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I agree. Reminds me of the xkcd heatmap.

You don't leave it on all the time - you bring it out for parties. The drunker your friends are, the more fun.

I can't wait to come over to your house. I love creamed corn.

also, obligatory XKCD

https://xkcd.com/1757/

and of course, the classic

https://xkcd.com/891/

https://xkcd.com/1757/

and of course, the classic

https://xkcd.com/891/

What is this 2 & 3? They never made any sequels...

Harldy anyone disputes the fact there is global warming. The dispute is over how much of it we're causing and whether or not its actually abnormal given that in the history of the planet it has been far warmer many many times over the millennia. Then there's what we should do about it and given how almost every other month something new is being found out about our climate and what affects it I hardly think we're in a position to be deliberately messing about with it. Sure reduce/eliminate what we put in the air etc but when you start doing things like schemes to reflect the sun, artificially forcing rain etc then we may find we're doing more harm than good.

ObXKCD: https://xkcd.com/1732/

If the chart is accurate, "far warmer many many times" is inaccurate - we're at the peak already and even the most harsh scenarios for reversing it will have the climate get warmer still.

For your bemusement...

Exactly. And why is that? Nobody even tried to make it useable.

Google, Facebook, et al, have not only all made their own messengers from scratch, some have even taken *several* stabs at it. In that time, they could have just as easily created and an easy-to-use messenger that relied primarily on a full implementation of XMPP, instead of the proprietary crap they put out that did nothing more than give a passing nod to the most basic features.

So now we have a chicken and egg circular argument. Of course "nobody fucking uses it" if there there arn't any clients that make use of it.

And what do we have now as a result?

This: https://xkcd.com/1810/

Yeah... It's SO much better to have literally dozen(s) of different friggin messengers on my computer/phone in order to reach everyone.

This author brings up a great point. We should create a new standard way for people to chat because that will solve all the problems.

It's ridiculous, they should just develop one universal standard that covers everyone's use cases.

https://xkcd.com/927/

Surely you mean this one?

Obligatory XKCD

Sort of the XKCD wrench approach to the problem.

The problem with that, is when you give up your password and they find nothing, they can just claim that you have a second, hidden encrypted volume, and the beatings will continue until you give up that second password. Unfortunately, you really did only have the one password to give up, but you can't prove it. So you just gave up your only password for nothing.

Now the powers to be really have an incentive to outlaw encryption. Great!

There used to be a ban on exporting encryption software. It was classified as a munition. Of course this preposterous classification relied on the absurd assumption that nobody outside the US could develop software to do useful encryption or that they would be unwilling to distribute it if they did. Eventually the ban was lifted during the 1990s because it was hurting US companies and because it was basically an unenforceable anachronism once the internet became a thing.

That's not to say that the US (or other countries) couldn't make some idiotic laws along the lines of making use of encryption without permission a crime. Sort of the XKCD wrench approach to the problem.

As such, no matter what, rules are a bad idea.

Only if you are using a rule that other people will know in advance to apply when trying to crack your password.. The fallacy in your line of reasoning is that there is somehow only a limited set of such rules that anyone could feasibly apply. There is not

For example, let's say I use a rule where a specific sequence of word associations that I would make from a given input (such as the name of a service I was intending to use and the date that I last changed the password, for example) yields an alphanumeric sequence with a mix of upper-case, lower-case and punctuation that is relatively easy for me to reproduce, but unless someone knows exactly what my thought process is on how I go about this, or especially what word associations that I utilize to perform the transformation, there is no possible way utilize the fact that I may have used some unknown pattern to restrict which passwords to try in any type of attack. All that anyone could deduce is that it is probably something that can be done easily in one's head... but without knowing what thoughts are in my head in the first place, there's still no way to compute what a particular password selected by this method might be, and any combination of dictionary and brute force attacks on it are no more likely to succeed than if such a password had been a genuinely random alphanumeric sequence.

Granted, the method that I use for my passwords is still probably vulnerable to the $5 wrench method of password cracking, but I'm not sure that vulnerability is one that I need to worry too much about (or if or when I do, I will have far bigger things to worry about than whatever the password might be protecting).

https://xkcd.com/936/

Longer is far more important than complexity.

Already posted in this thread, but worth repeating given the above:

correcthorsebatterystaple

https://www.xkcd.com/936/

First of all, I'm amazed NO ONE mentioned the classic xkcd comic on memorized random password security: https://xkcd.com/936/ ...

1) Generate a SINGLE 6-7 word diceware PASSPHRASE.

Such passphrases are EXTREMELY weak. The words are easily predictable (just use a few different language dictionaries, and the usual uppercase/lowercase/substitution combos) and concatenating several of them doesn't increase the amount of entropy enough to resist brute force attacks on a cheap GPU.

Er, what? The letters on a keyboard are easily predictable too, what matters is that the order they are in is generated randomly and not by a human. As long as you use the Diceware methods to generate passwords randomly you have a higher number of possible combinations to work with (the Diceware word list is 7776 words so 7 of those picked randomly gives you a lot of combinations).

See here: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/10294/can-a-dictionary-attack-crack-a-diceware-passphrase

Look up rainbow tables, people!

Salting negates that threat. If the site doesn't salt or limits you to 11 character passwords, it has bigger problems and a good password won't protect your account.

AND, even if you managed to memorize all this, it's a goddam PAIN IN THE ASS to type these passwords in, especially on phones.

Any half way good password manager will copy them for you. Keepass on Windows and Android does, for example, and it's implemented in a secure way. You don't even have to display the password on screen, so no danger of shoulder surfing.

The best option is to use something like Keepass with both a password and a keyfile. Store the database in the cloud for easy access, but keep the keyfile local only. Then you only have to copy it to each device once, while the database can be synced whenever changes are made. Use a good, random password (you just have to memorize it, there is no getting around it).

Something easily memorable like a Diceware password, perhaps.

Here's another.

When the user takes a photo, the app should check whether they're in a national park...and check whether the photo is of a bird.

So much bad advice, it's hard to know where to begin. Let's start with what NOT to do:

First of all, I'm amazed NO ONE mentioned the classic xkcd comic on memorized random password security: https://xkcd.com/936/ ...

1) Generate a SINGLE 6-7 word diceware PASSPHRASE.

Such passphrases are EXTREMELY weak. The words are easily predictable (just use a few different language dictionaries, and the usual uppercase/lowercase/substitution combos) and concatenating several of them doesn't increase the amount of entropy enough to resist brute force attacks on a cheap GPU.

Look up rainbow tables, people!

Salting negates that threat. If the site doesn't salt or limits you to 11 character passwords, it has bigger problems and a good password won't protect your account.

AND, even if you managed to memorize all this, it's a goddam PAIN IN THE ASS to type these passwords in, especially on phones.

Any half way good password manager will copy them for you. Keepass on Windows and Android does, for example, and it's implemented in a secure way. You don't even have to display the password on screen, so no danger of shoulder surfing.

The best option is to use something like Keepass with both a password and a keyfile. Store the database in the cloud for easy access, but keep the keyfile local only. Then you only have to copy it to each device once, while the database can be synced whenever changes are made. Use a good, random password (you just have to memorize it, there is no getting around it).

Having just read through these comments, my forehead hurts from banging it against the wall and I better flush this explanation out a bit more...

First of all, I'm amazed NO ONE mentioned the classic xkcd comic on memorized random password security: https://xkcd.com/936/

Second, forget about it all you people with your **genius** schemes for generating unique 8-11 character passwords. Congratulations, you've just been hacked. Look up rainbow tables, people!

You are all reinventing square and pentagonal wheels here. It's not working against the threat profile you face, and it's a pain in the ass for you compared to the painless solution that is already out there and explained if you just knew about it...

OK, so here is the true situation you face if you actually want to be secure:
1) You have hundreds of passwords to store.
2) Each one better be 25+ characters of RANDOM data. Otherwise, you face a very realistic threat from brute force / rainbow tables cracking you in trivial amounts of time now or in the near future.
3) You better not be reusing any of them anywhere, cause, you know, hacking.
      3a) If you use a standard root and "permute" it, you are relatively safer until one of your sites storing it in cleartext gets revealed, and then guess what, literally *everyone* uses the first character or two of the site name, or one or two letters more than the first characters to permute. So if you are ever an actual individual target as opposed to a mass script kiddie attack, you're toast. I know, and you thought you were so clever!

AND, even if you managed to memorize all this, it's a goddam PAIN IN THE ASS to type these passwords in, especially on phones.

Here is a solution that is 1) easier to remember, 2) faster to access your websites and login, and 3) order of orders of magnitude more secure:

Stesps:
1) Generate a SINGLE 6-7 word diceware PASSPHRASE. https://theintercept.com/2015/...
2) Memorize it. This should take you all of two minutes.
3) Download passwordsafe or keepass or another trusted OFFLINE password manager. I'm not going to press my personal preferences here. But it should have an automatic password generator feature.
4) Lock the password manager with your diceware passphrase and start generating 30+ character random, unique passwords for each site you use.

If you have a good tool (I use passwordsafe), you can store the URL, username, and password and with a combination of 3 hotkeys open any website, and login in under 2 seconds for any of the hundreds of TRULY SECURE passwords you store.

You can sync the encrypted pwd manager file to your mobile and other devices and access from there with equal security.

And a passphrase with all lower case letters to unlock your pwd manager is even faster to type on a computer or phone than a single one of these insecure, short, alpha-symbol-numeric jokes people are advocating the genius of here.

OK. Now you know. So spread the word and forget all this elaborate security theater nonsense.

Where does this research fall on the Munroe Scale?

https://xkcd.com/678/

in 2013 geologists said the thing probably had decades left, but when a geologist says something will happen to a rock formation in timeframe that is anything less than thousand years...well that's the same as saying "very soon and any time now"

Or maybe something improbable happened. People that don't understand statistics frustrate me, just because the probability of winning the lottery is really, really low doesn't mean nobody wins the lottery. Maybe it could have weathered a lot of other storms but this particular combination of amplitude and direction of wind, rising or ebbing tide resulted in waves that found a resonance and and started nudging something like a loose tooth or it had some unknown foundation issues or whatever. Obligatory XKCD

Don't forget the biggest draw on 2.4GHz Obligatory XKCD

There is a test for that...
https://xkcd.com/1807/

Here

https://xkcd.com/1378/

Obligatory oldie...
https://xkcd.com/277/

Standards

Cancer causes cell phones

Obligatory XKCD

Not that I disagree with you, but - from the bottom of that XKCD comic: "If you're basing radiation safety procedures on an internet PNG image and things go wrong, you have no one to blame but yourself".

Supplementary obligatory XKCD

Obligatory XKCD

I don't normally do this, but... oblig xkcd

If it makes more intelligent bots, I'm on board! https://xkcd.com/810/ (warning, there's offensive language).

Sanitize

Mandatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/678/

The CEO is forecasting based on a recently published scientific study, . In fact, he is so impressed by this new branch of science he is calling himself the Chief Extrapolating Officer.

I'm I missing something or all of this (news about AI taking over) is just BS?

Almost as bad as a "Terminator" type of rebellion : https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/

Yeah we see a lot of breakthrough in "AI" technologies (AI beat GO champion last year, AI got better to identify skin cancer this year), but as far as I understand AI, it's basically plugging the program to a (insanely huge) database about the subject and help him interpolate the input and it's own data. That's computer program getting better, not getting "intelligent".

Or is my definition of "AI" that off the mark? I mean, for me intelligence implies some sort of "conscience" that can make decision "outside the box". No matter how fancy the GO of dermatologist AI get, they will never do more than their field because they are not programmed to do so.

Not at this time, perhaps - but it's worth noting that Bigelow aerospace is owned by a hotel magnate, because he's interested in hotels in space.

And why would you want to stay at a hotel on the moon? Well, besides the view and bragging rights, the swimming pool would be awesome: https://what-if.xkcd.com/124/

You want a revision number? Simple;
$ git rev-list HEAD | wc -l

Assuming everyone is on the same branch of course....

(Obligatory XKCD)

Try browsing with all comments enabled, as you are meant to if moderating. A guy died and yet all some people can post is hateful, racist and often off topic rants. The worst posts are by anonymous cowards. After you have read some of those, usually already mod to -1, tell me you wouldn't mod them down too? Slashdot does not allow you to both mod and comment in the same post, which is a fair restriction. I chose to post as I take the death of a coworker personally and think it is something to be talked about constructively and like adults.

BTW when I mod I almost always mod up, not down, and I try to mod based in the value of the content, not my view. If I disagree with a view I will not mod it down for that reason.

I would note that most post that attack me lack any real arguments, they are just rhetoric. Some are well reason, even if I disagree, I will at least try and understand their view point and respond appropriately.

Thumbs Up for the section in bold.

Listen, I understand your noble cause and everything, but you'll achieve nothing trying to fight hate troll and lurk even here on Slashdot. Save yourself some sanity in topic that are personal like this one and filter everything under 1.

Oh yeah, and obligatory xkcd : https://xkcd.com/386/

https://xkcd.com/606/

No, really. This applies to movies too. Why spend more to see it now when you can find it in the Walmart bargain bin a year later?

Depends on what it is and whether you want to be part of the cultural experience or not. The bigger films are quite often larger events that just the act of physically taking in the entertainment, there's conversations with friends, forums, youtube breakdowns, reviews with spoilers...

I went to see Star Wars VII on a 1st-day midnight showing, and it was very exciting. I don't care *that* much for Star Wars but it was just really fun going to the cinema with a bunch of people all excited to see something. Yeah it's fake but so is most human experiences.

If you have a large family, it makes sense. For most people, this is gonna be a miss for them.

There's no rule saying you have to be related to watch the movie together. It makes sense for most people if 4+ of them (at $13/ea ticket prices) are willing to get together and watch as a group. I have a 5.1 home theater system with a projector that throws a 12' x 7' image, and that's exactly what my friends and I occasionally do.

The fly in the ointment isn't the price. It's the entire concept of watching movies at home. When movies only came out in theaters, you had to watch it while it was still in theaters. Home video, subscription cable, and and now streaming has changed that - you can now watch a movie which hasn't been in theaters for months or years any time you want. My queue over all streaming services is about 100 movies long (never mind the episodic TV shows). I'm more than content to watch other stuff while I wait for hit movies to show up on the streaming subscription services. The only exception I can think of is the reason my sister gave for taking her son to watch The Force Awakens on opening night - so he wouldn't be left out of conversations when the other kids in school talked about it.

https://xkcd.com/606/

No, really. This applies to movies too. Why spend more to see it now when you can find it in the Walmart bargain bin a year later?

From a couple news articles that i saw, certain Cell Providers are islands to themselves. e.g. RCS on T-Mobile doesn't necessarily work with RCS on Verizon and vice versa,.

In other news, yet another yet another messaging protocol from google. I guess im the one who needs to add the XKCD: Standards Image

Personally, I think the phenomenon is closer to https://xkcd.com/902/ myself.

I think it was that one I subconsciously was looking for.