To me, this echos a lot of oil field work. When the people set up shop, there is a boom on contractors. However, after the dino juice is sucked out, it creates a horrific bust. All those added roads that went from two lanes to six lanes? They have to be maintained even though they will not see more than a few cars an hour after the wildcatters leave.

Building a data center takes people. However, once it is built, all those people are then out of work. Maintaining a data center takes relatively few people, and a company usually imports them in, and any work outside of that is handled by sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub contractors, where there is almost zero money to be made.

That is the notable part. Right now, a lot of token use doesn't move much... but it does. Add LLM optimization, new ways of doing things like tensors instead of matrix multiplication with carry, or 1 bit LLMs like BitNet, and those relatively small attacks against weakened versions can pile up, especially because as mentioned in other spots, the whole is not just the sum of the parts. Sometimes one math operation can be considered a "group", where there is a shortcut around it that may require far fewer keys in the key space.

Cryptographic attacks never get weaker over time.

Right now, with Grover's algorithm or Simon's Algorithm, AES-256 is effectively AES-128. Combine that with other keyspace reducing attacks, and it might be wise to start considering what is going to be what comes after AES, and maybe even look at larger keyspaces like 384 or 512. It might even be wise to look at cascades, similar to how VeraCrypt has that as an option. A cryptographic cascade of three algorithms isn't going to give 768 bits... but more of 257-258 bits. However, if one algorithm is completely broken, the others should make up for it, or even worse, all three are partially broken, but combined, they keep the keyspace beyond what brute-forcing can fix.

It also may bring about additional functionality as time goes by, which can be useful. kvm is one of the few best of breed apps there is for what it does, and has an excellent reputation.

This is definitely something worth yakking about.

Realistically, I'm curious how they compare to cattle for harsher climates, in feeding denser populations. Because they seem to be able to handle terrain that cattle could not exist, much less graze on, like the mountains, it does do something to allow China to have more arable area for raising livestock.

I wonder if the Army is better off building their own data centers. For the cost of all those tokens, having their own, separate, sovereign AI space might just be the best thing for them, long term. Especially if they are able to create and fab their own silicon.

That is very relevant. I wonder about social media that is more focused on message exchange and expository functions, for example, someone posting a HOWTO, or maybe some way to handle some weird element. Something more forum based and organized along the lines of interests, as opposed to how it is now.

What caused social media to fail is all the "here is some dude who paid some cash and spewing ragebait... he's now in your feed, deal with it. Lets make 3-5 new people a day, all bots, all spewing OPFOR propaganda."

Social media can be done right... but it would take governments to get involved to make a social media site that isn't considering the people using it the product... or just fodder.

Ideally, social media should naturally grow. No follow suggestions, no people thrown onto a feed, etc.

The problem is that many companies and governments don't realize that they can't go cheap on backups. A few years ago, having a NAS on site that backs up all the other company machines was good enough. For peace of mind, go 3-2-1, and copy critical data offsite.

Then came ransomware, then NotPetYa type of data destruction software. Now, 3-2-1-1-0 is minimum, with the offline copy being WORM, and LTO being the only high capacity, archive rated storage medium out there. Problem is that storage hasn't increased, and we just have one format. Would be nice for Sony or Philips to start revisiting HVDs or similar to get 10TBs on a CD sized platter.

One may even need more than one copy stored offline, and offsite, especially if someone is able to bribe an admin to "accidentally" physically destroy an archive before the ransomware gang moves in on the online side.

This is why I wonder why companies are not working on high capacity backups. We have LTO for tape... and that's it. Not even IBM (IIRC) develops their own format anymore.

We desperately need companies to start doing HVD disks and holographic media. Hell, we had Tamarak with holographic media in the 1990s, and many companies doing it. Yes, there are hurdles, but there were hurdles with CDs and DVDs, which were easily solved. This way, we can get something like a 400 CD jukebox, add a HVD drive, and even at 10TB per drive, have a petabyte of data in one rack unit, with an easy way to offsite the media.

Storage isn't a matter of "can't". It is a matter of "won't". Lasers have gotten better since Blu-Ray was developed. We can have many, many more layers. We can do different types of pit depth (deeper/shallower than the 128 nm), different laser wavelengths... many different technologies where we can easily pack a terabyte, if not ten or 100 onto the platter of a CD-sized disk. If someone made a BDXL format that was 5-10 TB, it would do a lot for storage, especially because CD changers are/were a common thing, so it wouldn't be hard to make one into something similar to a tape library.

As for the filesystem? We can directly back up to the read/write device... or we can just use UDF and packet writing. Yes, UDF is a universal filesystem format, pretty much forgotten about, but would easily scale to multi-terabytes. Even something simple as a `tar` command would provide ransomware resistant backups.

Maybe China's leadership might get some sense and kick some research in this direction. They are the only ones thinking past the quarterly numbers these days.

In any case, it is trespass. If I download a driver and it starts using all resources to mine a currency or join to a distributed AI network, that is not what the expected driver functionality was, even though it was likely buried in the EULA.

OS makers can't really play cat and mouse with these companies. The best thing is a manifest system, combined with a permissions system, similar to modern Android. This way, regardless of what the EULA states, the app has to plainly show what stuff it will do, and give the user the ability to decide "no" on everything. This way, a driver app remains a driver app and doesn't become a vector for ad-based malware.

It is getting to the point where the OS is going to need to start having restrictions on drivers. If it is a video driver, it doesn't need to connect to the network unless it is doing some streaming in/out to a remote host. If it is a monitor, it might use it for incoming casting, but nothing else.

What should be ideal is a manifest file, similar to Android coupled with yes/no permissions, and a requirement that the driver accept the fact that the user may deny everything it asks for, and still work. This way, a user knows that plugging in a monitor will try to sling software with unauthorized functionality onto that computer, although I'm sure it will be covered in the EULA... although plugging in a monitor doesn't make an accept/deny dialog.

Ultimately, monitors shouldn't have drivers. If they need drivers, it is because it is a composite unit that might have USB ports, a NAS, or some other stuff hanging off, but the monitor part should just work when plugged in via HDMI or DP.

Flash media doesn't last long. There have been studies on that. In theory, optical media can last centuries. I personally have pulled CDs I've burned in the late 1990s to pull some custom WAD files that a local group made on a modern Doom engine.

CDs are physical changes. Flash media, once the electrons have left the gate... game over.

IMHO, I'd like to see this as an excuse for some company to start making 10TB disks in a CD/DVD format. HVD was discussed, and some Chinese firm has 100TB on a single platter, so it can be done.

This only wouldn't just be a boon for music, but in a WORM format, perfect for backups, without needing to shell out $6-10k for a LTO tape drive.

Manual transmission vehicles are fun when on an open road, where you can downshift before hitting a curve. However, where they suck is any driving in the US. Sawing through gears gets old quickly in traffic, especially the highways. Other than a delay in response, paddle shifting is almost as good, and you can just let the computer handle things when bored with that, or it is too busy to be feasible.

I do like some safety features. The one that I like is emergency braking, because it does a good job at fending off swoop/squats, or someone running out between parked cars.

Any large country that isn't densely populated will have issues. Europe doesn't have ice storms, twisters, hurricanes, tweakers, or just large distances of power lines, with the infrastructure in the middle of nowhere that supports it. Combine that with a philosophy in the US that used to be common where, "grid == socialism", and that is why blackouts happen. Although Bitcoin mining places and AI data centers have made the grid be viewed as a tool for business, so it is getting funding. (Amazing that augmenting the grid for EVs is "impossible", but someone coming in with a data center, and the red carpet gets rolled out.)

There are ways to deal with this. A power outage really sucks in a city because you lose everything, not just power, but water (as building pumps over 20-30 feet are disabled), HVAC, and elevators. This is why people in the US move to the suburbs, because if power goes out, your standby natural gas or diesel generator fires up, transfer switch clicks, and life goes on. Especially in/near Houston where power outages are common due to hurricanes.

I can't agree more. Very boring, very overpriced, and you get to watch every other global market get the cool stuff while, at most, you might get more AI for a camera. The US has the absolute worst car market of the developed world, and the absolute worst phone market.

At least with some phones, you can import them.

I feel old... I miss the days of HTC phones that came with the ability to use Linux blobs separately, and the ability to reach full S/OFF, so you could cook your own ROM from scratch, even put a full Linux userland on it if you wanted.