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Why not. Biology is just applied physics and applied chemistry after all

Chemistry is actually just applied physics. Obligatory XKCD.

https://xkcd.com/927/

https://xkcd.com/927/

His solution? Having a foundation create a common desktop for all Linux distros, so the Linux world could finally reap the benefits of standardization.

https://xkcd.com/927/

https://xkcd.com/927/

I'll just leave these Standards right here.

https://xkcd.com/1683/

These people hold their phone vertically while panning their child riding a bike. The septembers don't wander from the sign-laden, fenced-in areas of the internet, but the decays wrought (mostly by industries preying on them) by them have.

This includes audio, any media, any $aaS. And while I hate how it's affected systems, it's hard for me to blame an industry for just making the most lucrative moves. You might say that music has become shitty, has become all image, formulaic, etc etc, but consider that unlike, say, grooming a headphone jack away, the industry did so as a RESPONSE, that the masses had no such taste to begin with. The kardasians are a symptom, rather than causing themselves. We're idiots who buy shit that says "wibbly wobbly is coming" or "may the excelsior be with you" without noticing a thing.

It's not like I'm paying much attention to the screen anyway. For one, I'm too hopeless to determine any of my own viewing, I'm gonna end up with what the service wants to push. I need to. So now there's some hypesational LC-denominator thing on. Which I only put on because I crave the sensation of social activity in my vicinity. Even if I WAS a person that could be described as "discerning", all I have is dreck not worth HQ anyway.

So I'll swallow the blocky darks, choppy motion, upscaled shit, and pay to do it.

Until you get results? https://xkcd.com/882/

Here's some help in calculating the max achievable radius before Things Begin To Happen.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/

Yeah, I get it. Googlers got to eat too. And I use enough of their services that having them keep track of every time I use their service to tailor ads to me is a fair enough tradeoff. I'm not buying poodle-porn and doggie sex toys anyway. I don't even know if that exists (though maybe I'm about to find out.)

But Jesus Christ (no, google, I'm not interested in finding a church), they really need to adjust their machine learning algorithms (please, no keyword matches for that either). I go buy a vacuum cleaner from Amazon, and for months afterwards I'm getting ads for the same model that I already bought!

I mean seriously. If you go google for wedding cake (no, please no marriage ads - that will look pretty strange next to the doggie sex toy ads), what happens? You get tons of ads, as if you have to get a bulk discount of wedding cake.

https://xkcd.com/1910/

The owners of these satellites don't care which one is which in the tracking info, the air force really doesn't either. CubeSats are small, almost anyone can have one launched if you pay a little and follow some simple rules - https://xkcd.com/1992/

Cubsats are primarily used for proving a technology, zero g experiments and sometime measuring something. You send it up, it does its thing, it reports back the results and then it burns up in the atmosphere. As long as I know generally where in the sky it is I don't need to care which one it is. It will be in its little posy of other cubsats that rode the same rocket up and that's good enough.

Look, this is real simple. I apologize for denying paths but not providing paths forward. This is how it works.

When there is a problem, examine yourself and how you can possibly e/affect the problem. Or, in other words, if the blame game must be played, play it against yourself.

Example that just happened: A section of people "need" a shared account. They had the account name and password on a post-it note hanging over numerous display devices that were visible (for certain definitions of visible) to the general public. I required that the password be changed and the post-its removed.

Seems simple enough and correct enough right? I went back to check on what was happening and found that the person changing the password made it 14 characters with obscure symbols and such.

*blink* *blink*

I told the guy that was wrong. That password will be on a post-it before the end of the day. I demonstrated how he should have done it by using an XKCD comic to demonstrate. https://xkcd.com/936/

Ultimately, shared accounts are not needed but I have decades of organically grown network crap to deal with and this particular section does have an issue that is solved by shared accounts. It will take a lot of time to work with this section, so rather than totally disrupting their work flow, I am dealing with the worst of their issues in a light-handed manner until I work with their upper management to re-engineer their work flow properly.

TL;DR, do what you can when you can. blaming others is merely an fruitless exercise designed to hide your own inadequacies. (DoTA and LoL players should take this to heart!)

https://xkcd.com/538/

I'm burning mod points to post this but I just can't let this go by. A huge part of the problem with security is IT itself. We have learned that long passwords are good and use of weird characters (numbers, capital letters, punct, etc) are bad. Plus most users shouldn't be required to know more than 2 passwords (normal and maybe an elevated one). But many IT personal keep with the same broken password policies from the past that we now know are bad. If you still use these outdated and problematic password policies, you can't blame the users, IT is still at fault...

Some of us are forced to use "antiquated" (not even 5 years old) policies that mandate password complexity, so often the problem is well above the pay grade of IT.

Don't assume the problem is small and localized.

And then again... obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/936/

I'm burning mod points to post this but I just can't let this go by. A huge part of the problem with security is IT itself. We have learned that long passwords are good and use of weird characters (numbers, capital letters, punct, etc) are bad. Plus most users shouldn't be required to know more than 2 passwords (normal and maybe an elevated one). But many IT personal keep with the same broken password policies from the past that we now know are bad. If you still use these outdated and problematic password policies, you can't blame the users, IT is still at fault...

Relevent XKCD: https://xkcd.com/936/

Don't force your users to use passwords like "J4Al4&/rO1.P9DeErxL )" because then they'll simply write them down on sticky notes and your enhanced security will collapse to zero. There's a third option between "12345" and "J4Al4&/rO1.P9DeErxL )". Encourage them to use password phrases ("correct horse battery staple" or "We're Off To See The Wizard"). You'll have increased security AND they'll be able to remember their passwords without resorting to sticky notes.

"J4Al4&/rO1.P9DeErxL ) Yes, that's the kind of passwords you should use," That's absolutely the kind of passwords you should never require. You've forced everyone to write them down, decreased entropy, and inserted shell metacharacters. Good passwords are actually phrases of easily spelled words that form a mental image for the user. A perfect example of this is the classic XKCD comic https://www.xkcd.com/936/.

WOOSH! https://xkcd.com/1627/

Nobody reads the article you insensitive clod. You must be new here. Obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/2127/

Relevant XKCD about voting software: https://xkcd.com/2030/

https://xkcd.com/1138/ /oblig

That could conceivably happen.

Here's a more plausible scenario:

1) Human does work
2) Developer fresh out of college with limited google-foo and general DIY mentaility re-invents the wheel to make process 1000 times better than human
3) Re-invented wheel is tweeted about and another developer also unaware of 10s of other previously existing wheels wraps implementation into an API for whatever the popular language of the week is, making it 3 times less efficient.
4) Developer at startup integrates said library and publishes it as part of an SDK for a larger product suite, gaining no efficiency.
5) Customers note lack of many features other implementations of said wheel have had for decades. Many TAC cases and meetings are held.
6) Company hastily responds by glomming imitations of missing features onto oversimplistic implementation, doesn't bother to push upstream, and makes things 5 times less efficient.
7) https://xkcd.com/927/ happens, making things 3 times less efficient
8) Product has to run on new hardware and the fastest way to do that is run it on an emulator, making things 20 times less efficient.
9) Desk jockey gets distracted reading slashdot while waiting for laggy UI, takes 5 times longer to do job than necessary.

You could speed up the process immensely by storing a smaller word like SOL instead of HELLO

Hang on. I see where you're going. You fiend!

Oblig. https://xkcd.com/1205/

Yes and also

https://xkcd.com/1319/
https://xkcd.com/1691//
https://xkcd.com/1445/

Oblig. https://xkcd.com/1205/

Yes and also

https://xkcd.com/1319/
https://xkcd.com/1691//
https://xkcd.com/1445/

Oblig. https://xkcd.com/1205/

Yes and also

https://xkcd.com/1319/
https://xkcd.com/1691//
https://xkcd.com/1445/

Oblig. https://xkcd.com/1205/

Yes and also

https://xkcd.com/1319/
https://xkcd.com/1691//
https://xkcd.com/1445/

Oblig. https://xkcd.com/1205/

882: Significant

I don't know about "likely," as that seems a bit premature to say. From what I could sleuth, the focus seems to surround the surfactant used in Roundup, for which I could only find a single paper showing evidence for toxicity in petri dishes:

A glyphosate-based pesticide impinges on transcription., Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, 2005:

The surfactant polyoxyethylene amine (POEA), the major component of commercial Roundup, was found to be highly toxic to the embryos when tested alone and therefore could contribute to the inhibition of hatching.

Many things will kill unprotected cells in vitro. I don't suppose you know of any other papers, or even in vivo studies?

Public Service Announcement: The right to free speech means the government can't arrest you for what you say.

It doesn't mean that anyone else has to listen to your bullshit, or host you while you share it.

The 1st Amendment doesn't shield you from criticism or consequences.

If you're yelled at, boycotted, have your show cancelled, or get banned from an Internet community, your free speech rights aren't being violated.

It's just that the people listening think you're an asshole, and they're showing you the door.

... so put 'em on the cloud...

Put them in two clouds.

And put those two clouds in a third for even better redundancy.

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/908/

https://xkcd.com/678/

Obligatory XKCD.
https://xkcd.com/1217/

This wonderful XKCD comic appeared very shortly after Gary Gygax, one of the main authors of D&D, passed away.

https://xkcd.com/393/

TLDR: You don't seem to understand science, logic, physics, or astronomy.

It becomes dishonest to require that I prove a negative for my arguments to have merit.

That's not actually true. Having a counterproof is a long-established and straightforward way to disprove something, and I simply note that you don't have any proof (in the form of a testable alternative model, for example) for your counterclaim (that folding space is impossible). It is dishonest to claim a negative, then hide behind the difficulty of proving it as a means to escape the burden of your claim.

Keep in mind evidence is not proof of anything

With apologies to Randall Monroe, "[Evidence] doesn't imply [proof], but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."

The notion of "proof" in science is merely that the evidence is so plentiful and the error is so small that a claim is generally accepted as a fact. We have plenty of evidence that our models are correct... and basically none that it's incorrect (because every time we get good evidence, we change the model).

We treat science too much like a church once a model has been introduced...

Ah, sure... that's why we still think atoms are like plum pudding, light moves through the luminiferous aether, and maggots spontaneously form out of rotting meat. Once upon a time, those were all accepted models, until experiments showed that a different model produced more accurate results.

...and because someone cannot disprove something someone cannot even prove yet we get really bent out of shape when someone says... uh no, I am not going to believe that.

That's quite the cognitive dissonance you have there. Science isn't a textbook of facts or a roster of subjects that only nerds can study. It is the process by which we improve our understanding of the world. There is no belief or disbelief. There is only what experiments have shown, and what has not been tested. We have shown conclusively that maggots do not spawn from raw meat, so that concept can be put into the "tested" category. You don't get to simply "not believe" something untested just because you don't like the idea, any more than you could say you do believe in it because you like the notion.

Belief or disbelief without testing is the realm of religion, but science requires having an open mind to everything that is possible.

As an engineer... the math only looked like it worked.

It sounds like your architects need better models. As I recall, that is precisely why architects' designs are handed to certified engineers for structural analysis.

I am still not saying such phenomenon cannot exist... that is not something I have the knowledge to predict... I am just saying that "their" model of what they say is possible is what is not correct because it fails a check with other things we do already know like reality... or at least things we "think we know". And that is why I called it a fantasy.

Or in other words, you think you understand the universe better than physicists, so you're rejecting and disparaging their conclusions because you can't bring yourself to consider something working without building it first.

This scientist is off wasting time on Steps 2 and 3 to a problem without solving the problem of Step 1... finding and getting close enough to a wormhole to even test the merit of such a hypothesis.

Actually, the scientist in TFA is suggesting that photons in a laser beam may increase in energy through a gravitational slingshot, just as we already know spacecraft and other particles can, and that this effect may be utilized for accelerating other massive objects.

Nevermind that, though... You brought up wormholes, so let's talk about wor

I read this entire comment thread and was both surprised and disappointed at the lack of the obligatory xkcd.

The XKCD cartoon was for Spirit, but it captured this feeling for Rover as well.

https://xkcd.com/695/

There is an XKCD cartoon for Opportunity as well:

https://xkcd.com/1504/

The XKCD cartoon was for Spirit, but it captured this feeling for Rover as well.

https://xkcd.com/695/

There is an XKCD cartoon for Opportunity as well:

https://xkcd.com/1504/

The XKCD cartoon was for Spirit, but it captured this feeling for Rover as well.

https://xkcd.com/695/

https://xkcd.com/949/

See here

I'm not worried about sci-fi scenarios where robots kill all humanity. I _am_ worried about the ruling class using killer robots to wreck my anus in an endless rage of dystopian oppression. Right now about the only thing keeping them a _little_ off cheek is having to balance the Military and Working ass. If they go too far the working ass lets the military ass form a huge Junta and we get a change of masters when the old heads form a pike. Killer robots eliminate the Military ass. All that's left is a tiny group of engineers who'll get tugged off in an OK life.

If you're a member of the working ass you should be frobbing everything in your power to put the kibosh to this crap. Fast.

Counter-XKCD
Captcha: narrowly

See here

I'm not worried about sci-fi scenarios where robots kill all humanity. I _am_ worried about the ruling class using killer robots to wreck my anus in an endless rage of dystopian oppression. Right now about the only thing keeping them a _little_ off cheek is having to balance the Military and Working ass. If they go too far the working ass lets the military ass form a huge Junta and we get a change of masters when the old heads form a pike. Killer robots eliminate the Military ass. All that's left is a tiny group of engineers who'll get tugged off in an OK life.

If you're a member of the working ass you should be frobbing everything in your power to put the kibosh to this crap. Fast.

Counter-XKCD
Captcha: narrowly

See here

I'm not worried about sci-fi scenarios where robots kill all humanity. I _am_ worried about the ruling class using killer robots to usher in an endless age of dystopian oppression. Right now about the only thing keeping them a _little_ in check is having to balance the Military and Working Classes. If they go to far the working class lets the military class form a Junta and we get a change of masters with the old order's heads on a pike. Killer robots eliminate the Military class. All that's left is a tiny group of engineers who'll get bought off with an OK life.

If you're a member of the working class you should be doing everything in your power to put the kibosh on this crap. Fast.

There's a reason apple went with costly 3D imaging. Yes of course there's the prospect of spoofing it with a 3D mask but that's a pretty invasive and premeditated attack.

Why bother with a mask? The police or a mugger will just hold you down while they point your phone at you.

People forget that signing into a phone is not just validation of your ID, it's also your way of signaling that you actually want to sign in. Passive sign-ins like fingerprint or facial scans allow others to sign in on your behalf regardless of whether or not you actually want to sign in. (Of course they could just beat you with a wrench until you gave up your password, but that will at least leave physical bruising and scars as evidence of their wrongdoing. With passive sign-ins, there's no way to distinguish voluntary from involuntary logins. You file a lawsuit saying the police forced you to unlock your phone. They just say "no we didn't, you voluntarily unlocked it.")

completely untraceable unless you're buying dozens of them at a time. Even then they're still untraceable, but they'll stake out the area if you keep doing it in the same place. But long before they did that they'd just stake out your regular haunts and catch you there.

Credit Cards are not the Number of the Beast. They're not a perfectly traceable item. Nor do they need to be. Cops have much, much better ways to get their way.

You're right about one thing, cashless would make cops jobs easier. It would end stick ups. There'd be no point knocking over a convenience store or fast food joint if there was no cash there.

I'm pretty sure I could get you to put your finger on the sensor after hitting you a few times with a 5 dollar wrench.

"If you wait until you feel tired to take a break, it's too late -- you've already missed the window of peak productivity."

Unsurprisingly, XKCD has a take on this: https://xkcd.com/323/