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Comment Latest Recycling Effort (Score 2) 101

The American bottling companies have gotten together to with this new recycling effort to recycle their bottles. They say that their plastic footprint has declined, the amount of recycled plastics in the bottles have increased to 13%, and the majority of the bottles now include recycled plastic. They still have a long way to go.

Comment LOL (Score 1) 106

It is amusing to see the fingers being pointed back and forth with not much talk about AI. I believe that human nature has a strong tendency toward violent behavior. We are not as good as we like to think we are. If anything is to be blamed, it is us. We are the source of the problem. (Oh, I do not think you can blame the Christian Faith, since its founder, Jesus, told his followers to "love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44).) And since AI is a human creation, I believe it will not solve our violent behavior problem, instead it will likely reflect our nature.

Comment Any Ethical Consideration? (Score 3, Interesting) 65

This points out a serious concern. People can (and have) develop a strong emotional dependence with these chatbots, and I believe that is why these companies are rushing this AI technology out so quickly and are ignoring safety concerns. They learned from social media that it can be addictive and they want to capture the market so they can be the dominant company raking in the dollars. These companies are not looking at the ethical considerations. They are looking only at the potential financial windfall. They need to be held accountable for the consequences of these AI programs. Here is an interesting presentation, “The A.I. Dilemma”, by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin.

Comment Re: I'm not surprised (Score 1) 55

by PineHall (#61994053) Attached to: Togo Made a Digital Government Stimulus System In Two Weeks

This was like nails on a chalkboard. "You receive an SMS with the money".

Why do developing countries think SMS is secure enough for banking? Lol... I think Africa has a similar dumb system. "Mpesa" or something like that.

I believe it is what they have. The need was there (in 2005) and there was no banks, no internet, or other financial structures around, but people had cell phones. M-Pesa met a need with the limited resources available. Still today it is the best they can do. A "PIN secured" SMS does not sound very secure for "banking" but it works and it has allowed the very poor to improve their lives.

Comment Mozilla Firefox (Score 2) 41

They also want to improve CSS Grid so that it can be used to create animated grid layouts on Chromium and WebKit — at the moment, the ability is only supported in Gecko.

They are trying to play catch up with Firefox. Gecko is Firefox's browser rendering engine. Funny the article does not mention Mozilla or Firefox, even though they have the CSS technology that Google and Microsoft want in their browsers. But then again the article says "Webkit" when should say "Blink"

Comment Re:Why put a hand on the bible? (Score 1) 980

by PineHall (#60971216) Attached to: Biden Sworn In as 46th President

Who do I respond to? I will post this to cover all the comments I see. First as a Christian I follow Jesus. What does he say about love? He says to love even your enemies.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)

And I don't think you would be happy with culture and laws based primarily on classical Roman and Greek values. This comment says it better than I can. Check it out.

Comment Re:Why put a hand on the bible? (Score 1, Insightful) 980

by PineHall (#60969038) Attached to: Biden Sworn In as 46th President
Don't dismiss the Bible. Yes you can find horrible morals in some of the stories, but having them in the Bible does not mean God's approval.. Putting them in context makes a big difference. Love is a theme though out the Bible. Check out what the Bible says about love. I don't think love is bad morals. It is interesting that you suggest that the Bible "lacks any basis for system of right and wrong that could be used by a just society", since Western culture and law is based on Judeo-Christian values (with Roman and Greek influences). Like it or not, the Bible is part of our heritage and it has shaped values for a very long time.
Android

On Older Versions of Android, Many Let's Encrypt-Secured Sites May Stop Working in 2021 (letsencrypt.org) 45

Posted by EditorDavid from the Let's-Stop-Working dept.
This year Let's Encrypt announced that it's issued a billion certificates, and it's been estimated they've made certs for almost 30% of web domains. But Friday they posted that "The DST Root X3 root certificate that we relied on to get us off the ground is going to expire — on September 1, 2021. Fortunately, we're ready to stand on our own, and rely solely on our own root certificate."

"However, this does introduce some compatibility woes." Some software that hasn't been updated since 2016 (approximately when our root was accepted to many root programs) still doesn't trust our root certificate, ISRG Root X1. Most notably, this includes versions of Android prior to 7.1.1. That means those older versions of Android will no longer trust certificates issued by Let's Encrypt.

Android has a long-standing and well known issue with operating system updates. There are lots of Android devices in the world running out-of-date operating systems. The causes are complex and hard to fix: for each phone, the core Android operating system is commonly modified by both the manufacturer and a mobile carrier before an end-user receives it. When there's an update to Android, both the manufacturer and the mobile carrier have to incorporate those changes into their customized version before sending it out. Often manufacturers decide that's not worth the effort. The result is bad for the people who buy these devices: many are stuck on operating systems that are years out of date.

Currently, 66.2% of Android devices are running version 7.1 or above. The remaining 33.8% of Android devices will eventually start getting certificate errors when users visit sites that have a Let's Encrypt certificate. In our communications with large integrators, we have found that this represents around 1-5% of traffic to their sites. Hopefully these numbers will be lower by the time DST Root X3 expires next year, but the change may not be very significant.
Let's Encrypt engineer Jacob Hoffman-Andrews explains that "In the time between now and September 29 we plan to start serving certificates with the 'alternate' link relation 186 to allow Automatic Certificate Management Environment (ACME) clients to programmatically select a chain they prefer." But Friday's blog post explains that won't solve everything: There will be site owners that receive complaints from users and we are empathetic to that being not ideal. We're working hard to alert site owners so you can plan and prepare. We encourage site owners to deploy a temporary fix (switching to the alternate certificate chain) to keep your site working while you evaluate what you need for a long-term solution: whether you need to run a banner asking your Android users on older OSes to install Firefox, stop supporting older Android versions, drop back to HTTP for older Android versions, or switch to a CA that is installed on those older versions.
Gizmodo notes that Firefox will be unaffected "since it relies on its own certificate store that includes Let's Encrypt's root, though that wouldn't keep applications from breaking or ensure functionality beyond your browser." They describe Let's Encrypt as "the Mozilla-partnered nonprofit," and offers this succinct summary of the problem.

"One of the world's top certificate authorities warns that phones running versions of Android prior to 7.1.1 Nougat will be cut off from large portions of the secure web starting in 2021."

Comment Is Big Tech Success Hiding Economic Reality? (Score 1) 38

by PineHall (#60666228) Attached to: Big Tech Continues Its Surge Ahead of the Rest of the Economy
I wonder if big tech (FAANGM) stock rise hides the reality of a economic depression? Or is this the pandemic cleaning out old tech to make way for new tech? A Washington Post article back in August pointed out if you remove the six big tech (FAANGM) stocks the S&P500 drops to negative values for the year (as of August 18). I think both is happening. New tech is being adopted at a faster rate because of the pandemic and it is reflected in the big tech stock prices. Things like online retail will continue to grow, while big box stores will continue to close. There is a change happening. Since the change is happening at a faster than normal rate, more people are being left behind and I believe the economy on a whole is not healthy. The economy will need to transition to the new reality and that takes time. So yes, I think big tech success is hiding the economic reality, but it is because of a fast transition to the future.

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