Power plants, including nuke plants, hydro and coal plants, are maintained and refurbished all the time. There is nothing strange about it and there is no reason to abandon a power plant - anything can be refurbished and upgraded.

Maybe it's because people already know or, at least, suspect NSA backdoors in Windows. The network gear is a moot point.

IBM stays IBM, I feared that in the long run the aquision will be the end of Redhat, it is happenning now as it seems.
IBM is a shithole employer and has been for decades!

>"12345" topping their list while "123456" dominates among everyone else.

Not a SINGLE system I use, and I use a LOT of systems, would allow such a stupid password. Granted, there are also tons of systems that go extreme in the other direction with requiring FAR too complex (which is also incredibly stupid). And the stupidest of all is password aging.

A reasonable password, coupled with rate limiting and lockouts, is very secure. It will not be broken by brute force on the "outside" of properly-configured systems.

>"I just had trouble looking at a comment on one of my posts yesterday because I can't get through the Cloudflare bot detector."

I had the same problem yesterday and this morning. I could not open any direct links to postings. Period.

Ironic because I recently posted on Slashdot about how dangerous it is that all these sites are handing over their accessibility to a single huge company like Cloudflare, and complaining that Slashdot was throwing bot checks against me all the time in the last few weeks (which it had never done before).

>"Ban the collection of these types of information about individuals beyond what is necessary for performing a service -and ban keeping any collected data longer than is necessary for performing the specific service. No database = no database searches."

+100.

My issue is that I don't believe they will abide by any data collection retention limitations, use limitations, or other limitations; regardless of the rules/law. Especially if the three-letter agencies have a tie-in, they will do whatever they want. The only real way to prevent abuse is to not have those in use at all.

I really think this is a losing battle. People will almost always give up liberty and privacy for safety and convenience.

>"I just bought a new Ford Maverick for my business. It came with built in cellular data hardware -not optional. They say it is for diagnostics, updates, maps, and wifi-hotspot. It comes with the 1st year of data connectivity included. They want me to pay for additional years (no thanks!)"

^^ This
I bought a new Ariya earlier this year. All the hardware is already there. 3 years of service included, then you have to pay. You can opt out of data collection, and if you do, you lose half the "connected" features.

Research continues on developing AI that will help us solve previously intractable problems in science, engineering, medicine, etc
The general public misuses it to create slop and scams
Investors irrationally pour billions into old ideas
Hypemongers, pundits and futurists invent fantastic fiction

OpenAI and Anthropic are betting that this time will be different, that the payoff will come fast enough to pay back the investment. Google is betting this somewhat, too, but Google has scale, diversity and resources to weather the bust -- and might be well-positioned to snap up the depreciated investments made by others.

I think this makes sense. OpenAI pays Google for compute, Google uses that to build more DC capacity. If OpenAI goes bankrupt, Google keeps the compute (and whatever they've already been paid) and it's very unlikely they can't find other uses for the compute, so while they'd have better off if OpenAI stayed around, they don't lose too big.

Exciting new tech emerges and advances rapidly
Investors don't understand it, but are desperate for "the next big thing"
Hypemongers, futurists and pundits tell amazing stories of a fictional future
Lying salesweasels convince clueless executives to spend way too much on immature tech
Zillions of startups emerge with impressive looking but kinda fake demos
The general public misuses the tech to create slop and scams

Meanwhile, the tech continues steady progress

Transparent Aluminum, also known as Sapphire, Ruby, Moonstone or Tanzanite.

https://bsky.app/profile/desig...

n/t

RTFM for a pic of a tagged butterfly.

I wonder who will set up the first Whale Mission

The big problem here is people who've been carefully taught and never managed to overcome that part of their education.