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jvisick

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jvisick ,

Here’s the original report: securelist.com/…/110903/

It doesn’t specifically attribute this to the NSA, and it’s very hard to definitively say who created what malware anyways.

That being said, if you read through the report, the details on this really scream “state actor” most probably. The level of modularity, the infrastructure of the C2 server, and the detailed & flexible spying capabilities all point to some government agency more than anything else.

Microsoft develops ultra durable glass plates that can store several TBs of data for 10000 years (unlocked.microsoft.com)

Microsoft develops ultra durable glass plates that can store several TBs of data for 10000 years::Project Silica’s coaster-size glass plates can store unaltered data for thousands of years, creating sustainable storage for the world

jvisick ,

Never read again? These can’t be modified, but they can be read. After all, it’d be pretty useless to store data on a medium than can never be read.

Tested: Windows 11 Pro's On-By-Default Encryption Slows SSDs Up to 45% (www.tomshardware.com)

Tested: Windows 11 Pro’s On-By-Default Encryption Slows SSDs Up to 45%::Windows 11 Pro defaults to BitLocker being turned on, using software encryption. We’ve tested the Samsung 990 Pro with hardware encryption to show how the various modes impact performance, and how muc

jvisick ,

Sure, but I suspect this is the real motivation for the article:

Windows 11 Pro force-enables the software version of BitLocker during installation, without providing a clear way to opt out

It sounds like many people may be using software encryption without realizing it, if Windows 11 Pro uses it by default.

jvisick ,

Admittedly I haven’t been looking that hard, but I don’t think I’ve seen a TV for sale in the past 10 years that wasn’t a “smart” TV.

jvisick ,

That’s because it makes sense when dynamically creating HTML. HTML is not a programming language, it’s simply markup - so if you want to generate some block of HTML in a loop and later access that block of HTML in JS (e.g. to interact with the UI separate from creating it in the first place), it’s a completely reasonable thing to do.

AI language models can exceed PNG and FLAC in lossless compression, says study (arstechnica.com)

While LLMs have been used for… a lot, it seems like this use might be one where it’s not only reliable but it appears to outperform existing methods of image compression. Being able to cram more data into less space tends to lead to interesting developments, so I will be keeping my eye on this....

jvisick ,

Just wanted to give props to this super informative comment. Thanks for the write up and relevant links!

jvisick ,

TS is “better” but often I feel like just configuring typescript takes up a significant amount of the time you save by using it.

jvisick ,

No worries, the Democrats will do what the party does best with a majority - pretty much nothing.

Enough to say “see? We’re better than the other guys”, but not enough to even nudge the status quo.

jvisick ,

Spotify pays artists based on how many listens their songs get, so if you can get a bunch of bots to stream your music over and over you can get a legitimate income stream.

In this case, they’re using their illegal income to pay people to use a botnet to stream their songs - which then means they have a nice legal income instead.

jvisick ,

But what if it was an African Swallow?

jvisick ,

Building microchips is really hard and Taiwan has held a practical monopoly on the industry for a while now. It’s not that the US doesn’t have educated workers, but it wouldn’t surprise me that it is hard to find many qualified to build the actual facilities to manufacture microchips - most of the US’s involvement in microchips has been designing them and then handing those designs over to Taiwan for manufacturing.

jvisick ,

The US can barely even put sidewalks where it’s convenient. I have very little hope for our local governments to add bike lanes to it.

jvisick ,

“If a student uses the college search tool on CB.org, the student can add a GPA and SAT score range to the search filters. Those values are passed [to Facebook]”

So they don’t associate your official score to your browser, but presumably students who are using that search tool would be searching their real score - or a range close to it.

The headline is fairly leading, but the statement from the College Board is also fairly misleading. They’re not directly selling your official score to advertisers, but they’re indirectly selling data about you that gives a pretty good idea of your score.

jvisick ,

“Sorry, our unbelievably massive military budget is only for active duty military. Best we can do is schedule you an appointment to talk to someone next year about the benefits you won’t be receiving.”

jvisick ,

I came across this one just yesterday and while it was convenient at first, I immediately got frustrated when I went to add some parameters and discovered it wasn’t actually curl

ChatGPT generates cancer treatment plans that are full of errors — Study finds that ChatGPT provided false information when asked to design cancer treatment plans (www.businessinsider.com)

ChatGPT generates cancer treatment plans that are full of errors — Study finds that ChatGPT provided false information when asked to design cancer treatment plans::Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that cancer treatment plans generated by OpenAI’s revolutionary chatbot were full of errors.

jvisick ,

I don’t think it’s good enough to have a blanket conception to not trust them completely.

On the other hand, I actually think we should, as a rule, not trust the output of an LLM.

They’re great for generative purposes, but I don’t think there’s a single valid case where the accuracy of their response should be outright trusted. Any information you get from an AI model should be validated outright.

There are many cases where a simple once-over from a human is good enough, but any time it tells you something you didn’t already know you should not trust it and, if you want to rely on that information, you should validate that it’s accurate.

jvisick ,

1 hundredweight = (1 qt * 32) + 100.7, of course. It’s very intuitive.

Looking for a new car under $20,000? Good luck. Your choice has dwindled to just one vehicle (apnews.com)

At a time when Americans increasingly want pricey SUVs and trucks rather than small cars, the Mirage remains the lone new vehicle whose average sale price is under 20 grand — a figure that once marked a kind of unofficial threshold of affordability. With prices — new and used — having soared since the pandemic, $20,000 is...

jvisick ,

Yeah, and those blood suckers are the richest assholes out there

jvisick ,

But didn’t you know? The poor cops are scared! Why would they check if a suspect is armed when they can just kill them and say they thought they were in danger?

jvisick ,

It entirely depends on the culture around it. Is everyone expected to model underwear for their store? If someone doesn’t want to - is the culture supportive, neutral, dismissive, or antagonistic? Are they expected to do it but just allowed to choose not to? Or is there no expectation to do it, but volunteers are welcomed?

I can’t imagine anyone is being forced to, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the company culture is dismissive or demeaning of people who would rather not.

jvisick ,

Notice the “up to” in their offer. It’s likely commission based and inflated numbers to lure the developer into doing it - to trick them into thinking exactly what you’ve said here.

I’d imagine what they actually pay out after you cave is significantly lower, only then you’ve already sold out your users so you might as well leave their tracking in there.

Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000 a year package with a mixture of anger and admiration (www.businessinsider.com)

Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000 a year package with a mixture of anger and admiration::Some tech workers questioned whether UPS drivers deserved high pay — others jumped in to note the importance of the jobs and harsh working conditions.

jvisick ,

“To get a base salary of $170k you know you need to work hard as an Engineer, this sucks.”

As someone who has worked as a UPS driver and now as a software developer, I can say that the UPS drivers definitely work harder than your average engineer.

That quote is also deftly ignoring the fact that you’re generally paid for the value you generate, not how hard to you work.

jvisick ,

GitHub Copilot is just intellisense that can complete longer code blocks.

I’ve found that it can somewhat regularly predict a couple lines of code that generally resemble what I was going to type, but it very rarely gives me correct completions. By a fairly wide margin, I end up needing to correct a piece or two. To your point, it can absolutely be detrimental to juniors or new learners by introducing bugs that are sometimes nastily subtle. I also find it getting in the way only a bit less frequently than it helps.

I do recommend that experienced developers give it a shot because it has been a helpful tool. But to be clear - it’s really only a tool that helps me type faster. By no means does it help me produce better code, and I don’t ever see it full on replacing developers like the doomsayers like to preach. That being said, I think it’s $20 well spent for a company in that it easily saves more than $20 worth of time from my salary each month.

jvisick ,

Out of all the modern browsers, it’s always Safari that I end up needing to write compatibility code for. I’m sure the app works fine on Firefox, they just haven’t tested it.

jvisick ,

The combat is fairly challenging - it’s easy for one or two bad moves (or bad luck) to kill your whole party in a battle. It also takes a bit to learn the combat system if you haven’t played D&D.

That being said, I love it. Once you get the basics of combat down and get used to playing carefully, it’s a lot of fun and you get to build out the character that you think is both effective and just cool - and there’s probably a way for you to succeed with whatever build you end up making.

If you don’t love turn based combat I’ll say that it will probably feel very dense at first. You end up with 4 different characters with different strengths and weaknesses and each with a bunch of different abilities that have different rules for when and how often you can use them. Turn based means you get the time to make an educated decision about what you want to do next, but it’s a lot of information to juggle.

jvisick ,

No problem! It is a lot of information at once but I’ve been having a great time playing it so I’d really recommend it to anyone who thinks it could be interesting.

jvisick ,

What bike do you use and would you recommend it? I’ve been looking for an e-bike recently since I work so close to home, but I haven’t found any that seem reputable and a good value. I’m definitely looking for one that’s easily repairable and not paired to a specific brand’s software or proprietary parts.

Granted, I’ve only been passively looking (I.e. when I see an ad or doing a quick google search sometimes), but from what I can tell most of the advertised bikes are just the same handful of models with a different logo slapped on it and dubious claims about its performance.

jvisick ,

What are they going to do if they don’t pay? Evict them?

jvisick ,

You’ll never understand why people want to check out the latest app from a major tech company?

I get it if you aren’t interested personally, but it seems strange to not understand why people would want to try it.

jvisick ,

The choice between Linux and Windows is not just about ideologically choosing open vs closed source software.

If you don’t want to use closed source software, don’t use VS Code - but if you want to use Linux, and you want to use VS Code, those two choices are totally compatible and perfectly valid

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