My nephew is asking whether an RFID-blocking wallet or card is worth it. I haven’t seen much discussion of it in privacy circles, and I’m not finding much reliable-looking reporting on it. So, does it make sense to have one? #lazyweb

#question

If I were looking for historical information (19th Century) about specific #Irish immigrants in Leeds County in Ontario, Canada does anyone know where I might start looking? Is information like this published online by the county or province or is this something that local libraries might be able to help with?

This is a #lazyweb question, but I'm inquiring for my aunt who has otherwise done a great deal of non-internet work on this over the past 20 yrs. Maybe more is digitized now?

I feel like I've asked the #lazyweb this before, but I apparently forgot to bookmark the answer... and it's come up again in my work....

Long, long ago OCLC had a date parsing library (written in Java) that was intended to handle all the various forms of dates found in MARC records. Does anybody remember the name of this or have a pointer for me?

#MARC #cataloging

#Lazyweb: A while ago I came across a paper that said men in management positions were more likely than women to make judgements based on emotions instead of evidence. I can't find it now, does anyone have a reference?

I want to run an(other) account which posts pictures every so often on social media.

Up until now I've always built or used separate scripts for each network. I think it would be more sensible to post to just one, and use crossposting gateways to reach the others.

Can people suggest which one I should start with?

(Networks I'd like to use: Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Facebook, Tumblr)
#lazyweb

Weird question, #lazyweb. If you (or your organisation) has some MRTD readers lying around that you don't need anymore, I would like to get them for one of my projects. MRTD readers are simple OCR devices that read the MRZ (Machine Readable Zone) from passports and identity cards. Devices like RTE 6700/6710 or the OCR315(E). Most have been decommissioned, so there should be plenty lying around :)

Alt...

The OCR315E MRTD passport reader

Alt...

The RTE6700 MRTD passport reader

A couple weeks ago, I added some stuff to my #Nginx config to multiplex SSH and TLS on port 443. Turns out, this FUBARs the downstream TLS logging pretty badly.

Anybody have a working config for this use case? #lazyWeb

Hi #lazyweb! I just fashioned a knob that goes on a #madsen kg271 #cargobike wheel lock. Where do people post models for #3dprinting these days, where the models are findable (implying some amount of centralization), but the site works (last I checked, this means not Thingiverse) and the organization is not toxic in some way? (... is there an #activitypub extension for 3d model sharing? ... someone wanted to do one in 2023, https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/federated-app-space-for-3d-file-sharing-with-complex-tools-and-visualization/3412 ... who were you, Y0z64? WHAT DID YOU SEE? https://xkcd.com/979)

Anybody have a fail2ban or other solution for blocking scraping in Nginx config? Asking for a friend who is tired of getting excessive CPU warnings from assholes scraping his git forge... #lazyweb

#LazyWeb

I remember as a child seeing a documentary about one of the most idiotic projects that the Nazis did:

Some of their senior leadership so firmly believed the Hollow Earth theory that they set up a V2 launcher on a South Pacific island with a view of slingshotting missiles around the Sun and landing them anywhere in Europe or America. It turns out the Sun isn't in the middle of the Earth (who knew?!?) so this didn't work.

It came to mind because another government seems to have a similar attitude to science at the moment.

I can find no online references to this at all. Did the documentary maker make the whole thing up? Did I dream the documentary?