Lights on around the house seems to deter the POS junkies that we no longer keep in jail.

This "new" site is part of a larger effort by that slob to kneecap or compromise US government Web sites, and steal your personal data.

I first read about the effort here: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthedreydossier.substac...

Yesterday, she took a look under the hood of America.gov, and yes, it's as bad as everything else the DOGE vandals have been doing: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthedreydossier.substac...

Up until this point, government Web sites were designed, built, and maintained by the agencies responsible for that government service. For example, if you wanted to apply for or renew your passport, you would go to state.gov, which is run by the US Department of State, which is responsible for processing applications for and issuing passports. No other department has lawful jurisdiction over passports.

From the point of view of the law, that's still true. But the slob, without anyone's permission, kluged together passports.gov. This site was built and is run by the White House's "National Design Studio," completely outside the law and without any independent oversight. The State Department was not consulted and has nothing to do with it. Further, the site is filled with third-party trackers, analytics, and some custom code that copies every page you view, including form contents, to an unknown third party.

Oh, and the guy leading the National Design Studio and in charge of building these fake sites? He's Joe Gebbia -- cofounder of Airbnb. Read both articles for more details.

In short, you should treat America.gov as a malware site and stay well away from it. Under no circumstances should you feed it any of your personal information.

Well, they might have fixed the "play minecraft" bug already, but they still have The Code implemented!

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Return

will re-do the web page's interface in a geekier style.

Its reply to me:

"Yes, in large part."

I have to admit, when I first heard Trump going on about yet another web site, I thought "who cares?" and ignored the rest of it.

The truth is though? Government web sites are notoriously horrible to navigate. The general public usually wants to do one specific thing that can take a whole lot of searching on the relevant department's own site -- if they even go to the correct one to begin with.

A one-stop AI powered "index" would add some value, IF it was done correctly. I have little faith it will be, but I'm not so opposed to the idea itself.

What they really said is they saw what they estimated to be about a 10% decrease in ability to see faint stars in the night-time skies each year from 2011 through 2022. But this article was written back in 2023 ... three years ago. So why is it "news" on Slashdot right now? And more importantly, is there any follow-up research showing this 10% annual reduction in darkness is continuing?

It stands to reason that as we improve night-time lighting in cities and towns on our roads, this would be a trend. But it also stands to reason that 10% decreases in darkness at night will cease. I would imagine much of what they observed was due to the near wholesale swapping of inefficient incandescent or mercury vapor lighting with brighter, more "white" LED lighting. I don't think there's any real trend of adding more and more lighting?

But that is mostly caused by NVidia's lackluster driver support in Linux.

Uh, sure.

Yes, certain destinations were off-limits to people who chose to work in defense, however that falls far shy of this "Exit Ban".

The US saying "If you travel to Cuba, you may face charges when you return" or even "You have been charged with a specific crime, so you cannot leave until the charges are resolved is significantly different from China saying "You are important to our plans, so you cannot leave the country at all, and neither can your immediate family", or forbidden a US citizen from leaving because of visa inconsistencies, much less the common situation where Chinese employers require staff to surrender their passports.

Yes, a judge can require the defendant to surrender their passport as a condition of bail, but the USA lacks effective exit controls, so that isn't actually a high barrier to exiting (but makes it tough to come back).

If, as the article suggests, this is an "Exit Ban" on certain individuals and extending to their family members, that's significantly more restrictive than anything the US has imposed on defense workers and top scientists other than during wartime.

Yes, people with sensitive jobs and a security clearance are strongly discouraged from visiting hostile nations, with a subset even being required to submit their travel plans before any foreign travel, but this is explained clearly when you accept employment directly with the US government, or start working under a government contract, and you're always free to not accept the job offer. And yes, all US citizens were for many years prohibited to travel to embargoed nations (Cuba). But this was nowhere near an "exit ban" on key personnel, much less on their family members!

When I held a clearance, I was never forbidden to leave the USA. I might not have a job when I get back, but that's not the same thing at all.

Governments are people.

"These fuckers are why you are seeing less physical switch games as an example"

Buwhaha

Yeah, I know what you mean. I just did it the easy way - dropped out of university, eventually move to Montreal where it was almost *difficult* to be a programmer and not end up at a game studio. Thankfully the industry grew in Toronto as well and I was able to move back after some lovely years there.

People are getting angry about officers mis-using Flock to stalk or spy on ex's and other women they meet. But the bigger problem is the law enforcement culture itself. This has been going on for decades now, with very little real effort to change things. It's pretty much common knowledge that police have one of the higher rates of divorce and relationship issues. It's the type of job where people wear the uniform and are given some power over the general public, with the assertion that they're only there to "protect and serve" you. Women are generally attracted to both men in uniform and men who want to act as a protector.

Combine that with the job of a police officer involving constant interaction with random people in public, and you have a perfect storm to tempt a cop into cheating on a significant other or to take advantage of their position to stalk one of them.

IMO, this is called "being human" ... In any large enough group of people, you'd have a percentage who'd justify this type of behavior as worth the risk when it's about sex/relationships. But the law enforcement culture is more about "brother looking out for brother". The police think they're part of a special group who are generally above the "lesser" laws that interfere with what they feel needs to be done. I've watched plenty of them exceed posted speed limits when they aren't running traffic enforcement themselves. I've seen them turn on the lights and sirens briefly, to get through traffic so they're not late for lunch with someone. So sure, they'd do a few plate lookups to track people they know, if they've got some personal excuse to do it. More needs to be done to audit and monitor police behavior and discipline them when they're in the wrong. Saying "it's a tough job" or "it's risky vs what they're paid" or anything like that is no justification.

I only know this as an anecdote (so would be happy if someone "in the know" can clarify more about it). But a buddy of mine was upset when he saw an AT&T worker wandering around his back yard, a while back. The guy was clearly trying to mark an area to dig, to put fiber in. My friend was mad not simply for the guy trespassing on his property, but specifically because he had a plan to pour a lot of concrete back there to expand a small back patio. He didn't want a situation where a fiber connection ran under his back patio.

He caught up to the worker and questioned him, and was told they were trying to find the shortest and most cost-effective way to extend fiber to his neighborhood, and not going through his yard would create a big hassle for them, having to take a long path around. The worker ultimately said he understood my friend's concerns and promised he'd call a supervisor to discuss it. But he added that "AT&T always has the legal right to run cables through private residential property thanks to Federal laws established back when all they did was run copper wire for telephone services".

I'm an oldhead programmer (still) in the games industry. You're thinking of DigiPen. (I didn't go there.)