From the inception of the project to now, the number of GitHub contributors has skyrocketed from a handful to almost 250. Practically speaking, it's still very Alpha, but bugs are being squashed and features added and honed at a stunning pace. Time will tell if this becomes and remains legit or just a flash in the pan.
Back in the day, many were so enamored with the how and why of things that their insatiable curiosity often led to pursuing tech-oriented hobbies and careers. Not just "doing IT", but embracing problem-solving, taking on new challenges, constantly deep-diving into new areas of study, etc.
People have instant access to all kinds of knowledge literally in the palm of their hands, spoon-fed to them with little need to face the mental challenge of working to get information, synthesize it, and understand it. It's the cycle of look it up, read it, move on, rinse, repeat. No depth. No retention. No real understanding.
Curiosity is seemingly no longer encouraged or desired. How do we get this back?
At first, I was going to question why environmentalists don't go batshit crazy over these launches. But then, I did some quick research and found that, in comparison, automobile emissions dominate global transport emissions by orders of magnitude. It turns out that despite the impressive exhaust volume from these launches, the global spaceflight industry accounts for only a tiny fraction of global combustion emissions. Obviously, there are many factors, but I've questioned this for decades, and the reality surprised me.
Interesting. Now, make an ICE version. I live rural and charging stations are very few and far between. The nearest is 20 miles away, but several gas stations are available within 3-5 miles.
I was one of the lucky ones to get a Google CR-48 prototype back in 2015, and at the time, it was simply amazing. Yes, it had its shortcomings, but damn, it was impressive. While today's Chromebooks/Googlebooks sometimes feel like a marketing team collectively threw up on them, they have come a long way. My hope is that there will be enough settings on the new devices to tweak it to my liking.
...that government cameras really suck.
Reddit gets slammed for many reasons, and it is definitely not without its issues. But honestly, many focused subreddits provide invaluable information, often not available elsewhere. In many cases, they are either the only resource or one of only a very limited number of resources.
But "they make enough money to afford my salary" does not entitle one to a job. Instead "they need my skills" earns one a job.
Which is why business is switching to a forever landlord model. BMW tried it with heated seats. Teslea tried it by selling you a car, then making you rent the battery. Takes very few people to maintain a portal to change your back account each month and it's not that highly skilled, either.
Except for the encryption keys which were all issued by the US.
"Continuously rotating keys".
You don't have to use the keys given. You can make your own. Like your own SSL, TLS, or SSH keys, just longer, and with a different algorithm. Discontinuous functions with constant key rotation is hackable, true. Not sure how long that would take now, in 2000 it was calculated to take over a million years. And remember that part "continuously rotating"? You get one message with that key, now start over. With Enigma, they got complacent by only changing keys every 24 hours. Now change the keys for each message. Even "Back when" - it took on average 48 hours to find one day's key. As much intelligence was from signals analysis and frequency of messages than actually reading the content. Today, your system should be sending random null messages nearly continuously.
Combined with the rest of the world abandoning the USA's SWIFT banking system and SABRE air reservations outside of dealing with the USA (Still running on Oracle 5? Not sure, haven't kept up with it since 2000). That's the issue with a "trusted partner" that thinks it is cool to shit all over their "allies". At some point, they stop being friends. Or allies. Or tame.
American Exceptionalism isn't, and hasn't been since the end of WWII. We've been going on momentum, and people went along with it because the US did not do anything very objectionable to them. Now we are. We should be building longer tables, not higher walls. Because as King Gustavus Adolphus knew, it's cheaper to talk than to go to war, and you can quietly reach for a bigger hammer while talking.
and exploitable by Israel. **cough** **NSO** **Pegasus**
Which are already dealt with by using different algorithms but go ahead and say it ain't so. Won't change the facts that the current administration's incompetence and the leadership of a senile old geezer with dementia has alerted the rest of the world that the United States is in decline, and come grab a few mouthfuls off the quivering flesh of a sessile, impotent mountain of blubber. Not that the left is that much better, but at least it understands the importance of alliances. Even if some of them are unwise to the point of screaming frustration.
Here are the hard facts: It is time and past to dispense with both major parties and start working on real solutions using real thought and real intelligence. We've rested on our collective laurels for 80 years now. Like the failed man recalling his glory days as the high school linebacker, everyone's heard the stories but what have you done for us lately, and how are you going to do it with that pot belly and dementia?
UPDATE:
Turns out my suspicion of the system being bypassed to trouble (armed when a zone isn't closed) was correct. The report also indicates it was the main entry way, and that they closed it, then re-opened the main door using a plastic shim of some sort specifically to trip the alarm. Station KCRG report on 2025/01/30
Further, the county attorney promises to "prosecute to the fullest extent of the law" any future pen-testers. I guess he's unaware of the statute about willfully abridging rights by law enforcement and the penality. With the judgement and court costs, this clown prosecutor as already cost the courts over a million. But, hey, it's on the taxpayer's dime, it's not like it's coming out of his pocket. And I doubt any security professional will engage with the State of Iowa or Dallas County.
The nurse story is horrid. The places I've worked where security matters were not just code cards but 2FA tokens that required re-authorization every 24 hours for the doors, including to the restroom. One guy tried to live in the facility once. It wasn't pretty. I've heard people pull that at AWS and GWS and other VPS companies. I've had to work 20 hour shifts where, after 12 hours, I could sack out but had to answer the phone before it rang twice. Gave me PTSD.
As to Amazon, I was with "The other guys" except when they agreed to make me go do collaboration for 14 months. I did not enjoy my time with them but I'm happy you were treated better. The rented horse is frequently mistreated.
I read that as the door was unlocked, not necessarily ajar though.
Agreed. See comment about AA alarm installation monitoring the dead bolt. AA installations usually ALSO has AA reporting but not necessarily.
Keep in mind that we're talking about a courthouse in Iowa, the door may not have been alarmed at all.
In the years I did alarm systems, I never once saw a portal (door, window, vent, pipe, grate with a duct, bricked over window, window with bars) unprotected. Standards drift and it's been many years now. Maybe that sort of work/business ethic is acceptable in their eyes now but "back when" heads would be "adjusted".
They probably only put security on doors that are commonly used, assuming that lesser-used doors would always be locked. It's far more common than you think.
Perhaps that's the standard now. I wouldn't know. Wouldn't fly back when and I observe alams now. I don't see portals without senors. You can tell even if they bury them in the jamb because the drywall or concrete is patched - usually badly. Also only using one type of motion sensor wouldn't fly. Microwave, Ultrasonic, Infrared, and tripwires. We didn't use tripwires too often other than were the insurance or state law required it or the customer asked for it. Mostly only for UL rated installations.
Are you saying you read the article as if they'd intentionally tripped the alarm?
Worked and designed burglar alarms just out of high school. If the door was unlocked and ajar, the alarm would have refused to set up unless the zone was "troubled" out by whoever set it at the very lest. If a AA security installation, the locking bolt would also have had a sensor monitoring that it was actually engaged.
As far as "intentionally tripping" the alarm, that's a part of pen testing too - after you've taken standard measures to block the alarm from reporting. Prior to about 2005-2010, that would be a complex task such as cutting the phone line or stuffing steel wool into the demarc, or using a 9 volt battery if it was metallic pair to prevent the local alarm from transmitting a signal to the central office. If they had AA line security, then it might be a tad bit more troublesome, such as using a capacitor and a resistor to form an oscillator or a balanced bridge if it were really high tech line security.
'cos no, that's not what happened.
As correct as that is, it is missing the point there are several ways to avoid tripping IR sensors. That they did not do so is more a comment on their technique than anything else.
The best analogy, I've seen for tariffs is:
"I buy a lot from the local pizza place, they don't buy anything from me. Now I'll start paying 10% more until they learn".
The intent was, "A pizza place just opened close to me that locally sources its ingredients, my kid works there now, and I can buy their pizza for less than it costs me to buy pizza from the place across town." Putting this into practice takes time, is risky, and the actual results are still unknown.
Now, it's been more than decade since I ran a "fair sized" OPAC[1], AND I was running a hell of a lot of other things too, not just the OPAC, but as I dimly recall, WorldCat was complied by technical archivists submitting their OPACs in MARC format to them either by request, or by the archivists wishing to reach a wider audience and voluntarily submitting their own MARC records they created. So, unless I'm mistaken and someone please do point that out, this would appear to be yet another case of CDDB style profiteering, whereby someone gets others to do the work, not get paid for it, then charges others for the work they didn't pay for.
I am not denying there is value in compiling the work, but WorldCat appears not to have made it "Transformative" in the sense of conveying a new copyright on their original work. We already know that compilations cannot be copyrighted.
Which brings up another point: Another thing that can't be copyrighted: AI output. Machines aren't given copyrights.
[1]: "Ran" it in the sense I kept the server up, patched, and the hardware and software maintained, and custom programming now and again as requested. I am not repeat not qualified in any sense in Library Science - I done what I waz tolded. 100+ federated collections, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million unique holdings)
If at first you don't succeed, you are running about average.
