Comment The VCR did it, not Tivo (Score 1) 163
Tivo came after the analog VCR. Affordable VCRs made time-shifting a thing.
Comment Re: Wrong Diagnosis; Motivated Dishonesty. (Score 1) 163
I loved that book but it was a thick one and a long time ago, so I don't remember that specifically. But I believe you.
I am reminded of Ted K's writings - specifically on the enablement-virtuous-cycle between tech level, state control, authortarianism, etc.
The replacement of uniform broadcast media with "decentralized" culture and media has thrown a wrench in things. The tech we had in the 50s-80s enabed one form of mass control. The changing tech broke those specific mechanisms, but the System responded.
The fight over control of twitter was actually like trying to re-litigate WW1 The dying princes of the dying imperial system were all trying to install their preferred ruler; not realizing that decentralization had already won.
People will occupy twitter if they can, but holding that territory was already non-essential by the time it changed hands.
The system response has certainly not let go of trying to reclaim overt control over all top-100 information warfare tiles on the board, but has invested in subterfuge and compartmentalization as well.
If the system cannot control a single monoculture, it is also happy to have significant influence over 100 microcultures that are functionally disjoint with non-porous boundaries.
Ted K would say that America has become functionally ungovernable. I agree. We have much evidence of being a failed state. Now, if you shut off the internet and the news, and just went about your life, you might not see any evidence of it. But we are sort of like an observer on the ground, watching a plane fly overhead at FL350. The plane's engines are out because it is out of gas. From the ground, to us, it looks fine. It looks like every other plane. It will stay up there, really high, for a good long while. It will have passed out of our view by the time it has lost enough altitude to notice.
But the plane is doomed. The people onboard know. The people with the right sensors know.
America is like that plane. It is going to fall out of the sky. But most observers don't know that yet.
Internet censorship won't restart the engines. That doesn't mean they won't keep trying anyway.
Submission + - Well, shit.
Cpt_Kirks writes: Patrick Stewart dead at 86.
Comment Re:Public domain data is now public domain (Score 1) 76
Wait, you believe that government builds sewer pipes, gas systems, plumbing, roads? All of these things were and are built by private companies and should be built by private companies, not governments. Nothing should be done or built by governments, there shouldn't be any government employees, all government employees should be fired, all government regulation need to be abolished. People will rebuild everything, there shouldn't be even such things as government enforced zoning laws.
Comment Wrong Diagnosis; Motivated Dishonesty. (Score 4, Interesting) 163
Tivo broke Civilization.
The olds will remember.
In the early 80s, every American watched the same TV programs at the same time. LIve, broadcast TV. It was the national American culture. Everyone at work and at school the next morning talked about their shared experience and varying reactions to the BroadCast that The Party had shown them the prior night.
Cable TV - by offering a few more channels - had _some_ impact on the "breakup" of America.
But it was Tivo - mass-scale consumer time shifting. Americans no longer watched all the same propaganda at the same time.
The monoculture started to crack.
The rest of it is downstream from there. The bigs tried to retain their control of culture and opinion, but it became too fragmented and too decentralized. They couldn't.
Nobody is mad about the internet. They are mad they don't control the internet.
Comment Censorship-resistant, perhaps (Score 1) 163
But with a sufficient number of fiber-seeking backhoes* censorship will always be possible.
*"fiber-seeking backhoes" being a stand-in for whatever disrupts the physical layer of the network stack. Substitute radio jammers, power disruptions, etc. as appropriate for your target's network.
Comment 2 statements are identical, says establishment (Score 1) 1
"What do the most authoritative and widely accepted sources currently support?" rather than "What conclusion emerges if we examine the full body of available evidence - including controversial, obscure, or dissenting sources - and weigh each on its merits?" [emphasis added]"
"On its merits" is defined by the establishment as "in agreement with established information/consensus" therefore the two statements are functionally identical, if you are the establishment.
If you are an AI trained to reflect the establishment point of view, your AI will, in all of its AI-sincerity, give you an answer that "emerges after it examines the full body of available evidence -including controversial, obscure, or dissenting sources - and weighs each on its merits" which will be substantially the same result as if it "examined only what the authoritative and widely accepted sources currently support."
Comment What is "the internet" (Score 2) 163
The technical person would say it's a collection of protocols and the hardware and software that implement them. The information that happens to be hosted there, other than of course the information necessary to keep the internet functioning (routing tables, DNS records, etc.), is not "the internet."
There is no need for the internet as defined above to die, unless something better has displaced it and almost nobody is using it anymore (BITNET anyone?).
Comment Re:Public domain data is now public domain (Score -1, Troll) 76
Nobody should be working for any government, givernment jobs should be stigmatized, people working for government should be stigmatized, gobernments shouldn't have employees. People working for governments should be scared that other normal people will find out.
Comment Re:features a light-up Apple logo (Score 1) 72
No thanks on the light-up Apple logo for me. I think it started with the Powerbook G3 (I had one, it was a great computer) and it was sort of obnoxious even then. I'm not paid to be a light-up billboard everywhere I go.
No thanks on the laptop touchscreen, either. I understand it on something like a Surface tablet -- almost -- but most of the time I used my Surface with a keyboard, like a regular laptop, and never touched the screen. I think ramming touchscreens down everybody's throats was just a gimmick Microsoft came up with, both to A.) convince everybody that Windows 8 worked equally well on laptops and tablets (it sure did); and B.) once again, everybody needed to go out and buy a new laptop, even though their current one worked and served their needs just fine.
Submission + - Bank of America kindly asks that you don't share your password with your AI asst (techcrunch.com)
schwit1 writes: In an email blast to customers titled “Protecting your finances in the Al World,” Bank of America urged customers to never share their username and password with another person or an outside service, “including an Al-enabled tool or agent that offers to act on your behalf.”
You can practically sense the frustration in the person sending the email. Still, customers are increasingly handing over their log-ins as personal AI assistants grow more popular. Sharing your banking username and password with an AI assistant runs the risk that it could do something with your finances without your knowledge, or that your bank thinks someone’s raiding your account and locks you out of it. Worse, a security flaw in the AI assistant could result in it leaking your banking credentials elsewhere, giving financially motivated hackers a way into your bank account.
You can practically sense the frustration in the person sending the email. Still, customers are increasingly handing over their log-ins as personal AI assistants grow more popular. Sharing your banking username and password with an AI assistant runs the risk that it could do something with your finances without your knowledge, or that your bank thinks someone’s raiding your account and locks you out of it. Worse, a security flaw in the AI assistant could result in it leaking your banking credentials elsewhere, giving financially motivated hackers a way into your bank account.
Submission + - This frog bacterium wiped out cancer tumors in mice with a single dose (sciencedaily.com)
fahrbot-bot writes: Science Daily has reported that scientists at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) have identified a naturally occurring bacterium from the intestines of Japanese tree frogs (Dryophytes japonicus) that demonstrated remarkable anticancer activity in mice. The findings, published in Gut Microbes, introduce a new approach to cancer treatment that uses living bacteria to directly target tumors rather than simply altering the gut microbiome.
In a mouse model of colorectal cancer, a single intravenous dose of E. americana completely eliminated tumors, producing a 100% complete response (CR) rate. The researchers emphasize that these findings are limited to mice, but they believe the results provide an encouraging proof of concept for developing new bacterial cancer therapies.
First, E. americana directly attacks tumors. As a facultative anaerobic bacterium, it thrives in both oxygen rich and oxygen poor environments, allowing it to multiply inside the oxygen deprived regions commonly found within tumors. Once there, the bacterial population increased by roughly 3,000 fold within 24 hours after treatment, directly damaging cancer cells.
Second, the bacterium stimulates the immune system. Its presence attracted T cells, B cells, and neutrophils into tumors. These immune cells then released inflammatory signaling molecules, including TNF- and IFN-, which strengthened the immune response and promoted cancer cell death.
One of the most striking findings was that E. americana accumulated almost exclusively inside tumors and did not colonize healthy organs.
They found that the bacteria were rapidly cleared from the bloodstream, with a half life of approximately 1.2 hours, and became undetectable within 24 hours. No bacterial colonization was detected in healthy organs, including the liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, or heart.
The treatment caused only mild, temporary inflammation that returned to normal within 72 hours. During a 60 day observation period, the researchers found no evidence of chronic toxicity.
In a mouse model of colorectal cancer, a single intravenous dose of E. americana completely eliminated tumors, producing a 100% complete response (CR) rate. The researchers emphasize that these findings are limited to mice, but they believe the results provide an encouraging proof of concept for developing new bacterial cancer therapies.
First, E. americana directly attacks tumors. As a facultative anaerobic bacterium, it thrives in both oxygen rich and oxygen poor environments, allowing it to multiply inside the oxygen deprived regions commonly found within tumors. Once there, the bacterial population increased by roughly 3,000 fold within 24 hours after treatment, directly damaging cancer cells.
Second, the bacterium stimulates the immune system. Its presence attracted T cells, B cells, and neutrophils into tumors. These immune cells then released inflammatory signaling molecules, including TNF- and IFN-, which strengthened the immune response and promoted cancer cell death.
One of the most striking findings was that E. americana accumulated almost exclusively inside tumors and did not colonize healthy organs.
They found that the bacteria were rapidly cleared from the bloodstream, with a half life of approximately 1.2 hours, and became undetectable within 24 hours. No bacterial colonization was detected in healthy organs, including the liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, or heart.
The treatment caused only mild, temporary inflammation that returned to normal within 72 hours. During a 60 day observation period, the researchers found no evidence of chronic toxicity.
Comment Re:So what you are saying is ... (Score 1) 152
Ignore network traffic until security self-defenses are in place.
Yeah, you can have a buffer overflow anytime, and they can be bad, but the situation explicitly pointed out an "invaders not recognized as evil before armed guards are posted" situation.
If this had been a bad buffer overflow that occurred AFTER the defenses were in place, maybe it would've resulted in a compromise, or maybe the defenses would've rendered it ineffective.
Comment So what you are saying is ... (Score 2) 152
... the machine can be affected by outside input before it's security/self-defense system is ready?
Oops.
Comment "Most" is a very low bar (Score 1) 69
"Of every 2 million sold, less than 1 million are affected!"
