• Keith Chuvala

    Keith Chuvala

    @wskchuvala

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    • in reply to: Can you detect AI deepfake images with your own eyes? #2657933

      Fortunately, for the 2024 presidential election, there is no need to depend on images, videos, or even questionable/biased “news” reporting.

      Instead we can look at the data from the first term of each candidate, normalize that data for the pandemic (where appropriate), and estimate for ourselves how likely that candidate is to perform in his second term in a manner consistent with how he performed during his first term.

      For elections with less-well-known candidates, however, this is an important issue with no constitutionally satisfactory “solution”.  Alas, we will have to rely on human intelligence to mitigate the misuse and abuse of artificial intelligence.

    • in reply to: Windows Terminal arrives? #2648150

      I was very used to the tabbed interface in various terminal apps under Linux, and so welcomed Windows Terminal very quickly, especially with the automatic WSL integration.

      I want/need to (and have not yet) key bindings to change/add the keyboard shortcuts so that I could make them the same in both environments (e.g. Ctrl-PgUp/PgDn to navigate between tabs, Shift-Ctrl-T to create a new default tab, etc., which have been in my muscle memory for a long time when using xfce-term, etc.)

      It’s kind of like using ‘screen’ on Linux; I remember the most-often used ones… until I don’t — or rather, my muscle memory doesn’t. But it never seems urgent enough of a problem to get into the esoterica of changing the key bindings in that settings.json file. 😉

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    • in reply to: Can you use a free password manager, or must you pay? #2643561

      Same here.  I’ve used Password Safe (pwsafe.org) for a long, long time, and think it’s terrific.  It’s small, fast, portable, has every feature I need, and is available in Android and IOS versions as well as Windows.   That’s particularly handy, because I always have it with me if I have my phone.

      I keep my password safe in OneNote, and so have it available anywhere I need it (including the above-mentioned phone!)  I also keep the Password Safe portable application in OneNote so that even on a “strange” computer I have the ability to open, manage, and otherwise make use of my password database.

      It’s been a terrific solution for my password generation and management needs.

       

    • I appreciate the research put into this article.  We’re a Ring+ household, with a combination of Ring and other products, some compatible, others not (with video et al captured locally).

      With multiple Alexa-based devices in our home, I figure we’re already under 24×7 surveillance, so the Ring devices don’t increase any particular paranoia I possess in that regard. 😉

      A warning, however, about the crime states in the article, which I believe are not relevant to the personal privacy/security theme, and are also are potentially misleading for at least some readers.

      Like politics, all crime is local.  Crime *is* on the upswing – in many localities.  There’s quite a difference between a town in, say, rural Idaho, and NYC.  National, state, and in the case of large ones, even county-based statistics don’t provide useful information for a homeowner or property owner in a given neighborhood of a given city.  You’ve got to be informed, and rational about, the situation where you live or own property.

      I also noted that many of the USAFacts data sets are only current through 2017, though some of the data sets extend farther.  Given the riots since 2020 (the violent ones, not the peaceful protests), we in or near major cities really need local crime data and recent trends to do useful analyses and make good decisions.  Sometimes that data is hard to get even from local authorities.

      In the wake of the George Floyd-related and other violence around that same time, we decided to take the conservative route and acted as if we need more security, not knowing if that was truly the case.  Hopefully when the data sets through 2021 are released we’ll find out we were being overly cautious — for our area, anyway.

    • in reply to: Frys electronics is closing #2347518

      Before Fry’s came to Houston, one of the reasons I liked attending conferences and meetings in California was to have the opportunity to make a “Fry’s run”.  I recall one such time when I was in Scott’s Valley, and a whole bunch of people in that meeting had never been to a Fry’s.  So we took a road trip, and it was like watching little kids in a toy store.

      One thing Fry’s did that no one else in the computer retail business did, AFAIK, was go over-the-top with the theme of the store, from an Aztec temple (CA and AZ) to a huge piano (Austin, I think), to the International Space Station here in SE Houston, not far from NASA/JSC.

      Always made it fun, and the prices were great.  In latter years I took advantage of the daily and weekly deals many times, and got some great buys.  But yeah, like many others here, probably the #1 thing I’ll miss was just the opportunity to browse, and browse, and browse, and dream, and browse, and kill time, and browse.

      So long, Fry’s.  You’ll be missed by this old computer geek!

       

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