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Comment Re:TDS (Score 1) 274

It means Iran has severely limited the capacity of the Strait of Hormuz. It's a hostage situation. No one is winning, but the objective isn't to win in the sense of completely closing the Strait, the objective is to create a sufficiently long period of pain that eventually the US and its allies walk away. Christ almighty, force multiplication is hardly a new concept.

Comment Re: A giant step forward for mankind (Score 1) 274

There are plenty of places in North America without coverage because there's so little to cover. The Los Vegas metropolitan area has about three million people. So yes, that would be a place with cell phone coverage. By the same token, coverage in states like Montana, particularly in mountainous areas is spotty because, well, there's not a lot of people.

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: The long-term impact of this on the US (Score 2) 195

I suspect you were just asked to be nice, and through a combination of spectrum OCD and insufficient cognitive therapy, you decided somehow you were being asked to do something wrong.

So you helped elect an ignorant sociopath. Congrats on that. Maybe you should have attended more of those cognitive therapy sessions.

Comment Re:Their real argument (Score 1) 137

Jesus Fucking Christ. It's 2026, Trump has been putting his boot on the necks of major networks and studios for a year and a half now. I realize you probably fell into a coma in 2016, but ten years later, the free press, regardless of what you think of it, or fair you imagine it is, is under direct assault. Fuck off with the "MSM" bullshit and grow the fuck up.

Comment Re:Makes no sense (Score 1) 177

This is absurd on so many levels.

To start with, it's not like the lawsuit has anything to do with what state they're based in. The California AG happens to be leading it, but it's a coalition of 12 states. It's not as if they could escape the suit by moving to another state. This is purely a pressure tactic, nothing more.

I believe they can. States can only sue companies that operate in their state. If Paramount moves to a state that isn't in that coalition, the other 12 will have a difficult time collecting.

Actually moving would be incredibly expensive. Build entirely new studios. Relocate all their employees. Lose a whole lot of employees who don't want to relocate.

And exactly who's going to employ all those who refuse to move? California unemployment isn't exactly stellar these days.

And anywhere else they moved to would be a worse place. They're located in Los Angeles because that's the heart of the film industry. That's where the workers are. That's where all the other companies that support the industry are. Trying to operate in Georgia or Tennessee would be much harder for them.

Your information is...dated. There are thriving film industries in Georgia, for example. It got so good California got scared of it. Granted, things have scaled back a bit in recent years, but that's tracking the overall decline of the film industry. LA is even worse.

Even if they somehow decided it made sense to move, that's not a decision you make quickly or lightly. It would take long and careful planning to choose a new location and prepare for the move. But here he is, saying they're going to start moving in less than two months, and he hasn't even decided what state to move to. Is anyone really supposed to take this seriously?

Please, don't take it seriously. Then, when it happens, it'll be far more shocking.

If in spite of everything he really tries to go through with this, expect a shareholder lawsuit and calls for the board to fire him. But he'd have to be crazy to really do it.

Shareholders have this odd habit of wanting their CEO to do things that increase the profitability of the company. Given how many businesses are fleeing the anti-business climate of California for Florida, Texas, and other business-friendly states -- and thriving in those new states -- they might just give him a raise.

Comment Re: drop in the bucket (Score 1, Insightful) 177

Why do you people have so many weird fantasies about California? Obsessed much? It's fucking weird, dude.

No state has ever gone bankrupt. California's economy is the fourth largest in the world.

Take your meds. Reconnect with reality.

And yet, with all that economy, they still can't make budget

One could be forgiven for saying they can't afford to lose a single dollar of potential tax revenue.

Comment Re: Put out fires quickly letting fuel build up (Score 4, Insightful) 33

40% of Canada's land area is covered in forests. It is simply impossible to "manage" that much forest, and it's utterly fucking absurd to suggest otherwise. And to try to take climate change out of the equation is just a way of misdirecting away from the actual fucking cause; GHG emissions raising surface temperatures.

When will humans stop buying the most trivially fucking moronic red herrings? What a disreputable idiotic species.

Comment Re:Put out fires quickly letting fuel build up (Score 2) 33

It's almost as if allowing emissions to ramp up with little meaningful effort to control them is having the inevitable consequences predicted decades ago. But let's not deal with that, because it's hard. Instead let's have the President of the United States demand Canada hold back the tides.

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