Comment Re:5 square inches? (Score 1) 105
"5 inches square" is probably what they meant.
I've also seen it described as a cube, not unless it's 5x5x5
Comment Re:Correction (Score 2) 413
Does the media & social-media blackout of the NY Post's story on the Hunter Biden laptop qualify?
Most social-media suppressed the Post's initial tweets/etc, and wasn't widely reported elsewhere until after the election.
Comment Re: It's not about regulating (Score 1) 228
Like the right to buy hand grenades at Wal-Mart because you MIGHT do crime?
I think even most Americans are fine with that right being taken since they'd rather not have to worry if their neighbor is storing/using hand grenades for pest control.
99.99% of the population has limits on what types of weapons others can own. For some its any guns. For others its nukes. Some don't feel like its reasonable for neighbors to own high explosives for self-protection or hunting purposes. You have to draw that line somewhere. so don't act like any rules or regulations around owning potential weapons violates your rights.
Instead of hand-grenades, this change is more like restricting sales of plumbing parts & black-powder from Walmart, because you can easily assemble a tossable pipe-bomb with it.
Once plumbing supplies are banned, need to ban pressure-cookers (actually used in an attack).
Not sure where they would go from there; gasoline & glass bottles?
Something often overlooked: it's generally legal to own cannon in the USA.
How does that compare to a firearm or hand-grenade?
Comment Re:Sounds good (Score 1) 192
Even scarier than this is that tests have also shown traces of Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, Busch Light, and Miller Genuine Draft Light in Americans' urine.
Well at least there were no traces of beer.
Submission + - Google proposes shutdown changes to speed Linux reboots (phoronix.com)
UnknowingFool writes: Google has proposed a change on how Linux kernel handles shutdowns specifically when NVMe drives are used. The issue that Google is finding is that the current NVMe drivers use synchronous APIs when shutting down and it can take 4.5 seconds for each NVMe drive. For a system with 16 NVMe drives that could take more than a minute longer. While this is a problem that only large enterprise systems face currently, more enterprises are replacing their mechanical disk RAID servers with SSD ones.
Submission + - SPAM: Infrastructure Bill's Drunk Driving Tech Mandate Worries Some Privacy Advocates
An anonymous reader writes: The recently passed $1 trillion infrastructure package is jam-packed with initiatives but sprinkled in there alongside $17 billion in funding for road safety programs is a mandate requiring carmakers to implement monitoring systems to identify and stop drunk drivers. The mandate, first noted by the Associated Press could apply to new vehicles sold as early as 2026. Courts have ordered some drunk drivers to use breathalyzers attached to ignition interlocks to start their vehicles for years, but the technology noted in this bill would take that concept much further and would need to be capable of “passively monitor[ing] the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired.”
Though the Department of Transportation has yet to put its foot down on the exact type of technology it will use for this program, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and 17 automakers have been working on something called the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) since 2008. DADSS is exploring both a breath and touch-based system to detect whether or not a driver has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above 0.08%. The breath-based system aims to measure alcohol readings based on a driver’s breath with the goal of distinguishing between the driver and passengers. The touch-based system meanwhile would shine an infrared light through a driver’s fingertip to measure blood alcohol levels under the skin’s surface. [...]
The new mandate struck a positive note with some car safety groups, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving which has advocated for more detection tech in the past. “It’s monumental,” Alex Otte, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving told the AP. Otte went on to describe the package as the “single most important legislation” in the group’s history. At the same time though, the mandate has drawn concerns from safety experts and digital rights groups that warn driver monitoring technology could have knock-on privacy implications. In a letter sent last year by the American Highway Users Alliance, the organization urged support of the NHTSA’s DADSS Research Program but expressed concerns that the technology could potentially infringe on driver’s civil liberties.
Link to Original Source
Though the Department of Transportation has yet to put its foot down on the exact type of technology it will use for this program, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and 17 automakers have been working on something called the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) since 2008. DADSS is exploring both a breath and touch-based system to detect whether or not a driver has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above 0.08%. The breath-based system aims to measure alcohol readings based on a driver’s breath with the goal of distinguishing between the driver and passengers. The touch-based system meanwhile would shine an infrared light through a driver’s fingertip to measure blood alcohol levels under the skin’s surface. [...]
The new mandate struck a positive note with some car safety groups, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving which has advocated for more detection tech in the past. “It’s monumental,” Alex Otte, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving told the AP. Otte went on to describe the package as the “single most important legislation” in the group’s history. At the same time though, the mandate has drawn concerns from safety experts and digital rights groups that warn driver monitoring technology could have knock-on privacy implications. In a letter sent last year by the American Highway Users Alliance, the organization urged support of the NHTSA’s DADSS Research Program but expressed concerns that the technology could potentially infringe on driver’s civil liberties.
Link to Original Source
Submission + - SPAM: John Carmack Issues Some Words of Warning For Meta and Its Metaverse Plans
An anonymous reader writes: Oculus consulting CTO John Carmack has been bullish on the idea of "the metaverse" for a long time, as he'll be among the first to point out. But the id Software co-founder spent a good chunk of his wide-ranging Connect keynote Thursday sounding pretty skeptical of plans by the newly rebranded Meta (formerly Facebook) to actually build that metaverse. "I really do care about [the metaverse], and I buy into the vision," Carmack said, before quickly adding, "I have been pretty actively arguing against every single metaverse effort that we have tried to spin up internally in the company from even pre-acquisition times." The reason for that seeming contradiction is a somewhat ironic one, as Carmack puts it: "I have pretty good reasons to believe that setting out to build the metaverse is not actually the best way to wind up with the metaverse."
Today, Carmack said, "The most obvious path to the metaverse is that you have one single universal app, something like Roblox." That said, Carmack added, "I doubt a single application will get to that level of taking over everything." That's because a single bad decision by the creators of that walled-garden metaverse can cut off too many possibilities for users and makers. "I just don't believe that one player—one company—winds up making all the right decisions for this," he said. The idea of the metaverse, Carmack says, can be "a honeypot trap for 'architecture astronauts.'" Those are the programmers and designers who "want to only look at things from the very highest levels," he said, while skipping the "nuts and bolts details" of how these things actually work.
These so-called architecture astronauts, Carmack said, "want to talk in high abstract terms about how we'll have generic objects that can contain other objects that can have references to these and entitlements to that, and we can pass control from one to the other." That kind of high-level hand-waving makes Carmack "just want to tear [his] hair out... because that's just so not the things that are actually important when you're building something." "But here we are," Carmack continued. "Mark Zuckerberg has decided that now is the time to build the metaverse, so enormous wheels are turning and resources are flowing and the effort is definitely going to be made."
Link to Original Source
Today, Carmack said, "The most obvious path to the metaverse is that you have one single universal app, something like Roblox." That said, Carmack added, "I doubt a single application will get to that level of taking over everything." That's because a single bad decision by the creators of that walled-garden metaverse can cut off too many possibilities for users and makers. "I just don't believe that one player—one company—winds up making all the right decisions for this," he said. The idea of the metaverse, Carmack says, can be "a honeypot trap for 'architecture astronauts.'" Those are the programmers and designers who "want to only look at things from the very highest levels," he said, while skipping the "nuts and bolts details" of how these things actually work.
These so-called architecture astronauts, Carmack said, "want to talk in high abstract terms about how we'll have generic objects that can contain other objects that can have references to these and entitlements to that, and we can pass control from one to the other." That kind of high-level hand-waving makes Carmack "just want to tear [his] hair out... because that's just so not the things that are actually important when you're building something." "But here we are," Carmack continued. "Mark Zuckerberg has decided that now is the time to build the metaverse, so enormous wheels are turning and resources are flowing and the effort is definitely going to be made."
Link to Original Source
Comment Re:Diagnosis is fine, but a cure is vital. (Score 1) 50
What are you talking about? "Big Pharma" has dumped a ton of money into research on Alzheimer's drugs, developed a number of prospective treatments/preventatives, some made it to human trials. Most flamed out at some point during human trials. At least 1 worsened the symptoms. Turns out we don't understand Alzheimers as well as we thought. I don't think researchers even agree if beta-amyloid is a cause or a symptom of Alzheimers (some drugs helped reduce beta amyloid but don't seem to help the symptoms).
Comment Re:double standard (Score 1) 87
>> I think the best solution is to let everyone say and think whatever they want and work it out among themselves.
Hear hear!
An insightful AC - will wonders never cease!
Comment Re:Banning children of uneducated parent from scho (Score 2) 281
You could start with
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fvaccinesaf...
which summarizes expected risks and links to some studies, published medical articles.
Comment Re:Not just corporations (Score 1) 206
Simple solution for you: buy a metronome, fasten step-tracker to it, then turn on metronome.
Occasionally stop the metronome to read the step-count, adjust the speed & time to hit your step-target.
Repeat daily or weekly to hit your target, then share the data with your plan.
Meanwhile you can watch TV, read a book, relax in a hot-tub, etc.
If a metronome won't swing with tracker attached, perhaps a paint-shaker?
Or build something with motorized Lego or Erector set.
Comment Re:VMS (Score 1) 212
And Wicat systems, also from back-in-the-day. I used them in '80s.
Submission + - Internet of Things endangered by inaccurate network time, says NIST (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Current standards of network timekeeping are inadequate to some of the critical systems that are being envisaged for the Internet of Things, according to a report [http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.1867] by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The report says 'A new economy built on the massive growth of endpoints on the internet will require precise and verifiable timing in ways that current systems do not support. Applications, computers, and communications systems have been developed with modules and layers that optimize data processing but degrade accurate timing,'. NIST's Chad Boutin likens current network accuracy to an attempt to synchronise watches via the postal system, and suggests that remote medicine and self-driving cars will need far higher standards in order not to put lives at risk because, for instance, a self-driving car fails to distinguish between a plastic bag blowing in the wind and an obstructing pedestrian. He notes [http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/timing-031915.cfm] "modern computer programs only have probabilities on execution times, rather than the strong certainties that safety-critical systems require,"
Submission + - Leaked Document Reveals Upcoming Biometric Experiments at US Customs (vice.com)
sarahnaomi writes: The facial recognition pilot program launched last week by US Customs and Border Protection, which civil liberties advocates say could lead to new potentially privacy-invading programs, is just the first of three biometric experiments that the feds are getting ready to launch.
The three experiments involve new controversial technologies like iris and face scanner kiosks, which CBP plans to deploy at the Mexican border, and facial recognition software, according to a leaked document obtained by Motherboard.
All three pilots are part of a broader Customs and Border Protection (CBP) program to modernize screenings at American entry and exit ports, including at the highly politicized Mexican border, with the aid of new biometric technologies. The program is known as Apex Air Entry and Exit Re-Engineering (AEER) Project, according to the leaked slides.
These pilot programs have the goal of “identifying and implementing” biometric technologies that can be used at American borders to improve the immigration system as well as US national security, according to the slides.
The three experiments involve new controversial technologies like iris and face scanner kiosks, which CBP plans to deploy at the Mexican border, and facial recognition software, according to a leaked document obtained by Motherboard.
All three pilots are part of a broader Customs and Border Protection (CBP) program to modernize screenings at American entry and exit ports, including at the highly politicized Mexican border, with the aid of new biometric technologies. The program is known as Apex Air Entry and Exit Re-Engineering (AEER) Project, according to the leaked slides.
These pilot programs have the goal of “identifying and implementing” biometric technologies that can be used at American borders to improve the immigration system as well as US national security, according to the slides.
Submission + - Amazon launches one-hour delivery service in Baltimore and Miami (baltimoresun.com)
schwit1 writes: Amazon.com announced the launch Thursday of its one-hour delivery service, Prime Now, in select zip codes in Baltimore and Miami. It initially launched in Manhattan in December.
The one-hour service, available to Amazon Prime subscribers through the Prime Now mobile app, costs $7.99. Two-hour delivery is free.
The one-hour service, available to Amazon Prime subscribers through the Prime Now mobile app, costs $7.99. Two-hour delivery is free.
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