the word “throwaway” in the rooms! Since there’s literally no understanding on what you mean still, sorry. It does not feel like you have a significant enough understanding of the subjects raised.

    For a very simple example, there are literally no documentation regarding certain cases you’ll encounter in Bash’s built-ins even, unless you actually encounter it or learn from Bash’s very source code, like read built-in. Not to mention shenanigans in shell logics for inter-process communication (IPC), file-descriptors, environment variables like PWD, exported functions’ BASH_FUNC_, pipes, etc.



  • I am sorry, but I am not sure what tells you how Bash “was designed” or not. Perhaps you haven’t yet written anything serious in Bash…
    Have you checked out Bash PitFalls at Wooledge, at least?
    Bash, or the most shells, including Posix, or even Perl, are some of the most complex languages out there to make a mistake… since there’s no compiler to protect you from, and though legendary but readline may cause the whole terminal go flying, depending on the terminal/terminfo in process…

    No, sorry. I absolutely disagree on your stance regarding “shell” for a “bugless” “huge deal” in “real cases”.