The oldest, still the best.

Go Slack!

(Seriously, though, it's worth using -- just plain Linux, no frills, does the job)

Second for Audio-Technica.

I'll put on my QuietPoint ATH-ANC9, switch on noise-cancelling and I can barely hear even the loudest engines on a plane.

Pump some music in those headphones and I am in a cocoon of music. I cannot even hear people talking right next to me (which is very annoying to my wife).

Beats is just garbage, as far as noise cancelling is concerned.

I have used OpenBSD on the desktop since 2005.

It was a great OS for my laptop at the time, and it still is. I used OpenBSD exclusively on it, and managed to get everything done without any issue.

My current laptop is a MacBook Air, but the next one will run OpenBSD again.

... why I should invest some $$$ in the shitcoin "du jour"?

I have always said that computer security is a huge mess. As the crypto-currencies gain value, they provide more and more incentives to bad guys to hack your computer to get at your wallet.

Well... In that particular case, Amazon, Microsoft and Google are "more" secure because Intel gave them advance warnings and probably some detailed patch and vulnerability information. And Linux got patched really quickly because Google and Amazon have invested massively in that operating system.

The smallest projects, like OpenBSD, were left in the cold to fend off for themselves. Theo and other developpers asked Intel if they could be a part of the embargo. They never received a response.

... Except, of course, that if you are "root" on *any* box, systemd or not, you will be able to delete any logs you'd like, binary of plain text (journald anyone?).

So what was your point again? Ah, yes, displaying your total ignorance. Mission Accomplished!

The best answer I have ever had to this question was:

"If you want to keep something secret, never EVER put it on a computer, ESPECIALLY a computer connected to a network (any kind of network). If you want to keep something secret, put it in writing on a piece of paper, and keep the paper inside a safe".

The older I get, the more I realize the wisdom of these words. Let's face it, a "generalist" operating system will always be exposed and vulnerable to something or other. This being said, there are "secure" operating systems but most of these are either experimental/academic or extremely expensive.

This is the appeal of OpenBSD: these guys offer, by default, a reasonably secure operating system, with many protections and hardenings built-in. And these are real-life hardenings vs real-life exploits and attacks. All the things that OpenBSD does, Linux can do as well, but none of the protections offered by OpenBSD in a standard installation are activated by default on most Linux distributions.

Install OpenBSD, get a hardened, reasonably secure system. Install Linux, get something that requires hours of work to secure. Is OpenBSD perfect? No. Is it more secure "out of the box" than Linux? Yes.

It's not that "difficult" to remove systemd: a lot of Linux distributions do that, like Slackware, Devuan, and Gentoo, just to name the biggest three.

And, yes, binary logs suck, and systemd developpers are a bunch of whiny little bitches, with no understanding or appreciation for UNIX philosophy and history (hence, the appeal of the BSDs, where things are closer to what they used to be).

At this stage, honestly, I'd like to have solid numbers on, say, the number of times Debian has been downloaded vs Devuan, for instance, but I suspect the vast majority of today's sysadmins blindly go with whatever Red Hat/CentOS decides, because, hey, it's Red Hat, and no one has ever been fired for buying that crap. Hence the appeal, for a minority, of the BSDs.

Don't forget NetBSD, which is also a very good BSD.

If you are still using Microsoft Windows... I feel sorry for you.

Sorry, just had to post that.

Quoting from the article:

Now: Phoenix, Arizona. Probably one of the driest spots in the USA, and one with nice, straight roads. Hmmm... Is it possible that the Waymo / Alphabet / Googleplex cars are not that good at self-driving?

I mean this seriously: the more I think about it, and the harder it is for me to take the idea of a self-driving car seriously in anything that is not in the southwestern United States.

A self driving car in some parts of Europe would simply be very, very difficult: anyone who has navigated the beautiful little streets of, say, Granada in Spain knows what I am talking about (hint: very narrow). Anyone who has driven in Norway, or any other country in Scandinavia, knows that the weather can be grueling there (Alaska or North Dakota, some parts of Illinois or Wisconsin also come to mind).

All of this to say, a decade into this slef-driving car project, has Waymo been blowing smoke all along? Is the self-driving car vaporware? Discuss.

Computer systems, both hardware and software, have simply become too complicated for the average PHB and for the average company.

The vast majority of the managers have no idea, NONE, how these systems work, how they are put together, and how they should be maintained and updated. They simply select software based on the latest buzzword, the latest Gartner "quadrant" (whatever that is) or the latest fad and/or "safe" choice (Remember: "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"? Or Microsoft, or Oracle, or Red Hat Linux, or...).

What is even worse is that everyone right now is under pressure to deliver, deliver, deliver: services, software, profits, what have you. Simple common sense, such as using simple, proven techonologies, updating (or even replacing) things on a regular basis, and testing for the most common security and configuration mistakes, not to mention advanced standards (PCI-DSS anyone?) is simply forgotten and/or swept under the carpet. There, the issues accumulate and fester, until the rot and stench become unbearable and attract the script kiddies and the bottom-feeders of the Internet.

Add to this technical and engineering teams that are under-staffed, underpaid, overworked, often demoralized and threatened constantly with being axed and replaced by H1B or outsourced to a third-world country, and you have a recipe for disaster. Hence the Equifax we will now have on a regular basis and the Internet of Shit, the half-baked PHP pages, coded by the moronic intern, that are simply begging to be hacked, drawn and quartered. Hence the constant scapegoating of the technical team -- both "dev" and "ops" -- that results in those perfectly avoidable disasters.

To the average PHB and countless ''bro'' startup CEOs, the people who know their stuff are simply nerds, both too expensive and too whiny, useful idiots to be ignored, discarded and replaced at will in their quest for more profit, "eyeballs", "clicks", and even more profits. And these same PHBs and CEOs parade and strut in front of their peers, talking nonsense about things they do not understand, piling buzzwords on top of buzzwords while their nerds and geeks desperately try to warn them about this or that issue or vulnerability.

It's time for a new revenge of the nerds. It's time for companies and their leaders to be held accountable for their failings -- except they will probably find easier to scapegoat the nerds.

The issue is not open-source software. The issue is not closed-source software, or even computers. The issue is that nobody cares about a job well done anymore, because profits. Try to wake up the idiots that rule companies and you will either be ignored or dismissed. Propaganda (just another word for PR) and appearances are more important than caring for your customers or your employees. Save a buck, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead. What do you mean we have to patch this? Shut up!

This is not new or even special (Exhibit #1: the Ford Pinto). This is just a bit more visible these days. We are back in the Gilded Age of the Robber Barons.

And by the way, if you are reading this, you are probably not one of the Robber Barons. You are one of the nerds. Welcome.

Stop being on Facebook.

Except Facebook will remember you even if you delete your account.

Except Facebook will remember you even if you have separate accounts.

Except Facebook will find out who you are if you have friends and family on Facebook. Especially if they mention you by name in a Facebook post.

Except Facebook is probably tracking you right now because of all those little "like" buttons you can see everywhere.

Except Facebook... Oh, fsck it, I give up.

Frankly, who needs the NSA when you have Facebook? Oh, wait, they are probably working together right now.

Wasn't there a story about that creep Zuckerberg wanting to become President of the United States of Facebook?