It's probably just encrypted, that provides the security-focused part of write protection, at least while it's not been unlocked for boot.

Computers used to have stuff in ROM, stuff used to be a lot smaller, you used to be able to burn your own ROMs and put them on your own boards and have it be meaningful. But none of that is true today of course any more than that you could put a useful amount of storage on a floppy.

Read/write protection on flash is mostly done in firmware and therefore could theoretically be bypassed, I wonder if there were floppy drives before LS120 where that was also true.

It seems like a better solution would be to virtualize the Windows installation in the first place, and then you can do whatever you want with it later if it's compromised. While IT is checking it over to determine whether it's time to revert it to a snapshot or actually try to gather data from it, you can be using an alternate system of whatever kind. The user ought to ideally be basically unaware that anything has happened (why would you boot into Linux when a user is used to Windows?) except that they don't have access to some files.

Debian is four things besides contributors: Governance/COC, license, code, and a network of repos. Debian's code is a tiny amount compared to the overall distribution, but code is not a trivial percentage of Debian.

I'd like to see them be resistant to AI contributions to the code that makes up Debian, I don't care as much if AI is used to do packaging. That's probably a place it could succeed, especially since Debian uses systemd and there will already be unit files which just need paths corrected in predictable ways... and which I will read before bashing init scripts out of other init scripts in five minutes or so.

s/u/i/

Fluid bed pyrolysis isn't profitable, but it is close enough to be viable. If recycling were meaningfully mandated (hahaha etc I know) then it could certainly be done without making plastics outrageously expensive.

On one hand, good luck to us if we try to make that happen, but on the other hand we are not realistically going to stop using fuel or plastics any time soon, the two go hand in hand anyway, and looking the other way accomplishes nothing.

When you say "they," are you referring to your religious leaders?

The newer controls are more affordable. In the case of the non-button "buttons" a chip and some megaohm resistors and a piece of plastic with some labels screen printed on it replace a whole bunch of custom-designed injection-molded buttons with special labels which have to be applied with sub-millimeter accuracy, and switches for them which have to be able to survive hundreds of thousands of cycles in an extreme temperature environment. Only in the most basic vehicles which still have manual climate controls, if such a thing even exists any more, are the buttons potentially cheaper because they are attached directly to functions.

I had an A8 Quattro. It was a fairly marvelous driving machine when it was working well enough for that, but it was a horribly overcomplicated rolling nightmare when it comes to system design. It had a vacuum system about as stupid as the one on the infamous 300ZX TT and the electrical system had a truly peerless level of unneeded complexity designed apparently only to make the vehicle easier to assemble. There was a sealed-ish plastic "e-box" containing the principal control units and a bunch of junction plugs which then connected through to a related box inside in the center console, into which interior harness components would plug. This is unnecessary and only adds a lot of cost and points of failure. Put the fucking computers inside the cabin where they belong (because as hostile as environment as it can be, it's still less so than the engine bay) and you don't need any of this bullshit. Even Nissan got (and gets) that one right.

The Germans know how to make an amazing vehicle, but they are today apparently uninterested in making it reliable. Maybe Porsche is better, I can't speak to that brand.

Yes, you need the windows to do that to get a good seal when the doors are frameless. It is not strictly necessary, but it reduces wind noise.

People only think there's something special about BMW or Mercedes because they have not worked on cars. Once you have worked on a couple dozen different vehicles and gotten to know how they are put together you realize there is nothing at all special about modern BMWs or Mercedes compared to other modern cars. After the Lexus LS ate their luxury car lunch they all have been relentless cost cutters, but even before that they were starting to worsen the value proposition and depend on their logos and interiors to sell cars. The interiors matter, but if the underpinnings aren't as special as they are, they also aren't sufficient.

The Japanese figured out much better ways to design and build cars than the Germans, and it has showed since the nineties, and it still shows today. German cars are overwrought, with unnecessary complexities in basic components like electrical harnesses which cause more problems than they're worth, instead of overbuilt like they were in the 80s. This isn't even so much about mass because the W126 wasn't very heavy at all, it's about design iteration and spending money perfecting parts and systems. They don't even care about mass any more except for the most special or most budget cars, everything else is now heavy AF.

German cars aren't special since the nineties. The last time they overbuilt them was in the eighties. The W126 Mercedes was the last great S class. The W140 was a rolling electrical failure. Well, sometimes it rolled anyway. BMW followed exactly the same trajectory. They had to learn to complete with the Japanese after the LS.

In the USA, your diary can become evidence in court if the court deems it is relevant. There is no automatic shield for that.

I am not a lawyer though, so if someone has a credible source that says otherwise, please feel free to speak up.

Saying that conversations with a chatbot should receive the same legal protections as conversations with a lawyer is beyond ridiculous. None of the important reasons why conversations with a lawyer get such protections apply.

Yes, it's true that some people really open up to chat bots. That still doesn't justify such protections. People just should know better than to have dangerous conversations with computer programs hosted on some one else's machine! People who really need people to talk to should still abstain from confessing their crimes to chatbots.

Everything else we do must be done cautiously. Alcohol use doesn't come with special legal protections; it's on us to drink responsibly. Gun use doesn't come with special legal protections it's on us to manage them responsibly. Conversations with our employers, family members, friends, lovers, etc., don't come with special legal protections; it's on us to keep our mouths shut about certain topics. Why in the world would chatbot use be any different? Seriously, this is nonsense.

People with money can buy a beefy machine and host a chatbot model on it locally. Everyone else can just develop some AI street smarts. Or go to jail after they confess crimes to a chatbot.

Straight from the article:

The researchers also highlighted that the association was independent of underlying factors such as body mass index, hypertension, diabetes and lipid levels, which might predispose people to low-calorie products.

The article says exactly what you just said:

It is important to note that this was an observational study, meaning it can only show an association between higher xylitol levels and cardiovascular events, rather than proving that xylitol directly caused them, and further research is needed.

It IS an important thing to remember, as "post hoc ergo propter hoc" is one of the most popular logical fallacies. But on the other hand, it is equally important to pay attention to serious studies like this, because each one serves as a rigorously-obtained data point in a greater narrative that IS used to draw scientific conclusions (and to justify further research).

Fresh fruit is not problematic for healthy people. The levels of sugar are much lower than what is present in candy, and it comes properly mixed with natural fiber which ensures your body can metabolize it in a healthy way (unlike with candy).

Dried fruit is slightly more problematic because you wind eating too much of it (since it takes up less space in your stomach).

Fruit juice is just as problematic as pure soda, since all the fiber is gone and the sugar concentration is much higher.

But fresh fruit is very beneficial to health (so long as you don't overdo it, as with anything, and be sure to wash it first too since food poisoning is a risk with anything eaten raw).

That's not having more computer, that's having more computers. DCs are concentrations of power, it doesn't matter how many computers are in them really but we have to organize the logic into many computers because otherwise interconnection becomes unmanageably expensive. Drones inherently depend on many distributed computers, but none of them have to be very powerful. The more processing power you have the more fancy tricks they can do, but drones are inevitably energy-limited and therefore have limited loiter capability, so the types of tricks you will want them to play are also limited.

Yeah, it's called fast fashion.