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Comment Re:Google Alternatives Thread (Score 1) 206

...there was extensive documentation on how Biden pressured social media companies to silence everyday American citizens. [ ... ]

Couple 'o things:

  1. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,
  2. Assertions made without evidence may be dismissed without evidence.

Not even ordinary evidence was provided. So we can set that nonsensical statement aside.

The Truth: The Biden Administration was seeking to remove maliciously posted lies and falsehoods concerning COVID-19's risks and how to mitigate them, so that people without mad Google sk1llz searching for information on staying healthy would be less likely to encounter false, life-threatening information.

Example: Back in 2020, there was this slob who suggested on national television that the best way to avoid COVID was to inject disinfectant , and that the disease could by treated by ivermectin -- which is a horse de-wormer (i.e. an anti-parasitic, not an anti-viral). Both claims were absolute bullshit , but nevertheless got repeated millions of times on social media by "everyday Americans." It was this kind of LIFE-THREATENING GARBAGE that the Democratic Administration was seeking to mitigate. So that people wouldn't, y'know... die.

Comment Re:NPM needs to be burned to the ground (Score 2) 33

ve never seen a software distribution mechanism as careless and sloppy as NPM. Bazillions of dependencies and no signing of packages. [ ... ]

Rust's cargo packaging system is almost exactly the same way. And the last time I looked, Go's packaging was very similar. And package signing won't help if the maintainer's key/cert has been exfiltrated and cracked.

This is what you get when you embrace DLL Hell -- the idea that you should pin your program to a single specific revision of a library, rather than, y'know, doing the engineering work to ensure that, as an app author, you're relying only on documented behavior; and, as a library author, to be responsible for creating backward compatibility for old apps linking to old entry points. Sticking to that principle lets you update shared system libraries with the latest enhancements and bug fixes, while remaining relatively sure none of the old clients will break.

"Sometimes you have to break backward compatibility." Agreed, but the interval between those breaks should be measured in years, not days.

Comment Re:for profit healthcare needs to go and the docto (Score -1) 51

This is retarded.

1. It isn't for profit healthcare that is the problem, it's THIRD PARTY PAY.
2. I don't use third party pay, ever, for healthcare. I've been insured nonstop for over 30 years, and NEVER ONCE has my insurer paid my doctor.
3. Even when I've had emergencies, I still called around, negotiated a fair cash up front rate, paid cash up front, and billed it to my insurer. My cash up front rate was sometimes below any co-pay negotiated with my insurer, lol.

I just recently had some elective surgery that would have cost me about $2000 on my annual deductible, but I was able to cash pay a negotiated rate of $400 including a follow-up "free". I submitted the $400 to my insurer and they reimbursed me.

Third party insurance exists because YOU VOTERS demanded the HMO Act of the 1970s, which tied health care to employment, and then employers outsourced it to third parties.

Health care is remarkably cheap in the US (cash pay, negotiated) and I don't have to wait months to see a doctor when I call and say I am cash pay. They bump me up fast.

Comment Re:Not news in Canada (Score 1) 173

"diesel engines are known for being especially difficult to start in cold."

When I was in the Army in Korea in 1985/86 one of the duties on the duty roster was to start every vehicle in the motor pool every 4 hours and run it for half an hour to keep it warm. Nothing like getting up at 0200 on a Sunday morning to spend an hour in the motor pool.

Comment Re:Who is this for? (Score 1) 82

What he's complaining about is the ones that are linking to the final version of the patch, after problem reports, patch discussions and ACKs and such were all in other threads - those threads are typically just "here's the final patch". There's no discussion to be read there. Typically there's a whole lot more that happened before, but that's not what's getting linked in some of these patches.

The intent of the Link: is to link to the problem report, debugging, discussion of the problem/patch... and some do that. But that's not the problem here.

It'd be like a Wikipedia page just linking to itself for reference. There's obviously more information that led to the page's creation... but the link itself is just garbage.

Comment Re:Who is this for? (Score 2) 82

But a patch with a link to the patch is not a useful link. The link should point to the problem report or at least discussion. That's what Linus is complaining about - people are using Link: to link to the final version of the patch on LKML which at most has "Ack" replies. That adds zero useful information.

Submission + - Another One Bites The Dust

wiredog writes: One of the few remaining blogs from Ye Olden Days of blogging, Dave "I am not making this up" Barry's Blog, is shutting down with the end of Typepad.

Comment *Has* to Be a Scam (Score 1) 47

Previous comments have been drawing analogies to Black Mirror, but this "idea" goes back much further...

...This is an episode of Max Headroom (US version).

Specifically, S02E02: "Deities." A company claims to be able to bring past loved ones back to "life" as an AI, for a modest recurring fee. But Bryce (the creator of Max Headroom) opines they can't possibly have the compute power to do it, as it requires a large mainframe just to run Max's highly flawed, glitching bust.

Wouldn't surprise me if the "visionaries" behind this saw that episode, and saw an opportunity to fleece gullible rubes.

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