Things you should know by now, but only just discovered

Keithustus wrote:

I never lived near New York City until December so didn't know that the mayor of New York governs all the boroughs, and not just Manhattan. The mailing addresses threw me off: "New York, NY" versus "Bronx, NY" or "Brooklyn, NY" doesn't naturally imply to me that they have the same local government.

We didn't until fairly recently (about the turn of the 20th century) - the Bowery Boys podcast has a good episode on their consolidation: http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/201...

Mermaidpirate wrote:

Speaking of which, this just came out. Yowzers.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/fa...

Facebook has been secretly paying people to install a “Facebook Research” VPN that lets the company suck in all of a user’s phone and web activity, similar to Facebook’s Onavo Protect app that Apple banned in June and that was removed in August.

Hi all! First post here. Been meaning to jump in somewhere for a while and since I just read this a few hours ago it felt like a fitting place.

Looks like Google was doing the same thing but they stopped on their own so probably won't get shut down like FB did: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/go...

And today google got shutdown. I am glad Apple is sticking to protecting privacy even at the expense of their relationships with big tech companies.

A bit annoying in that while Facebook was reported as news because it got caught by some reporters or something, Google took their app offline within 24 hours of that happening and had been transparent with its users who used the offending app how it was using their data. This kind of automatic revocation even when companies self report and haven’t been caught means remaining offenders are definitely not going to make any noise and may or may not change their policies.

I thought both got their dev certificates yanked for misuse of the certificates, not necessarily for the privacy angle.

Did Apple take advantage of the privacy backdoors that Facebook gave them?

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

I thought both got their dev certificates yanked for misuse of the certificates, not necessarily for the privacy angle.

Yup! The Enterprise Certificates are for use by companies to deploy internal applications to their employees that shouldn't go on the app store. That's what Apple revoked their certificates for, not the privacy stuff (although to be fair the privacy stuff wouldn't have made it through the regular app store process).

If anyone wants to use the new Twitter layout, it seems you can just visit https://mobile.twitter.com/home, even on desktop.

It looks much nice than the old layout imo.

Lanthos wrote:
Danjo Olivaw wrote:

I thought both got their dev certificates yanked for misuse of the certificates, not necessarily for the privacy angle.

Yup! The Enterprise Certificates are for use by companies to deploy internal applications to their employees that shouldn't go on the app store. That's what Apple revoked their certificates for, not the privacy stuff (although to be fair the privacy stuff wouldn't have made it through the regular app store process).

Right, they used the certificates to bypass the regular app store user protections.

The little piggie that went to market wasn't going shopping.

BadKen wrote:

The little piggie that went to market wasn't going shopping.

I learned this in the last year too. Quite a shock from your childhood.

Unconfirmed. But the others are fun.
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/0...

I just discovered these guys exist. Considering some of my sideline projects it is relevant and cool.

Hobear wrote:
BadKen wrote:

The little piggie that went to market wasn't going shopping.

I learned this in the last year too. Quite a shock from your childhood.

I just looked into this...

...

...thanks for that...

Stevintendo wrote:
Hobear wrote:
BadKen wrote:

The little piggie that went to market wasn't going shopping.

I learned this in the last year too. Quite a shock from your childhood.

I just looked into this...

...

...thanks for that...

;)

IMAGE(https://thebakermama.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/fullsizeoutput_15a7c.jpg)

Prozac, I hope that band doesn’t have copyright or trademark issues. The world needs that spectacle.

The word "petard" in "hoisted by your own petard" is derived from an Old French word for farting. With some (significant) linguistic liberties, you could say that
being hoisted by your own petard means to be blown up by your own farts.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

The word "petard" in "hoisted by your own petard" is derived from an Old French word for farting. With some (significant) linguistic liberties, you could say that
being hoisted by your own petard means to be blown up by your own farts.

I thought a petard was a medieval explosive, kind of like a grenade. At least I think that's what they said on Idle Thumbs once.

I'm not calling you into question; I can easily believe such a thing would be named after a fart.

Vargen wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

The word "petard" in "hoisted by your own petard" is derived from an Old French word for farting. With some (significant) linguistic liberties, you could say that
being hoisted by your own petard means to be blown up by your own farts.

I thought a petard was a medieval explosive, kind of like a grenade.

Correct.

Yes, it's an explosive. The name itself is from the Old French "peter", to break wind.

Well, that certainly puts a new spin on the name Peter.

...and on this Peter I shall build my Church...

He he he.

BadKen wrote:

Well, that certainly puts a new spin on the name Peter.

Well, the French version of Peter is Pierre, so...not so much. "Pierre", however, is both a name and the word for a stone, so there's a double meaning there, but not quite so pungent.

So... saltpeter is salt farts?

BadKen wrote:

So... saltpeter is salt farts?

Yes. Early alchemical texts describe extensive experimentation with salt and various "bodily humours" which included a process of hardening farts for all kinds of mystical purposes.

Spoiler:

Not really. Saltpeter is named as such because it looks like salt crusted on rocks. "Peter" is a term for stone derived ultimately from the Latin "petrus". "Péter", as in farting, comes from the Latin "peditum".

Thank you for letting me have my moment of childish fart humor.

Spoiler:

before crushing me with etymology

Prozac wrote:

I just discovered these guys exist. Considering some of my sideline projects it is relevant and cool.
[Cybertronic Spree video]

And since I finally saw Thor: Ragnarok Saturday night, I must agree. Truly the second-greatest* version of Immigrant Song ever.

Spoiler:

* The first being the original Viking Kittens, of course.

Archangel wrote:
Prozac wrote:

I just discovered these guys exist. Considering some of my sideline projects it is relevant and cool.
[Cybertronic Spree video]

And since I finally saw Thor: Ragnarok Saturday night, I must agree. Truly the second-greatest* version of Immigrant Song ever.

Spoiler:

* The first being the original Viking Kittens, of course.

Page and Plant very rarely license their music for anything, but Thor was a really good call. I sang along in the theater under my breath. So perfect.

Viking Cats will outlive all other internet memes! It always entertains.

fangblackbone wrote:

Viking Cats will outlive all other internet memes! It always entertains.

I dunno, this might still be around too.

Paging Farscry.