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Comment Re:the only people who thought that were (Score 1) 170

"When it comes to opposition for things like background checks, licensing and waiting periods for buying new firearms (so I'm not even talking about bans here), you can guarantee that the likes of Colt have put millions behind it."

*Every* new gun sale in the United States requires a background check, and has done so for some time now. No exceptions, no loopholes. Even at gun shows. If you are buying a new gun, you are filling out a Form 4473 and you are having a NICS check run. Period.

Submission + - Instagram to shut down at midnight in Russia (cnn.com)

Submitted by quonset
quonset writes: People using the Instagram service were notified by the Russian state communications regulator that the service would be shut down at midnight. Users were then encouraged to move all their information to one of Russia's state-owned platforms. This severing of service came about because Instagram was allowing people from Ukraine to post messages such as "Death to Russian invaders".

Meta, which also owns Facebook (FB), said Friday that the temporary change in its hate speech policy applied only to Ukraine, in the wake of Russia's Feb. 24 invasion.

The company said it would be wrong to prevent Ukrainians from "expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces".

The decision was greeted with outrage in Russia, where authorities have opened a criminal investigation against Meta and prosecutors on Friday asked a court to designate the US tech giant as an "extremist organisation".

The message to Instagram users from the state media regulator, Roskomnadzor, described the decision to allow calls for violence against Russians as a breach of international law.

"We need to ensure the psychological health of citizens, especially children and adolescents, to protect them from harassment and insults online," it said, explaining the decision to close down the platform.

Submission + - The Dangers of 'Philanthrocapitalism'

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Research about the influence of computing technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), on society relies heavily upon the financial support of the very companies that produce those technologies," writes Princeton Research Fellow Klaudia Jazwinska of the dangers of 'philanthrocapitalism'. "Corporations like Google, Microsoft, and IBM spend millions of dollars each year to sponsor labs, professorships, PhD programs, and conferences in fields like computer science (CS) and AI ethics at some of the world’s top institutions. Industry is the main consumer of academic CS research, and 84% percent of CS professors receive at least some industry funding."

"Relying on large companies and the resources they control can create significant limitations for the kinds of CS research that are proposed, funded and published. The tech industry plays a large hand in deciding what is and isn’t worthy of examination, or how issues are framed. [...] The scope of what is reasonable to study is therefore shaped by what is of value to tech companies. There is little incentive for these corporations to fund academic research about issues that they consider more marginal or which don’t relate to their priorities."

Jazwinska concludes, "Given the extent of financial entanglement between Big Tech and academia, it might be unrealistic to expect CS scholars to completely resist accepting any industry funding—instead, it may be more practicable to make a concerted effort to establish higher standards for and greater transparency regarding sponsorship."

Submission + - Intel Finds Bug in AMD's Spectre Mitigation, AMD Issues Fix (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by Hmmmmmm
Hmmmmmm writes: News of a fresh Spectre BHB vulnerability that only impacts Intel and Arm processors emerged this week, but Intel's research around these new attack vectors unearthed another issue: One of the patches that AMD has used to fix the Spectre vulnerabilities has been broken since 2018. Intel's security team, STORM, found the issue with AMD's mitigation. In response, AMD has issued a security bulletin and updated its guidance to recommend using an alternative method to mitigate the Spectre vulnerabilities, thus repairing the issue anew.

Intel's research into AMD's Spectre fix begins in a roundabout way.

In need of a newer Spectre mitigation approach to patch the far-flung issue, Intel turned to studying alternative mitigation techniques. There are several other options, but all entail varying levels of performance tradeoffs. Intel says its ecosystem partners asked the company to consider using AMD's LFENCE/JMP technique. The "LFENCE/JMP" mitigation is a Retpoline alternative commonly referred to as "AMD's Retpoline."

As a result of Intel's investigation, the company discovered that the mitigation AMD has used since 2018 to patch the Spectre vulnerabilities isn't sufficient — the chips are still vulnerable. The issue impacts nearly every modern AMD processor spanning almost the entire Ryzen family for desktop PCs and laptops (second-gen to current-gen) and the EPYC family of datacenter chips.

Submission + - Coronal Mass Ejection Reaches Earth on Sunday Night (spaceweatherlive.com)

Submitted by PuddleBoy
PuddleBoy writes: "A very long duration C3.1 solar flare peaked yesterday [03.10.2022] at 20:55 UTC. ... A coronal mass ejection was launched into space and is highly likely to arrive at Earth.

"... The solar flare lasted for hours and launched an asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection into space. Most of the ejecta is heading north-west but a significant part of the plasma cloud is expected to arrive at our planet. The coronal mass ejection was launched at a speed of about 600km/s which is a fairly average speed. This puts the likely arrival time at Earth late on Sunday, 13 March."

Submission + - Watch an ad to get a drink (cnn.com) 2

Submitted by quonset
quonset writes: When you want to pick up a drink or frozen pizza at your nearest Walgreens, expect to see ads on the freezer door. That's because instead of a glass door through which you can view the products for sale, Walgreens, and other retailers, are now using an iPad-like door to display ads and other information. Reaction from people encountering the latest in-your-face ad assault intended to provide "engagement" with the customer has been negative to say the least. From the story:

The screens, which were developed by the startup Cooler Screens, use a system of motion sensors and cameras to display what's inside the doors — as well as product information, prices, deals and, most appealing to brands, paid advertisements. The tech provides stores with an additional revenue stream and a way to modernize the shopping experience.

But for customers who just want to peek into the freezer and grab their ice cream, Walgreens (WBA) risks angering them by solving a problem that shoppers didn't know existed.

The company wants to engage more people with advertising, but the reaction, so far, is annoyance and confusion.

"Why would Walgreens do this?" one befuddled shopper who encountered the screens posted on TikTok. "Who on God's green earth thought this was a good idea?"

As a side note, it appears we are one step closer until even our dreams aren't free of advertisements.

Submission + - SPAM: Router and Modem Rental Fees Still a Major Annoyance Despite New US Law

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Consumer Reports wants the Federal Communications Commission to take a closer look at whether Internet service providers are complying with a US law that prohibits them from charging hardware rental fees when customers use their own equipment. In a filing submitted to the FCC this week, Consumer Reports said it asked members about their Internet bills and got over 350 responses, with some suggesting violations of either the letter or spirit of the law. "Some contain allegations that the law is being violated, whereas others state the new statute is being respected. Many more stories suggest that ISPs dissuade consumers from using their own equipment, typically by refusing to troubleshoot any service disruptions if consumers opt not to rent the ISP's devices. Such practices result in de facto situations where consumers feel pressured or forced to rent equipment that they would prefer to own instead," Consumer Reports told the FCC.

Consumer Reports' filing came in response to the FCC asking for public comment on the implementation of the Television Viewer Protection Act (TVPA), which ">took effect in December 2020. In addition to price-transparency rules for TV service, the law prohibited TV and broadband providers from charging rental or lease fees when "the provider has not provided the equipment to the consumer; or the consumer has returned the equipment to the provider." All the comments collected by Consumer Reports are available here. The FCC filing includes examples of complaints about AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Charter Spectrum, Frontier, Windstream, and Cox, though the complaints weren't all about rental fees.

In its call for public input, the FCC asked for comment on "the extent to which (if at all) subject entities continue to assess charges for equipment that are expressly prohibited by the statute." [...] Consumer Reports said its questions for members were "designed to measure whether or not ISPs were in compliance... and also to solicit consumer opinion on whether or not it was difficult to use consumer-owned equipment versus renting those devices from the provider. Notably, neither of the two cable industry trade associations mentioned this issue in any detail in their comments filed last month at the Commission." Consumer Reports said that some of the responses "suggest the statute is not being complied with as vigorously as Congress intended... These allegations merit further investigation by the Commission." Consumer Reports offered to share contact information for the customers with the FCC so it can investigate further.
Link to Original Source

Comment Re:1% is probably true for all opiates (Score 1) 499

by jersey_emt (#41384773) Attached to: How Big Pharma Hooked America On Legal Heroin
No, physical dependence is most definitely not addiction. This is a very common misconception, one that even many doctors believe.

Take for example a chronic pain patient who has been taking opioids for an extended period of time to manage their pain. They take it exactly as prescribed, do not get high, never run out of medication early, and do not constantly ask for a higher dose (unless their condition worsens or because of tolerance). They take opioids because it treats their severe pain well enough for them to lead a normal life and to be able to work full-time.

These patients of course have developed a physical dependence on the opioids, and if the underlying cause of their pain is cured, they will need to taper down their dosage to avoid physical withdrawal symptoms.

But they are certainly not all addicted to opioids.

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