Author Archives: Published articles

Anycubic 3D printers hacked worldwide to expose security flaw

Source: Published articles

Article note: MQTT configured such that any valid credential could access every device. I quite like some Anycubic printers, but their level of software sloppiness has never been something I'd want plugged into a network, because this seems entirely expected.
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Dunkey’s Guide to Streaming Services – YouTube

Source: Published articles

Article note: Beyond fucking satire. The Pokemon service-hopping example is _real_, because no one could have made it up.
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The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt – Priceonomics

Source: Published articles

It really is more or less exactly the Reddit situation: A buisness that understood they were stewards of communities got profit focused and shit on their volunteers, and when the volunteers noitced it was a shitshow. This priceonomics piece from 2014 even called out reddit as a likely parallel.

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[Approved] Plasma 6 Proposal: incubate SDDM (#91) · Issues · Plasma / Plasma Desktop · GitLab

Source: Published articles

Article note: Woo! SDDM is great, but hasn't had a release in like 4 years, despite major patches in git (like... working Wayland support major). Sending some resources their way would be awesome.
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Kentucky can’t reduce CO2 emissions with Bitcoin tax breaks | Lexington Herald Leader

Source: Published articles

Hell yeah Dan, hell yeah.

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How Covid-19 Exposed the Cracks in a Public-Private Housing Deal

Source: Published articles

This is some uncut "privatize profits socialize losses" bullshit. Private developers made bets assuming universities were an infinite source of an easily-abused captive audience. The pandemic made it not so, and now they're in a bind and looking for ways to make any and everyone else keep them solvent.

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Some Students Are Smarter Than Others (and That’s OK)

Source: Published articles

Yesssss.

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Cheating rises with online education – The Washington Post

Source: Published articles

Yup. Some of this is more systematic than even my cynical ass suspected. It's a hard problem because attacker controlled environments are unassailable, and doing intrusive things to discourage casual cheating punish the honest and give the serious cheaters more effect size.

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Physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis – showPdf

Source: Published articles

I think this makes a decent standard for current-best-practice, which I'm finding myself needing to refer to frequently.

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Have questions for UK about the upcoming semester? : UniversityofKentucky

Source: Published articles

Article note: Is this in-person reopening plan actually supposed to be viable, or is it just theater to get students to commit before an inevitable outbreak and shutdown? I was doing prep work on campus earlier this week, and most of the visible efforts seem to be more performative than effective. Lots of disingenuous blame-shifting signs like "Please physically distance by 6ft on this busy 4ft wide path" and "Elevator occupancy 2; go heavy-breathe on each other in the crowded stairwell." Similarly, the "test every student (but not staff or faculty) once sometime vaguely around their arrival" plan seems like an effort to check the testing box rather than accomplish any practical goal. Likewise, the food services in the student center looks like they can handle about 25% capacity while sending customers out to fend for themselves for a safe place to unmask and eat, which was frankly not that easy even with the tiny fraction of people already back. As someone else [pointed out a few days ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/UniversityofKentucky/comments/i3xc0h/a_vent_re_the_absurdity_of_in_person_classes/), allowed room occupancy vs. enrollment is tilted such that many in person courses will be "in person" in name only even in a best-case scenario. Enough at-risk students are already getting in touch about remote options that it seems most courses will need to provide all-remote options even _before_ the quarantine and illness absences start to stack up and/or we go full remote following a probable outbreak, so effort for in-person instruction is feeling increasingly futile. As an instructor trying to do right by my students, while I appreciate that there are difficult decisions being considered at the every level, I'm increasingly frustrated by the lack of credible planning coming down from above, and the decisions it is forcing me to make for the upcoming semester. Realistic, honest planning for an all-remote semester with early resource commitment would have offered a better experience than wasting time and resources planning for an infeasible in-person scenario, then having another hasty "unplanned" shutdown with students who were promised something else.

I suspect my comment will get deleted, posting here:

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