My root privileges on my workstation that I can literally pop open and reimage present absolutely zero marginal security risk.

But what if a malicious website executes malicious code from my user account?

Well then it's gonna own my box. Which will let it do what?

Hack other boxes on the LAN? Can already do that without root access.

Exflitrate business data? That doesn't require root.

Steal credentials? Stored as user read only, no root required.

Again: if the end result is I get root access either way, but I stare blankly at a web training in one path...wtf is the point?

Same point as office 365 making me find the modal popunder to click before it signs in with cached credentials anyway: CYA for some lawyer and fuck wasting everyone's time.

Which especially creates friction in engineering organizations.

Yes I need root access on my machine. So naturally instead of working, I have to waste time sitting through root user trainings and documenting that yes I do have root access to my machine that sits on my desk in my office that I have to badge through the front door to even get to.

That's right kids. Back in the day, "apps" were disturbuted in ROM soldered onto a PCB inside a plastic case with an exposed card edge connector containing data and addess bus pins, that you would physically insert into your device.

If you wanted to change "apps" you would need to remove one and insert another in its place. Kids' rooms would have entire shelves full of these memory modules (a whopping 64kB each) for all their "apps."

Now git push off my lawn.

I'm sure most of them were sociopaths too. They just had the good sense to hide it better and it was easier to suppress the flow of information pre electronic media.

MLK had groupies of whom he availed himself.

FDR was as out of it as Biden by the end and he still went for a 4th term.

Lincoln declared martial law.

Washington didn't just own slaves but he also cultivated a personality cult during the early days of the Republic.

On it goes.

The problem prominent and/or mildly successful scientists of all stripes run into is that they begin to confuse their imagination for a source of truth. Having been rewarded with success in their careers for having done the so on their way up, it is almost reasonable to conclude their imagination *is* a direct line to God, Truth, or Whatever.

Feynman had a chapter in one of his books about this phenomenon. Several actually, but I'm thinking not of the famous Cargo Cult Science speech but of his experiments with psychedelic drugs in the 70s, where he wrote he almost felt like he was one with the eternal truth of creation until the high wore off and he realized that what he actually did was smoke some weed and seal himself off inside a sensory deprivation pod.

And they key is that sealing oneself off and interrogating the wider universe are mutually exclusive exercises.

Maybe Phillip K. Dick was right, but you won't find out by consulting your imagination; you will find out with hard-nosed and clearheaded systematic investigation.

Maybe there is a genetic component to race and intelligence that's separate entirely from culture and upbringing. I think it's plausible too, but having read Charles Murray, for example, I find his analysis simplistic and insufficient to make the case. And the reason is most of his doorstopper of a book he's making charts and graphs of responses to opinion polls and extrapolating into his own narrative, not conducting controlled experiments or even looking for good solid natural experiments with sufficient power to make the case.

Now obviously the kinds of controlled experiments necessary to answer questions of intelligence and genetic as separate from culture and upbringing would take too long and need to cross some ethical lines we presumably care more about not crossing than we do about knowing the answer.

So the scientifically honest thing to do is to say exactly that: it's plausible but we don't have a way of knowing for certain. Period.

You mean if you admin your own machines on your own premise you can save a metric shitton of money at scale by not paying a markup on absolutely every part of your operation? You don't say!? Shocking.

Of all the foolishness I've seen to kick ourselves in the shins, cost way too much, and result in much less control and stability: "Cloud" computing definitely takes the cake.

Cancer mortality is not the same as cancer incidence rate you dolt. Mortality can be improved by better healthcare technology. Instance rate is coming from environmental factors.

The city schools suck and the school board is more concerned about performative political posturing, but the real problem is the guy who's opting out of the nonsense.

The best lies contain nuggets of truth. Do you remember them telling you that Teflon is safe? Well, it turns out Teflon is indeed safe, but the process of making it creates extremely toxic PFAS that they can simply release into the environment, where it will persist forever and can poison you even when it exists on the order of a few parts per trillion. They were able to do this because the government simply believed the industry's own "studies".

It's impossible to lie about GMO existing because they want to patent it and sue farmers who try to reuse the seeds. The next best thing is to lie about how safe it is or what they did to it. Maybe that particular change they patented is indeed safe, but they don't have to tell you about anything else they changed. Then 20 years from now we'll discover how many people they poisoned. The company will go bankrupt from all the lawsuits, but the company leadership will still retire to their tropical villas.

The fact is, life expectancy in the US is decreasing. The total cancer rate is stable or slightly increasing. Somehow it overcame the effects of almost everyone no longer smoking. We don't know what's causing this, and with scientific research being defunded, I suspect it'll be quite a while before we do.

Now we'll just have to locate every copy of the web page and have it dipped in acid to make sure no one can break in at a later date.

Your government has jurisdiction over what goes on in Redmond. Nominally.

Not so with Beijing or Hangzhou or wherever the fuck these busses are from.

Yes. This is why .ssh/authorized_keys needs to be carefully managed as part of any security plan.

But I'm just a dumb bus driver. What do I know about the internets? Let the vendor figure it out.

How do you know that's the change they made to the crop? It's all self reported. Have you done the generic analysis yourself? How do you know the studies showing the pesticide is safe were not tampered with?

Water vapor increases global warming.

From NASA: Water vapor is Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas. It’s responsible for about half of Earth’s greenhouse effect.

The concern with GMO comes from a lack of trust in government. Some modifications causes the plant to produce its own pesticide, which clearly has a potential for harm if it ends up in the edible parts. So if the regulatory body has been bought out by the industry, how do we know they did the necessary investigation to ensure safety? Moreover, our understanding of genetics is pretty limited at this time so it's not possible to predict all of the side effects of any particular change.