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Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

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Re: Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

#301

Post by tomxor »

hedora wrote: post #189
adamgordonbell wrote: post #77

I was at the talk, and it's strange this what people take from it. You should watch the whole thing and see what he built over years. I was a bit disappointed that most of the questions ignored his talk about a very cool jukebox he built and focused on OS drama. He built a jukebox with all hit songs he could find in it 1900-2000 and for prerecorded music, got a player piano and sheet music and midi and integrated the…

Better headline: “Unix Legend Ken Thompson Announces he is Switching From iTunes to a Raspberry PI, a Player Piano and Cabinets of old CD’s” Hmmm. I meant for that to be snarky, but it is a better headline.

He has already been using raspberry PIs for years, and if you watched the talk you will find this has nothing to do with iTunes, it predates it by decades.

Re: Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

#302

Post by kitsunesoba »

jasonjayr wrote: post #300
kitsunesoba wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think permission systems are bound to wind up in all desktop operating systems, eventually. They’re already on Linux for those using Flatpak. Trusting random third party binaries with access to everything is increasingly too much of a gamble, even for more technical users. That said, I agree that the macOS implementation has issues. It’s tricky though, because if they make it as simple as confirm/deny dialogs, you’…

> Trusting random third party binaries with access to everything is increasingly too much of a gamble, even for more technical users. Regardless, I'd still like the final say in making that decision, otherwise it's not really my computer anymore, is it.

Escape hatches should exist, but I think it's better if those exist on a per-program basis.

If a systemwide "disable all safeguards, give all programs access to everything all the time" switch exists, the level of friction encountered when accessing it should be very high to help deter social engineering attacks. It's a one-time action so the annoyance level of that friction is negligible, since those using it will only need to do so on clean installs.

Re: Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

#303

Post by kergonath »

milgra wrote: post #109
burntalmonds wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"..what Apple is doing to something which should allow you to work is just atrocious.." Anyone know what his specific issues are?

I don't know the exact issues but might be related to the issues why I left Apple : I was developing a very successful little tool for MacOS ( https://github.com/milgra/macmediakeyforwarder ) which listened for keypresses. From 2016 to 2019 it became harder and harder to install it because apple added more and more restrictions to apps like this. By 2019, you had to enable the application explicitly to listen for eve…

> By 2019, you had to enable the application explicitly to listen for events at least in three places deep down in the system preferences, click accept in various popups and if you stuck somewhere then nobody could tell why it wasn't working.

It’s an improvement for users because it means that not all random applications and programs that run can act as keyloggers. It’s optimising for the common use case (random people running random software and being very annoyed if they get ransomed) against the rare case. It’s the same thing with debuggers and attaching to other processes. In the end it is a good thing to not be able to do that without explicit authorisation.

> So I had a very expensive laptop and the OS didn't let me use it freely.

It does not prevent you from doing it. It added some friction, sure, and you can find that this friction is unacceptable (and changing OS every now and then is a good idea in general anyway). But from a fundamental perspective the functionality is still there. The OS still lets you do this.

> I created the best looking/most usable desktop experience MacOS will never have.

It is great that you have both the ability and the time to do this. I’ll look into it for my Linux boxes.

However, my experience is that it’s never actually “the most beautiful/user-friendly/consistent/polished” (things we see all the time with new DEs). They all tend to fall apart with millions of corner cases and inconsistencies every time you get off the beaten path. In any case, good luck with your project.

Re: Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

#304

Post by mtillman »

klyrs wrote: post #170
adamgordonbell wrote: post #77

I was at the talk, and it's strange this what people take from it. You should watch the whole thing and see what he built over years. I was a bit disappointed that most of the questions ignored his talk about a very cool jukebox he built and focused on OS drama. He built a jukebox with all hit songs he could find in it 1900-2000 and for prerecorded music, got a player piano and sheet music and midi and integrated the…

Thanks, the headline has all the appeal to me of "big celeb wears new t-shirt." The jukebox sounds awesome

I’m sure he’d laugh at being called a big celeb. Jukebox is def cooler than the headline.

Re: Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

#305

Post by wkat4242 »

KerrAvon wrote: post #204
wkat4242 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Random third party binaries" are not something Linux users really use, generally. Most of it is open source and comes through the repository.

Insecurity through obscurity is possible even in open source. See log4j, but there are other examples — and infinite proof of concepts of people breaching repositories. Even on the desktop, you want multiple layers of security to limit potential damage. Do use Linux on the desktop and be happy if it makes you happy, but don’t smugly assume you’re immune to the outside pressures in today’s world that are causing Apple…

Well yes but Linux has had solutions for this a long time. AppArmor, SELinux.

Some distros like RHEL already bundle apps with profiles that make sure the app can only do what it's supposed to do.

Re: Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

#306

Post by superposeur »

adamgordonbell wrote: post #77

I was at the talk, and it's strange this what people take from it. You should watch the whole thing and see what he built over years. I was a bit disappointed that most of the questions ignored his talk about a very cool jukebox he built and focused on OS drama. He built a jukebox with all hit songs he could find in it 1900-2000 and for prerecorded music, got a player piano and sheet music and midi and integrated the…

I was there too and, at first, was wondering if the music thing was just a warm up to the main talk. But soon enough I settled into the flow of it.

His slides were incredibly minimal throughout and then, at the end, he played a video of maple leaf rag pouring forth from his player piano midi setup and it was like choirs of angels singing.

How many boring ass talks have I sat through that I’ll never remember — but I suspect I’ll remember his talk for a long long time.

Re: Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

#307

Post by asveikau »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #231
milgra wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the exact issues but might be related to the issues why I left Apple : I was developing a very successful little tool for MacOS ( https://github.com/milgra/macmediakeyforwarder ) which listened for keypresses. From 2016 to 2019 it became harder and harder to install it because apple added more and more restrictions to apps like this. By 2019, you had to enable the application explicitly to listen for eve…

The situation with Wayland is actually worse than this by far.

Not sure what you mean.

But at any rate, Wayland is completely optional. You can keep running X and nobody will stop you. People will keep running X without issue for a very long time. This is very different from what the Apple world is like.

Re: Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

#308

Post by kergonath »

jasonjayr wrote: post #300
kitsunesoba wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think permission systems are bound to wind up in all desktop operating systems, eventually. They’re already on Linux for those using Flatpak. Trusting random third party binaries with access to everything is increasingly too much of a gamble, even for more technical users. That said, I agree that the macOS implementation has issues. It’s tricky though, because if they make it as simple as confirm/deny dialogs, you’…

> Trusting random third party binaries with access to everything is increasingly too much of a gamble, even for more technical users. Regardless, I'd still like the final say in making that decision, otherwise it's not really my computer anymore, is it.

This why there are settings for this sort of things. Nobody in this thread is saying that something was impossible, just that some settings had to be changed and the UX was suboptimal.

Re: Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

#309

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

codetrotter wrote: post #289
jen20 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m suddenly reminded of the existence of n-gate!

It doesn’t exist anymore. Or rather I mean, it hasn’t been updated in months. Probably the author found something better to do with his time.

I spotted a user on the FT with that handle, and asked if they were the eponymous one.

They didn't reply.

But just in case you're reading this, person/people/AIs behind n-gate, you are sorely missed.

That is all.

Re: Ken Thompson's 75 year project: A century of popular music in a jukebox [video]

#310

Post by asveikau »

underdeserver wrote: post #124
chongli wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to guess, it would be Gatekeeper and SIP. These technologies can really get in your way if you’re used to having full access to your own machine.

I mean, you can disable both of these.

Most people won't. And if you're developing software distributed to others, this will put your machine in a state where you aren't testing what your end users get.
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