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Comment Re:Integral layer of the Trusted-Computing/DRM sta (Score 1) 34

Every time people hear what it actually involves is outrage and opposition, at least all the way back to when Intel first announced that they wanted to hardcode identity numbers inside CPUs in 1999. But the corporations involved have been relentless, and have sunk countless billions of dollars steadily forcing it forwards, and building front organizations to obfuscate and whitewash it.

With Windows 11, Microsoft was finally able to FORCE Trusted computing hardware into every new computer. Not just every new Windows computer, but every computer.

Every new Intel PC CPU has built in Trusted Computing enforcement hardware. Every new AMD PC CPU has built in Trusted Computing enforcement hardware. Every new ARM PC CPU has built in Trusted Computing enforcement hardware. The only processor lines that DON'T have it are the microcontrollers.

There are some unlocked smartphones available, but as far as I can determine it's literally impossible to buy a smartphone that doesn't have hardware trusted computing built in.

I specified that enforcing Trusted Computing at the internet access level is still a long term goal, they couldn't get away with it today. However they are well on the way to success. Virtually all new hardware supporting trusted computing, all the front groups rolling out standards and systems, and as it gets incorporated into things everyone is going to increasingly running into situations where they get locked out of stuff if they're not Trusted Computing compliant. Streaming already restricts you to the worst quality if you're not compliant, and it's only going to get worse as pre-Win11 computers fade out and as more things require it.

Comment Re:Dual purpose age-bracket signal :o (Score 1) 129

I'd hardly call exact date of birth "low information content".

And yes this does reveal exact date of birth, regardless of the bullshit obfuscation that it supposedly only reports age range. The server simply tracks the reported result every time the user connects, and on some specific day the result CHANGES to announce their date of birth.

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Comment Integral layer of the Trusted-Computing/DRM stack (Score 1) 34

This is based on SLSA (Supply-chain Levels for Software Artifacts), brought to you by the same fuckers making Trusted Computing and the TMP (Trusted Platform Module). It's part of the same shitstack to prohibit you from altering your software and to lock you out of your own files, and to send spy reports out over the internet so you can be cut off if you "fail" the Trusted Computing check.

The software can use a TPM's (Trusted Platform Module) Sealing function to encrypt your data such that it's impossible to access your own data if the software is modified. It can then pass control over that data only to software updates that carry a signed security certificate from Broadcom (or any other company using this system).

It is no longer open source, your system no longer works as you can no longer access your Sealed data if you change so much as a single letter of the code. Even recompile unaltered code won't work, unless you magically manage to get your build environment absolutely identical to the company's build environment and get byte-for-byte output. Even that may be impossible with the newer levels of non-deterministic compiler optimizations.

Also, with TMP's Remote Attestation feature can be used to transmit your machine's software configuration over the internet, so that you can be cut off if your system doesn't match Broadcom (or other company's) cryptographically signed certificate.

And then of course there's Network Access Control (NAC) / Trusted Network Connect (TNC). In the long term, the goal is for ISPs to use NAC/TNC to interrogate your computer for Trusted Computing compliance, and deny you any internet access whatsoever if your machine isn't compliant. Software with this sort of "security" certificate would pass inspection, while any attempt to alter the code would be detected as "tampering". You then get "quarantined". What "quarantine" means is that you are denied internet access - with the exception that you do get very restricted access which can only be used to download the approved software to "fix" your computer into Trusted Computing compliance.

Comment Re:What about the cost (Score 1) 89

Tokamaks also have no solution to the fast-neutron problem, which "embrittles" the core components of the reactor itself into powder over a few years of operation.

Only magnetized target fusion, like what General Fusion is pursuing, solves that problem.

I'm not sure that fusion will ever reach economic viability. But they're literally the only ones that even have a chance.

Comment "Smaller than a hair" - no (Score 1) 15

If you read the article carefully, they are talking about lenses THINNER than a hair. I see several of the posts here thinking the width/radius of the lenses is this small, a reasonable mistake given the way this was written. Having a radius that small would severely reduce their light gathering ability, requiring very bright light or very dim images or very long exposure times.

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Comment Re:ELI5 (Score 3, Informative) 18

It's really not all that hard. You know how in some small streams and fountains, bumps can form in the water? They're not really "there" because they are really caused by the underlying water streams colliding, rubbing, moving at different velocities; every time you interact with them, the water is completely different. And yet, in a certain sense they are there, because if you skipped a stone across the stream, and it hit one of these structures, it would bounce off. And would do so no matter how many times you did it. Physicists call these "quasi-particles".

These Hopfion's are quasiparticles. Except instead of being made of moving water, they're (typically) made of crystals made of Iron, Iridium, Platinum (just as one example) that have been excited by lasers. And like "real" particles, they can interact with each other (often in unique ways), making them able to do computation and store information.

However, despite the hype, doubt they'd be useful for any kind of long term storage. Typically systems depend on being energized by lasers constantly. Like bumps in the water when the stream dries up, they lose all their information when the lasers are turned off.

Comment Rogue (Score 4, Insightful) 228

Invented the very concept of procedural generation.

This was the first major differentiator of computer games vs hardware-designed games. Pong, for instance, offered nothing at the time that was better than pinball machines. It's only novelty was "And it was done on a computer!"
Same thing for Zork - perform your own adventure books were already well known when it was written. It just automated the process of "If you enter the cave, go to page 39".

Rogue, on the other hand, was the first computer game that did things no other media could accomplish. Every game was unique. And even today, people speak of procedurally generated games as "Rogue-likes".

Comment Breathtaking visuals, rich storytelling? (Score 3, Interesting) 58

It certainly wasn't conveyed in the trailer. It more looked like yet another paint by the numbers "Magic Kung Fu" movie, where the entire plot consists of seeing the chosen-one MC beating up an ever higher power scaled set of opponents in one-off battles using battle moves they have to yell out for them to take effect. The dramatic tension coming when he almost loses a battle against the big boss. Before winning. The end.

At least he looks underaged, so I doubt there's the typical subplot of scantily clad girls all hanging around him in a virginal harem that he - like most Asian MCs - is somehow too clueless about romance to ever pursue.

It's basically the equivalent of US superhero TV shows. Not the darker superhero movies made in the '90s, but the "SuperFriends" and "He Man" ones made in the 1970s and played on Saturday Morning, where everything has the depth of a soap dish and the audience is presumed to be about seven years old.

Did SlashDot get a kickback to promote this?

Comment It's not AI itself that's destroying IT jobs... (Score 5, Insightful) 113

It's the anticipation of AI making jobs obsolete that is causing CEOs to refuse to fill these positions, despite their obvious needs. That, and trying to fill senior level positions with inexperienced overseas junior developers (which has been going on forever).

The thing they miss, of course, is that AI can only answer questions. It really can't proactively figure out business needs. Further, most AI has only limited input prompts. Meaning, whatever its original output is (even if correct), must be understood by humans for further modifications to be made. There also still remains a large quality gap in what it produces. Much like what junior coders from overseas diploma mills churn out, the quality of AI code always needs to be double-checked by people capable of doing so.

But customers (meaning CEOs of technology companies) never get what they actually need, only what they think they want. So we are where we are until they learn another harsh lesson.

Comment Re:Reporters strike again (Score 1, Insightful) 132

Quantum mechanics, that is to say the math, predicts observations and measurements flawlessly. It has never once given an incorrect answer.

Quantum mechanics produces many results that are not correct on a macroscopic scale. We don't see superpositions, for example. Schrodinger's alive and dead cat is a classic thought experiment intended to illustrate the deficiencies in QM as a complete theory - not to imply that alive/dead cats are real.

And spinors, which you are describing are not even quantum! They are a characteristic of electrons, but have no "quantum leaps" in their states buried anywhere in their math. You might has well try to compare them to electromagnetism - and be equally incorrect.

QM is far from a complete Theory of Everything, which nearly every physicist will tell you if you ask them.

Comment It's another attempt to "corpo-wash" consumers (Score 0) 57

Oil companies aren't the ones providing hundreds of billions of dollars for energy. That's drivers, and boaters, people heating buildings, running their industrial equipment. And my oh my do consumers get angry if oil prices rise by even a penny a gallon. Entire governments fall when that happens.

But neo-communism-as-religion nutballs can't admit this, so instead they blame the vendors for the existence of the market.

That said, there is also corruption in the oil industry - especially around acquisition of new oil fields and the like. The environmental disasters in Nigeria come to mind. But that isn't what the Guardian is complaining about. Instead, they're trying to pretend to their readers that nobody other than oil companies are responsible for the public's voracious appetite for global warming emissions. Much like prostitution, they want to pretend that the real problem somehow isn't the demand, and that blaming the suppliers does something.

But they know the truth won't sell. So they never mention it. They're in the "news" industry, after all.

Comment LOL. Of course he doesn't... (Score 4, Insightful) 506

Just about every "I'm above voting - none of the candidates reach my lofty standards" non-voter, is really someone who is too lazy and content with society to do so. Just trying to hide it, and does so badly.

I mean it's not exactly evil to be too lazy to vote. But if you are one of those people, at least don't lie about it, or worse - put on airs about how superior you are to everyone else for not giving a shit.

Comment You're just lying at this point... (Score 1) 231

Again, the Japanese Military was so bought into its ability to stave off America though a war of attrition, that when Emperor Hirohito decided to surrender, the so-called "Jewel Voice" broadcast of his surrender had to be smuggled out of the imperial palace.

As many as 1,000 officers and army soldiers raided the Imperial Palace on the evening of August 14, 1945 to destroy the recording. The rebels were confused by the layout of the palace and unable to find the recordings, which had been hidden in a pile of documents. The two phonographs were labelled original and copy and successfully smuggled out of the palace, the original in a lacquer box and the copy in a lunch bag. Major Kenji Hatanaka attempted to halt the broadcast at the NHK station, but was ordered to desist by the Eastern District Army.[2][3]

In trying to pretend that the US just dropped atomic bombs of Japan for fun, you are aping a long-ago debunked piece of Soviet Union agit-prop.

Comment Re:Why is this garbage "news"? (Score 1) 167

You're clearly attempting to be sarcastic, but judging by the increasingly unhinged attacks by Trumpster Fires on her, they clearly are trembling in fear about her. Considering yours, she is literally the most constitutionally active Vice President in the history of the United States, and indeed does have a long list of accomplishments.

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