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Comment Re:I think it is worse than that (Score 0) 663

The areas they cut power were nonessential. They kept areas with hospitals powered. The sub-grids were not granular enough to only keep the hospitals powered. The need to cut was just too much to be able to roll the blackouts. Our house hasn't had power for at least 54 hours now.

Comment Re:a refresh from the current abomination? (Score 4, Interesting) 246

I have PaleMoon too, but do more with Firefox nowadays. PaleMoon doesn't have the security ecosystem that Firefox has. Facebook Container, Ghostery, and other tracker-blockers aren't on PaleMoon. NoScript is desupported on PM (though it still usually works) and was a pain in the arse anyway.
Mozilla is having financial issues and it's sad that they're wasting their time on silly fritterware stuff and copying Chrome, rather than improving stuff people use and keeping the API stable for extension devs.

Comment Re:Sounds Familiar. What could go wrong? (Score 1) 183

You nailed it. If there's a futures market for it, that means volatility. Part of it will be intrinsic to the resource itself. The other part will be due to active manipulation for financial gain. I think some will win and some will lose. Unfortunately, it will not be in equal measure.

Comment Re:Please be real (Score 1) 77

The price is more like $100/dose, and governments will pay for it. This Oxford vaccine is also being mass produced in India by Serum Institute for low-cost delivery to lower-income countries.
There is real science around Covid; it just isn't coming from Donald, Boris, Vlad, or Joao.

Submission + - Five Eyes governments, India, and Japan make new call for encryption backdoors (zdnet.com)

AmiMoJo writes: Members of the intelligence-sharing allianceFive Eyes, along with government representatives for Japan and India, have published a statement over the weekend calling on tech companies to come up with a solution for law enforcement to access end-to-end encrypted communications. The statement is the alliance's latest effort to get tech companies to agree to encryption backdoors. The Five Eyes alliance, comprised of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have made similar calls to tech giants in2018and2019, respectively. Just like before, government officials claim tech companies have put themselves in a corner by incorporating end-to-end encryption (E2EE) into their products.

If properly implemented, E2EE lets users have secure conversations — may them be chat, audio, or video — without sharing the encryption key with the tech companies. Representatives from the seven governments argue that the way E2EE encryption is currently supported on today's major tech platforms prohibits law enforcement from investigating crime rings, but also the tech platforms themselves from enforcing their own terms of service.

Education

University of Michigan Study Advocates Ban of Facial Recognition in Schools (venturebeat.com) 18

University of Michigan researchers recently published a study showing facial recognition technology in schools has limited efficacy and presents a number of serious problems. From a report: The research was led by Shobita Parthasarathy, director of the university's Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) program, and finds the technology isn't just ill-suited to security purposes, it can actively promote racial discrimination, normalize surveillance, and erode privacy while marginalizing gender nonconforming students. The study follows the New York legislature's passage of a moratorium on the use of facial recognition and other forms of biometric identification in schools until 2022. The bill, a response to the Lockport City School District launching a facial recognition system, was among the first in the nation to explicitly regulate or ban use of the technology in schools. That development came after companies including Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft halted or ended the sale of facial recognition products in response to the first wave of Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S.

Submission + - Woz Turns 70th Birthday into Charity Event (wozbday.com)

NoMoreACs writes: Join Apple Computer inventor and co-Founder Steve Wozniak for "11 Days of Wozdom", a social media "Scavenger Hunt" featuring creative challenges that speak to the things he values most: Happiness, creativity, ingenuity and fun.

The challenges will officially begin on August 11th, but you can get a head start by going to WOZBDAY.COM for details.

The first challenge will be to help Woz spread the word about his birthday party and fundraiser on August 11th. All challenges will be due on August 21st at 11:59pm PDT. Challenge winners get special prizes!

Woz also stated:

"Iâ(TM)m lucky to be able to do this for a foundation oriented towards helping children, especially ones in need of finding themselves."

A livestream featuring a star-studded list of performers (see list at the birthday site) and other guests will begin on August 11, 2020 at 5 pm, PDT.

Come celebrate the life of one of the true pioneers in the Personal Computer Revolution. Listen to some music, hear some great stories, and maybe even help some kids in need!

Submission + - How to Break YouTube (Copyright Claim Your Own Video) (youtube.com)

An anonymous reader writes: YouTube content creators, tired of false copyright claims by third parties, finally decide to hack the system... by making copyright claims against their own videos!

Comment Phew. (Score 1) 73

> "We're bringing up a generation that turns to their screens, without a library of information accessible via screens," said Mr Kahle. Some have taken advantage of this "new information system", he argued -- and the result is "Trump and Brexit."

Thank goodness the person archiving the Internet isn't politically biased.

Submission + - Questionable ad content served on Slashdot 4

An anonymous reader writes: I appreciate that Slashdot has a need for revenue, but it also has editorial standards. Is the garish banner ad for detox-my-mac.com (which will send the victim to whatever's hosted at [randomizedalphanumerics].hop.clickbank.net) supposed to be there, or has Slashdot been compromised? The ad appears:below the sidebar, on the homepage when Javascript is disabled. (When Javascript is enabled, the ad does not appear because the sidebar doesn't scroll and it renders below the sidebar, far below the viewport. Curiously, the ad does not render in Firefox, but the HREF is present in the HTML source.)

Submission + - 'Sex With Stalin' BDSM Game On Steam Enrages Russian Communists (themoscowtimes.com) 1

dryriver writes: A satirical BDSM game that has not even been released yet has enraged Russian Communists who call on it to be banned. In "Sex With Stalin", you play a time traveller who goes back in time to meet the great dictator. Your relationship with Josef is up to you — you can give him political advice, get him to start wars, or seduce him with BDSM sex and even kill him, altering the course of history. The probably satirical game is quite sexually explicit from the looks of it, and the developers say that they are creating a "friend for the dictator", who appears to be Adolf Hitler ( https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.ne... ), also in a state of undress. Maxim Suraikin, head of the Communists of Russia party, called the adult-themed game’s developers “insane.” “This has to be banned, no question,” he told the Govorit Moskva radio station. “The title itself already sounds outrageous and perverted.” Suraikin said that the developers, whose only other release appears to be “Boobs Saga,” a bosom-themed “satirical 3D action” game released last winter, could be held criminally liable for the contentious game. “On the other hand, they’re simply people without honor and conscience who are outrageously trying to latch on to Stalin’s growing popularity,” he said.

Comment Re:Another major threat (Score 3, Informative) 181

They're not rare, and they're all over the place. But they're a b*tch to refine, since they have such similar chemical properties (they don't vary in the outer ring of electrons). The easiest processes are really messy, China is willing to create vast pollution in its refining processes, and thus others who have tried to develop cleaner refining processes, which are costlier, are shut out of the market. Molycorp went bankrupt a few years ago with its mine in California.

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