Python programs that I wrote 15 years ago are still running in production.

The "Java rewrite" that my manager wanted to do never got done.
In fact, a lot of the production Java code that existed back then couldn't be maintained and got reimplemented in Python.

Since the new servers are ~20 times faster, speed never really mattered anyway.

Python is full of "free" optimizations that most newbys are not even aware of.

When you learn to do things that "Pythonic" way, it really does put the clunky Java hack-jobs to shame.

Here another take on it:
https://www.pythonforengineers...

MakerPhone is a popular Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

I bought an iPhone on the first day in '07, cause it was obviously a great thing.

In about 2012, I switched to Android, mostly cause I run linux everywhere else and like it.
I thought I'd have more privacy, then slowly realized how stupid that was.
Looked into Cyanogenmod and LineageOS over and over, but ran out of time to ever actually do it.

Finally gave up, bit down, and went back to iPhone (it was a hand-me-down 6S)
I really liked Android. Still lots that can't do on the iPhone.

I really wish there was a better choice, but for now, I'm depending on Apple to keep the worst data harvesters at bay.

With Google, you don't get that option, got burned too many times.

No, I think there are plenty of other jobs that rural America can easily adapt to. Obvious ones are solar, wind farming, growing biofuels,

I requires political leaders who can win people over to a new view of the future.

I think trolling "Anonymous Cowards" like you, who stick everyone into a "category", and flippantly pose war as the solution don't help very much.

But we will learn to ignore you.

I'm a suburbanite and I've been driving a hybrid Camry since 2007 and I like it.
But I don't think that insulting these truck owners (or vice versa) is going to help anybody.

I think that electric vehicles pose a very real threat to the jobs and the future of many rural Americans, who feel that their work depends on trucks, cars, vehicle repair, oil, oil equipment, coal, scrap yards, etc, etc.

That is especially the case today, when Tesla has been publicizing the success of their SELF-DRIVING electric SEMI-trucks. Tesla says that in a convoy, they are more energy efficient than trains. They even have a standing order for HUNDREDS of these new trucks from Walmart, rural America's love/hate store/employer.

For years, the only way that a rural American could escape and see the world was to either drive a truck or work on the railroad.
Its a fundamental part of American culture, and it doesn't escape these people that Tesla's development poses a tangible threat to that way of life.

There are political and economic solutions that could provide jobs AND save the environment, but its not going to happen by spewing all this filth.

This is chicken shit.

200 GoFundMe campaigns raised $1.4 million from 13,000 donors, over several years ?

This is a giant problem that requires government intervention ?

Come on, we live in a "free" society and there are stupid people everywhere.

Most of the donors were just being "nice" to a dying person who didn't trust doctors.

Now lets pay some attention attentions to the 10's if not 100's of BILLIONS of dollars that Big Pharma robs from us every DAY!

Assange is an Australian citizen and he personifies the intersection of Human Rights and the "Digital Agenda".

Now that Sweden has dropped its case, he should be free -- except that the British government now insists on prosecuting him for bail violations (and then extradite him to Trumpistan).

It would be simple under existing treaties for the Australian government to step in and BRING HIM HOME to face a relatively fair trial for whatever he is alleged to have done.

Yes, of course, why do so many "nerds" here not get it ?
One of Snowden's most important revelations is that the NSA has an excellent "map" of virtually every device that connects to the internet.
How could they do that if they could not get the tables from all of these routers ?

And with excellent results !

It is really sad to see your parents slowly turn into vegetables -- and the doctors try to tell you there is nothing your can do, or they give expensive pills that are
barely better than placebo. BS !

Nootropics might be the new cool thing with programmers, but they are MUCH better at bringing declining minds back to normal than they are at turning average people into geniuses.

The problem is -- in the US -- doctors are NOT ALLOWED to talk about anything that isn't FDA approved (just ask your doctor).

I've been giving my 80 and 90 year old parents (and now in-laws) a stack of phenylpiracetam, Alpha-GPC, DHA fish oil, etc for over a year now.

The results are quite amazing to everyone who knows them.

Now, I have started to test age-reversal supplements.
I always guinea-pig myself first -- mostly to learn what to expect.
It is good that my genetics are close, because there are genetic factors.
It is also good that I know my parents -- they trust me and I know when to take their complaints seriously.

I liked apple routers, because they were reliable, simple enough for non-techies, they got regular security updates, and they were based on BSD.

But, routers are super political.
Control of routers is control of the internet.
The hacking of routers is central to the operation of every national spy agency.
Snowden revealed the NSA's detailed "map" of the internet, which showed that they had tables from just about every router out there.
Every router seems to have some exploit and open-source projects are always being disrupted (by "agent-provocateurs" ?).

Apple has been dealing with a lot of political pressure to cooperate with the spooks on iPhone encryption.
They were undoubtably getting to same pressure RE their routers.
They probably decided that the business wasn't worth the risk to their reputation.

Too bad ;)

I hope they give us some way to upgrade to an open source BSD router in the future.

Italians are always complaining about how Americans over-cook pasta -- and they are right !

As a child in the US, the only complaint my family ever made about pasta was "Its not cooked enough".
Now my parents both have type2 diabetes and I am educating them about pasta and the glycemic index.

Al-Dente pasta digests more slowly, enters the bloodsteam more slowly, and has a lower glycemic index.

Soft pasta has a terrible glycemic index, too many carbs enter the blood faster than your body can use them, so your body converts them to fat.

Actually, it is a bit more complicated, but that is basically correct.

I'm no expert, but I've seen a lot of news about self-driving cars over the last ten years or so.
At first it was DARPA, then Google, and they seemed to be testing for years . . .

Then Tesla, and now Uber ?
I guess Uber suddenly realized that self-driving cars might be a threat to their business in the long term.
So they are notoriously getting caught with stolen code and poaching engineers.
Seems like they are playing catch-up.
That usually means skipping testing.

Maybe the states should require that self-driving equipment and algorithms get a serious "drivers test" ?
Even a semi-automated software test suite and an independent engineering review might be good enough.

Eventually, we WILL need this.
The technology is now easy enough for teenagers to start doing it on their own cars at home.
I don't want MY life to depend on THEIR coding skills.

Apple never used to force obsolescence.
They do now, and it's constantly pissing me off.
But it also gives me good incentive to switch things to linux and other open alternatives.

This recent article claims the the Apple TV 1,2,3 and 4 all run Kodi:
https://www.kodiinfopark.com/i...

In fact, it claims:
"Apple TV 1 works extremely well with Kodi compared to other generation Apple TV because of the High storage capacity of Apple TV 1."

Unfortunately, the upgrade is rather complex -- you need to install the Apple Xcode behemoth ;-(

Home and small business routers today are such a joke, security-wise.
Most of them never get updates and are thus -- easily hackable.
The ones that do get updates (Apple) are still a joke security-wise.

Open source could solve that, and WRT makes a good start, except that it seems to be bogged down by politics (sabotage ?).

Security configuration on WRT is still a confusing nightmare.
port-knocking, DNS block-lists, IP address blacklists / whitelists should all be normal/easy/semi-standard and they are not.

Suspect IP addresses should trigger alerts so that they can be blacklisted or whitelisted (with optimal expiration dates).

Unfortunately, the NSA thinks that it owns the internet and insists on being able to hack any router, even though hackers learn all of their tricks in no time.

Advertisers and trackers also seem to think that they pay for everything on the internet and they sue whenever anyone tries to distribute a good blocklist.

As a result, bots and blackhats now rule.

Mwa-ha-ha-haaaa !
Just kidding (for now) . . .
It is inevitable that genetic databases will be used by desperate rich people needing transplants.

I was thinking about sending in my sample anonymously . . .
Then, I realized that I would be easily identified from my family who had sent in samples ;(