Yes, it's fun to have a discussion with people who can think beyond next breakfast but it's no fun having them with people who consider themselves so "smart" and aloof to join a club that selects its members by intelligence.

So, I joined up when I started a business because it was the most economical professional organization that had travel discount deals with big rental companies. And I knew where my SAT scores were so it was easy.

I've only been to a couple meetups, but the people weren't as you suppose and the conversation was good. No better or worse than a LUG meeting or showing up at a lecture at the local college, except fewer STEM nerds than you'd expect. I associate with all sorts of people who all have valuable contributions to make, but once in a while I enjoy intellectual engagement of the sort that high-IQ people tend to offer. Some members favor the board game nights because other members tend not to be easy to beat. etc. - there are benefits to any mutual support group of like individuals.

Point being, don't cast aspersions based on assumptions and hypotheticals when you could simply find out the truth of the matter easily enough by attending a meetup (I've never seen an ID check at a brunch or whatever). That would be the 'smart' thing to do.

Oh, and the TFS is vomitous - surely nobody without significant mental illness could be attracted to such a thing.

Yeah, that East German wall did a great job of keeping out the evil capitalists!

Snark aside, he could 3D print these. If it's just a tower of useless space (seems like a waste) then robots could do all the assembly. He'll probably need a few nuclear reactors to make all the cement and steel required, not to mention the mining. And an armada of delivery trucks if robot drivers aren't rolling by then.

Hey, there's some suggestive evidence that our universe may be discrete and quantized around 10^-27 (and cheats to the Plank length). That's almost aether.

Granted, we should study the skull surface shape of these scientists, just to be sure.

I only intend that the supreme court is tasked with interpreting the standing of the law itself as well as the standing of the law against a person.

The curiosity there is that the Constitution doesn't give them this power (they only 'discovered' it in Marbury v. Madison) yet they hold themselves as interpreters of the Constitution.

Infinite recursion, bus error.

What we should have is a clear decision on the facts of the law, and if the law is unclear, it should be cancelled and sent back to Congress, stamped Void for Vagueness.

It seems like his solution is: Simply don't release code that has bugs in it. Which is kind of like saying that the airline industry would be so much more efficient if we could just get rid of wind resistance.

You could posit that but the actual quote is:

Without an investment in computer programming education and a major move by software manufacturers to embed software security concepts early into the development process, the problems will continue to get worse, Spafford said.

which seems fairly reasonable, but he doesn't talk about incentives, just "shoulds", which is silly because incentives are what's needed to get anybody to do anything. The same 'should' has existed for 15 years.

The stupid approach would be to enforce liability and start throwing lawsuits everywhere. The smarter approach would be to have third-party auditors and certification bodies give particular programs a rating based on their code and processes. Mine would be +50 for being open source and -75 for not having any process to deal with security bugs (or whatever). Certain ratings agencies would gain better reputations than others and the industry would improve. I'd expect insurance companies would give discounts on E&O to vendors with good ratings and stick it to those with miserable ratings. That at least is a financial incentive to move in the right direction.

Batman works because he's among the smartest people on Earth and makes far fewer mistakes than a justice system. But most self-styled vigilantes are idiots (same with your lynchmob).

Both vigilantism and one-size-fits-all regulations are bad approaches. The owner of this road should simply charge a premium fare for those who use a phone on his road while driving. The excess fares can fund insurance to internalize the risk costs to potential victims, but the net effect would be dramatically lower usage anyway. Doctors giving urgent medical advice can pass on the costs or absorb it as a cost of business. If talking on a cell at night increases concentration and decreases risk among tired drivers (it does) then the fares can vary by time of day. If that research is found to be flawed, the discount can be rescinded tomorrow. .

Regulations cannot adapt nimbly like markets can, so they should be much lower on the selection scale. Vigilantism is usually the result of failed regulations with no market option.

I'll see your random AC comment and raise you one Pol Pot.

ha, from B to B

they can get better at the technical issues. Spaceport America will be in Texas, not Florida.

Ob. Robin Williams link.

Unfortunately, the real world dictates I not even consider this.

Just to split hairs - the legal world is the fictional one. In reality people can just share their connections with others in a grand mutual aid* collaboration. It's the made-up rules (legal fictions) that screw it all up.

Granted, there are large numbers of men with guns who hold these fictions to be reality.

* mine blocks outgoing SMTP, limits to 1Mbps max with a floor around 384Kbps if I'm using the rest.

No society where the police have unlimited power to cover up their own abuses and make any charge they want stick can last.

Ah, the silver lining.

Researchers: "We finally have conclusive evidence of Inflation!"
[runs off to make a viral video]
Critics: "That's pretty cool but did you consider X?"

tftfy

Wow, only about 15 years after beekeepers and alternative media started noticing the problem

Now that everybody else in the world is starting to zero-in on the solution, they want to step out in front of the parade. Typical.

US gov't is largest consumer of cryptographic products in the North American market

This doesn't make any sense. There are more Android phones than government employees, for instance (and thank goodness).

Vis-a-vis LibreSSL - screw FIPS, Dual EC DRBG, and weak NSA coefficients - let the feds use OpenSSL if they want to.