...I sniff gas every single day on the way to my beautiful golf courses and I'm the smartest person in the world, everyone knows it! Wind and solar are wasteful and ugly, just like Rosie Odonnell! Real men sniff and create gas!

I thought the fear back then was that x-ray analysis was being offshored to lower-wage nations.

The capitalist mantra is usually that new kinds of jobs open up when technology retires others. Horse ranchers lost their jobs when cars came along, but it opened up jobs for auto-mechanics.

However, turning oneself into a car mechanic after being a horse rancher for so long proved difficult, as one may not be as physically and mentally as nimble as young mechanic trainees, and second, you likely would be discriminated against because of an employer's fear of the first problem, real or imagined. Displaced people usually take a big pay hit even if they do find a new career.

The decline affects [job seekers] aged 22 to 25, while employment for older workers in the same roles continued growing.

Just get a degree in being old, solved!

Joking aside, getting a degree in "software engineering" and expecting to start as a software engineer (for non-trivial apps) is asking too much. One needs to start as a coder and get experience first.

The only research DOGE regrets cancelling.

not a good look

Yeah, I was trying to sell some fake patents to Harcourt Fenton Mudd's mother, and she reminded me that unless I presented a fraudulent offer, I might not make a sale to her at all.

Like books, once you own a DVD it's yours. No one can take it away, alter it, or prevent you from watching when you want. It's always yours.

While that is technically correct ("the best kind...") it's legally incorrect.

DVDs use DRM. So, at any time, the copyright holder can revoke your authorization to watch them, even if there's no technical means to prevent you. (That's assuming they ever granted authorization to watch them in the first place, which is actually pretty unclear. Nowhere on a DVD or its case or paperwork have I seen any text suggesting that the copyright holder has granted permission to watch the DVD. I guess it's just sort of implied.)

DMCA makes it illegal to decrypt DRMed content without authorization from the copyright holder. Authorization is not something you buy (check your receipt; do you see it there?), so it's one of those things which can be given and taken away, at will. And (see above) that can be done without any communication or the consumer's knowledge. What you did legally a week ago might be illegal today, without any communication given to you.

Since you own and physically possess the DVD, you can still do it, but it might be illegal.

DMCA needs to be repealed before there will be any coherent policies that consumers will be able to make unambiguous sense of. So I think even for situations where the content isn't licensed, it's probably best to avoid the word "buy" if there's any DRM.

I just wanted to remind everyone: you agree to my terms.

I'm told that a few of you supposedly didn't realize that you agree to my terms, so I'm just reminding you.

It's easy to forget how utterly fucked up things have become, compared to how a few decades ago, we(? well, at least I) thought things would evolve, and one of those has to do with dedicated services for secure communications.

The thing that defies my predictions, is that dedicated services for secure communications, exist at all.

When you wanted to secure email, you didn't use a "secure email" service; you (the user!) just added security onto your insecure email service. Send a PGP/MIME message and the email provider doesn't give a damn that it's encrypted, it just cares about SMTP.

But these days (could I call it the "Age of Lack of Standards"?), everyone is trying to manipulate you into depending on their software and services (inextricably linked; you can't use their software without their service, or their service without their software), so you can't just replace the service or easily "tunnel" security through their presumably-insecure (perhaps even mandated insecure) service. Whatever security they offer, is all you can reasonably get (pretty much the opposite of the classic email situation).

Why do I bring this up? Because the regulations are all about services! Not protocols. Not software. Services. (emphasis mine in all below quotes)

Here's the beginning of The UK Online Safety Act (1)(1)(a):

imposes duties which, in broad terms, require providers of services regulated by this Act to identify, mitigate and manage the risks of harm

Here's good 'ol CALEA (US Code title 47 Section 1002 (a):

Except as provided in subsections (b), (c), and (d) of this section and sections 1007(a) and 1008(b) and (d) of this title, a telecommunications carrier shall ensure that ...

CALEA even mentions encryption:

A telecommunications carrier shall not be responsible for decrypting, or ensuring the government’s ability to decrypt, any communication encrypted by a subscriber or customer, unless the encryption was provided by the carrier and the carrier possesses the information necessary to decrypt the communication.

I haven't dived into the details of EU's DSA, but I see a hopeful sign right there at the very beginning of Article 1:

The aim of this Regulation is to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market for intermediary services by setting out harmonised rules...

Look at all those references to services! Not the code you run; the services you use.

What does it mean? I think it might mean that even in the UK(!) you might be perfectly fine and legal using secure software. You just can't have it rely on some coercible corporation's secure services. Send your encrypted blobs over generic protocols and un-dedicated services, and the law won't apply to your situation. I'm not necessarily saying "Make PGP/MIME Great Again" but I do think following in its spirit is a really great idea.

If you run a service, what you want to be able to tell the government (whether it's US or UK or France/Germany) is "we don't provide any encryption, though some of our customers supply their own."

Stop asking for secure services. Worse is better. Ask for secure software (which assumes that all services are completely hostile) decoupled from any particular service.

all-in-office work, but get no clean answer. If it has a value, then pay employees more for coming in. Price it in rather than make it all or nothing. I generally agree it makes sense to have 2 in-office days, but not all focking week.

You know Donald paid somebody to take his exams for him. Cheating is a sport for him.

Despite a ton of wind, the Russian launch capability is degrading

If Putin goes mass suicidal, he can create a pretty damned big mess even if Russia technically loses score-wise.

Tech ALWAYS fails.

It's why the Amish and Taliban will rule Earth after WW3 (if any humans survive).

Isn't there a default "holding pattern" if bleep happens? I think they talk among themselves to each pick a unique altitude level, and then circle there and wait for further instruction. When the problem clears, the jets with the least fuel land first (or land if just plain run out).