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Comment Re:Immigration (Score 2) 186

I know you're attempting satire but who exactly are you satirizing? I'm not aware of anyone here or in any professional environment who has suggested that "we can never be allowed to bring that up." A better objection would be, on what rational basis can the OP make the glib assertion that the US is "importing millions of young Hispanics who possess demonstrably lower results on IQ tests than asains[sic]/europeans"? Especially when TFA itself mentions that, "Over the past several years, multiple studies have shown that IQ scores are dropping in many European countries." Should we, without a shred of evidence, blame that on Mexicans as well?

Submission + - Telegram ICO's blockchain: questionable security, will probably centralise (davidgerard.co.uk)

David Gerard writes: Telegram Messenger did a sort-of-ICO earlier this year for its new Telegram Open Network blockchain, and raised $1.7 billion dollars — in actual US dollars, not Bitcoins or Ether. The technical white paper goes into hyperspecific detail about how the blockchain hooks together — a chain of sidechains of sidechains — but doesn't address security at all. And it will probably centralise. Nikolai Durov from Telegram is extremely smart, but is he smarter than every hacker in the world?

Submission + - First legally-mandated blockchain: India's spam call database (davidgerard.co.uk)

David Gerard writes: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has put out a new rule to regulate spam phone call complaints. That's good — but they've snuck in one interesting thing: they explicitly require the complaint database to use "distributed ledgers" and "smart contracts". This is the first time in the world a government has required the use of blockchain by law. Telecoms companies are already complaining they can't implement this new system on short notice, and that it's completely unproven.

Submission + - SPAM: Kodak KashMiner: the Bitcoin cloud mining scheme that never existed

David Gerard writes: Kodak's big cryptocurrency announcement at CES in January was the KodakCoin ICO. But there was another announcement at CES: the Kodak KashMiner — a cloud mining operation, using rebranded AntMiner S9 mining rigs. Whatever happened to that? It turns out it ... never existed. Kodak: "We did not make an announcement, the KashMiner is not a Kodak licensed product." The web page is still up, though — and it's amazing.
Link to Original Source

Comment Spectacle, not transit (Score 3, Interesting) 294

The problem with the monorail is that it was designed as spectacle, not as transit, yet even as spectacle it fails because it's so out of the way that most people never even stumble across it, and if you do take it, all you see are the backs of hotels. It's even priced as spectacle. $2.75 gets you anywhere in New York City via the subway and bus, but it costs $5 to take the monorail just to go 4 miles along the backs of casinos in Las Vegas.

The monorail should have been built in the middle of the Strip. The Strip is a dystopian nightmare highway bifurcating one of the most walked streets in the United States. It's so dangerous that in many places there aren't even any at-grade pedestrian crossings; you have to go up stairs/escalators set back from the strip, go across a bridge, and then back down, often being forced to detour through one or two casinos in the process. It's the ultimate triumph of automobiles over people for no goddamn reason at all.

The mass transit should have been run right down the middle of the Strip. Instead it was forced to the margins where it remains unused, when it was really the car traffic that should have been forced to the margins. Las Vegas should do a NYC-style "Summer Streets" a few times per year and entirely close down the Strip to car traffic for half a day and let pedestrians use it as they'd like, like Mardi Gras. Then people would realize what they've been missing.

Comment Telecomes disagree with his logic (Score 5, Insightful) 251

From what we know so far, Mr. Pai's rationale for eliminating the rules is that cable and phone companies, despite years of healthy profit, need to earn even more money than they already do -- that is, that the current rates of return do not yield adequate investment incentives.

CEOs of various telecoms have been asked during quarterly earnings calls how the implementation of net neutrality and later its repeal would affect their bottom line. They have said it would not. They are legally required to provide accurate information during such calls (and can be sued for breach of fiduciary duty if they don't).

Such statements will be used against Pai when the FCC gets sued over this.

Submission + - The Dilbert ICO: Scott Adams' crypto offering analysed (davidgerard.co.uk) 2

An anonymous reader writes: Scott Adams, author of Dilbert, ran cartoons a couple of weeks ago about "blockchain." We now know why: he's put up an ICO, the "WhenHub SAFT". David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain, analyses what's actually on offer here. Summary: questionable business plan — Fiverr but paying tokens instead of money — but the ICO itself looks legally solid, which is unusual for the space.

Submission + - The Dilbert ICO: Scott Adams' crypto offering analysed (davidgerard.co.uk) 2

An anonymous reader writes: Scott Adams, author of Dilbert, ran cartoons a couple of weeks ago about "blockchain." We now know why: he's put up an ICO, the "WhenHub SAFT". David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain, analyses what's actually on offer here. Summary: questionable business plan — Fiverr but paying tokens instead of money — but the ICO itself looks legally solid, which is unusual for the space.

Comment Re:Maybe...? (Score 1) 220

FYI, the HSTS preload list is used by all major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Edge, Safari, Opera, etc.). This is a good thing, of course; online security shouldn't be enforced conditionally depending on which browser you're using.

The linked article got it wrong. This isn't about Chrome adding TLDs to the HSTS list, it's about the TLDs' owner (which also happens to be Google) adding them to the global HSTS list.

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