Me
My name is Mark Doliner. I’m a computer software engineer living and working in North Carolina, USA. I worked in the San Francisco Bay area for 13 years before moving back East in 2019. My email address is mark@kingant.net.
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Author Archives: Mark Doliner
Buying a Subaru Outback
I recently wrote about how we decided which model to buy. This post talks about trim level and options for that model, as well as the actual buying process. We started by using the car configurator on Subaru’s website. Engine … Continue reading
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Choosing a new car
Emily and I bought a new car! Our old cars are from 1998 and 2003, so this was a big change. In this blog post I’ll describe our decision process in more detail than anyone could possibly care about. I … Continue reading
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Two movie recommendations
Emily and I watched two movies recently that I thought were worth recommending. The Accountant Ben Affleck is an accountant and also a trained assassin. Rated R. It’s pretty violent and a lot of people get shot in the head, … Continue reading
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Assisted braking belay devices
Hey climbers, did you know there are assisted braking belay devices other than the Petzl Grigri? Did you know there are passive assisted braking devices where “passive” means “no moving parts”? It occurred to me that many people might not … Continue reading
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On the Shadow Brokers NSA leaks
The leaks published by The Shadow Brokers (Wikipedia, New York Times) are the perfect example of why we should minimize the sensitive information kept by the government. I posted about this in the context of encryption backdoors two years ago. … Continue reading
Posted in All, Computers
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Star Trek
I watched all episodes of the original Star Trek series over the last two years. It’s not amazing, but it has its moments. Some episodes are great, some are dumb, and some are boring. Episodes are almost entirely self-contained—no cross-episode … Continue reading
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Technology news briefs
There were three events last week that I thought didn’t get enough news coverage: 1. Good news: Proposed restrictions on warrantless electronic device border searches Bills were proposed in the Senate and House to require a probable cause warrant before … Continue reading
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Two years with a Retrospec Mantra
I commuted a few miles a day for two years on a black Retrospec Mantra single-speed bike. I bought it from Amazon for $256 in October 2014. (more photos) It’s nothing special. Fairly low quality, but appropriately priced. The steel … Continue reading
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