Recently did an image search on regular DDG, no AI filter, and was astonished by how much AI slop I got. Like, at least half the results were slop. The filter isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing.

The largest “public” scientific institutions in the United States are the national labs. Most famously, Los Alamos, but also INL, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Fermilab, NREL, NTL and some others I am forgetting. From my experience, their mission tends to be less aligned with “doing science to benefit people,” and more aligned with, “doing science that’s too expensive or risky for businesses to do themselves.” Or, “doing science for ‘national security.’” You see very much the same thing at NASA, where they consult and do science on technologies expressly to benefit the business.

In comparison, the largest scientific institution in Europe is CERN, and is rather equivalent to the US’s national labs. Though I have no direct experience with CERN, from what I have seen from their experiments and practices, they tend to do science more for the sake of science compared with the American labs.

Granted, this is a vast oversimplification of the topic, but the point still stands, “the US government is aligned with companies that exploit science for profit.”

Exactly. The cotton gin is so often an under looked invention in American history, but it single-handedly solidified the power of slave owners and their reliance on slave labor. The promise of new lands to extract value from via plantations must have been extremely tempting to the slave owners.

Another unfun fact, that’s why Oklahoma has a panhandle. Texas wanted to enter the Union as a slave state, but it wasn’t allowed below a certain line of latitude. So Texas gave up some of its territory to ensure it could enter as a slave state, and a portion of that territory became the panhandle.

As posts over in Piefed are saying, it was about the state’s rights to have slavery. Very specifically, it was about the right for new states to have slavery. Till that point, the political divide was along slave states VS not slave states, a divide which partially exists to this day. As such, to maintain the balance of political power, each new territory added as a state would alternate between being a slave state and free state. However, with expansion into the west, a representation of progress and freedom, the federal government proposed a ban, not on slavery, but the enacting of new slave states. All existing Southern states would still have slavery.

I’m skeptical, but not against it. It’s not an existential threat to humanity as the general populous believes, but it’s also not a silver bullet. Assuming we as a society wish to create more electricity (which is a pretty massive assumption, but a story for another time), nuclear power is the most appealing and effective option. Kyle Hill on YouTube has explained this in great depth. However, the wast disposal is still mildly problematic and always will be. What’s more, the mining is certainly not a solved problem, and brings with it a reasonably high risk of contamination.

Perhaps if I knew a government agency trustworthier than the DOE (or US government as a whole) was involved, I would feel differently. However, I have seen how they have operated currently and historically first hand, and I don’t find their methods satisfactory.

Personally, I think the better method is reduction of energy consumption. When I worked for the DOE, I was told that utilities were bleeding money, and ready to go bankrupt because household appliances had reduced demand that much. So they lobbied for electric vehicles, which has strained the grid in some ways, but that’s a complicated story for another time. But as many of you already know, an EV is a highly ineffective means of reducing carbon emissions in the long-term. While more effective than gas, public transit, bicycles, and changes to infrastructure as the more effective means of reducing carbon emissions long-term.

37 mentioned!

Same boat, really don’t want to keep supporting them, because of the reasons others have mentioned. But I have something like four or five emails, not to mentioned hundreds of relays, it would be really hard to lose if I ditched them as my provider.

Unless your super concerned about weight, Shimano CUES/Linkglide is the way to go. It has revised shift ramps a lot like Sram Transmission which provides a far smoother and more consistent shift under load. I’m assuming it’s a city bike, so I would say do the 9 speed U4000 groupset. If you want a larger range, the 10 speed U6000 would be great or 11 speed U6000 if your winching up ridiculous grades on an eMTB.

I have also heard rather excellent things about Microshifts newer stuff. It’s a complicated tradeoff between the two lineups, Shimano will have better shift ramps and parts availability, Microfift may prove more durable and reliable in the long run. It may also be easier to source Microsfit as a home mechanic, compared to Shimano. It’s really hard to say, but both are rather excellent options.

Agreed. A large reason I express Georgist policies publicly is not because I think it’s the correct solution, but because I think it’s the most likable to Americans who are so convinced “socialism bad.” Often when I express anarchist ideas I find myself getting shot down with “oh, that’s communism.” We are moving toward a goal, but that goal cannot be realized in one fell swoop, rather we need to take small steps toward it.

What’s interesting is that this is far more an example of a social, rather than political, failing of our society. We can all agree that social media is harmful to everyone in many contexts, but can also provide a certain benefit in the sharing of knowledge, information, and ideas. How many of us had something of a queer awakening after being exposed it on social media? I sure as heck fall into that boat.

I once heard it equated to drinking, your taught from your parents what a responsible (or not) way of in taking alcohol is. Same with driving, same with work. In all these things were there is a fine balance of harm and benefit, we are taught be the older generation. But what if there is no older generation to teach us? Well, as is the case with certain indigenous communities in Alaska where no alcohol existed, you find yourself with no one being responsible. For the regulators, the obvious solution is an outright ban. But banning subsistence that are “bad” for you if addictive, never works. Prohibition, and the war on drugs are key examples of that.

We see this and scoff, because we are the ones who, though trial and error, found something approaching that balance. We see the harm is not in the social platforms themselves, but rather in the algorithmic monetization creating great psychological harm for everyone. We see that anyone using the internet is (more or less) a pseudonymous peer, and attempting to classify groups by geography and/or age is quite foolish. We also see the abuse and harm that attempting to do so would cause. Unfortunately, but rather predictably, the politicians are corrupt ass hats in the pocket of big-tech and invariably, make exceedingly stupid laws greatly to the detriment of the people. It is, therefore, of my opinion that the only reasonable solution is to get rid of them in their entirety Ⓐ.

Listened to a rather interesting episode of Darknet Diaries the other day about a European cyber crime group. To this day, the FBI has been unable to decrypt the devices. The feds didn’t give too many details about the specifics, but what they did share was quite interesting:

• Five layers of encryption, each with unique passwords.
• LUKS root partition presumably tied to TPM2.
• Veracrypt or truecrypt volumes in userland.
• A custom-made encryption toolkit.

From what I gathered, I think the optimal balance of usability and security (especially for a headless machine) would be the following:

• LUKS root volume tied to TPM to protect against cloning of disk. Also, nothing too valuable ever lives on root.
• More important data stored behind a FUSE encryption layer like gocryptfs, these can be easily opened remotely. You can also tie the password to data hidden inside the LUKS volume for effective two-password protection if the volume is not already behind a LUKS layer.
• If your really concerned, add in additional layers as needed. You can tie LUKS to TPM and FIDO, not sure if you can set up a two password mode, but that would be quite nice. You can also (probably) tie FUSE based systems to biometrics like Howdey or fingerprint sensors if you have them. This could also be setup in a kind of two-password mode for a single volume. Realistically, two layers of encryption is overkill, but it’s more about ensuring multiple layers of redundancy rather than making it harder to crack.
• I can’t recommend systemd because of its numerous security vulnerabilities, but homed does have a neat feature where it will unmount encrypted home volumes when your computer goes to sleep. Not sure how effective or useful it is, but it is a nice feature. Been wanting to see if I can setup something similar on Chimera/Artix with dinit user services.
• Defiantly set up duress key-codes/panic buttons. Likewise, been wanting to write a clone of swaylock with duress code support, but as far as I know, nothing of the sort exists right now.

It is also very much worth noting, even though the FBI never got into the hackers’ computers, they had more than enough evidence to convict the lot. Being the defender of a computer system is always a losing battle.

This isn’t exactly new. And it didn’t end well in the past either. After the completion of the Manhattan Project, a number of private entities begun building plutonium weapons. Notably, Rockwell International (yes, that Rockwell), ran a site outside of Denver called Rocky Flats. Ended up being one of the worst ecological disasters in American history. Plutonium will catch on fire, so there were a number of plutonium fires at the plant, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Their disposal and treatment techniques were woefully inadequacy, and untold amounts of plutonium leaked into the environment. The EPA, CDPH, and DOE all knew about the process and did nothing. The FBI had to step in and raid the plant, and even still, it ran for years during court proceedings. Rather conveniently, those court documents were sealed, and later lost.

What is new here is the fact that the Trump administration already plays fast and lose with the rules. Moreover, random tech billionaires have no right so much as looking at the most dangerous substance in the world, weapons grade plutonium. So to say this will end poorly would be the understatement of the century.

P.S. Highly recommend reading up on the history of the DOE. The story of Rocky Flats, the national labs, and nuclear weapons program is so much longer and wilder than what I could put here.

I bought a 26" new a couple of years ago (well, a dirtjumper), one of my all time favorite bikes!

Absolutely agree. More I said that because it explicitly pisses off the CCP.

Wonder if the boot device died. Behavior is in line with some NVMe failure modes I have encountered.

LMFAO! The whole thing is some doublethink BS, but this line really got me!

The court noted that the Commission had failed to take into account that ⁠private ​jets could be flown ​on sustainable fuel.

Hello Chinese state-actors, I hope this message finds you well: Free Tibet! Free the Uyghurs! Taiwan is a sovereign state! The nine dashed line is bullshit! China is a capitalist fascist state!

I release it back in the wild. It’s not giving it away or selling it if it “runs away.”

When I first heard the term, I expected some real Nile Blue turning cardboard into estrogen type shit.