Python, Firefox, Disks, Nice, TLS, Fediverse, HTTPS

1. Long discussion about Python features with colleague. It turned out that he hadn't even heard about: Enumerations, Data Classes, Pathlib, Type hints, F-Strings, Extended iterable unpacking, Walrus operator- I do use f-strings all the time, walrus operator := and Pathlib. Yet I don't really like Extended iterable unpacking, because it's so easy to shoot yourself in the foot with that one. Another thing which seems to be hyped all the time is asyncio code, but it won't work around GIL so for many tasks it's actually useless. Instead of LRU Cache, I do use CLOCK-Pro memoizing / memoization cache. There's even new and improved CLOCK-Pro+ cache coming soon.

2. I'm often using namedtuple as synthetic database row, instead of the real deal in situations which I need to return something, which does look like pyodbc row, but isn't actually in the database at all. Yet the way how named tuples are created is still slightly confusing after all these years. Every time when I need it, I'm like ugh, how annoying this is. Yet it seems that the Python 3.8 also accepts sequence of strings, which is much better than the one string with spaces as is the traditional format. Of course, dictionary with dot access would work as well. Yet this upgrade didn't fix some issues with latest Duplicati version versus mono, which still breaks down. I were kind of hoping that would be one of the issues which would get fixed during the process.

3. Major drawbacks of Firefox container security isolation? Caveat? Well, now everything is stored to disk, even if I just wanted tab security. They've made some silly choices. It's either tab security or private browsing mode. I've got more than enough ram, there's no need to write anything else to disk than bookmarks and settings. And as I've said, even the settings tend to get lost all the time. - So much fail! This is just software as it is, pooping junk data and files all over the place.

4. Once again, people asking for faster disks, because system is totally lagged due to excessive I/O. What's causing it? Well a few huge background tasks. Sick'n'tired, when do people learn to use ionice and nice, for stuff which isn't in hurry? Yawn.

5. As a programmer, have you ever received extremely sloppy specification. Haha, there's one project where they have used more than year to resolve a few simple formulas, because the specification and change requests are always really bad. It's continuously back and forth changes, one after another. While not hitting the goal. So funny and sad that the same time.

6. Sometimes reporting issues help, one server used 1024 bit RSA keys. It took them 6 weeks to get that fixed, but now the server is using TLSv1.2 and ECDH P-256 keys. Thanks! Ref: "mail.inet.fi - TLSv1.2, Cipher is ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 - Server Temp Key: ECDH, P-256, 256 bits"

7. CRDTs are the future - Nice, team work and collaborative editing is very important in some cases. I also like the mydata approach. Because I'm really mydata as well. kw: - Operational Transform (OT) (@ Wikipedia), Google Wave, Conflict-Free Replicated data type (CRDT) (@ Wikipedia).

8. EP 75: Compromised Comms (@ darknetdiaries.com) - Covert back channel communication web-sites. Pretty basic stuff. Counter Intelligence, Double Agents.

9. Federated networks like GNU social are nice. But the UX is really bad, because the federation is just so broken. Likes won't work, follows won't work, random windows open, process is inconsistent between different services, etc. Sad, even if federation as a concept is really nice idea. kw: Fediverse (@ Wikipedia), GNUsocial

10. A friend reported "end-to-end error" failure status in HDD SMART data. That's strange, I've seen a lot of broken drives, but not that one ever. It seems that the new drives with huge DRAM caches are more vulnerable to DRAM / cache failures than older drives were. Well, there's first time for everything.

11. A nice post about - HTTPS connection censorship based on SNI information (@ iamkush.me). Somehow unexpected? Well, not really. Unfortunately popular browsers like Firefox and Chrome do not have working Encrypted SNI (ESNI) (@ Cloudflare).

12. Something different? Using default credentials (no, I won't start again about that) nor it's different, it's unfortunately very normal.

2021-12-05