> ...you’re staring at a list of like forty defect reports. And even if each of them requires only a three-line fix on average, there is a fixed overhead to dealing with each of these, and then you run out of time.
I'm not sure I understand this, for an OSS project, the only timeframes at play are self-imposed. I don't think most people would care if you pushed a release back by a week to fix some last minute bugs. /shrug
Phone number is fine, I only got one of those, it's an easy no...
The one I hate is when places ask for my email address... even if I wanted to, I have like 6 email addresses, which one do you want? Don't ask me to repeat it 20 times because you can't spell. Fuck it, I give up, no email either. :(
Years ago, I used "the + extension" with Gmail for practically every site and every account I created. (Of course, also before "Sign in with Google" became ubiquitous.)
This was only manageable because I was already using a password manager app. And so with every service, I'd need to scrounge up the email address I'd made up for it, along with the password. Not always easy or straightforward. Also, when calling Customer Service, the first thing they asked: "What's your email address?" and I would need to do exactly the same scrounging, just to tell them the right answer.
So I eventually abandoned "the + extension" and I nearly stopped using "alternate email addresses" and I standardized on one singular email address for practically every account. This has made lookups much, much easier.
However, I did use it as recently as 2021, and it served to notify me of exactly where a particular flood of spamming and phishing came from. I used it once for an "Echovita" service and they subsequently had a massive data leak. I still get Echovita-related spams and phishing emails. But I can always tell them apart, because they are perpetually addressed to
Fastmail (and I assume others) let you create "masked emails" (read: ephemeral aliases). You can do it with your own domain too. Couldn't live without it.
Arguably. SimpleLogin is an integration with Proton, not a Proton feature. Fastmail integrates its feature with 1Password and Bitwarden without the need for additional add-ons, I don't know how SimpleLogin works but it feels more akin to Mozilla Relay and whatever else exists out there to create ephemeral addresses - but ultimately the feature integration might lead to the same use case.
I have been using the alias feature for years now with Fastmail. Deleting an alias is hands-down the quickest and most convenient way to unsubscribe from whatever drivel a company ends up sending my way care of their slimey marketing vendor.
You just drive over it until it becomes a thick, flat sheet of ice... and hopefully not rutted, or else you'll get stuck trying to move your car in the morning.
The purpose of the restriction is to keep people from using hacked baofengs to chat on bands a) they're not allowed to use unlicensed b) could potentially already be in use by another service eg EMS/fire/police.
The big problem used to be that people would buy unlocked Baofengs and accidentally use them on licensed services thinking there were generic walkie talkies. The current locked down rules prevent that. They can still get amateur handhelds and use without ham license, but hams police that. It is also easier to get FRS/GMRS handhelds for pubic use, many the same models reprogrammed.
Unlocking handhelds is less of a problem because it requires deliberate action to break the rules. There are fewer people willing and able to do that.
“buy unlocked Baofengs and accidentally use them on licensed services thinking there were generic walkie talkies” - this has never happened. Also they are not exactly easy to operate (i have one)
There are older UV-5R Baofengs that are in demand because they didn't have the software restriction that newer ones have. It's not that they're hacked, it's that they were not locked from the factory
Are newer baofengs locked down? I thought you can still just hold down 3 buttons while power cycling the radio to unlock TX from 400 to 520 MHz.
Regardless, the Quansheng UV-K5 is largely supplanting the Baofeng as the go-to entry level HT, the 3rd party firmware for that radio is pretty impressive.
Licensed US amateur operator here. In general the FCC regulations allow you to listen on whatever frequencies you like, EXCEPT the cellular frequencies (This dates back to the analog era, before cellular traffic was encrypted).
Some jurisdictions may also have restrictions on, for example, using a police scanner in a vehicle, that would restrict listening (even though most of that traffic is now also encrypted).
Don't quote me on this, but I believe there's some more nuance to the cellular band issue. What's restricted, AFAIK, isn't simply receiving traffic on those frequencies in and of itself, but:
1. Decrypting those communications if they are encrypted
and
2. Selling equipment designed to receive on those bands.
Of course there's not much purpose in sitting around listening to the digital chirping noises of encrypted traffic, but as I understand it, if that's your hobby, that part is actually legal.
(Also a licensed US ham, not not an expert in anything in particular and definitely not a lawyer)
Get ready to be surprised, because the 800Mhz band used for AMPS (1G / analog cellular) was explicitly carved off as a no-receive zone by Congress because AT&T was pissed[0] anyone could just listen in on any cellphone conversation. I'm told the law actually makes it really difficult to legally sell fully open software-defined radios (SDR), even though nobody uses analog cellular anymore, because you still have to design the SDR to be tamper-proof against attempts to receive 800Mhz.
[0] Wikipedia also mentions the existence of cloning tools that would let you copy any AMPS subscriber ID and program another phone with the same number, stealing the subscriber's account. I suspect AT&T was more angry about that.
A functioning Congress would find it absolutely laughable that you could be disallowed from receiving/listening to certain bands of electromagnetic waves, drawing an analogy to being forced to look away every time someone shines a spotlight of a particular color frequency in public. Absolutely ridiculous. Radio is not a wire and should never be treated as such. Unfortunately, we do not and may never have had a functioning Congress.
I can't find anything supporting the notion that it's illegal to receive those frequencies IF you own hardware for doing so. What I can find, is where they made it illegal to sell such equipment[1]. But it doesn't say pre-existing equipment is banned so presumably a pre-ban scanner or radio would still be legal. But again, that's only with regards to actually receiving the signal. Listening to it, if it's a cellular call, or decrypting it if it's encrypted, would presumably be illegal under other statutes.
(d) Cellular telecommunications receivers
(1) Within 180 days after October 28, 1992, the
Commission shall prescribe and make effective
regulations denying equipment authorization
(under part 15 of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations, or any other part of that title) for any
scanning receiver that is capable of—
(A) receiving transmissions in the frequencies allocated to the domestic cellular
radio telecommunications service,
(B) readily being altered by the user to receive transmissions in such frequencies, or
(C) being equipped with decoders that convert digital cellular transmissions to analog
voice audio.
(2) Beginning 1 year after the effective date of
the regulations adopted pursuant to paragraph
(1), no receiver having the capabilities described
in subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) of paragraph (1),
as such capabilities are defined in such regulations, shall be manufactured in the United States or imported for use in the United States.
That said, the law is complicated and there could be some other pertinent statute that I'm not aware of.
EDIT: OK, this gets even weirder. I haven't followed every line of this through in detail, so take this with the amount of salt you consider appropriate. But according to ChatGPT, the FCC, in this order:
effectively repealed this restriction. What makes it weird is that the statute itself is apparently still on the books, but the FCC seems to have exercised their rule-making authority to say "this no longer applies". Here's what appears to be the relevant sections:
We have identified 36 rule provisions, totaling 12,008 words and covering more than 25
pages in the Code of Federal Regulations, that no longer serve the public interest because they regulate
obsolete technology,4 are no longer used in practice by the FCC, industry, or the public,5 or are otherwise outdated or unnecessary.6 Applying the “good cause” standard discussed above, we conclude that prior notice and comment are unnecessary before repealing the rules identified in the Appendix.
and contained within one of those footnotes:
15.121 (contains provisions to protect consumers’ privacy from technology that is now obsolete);
I tried some months ago, and it'll make a blank one fine, but if you need a complex configure or install phase, I felt I was better off doing it by hand.
A modern computer runs circles around your 90s computer... if the code was the same, it should be crazy fast. Instead, everything is a web browser, and each of them need to load 1gb of junk into memory each time you click on them.
If you have an SSL certificate so such a domain can serve HTTPS traffic if needed, which it wouldn't surprise me if some parking services generate for you these days via an ACME provider, then your domain will be in the certificate transparency logs so can be found that way.
One possible way around this is to use a wildcard and not serve anything on the base domain. Unless the right subdomain is listed somewhere, they'll not get any scans. Maybe useful for projects that you have online for just yourself and a small closed circle.
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