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Comment Re:This commentary is really depressing (Score 1) 12

The BCG vaccine has also been found to be effective against bladder cancer. One of the two manufacturers bailed out of the market about a decade ago, limiting supply for both TB and bladder cancer.

They just opened a new manufacturing facility in Durham this past Spring to make much more. Not sure if it's producing yet, but it was a four-year build.

TB affects so few Americans that you can't even get BCG for TB prevention if you want it. Hopefully high-risk folks will be able to elect to get it soon.

Comment Built In Limit? (Score 1) 53

> The software had a built-in limit of 200 bot detection features. The enlarged file contained more than 200 entries. The software crashed when it encountered the unexpected file size.

A built in limit is:

if ( rule_count > 200 )
    log_urgent('rule count exceeded')
    break
else
    rule_count++
    process_rule

This sounds like it did not have a built-in limit but rather walked off the end of an array or something when the count went over 200.

Comment FoIA (Score 4, Insightful) 56

I heard earlier today that a court has determined that since governments are using all of this data, including license plates, that a FoIA request for all of the license plate data gathered from Flock in a city area for a range of dates was valid.

They want to have a power advantage over their serfs but turning their advantage into a burden changes that dynamic. Something to look into for those so inclined.

We seem to be well past the point of being able to expect them to follow the Law or "do the right thing".

Comment Re:Icky, but (Score 1) 65

> I see no reason why the government shouldn't be allowed to buy the same data that jim-bob the farmer can purchase.

Jim-bob is likely to face some serious problems if he smashes down your door and drags you away in a pre-dawn raid.

The IRS people get a promotion.

This is why the Constitution places strict limits on the actions of government agents.

(in its original interpretation)

Comment Re:Does this mean it'll stop sucking? (Score 1) 23

I found GP2.5 to be great at academic-style research and writing; it was absolutely awful at writing code. So; I would tell it to plan some thing for me and write it in a way that could be used by another agent (Claude Code) to build the code to do the thing. In this way, it has been great! I haven't yet attempted it with 3.

That said, I found GP3.0's page to be hilarious:

It demonstrates PhD-level reasoning with top scores on Humanityâ(TM)s Last Exam (37.5% without the usage of any tools) and GPQA Diamond (91.9%). It also sets a new standard for frontier models in mathematics, achieving a new state-of-the-art of 23.4% on MathArena Apex.

It then proceeds to show, lower down on the page, an example of what it can do, by showing off 'Our Family Recipes". If there's anything that touts PhD-level reasoning and writing, it's a recipe book.

Comment Re:It's a Tool (Score 1) 45

It's important to also view contributions against a cumulative set of bad intention, woven as iterative contributions towards a nefarious goal.

Nonetheless, some may be benign and helpful. Others may, as an aggregation, be more onerous and "bend a branch" in ways unintended by the goals of the project. This could be said of human contributions, too.

Comment Wrong Algorithm (Score 2) 90

Bitcoin relies entirely on SHA256 ASIC's for hashing and they typically need replacing every year or two because more efficient models come out making the old ones unprofitable, especially at halvings. Due to the RoI and first-mover advantage the profitable ones are very expensive.

If you want to heat your home with proof-of-work, use a coin that uses RandomX or some other deliberately ASIC-resistant algorithm (usually CPU mining).

You can pool mine on an old CPU and still get a few pennies for your efforts, though if you want to invest in an EPYC and have other uses for it (maybe you have work jobs to run during the day and want more heat on cold nights) it could actually be profitable.

Resistive electric heating is still a very expensive way to heat, though some people don't have better options. There's a development near where I am that was built shortly after Nixon announced Project Independence and every house (cold climate) has wall-to-wall electric baseboard heating.

Comment $100 trillion Zimbabwe = $3 USD (Score 2) 122

> We have been hearing these same predictions about the national debt for almost 100 years ... the argument is fundamentally flawed. Mostly because it ignores things like economic growth, inflation and the value created by whatever the debt buys.

The fiat system has collapsed a few times, do you know anything about Brazil or Zimbabwe?

I don't think gold is a magic solution here, or returning to that standard would fix everything, but you do need some level of balance between the amount of currency and the things there are to buy with it and we damn near broke it during Covid with the mass inflation there. So I wouldn't be too cavalier that this could never happen, even as I don't think it's in any immediate danger.

But remember: there won't be a US dollar to peg the US dollar to if we screw it up and that's the only way Brazil got out of its mess in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, you can get $100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars for $3 USD.

Comment Re:Anything but the proper solution (Score 1) 36

> Why not just build the proper infrastructure with what we know works?

I tried to do this locally. The government allows the pole owner (electric or telephone usually) to charge $50/mo/pole to the startup that wishes to hang wires.

The owner pays $5/mo in property taxes to the town.

There are exceptions for large corporations that are in the state's good graces.

It's just to keep competition limited to the cartel.

Short answer: corrupt government.

Comment I cut the cord years ago (Score 1) 105

Too much money for not enough content.

When I had my morning toast and coffee earlier today I chose between three YouTube videos. An analysis of a high-performance motorcycle engine, a review of an off-road vehicle and troubleshooting a hybrid car. All cable ever has these days is reality shows.

...laura

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