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Comment Re:How is the Ukraine war going? (Score 1) 64

I don't know if you're a russian bot or some deluded idiot, but it amuses me to do a breakdown of your post.

NATO turned what was originally intended to be a mostly peaceful show of force like the temporary invasion of Georgia into a war of attrition.

First of all the "peaceful show of force" "temporary" invasion of Georgia involved a few hundred dead in the first two days, and another 5000+ civilians killed in the ethnic cleansing after that, all for a land-grab to seize control of territory covering half of Georgia's coastline that Putin wanted.

Secondly, the "peaceful show of force" "temporary" invasion of Ukraine involved hundreds dead, ballistic and cruise missile attacks on all of Ukraine's largest cities, and Putin publicly admitting the goal of overthrowing the Ukrainian government... and that's just within the first 36 hours. Within two and a half months Russian officials began admitting the intent to permanently annex parts of Ukraine, proceeding with a constitutional amendment a few months later claiming to annex vast territories that Russian had not remotely taken control of, and which Russia is not remotely capable of capturing. Donetsk alone has a population of over a million, two million if you include the metro-area. Russia spent months and many thousand of lives to capture, and later lose, villages in the range of low tens of thousands.

Remember WWI when the lines were pretty much static for years and then suddenly it was all over?

Yes, I remember. As I recall it wasn't exactly "sudden". As I recall... Russian casualties were around five million killed, wounded, or captured, the Russian economy was collapsing, Russia was running out of food, and Russian literally lost it's own capital to civilian rebellion. A few months later the Russian government collapsed and surrendered vast territories including Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, parts of Poland and Ukraine to Germany and its allies (known as the Central Powers). Right about that point the U.S. joined the war reinvigorating the Allied Powers. Germany&friends knew they couldn't win a protracted war. They attempted a quick win, and, in short, they failed. The Allied powers steadily beat them down, with the allies eventually breaking through the lines and progressively liberating territory. With the Allies steadily advancing and the war obviously lost, German forces began rebelling and Germany surrendered.

That's what's happening here. Russia has most of Donbas plus a buffer zone in some other regions that directly border Russia. Ukraine is throwing men at the front lines for Russia to kill but is running out. Territory held is largely irrelevant compared to the number of men killed and weapons destroyed.

So much to unpack there, but it's amusing how you cite "territory held is largely irrelevant" given that the tide has turned and Ukrainians are now the ones breaking through lines and liberating territory from Russian occupation. It's not much yet, but all the map trackers show the reversal. Russia is now officially loosing more territory than they gain. Russia WAS slowly gaining small bits of land, largely through sending meat waves of untrained ill equipped soldiers at Ukrainian lines until the Ukrainians ran out of ammo and had to fall back. However now 7 out of 10 Russians killed are killed by drones. The "no man's land" between the two sides is now many kilometers wide. Any Russian trying to advance gets hit by a drone. Russia has also losing on average 1 air defense system every day, and rapidly depleting. Russian supply lines are getting pummeled by drones. Russian refineries are getting pummeled by drones, with progressively worsening fuel shortages for both the military and for the increasingly rebellious population. Cheap advanced Ukrainian drones are taking out expensive crappy Russian drones, including Russian's new jet-drones. Practically every country on earth is asking Ukraine for their military drone tech, the Russians can't remotely match it. Russian's economy is also fucked, but that topic pretty needs a separate book to cover.

Interesting side notes on weapons destroyed. Russia is destroying it's aircraft almost as fast as Ukraine is, between incompetence and maintenance failures and friendly fire shooting down their own aircraft. Also the nation that is the biggest donor of tanks to Ukraine is... Russia. Ukraine captured countless Russian tanks intact because the Russian military is so abysmal incompetent and corrupt. And as I mentioned, Russian air defense units are depleting. The war is now approaching 5 years, longer than the entirety of WW1. Ukraine is a small fraction of Russia's size, and Russian is literally losing and headed towards another soviet-union-style collapse. The biggest shock to the world of this entire war is just how worthless Putin has made Russian military, through systemic corruption and systemic incompetence.

Polls show the Ukrainian population isn't interested in surrendering. They are defending their homes. It's simple, the war will end when all the soldiers go home. When Russian soldiers go back to their homes in Russia, and when Ukrainian soldiers go back to their homes in the currently occupied parts of Ukraine. Although that's not likely to happen until Putin either expires or is overthrown. Not only is he fanatical enough to drive his country to collapse in the attempt, he knows if he did end the war in failure he'd get killed or overthrown for it.

Anyway, pointless reply to a bot or a useful idiot. But maybe some random passer-by will find some bits interesting. I don't know about the rest of the world, but mainstream US news rarely mentions the Ukraine war anymore, and certainly not in any detail.

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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 "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:Like vegetable burgers? Meal worm protein? (Score 1) 129

If you don't like my source then perhaps you can provide one that is better.

I just reviewed every result on the first page of Google search for: beef greenhouse climate. EVERY SINGLE ONE explains, in one way or another, that beef has a significant and grossly disproportionate impact on the climate. The Economist, Scientific American, The Guardian, Forbes, World Resource Institute, Vox, BBC, Science(published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science), Sciencedirect, the United Nation's FAO, and countless more. Take your pick. Or you could try
Environmental impact of meat production with over 200 sources cited.

Global warming in general, and the impact of beef in particular, are all way past the point where denialism requires actively avoiding and disregard wall-to-wall sources saying the same thing.

If we are concerned about the global warming impact of eating beef then I'm thinking we did so well with the big emitters of coal, petroleum, natural gas, cement, and metal refining, that we are looking to the teeny tiny impact of beef.

If you are bleeding from multiple wounds, I'm sure you know full well that was not a valid argument AGAINST bandaging the easily fixed bleeding immediately, while experts attempt to get the more severe and difficult bleeding under control.

We have not remotely halted global warming. We have barely begun to slow it down, due to decades of sabotage by denialists. The only way we can possibly solve this problem is a few percent at a time in many different ways and many different places. As all of the top Google search results explain, reducing beef consumption is the quickest and easiest thing we can do to immediately and significantly shift things several percent in the right direction. Several percent translates into years of difference, and a lower peak temperature.

As for the rest of your post, I very carefully checked and double checked. Not one sentence was remotely addressed how much impact beef does or does not have. I'm not sure why, but you spent four paragraphs 100% dedicated to arguing that your signature is false and absurd.

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Comment Re:Like vegetable burgers? Meal worm protein? (Score 1) 129

Beef is one of the top cause of climate change?

Yes.

I thought I'd look that up and a study from Oklahoma State University says beef production causes 1.9% of the CO2 emissions from human activity.

That's called confirmation bias. You went looking for a specific answer, you ignored all of the reliable sources and all of the evidence contradicting the answer you wanted, and you latched on to the first random thing that kinda-sorta looked like the answer you wanted.

In this case you quote a fragment about CO2, and you utterly disregarded methane. Methane is 25 to 80 times more powerful of a greenhouse gas than CO2, and beef production accounts for approximately one third of all human caused methane in the US.

Beef is indisputably an order of magnitude more environmentally damaging than any other category of food. You could buy anywhere from 10 to 200 pounds of virtually any non-meat food, eat one pound and literally burn all of the rest, and it would have less environmental impact than a pound of beef. Beef is obviously only one of many contributors to global warming, but it is a significant factor.

Global warming is not remotely "solved". Temperatures are rising, we haven't stopped the increase, we haven't even managed to slow the increase. Temperatures are still on a basically straight-line increase. There are various initiatives to eventually try to get things under control, but we're nowhere near achieving that. Temperatures are going to continue to rising for decades to come, because denialists have spent the last decades devoted to sabotage.

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Comment In related news (Score 0) 76

Nvidia will reduce the number of GPUs it sells to manufacturers of graphics cards and laptops so that those manufacturers can clear out their existing inventory.

In related news, Ford has decided to reduce the number of Edsels it will sell so car dealerships can clear out their existing inventory,
Microsoft has decided to reduce the number of copies of Vista it will sell so Computer makers can can clear out their existing inventory,
CocaCola decided to reduce the number of bottles of NewCoke they sell so supermarkets can clear out their existing inventory,
and Republicans have decided to reduce the number of their voters they send to vote so that... ummm elections can clear out their inventories?

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Comment TRUSTED COMUPTING (Score 1) 195

Quoting the technical specifications: ...FDO software client is installed on the device.
A Root of Trust key (RoT) is also created inside the device to uniquely identify it. This RoT can take the form of cryptographic keys built into the silicon processor (or associated TPM)...

"TPM" is Trusted Platform Module. The "Root of Trust" is is the master security key locking the cryptography on the device - a key which are are explicitly forbidden to know or control. And of course this is the keys locked in the device must "uniquely identify" the device.

The Trust module is now being embedded inside new CPUs.

If you do not activate the Turst system, and given master control of you computer, you are locked out of the system, and locked out of any website based on the system. The next step is that you must register the unique identiy with a CetrificateAuthority/RendesvousService, and prove that the computer is secure against you. This is called "Trust" - specifically your computer is Trusted not to give you your keys, your computer is Trusted not to permit you to use those keys except as defied by them.

If you are not using an approved Operating system, you are locked out. If you have made any changes to your operating system, you are locked out. If you have not installed mandatory-updates from the operating system provider, you are locked out. Locked out of the system. Locked out of all websites based on the system. Locked out of any and all of your own files which were downloaded under this system. It's a Master DRM which owns your system, Trusted to be secure against the owner.

In case anyone hadn't noticed, Microsoft has made Trust chips (or Trust CPUs) mandatory for Windows 11.

There was outrage when Trusted Computing was announced, but they just quietly kept rolling it forwards. Baking it inside most new CPUs now. Some people tried to dismiss or deny or as hypothetical or paranoid or a conspiracy theory. Here it is, mandatory for Windows 11. And being forced out by Apple, and Google.

By the way, one of the earliest declared purposes for Trusted computing - given in a world cybersecurity forum keynote speech by the U.S. head of cybersecurity - was to force out operating system updates to protect against viruses and worms. Specifically, you would be denied internet access if your computer did not have the latest Opearting system updates. And of course, you would be denied internet access if your computer had an unapproved or unknown operating system. Microsoft built this - it's called Trusted Network Connect. Of course they're not stupid enough to roll that out - not until Trust is already mandatory in all common modern computer and phone hardware.... and inside CPUs... and major operating systems... and of course they wouldn't do that unless major websites were already making Trusted Computing mandatory. Oh wait that's what this story is announcing, making Trusted Computing mandatory in place of website passwords.

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Comment Re:The children! (Score 1) 78

Tip: You might want to review more carefully before posting rants, especially when the target was posted at +2 reflecting earned Karma from a history of reputable posting.

You might also want to read https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/22/world-end/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law. I deliberately attempted to account for Poe's Law, in that the five thousand year old quote mentions "algorithms". That should have been a clear hint.

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