Anyway, point is, we had ads in our free content for about 50 years, and that's what paid for the content. We wished there were not ads, but it was part of life. And it was fine. [ ... ]

It was not fine. Everyone put up with it, because there was no other real choice, but it was not fine.

Even at the time, people correctly complained that the ad block model made certain kinds of shows impossible. Do you think a televised production of Death of a Salesman would have the same emotional impact if it got interrupted every 10 minutes to sell beer?

Ads infuriated me as a child, and the intervening decades have done nothing to improve my opinion of them. Indeed, I regard them as vandalism, litter, pollution -- unnecessary, unwanted, and destructive by their very nature. I hate them so much that.... I pay for YouTube Premium. I visit YouTube exclusively with Firefox, I have never witnessed this reported start delay, and I never am troubled with ads.

I agree smaller dose intuitively means less of a hazard of an infection putting down roots before the immune system wipes it out. However, I've never seen data for this.

IIRC coronavirus particles were around 0.1 um, but the virus would fall apart traveling bare. N95 do filter in that range in any event, just not at the advertised and tested level of an N95's 95% @ 0.3 um (you can get N100s which don't quite hit 100%; it's a rounding thing). Aerosols are typically much larger, 1+ um up, then transition to visible droplets around 20-100 um.

Was any of this data published? I wondered specifically about N95 claims for cheap imports.

I wait for the graphic novel version: https://xkcd.com/2523/

I'm afraid another pivotal concern may have been costs: inferior masks such as surgical are much cheaper. So, here in Virginia the hospital admin logic went, the mask they chose should be the standard for all purposes (our hospital required visitors to give up their personal N95s for a surgical mask, which was at least free).

As even more damning evidence of institutional thinking, the same hospital network required my PCP to wear a mask for telemedicine visits. I burst out laughing when I saw him and asked, "I don't mean to be rude, but are y'all familiar with the germ theory of disease?" He apologized and said the rule simply was that all patient-facing meeting required a mask. So there, standards.

There is a very primitive Rust utility called btop that is clearly little more than a proof of concept at this stage.

Nevertheless, thanks for the link -- btop looks quite cool.

Google authenticator worked as intended [ ... ]

"NOTABUG: Working as designed."

Yeah, we know, Sparky... The design is fucking idiotic!

It seems clear that one of the OTP codes got them into the rube's account -- the second OTP code allowed them to copy out his Google Authenticator database. If that copy hadn't existed -- and indeed did not exist until Google decided to make copies for itself -- then they would have had to keep pumping him for OTP codes, and the damage would likely have been more limited.

The first compromise can be laid at the feet of the dopey employee. Google bears partial responsibility for all subsequent compromises -- for making and keeping a copy of a sensitive database that the entire security community told them at the time was a STUPID FUCKING IDEA!

To be fair, AirBNB isn't a hotel chain, they're a booking facilitator [ ... ]

"Well, actually..." Let me summarize their so-called argument:

"We are Craigslist. We only list one kind of thing: Rooms for short-term rental. Like items listed on Craigslist, any transaction between rentee and renter is completely private, and any difficulties that may arise are exclusively between them -- we are nothing more than a listing agent and payment processor, and take a small cut of the transaction as our listing fee."

Same "reasoning" with Oober and Lypht, except they only list ride shares.

Looks like all the employees on LI use stock photos:

Gee, it's a real shame that LinkedIn doesn't have the resources of a true software giant, who could dispatch a couple of interns to kluge together a few functions that would compare uploaded profile photos to images available on stock photo sites, and flag them if they find a match...

Yes... Truly a shame that is, evidently, far beyond their capabilities...

What's your favorite tech innovation?

• Illegal cab company
• Illegal hotel chain
• Fake money for criminals
• Plagiarism machine

...Twitter is the hot and popular bar that everyone goes to [ ... ]

"Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded. (Also: It's full of Nazis.)"

...who wants to hang out at some smaller bar with no crowd?

Um... Maybe because the drinks are better, made by actual bartenders who know what they're doing (instead of a computer pumping pre-measured servings out of a spigot), and made using decent, fresh ingredients instead of bathtub gin and lime-flavored high-fructose corn syrup? (And because the place isn't overrun by Nazis?)

I mean, if all you want is a Long Island Iced Tea, fine, I'll empty a bar mat into a pint glass for you, but don't try to pretend you're engaged in some higher appreciation of mixology -- you're just getting wasted.

Having a common standard for the EV charging plug should help to facilitate deployment of charging stations.

There was a standard connector! SAE J1772. Every electric vehicle in North America used it... Except Tesla.

I can't understand why everyone's suddenly falling all over themselves to switch over.

Don't agree? Three points:

1. You're wrong,
2. Watch this YooToob video -- it will be one of the most informative two-plus hours you will spend this week,
3. Go visit the site Web3 is Going Just Great, which has a new post every day -- every damned day -- about the latest cryptocurrency and NFT regulatory actions, arrests, scams, and fsck-ups.

Fonts that you have to stare at all day, every day, are a very personal thing, like a favorite keyboard, or favorite chair. For roughly 20 years, I was using ProFont (a/k/a ProFontWindows), but last year I switched to Iosevka.