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Oh, come on Kendall, it's all down to how you fit the curve to the data points (oblig. XKCD) and you know it. Depending on the approach you use, you can make any one of the lines in that graph other than India's have the best overall downward trend over the next few years. It's lies, damn lies, and statistics, pure and simple, so unless the person making the claim that A is doing better than B is caveating it with their methodology they're just as credible/full of it as someone claiming that B is doing better than A.

ffs...
https://xkcd.com/2030/

If Linus hasn't already been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, this missive should put him there.

I completely agree with him on this, even though I've often been on one side or the other in a flame war. For the most part, the reason flame wars break out on the Internet is precisely because neurotypicals don't realize that text is an autistic media- that all emotion is stripped out of any given text transmission. Any emotions you feel when reading text were likely never intended by the author, and come from your own neurosis and inadequacies. Add to that a topic that is not objective and doesn't have a common goal, and you've got all the ingredients you need for a first-class flame war.

XKCD had a great cartoon on this many years ago: https://www.xkcd.com/386/ and repeated the theme just yesterday https://www.xkcd.com/2051/

If Linus hasn't already been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, this missive should put him there.

I completely agree with him on this, even though I've often been on one side or the other in a flame war. For the most part, the reason flame wars break out on the Internet is precisely because neurotypicals don't realize that text is an autistic media- that all emotion is stripped out of any given text transmission. Any emotions you feel when reading text were likely never intended by the author, and come from your own neurosis and inadequacies. Add to that a topic that is not objective and doesn't have a common goal, and you've got all the ingredients you need for a first-class flame war.

XKCD had a great cartoon on this many years ago: https://www.xkcd.com/386/ and repeated the theme just yesterday https://www.xkcd.com/2051/

(I should have included this obligatory xkcd-reference https://xkcd.com/681/ )

And the mandatory XKCD.

https://www.xkcd.com/386/

I'd especially like to see any code that would publish log reports to an analysis database, and how they handle logs with punctuation and MySQL commands embedded in them. I'm thinking of the XKCD cartoon titled "Exploits of a Mom", at https://xkcd.com/327/

>including

Yes, we're aware the entire ecosystem is riddled with metrics. An app is an app. Apps!

Relevant XKCD - note that it would apply even if it was windows vs *nix
https://xkcd.com/934/

ObXKCD

So what you are looking for is a Small Modular Reactor. These are relatively small reactors that can be produced on an assembly line and shipped to the installation site, so they are cheaper than conventional nuclear designs.

Being cheaper than current reactor designs is kind of damning with faint praise. And these are proposed reactor designs, not actual products that can be bought today. The DOE is claiming that we might see them in 10-15 years which is how researches talk when they mean probably never.

Most don't require active cooling, which means you don't get meltdowns.

Meltdowns are just one of many failure modes for fission reactors to worry about and not anywhere near the most likely. And your use of the word "most" is not comforting since it means the number is not zero.

Also, you can bury them in a vault for protection from attack or sabotage.

The very fact that this would be a serious concern is rather worrisome don't you think? Nobody is going to be attacking wind turbines or solar panels or fossil fuel plants and even if they did and succeeded it wouldn't be a major catastrophe.

They require no maintenance. You run them until their fuel is spent, then you pull one out of service and recycle it.

There is no such thing as a man made device that never needs maintenance or that never fails. Reliable and easy to replace I could believe. As soon as someone says "no maintenance" what it actually means is easily replaced, disposable, or they are lying. The DOE does not claim they do not require maintenance. Any engineer that makes such a claim is either clueless or lying.

You end up with a few pounds of waste material per unit over the course of it's lifespan, which is a couple of decades.

That's the theory which has yet to be demonstrated in practice. If they can do it in practice then I'm all about it but right now you are talking about proposed designs and prototypes as if they are working products which they are not. And I think you are grossly overstating the likely actual outcome.

As the earlier post pointed out that one of the biggest problems with nuclear fission plants is that every design proposed is cheaper to operate if corners are cut which would reduce safety. When profit motive is at odds with safety you should always assume that profit motive will eventually win in some cases. This would be acceptable except that the failure modes for fission reactors are FAR more immediately and acutely catastrophic than any other power source we have access to. Fossil fuels may kill the whole planet eventually but a fission plant failure can render a large area uninhabitable by people for centuries in an instant.

New opportunities to play pranks to your friends...

> Not sure why I have to point this out

Duty calls:

https://xkcd.com/386/

Good bet very few get either your post or mine

Why? There's an XKCD for nearly every story posted here. Also it's Cherokee ;)

I have FirstinitialLastname@gmail, and wow do I get a lot of mis-addressed e-mails. Here's my canned response for those I do answer (I'm surprised nobody has posted this xkcd link yet.):

Sorry, wrong email address.
Here's a relevant comic for you (this happens a lot):
https://xkcd.com/1279/
Hold your mouse over the picture for more info

https://xkcd.com/927/

If it's already properly cited, how is it not verifiable? Anyone caring to check is free to hunt down the same ancient microfilm-only news articles and government documents. Meanwhile I'm just curious as to when a restaurant edition was added to $random_office_building, but not curious enough to hunt down the permits filed for the modifications or the article in the neighborhood-level newspaper from the 1980s. Someone else did, put the info up, and poof, whole building deleted, "not notable" (I only found it again through browser history).

Or, are you saying this obligatory XKCD is the "right way" for things to get in to wikipedia...

Well reading your post only leads me back around to this question: Why are these VPN services writing their own client anyway?

I understand that a VPN client should theoretically not be doing anything terribly complicated and so shouldn't be too hard to write. At the same time, why are they writing their own clients at all? After decades of dealing with VPN, how is it that we still don't have a simple, open, trouble-free VPN system built into the OS?

As far I can can tell, the biggest problem is the same problem that we're having throughout computing: nobody wants to invest in standards. Tech companies like Google and Microsoft and Cisco will only spend money to develop and secure a solution where they then have a lock on their own proprietary protocols and formats, in order to prevent real competition. If someone else comes up with an open standard, you get some kind of NIH syndrome which explained by another older xkcd comic.

We need to create standards again, instead of each tech company trying to build their own little walled garden. I know having open standards or even FOSS doesn't prevent there from being security issues, but at least it allows interested parties to work together on them.

Lying ass-trash

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2044

Also https://xkcd.com/1098/

For anyone not up to date on xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2039/

Who do you imagine sponsored hacking Hillary's email server?
The only valid reason, that I can come up with at least, not to have prosecuted her by now for mishandling sensitive information, classified or otherwise, is that it would have jeopardized another ongoing investigation deemed higher priority.

https://xkcd.com/966/

Since no one else has linked it:
Obligatory xkcd

The weak minded will always attach themselves to things, be it their phones or anything else.

Another sign of a weak mind is someone who need to validate his self worth by pointing out that everyone else has a weak mind.

https://xkcd.com/610/

https://xkcd.com/937/

https://xkcd.com/1357 Try to pull your head out of your ass and learn something before engaging your bullshit.

And if Facebook, et al want to honestly present themselves as SJW Central, great. Make the chamber as echo-y as you want.

But if they want to present themselves as just places where pretty much anybody can sign up and post stuff, and then do a bunch of biased banning, not so much.

Yeah, they can do it (probably - but we can force people to bake a cake expressing opinions that they don't like??), but I am going to call them dishonest jerks for it.

https://xkcd.com/1357

Try to pull your head out of your ass and learn something before engaging your bullshit.

you live in a strange reality there, kid. it was pointed out that you support voter suppression and that somehow makes you feel better about yourself? how that justifies launching into a series of personal attacks in your reply - while notably not defending your position whatsoever - is a puzzle to anyone rational.

you could just say "I have few principles, but i stick to them", rather than taking this so personally.

Not that you're going to read it since you're probably a troll either in their mom's basement or the troll brigade of st. Petersburg, but on the off-chance that you're an actual holocaust denier I have 2 pieces of advice for you:

1. Stop drinking bleach, it's not good for you.
2. Read this XKCD

Let's reorder & modify those instructions to optimise the code:

1. Read XKCD
2. Start drinking bleach

obligatory C-x M-c M-butterfly

Not that you're going to read it since you're probably a troll either in their mom's basement or the troll brigade of st. Petersburg, but on the off-chance that you're an actual holocaust denier I have 2 pieces of advice for you:

1. Stop drinking bleach, it's not good for you.
2. Read this XKCD

Those dangers are real, and consistently downplayed by the nuclear industry

Do you even know what the dangers are? Not from Uranium, but from naturally occuring Radon gas which is released. Radon gas is a problem that occurs in all types of mining from coal to rare earths used in wind. It is a problem that has already been solved all over the world. Which makes nuclear mining safer than you able to admit.

The environmental impact of dams is huge

Which is why we should pursue nuclear energy.

And you can't call nuclear power safe until the waste has been cleaned up.

That is a stupid statement. Nuclear energy is the only energy source which contains all of its waste products. There is nothing to clean up since it is already contained. So I will continue to call nuclear safe. It already is statistically safer than every alternative.

And a false dichotomy is just another kind of lie.

How is comparing nuclear energy to natural gas (specifically in California) a false dichotomy? It is an accurate comparison. Every nuclear power plant that has ever been shut down has been replaced with fossil fuels. Diablo canyon is going to replaced primarily by fossil fuels just like San Onofre was.

Why did you not answer my question about the economics of scale?

oblig XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1656/

Mandantory

But if Reddit people routinely ask people who post opinions to list their sources, my (low) esteem for Reddit will go up a notch.

Your statement that no source is needed translates to "this is an opinion unsubstantiated by any facts."

https://xkcd.com/927/

See, these things are dangerous!

Stand aside!

here. Give a look also to the google reviews of the Marianna trench...

You may have been scooped, sort of.

Yes, if you hover over the strip, you will get a nice pop-up elaborating on homeopathic "medicine". Nice link.

https://xkcd.com/1357/

The problem is, the neo-nazi president wants to go full nazi...and his neo-nazi base are so stupid they don't even understand what they are.

You may have been scooped, sort of.

there's nothing stopping Alex Jones or any of the other folks banned from starting their own site. Yes, they might have to host it themselves on their own hardware (that right wing Facebook competitor has been warned by Microsoft to tone down some of their users) but they can do it thanks to common carrier.

As always there's an XKCD comic for this.

Or maybe correlation does not imply causation?

https://xkcd.com/2030/

https://xkcd.com/538/

When you just leave the secrets lying around.

#1429: Data.

Being an established computer consultant, I got to provide input when the US Virgin Islands' election system was upgraded, a good friend on the Board of Elections brought over a bunch of brochures for me to review one evening in the early 1980s. There were chad systems ("Punch cards? You must be joking!") and push-button machines ("Where's the paper trail? Do you know what a 'hacker' is?" "It's available but 'costs extra'. Are these people for real??"). And there were optical zoned page scanners.

My friend and I agreed -- his vote on the Board of Elections -- was to keep the paper ballot. People are used to it. If anything, beef up the security and oversight surrounding transport of ballots cast; use bleeding-edge technology cautiously and wisely: do the counting of paper ballots with optical readers. Because just like the money counter machines, you can do it again quickly to see if you get the same result. And if the machines break and the power goes out -- the election process is 'safe', breezes along as smoothly as ever -- only the results are delayed.

Just WHEN was it decided that election results needed to be tallied in hours or minutes? From where did the pressure arise such that hand counting of paper ballots (or in the least, optical scan of same) is too slow? That we instead impose few-vendor centralized no-paper systems that are inherently hackable?

Here's the test I impose. A paper ballot system may also have its problems -- BUT -- any given layman you bring in off the street to observe the tally process will have a clear view of a ballot box's chain of custody. Any layman observing the subsequent counting of those ballots (by hand or optical reader, with verification of random batches to test the reader) has a clear grasp of the process, and can tell whether the system is honest. No one can say if a wholly computerized system is honest. And even if you find someone who claims they are sure, no one can tell whether they are being honest.

If it's Democracy you want, use as simple a voting/tally system as possible; for the tally process use as many human beings as possible, local volunteers as participants and observers. If it's Oligarchy you want, go ahead and totally castrate the process of transparency by implementing insecurity through obscurity, touch screen BS with no hope of verification or recount.

The idea of all-electronic voting really should have been laughed out of the room, once upon a time. This is coming from a techie who favors modernization in other areas of society. xkcd agrees.

My friend on the Board was voted down: they decided to purchase push-button machines from Shouptronics... but at least each station had its own built-in battery backup and built in receipt-type printer that ran a paper tape. Unlike most today.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/768/