Nougat

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Nougat ,

That you know of.

Nougat ,

I've been watching Monk recently, without ads, and it's very interesting how television shows used to be written and edited for commercials. It's dead obvious where the commercials used to be, and even that detracts from the overall experience.

Nougat ,

Monk doesn't go that far, and it's still obvious. "Here's a joke before commercial!" Pause. Fade back in to a new scene. Pause. "Here's a little cliffhanger before commercial!" Pause. Fade back in to a new scene. Pause.

Nougat , (edited )

This is exactly it, and it has to do with the Norman Conquest. After 1066, French was the language of the hurling ruling class and English was for commoners. As such, a lot of French words got borrowed into English, and they usually carried a higher status. Cow vs beef, deer vs venison, that kind of thing.

Nougat , (edited )

You would love https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/

Nougat ,

I forget the numbers I've heard, but that sounds right. It's also important to remember that in the 11th century, English vocabulary was much smaller than it is today, so those 10,000 words were a much larger proportion of the English language than might be apparent.

Another thing to know is that English was heavily influenced by Old Norse prior to the Norman Conquest, too. The mixing of those three languages, each having some differences in grammar and inflection, ended with English dropping a lot of inflections and turning to word position in a sentence to determine what's subject, object, verb.

Nougat ,

It starts with proto-Indo-European (PIE), and is a fantastic mixture of history and language and how the two intersect. And no ads!

Nougat ,

From the little we know about Frisian, yes, very similar.

Nougat ,

I seem to recall that Mercedes did it without incident.

Nougat ,

This picture clearly shows cats and you have posted it to @cat@lemmy.world

Nougat ,

Yo cat, I heard you liked cats.

Nougat ,

Something which has not been mentioned yet - Russia controls DNS resolution for any .ru site, and here's how that works:

When you browse, say, www.yandex[.]ru, your computer needs to know the IP address of a server that hosts that site. Let's say you are not using an ISP or public DNS server to get your name resolution from DNS hostname to IP address. (All of the following is essentially still what happens, just with a less complicated explanation.)

First, your computer contains a list of root DNS servers. Every DNS query starts with a root server, and those root servers are associated with the often-excluded '.' at the end, like "www.yandex[.]ru**.**" - that trailing dot at the end always exists, we just don't type it.

The root server says, "Here's a DNS server which is authoritative for the .ru top-level domain, go ask them."

Then your computer asks the .ru DNS server where to find www.yandex[.]ru, and the .ru DNS server says "Here's the server that is authoritative for the "yandex" subdomain under .ru, go ask them where their "www" host is."

Then your computer asks the yandex[.]ru DNS server where to find www.yandex[.]ru, then that DNS server says "Here's the IP address that goes with that hostname," and your computer asks the server at that IP for the website.

Again, Russia controls DNS resolution for anything at .ru. All they would need to do for any subdomain beneath .ru is provide their own authoritative DNS server for yandex[.]ru - or for any other whatever[.]ru DNS name. They could then redirect all browsing traffic to anything under .ru to anything they wanted.

Those FBI takedown pages? This is exactly how that is done. The FBI doesn't reconfigure a server at the "correct" IP; they redirect DNS for the subdomain to their own IP and own web server in order to display the takedown page. That operation is performed within legal limits, but from a technical perspective, such an operation could just as easily happen outside of legal limits, especially when the party trusted to properly respond to DNS queries is Russia.

tl;dr: Russia can very easily redirect any traffic to any .ru site to anywhere they want.

Nougat ,

Yes, that's true, but more generally speaking, an external attacker would need to first gain access. The governments who control their national TLDs already have that access. Could the UK do the same thing with the co.uk TLD? They could, but the UK government seems more trustworthy on that point than does the Russian government.

OP asked specifically about the "safety" of .ru sites. I answered that question in that context.

Nougat , (edited )

I'll throw some more detail, still working from the "your computer" side.

Your computer is almost certainly configured with a couple of DNS server IP addresses, belonging either to your ISP, or to some publicly available DNS server. When you're going to www.hotmail[.]com, your computer just asks a DNS server that it is configured to ask - it doesn't go to a root server (although it could, every computer is configured with root server IPs).

But even before that, your computer first looks to its HOSTS file. That's a local file that contains manually configured matches between DNS hostnames and IP addresses. Under normal circumstances, this HOSTS file would be empty, but it's there. Side note: DNS (Domain Name System) is what replaced HOSTS files. Prior to DNS, a university network (for example) would distribute a hosts file for everyone to put on their computer, and that was it.

Okay, www.hotmail[.]com isn't in my hosts file, what next? Not a DNS server yet - next your computer will look to its local cache. You visited www.hotmail[.]com a couple hours ago, you haven't rebooted yet, computer looks in its local cache and uses whatever it finds there.

Not in the local cache? Now your computer asks the DNS server its configured to ask for everything. That DNS server has its own cache, so if anyone has asked it for www.hotmail[.]com recently, it already has it, and returns an answer to your query.

If that DNS server doesn't have the entry cached, it may be configured with forwarders. This essentially means "If I, a DNS server, don't have a listing in my own cache, I will always pass the query to my forwarder instead of going to a root server." There may be multiple layers of this kind of behavior, maybe the next DNS server even knows who's authoritative for hotmail[.]com, and says "go ask them."

The last word, though, is always the root servers. Root DNS servers are authoritative for '.' and they contain lists of TLDs and the DNS servers authoritative for those.

Another thing to be aware of is that if a computer doesn't have an IP address for a particular hostname (and it is not configured with a DNS server to ask for everything), it only returns "go ask this other DNS server" to the computer making the query, and then that computer goes and makes the full query to that DNS server.

It is also important to make sure that the DNS server(s) your computer is configured to use are themselves trustworthy. "Dan's Totally Not Sketchy I Promise Public DNS Server" could very easily be configured to believe it is authoritative for the hotmail[.]com domain, and hand you whatever IP address it is configured to hand out from its own "Totally Authoritative I Promise" zone file.

And I forgot about TTL (Time To Live). TTL is measured in milliseconds, and generally speaking, only gets as short as fifteen minutes. If a cached record is older than the TTL, then the DNS server (or your local cache) will discard it and go ask for a fresh one. This does not apply to hosts file entries, or to static entries in an authoritative DNS zone file; those never expire.

Nougat ,

If you're going to hit a limb, leg is preferable to arm. Mobility is going to be greatly reduced without a shin. I imagine groin would be similar, what with the whole pelvis thing.

Nougat ,

The car’s owner, Renee Sanchez, was taking her granddaughter to the zoo, but after loading the child in the Model Y, she closed the door and wasn’t able to open it again. “My phone key wouldn’t open it,” Sanchez said in an interview with Arizona’s Family. “My car key wouldn’t open it.” She called emergency services, and firefighters were dispatched to help.

Just so nobody thinks someone left a kid in the car and then went into a store or something. Tesla should be paying for the broken window repair at the very least.

Nougat ,

In this specific example, I believe the driver buckled the child, closed the door, then was unable to open any door before starting the vehicle. Is it possible to either start the vehicle or at least turn on the climate control from outside? If not, this was a horribly dangerous situation.

Nougat ,

When the brain is evolved to recognize immediate and present dangers and react to them, an absence of those dangers (which is true for most of us, most of the time) means that "something is wrong."

Injecting pseudo-dangers, or purposefully placing oneself in actual danger, closes the "danger gap."

Nougat ,

Palestine being a wholly recognized nation with borders would make it so much easier for the world community to use its leverage on both Israel and Palestine for any of their shenanigans. As it stands now, it’s still arguably “an internal conflict.”

That’s a lot different from “attacking a sovereign nation.”

Nougat ,

Which IA failed to do, which is why they got sued, and why they can’t lend those publishers’ books at all anymore.

I have no sympathy.

I watched Fury Road and Furiosa back to back and I noticed something interesting. (Spoilers inside, obviously.)

It seems to me that George Miller agrees with the fan belief that the Mad Max films are a series of tales rather than a chronology or anything like that, because there are some huge discontinuities, and I am fairly sure that is intentional. You may dispute this, but you will have to come up with some convoluted explanations for...

Nougat ,

I am so onboard with them being folklore, especially as "further out" from events we get. I mean, even Fury Road was basically apocalyptic Fantastic Mr. Fox.

OG Mad Max - pretty "accurate" in its telling, pretty directly based in "fact" (in-universe fact), but sets the stage of legend with Max as the one who actively seeks to exact "justice" in a world where justice is fading.

Road Warrior, definitely a little more "legendary," Max comes out of the wasteland to rescue a settlement in a blaze of glory, and returns to the wasteland from which he emerged.

Beyond Thunderdome, more fantastic with the pig shit factory and the Thunderdome and the gulag and the train and the kids.

Nougat ,

Didn't Plato ascribe some of his own "parables" to Socrates? The story we are told is that "this story was told by the History Man"; perhaps that detail is part of the story?

Nougat , (edited )

Who wants to hear all about why that extended warranty industry exists? Because I know.

Okay, a couple of votes, here goes.

First, let's talk about what an extended warranty is. It is an insurance policy. There is a deductible. The amount you pay for this policy is the premium, just like any other insurance policy. When something breaks on your car, you make an insurance claim. This may be "you pay for the repair, parts and labor, and then make the claim yourself"; it can also be "the shop gets authorization from the warranty insurance company, and proceeds with the repair, then the check for the claim goes directly to the shop (with you paying the shop directly for the deductible and whatever the insurance company didn't pay for).

Sounds like a kind of good deal, right? Insurance to pay for car repairs, just like you have insurance to pay for healthcare. Hold your horses.

There are two kinds of automobile extended warranties: inclusive and exclusive. An inclusive warranty only covers items included on a list of covered items. These are generally bad, because the list of items covered is generally things that aren't going to fail anyway, or if they do, will not cover necessary associated parts or labor, which makes it less likely that an owner would complete the repair work. Generally, things like "hoses" are not on the list, which gives the insurance company the power to deny coverage of an air intake "hose" or a power steering "hose" or an AC refrigerant "hose" -- even though those things (and frankly regular old coolant hoses anymore) have very long lifespans.

An exclusive warranty covers everything not on a list of items. These kinds of coverages can be all right, as the list of non-covered items generally specifies wear and maintenance items. If you are buying a car from a dealership, new or lightly used, you may be offered such a policy, and it may be suitable for you - but read all the details in the contract.

The shady spam call extended warranties will always be inclusive policies, and they are never worth buying.

That's it, right? Scammers sell shitty policies and avoid paying claims? Nope, we're not done yet.

Remember how these are insurance policies? Just like homeowners insurance, comp/collision/liability insurance, if you cancel the policy before the term is up, you get a prorated amount of money back from the insurer. If your policy costs $1000, and the policy is for five years, and you cancel after 2.5 years, you get $500 back. Since these are insurance policies, you can do that with these extended warranties as well, but that is never advertised. Keep that bit of information about cancelling in the back of your head for now.

So a scam caller gets a mark on the phone, gets them half interested in this "extended warranty" (by failing to identify it as an insurance policy and by overstating what it actually covers). But the mark doesn't have $2500 (they're always way too expensive). Not a problem, you can make monthly payments! All you have to do is pay 10% now, then small monthly payments for ... kind of forever! This is called financing.

One, when you finance an extended warranty, you're paying interest on top of the premium, because you are essentially taking out a loan to pay the full premium cost, and then paying off that loan. The scammer transfers you to their "finance department" to finalize everything. This is probably an entire different company which only finances extended warranties. (I worked for one, briefly.) At no point do you ever find out that you are taking out a loan. They don't pull credit, you don't have to "qualify" beyond paying the 10% right now. Why is that?

Remember about cancelling and getting refunded? The loan is collateralized with the insurance policy. You pay the 10% right now, and if you never make another payment, the lender simply cancels the policy, and the lender receives the refund for the unused portion of the policy term. And they've made at least some profit, because that 10% "down" covers more than the first several months of policy payments. Every additional loan payment is 100% gravy for the lender, so they will run their own in-house collections department (probably one or two people) who will call and angrily harass the mark incessantly.

Scam caller gets their "commission" for selling the policy, insurance company gets paid for some amount of policy term (which probably hasn't had any claims made against it), loan company gets some profit from their "efforts," and the mark is out at least $250 and gets collections calls for the rest of their life.

Nougat ,

I worked in IT for a company that did the warranty financing for about four months many years ago - so I wasn't directly involved in the scamtacular stuff. There were actually two sides to that business. The commercial warranty financing was legit: businesses that needed to have warranties on expensive construction equipment (for example) would finance through us, because those policies were expensive.

Once I figured out exactly what was going on on the consumer warranty financing part, I was looking for another job. And then some other company came in and bought the consumer part, lots of people got laid off, and while I was not one of them, it hastened my exit.

The whole thing on the consumer side is just barely this side of legal, but it is most definitely not ethical. Most of the people who were on the hook for these policies were just being preyed upon and squeezed for money. Lots of elderly, lots of lower income people just looking for something to protect themselves, lots of people with mental health issues.

Nougat ,

Gestures broadly

Nougat ,

Oh I'm sure. When I was in Catholic elementary school in the late 70s and early 80s, there was still a paddle on display in the office. Whether it was still put to use or not, I can't say, but as children, it was pointed out to everyone, and we all feared it. The administration actively failed to dispel any myths about it, so even if they weren't still beating children with it physically, they still were mentally.

WIth instant gratification leading to addiction (for me) on Social media and the internet, I'm considering trying the old fashion newspaper.

I'm looking for lower than instant gadification resources for the news. If I get a news paper weekly, rather then just constantly checking the internet for what usually ends up being the same stories, just another outlet....

Nougat ,

I think that's a good idea, and you might consider a subscription to a news-adjacent magazine, like The Atlantic, Salon, Vanity Fair.

One of the things that I do is organize my Freetube subscriptions into interest categories. Motoring, Academia, Whistler (the Simon Whistler Empire of Channels is pretty darn good), some others. That way, I can go put information into my head without it being every single news outlet video clip.

I also pick exactly one place to interact in comments sections, and right now that is fediverse. All other internet comments are dead to me.

Nougat ,

Literally all he needs to do is shut the fuck up and collect money, and he can't even manage that.

Nougat ,

e;

Nougat ,

My soul is worth more than that, and I don't even have one.

Nougat ,

I'm guessing that alternative front ends (piped, FreeTube, whatever) don't give YouTube the same metrics they would get if I was using YouTube directly? I will continue to deny them the data they so desire.

Nougat , (edited )

“But you know what I would do if there is a shark or you get electrocuted? I’ll take electrocution every single time. I’m not getting near the shark.”

Hear me out: Put Trump in a leaky electric boat in shark-infested waters. For science.

Edit: He's still painted black from last time, so it's harder for the sharks to see him.

Nougat ,

At the tail end of last week, Microsoft finally admitted – as it pulled 24H2 from the Release Preview Channel – that the Recall feature, which takes a snapshot of whatever is on the user's screen every few seconds, was going to need some changes before the preview ships on June 18.

Nougat ,

Or like the one at my house, takes up a roost in a hanging flowerpot and refuses to leave even when you take the flowerpot down to do planting.

(Yes, this is happening right now, no we did not disturb mama bird's nest, no need to send in the feds.)

Nougat ,

The whole tone of this demonstrates the disposability of men.

Nougat , (edited )

It was made within the last two decades

decent quality

Are you sure about that? I mean, maybe you're a person who's way more into blades than I am, but a regular person would be hard pressed to differentiate between a "quality" blade and a "mall ninja shit" blade.

Nougat ,

If you’re in a townhouse, you have an association. The association would be responsible for the common attic and its insulation. Bring this concern to the attention of the board. Could be other people have the same problem and the fix could be attic-related.

Nougat ,

Could very well be, but worth talking to the association to make sure.

Nougat ,

It has nothing to do with "racism" and "bigotry", ... too concern with helping everyone else, and not their own.

Tell me you're racist without saying you're racist.

Nougat ,

What are these "people" to which you refer?

Nougat ,

Hit the gym. Delete reddit. Lawyer up.

Who would win: every human in the world vs. every animal in the world?

I'm thinking the animals would easily defeat us, since trying to get all 8 billion+ humans to agree on a plan of attack would be a near-impossible task. By the time we'd be done trying to coordinate a plan, I figure the lions and cheetahs would have already devoured us, not to mention the larger animals like the elephants....

Nougat ,

If we were trying, we would do things like going from 30 million bison to 325 (three hundred twenty-five) bison in a matter of 55 years.

Nougat ,

This is not the community for ... Non-Onion-y political news (it's gotta be absurd enough to look Onion-y)

You know full well that so much political news is Onion-y now.

Maybe the Onionton Window has shifted.

Nougat ,

To be fair, I mainly commented above to use the phrase "Onionton Window."

Nougat ,

Don't forget getting ready to get ready to read the book.

Nougat ,

There's a reason we don't have hood ornaments anymore, but somehow a vehicle completely constructed of sharp corners and edges is just fine.

Nougat ,

Because Daphne is blind to Fred's homosexuality?

Nougat ,

To be clear, I wasn't casting aspersions on you personally. There's literally never enough proofreading or editing, for anyone. I was just taking a present example.

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