RE: https://dice.camp/@Computer/116857343995390282 To: JNE Sector From: CPU Re: Latest from Friend Computer Note that FC "winning the war against Communism 38 times and counting" means that in every field trial devised to date, Communism has been a philosophy of losers. Losing is treason […]

Time to withdraw from social media for a while. ===== "Not to keep repeating myself, but the problem with the Court is not merely that their decisions are bad, but that their entire self-conception of themselves as the Guardian Council of the USA, with sweeping and arbitrary power to maintain […]

I'm out of the hospital. Why was I in the hospital? Because when I sprained my knee two months ago, the radiologist erred by diagnosing it as a sprain. I've been walking on a broken leg for two months, and that got to the point it needed intervention.

I just realized what bothers me the most about a UFC octagon on the White House lawn: The real-world White House is now indistinguishable from the one in _Idiocracy._

As a Washington D.C. resident, I can't begin to describe how appalled I am by a UFC octagon on the White House lawn.

(Some bits here will be obviously fictionalized. The subject was not nuclear physics, but something else of similar importance to our present moment.) In today's job interview, I discovered the company is deeply concerned about nuclear physics and wishes to ensure they get a candidate with a […]

RE: https://dice.camp/@Computer/116700583452036626 To: JNE Sector From: CPU Re: Race results There were eight races each with eight contestants representing eight security clearances: IR, R, O, Y, G, B, I, V. No one won any race. Rumors of it being a *nine*-way race with *nine* contestants […]

For my international friends: Right now the upper house of the United States' legislature (the Senate) is in the hands of Donald Trump's party (the Republicans). It would take a miracle for the opposition party (the Democrats) to seize enough seats in the November elections to take control […]

You know, a quarter-century ago I described myself as "mostly libertarian" in my political outlook. Today … Wow. Today. The problem with the upcoming July 4 250th Anniversary Shitshow isn't that it features conservative artists: it's that it doesn't feature any _good_ conservative artists […]

I saw someone say, quite earnestly, that "if privacy is a national security issue, [NGOs in the privacy space are] de-facto defense contractors." Well, no. And, TBH, that's the kind of thinking you get into if you've never worked in the national security space. I once asked a senior CIA […]

RE: https://dice.camp/@Computer/116596856926040298 Today in JNE sector, Javie-R-JNE-1 was replaced mid-mission after his fourth clone ratted out Javie-R-JNE-1, -2, and -3. "Now _I_ can be a Troubleshooter, carry a laser, and get half off the punishment for my next crime!" he said excitedly […]

RE: https://dice.camp/@Computer/116596856926040298 To: JNE Sector From: CPU Re: Policy clarification No, you can't come in with three of your buddies, all of you turn in each other for the same crime, and get half off the punishment. That would be creative, which is to say, Communist treason […]

RE: https://federate.social/@mattblaze/116591843195523492 Computer security as a field of academic study is really, really new. When I entered a Ph.D program in computer science in 2003, I had to phrase my research interests as "failure analysis and software reliability". At age 51, I'm […]

Matt Blaze@mattblaze.federate.social.ap.brid.gy · 3mo ago

You may have heard that Peter Neumann passed away yesterday at the age of 93. I cannot do his memory and legacy justice here, but I will say that his work (and friendship and support) influenced almost everything I've worked on. He was one of the first computer scientists to confront (well […]

RE: https://discuss.systems/@dwallach/116591178926553324 A lion has left the savanna. He was kind to me, and wise, and held onto a child's appreciation for puns and wordplay.

Dan Wallach@dwallach.discuss.systems.ap.brid.gy · 3mo ago

Peter G. Neumann has passed away. 94 years old. Haven't seen an obit posted yet, but here's a detailed interview with John Markov from 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/science/rethinking-the-computer-at-80.html

Good news, everyone! The creator of @effinbirds is graciously allowing the "AI Art Can Fuck Off" image to be used on your own websites and blogs and such, provided that: * the usage is non-monetized: no fair making bank off someone else's creative work * […] [Original post on social.afront.org]

RE: https://mastodon.world/@davidnjoku/116585810098428572 Great question! One answer is that race is a social construct because it doesn't exist as a scientifically definable one. We can talk about entropy in a scientific way because there is highly precise language used to talk about it and we […]

I like to keep my professional ( @rjh ) account different from my personal one (this), so forgive me for being terse here: but for those wondering, today's interview went well and I have two follow-ups with engineering directors next week.

RE: https://mastodon.art/@petrabrandstrom/116566993794725304 I don't know if Petra means "share your impressions" or "share my post", so I'll do both. My headcanon: against the gathering storm and all its forces, the youngest prince stands defiant astride his best horse, holding his most […]

Burn it down, burn all of AI down. I was just reading a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. "Carrion Comfort" is one of his Terrible series, capital-T, in which Manley Hopkins himself believed he had best touched something deep and true in the human heart. I […] [Original post on social.afront.org]

RE: https://autistics.life/@AutisticInnovator/116517220574764042 I admit, I don't understand the mindset that leaps to conclusions like this. The two elements which most drive consumer prices are the supply function and the demand function. If supply remains constant but demand suddenly is […]

I did my Ph.D work on the security of electronic voting machines. I studied election law pretty closely as part of this, so I think I'm qualified to have an informed opinion about SCOTUS' decision in _Callais_ (the Louisiana redistricting case). Here are some thoughts: * If you don't know the […]

A reminder to the world: the purpose of conferences is as much to make connections as it is to have professional discourse. I met @joncamfield at Circumvention during one of the socialization breaks: we killed a half-hour each drinking a beer and talking about privacy in the developing world […]

I have long had a weird role in @GnuPG . I don't influence the specifications (RFC9580 or LibrePGP), I don't touch the codebase, I have absolutely no official role. Some people listen to me anyway because of my twenty years of active involvement in the GnuPG community. Today, a member of the […]

To: JNE Sector From: CPU Re: Clarification on Insider Trading Cc: @Computer A recent communication from Friend Computer tells us "insider trading is only illegal if you get caught." This has raised a question here in JNE Sector: what, exactly, is insider trading? Insider trading is simply any […]

@Computer — (Friend Computer may crosspost this, as the High Programmers may specify.) To: JNE Sector, IR, R, and O clearances From: CPU Re: Clarifications It is that time of the year for each citizen to pay the annual fee for the mandatory "Alpha+ Mandatory Fun!" experience value-add pack […]

Please consider sharing.) A story about Amazon customer service. After a major health crisis last year left me functionally paralyzed, I underwent a lot of physical therapy and am slowly regaining the ability to walk. It's a little dicey right now. My balance is off, and my stamina isn't good […]

Two years ago, Juan LaLuz and I saw the potential for mass civil unrest on the horizon. He took some notes I wrote on surviving a riot, and turned it into a proper YouTube video. The vast majority of the content is about being able to escape a large-scale civil uprising: it is NOT about how to […]

Thanks to spending several years doing digital forensics for the federal government, a lot of people have asked me for my professional opinion on the homicides in Minneapolis of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. They expect me to have some sort of insight or wisdom, and maybe I do, but it might not be […]

I almost died. https://sixdemonbag.org/?p=27

From therapy today: "Your brain," she said, "is the highest-performance engine I've ever seen. This is good. But this also means that when other people blow a mental gasket and spend an hour at the side of the road waiting for a tow, you undergo thermonuclear detonation and need U.N […]