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		<header>
			<h1>Privacy Badger</h1>
			<p>Day 00598: Tuesday, 2016 October 25</p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2016/10/25.jpg" alt="A black chicken" class="weblog-header-image" width="811" height="480" />
<p>
	Current countdowns:
</p>
<ul>
	<li>249 scheme-specific <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr>-parsing classes to write and add to <a href="https://git.vola7ileiax4ueow.onion/y.st./include.d/releases">include.d</a></li>
	<li>1 free elective left in my associate degree program</li>
	<li>4 free electives left in my bachelor degree program</li>
</ul>
<p>
	Website cleanup tasks left to accomplish:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Remove numeric <abbr title="Extensible Hypertext Markup Language">XHTML</abbr> entities; these pages are written in Unicode, non-<abbr title="American Standard Code for Information Interchange">ASCII</abbr> characters can be used directly.</li>
<li>Find and tag any references to <abbr title="Extensible Hypertext Markup Language">XHTML</abbr> tags in my journal pages.</li>
<li>Find and tag any references to functions, classes, and constants that can be <code>grep</code>ed for; look for backslashes and empty parentheses.</li>
<li>Find and clean up references to <code>/domain_research/</code>.</li>
<li>Build error pages.</li>
</ul>
<p>
	I installed <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org./en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-badger-firefox/">Privacy Badger</a> on a bit of a whim today, not thinking that I&apos;d keep it for too long.
	After all, extensions such as this use hacky domain blacklists, which are incomplete and messy.
	However, it seems that Privacy Badger doesn&apos;t do that! Instead, it starts with a clean slate, allowing everything to track you, then as it learns where trackers are through your own Web browsing habits, it blocks them! THis is a much nicer, more complete, and less hacky solution.
	I&apos;ll be keeping this extension around for the forseeable future.
</p>
<p>
	Discover wrote back saying that they&apos;ll &quot;attempt&quot; to prevent future charges from my old domain registrar.
	Why didn&apos;t they agree to do that last time that I asked them to? Also, why are they only <strong>*attempting*</strong> to block charges instead of just blocking the charges? My old domain registrar can&apos;t charge me if Discover doesn&apos;t allow it to happen.
	I&apos;ll need to keep a close eye on my credit card statement over the next year.
</p>
<p>
	My <span title="Online Education Strategies">UNIV 1001</span> course discussion board had enough posts today that I was able to complete my responses for the week:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
	I don&apos;t know if you&apos;ve heard about how the net neutrality rules were overturned in the United States, but it was because Verizon fought to take the authority to enforce those rules away from our <abbr title="Federal Communications Commission">FCC</abbr>.
	Thankfully, the net neutrality rules are back in effect, at least for now, but without them, <abbr title="Internet service provider">ISP</abbr>s are allowed to discriminate against Internet traffic of their choosing.
	For example, another company, Comcast, used this period in which the net neutrality rules didn&apos;t apply to slow down all traffic between Comcast customers and Netflix until Netflix agreed to pay a high fee to Comcast.
	This means that Comcast was double-dipping, demanding payment both from Netflix <strong>*and*</strong> Comcast&apos;s own customers for any traffic between the two.
	This is just one example of the problems that Verizon worked to create.
	Verizon is an enemy of the Internet, which makes them my enemy as well.
</p>
<p>
	That aside, Verizon is also well-known for ripping off their customers.
	My mother&apos;s been overpaying them for their service for years.
	My mother also can&apos;t use the full amount of data connection use that they pay for out of fear of going over the limit and raking up overage fees.
	A reasonable carrier would cut you off at that point unless you specifically asked them for more data connection usage.
	A few carriers here in the United States will even allow you to keep using your data connection beyond your usage rate without overage fees, they just slow down the connection until you pay for more data connection usage or your billing cycle restarts.
	And to top it off, these more reasonable carriers charge <strong>*less*</strong> for their <strong>*better*</strong> service! There&apos;s also an issue with iPhones on Verizon.
	non-iPhones on Verizon don&apos;t have this issue and iPhones on other carriers don&apos;t have this issue.
	It makes communication with my mother difficult, as messages come in as attachments instead of as regular messages.
	<a href="https://community.verizonwireless.com./thread/783773?start=0&amp;tstart=0">Many people have complained about the problem.</a> Instead of fixing it though, Verizon kept insisting that the problem didn&apos;t exist.
	When people kept complaining, as the problem very much <strong>*does*</strong> exist, instead of actually dealing with the issue, they locked the forum topic about it so that they wouldn&apos;t have to listen to the complaining any more.
	My mother constantly complains to me about it, but I can&apos;t fix it.
	The problem is on my mother&apos;s carrier&apos;s end, Verizon&apos;s end, and they won&apos;t fix it.
	I&apos;m no fan of iPhones or Verizon, but if my mother would switch just one of those things, their issue would be solved.
</p>
<p>
	I&apos;m aware of the <abbr title="Transport Layer Security">TLS</abbr> issue, but it&apos;s not my website that has it; it&apos;s modern Web browsers.
	Specifically, Web browsers complain if the <abbr title="Transport Layer Security">TLS</abbr> certificate isn&apos;t signed by a &quot;trusted&quot; authority.
	However, Web browsers don&apos;t complain at all when even <strong>*less*</strong> security is used, such as is the case with unencrypted <code>http:</code> connections.
	It could be argued that websites should use certificates from &quot;trusted&quot; authorities, but in that case, websites with no <abbr title="Transport Layer Security">TLS</abbr> certificate should be rejected as well.
	Having a <abbr title="Top Level Domain">TLD</abbr> certificate allows for encryption, which is <strong>*always*</strong> safer than not having any encryption at all.
	I couldn&apos;t afford to pay the overprices <abbr title="Transport Layer Security">TLS</abbr> certificate fees, and now that I understand better and know where to get gratis &quot;trusted&quot; <abbr title="Transport Layer Security">TLS</abbr> certificates, I&apos;m in no position to change the certificate.
	At the moment, I don&apos;t control my own <abbr title="Hypertext Transfer Protocol">HTTP</abbr> server, as I currently don&apos;t even have home Internet service.
	Only my Web host is able to swap out the <abbr title="Transport Layer Security">TLS</abbr> certificate.
</p>
<p>
	My domain name was never overly important.
	I only got it because it made me happy.
	Sometimes you have to set goals that make you happy instead of goals that are strictly productive.
	I&apos;m a bit of a geek, and domain name length has some interesting properties.
	All domain names, including subdomains of other domains, have a length limit of 256 characters, including the trailing dot that most people don&apos;t use or know about.
	When you own a domain, you usually own all the subdomains as well.
	By registering a shorter name, you get a larger chunk of the domain name space! Does that really matter? No, technically, it doesn&apos;t matter at all.
	Even the longest domain name on the market has far more subdomains that someone could possibly use in a lifetime; more subdomains than there are <abbr title="Internet Protocol version Four">IPv4</abbr> and <abbr title="Internet Protocol version Six">IPv6</abbr> addresses combined.
	Still, it makes me happy that I own this unbroken chunk of the domain name space.
	Getting a bigger chunk would require more money or more political power than I&apos;ll ever have too, which means that I don&apos;t have to worry about what will happen if I run across a more favorable domain.
	I can build my Web presence here and know that unless major unforeseen circumstances pop up, I&apos;ll get to keep any backlinks that I build up.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	Different failures have different effects.
	Some failures help show my my limits and/or keep me grounded in reality.
	Others fire me up and make me fight harder.
	In the case of carrier-switching issue, it shows me that no matter how convincing I think that I&apos;m being, I don&apos;t know what other people are thinking.
	People are a wild card, and even when you think that you have gotten them over to your side, you may not have.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	If this money were coming from my own pocket, it wouldn&apos;t be going toward iPhones or Verizon, that&apos;s for sure.
	If they want those, they have to pay for them themself.
</p>
<p>
	My mother isn&apos;t the type that handles &quot;I told you so&quot; well, and will insist to the death that they made the right decision.
	Despite all their Windows problems, iPhone problems, and Verizon problems, they refuse to try replacing any of these things (or more).
	If they even just tried something else, then went back to what they originally had, it would show that they were open-minded enough to accept the fact that the first choice isn&apos;t always the right choice.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	I pronounce the domain name as &quot;wye dot ess tee dot&quot;, though I use the name &quot;Yst&quot; to refer to myself, which I pronounce as &quot;ist&quot;, like the end of the word &quot;catalyst&quot;.
	I actually chose the <code>y.st.</code> domain because all of the standard vowels were taken.
	&quot;Y&quot; was the only (sometimes-)vowel left, making it the only unpronounceable short string left.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	When I first started reading that your unacomplished goal was your bachelor degree, I thought that you hadn&apos;t missed that just yet, as you&apos;re still in school! I didn&apos;t realize yet that you&apos;ve returned to school as I have.
	I&apos;m sorry to hear about your hard times in the past, but I know how you feel.
	I ended up having to leave school as well because of outside pressures from work, and especially from my family.
	It looks like we&apos;re both back on the road to education though.
	I wish you well in your studies!
</p>
<p>
	Balance can be very difficult, and I don&apos;t think that I&apos;m going to be able to accomplish it.
	This time though, it won&apos;t be school that has to drop.
	Instead, I&apos;ll be putting most of my effort into school and work.
	I used to hang out a lot with my family, but it was never because <strong>*I*</strong> wanted to hang out, it was because <strong>*they*</strong> wanted to.
	It was a burden to deal with on top of everything else, and finally, something had to break.
	This time, they&apos;ll just have to deal with the fact that my time is a limited resource for the next four years.
	After that, time will be plenty.
	After that, I can hang out, go on hikes, visit relatives, and whatever else they want to do.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	Being a <a href="tel:911;phone-context=+1">911</a> operator sounds like it could be an interesting experience.
	I&apos;m not really a fan of telephones, but you could learn a lot about what happens in your town and help people in trouble while doing it.
	I can easily see why you&apos;d want such a career.
</p>
<p>
	I&apos;m glad to hear that you got out of your old job that you wanted to leave.
	If you&apos;re better at finding employment while already employed, maybe you&apos;ll be able to get your 911 operator job if you interview while employed as well.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	Some goals aren&apos;t meant to be.
	Once you learn what achieving the goal is like, it may not be the right path to take.
	We can grow and learn from our experiences though.
</p>
<p>
	You learned a second language.
	That&apos;s awesome! I worked on learning a new language, Esperanto, for about a year, but I&apos;ve had to put that aside for now.
	I hope to get back to that after graduating school, but for now, it takes more time than I currently have.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
	I made progress on both on my &quot;learning journal&quot; assignments as well, but I might need to take the extra day granted for these assignments beyond the regular school week again.
	I&apos;ve also filled out both course-evaluation surveys for the courses, which are now available, and I used them to complain about the fact that some of the course materials for both courses actively block some users, and in <span title="Online Education Strategies">UNIV 1001</span>, many materials are behind a <abbr title="Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart">CAPTCHA</abbr> wall.
	I could have mentioned <span title="Globalization">POLS 1503</span>&apos;s malfunctioning videos, but I don&apos;t know what the cause of it is.
	It used to be that I couldn&apos;t play videos hosted by YouTube, and I blamed Google for that.
	However, it turned out later that the problem was actually on my end.
	The same could be true of the <span title="Globalization">POLS 1503</span> videos.
</p>
<p>
	My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
</p>
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