Posts by Grunchy

GitHub rolls out mandatory 2FA for loads of devs next week

You are (generally) not allowed to use a VOIP cell number nor a VOIP SMS number as your 2FA account, why is that, well supposedly it’s because any hoodlum can create a new free one of those at any second. But yet the very same sysops have no problem with 2FA Gmail addresses …

Refreshed from its holiday, Emotet has gone phishing

How could you find out you’re part of the botnet?

Is there a way to figure out if I’ve got a compromised device in my midst?

'Thousands' at Meta face layoffs this week

I used Facebook once

This one time I found an iPhone 4 in the electronics recycling bin they used to have at Staples, so I snagged it.

But then! It was account locked. However, the owner thoughtfully put their personal details under the “Medical ID” portion of the emergency dial function. All I got out of it was their Facebook info, but it was enough to hound and pester them into dropping their iPhone 4 off their iAccount.

… and that’s how I got a free iPhone 4 to turn into my downstairs AirPlay receiver!

At Citrix, 'perpetual licenses' means 'we'd rather move you to a subscription'

No longer a product

Software isn’t a product that you can just buy anymore, now it’s become a subscription service.

Likewise the “agile” development scheme isn’t a Project Management technique. Instead, agile is more like a Service Management technique.

That’s because projects are supposed to end, and a final work product delivered. “Normal” software used to work like this, but now software projects never ever end. Well, they do, but only after some competitor came up with some new technology that made the old software obsolete. It’s not like the project ended so much as the service was abandoned.

“Abandonware.”

Thought you'd opted out of online tracking? Think again

Pi-Hole in Alt-F

Well no, Pi-Hole won't work because my old DNS-323 (running Alt-F) doesn't have the necessary resources to run APT.

But I did find AdGuard Home for Arm5 runs magnificently within the 64 MB ram! It subscribes to any/all of the Pi-Hole filters and does daily updates and adds just 115 ms latency to any DNS lookup. Memory utilization holds to about 90%, CPU to about 15%. Swap file only 1 MB.

Works good and I did not have to buy anything or even do much config. I was already serving HDD over Ethernet (NAS) so why not host a freeware DNS filter too?

FBI boss says COVID-19 'most likely' escaped from lab

Re: Maybe they're expressing an opinion BECAUSE they are an intelligence organization

“If they have in their possession some internal Chinese government documents/communication that indicates a coverup..” well if that existed I would expect the FBI to say something a lot more definite.

This whole “gain of function” weaponization research theory doesn’t make any sense. Just making that stuff is a crime against humanity, you’d have to be a psychopath to do it in the first place, there’s no way funding for a disease that threatens all humans on Earth equally can possibly get funding.

Preposterous!

Yeah but

Yeah, but it was stupidity that spread it so wildly. In fact I think Trump got a certain satisfaction from calling it a China Hoax in order to see how many of his moron followers he could kill.

Telus source code, staff info for sale on dark web forum

Re: Wait, what?

“Robbed,” when somebody doesn’t physically take anything but instead makes a perfect copy of your whole household except in their own household.

Which reminds me of the time I asked the security guy at Iko Industries (shingle manufacturer in Calgary) how come he even has a job, it’s like, who gives a toss about the security of asphalt shingles. You could wander around the entire compound and maybe find one or two things worth your while to pick up, and they are empty apple juice containers outside the smoke doors.

“Well!” offers our hapless hero, in full conspiratorial mode. “This one time in the 1950s there was this whole gang of Japanese visitors visiting from deepest darkest Japan, and they all had their finest Nikon Canon Fuji Konica Kyocera Minolta cameras out and they toured the whole plant and they shot the whole place to smithereens (on film, that is) and then they left leaving nothing behind but footprints, and two months later they had their own Iko Industries asphalt shingle plant, perfectly replicated in every detail, and so that’s how come we have such tight security to this day.”

I was like, “are you joking me? Man it’s friggin shingles who gives a toss,” and just like that he was fired and the security shed burned down, and now I can sell photos of those apple juice jugs without getting hassled by some id-10-t who has nuttin better to do, for heaven’s sake !

Clumsy ships, one Chinese, sever submarine cables that connect Taiwanese islands

Crashing into overhead power wires will 99% of the time crash you face-first into terra forms, and they are a couple orders of magnitude weaker than subsea cables. What level of malevolence are we recognizing here?

White Castle collecting burger slingers' fingerprints looks like a $17B mistake

Re: Punk Programmers?

Yes but what if this is your only possible chance — in your entire lifetime — to collect on a portion of a (hypothetical) $17 billion windfall?

I mean, hey. Get real.

When I was delivering for Amazon most times the customer would explicitly forbid any form of disturbance, especially by doorbell, and usually because the infants and pets had finally achieved peace in the household and the customers would tolerate no disturbance of that uneasy truce. However there was a sizeable contingent that insisted that the doorbell notification be rung, and most especially so if it were the “smart” doorbell security monitor that had already alerted the occupants of the invading presence by SMS delivery of the offending video footage!

I never touched those monitors on the grounds that a) the customer already acknowledged delivery over the loudspeaker, and b) who’s to say these aren’t fingerprint sensors out to gather and investigate my precious biometric data in order to learn all about my criminal past?

I say fuckem.

Heads to roll at Lenovo amid 'severe downturn' in PC sales

You can run the entire XT experience on ESP32

I am not exaggerating when I say you can get an ESP32 delivered to your door for under $3.50.

It’s got enough jam to run WordPerfect and Quattro Pro, what’s wrong with that? That’s enough to do everything they want for a B.Sc. degree (from first-hand experience!)

I love buying Lenovo!

I’ve got X3100 and P30s, what could be the problem?

Obviously I only buy em once they’re about 10 yrs old and depreciated down to $20 or so.

Wicked awesome industrial construction!

The best part is if you call technical support they still have to call you “sir” and answer whatever hare-brain questions you can dream up ! Even if they have to look it up & call you back a couple days later, it’s magnificent. Consumer grade equipt is for SUCKERS.

This app could block text-to-image AI models from ripping off artists

Pica your own Asso

Personally I find there’s no difference between a worthless print and the priceless original. As a matter of fact, most of what Escher made were woodcut print masters, so in effect every copy anybody ever saw was always “just a print.”

Anyway, if Picasso was any good then why wouldn’t you see more of his work around in print form? Anybody who says they love Picasso so much, show me the print! I don’t care for Picasso but I do appreciate the Eschers.

(I have yet to see any worthwhile Dall-E interpretation of any Escher btw - I think the AI just can’t comprehend it.)

Beijing grants permit to 'flying car' that can handle 'roads and low altitude'

Re: Why?

All these fancy hotrod junk are dreadfully easy ways to get yourself killed.

Motorcycles, mopeds, e-bikes even. Skateboards!

Also jet boats, hopped-up cars. A good one is a gas-powered remote-controlled airplane that crashes into your neighbour's house & lights his roof on fire, there's a classy way to make your acquaintance.

John Denver provides a cautionary tale. He bought his new home-built, with several years of good service under its belt, but with an awkward fuel tank switcher up & behind his left shoulder. ("For Safety Reasons")

So he takes it for a rip, and runs the one tank out, so he unbuckles his harness and kinda twists around to yank that lever over. Meanwhile he pushes with his right foot onto full right rudder at about 150 ft above the deck. Instantaneous nose dive and ker-splash! I think he got decapitated by that one.

Every time you try one of these things it's your "last chance".

Not really a car...

Pretty fancy coffin though!

Musk's view count antics are perfect cover for Twitter's paid API failure

Re: Who's left?

… there’s an app for that.

US military spends weekend shooting down Useless Floating Objects

Bastards!

Bastards took down me space balloon that never popped. Crumb bums! PS don't tell em that was my property, they might try to bill me for the missile.

Learn the art of malicious compliance: doing exactly what you were asked, even when it's wrong

I have to admit to using Scruffy the Pooch as a highly convenient, self-powered dishwasher. All he wants is for the China to be placed within his reach (on the floor). Spotless every time!

"Work-to-rule"

This kind of passive-aggressive compliance has gotta be centuries old & is a type of job action used by unions everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule

BOFH: Generating a report the Director can show the Board – THIS is what AI was made for

“The Sasquatch Song”

Suggestion: A song about sasquatches arm wrestling and eating termites.

Verse 1:

In the woods of the West

Sasquatches do their best

To show their strength with a test

Arm wrestling with the rest

Chorus:

Sasquatches arm wrestling,

Eating termites all day

In the wild they're nestling

In their Bigfoot way

Verse 2:

Gigantic arms they flex

Competing with no regrets

Who will come out next?

The crowd roars with applause, "yes!"

Chorus:

Sasquatches arm wrestling,

Eating termites all day

In the wild they're nestling

In their Bigfoot way

Bridge:

Munching on those tasty bugs

Gives them the power to flex their muscles

Arm wrestling is just a plus

They're wild and unstoppable hustles

Chorus:

Sasquatches arm wrestling,

Eating termites all day

In the wild they're nestling

In their Bigfoot way

Outro:

Sasquatches in the woods

Making their presence known

Arm wrestling and eating termites

These Bigfoots are never alone.

Find My Kids app is basically AirTags for your offspring

Dangers of wristwatches & rings

My dad knew of a guy that jumped out of a pickup bed & unfortunately got his watch caught on a metal thing, cut up his arm really bad.

Rings are also prone to getting caught somewheres, or just stuck because you got a bit fat since the last time you took it off !

I heard of a guy who bent over his carburetor to see what’s up & his necktie got caught in the radiator fan and yanked his face into the whirling blades.

I had a buddy in high school who wore both long hair & a big feathery dangly ear ring, and they all got twisted up together one time, drew blood even.

Sadly, we had a dog who didn’t have a “breakaway” collar, and twisted up his lead and then fell over the side of something & expired by strangulation.

It's your human hubris holding back AI acceptance

Eh? Ken Jennings already said he accepts the computer overlords.

I think this whole article is a Chat-GPT plagiarization of The Atlantic circa 2011!

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/is-it-time-to-welcome-our-new-computer-overlords/71388/

Microsoft swears it's not coming for your data with scan for old Office versions

The "Ghost Spectre" option

Yeah, I'm doing it. "Ghost Spectre" is a lightweight version of Windows 10 that has all Microsoft updates locked, Microsoft will soon be prohibited from attacking my computer any more.

To me this story raises one more question, "why does Microsoft Office need internet access anyway?"

It's not a browser and it's not an FTP client. Outlook is an email client but other than that, I don't see why the program was built with an online attack vector in the first place.

I'm weary of all the updates, I can't even run a program without it scanning online and informing me that it needs a new version and it has to download 100MB of data and re-do the installation before it can possibly do what I require it to do. No more!

They've created an ecosystem in which we will all require fibre optic connections to handle all the data requirements. None of this does anything for me.

You know what I've got several TB of data storage at home, I'm pretty sure I don't need One Drive or Apple iCloud. Why do you guys need to control all of my data? Get lost!

I run software to accomplish specific things, once I have a version that does what I need done, I don't see the need to update any more.

"It already works fine for me, not gonna update any more, thanks" is what people who run Ghost Spectre say.

WINE Windows translation layer has matured like a fine... you get the picture

Too much hostile

I'm actually motivated to try out Ubuntu + Wine after reading this.

I clicked several of the links in the article and the compatibility lists for Wine 8 are actually hilarious:

Platinum - Final Fantasy XI; World of Warcraft; Starcraft; Guild Wars; The Sims 3; Adobe Animate Flash CS6; Gothic; .NET 3.5; Diablo III; Silkroad Online

Gold - Adobe Photoshop CS6; Eve Online; The Witcher; Left 4 Dead; Guild Wars 2; Final Fantasy XIV; Command & Conquer 3; Sid Meier Civilization IV; Supreme Commander; Allods Online

Silver - Magic The Gathering; Logos Bible; Steam Official; Starcraft II; Roblox Player; Watchtower Library; Deus Ex; Warcraft III; MS Office 2019 Installer only; Half Life 2

My first criticism is these are largely older games, the MS office is for the "installer only" for some cryptic reason (the game itself doesn't run?), plus you've got Logos Bible vs Watchtower Library (e-book readers for religious magazines?) Guys: Adobe Animate Flash, platinum compatibility. Give me a break. Let's get serious.

The bit about the "outliner" category of software was extremely interesting. First of all, it's absolutely hilarious to read how incensed people are about the 2003 "ribbon menu" innovation of 20 years ago, gee guys, are you actually serious? I had to look up what the gripe is about, it's the words+icon horizontal menu bar for selecting commands. All I can say is that back in 2015 I got in touch with Microsoft "HUP" (home use program) and bought a permanent license to "MS Office Professional Plus 2016" for $11. If you want to grouch about aspects of a $11 software program, be my guest. That's about the same cost as a burger & piece of pie at the truck stop, I suppose one could get all fancy about such a thing, but seriously, guys: get a life.

Ok anyway, the bit about Outliners (outliners.com). Ok that web page dates back to 1999, and seems to describe a software category defined as an expanding and contracting hierarchical list.

"Outliners started out as simple hierarchy editors, used by lawyers, educators, students, engineers, executives; people who think -- to plan, organize and present their ideas.

Over time the products became more full-featured, especially on the Macintosh. Then the category died out, no one can explain fully why that happened, but in the early days of personal computers, outliners such as ThinkTank, Ready and MORE were popular programs.

Outliners are everywhere. Outlining as a user interface, survives to this day.

The expanding and collapsing file system viewer first appeared in Macintosh System 7, and now has become a common feature of all file system browsers."

(I have NEVER heard of programs such as ThinkTank, Ready, and MORE. And I grew up in the 1980s!)

Musk, Tesla win securities fraud battle over that 'funding secured' tweet

Yes it's true, TSLA was about $23 on Aug 2018 before plummeting to $16-ish a couple times in Sept and Oct, then rebounding back to $23 levels in Nov 2018.

So investors did suffer a rapid loss of about 1/3 their share value immediately after the infamous tweet before it recovered a few months later, really it would be impossible to say precisely what caused that.

After then it skidded to about $12 by June 2019, then bounced along until it finally recovered back to $23 in Dec 2019 before it left those early valuations behind for good (more or less).

(I actually don't understand the "$420" bit, the share price then was literally $23 a share. What part was $420? I don't get it, it could only have been a stupid joke.)

Sweating the assets: Techies hold onto PCs, phones for longer than ever

All of a sudden I’m interested in Tesla P4

The boom has dropped and it seems you can now get all you want on eBay for $130 or whatever.

To refresh everyone’s memory this was the 2016 edition that only used about 75W and originally had a MSRP of like $7,000!!

On the other hand, working-condition RTX-2080 is going for about $300 or so (and can play “Microsoft” Flight Simulator with aplomb). Disadvantage, it can draw about 250W.

(Or how about… one of each??)

(I guess it doesn’t matter either way, my $50 Z800 comes with a 1100W power supply!)

Chromebook SH1MMER exploit promises admin jailbreak

Chromebook never interested me, I don’t care about it. “Internet apps” are ok once in awhile but I’d way rather have the software & data on my HDD. If I want to “share” the software & data with the teacher, email still works.

But you know what I always wanted was one of those “Personal Internet Communicators” from AMD, with the Geode CPU, or else perhaps the “One Laptop Per Child” units. I heard they were rugged, adequately powerful, and included a hand-crank for power in a pinch. So cool!!

https://www.engadget.com/2006-11-13-amds-pic-canned-as-olpc-production-begins.html

Experts warn of steep increase in Java costs under changes to Oracle license regime

Re: Come on over to .NET people!

I do love the FORTRAN, everything else is .NE. to it !

Intel inside a world of pain as revenue plunges by a third

“$10 a day,” you could get that with two good pan-handlings. Minimum wage is either $15 an hour now or imminently, thou doth exaggerate overmuch? I may be poor in actual “cash” terms but I’ve got me plenty of cast-off HP, WD, Netgear equipment. Granted not quite a full-supercomputer, but getting there. In me basement!

Yep I can confirm about those server sales, I just picked up another DL380P Gen. 8 for $34.33. It’s not “perfect,” first of all it’s 22nm product dating from 2013 (and some of the fans got liberated). Also, a rack mount ear got clonked. Only 24GB system ram. And as usual, somebody ran away with all the HDD sleds. Nevertheless that’s a good buy of about 50 lbs of top HP + Intel tech!

Lockheed Martin demos 50kW anti-aircraft frickin' laser beam

C-RAM obsolete?

Wouldn't it be funny if they were shooting up the sky with laser beams and they accidentally took out a satellite or space telescope or space station !

Talk about being embarrassed !

Windows 10 paid downloads end but buyers need not fear ISO-lation

Operating system isn’t even relevant anymore

I think the most important thing that renders a computer obsolete (for most people) is the browser, and it’s tough to get a usable browser for XP anymore.

Honestly more people are using the cellphone as an internet browser, and particularly if you’re out of the house. Dedicated desktop computers are becoming more and more irrelevant. I bet the majority of internet bandwidth I consume is with my T95Z Android 7.1 media box, running NewPipe as an alternative to the YouTube streamer.

I’ve bought about 5 ass-kicking commercial servers, all of them for about $20 or less, simply because they are bulletproof industrial equipment with immense capability. This technology is literally worthless now, I’m never paying for it again!

The world is 'clearly' not prepared for cyberwarfare

My backup server is offline

I only turn it on to do a backup, then I turn it off again. I dunno how the cyber-warfare ransomware expert is gonna attack it remotely when it’s off!

(I guess you could burn the house down to destroy it? You’d have to figure out where my street address is, and you STILL don’t know if I’ve got any worthwhile data at all [nope.] Or offsite servers [nope. MAYBE!])

AWS wins 5-year, $700m+ contract for cloud services to US Navy

Joint - warfighting - cloud - capability - ?

I don’t get it, and I’m going word-by-word.

“Joint,” between military branches? Or is this ship-to-ship?

“Warfighting,” well I suppose the Navy would probably expect to “warfight“ out at sea somewhere. Implying satellite communication? Excluding cell tower communication? I guess I’m grasping at the implication.

“Cloud,” so if you’re doing data-processing out at sea somewhere, in the middle of a battle, using some land-based server system, that surely involves wireless communication at some point. Must be satellite?

“Capability.” Mystifying. I cannot guess what they’re up to. What is this, some kind of “cyber warfare” scheme?

I guess you might do some battlefield simulation, or some weaponry development research, or maybe you’re controlling a cruise missile in real time.

At some point any initiative must boil down to some, “what the h are you doing” - sort of mission statement.

(I think it’s a con-man dodge, “if you don’t know what’s going on and you need somebody to spell it out to you, you probably aren’t fit to even be at the table!”) uhhhhh, are you scamming me? That’s what I’m trying to figure out!

Happy Lunar New Year: Beijing warns of enhanced surveillance during celebrations

PBS Frontline just had their “Pegasus” documentary put online, I guess the moral of the story is, “be careful about the surveillance potential of your smart cell phone.”

The interesting part is that they think this is somehow “recent” news, and they mention a couple famous cases including Khashoggi.

But then they kind of omit Bin Laden who was tracked down by his butler’s cell phone addiction, like 12 years ago !

Or the “mob reporter” on YouTube, gleefully recounting all the organized crime take-downs they got from that “ANOM” encrypted phone network. All hapless individuals who thought they were somehow immune from the surveillance.

As for “most surveiled country,” isn’t the UK also fairly high up there on that ranking? It seems to me I heard somewhere that might be the case…

Ericsson's earnings slip as telcos rein in 5G spending

For internet I subscribe to "Cable 5 Pro" from "TekSavvy" (Canada) which goes to as fast as 5 Mbps! Costs just $34 per month, with unlimited data limits.

It's scraping toward the extreme lowest-bottom of the barrel and in fact I don't think they even let people subscribe to that anymore, you'd probably have to be "grandfathered" in (yuk yuk!).

I mean, sure, we watch a lot of NewPipe videos (definitely not YouTube anymore: Google has destroyed it with commercials!) but the "Cable 5 Pro" easily keeps up with 720P streaming.

I also do torrent in the F1 races each Sunday, many thanks to the lads on "MotorSports Replays" on Reddit.

Data transfers are not "immediate," but it gets the job done.

I do far less network access on the cell phone, I literally have no use for even 4G speeds. I guess I may not qualify as a "power user" anymore, but I cannot fathom what people are doing with 5G network speeds.

Of course that pales in comparison to 2000+ Mbps fibre connections, but come on, I'm not running a server network...

Massive outage grounded US flights because someone accidentally deleted a file

I'm grateful!

I dunno 'bout you guys but I'm thankful whenever a flight is delayed or cancelled while they work to figure out some kind of technical difficulty.

I'm aware plenty like to grouse about the inconvenience, but I also know that, beneath it all, is a 40-ton jet-powered missile that "cruises" at Mach 0.85 or so (roughly the speed of a typical subsonic bullet). The whole craft!!

That's a lot of kinetic energy, on top of 33,000 ft elevation which is more than 6 MILES vertical of potential energy.

So you see, if you ever got a bruise bumping down some stairs at walking pace KE + half a flight of PE, that (comparatively speaking) there's a possibility you could sustain serious injury if something technical goes wrong on a typical commercial flight.

It's, like, game over, man! Game over!

It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system

Re: 1 calory heats 1 gramm (aka 1 cm³ at 4 °C) of water by 1 °C

I disagree! Unit conversions are ridiculously easy, once you know how to wield MathCad.

I find it perplexing, however, that in each worksheet I have to “declare” that

° := π/180

“If you ask an American, specifically USA, how much Foot-pound if required to heat 1 grain of water by 1 °F, and then ask to extrapolate that to ounce, pond, minim, teaspoon or gallon the usual answer would be "f* you" since those don't correlate well. Even US scientists would just smile and decline due to the amount of work and stick with the metric system they already use (hello NASA!).”

Frankly, I get along just great with hexadecimal, and always have. Then my boy comes home from some club they set up at school, affiliated with the “dozenal society,” and all of a sudden they want factor of 3 wedged in there: yeah, duodecimal. All of a sudden it’s all these stories coming home, like how come a minute is five-dozen seconds and a day is two-dozen hours, or a circle is 30-dozen degrees, and all this! Listen, I grew up when Swatch came out with Beat Time, where a whole day is 1000 .beats: that’s 10^3.

Also as a donut appreciator I prefer the “baker’s” dozen rather than a traditional dozen.

(Although some enterprising grocers will sell you a hexadecimal dozen eggs, $12, which is a full 50% more vast than any mere dozen. Who says Easter eggs are only for Easter? I say, let’s move to “Easter Island” where every day is appropriate for egg salad sandwiches!)

Ransomware severs 1,000 ships from on-shore servers

Peasants Quest

Somebody found a shareware preview of Peasants Quest on a CD-rom in an old magazine, and >boom< it’s a run-away 1994 ransomware pandemic, all because some yokel put it on internets. Everybody thought it was safe to thrown away their windows xp antivirus & whoopsie!

https://youtu.be/xixgDV_9RJI

Basecamp details 'obscene' $3.2 million bill that caused it to quit the cloud

Hella good mp3 collection

8 petabytes is what, 8000 terabytes?

What could that be, either a photo collection or a mp3 collection or what, a bluray movie collection?

If it were ebooks I don’t think you’re going to read them all in 1 lifetime, is all I’m suggesting.

(“Somewhere in my 8 petabyte data hoard is a single fact worth $1 million. How many centuries will it take to find it?”)

Third-party Twitter apps stopped dead with no explanation from El Musko

Twitter is a pretty small ‘app’

How many programmers does it take to maintain the minuscule code base? I heard SMS was originally created to piggyback off of the constant data handshakes between handsets and cell towers, which had room for 160-character messages injected with the rest of the handshake data frame. It was unused & otherwise unusable bandwidth, which is why it was originally provided for free.

… just because somebody paid $40 billion for the app doesn’t mean there’s $40 billion worth of content there, or any particular need for any staff. The entire interac network was created and operated for years by two guys, I dispute that there’s ever been any need for any more headcount than that.

Microsoft’s Nadella: Tech is in for a rough two years

How soon we forget yesterday’s big buzzwords such as “big data” and “machine learning.” Even today, I cannot apply for a job without claiming some expert knowledge in machine learning.

(Thankfully nobody seems to care about big data anymore. What a relief!)

I’m surprised that tech is only due for just 2 years of difficulty. I haven’t upgraded a thing since I last built my pc in 2017 (Ryzen 1800x still working great!) I actually never turn it off since it also monitors my network security cameras 24x7, yet it never wore out yet. I’m more interested in picking up salvage server deals from the local system recycler than paying full price for anything new. I have some serious kick-ass server systems. The last MS Office license I bought was 2016 and it still works good enough. If Windows 10 goes out-of-date I’m just going to Linux. There’s absolutely no chance I’m ever paying any licensing fee for any software, ever.

AI and machine learning are being hyped as panacea fit to solve every problem, just as had “blockchain” only a couple years ago.

I think it would be great to see machine learning blockchain artificial intelligence let out loose, see what trouble it stirs up.

My guess: everything it’s allowed to touch soon needs rebuilding.

CES Worst in Show slams gummi gouging, money-wasting mugs, and other dubious kit

“Vitamania”

I read this excellent book “Vitamania” about the supplement industry, they hired lobbyists specifically to keep it deregulated so that supplements don’t have to meet any standard. Consequently, a lot of herbal supplements are literally just dehydrated random weeds from wherever!

Most of CES is worthless junk, they artificially limited themselves to pointing out only the worst one thing they found so far.

Forget the climate: Steep prices the biggest reason EV sales aren't higher

By your logic, 2 hours of pushing broom would eternally be sufficient to buy a 8’ x 12’ 4-bit (1 nybble) room. Regardless of whatever era, including the Age of Roomba!

Hydrogen makes big BOOM. The hydrogen infrastructure is a domestic terrorist dream! All you need is a leaky H2 reservoir and an enclosing structure such as a parking garage at World Trade Center and some form of ignition source, like some random guy flicking on a light switch or a static discharge or whatever, doesn’t even matter what. The important thing is to expand the hydrogen economy rapidly right away and let creative individuals show everybuddy what use they can put it to!

I only want a turbine

Yes, a bat mobile - a real jet. You connect the output shaft to a dc generator & let ‘er rip. The generator powers a battery and the battery powers the wheels. The jet only needs to put out about 20hp or so, that’s all it takes to cruise at highway speed. Acceleration is powered by the battery, and the battery is replenished by the jet. You could even run it off ethanol or whatever if you wanted to be carbon-neutral.

Anyway, that’s the way to do it I reckon.