Computer speak is disturbingly similar to text message speak

Bugs are bioengineering masterpieces.

The most recent Zefrank video is a great example of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spuO7OpS6zw

Do people actually use stuff like this? Like who has ever needed help reading a text message?

It’s the correct amount of paranoia. The issue is society has normalized completely not giving a shit about your own privacy to the point where any attempt at preserving it is seen as abnormal.

TLDR: While Linux is less susceptible to malware in some ways, it mostly boils down to Linux having a more technically minded userbase whereas Windows is a “mainstream” operating system.

Most Windows malware nowadays come from social engineering scams (complete this “captcha” by pressing Windows+R and pasting in this powershell script we conveniently put in your clipboard) or untrusted third party installers because Windows doesn’t natively have a package manager. Like others have said, the old school self-propagating worms and drive by downloads that activate just by clicking on a link aren’t really possible anymore (outside of state actors with unlimited budgets to buy zero days) unless your system or browser is horrifically outdated.

In terms of social engineering, Linux is not necessarily better at preventing it than Windows. In fact, sudo in Linux will unquestioningly delete the kernel and system software or make unlimited changes to them. Windows, for better or for worse (tbh more worse than better), uses TrustedInstaller to limit access to system files. Windows 11 won’t easily let you delete or modify System32 for example, even if you’re an admin. So it’s in theory easier to do more damage to your system on Linux if you don’t know what you’re doing. But if someone is using Linux full time, they’re most likely technical enough to not be fooled into running random untrusted bash commands.

The biggest thing is to be careful with those Linux terminal tutorial sites that have a “add to clipboard” button, they can put literally anything into your clipboard, including an enter key to run the script as soon as you put it in your terminal (though this may or may not be possible depending on your terminal app). Actually, they don’t even need you to use their copy button. They can just set an event listener for control-C anywhere on their site and automatically replace the clipboard content. Just double check everything you copy before running it, especially since there’s a lot of times where Linux users have to rely on obsecue tutorials hosted on untrusted websites.

You also don’t really need to run untrusted installers on Linux because almost everything you need is in a properly moderated software repository, be it your native package manager, Flatpak, or Snap. Everything is signed by the authors and has a ton of eyes from the open source community on it. The only things to look out for is compiling something from GitHub, random AppImages, Elf binaries, scripts, and last but not least third party repositories that can be added as an installation source to your package manager/Flatpak/Snap. Basically, Linux gets most of its “doesn’t get malware” reputation from the same place Mac does: you rarely have to manually download and run an executable from a random website, which is the norm on Windows. Add to the fact that even when that’s needed, the Linux userbase is more technical and is more able to discern which sources are reputable and which are suspicious.

Another major source of malware is pirated versions of Windows or untrusted “license activators” from the internet. This just isn’t a problem on Linux because there’s no license to activate and it’s free to begin with so there’s nothing to pirate. And again, if someone is running Linux, they’re probably technical enough to know not to run random pirated versions of paid software to begin with, helped by the fact that the vast majority of paid software is Windows only.

Tell them to leave their front door unlocked. They should have no problem doing that, and if they do, call the police on them because it means they’re hiding illegal activity in their home. /s

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Can’t say I’ve ever experienced this kind of confusion in Java but that’s probably because they intentionally restricted the syntax so there’s no ambiguity.

Why any international students still want to go to the US is beyond me.

Better than an integer at least.

Race condition that only happens on the much faster production hardware: Allow me to introduce myself

This is why the “nothing to hide nothing to fear” line is bullshit. You can be a model citizen and there will still be people actively trying to use your data to harm you.

Would you leave your door unlocked just because you’re not hiding illegal activity in your house?

Al Blue: When Al Capone becomes a cop.

Damn.

I suppose the obvious question of why Amazon doesn’t have an intuitive way of rate limiting those can be answered by the huge bills people rack up.

Never used AWS but would it help to bake a daemon into your default OS image that shuts it down after 24 hours? That way you need to manually disable it for the ones you want to keep.

Shouldn’t it be MANGA now that Facebook renamed itself to Meta?

Thanks for the corrections! I edited my post to reflect them.

TBH all the claims you commonly hear about Macs are either outright false or outdated:

• Macs don’t get malware? Yes they do.

• Macs are more private? More than Windows maybe, but that’s like saying you should go to the restaurant that gives you explosive diarrhea instead of the one that gives you botulism. The one that serves normal non-infected food is not an option I guess. Apple being “not as bad” as the worst offender is not praiseworthy and still means they’re in no way private.

• Macs “just work?” Unless Apple decides it shouldn’t. They can prevent you from installing paid apps you already own because the latest version arbitrarily doesn’t support your older device anymore. Want to install an older version? Fuck you, stop being poor and buy a new Mac. Oh you installed a genuine Apple replacement part with the wrong serial number? Fuck you, your device is banned.

• Macs have better support than Windows computers? Yeah maybe when the Apple logo was still rainbow coloured and they had CRTs built in. Now a battery replacement costs nearly as much as a new device and they go out of their way to make sure you can’t do it yourself.

• Macs don’t come with bloatware? Then what do you call that bullshit AI they’re pushing to compete with Copilot? What do you call Safari? What do you call Photo Booth? Has anyone ever opened Photo Booth once the novelty of their first time using a Mac wears off?

• Macs are intuitive? Look, maybe I’m just a tech illiterate idiot, but I had more problems figuring out how to drag and drop on my friend’s Macbook than I had tinkering with the Linux kernel and systemd.

• Macs are good for developers? Yeah they’re so good they’ve recently had to cave and introduce a WSL-like system so you can run Linux containers.

• Macs are innovative? Yeah they’re so innovative they don’t even support snapping windows to half or a quarter of the screen when Linux desktop environments and even Windows have had it for ages. Gotta either leave all the windows floating, or full screen them all and swipe between them, or manually resize the windows to the layout you want. (They have this now.)

• Macs are convenient? Yeah I just love carrying HDMI (some newer Macbooks have HDMI again) and USB A to C adapters forever because they couldn’t be bothered to install those ports on a laptop sized device that can clearly fit them. Also fuck Apple for giving other laptop companies the idea that everyone wants only USB-C on their devices. No, we want ports we can use today, not in 10 years when all the peripherals switch to USB-C and all the computers bought today will already be obsolete regardless of what ports they have. I’ll buy a computer with only USB-C when everything else I own actually uses USB-C.

• Macs are more secure? How do you know? Do you control the disk encryption keys? No, Apple does. Can you encrypt the drive yourself with a key you control like you can on Linux? No, fuck you for even thinking about that.

• Macs are elegant and their design is well thought out? Because gluing the battery to the chassis with double sided tape is the elegant way to do it and not redneck engineering. And with glue so strong that you risk puncturing the battery and burning your house down if you try to remove it yourself. Another great attention to detail is soldering the SSD to the motherboard, thoughtfully ensuring you lose data when the motherboard fails. But hey, I’m sure the Genius bar will be happy to recover your data for you since they made sure you can’t do it yourself, and for only $999.99! Your wedding photos and your PHD thesis are each worth more than that right? So it’s a bargain!

Linux beats Mac in every one of those categories (other than the hardware ones) and you can install Linux on every device. Even ancient ones, and you get to decide if it’s too old to be usable or not, not the company who’s incentivized to obsolete devices as fast as possible so you’re forced to buy a new one. How many years before a brand new Mac stops getting OS updates?

Reject modern operating systems, return to punch tape