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Comment Re:Just why? (Score 1) 12

But less convenient than version numbers, particularly since Ubuntu uses very predictable versioning.

So I know that even numbered years are LTS and the version number is YY.MM, and the month is always April for LTS and October is the other possibility.

So with that all in mind, one says "ok, I know I need to add stuff for Ubuntu 24.04 to this configuration". Except some configurations don't do version number and take the codename. So now I've got to remember 'noble'. Canonical themselves in their web site sort of de-emphasizes the codename. The 'tag' results for the blog all fixate on the version number. The download page doesn't mention the codename. The release cycle page does, and the *original* blog announcement mentions it, but not the subsequent ISO refresh release announcements.

Comment Re:How's the general prosperity? (Score 1) 99

I'd say the likely scenario is that the person actually buys stuff but doesn't consider the stuff an 'investment'. I bought a house to live in, not to turn it around for a profit.

To the extent people are 'investors' in things like 401k, they may not be 'active' investors and would just as much prefer something like a massive expansion of social security instead of letting investment companies play with their money. Or to the extent they do want to 'invest', they actually want to contribute to the potential success of things they intrinsically want to succeed, rather than chasing the best percentage return without regard for anything intrinsic to the people using the money invested.

The sentiment I think is plain enough, that they don't like the thought of handing their money over to a group of folks that will mostly enrich themselves above all else while their money is used for who knows what without regard for his deeper consideration of what is going on.

Comment Re:Huge problem (Score 2) 99

Nvidia is therefore a bubble. This article is complaining that Europe is an obstacle to further bubble inflation.
No amount of Nvidia etching IP onto wafers is worthy of a 4.6 TRILLION market cap - bigger than the 4.2 Trillion market cap of the ENTIRE name-brand pharmaceutical industry.

Comment Re:He might still be alive (Score 2) 90

When you mentioned "third partner" who cashed out early, I thought for a minute you were going to be talking about Ronald Wayne - what a life of bad decisions he made ;)

For those not familiar:

He got 10% of the original Apple stock (drew the first Apple Logo, made the partnership documents, wrote the Apple I manual, etc).
Twelve days later, he sold it for $800.
Okay, but he could still try to claim rights in court... nah, a year later he signed a contract with the company to forfeit any potential future claims against the company for $1500.
Okay, well, it's not like he had an opportunity to rethink... nah, Jobs and Wozniak spent two years trying to get him back, to no avail.
Okay, but he still had, like memorabilia he could hawk from the early days, like his signed contract. Nah, he sold that for $500 in 2016.
And that contract went on later to be sold for $1,6 million.
Okay, well, I'm sure he went on to do great things... nah, he ended up running a tiny postage stamp shop.
Which he ended up having to move into his Florida home because of repeated break-ins.
Which he then had to sell after an inside-job heist bankrupted him.

Comment Re:who is dumber, the author or EditorDavid? (Score 1) 71

Presuming it can ultimately 'work as advertised' the key word might be 'more', but lower paying programming jobs.

If it makes it more accessible with less experience and interest required, the labor pool expands and suddenly developers are cheap enough to afford for that software someone wants but isn't worth it today.

All that said, I'm a bit more skeptical that it 'works as advertised', or that it will anytime soon, but instead it can expand productivity of already strong programmers and do next to nothing for those without the skills. It screws up constantly and even as I try to lean into it and try asking it to fix its own mistakes, it's really terrible at it. It generally creates code that is really hard to maintain and further is the worst at trying to modify code that is hard to maintain.

Now I do know of some dysfunctional development teams that employ dozens of interns and give them just shit tasks that are ripe for LLM fodder. Those teams may find it hard to justify the same volume of junior devs when the LLM can just take care of those shit tasks with no more supervision than the junior devs but with a much quicker responsiveness.

Comment Re:He might still be alive (Score 4, Informative) 90

Jobs committed suicide-by-woo. He didn't "turn away from traditional therapy because it can't keep up with rapidly advancing metastasis", he turned away from treatment for a perfectly treatable form of cancer for nine months to try things like a vegan diet, acupuncture and herbal remedies, and that killed him.

Steve Jobs had islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. It's much less aggressive than normal pancreatic adenocarcinoma. The five-year survival rate is 95% with surgical intervention. Jobs was specifically told that he had one of the 5% of pancreatic cancers "that can be cured", and there was no evidence at the time of his diagnosis that it had spread. Jobs instead turned to woo. Eight months later, there was signs on CT scans that his cancer had grown and possibly spread, and then he finally underwent surgery, it was confirmed that there were now secondary tumors on his liver. His odds of a five-year survival at this point were now 23%. And he did not roll that 23%.

Jobs himself regretted his decision to delay conventional medical intervention.

Comment Wildly Absurd Clickbait (Score 1) 40

Is reddit inherently insecure? I mean, anyone could post anything there! Which... isn't that the point of software repos? They are just a place to store data. What data is being stored there and how safe or effective it might be are issues of trust and reputation. The article talks about how vulnerable a repo is because a single developer being phished can lead to compromise. It doesn't even address the larger potential rug pull scam that is possible. What happens if a major framework decides to go scorched earth and burn their reputation for a quick attempt at a payout? The article summary makes a few points about how can we do more to protect things, but all of them are only targeted on making sure the version you are getting is the one you expect. There is nothing in there about suitability for purpose or the inherent security or trustworthiness of the code itself.

The entire open source movement is predicated on the Many Eyes theory. Which, is just a theory and more a question of philosophy. Do you think we're all largely trying to work together, or is it all dog eat dog out there? And what are the alternative? Do open source developers need to hire independent auditors to review their code and check for back doors before they are allowed to push new versions? Which just leads to the Who Watches the Watchers problem. Where you expect software security to come from? Who is responsible for it? Is it all caveat emptor or should there be some requirement around manufacture or publisher? And who should pay for it under the free software model?

As a developer, this all seems like click bait nonsense. Source code is just source code. Trusting it without reading it is a risky prospect. And that's before you take into account the broader issues explored by Ken Thompson in his Reflections on Trusting Trust which scared the hell out of me the first time I read it. An exploit in my security frame work is bad enough. But what if someone smuggles it into my compiler? Or the hardware I run the compiler on? Or the hardware or operating system I run the application upon?

Software paranoia aside, we have come a long way since the Morris Worm bug went on a rampage or left-pad vanishing reminded everyone that trusting your build system to third part repositories can cause issues. Could we do more? Of course! But like most developers, I'm just a wage slave or an unpaid volunteer. So I will stick to whatever security policies my employer requires and otherwise do my best and continue to assert: All services are provided "as is" and provide no warranties of any kind.

Comment Re: Your mouse is a microphone (Score 1) 37

I did some proof of concept tests with both Pointer Lock and PointerEvents, but both failed because you don't get *any* data if you're not moving the mouse, and only get (heavily rounded) datapoints when you do move the mouse. You'd need raw access to data coming from the mouse, before even the mouse driver, to do what they did.

You *might* be able to pull off a statistical attack, collecting noise in the fluctuations of movement positions and timing in the data you receive when the mouse *is* moving. But I can't see how that could possibly have the fidelity to recover audio, except for *maybe* really deep bass. And again, it'd only apply for when the mouse is actually moving.

Neat attack, but not really practical in the browser.

Comment Re:drive demand for highly skilled software engine (Score 1) 71

Why would you need to be highly skilled to use an automated coding tool?

If the automated coding tool is reliable, you wouldn't need to be skilled. OTOH if the coding tool keeps emitting code that contains bugs or misfeatures, then someone will need to analyze and debug the emitted code, which is a skill. In some cases, that might requires more skill than simply writing the software by hand.

Comment Re:The Itsukushima girl is an absolute Karen (Score 1) 89

They had set out to descend after sunset, and I don't remember seeing any lights on the path. Even a paved road can be dangerous in pitch black.

This. I've had to descend a mountain as the sun was going down once (got stuck at the top due to weather for some time, and when it let up enough for a safe descent, it was late). It's absolutely not fun, even when there's still some light. Had it been dark, I think I would've taken my chances staying at the top rather than going down.

That said, anyone not a complete idiot checks things like "time of last cable car" a) in person, b) at the day, c) at the location. Because even there is an official website that is well-maintained (and that's already two big if's) things might change at the location due to weather, workers being ill, no tourists that day or whatever.

Also, checking in person means at least one other person knows that you're up there.

Comment Re:Imagine (Score 1) 157

Fusion is an unproven technology.

It's surprisingly similar to AI in that respect. Both technologies have been shown to work in principle, but neither of them has been shown to turn an actual profit, yet.

Solar, wind and energy conservation are proven, cost effective and realistic technologies.

Yes, those are all great. And geothermal is looking really promising too, with microwave drilling technology potentially enabling it in locations where geography previously made it impractical.

We don't need to wait for fusion when we already have the real solutions being developed right now.

Who said anything about waiting? We should be (and, broadly speaking, are) deploying renewable technologies now, and simultaneously developing fusion technology for later. There's no need to do just one or the other, when we can and will do both in parallel.

Comment The cozy catastrophe fantasy (Score 1) 129

... is a movie trope where everyone in the world has perished, except for the protagonist, who is now free to roam the world unmolested, help himself to any of the remaining resources available, do whatever he/she wants, etc.

The fantasy part is the idea that the catastrophe will get rid of all the people you don't care about, freeing up their resources for your own use, while sparing you and the people and resources that you do care about.

The people in this article can be blasé about AI killing humanity because at some level they think that they and what's important to them will be spared. Most likely, they think their wealth will save them. If and when they find out that they will suffer and die as well, their acceptance of the idea will evaporate quickly.

Comment Re:a hater? Not working for CNN... (Score 1) 49

Once these robots get better at their designed purpose, it will free up human labor for some other activity that cannot yet be performed by a machine.

What's the end-game there, once there are no activities left that cannot be performed better by a machine? No more jobs for humans, and then everyone retires (in the optimistic scenario) or starves/riots (in the pessimistic scenario)?

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