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https://xkcd.com/927/

https://xkcd.com/893/

What is this penchant so many engineers have for adding needless complexity to (what should be) relatively simple, single-purpose devices? {...} This is now just another thing that can and will go wrong with an already-expensive device, almost certainly shortening its usable lifetime

This xkcd is actually relevant here.

In this case it's not complex at all.

The 900 series is already making a map of its surrounding as it works (unlike its predecessors, it doesn't random dance. It constantly tracks its exact position using a camera a bit like an upturned mouse).
It already records per-position information from its sensors in this map (mostly related to sensors that detect presence of dirt).

It has an always-on wifi antenna,
so recording the strength of signal as goes around drawing it's map comes for free.

It's not a needless complexity, it's just about adding 1 line of code to their program and suddenly having a new fun feature.

---

the questions lie more upstream :

- was it really worth adding the mapping feature ? it's a complex power-hungry feature, but in the end of the day, unless you have an extremely weirdly shaped flat (are Escher and Dali your architects ?) the "randomly going aimlessly everywhere until everything is eventually covered" of the predecessors works equally well.
The only difference is that now the roomba can stop cleaning, go back straight to the dock to charge, and then resume where it was. So if you want to clean NASA-sized hangars over several charging cycles, it might be worth it...

- was it really worth adding Wifi, so that not only can you use you smartphone as a remote (like the bluetooth enabled 800 series predecessors), or an actual IR or proprietary-ZigBee-like stuff remote like previous models (up to 700), but now thanks to wifi you can also optionnally connect it to the cloud and send it cleaning commands from outside the house ?
I doubt there are that many use cases where this is necessary.

Though on the other hand, the security implication are much lower. (It's a cleaning robot. It doesn't have that much processing power. It's doesn't get an actual video stream from the camera, but a list of high-contrast points from the DSP connected to the cam. There isn't much to be gained from those points if a bug accidentally leaks them online. My metaphore of up-turned mouse is apt as a mouse also doesn't send a video feed to the computer)

This will likely turn into another massive violation of people's privacy

I don't know if this is going to open any much more danger than before :
- the roomba 900 already make a map of the floor.
- the roomba is already connected to your Wifi.
Storing the strengh of the connection as the map is built doesn't give much more risks.

And even the current Wifi getting hacked shouldn't disclose too much stuff.
(Due to limited computing power budget, the Roomba 900 don't actually "see" only get very precise position from their pseudo-mouse).

Followed soon on by a third thought:
- Never buy a Roomba

Actually : never skip doing some research before buying any expensive toy.

In fact :
- Nearly all vacuuming robots, including absolutely all of their competitors, and including irobot's roomba 900 series and braava, all make a map of their surrounding (though not all are internet connected).
Irobot was simply late at the game (because, as noticed above, it actually doesn't bring much in practice. It just looks less messy to an observer).

- All older roomba (up to 800 serie, and their scooba) (also a few other manufacturer who have sublicensed the design) (as well as no-name asian clones of these) don't do any mapping, they just aimlessly wander around until everything is eventually covered. (But as proven by long-exposure photos, it basically gives the same end result). None of them have any internet connection, only 8

Detailed description here. LOL.

I think most shopping goes like this.

it's OK, we've got this sort of news covered...

https://www.xkcd.com/1930/

https://xkcd.com/386/

This technology is being developed to replace things like high-paid ghost-writers of pop music and screen writers in Hollywood. With the current state of the entertainment industry, these jobs should be easy to automate.

Andrew Reagan and others at the Computational Story Lab at the University of Vermont in Burlington have used sentiment analysis to map the emotional arcs of over 1,700 stories and then used data-mining techniques to reveal the most common arcs. “We find a set of six core trajectories which form the building blocks of complex narratives,” they say.

• The Shapes of Stories (Computational Story Lab, University of Vermont)
• Six Basic Emotional Arcs of Storytelling (MIT Technology review)

* * * * *

• The Five Key Turning Points Of All Successful Movie Scripts (Movie Outline)

* * * * *

• Movie Narrative Charts (XKCD)

Little Bobby Drop Tables is coming for you!

Obligatory XKCD, although it only goes back 22k years:

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Perhaps the GP can post some data from earlier where there is a sudden spike like we saw in the last century.

"the social sciences/psychology/psychiatry aren't REAL sciences"

Um Slashdot has always had a hate boner for the softer sciences. You know what XKCD comic this is before you even click, https://xkcd.com/435/

I do know what one it is, and clicking got me nothing.

https://xkcd.com/351/
Don't forget the mouseover text...

https://xkcd.com/386/

Spent Fuel Pool

How many Bananas equals one flight?

These sorts of statistics have been covered by XKCD

UFO existence has been an incredibly powerful and useful disinformation weapon used by the USA for over 50 years. Why on earth stop now? Elizondo is obviously in PSYOP, and he is correct - there's still some legs to the UFO game, even though xkcd demonstrated the fact that UFO's just aren't there with https://xkcd.com/1235/

You are correct. The disinformation campaign against the existence of UFOs is still going on.

UFO existence has been an incredibly powerful and useful disinformation weapon used by the USA for over 50 years. Why on earth stop now? Elizondo is obviously in PSYOP, and he is correct - there's still some legs to the UFO game, even though xkcd demonstrated the fact that UFO's just aren't there with https://xkcd.com/1235/

Anyone who doesn't have a firewall of any kind might be better off with NAT, but it's more in the https://xkcd.com/463/ category. Theoretically better than without, but if you are using it as a security measure, you are doing something horribly wrong.

And even the cheapest consumer routers (or modems) have stateful firewalls built into them these days, Linux core and free firewalls and all.

NAT without a firewall is a network without a firewall. Any security benefit is an accident, not by good design.

Actually there were four or more if you count the animated Animatrix..

I'm afraid you are mistaken, they never made any sequels.

https://xkcd.com/874/

Possible. Even when a firing is not actually the result, the mere hint of censure or disapproval from a boss will make it into your speech and decisions. This has a chilling effect on speech.

Wait, I thought the line on this was 'It's a private business. They don't have to give you a platform' and to link to this xkcd cartoon

https://xkcd.com/1357/

The phones, which can be as small as lipsticks [...]

I'm sorry but I went to that page to see the phones in question and I have to say, it would have to be big-ass lipsticks.

If you're going to keister it into a prison, it might as well be a big ass-lipstick.

https://xkcd.com/37/

But if you are a tech-hating Luddite aging flower child who believes that silicon dioxide crystals with various dopings, worn on the body or just kept in a house, affect your health in beneficial ways, you can't even pretend to convince yourself that you "understand" a cell phone the way you do the channeling of crystal energies with sacred symbols. This creates a state of cognitive dissonance -- what you don't understand you fear and you resent in equal parts. The resentment is made even greater when all of the smart people in the Universe make fun of you for believing in magic, so you retaliate by deliberately disbelieving in double blind, placebo controlled evidence because if you ever let yourself accept that it is the only sound basis for justified belief you'd have to admit that all of your beliefs about the healing powers of herbs and crystals and chanting various mantras (or just garden variety praying to Jesus) are pure bullshit, as they have all failed DBPCStudies, repeatedly, over decades. You also mistrust and resent anyone who actually understands what crystals actually are and how they are put together and knows at least approximately what the word "energy" actually MEANS (as in, knows the dimensions of the quantity and how it is connected to things like fields, interactions, and motion) as they can say things like "cell phones are utterly harmless, except when they catch fire in your pocket or are dropped on your head from a tall building" or "a quartz crystal has no measurable physical field (other than the light reflected from its surface) at length scales much greater than molecular dimensions away, even in the neighborhood of its sharp edges and points, and is utterly incapable of affecting your health (outside of the placebo effect) no matter how many "good intentions" you direct at it or how many mantras you chant".

The really sad thing is that an entire state would incorporate this bullshit into their formal health advice. The only possible basis (assuming actual scientists and physicians were consulted on the matter) for this would have to be some sort of massive conspiracy theory mentality that is convinced that the many studies that have found no link, including studies with a million or so participants:

https://www.cancer.gov/about-c...

are the result of a huge government multinational corporation conspiracy intended to conceal negative effects and that the one or two studies that have found some borderline "significant" result as gospel truth that proves that the conspiracy they've always suspected is REAL. Damn that CDC anyway!

But hey, take one or two absolutely marginal results, ignore the fact that these results are scientifically inconsistent and implausible, ignore the absolute certainty that with the p=0.05 standard for "statistical significance" by idiots often in small studies it is a near certainty that you will have opportunities to conclude that:

Green Jelly Beans Cause Acne: https://xkcd.com/882/

and legislate those evil Green Jelly Beans out of existence. In California, at least.

So is eating a pinecone

There is an old joke about how the Matrix sequels are so bad, true fans refuse to recognize that they exist. If we all believe hard enough, maybe they'll go away. You can safely assume that people talking about the Matrix having no sequels are a part of the effort to forget. If they aren't why would you be so cruel as to inflict the sequels on the blissfully ignorant? https://xkcd.com/566/

Sotrywise, the sequels were about up to the original. IMHO, the real fail of the second and even the third is that the Wachowskis state that Matrix wasn't about the story but about the effects they brought to the screen, but the next movies didn't do much in that regard, second one in particular. There was the fight on the semi. Perfect chance to really flex some SFX muscles and make it appear as one long take on an actual moving semi. Instead, there are way to many convenient cuts, cropped shots, and other corner cutting cinematography that in now way made it feel like it was actually filmed on top of a moving semi, let alone as a single take which would have been impressive. There was simply nothing cinematographically new or even interesting in the movie. At least in teh third movie, I looked at the battle between Smith and Neo and could think to myself, we are seeing the groundwork for superhero movies here.

There is an old joke about how the Matrix sequels are so bad, true fans refuse to recognize that they exist. If we all believe hard enough, maybe they'll go away. You can safely assume that people talking about the Matrix having no sequels are a part of the effort to forget. If they aren't why would you be so cruel as to inflict the sequels on the blissfully ignorant? https://xkcd.com/566/

Read the bottom strip.

You might want to rethink that statement.

I should warn you that Climatedepot is a website operated by Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which is a nonprofit organization that is primarily funded by Donors Trust, which is a conservative/libertarian donor-advised fund; a fancy legal term for a mechanism to hide the identity of the sources of money, which can include corporations. Still, it is known that one of the largest donors to Donors Trust in multiple previous years has been the Koch Brothers, who are _heavily_ invested in the fossil fuel energy industry. Now don't get me wrong, the Koch brothers are not total monsters who delight in human suffering and keeping the world ignorant so that they may continue to stay in power. They actually do some good things at times. But, they do have some ulterior motives and a heck of a lot of power that they do appear to use to further those motives. So you should be wary of those sort of sources. Unlike government-funded scientists, who's job is to investigate and report findings; this site's job is to make its donors happy. And it's donors are happy when people think that climate change is not a thing or that humans are powerless to influence it one way or the other.

Meanwhile, entities like NASA didn't particularly care about what results it got from investigating climate change. They were just told that they have to do something useful, and not just hang out and play golf on the moon, so they picked climate change, and they happened to get these results. And similar situations happened with other government entities both within the US and in other nations. People just wanting to learn how the world works, and finding that oh dear, perhaps taking all that sequestered carbon, that was pulled out of the atmosphere by plant life over the course of millions of years and burning all of it in a little over a century isn't exactly something that the balancing factors like plant-growth and ocean absorption can sufficiently handle to prevent earth from going back to how friggin' hot it was all those millions of years ago, when the atmospheric carbon levels were higher.

Unfortunately, 97% of scientists say quite strongly that human caused climate change is indeed real. This climate change is why we now have a Northwest passage for shipping during part of the year, and that season is growing every year. That clear pathway in the arctic hasn't been a thing going back at least as far as 5000 years. And this creates a chain reaction, because the white ice was quite good at reflecting sunlight, while the dark water and land is not. This causes more warming. It also causes the thawing of the permafrost, which causes a massive leap in preserved methane, produced from ancient broken down biomass (it's basically moss). And methane is demonstrably a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

I would urge you to try and get your proof of the existence or non-existence of climate change from less biased sources. Learn what research has been done, the justification for how they reached their conclusions, and then go back to the biased sites and scrutinize if their counter arguments hold up, or if they are possibly using sneaky logic and carefully represented data to make things look reasonable, so long as the information isn't scrutinized. Or if you're lazy, dis: https://xkcd.com/1732/ That said, if you happen to be a conspiracy theorist, that comic's author did briefly work for NASA so, um, maybe they "got to him" or something.

Don't forget Asbestos-Free! https://xkcd.com/641/

Oblig XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1235/

There's an XKCD for this.

Ah ha - another person who liked xkcd!

https://xkcd.com/1235/

- Forceful, unconditional kernel operations. When I say "unmount this filesystem," I'm not asking a question. When I say "terminate this process," I expect the process to be removed from memory and the runqueue, regardless of consequences.
- When I say "reboot" I mean "reboot." Hangs are not okay, ever.

What about the Magic SysRq key?

- Actual, real soft NFS failures. Do not hang during boot for any reason unless that share is marked hard,nointr. Do not hang during shutdown/reboot, either.

Yep, that's annoying, but I don't know enough to say more.

- Enforce GPL-standard syntax on new incoming utilities. If you want into the package tree, use a GNU parsing library and use it correctly.
    Perhaps a standardized syntax wrapper available for package maintainers.

That's a downside of decentralized development. The issue here is that different platforms have different standards, and a lot of linux tools are multiplatform. So you have the choice of making the syntax different for each platform or being consistent between platforms. Furthermore, for licensing reasons, using a GNU parsing library may not be an option. Keep in mind that developers may not want to go out of their ways just to be included in the package tree of a certain distro.

- Bolt simple parallelization, triggers and flow control onto init/rc.

You mean, without breaking anyone's workflow? Impossible. After many unsatisfactory attempts and discussions, it turned out that that systemd was deemed the least unsatisfactory.

- Drop this selinux shit. It's too complicated and causes more problems than it solves. Vulnerabilities come from bad code, not a lack of complex call ACLs. Security is a process, not a feature.

Feel free not to use it, we don't. Yes, it is compllcated, but when you want NSA-level security (at the time it was a thing), you can't rely on every developer and every administrator to be flawless. It's called defense in depth. Yes security is a process, and SELinux is one way of enforcing processes. And BTW, vulnerabilities tend to come from users (including admins) more than bad code.

- Standardize and fix bluetooth support ffs.

Not a linux-specific issue but please, yes. To be fair, Bluetooth is an extremely complex spec and it is at least partly justified. The issue is that no one seem to implement it correctly.

https://xkcd.com/1420/

Too little power density for modern cargo transport needs - even with modern techniques such as rotosails and kite sails (although they can reduce ship consumption.

A much more plausible approach would be deepwater wind turbines and floating solar, both of which exist (but aren't currently as cheap as their onshore equivalents). Floating "gigachargers", if you will, across major sea lanes. As XKCD put it...

Hey, asshole. Read this. *emphasis mine)

CONGRESS shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Wow... Hilarious that your rude response proves MY point and opposes your own.

Let's see if you can follow this. I'll try one more time. More slowly this time... See if you can keep up.

• -- The First Amendment prohibits the GOVERNMENT from restricting your speech. About ANYTHING.
• -- (With some well-defined exceptions) it doesn't matter WHAT that speech is about.
• -- It has nothing to do with the government only restricting speech about or against the government.
• -- It has nothing to do about trash talking the government.
• -- It's about government not being able to restrict your speech in general.

If you still can't grasp the important difference between your error and the truth, try XKCD's take on the subject. And then maybe go back to high school, cuz it's obvious you missed a few days.

In other words, if you're going to be smug, first be correct.

https://www.xkcd.com/958/

Automation frees up labor for more interesting work over time. Plus it typically creates a whole work force around it https://xkcd.com/1319/ . If you're smart find another thing to do, if you're not just wait around to be forced into something else that you didn't choose. Look at what other Biotech people went to, or find a different thing. Don't be a socialist. Seriously https://fee.org/articles/why-s... .

• The first tier is third party, like the current ESRB.
• The third tier is 'Self-Reported' and is labeled as such. Viewers could use their own discretion about whether to trust such ratings, and could input into the system whether they agree or disagree with the rating. Content creators would have at built-in albeit limited incentive to try and self-assess accurately, since they know the demographic they want to attract.
• The second tier would be something like 'Self-Reported, Verified'. This would go to content creators who self-assess and have a long track record of agreement with viewers about the accuracy of their self-assessment.

Of course, a few problems and abuses for this system already occur to me. But I don't think it'd be impossible to put together a system that crowdsources reputation. Maybe if they called in karma it'd all work out.

https://xkcd.com/1807/

xkcd https://xkcd.com/1827/

Then Russell's Teapot would be a a real thing!

Can we redefine the solar system so it can leave it one last time?

22 times are not enough?

Sorry, the really is obligatory:
https://xkcd.com/1189/
And this from 2014:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ezvpvj/voyager-maybe-didnt-leave-the-solar-system-yet-again-again-again
But I like Munroe's take better.
And I get the feeling that they may pronounce the thing dead a few times too...
We may someday get a Pythonesque "I'm not dead yet" from this interesting little device we tossed into the sky...

https://xkcd.com/1000/ So just 6,384 USD to go until a big round-number milestone!

The FCC is going to have no shortage of examples of censorship and flaming hypocrisy from the most vocal advocates of Net Neutrality like Google, Facebook and Twitter. If the goal is an "open Internet," it's going to be the biggest backers who end up looking the worst because they are doing all of the things that they fear the ISPs would do (and yet have never done).

Big Tech crushes dissenting opinions, even slightly dissenting opinions. People get banned, shadowbanned, demonetized, etc. at the drop of a hat. By comparison, even Comcast looks downright honorable in how it treats its users.

Leftists on slashdot love to say "no one has a right to give you a platform." It's just terrifying to think that someone else might have the power to deplatform you instead of those who are amenable to your point of view on issues like this.

https://xkcd.com/1400/

In other news, today I went to take a shit.

"scientist", really? Seems like a very odd word to use in a summary explaining he seriously [??] thinks the earth is flat?

If you map the earth in a spherical reference frame, it's flat.