Best joke of the day, but I was hoping for something about the misnomer. Floss refers to the stringy stuff and there's no string in this story?

But I might have asked my dentist about this if I'd seen the story before my last visit. Pert' shure I'll have forgotten all about it by the next time...

Very productive opening joke. Thanks.

Last paragraph.

We can only hope, but I predict it ain't gonna happen. Sadly.

Currently reading How AI Thinks by Nigel Toon. Some interesting bits and it's going quickly, but not seeing anything much to recommend in it. The intersection of "experts on AI" and "people who write well" remains small, though it may become more difficult to tell if they use AI to help write? I think it's only the deepest experts who can really explain things clearly, whereas AI is mostly focused on sounding deep with hallucinatory seasonings as convenient.

I thought they were all independent contractors!!!

Assume there's a legitimate company out there that will verify driver's licenses. Do they really need to store everything "online"? No, they do not.

They can store it "offline" with a 1- or 2- minute delay to access the data, caching it in "online" systems for maybe 15 minutes.

This, plus alarms when large amounts of data is being moved from "offline" to "online" in a short period of time, would've either made this leak slower than it was or, more likely, led to this year-long leak being discovered and plugged long ago.

Is this inconvenient? Sure, but it's not a practical impediment for "batch jobs" like employment identity verification.

For "real time" things like renting a car, the vendors will have to begin the verification process, do things to "kill time" like review the auto-rental contract or go with the sales clerk to inspect the car, then tell the customer "you are good to go" or "we need more information to verify your identity."

For situations like a bank where you can't "fill the time," the bank can set up a highly-secure on-premises id-verification computer that can act as a long-term cache. Everyone whose ID isn't locally cached will need to "step aside" for a minute while their ID is verified. Or better yet, they can start the ID-verification process before getting to the front of the line.

I think AT&T (pre-1984) and the "Baby Bells" (1984 on) stopped putting lead shielding around copper cables in the 1970s or the early 1980s.

Legacy Lead-Sheathed Telecommunications Cables: Status and Issues for Congress is a report from 2023 that says

The report is light on details though. It's also not clear what part of the modern AT&T overlaps with the pre-1984-breakup version of AT&T.

Among the many features that could improve Slashdot... You got me to try to figure out if it's a parody account or a sincere moron.

However with that many digits it must be a fresh identity. I think age should be one of the main features of that imaginary MEPR (Multidimensional Earned Public Reputation) system I used to daydream about. I still feel like there should be a measurable symmetry between reactions to comments and the reputation of the identity that wrote the comment, so that a history of reactions would clarify whether an identity is deliberately or accidentally being funny.

On the one hand I can't even figure out which dimensions of MEPR would assess "sanity", though it does seem clear to me that anyone who is still defending the YOB has at least one loose screw rattling around upstairs. Time to take a break from Claude games and see if any of the AIs know of a website with MEPR?

The angle I was looking for on this story was about the Chinese side, and yours was the "most significant" comment in that direction. (But the Chinese are not limited to batteries and electric cars for priority technologies...) Now about the funny side...

I'm expecting the #YOB to respond by signing a decree banning solar panels. Mostly because he hates California, but his official zero dark thirty excuse will be "Made in China". Or maybe a special economic emergency "justifying" a million percent tariff? (Xi will not be amused, which is likely to have repercussions in Iran and Taiwan, but who's looking forward these days?)

Joke of the week is still under development. Something in the chicken and egg genre. Did the sick YOB make America unwell? But how did the YOB ever become so YUGE, so Orange, and such a Buffoon? America's worst product and not suitable for export, even to such friendly places as Russia or North Korea or Epstein's island.

Look at the xkcd comic. In most* cases, important thing - the thing that makes xkcd xkcd - is the dialog. The drawing is literally a bunch of stick figures.

Coding can be similar. Parts of your code can be boring simplistic things that are the code-equivalent of stick figures. But if you want anyone but your "proud family" to appreciate it, it better do something interesting.

* the xkcd fans reading this - and that will be most of you - know there fantastic exceptions where the artwork is, well, fantastic

Bring a laptop that displays a GOATSE or other "MY EYES, THEY BURN, MAKE IT STOP" image if you power it on without pressing "magic keys" that enable a normal boot.

If you are worried about people stealing things for the value of the parts, equip it with hardware-self-destruct that goes off when the cover is removed (but have some way to deactivate it in case you need to remove the cover).

I see a future where travelers going to high-risk areas use laptops with everything soldered onto the motherboard AND where the motherboard won't work unless a specific device is within radio range or plugged in. Think Apple-iPhone-style "parts paring" but for laptops, and one part can go in your pocket.

My guess is they knew of the name's history. There's a case to be made that it's an homage, but IMHO a stronger case to be made that the confusion outweighs any merits of this name. "Multikernel Linux" would've been better.

from SMALLNUM lines of C and pre-processor code.

When it works well, AI-generated code is almost* just raising things to a higher level of abstraction.

* if only it were just that. Unfortunately, "vibe coding" gives you unreproducible/non-deterministic output, merely raising to the next level of abstraction should give you consistent output. It would be like compiling C code where your headers and libraries change out from under you unpredictably and with every build.

There must be some funny around here somewhere. I've already seen some worthy stuff, but...