And I'm old enough to remember when it wasn't so goddamned hot.

From my experience over the decades, it wasn't enough for them to just look. They had to take your license, hold it up near their face and squint at it, then set it at the top of the keyboard of their mainframe terminal and peck in a few characters. Then they had to pick it up again, squint and peck some more, then repeat this cycle for at least a couple of minutes.

This was of course followed by scrawling a dozen circles on the reams of fine print for you to put your initials in, topped off by a long argument about declining the collision damage waiver. Finally, after several more minutes of bureaucracy, they handed you the keys to your Dodge Stratus.

Researchers rediscover electrochemistry.

Well, technically, we're letting Natalie do it, which is, of course, worse in every way imaginable, since she's immune to the sense of embarrassment that sometimes restrains him from acting on every little whim.

To be honest that was actually my first theory, since the bots didn't seem interested in exploring the rest of the domain. I suppose there's no way to know for certain. I concluded that it must be an imbecile's attempt at harvesting, though, because the queries weren't really exploring the string space in any useful way. Here's a sample:

"GET /index?author=15&go=Search&id=48&name_restrict=1&q&re&results_&results_pagenum=2980 HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=2&go=Search&group=0&group_restrict=1&id=48&name_restrict=1&q&results_pagenum=5440&template=41&type HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=15&go=Search&id=48&name_restrict=1&q&results_pagenum=33500&templat HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=15&go=Search&id=48&name_restrict=1&q&results_pagenum=32640&templ HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=15&go=Search&id=48&name_restrict=1&q&res&results_page&results_pagenum=39300 HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=15&go=Search&id=48&name_restrict=1&q&results_&results_pa&results_pagenum=12340 HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=2&go=Search&group=0&group_restrict=1&id=48&name_r&res&results_pagenum=6100 HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=2&go=Search&group=0&group_restrict=1&id=48&name_restrict=1&q&results_pagenum=2920&te HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=15&go=Search&id=48&nam&results_&results_pagenum=17940 HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=15&go=Search&id=48&name_restrict=1&q&results&results_pag&results_pagenu&results_pagenum=37720 HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=15&go=Search&id=48&name_restrict=1&q&results_pagenum=9360&template=41&type_r HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=15&go=Search&id=48&name_restrict=1&q&r&results_pagenum=28040 HTTP/1.1"
"GET /index?author=15&go=Search&id=48&name_&results_pag&results_pagenum=10400 HTTP/1.1"

The only thing this is fuzzing is the query string parser. It's not testing the limits of string buffers, it's not using interesting characters, it's just brain-damaged. The fact that it's also fetching different page numbers shows it's trying to follow page links and failing badly at doing so.

The site gets plenty of sniffing from garden-variety pests. e.g. this half-hearted attempt to find a framework or two that I don't have:

"POST /__rsc HTTP/1.1"
"POST /api/auth/session HTTP/1.1"
"POST /api/auth HTTP/1.1"
"POST /__nextjs_action HTTP/1.1"
"POST /.action HTTP/1.1"
"POST /_rsc HTTP/1.1"
"POST /api/auth/callback HTTP/1.1"
"POST /_middleware HTTP/1.1"
"POST / HTTP/1.1"

(of course, none of these URLs exist other than /, and you definitely can't just POST to it)

All this said... I've seen that spammers regularly misconfigure their tools, they'll try to register accounts with names like #[X:\LISTS\NAMES.TXT] and it only makes sense that some other cybercriminals trying to get rich quick have a similar lack of interest in programming shit correctly. Generally people don't turn to script kiddie shit if they have a personality conducive to putting in an honest hard day's work perfecting their craft.

There have been times in the past where goofing around on my own projects or experiments, I've cranked out many hundreds of lines of code in a day. It's possible that I've exceeded 1000 lines in one day. It usually computed the task at hand at least once, but it wasn't commented, documented, code reviewed, fitted with unit tests, run through any kind of QA process, etc.

On the other hand, I would estimate that when working for a salary and writing code that ran on mission-critical systems, over the course of a project I probably averaged about 10 lines per day. Time spent actually writing the code was dwarfed by time spent negotiating architecture tradeoffs in meetings before even starting, testing the code, documenting it, writing test procedures, debugging issues generated by the test engineers, going through the revision and deployment workflow, reviewing other peoples' code, etc.

Which kind of code is being cranked out from a couple of chatbot prompts? My bet is that it is mostly like the first case I described, and it also probably works at least once.

I believe the plan was to give that sobriquet to Lake Michigan, in honour of its decidedly flaccid silhouette.

I had a problem where AI scrapers were absolutely DETERMINED to fish out every possible query string from a search results page. Almost all of the query strings they tried were invalid due to shitty and dysfunctional string substitution. "&page=100" wouldn't be followed by "&page=101", it would be followed by "&pag&pag=1010" or something even more insanely half-baked, until the query strings were like 100+ characters long. It was the technological equivalent of watching HIV mutate in real time.

But the insane thing was that, aside from page number, they were always requesting info about the same other criteria: filtered by the same user, the same page type, and with no text string. So I just took those particular values and started banning logged-out users who requested that combination of criteria.

I figured I'd need to change my tactics in a couple of days once the botnet got bored of that particular page and moved on to requesting bogus entries for another user.

MariaDB> select count(*) from ip_bans;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
| 671671 |
+----------+

It hasn't.

Did you miss the part in TFS where they have to use an expensive chemical process to break the plastic down into simple molecules before these yeast can begin to eat it?

Electronics are not necessarily required. You're discounting the many recalls for ICE vehicles that resulted from leaked fuel or other flammable liquids combined with hot exhaust manifolds or other ignition sources.

I guess it is true that the exact wording of the amendment says that states can be as restrictive as they want on alcohol, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they can be more lenient than the feds.

While your general argument has merit, alcohol is a bad example because states' control over that particular substance is explicitly granted in the constitutional amendment that repealed prohibition.

Currently, there are no known functional cures for AD. There exist a number of treatments (monoclonal antibodies) for which there is supporting evidence for slowing cognitive decline and delaying the progression of functional disability, but the effect size is generally modest. To be fair, some people seem to be stronger responders than others; however, these amyloid-targeting treatments also have a risk of ARIA (amyloid-related imaging abnormalities), which are associated with microvascular hemorrhages (bleeding of the small blood vessels in the brain).

A subgroup of the general population is predisposed to AD because of a genetic mutation they carry (ApoE4). Each of us carries two copies of this gene, and we know that people who have one mutant copy (heterozygous) have a modestly increased risk of developing AD, and those with two mutant copies (homozygous) have a significantly higher risk. Not only is the lifetime risk increased, the typical age at onset is decades earlier; homozygotes may begin showing MCI (mild cognitive impairment) as early as in their 40s, and we call this "early-onset AD."

So, to answer your question, you are correct: there isn't really anything someone can do to stop or reverse the condition, but with early detection and treatment, they might be able to improve their quality of life and reduce the burden on caregivers and long-term financial cost of care. How such a person copes with a diagnosis is a psychological question. Some will spiral into depression and despair. Others might plan for the future in ways they might not have done otherwise, and find focus and purpose during the time they have. And it is for this latter group that the availability of such a test might be particularly helpful.

That said, having a validated and (relatively) noninvasive biomarker for AD pathology is a huge game-changer for AD research and drug development. One of the biggest challenges for targeting AD is accurately identifying the patient population. In the past, it was not always clear whether trial participants--many of whom were elderly (i.e. 75+)--actually had AD, or some other dementia, since the gold standard was to perform an autopsy. Because of this, clinical trials often suffered from a lack of statistical power due to a proportion of participants not actually having the disease that drug was intended to treat.

Since then, we devised various imaging modalities (e.g., PET) to use in conjunction with investigator assessment to improve population quality, but the more measures we have, the better the trial data gets, and the better researchers can identify targets for drug candidates. But we are still a long way off from figuring out how to prevent and/or reverse AD. One reason is that we believe that by the time patients exhibit symptoms of cognitive impairment, it's already too late--there is already extensive damage. So if there is a biomarker that can reliably detect subclinical AD pathology, this also has positive implications for designing clinical trials that aim to prevent AD disease in susceptible people, much like a vaccine for infectious disease or cancer.

It's a big dream, like being able to prevent or cure all forms of cancer. But I would like to imagine it is possible. These diseases take such a tremendous toll--on patients, on their caregivers, on the healthcare system, on society--and I hope there will come a day when they can be prevented as easily as going to your local pharmacy and getting a shot.

Even if they don't pollute all the time, consider when a "power emergency" will be most likely. One common situation is when there is a stagnant heat dome sitting on the area forcing everyone to crank up their A/C.

Then the data centers will fire up their gas and diesel generators with short exhaust stacks, and with no wind all those fumes will just linger in the general vicinity.

Gee, if a counterfeit lithium ion battery peddled by Amazon burns your house down, you get to sort it out in small claims court.

Or else let some guy whose salary ultimately comes from Amazon decide whether they're liable.