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Kyle Rankin  

Fourth time's the charm! I figured out the right number of stitches per row, and overall rows to make a hat that fits the way I like. I still need to learn more about better ways to reduce stitches so it bunches up less at the top. Still, overall this was a good project to learn machine knitting with.

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Kyle Rankin  

Now that I set up my knitting machine semi-permanently in my office, the room has become a nice shapshot of my interests, from computers to 3D printing to antique calculators.

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Kyle Rankin boosted
racheltobac :verified:  

It's time to formally introduce myself here! Hi, I'm Rachel Tobac 🤖​🤟​ I'm a hacker and the CEO of SocialProof Security. We help orgs mitigate human-based cybersecurity threats with training, talks, videos, demos, workshops & pentests.

You'll see me talk about human-based hacking, up to date social engineering tactics in the news, the latest human factor security tips, tricks to catch cyber criminals, and more.

Fun facts:
- Used to perform improv (and before that, musical theater) before I got into hacking. Improv is super helpful in my human-based hacks and musical theater is helpful for my shanties.
- I got 2nd place in the social engineering contest at DEF CON three years in a row. Consistency is key lmao
- My degree is in Neuroscience. I focused on Behavioral Neuroscience and worked on rats in college -- yes, I successfully kept every rat subject alive during brain surgery!
- I have the cutest rescue dog named Snugs, I'm sure you'll see me post pictures of him here.
- My career path was super non linear: Neuroscience and Behavioral Psychology degree > Teaching > Community Management > UX Research Lead > Hacker > CEO. I love to hear about other non linear career paths.

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Kyle Rankin  

I put the knitting machine away when tidying up the other day, and I now have the supplies to either start work on the fourth (and final?) knitted hat, OR I could weave myself a scarf based on my last black scarf pattern. Since everything is put away it is equally convenient to start either project.

Now I have to decide, knitting or weaving?

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Kyle Rankin boosted
Andrew 🌻 Brandt 🐇  

Just before the invasion, #Ukraine made a deal with #Amazon #AWS to create a data warehouse for its government information and infrastructure: tax and property records, bank statements, and the like. Things that an invaded and occupied Ukraine might lose if Russia got their hands on the only copies.

They literally snuck Pelican crates full of SSDs into the country and spirited them back offshore after backing up 10 petabytes of important historic and legal records.

This paragraph, second from the end, really put a fine point on why Amazon did this: They were not beholden to, nor being held hostage by, any Russian operations...because they never had any:

Amazon didn’t have to worry about its relationship with Russia on the Snowball project. It doesn’t have one. “We didn’t have anything to turn off there,” Maxwell said. “We had never invested there. It’s a point of principle.”

Truly an amazing story from the #LATimes.

latimes.com/business/story/202

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Kyle Rankin boosted
Guido Günther  

I often use the same key combos in the terminal so I added a (configurable) shortcut bar on top of osk-stub's (pretty basic) terminal layout. Let' see how this works out.

1️⃣ /2️⃣

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Kyle Rankin  

Third hat is (almost) the charm! The fit around my head is just about perfect this time. The hat is slightly too long but other than that and a little sloppiness in parts of the seam I am pretty happy with it.

I am still going to make a fourth hat that is closer to perfect though.

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Kyle Rankin boosted
Casey Newton  

Wowwww bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

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Kyle Rankin  

Yesterday I learned that there is apparently a motorized attachment (knitking kg-93) for my knitting machine that automates most of the process. You set it up, tell it the number of rows, and it knits back and forth (slowly) leaving you with your knitted fabric. youtube.com/watch?v=0ejrLRcvYk

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Kyle Rankin  

I'm becoming quite a fan of @great78@mastodon.archive.org here. Part of my morning routine is now queuing up all of the records that were posted while I was asleep and listen to them with my morning coffee.

It would be really cool if there were some sort of podcast-like RSS feed I could subscribe to and automatically pull down the audio posted each day using my podcast application. Because of how these posts are linked, turning the Mastodon feed into an RSS feed doesn't solve it.

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Kyle Rankin  

For some people, attention is a drug (and online, it can be profitable too). If an attention addict can't get positive attention they'll settle for negative attention. As they say, "There's no such thing as bad publicity."

Maybe I'm just a contrarian, but while everyone else stares angrily at the loud motorcycle driving down the street blaring horrible music, my instinct is to ignore them and starve them of the negative attention they are demanding.

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Kyle Rankin  

I finished knitting my (adult-sized) hat this weekend. I ran out of yarn before the end so I starting reducing rows early. The result is that the hat sits high on my head. But I can take everything I learned from this hat and apply it to the next one to make one that fits me perfectly.

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Kyle Rankin  

It turns out this wasn't really my fault! After trying again with the proper sized yarn I've determined the pattern is incorrect. Other hat patterns for this type of knitting machine call for about double the stitches per row and about double the rows.

I learned a lot through this painful process though. I understand enough about how this works that I'm going to try to adapt a different pattern that has proper measurements to the style of hat I want.

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Kyle Rankin  

I have knitted a hat! ...for a baby?
So I suspected this might happen because the pattern called for thicker yarn than I chose to use, with fewer stitches/inch. I wanted to follow the instructions anyway just so I understood the process and outcome before I started making modifications. While I really like this wool for a hat I'd wear, I do think it's a bit too fine for my first knitting project.

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Kyle Rankin  

The knitting has begun! This is attempt number eight or so at a simple wool hat. The previous attempts uncovered a problematic hook that meant undoing and unraveling all of my work and starting over until I discovered the source and fix for the problem. Learning a lot!

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Kyle Rankin boosted
Purism  

PureBoot is Purism’s solution for high security boot firmware that gives you complete control.

While we design PureBoot’s defaults to meet most people’s needs, you can also create your own version with custom features, pre-approved USB keys, and all with little risk to your Librem 14 laptop.

Here is more about this topic 📌 puri.sm/posts/how-to-hardware-

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Kyle Rankin  

One use case for a phone+lapdock as a personal laptop that I didn't consider when I wrote this blog post last year (puri.sm/posts/my-first-year-of) was that because you can swap between docked and undocked states without powering off the phone or closing applications, you can also swap between *lapdocks* without losing state.

Where would you use this? Maybe at conferences? Imagine if you owned more than one lapdock and swapped to a fully-charged one when the other one drained.

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Kyle Rankin boosted
Lesley Carhart :unverified:  

I wish I could reach the correct audience to suggest to that, if you are going to work full time remote, especially for a mostly remote company for the first time, it is absolutely crucial that you learn how people communicate and actively participate in it. Not just how work information is disseminated. Join your “random” and hobby Teams or Slack channels. Meet people not on your direct team. Join a social group if your company sponsors one you find interesting. It indeed takes effort as an introvert - but while working remote you are not building relationships organically like in an office, at all. Those work relationships are important to getting stuff done in business, emotionally feeling part of a team and mission, and staying mentally healthy. We spend a big chunk of our lives working!

Over the last 5 years of working and managing a team FT remote, this social interactivity is one of the top indicators I’ve observed of whether someone will succeed and be balanced and happy, long term - or whether they will burn out and be left behind. The people who often vanish the fastest never chatted except when prompted to do so for business, never turned their camera on, nor set a profile image.

I’m not telling you to step way outside your comfort zone. I’m not saying there aren’t situations where it’s necessary to turn off the camera. I’m not saying you’ll automatically fail if you never socialize. I’m just giving you some advice based on hard life lessons of watching people thrive versus be unhappy.

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Kyle Rankin  

The Knitking KK93 knitting machine is set up and I've done a few sample rows. Everything seems to work, so I think the next step is to pick a simple knitting machine project and make it. It will probably be awhile before I advance to programming it with its punch cards.

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Kyle Rankin boosted
Eva  

Apple has finally killed its ill-conceived plan to scan photos for CSAM. This is a direct result of work by experts and activists. Speaking up is important and sometimes we win.

wired.com/story/apple-photo-sc

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