At this point, there is probably nothing that can rescue either Microsoft or Linux from the hordes at the wall. Both are performance-first operating systems. There's nothing surprising or unusual about that; this is the dominant paradigm. Windows NT made at least some attempt in the other direction until version 4, but then they prioritized UI latency over memory security. LLMs apparently don't have to be able to think to recognize patterns which indicate vulnerabilities. If having closed source is even still a benefit in hiding failures, it won't be for long.

On top of that, the hardware isn't secure enough either and both are going to have to be addressed to reasonably secure our systems from this new threat. They were never really secure, humans could find the same vulnerabilities, but there weren't enough humans looking. There's lots of compute hours being spent looking.

This isn't limited to Windows and Linux, every vaguely common system has the same problem. None of them were built for security first, because such a system would cost more to operate and almost nobody has been demanding to pay more for less performance in security's name. But many have long predicted we'd get to the point where we start to spend our performance advancement budget on security because some development will necessitate it, and it seems like we might have arrived there now. There are and have been more secure systems, but the home PC is going to have to become one of them because otherwise we won't be able to use them for anything other than getting pwned.

That would make it easy if the legal system didn't make it hard.

That's a typically shit take, because both of these business guys have proven repeatedly that they are both hot garbage as human beings. It on brand for you to ignore that.

And unfortunately, it does. The corporate world has already satisfied all of the relevant if statements. It works to some extent if you are willing to accept massive failures — the industry has proven that over and over again by rewarding failures with sales, they will buy proven trash before paying for quality; they will accept "good enough for right now" and kick the can forever; they will rewrite entire products and discard years of both development and goodwill just to look like they're forward-looking to idiots, because nobody ever went broke assuming there'd be no shortage of them.

If you're willing to accept shit results because you have no pride then AI is good enough. And... *waves around vaguely* ...people should pay attention, because that's the dominant paradigm.

It's hard to prove that Microsoft cares less about security than other vendors, without a bunch of information from Microsoft and other vendors that we're not privy to — not even shareholders get to know the full risks involved in the products upon which their dividends depend. But it's easy to prove that they will happily lie about it.

In America, laws are made by paying the politicians under the table. That's common knowledge. It's how the DMCA got passed, for example. But it's also made by having financially valuable information information, particularly that which permits politicians to have insider information that they can sell for votes/influence or use to make a killing on the stock market.

(You notice anything odd about oil price fluctuations recently?)

Musk had access to money, some of the largest databases the USG had, and the ability to fire civil servants who might have been inconvenient to Congress.

He was in government for how many years? If he wanted the statute of limitations altered, then surely that would have been the time to do it.

It would seem to me that he didn't care about the statute of limitations until AFTER other people started getting rich and he didn't.

I was under the impression that an appeal against a not guilty verdict was not permitted in the US, and was only permissible in the UK in the event of murder when overwhelming evidence showed wilful interference of the trial or exceptional new evidence.

The virus can persist for days in dry crap, which is the primary way it's spread to humans, when they disturb it

Yeah it's a good idea to try to get people concerned about concerning issues

No problem, there are never rats on ships

Firewood permits are only for falls here in California. They're still cheap at least.

As far as I can tell that is essentially true. The restrictions seem to be more on what they can or cannot do with rates than anything else. However they also still have to apply for permits for things like anyone else, and here in California can by stymied by the coastal commission.

I partially agree with you, but would like to bring something to your attention. I would say about five countries in the Middle East have been formenting a great deal of trouble for the others, along with a number of terrorist organisations. There is no particular reason to assume that the Middle East will deal with one problem and not the others. Yes, Iran has infuriated a great many countries, none of which (individually) can do much but could collectively act.

We could well see a genuine Middle East Union of nations that simple says enough is enough and clears the deck of all warring parties in the region -- and may well tell the US government that it needs to calm the F down or face a few reprisals of its own. Of course, if it does, then the subcontinent will likely join in - India and Pakistan are closely tied to Iran, and I shouldn't need to tell you both are armed with nuclear weapons. This is something the US also needs to consider, if it tries to invade Iran - you don't need missiles to attack a nation that's on the same landmass you're in, you just need trucks and an unsecured route.

Equally, this is a war that has been going on for the past 4,000-5,000 years now without showing much sign of anyone coming to their senses. This might not be enough to push everyone else over the edge. Precisely because several nations with a vested interest are indeed nuclear armed, there may well be a realpolitik view that kicking the collective arses of all of the power abusers in the region carries unacceptable escallation risks.

My hope is that the current wars being fought, all of which are mindboggingly expensive and stupid beyond all possible definitions of sanity, have a similar result as WW1 and WW2 - to push the world governments into saying that they will not tolerate this continued juvenile delinquency, but this time decide to do something effective about it.

The world has become vastly more destabilised with the wars since the 1990s, and I think there's just a glimmer of realisation amongst some of the politicians that they might well have pushed their luck too far.

Exams are a waste.

Rather, you want continuous practice that is also continuous assessment.

But US methods of teaching are also pretty 18th and 19th century. They are not sensible methods and result in students who are more advanced than the material being penalised. The US obsession with standardising is a recipe for subnormalising.