What you mean to say is "I'm old and I don't like Roblox because it's not what I am used to." Roblox has 80 million active daily users and 5 billion in revenue annually. Not only that, if you talk to anyone under 18, the IS THE BIGGEST GAME by a long shot. It's bigger than minecraft and fortnite combined. It's bigger than any mobile game. Trust me, the kids feel the same way about the games I love to play, INCLUDING Fortnite. It is a cultural phenomena bigger than any boy band, Pokemon, even most consoles. My kids' friends? They don't want a PS5 filled with AAA hits. They just want to play Roblox with their friends.

You understand you're the villain in this story right? You're the preacher in footloose. You're Tipper Gore banning 2 Live Crew. You're those frigid church ladies saying Heavy Metal and Dungeons and Dragons will turn your children into satanists, while their husbands sneak off from their suburban homes, pretending to work late, but actually fucking their sidepieces. You're that old man complaining about whatever you listened to in High School saying "that's not REAL music." You're that dick who was telling teenage me Rage Against the Machine was garbage because it wasn't Led Zepplin and how my music isn't "cool" like your classic rock.

I don't get Roblox either. A few of the games are actually fun, like 99 Nights in the Forest. My kids and I have parties where we all play that. Most are weird and pointless to me, but I'm fucking old with grey chest hairs. I'm not supposed to get what the kids are into. It would be weird if my dad was begging to go to a Nine Inch Nails concert with me when I was in high school. This is their Sex Pistols, Alice Cooper, rap-music, hair-metal, New Kids on the Block, N'Sync, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, or whatever confused, scared, or annoyed your parents.

My kids and all their friends have distinct taste in Roblox games. It's a MASSIVE phenomena among all their classmates. There are endless youtubers making content about it. Again...boring to me...but I have no hair, am on blood pressure medicine and have a solid retirement plan. I'm OLD. And clearly you are too if you're confident about making a statement that out of touch.

Quick question: Is she wrong?

The previous post made a point, which you totally sidestepped.

I have no opinion on Sabing Hossenfelder either way, but I get the impression that physics has largely stalled over the last few decades.

So... I'm just wondering, Is she wrong?

You seem very angry... A nobel prize in penguin country should make any self-respecting Linux nerd happy !
Anyway, this observatory doesn't just prove that neutrino exist, we already knew that as you mention, but it is also highly directional and can build a map of sources. The JWST is very noce, yes, but it only take *better* pictures than previously. This allows for an entirely new view on the universe, in the same groundbreaking way as the gravity wave detectors. A few years ago everything we knew about the universe was from photons: radio, optics, then UV, IR, gamma, etc... but still electromagnetic. Then we build (I built !!!) cosmic ray detectors. And now neutrinos and a few others. It's great.

About 25 years ago, I was at a bbq where I spent the evening chatting with this guy named Lars Knoll. Even though I was busting my butt with my team to develop the Opera for Linux web browser, this guy had been hired by TrollTech after he had developed something called Konquerer which was becoming the default HTML rendering engine in the KDE project. He wrote the whole thing on top of the KDE libraries which were painfully slow. He rendered text and for controls using the KDE objects which were rarely more than Qt objects with a little KDE specific stuff on top. I remember thinking "there's no point thinking much about this because there's no chance it could compete with a real browser like Opera".

Shortly after, I was in Cupertino sitting across from a strange product manager type. His name was Tim Cooke. We were discussing developing the default web engine for this new Mac OS X project which was coming along. We would have to develop for Carbon because Apple hadn't implemented Objective C++ yet and we were a C++ shop and we couldn't use half the developers in the company to make a C abstraction layer for Cocoa. We came to an agreement and Apple sent us a palette full of the latest G4 macs and screens. I remember fighting over the 21" screens like children. We had an idiot project manager who insisted that we implement the browser the way Adobe was demanding. It didn't matter that we were pretty much the "experts" on making cross platform embedded browser engines. He was like "Adobe said it... it must be done this way... they are gods".

Well long story short, while we were implementing a crap Carbon based browser engine using crap tools from Metrowerks instead of the good Apple tools (which weren't that good yet). Apple put together a team which abstracted the KDE libraries and built bindings to C and then Objective-C/Cocoa. And they abstracted out everything that was platform specific otherwise from KHTML (Konquerer's underlying html widget) and wrapped it in a Cocoa wrapper and a Carbon wrapper and shipped it as Webkit and Safari. And man did it suck.

Who would have ever imagined that Lars Knoll's half assed KDE web browser would have eventually become the defacto Web standard and the default web browsing engine in every operating system... including Windows... except the strange 5 user corner case operating systems.

Don't bash a project like this. It has value. I immediately considered that I have had many cases in recent times where it could have been of value to me. That said, I wouldn't run a C based web browser engine ever. It's not that you can't write a good web browser in C. It's just that it's the wrong tool for the job. At 160,000 lines, it's a small job to port to something else. When JavaScript evolves into a JIT and the JS runtime is thunking the heck out of the DOM, then it's pretty much no longer an option. Oh, and someone will think it's a good idea to implement proper form controls. That's an insanely massive project, especially when adding WebGL as well. If this browser core catches on, which unfortunately due to the license, I don't expect it will, it will likely be 5 million lines of code almost overnight.

Yeh, no.

Three major events started "trade wars" and the government propaganda anti-China rhetoric.

1) 5G happened and Huawai was the only company with a full 5G implementation including millimeter wave and SA mode on release. Ericsson was 2-3 years behind. Nokia was 6. Huawei could deliver on day 1 and they cost much less because neither Sweden or Finland are ... well, they are terrible at competing. They simply expected China wouldn't be in the competition because... Why would they be. So, they were confused because they never had to actually compete against a company who actually did a good job.

Keep in mind, by now, nearly $2 trillion has been spent building 5G networks. Money to Sweden and Nokia recirculates. To China, it's horded and weakens the US.

2) Apple evaluated CXMT as RAM suppliers and YMTC and certified them as good enough for Apple to trust in their products and with their reputation. The US slammed the door shut on that. They are still making up excuses for why as there were no legitimate ones except that if those two companies get a foothold, the entire world semiconductor commodity trading market would collapse. As a result, non-Chinese companies can't legally license their tech to CXMT or YMTC so those companies operate patent free. But other companies have to pay license for their tech. This allows CXMT and YMTC to sell RAM and Flash for half the price. If the US lifts sanctions, in 3 years or less, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron could be considering bankruptcy of their RAM divisions and CXMT could aggressively dump RAM to collapse the value of the patents.

3) China focused on brands. Before Chinese brands happened, buying expensive Chinese products was a high risk, Huawei, Xiaomi and others started legitimizing Chinese premium brands. This made it so buying an $80k Chinese car was ok because it wasn't cheap Chinese no name crap.

The money floods to China and they invest in One China by spending obsessively on education and R&D. They raised 800 million people out of poverty so far. They know every yuan spent in China is worth it. They invest massively in Silk Road because they don't think 4 years at a time. Building infrastructure across Asia, South America and Africa will pay them back massively.

The one thing which will cause China's greatest growth will be when they start opening Chinese universities to the masses. It will be way bigger than any other Silk Road initiative. And it will devastate the US economy. The US cannot afford to lose access to the world's top talent and can't afford to lose control of who gets an education and who doesn't.

Did you know that China's defense against American anti-Chinese propaganda is simple pro-China marketing? Which do you think is working better long term globally?

There are people who see what's happening and prepares for the changes. There are fools who make idiotic comments like yours.

LOL, haven't heard Bike Shed used in a long time. Kudos. My uninformed opinion is we should just stick with standard time because it is the natural rhythm and stop screwing around the with the clocks.

...whoever wins, we lose! (from the movie poster)

Exactly. I give a few embedded/industrial linux lessons at the university. Some students regularly give me code with comments like "/* and here replace with the name of your variable */" or similar. Some people are not very bright.

You sound like a badass...are you proud of yourself? That was really macho, bro, yet dumber than shit. It's always been a stupid comment made by people who live in comfort and security. Without life, there is no freedom. If someone is trying to murder you, then your liberty is not a concern. You can talk about "deserving" until you're blue in the face. When I had a gun pointed at me, I wasn't too concerned about civil liberties. You're living in the burbs or a small town if you can utter such stupid things with a straight face. It's like the situation in Gaza or Ukraine, I can comfortably opine all I want from the safety of the USA. To the people facing constant threat of death, they don't really care about your opinions of what they deserve.

Chicago and Oakland have approx the same murder rate, but Chicago is a HUGE city geographically, including northern parts which are affluent suburbs. I lived on the South Side of Chicago, which has twice the population of Oakland and over 4x the murder rate. I heard gunfire nightly during the summer. Everyone in a high crime neighborhood wants BETTER police. And any sharp tool can be abused in the wrong hands, but I will wager if you polled Oakland residents, a majority would want ALPR technology if you could demonstrate it made their streets tangibly safer. White middle class liberals wring their hands about overstepping civil liberties. Those of us who worry about our safety are less concerned. You're sound like someone saying the homeless shelter is a terrible idea because they're not serving organically sourced food.

There's no simple answer. Stepping on Civil Liberties is bad....getting murdered is worse. You're clearly comfortable enough to view the police as the enemy. The people who lived in my old neighborhood were more scared of the local gangs than the police.

Concerns about a free society is a luxury cared for by those who are in danger. I guarantee you those fearing for their life walking home at night aren't concerned about a free society and being a pawn in your battle for your ideals. Your simplistic mottos are cold comforts for the moms burying their sons because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Life is messy and complicated. You're not even wrong....your ideals are noble, but the callous disregard for those protected by law enforcement is not.

Spotted the 2 privileged /. posters who have never been to a bad neighborhood before!, hence your simplistic and childish view of police officers. You sound like children demanding no one should ever get shots because needles are ouchies! The intellect of the average police officer is due to it being a blue collar profession with low pay. The smarter ones go into different branches, like the FBI, DHS, etc. A police officer's primary function in the legal system is to get a suspect in front of a judge, who is the expert on innocence of guilt. The majority of police never draw their weapon nor face any danger from anything more threatening than traffic. If you're making such STUPID arguments, I'll wager your cops haven't had their life endangered recently.

Look, your life is really fucking good if a news story about police behavior that will never actually happen to you gets your little princess panties in a bunch. Mine is really good now. I still live in the city, but once I could afford to, I moved into a nice, gentrified neighborhood. 20 years ago, my neighborhood had a much higher crime rate. I also went to college on the South Side of Chicago and had to rely on my wits to not be a frequent victim of violent crime. Before then, I grew up 20 minutes outside of the sometimes murder capital of the USA.

Crime is not a theory for me. It is a realistic threat. I still need to rely on my wits not to invite violent crime on the subway or in many neighborhoods not far from my house. I have been a victim of break-ins, muggings, a random racial assault, being followed in bad neighborhoods, etc. For the people that live in areas with a heavy police presence, we don't want to defund the police. We don't hate the police. We hate it when they are the real criminals, but as bad as you see things on the TV?....there's 100-1000 people in our neighborhood who will do much worse to us. EVERYONE who needs the police wants better police, not fewer police.

Who is making mindless rants about Flock? People who have never felt threatened by crime and maybe some fucked up weirdos who are either casual criminals or secretly aspire to be ones. The Institute for Justice Database documents over 100 instances of automated license plate reader (ALPR and Flock) abuse in the United States. How much crime do we have? According to Google

Approximately 17,400 to 20,200 homicides per year nationally, depending on the baseline reporting year.

Roughly 920,000 to 1,110,000 reported motor vehicle thefts per year nationwide.

Kidnapping?...estimated broadly between 200,000 and 750,000 occurrences annually in connection with custody disputes and missing-person registry entries.

Flock's CEO stated that the technology "solved" 1 million crimes or supported approximately 1 million investigations and incidents in a year. Other company fact sheets alternatively claimed between 1,000+ crimes solved per day or 2,800+ crimes solved weekly.

Let's assume the CEO is full of shit and the number isn't 1 million. Also, just because flock was used, doesn't mean the crime wouldn't have been solved had it not been available. There are 50 murders per day. Let's say it isn't 1000, but 100 crimes per day actually solved by flock...I think the families of the murder victim would prefer to see their son's killer locked up rather than get self-righteous about a news story of a theoretical concern that will never happen to them or you.

However, what ratio would you tolerate? Are you a stupid, simplistic child who thinks that one criminal police officer stalking his ex girlfriend means those of us in bad neighborhoods should get murdered or have our killers never get arrested? Do criminals deserve to get away with stealing our cars and breaking into our homes? Do people in our community deserve to have their children kidnapped when a custody battle goes awry? How many Amber alerts will you tolerate for your sense of self-righteousness?

An adult would say Flock is dangerous and needs to be controlled, but actually look into facts to see if the risk is worth the reward. You 2 children went off on a "fuck the police" self righteous rant because...well frankly, I envy how nice your life must have been to be old enough to be on /. in 2026 and be more angry at the police than actual violent criminals.

I'm sure it is...but by how much. 10x? Sure, I'd believe that. 100x?...no, not really. I don't believe 6,900 police officers are stalking their exes. Most just want to do their job and go home, like anyone else. Most are happily married, boring civil servants. Most cops don't even have very stressful or dangerous lives. Most are working in the burbs or small towns and dealing with minor crimes or mundane cop duties...not the exciting stuff you see on TV.

The reported number is a nearly 100,000x ratio. Are you stupid enough to say 1 cop harassing his ex girlfriend is a bridge too far to prevent LOTS of abductions, murders, and thefts? If I had data indicating how much flock has reduced crime, I would tolerate a 1000x ratio, especially if the abuses are non-violent. Additionally, I have concerns about cost. How much are we paying? How much benefit are we getting? The Flock company is at the very least taking this seriously and putting more serious audit controls. If we need to have such a system, that's obviously a needed improvement.

In the end, rogue cops are a theoretical concern for me. Living in a major city, mundane crime is a realistic concern for me. I've been a victim of violent crime more than once and had my home broken into twice. So...yeah...those of us who have had our safety threatened by real criminals are not too sympathetic to the theoretical concerns about potential civil liberties abuse of comfy suburbanites living in full safety.

Googling there were 659,880 vehicles stolen in the last year alone and a total of 69 recorded instances of Flock abuse. Now, that obviously doesn't tell us how many were thwarted nor how many police abused Flock and weren't caught...but this is why I want number and enough of this stupid Flock emotional melodrama. Sounds to me like the Flock downsides are a bit overblown...but...I also don't know how to quantify the upsides.

Teslas, BMW's, Rivian, and Mercedes have cameras all around the vehicle that are always on, and if a security incident is detected they will save the video from a few minutes before the incident to right after the incident.

A quick search shows that Tesla theft (by example) is 90% to 99% lower than the national average, and I assume the other types are similar.

People do not steal cars because of *flock* cameras, they are always on, and the data is available to law enforcement with no oversight.

Personal vehicles save video locally, and it's only used when an actual crime is committed.

I'm in favor of public surveillance that's kept local to whichever user, in the manner of a ring doorbell video (if that were kept local, which it is not). It prevents crime without violating rights - the burglar shouldn't have been on the property to begin with.

This leads to an interesting thought. Flock is a company that keeps videos across the country and tracks vehicles, and soon to include facial recognition. Flock cameras would be entirely acceptable if the video were "owned" by someone local to the actual camera, so that police would have to query the owner to get a video.

I'm not sure who the "owner" would be in this case, but hypothetically if the camera were on the telephone pole outside of a house, if we consider the video owned by the property owner then the possibility of a rights violation would go down precipitously.

Just a thought, and an under-developed one.

We need new ideas to help solve new problems, here is one to chew on.