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bradley13

I would go much further. Almost nothing that a government does, should be classified. The government is there to serve the people. If it cannot do so in daylight, then it is doing something wrong.

Exceptions should be rare. Honestly, I cannot imagine any exceptions outside of protecting military secrets from foreign powers.

Re:The 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement is no longer viable on Wednesday October 21, 2026 @05:58AM (#50178310)
There are none. The planet is greener, even the Sahara is shrinking. The Great Coral Reef has just had its best 5 years ever. On average, crops produce more due to higher CO2 levels.

Pacific islands failed to sink. Hurricanes failed to become more frequent. Fewer people died due to cold temperatures (which kill far more people than hot temperatures).

Re:What shall I teach my son? on Wednesday October 21, 2026 @05:32AM (#50178055)
There are basic skills that everyone needs, for example, the three R's: reading-riting-rithmetic.

There is shared knowledge and history that form the foundation of a culture.

There are basic life-skills, like understanding banking, the local political system, etc.

On top of all that: knowing how to think and reason, knowing how to find knowledge and learn new things.

So many parents are apparently incapable of covering these basics. In particular, many parents who home-school or, worse, unschool lack many of these capabilities themselves.

Re:The Future of CSS on Wednesday October 21, 2026 @05:19AM (#50177973)
This. Currently, if you don't want web pages "computing", but you still want basic content, you can turn off JS. Add explicit functions to VSS makes this impossible.
IANAL and I know I'm a minority opinion, but: seems to me that scraping must be legal. If you put content online, it is readable by anyone (or anything) who cares to look. Don't want it read, put it behind a login or a paywall.
Re:Switzerland proposes banning profiling-based ads to minors on Wednesday October 14, 2026 @10:01AM (#50087932)
The problem is: how do, ou identify minors without requiring everyone to ID themselves.
Re:Fingerprints Are the New Cookies on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:28PM (#50058779)
It is offensive that browsers give away so much unnecessary info. What is necessary? Language preference, Javascript (yes/no), screen resolution. Optionally, latest supported html/css versions. That it, nothing else.

I understand Google having Chrome send way more info. Why do all other browsers go along with this?

Make it make sense...

Re:The Mathocalypse on Thursday October 08, 2026 @09:14AM (#50005445)
Math is, of course, an ideal field for AI to work in. However, I find this quote revealing:

"It feels like something written by someone who’s on psychedelics. So much unclear and doesn’t make sense. Lots of name dropping of previous work without discussing why it can be used despite impossibility results. Basically the paper is so horribly written that it’s impossible to read it without AI help."

This makes one wonder how many of the proofs are actually valid, and how many are just impenetrable hallucinations.

Re:How much of F-Droid is LLM generated? on Tuesday September 15, 2026 @07:34AM (#49710969)
It's an emotional problem. I love writing code to solve intricate problems. But knowing that a faster, and maybe better LLM solution is just a prompt away? Somehow that takes the joy out of it. Why spend hours, when you can get an equivalent result in minutes?

I will be curious to see how I feel about AdventOfCode this year...

Re:No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds on Monday September 07, 2026 @03:23PM (#49601967)
Correct. You may demand clean water from your local government, in return for taxes, but it isn't any sort of basic right. And certainly is not mentioned in the US Constitution.

Much like food or medical care: fundamental rights can never depend on the work of other people. Otherwise you can demand that work, which imposes on their rights.

Meh. Maybe I'm a grinch, but I don't see this as easier. I have a little NUC running Ubuntu. Putting services on it is easy: PiHole, OwnCloud, Wireguard, etc.
Re:It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell on Monday August 31, 2026 @03:23AM (#49506653)
Our situation isn't quite that extreme, but sometimes "modern" tech is just ridiculous. For home automation, every manufacturer has their own protocol. "Matter" has just confirmed what XKCD has to say: https://xkcd.com/927/

Add to that: every manufacturer wants to run their own servers and their own cloud service. I don't want my data strewn throughout the internet. For most devices, there is zero reason they couldn't work entirely within the LAN. Plus, we all know that half of those services will die in a few years, forcing us to replace perfectly good devices.

Re:“I just chose words carefully” on Monday August 31, 2026 @03:12AM (#49506575)
Wow, autism in action ;-P

Choosing words that carefully takes some serious dedication. Imagine the backtracking required...

The European Commission has far too much power, and answers far too little to the populace. In reality, they want to be dictators.

If you don't know, the unfortunate way thf EU is structured, the Parliament cannot initiate legislation. They can only vote on whatever the Commission puts in front of them.

If the Parliament votes "wrong", the Commission just repackages the idea in a new bill, pulls a couple of dirty tricks, and tried again. They only have to succeed once. See ChatControl for a prime example.

So the EU will eventually require backdoors in encryption. It's only a question of how many tries it takes...

Re:Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU on Saturday August 29, 2026 @09:24AM (#49489721)
There are two main problems with the EU, both political.

First, the EU Commission has way too much power, and honestly wants to play dictator. Look at ChatControl: Voted down more than once, but the Commission just repackages and resubmits, with some dirty backdoor tricks, until they get it through. Parliament is not allowed to propose legislation, only the Commission.

Second, regulatory hell. The continual avalanche of regulations out of Brussels cannot be overstated. People make fun of the bottle caps, but those are absolutely illustrative of how literally everything is over-regulated. This is one of the main reasons that European industry is struggling.

This is the way. If the US imposes tariffs, impose tariffs on US goods.

The US administration twists facts to suit their agenda. For example, they often complain about the trade deficit the US has with other countries. However, that deficit often (depends on the country) only exists if you exclude digital goods (Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc.).

If the rest of the world were to restrict the import of those digital goods, in the interest of fairness, the tech lobbyists would swarm D.C. in panic.

2009-2014? That's not the old web. Or I'm old. Take your pick.
The next logical step in "publish or perish". Get rid of p-o-p and this problem will also largely disappear.

I know managers and administrators want a simple metric, but there is no simple metric for research.

Re:LLM Honeypot on Thursday July 30, 2026 @06:52AM (#49108182)
Wow, that website is so 1990s.
Re:git's –end-of-options Flag on Thursday July 23, 2026 @12:48AM (#49017056)
As with almost any successful system: more and more special features and edge cases get added. Git has become ridiculously complex.

I wonder: would it not be better to tell users with those edge cases to fix their problems some other way? To take an example from the article: why does someone have a filename beginning with a dash? Maybe don't do that.

Wow. 25km resolution of the exoplanet's surface.

Of course, getting the telescope into place, steering it, etc. - that's the hard part.

Re:A font that humans can read but AI cannot on Saturday July 11, 2026 @06:25AM (#48870642)
Humans can read it, but with difficulty. If it becomes important, AI can be taught to read it.

So...usefulness?

Requiring companies to state the actual price you will pay? Makes total sense. What I don't understand, is why thus is not already the case.

Why do hidden fees not fall under deceptive advertising, which is already actionable?

Re:How to Write an Email on Thursday July 09, 2026 @02:53PM (#48850715)
Disagree. Way too many modes of communication, which is endlessly irritating. If you want to send me a message at work, email is the common denominator.
Stupid parliamentary trick: Hold the vote on the day before the summer break - ensuring that many people have already returned to their home countries. Then use a sort of "reverse" parliamentary trick: the default is that this legislation is accepted. They needed an absolute majority - not of voting members, but of all members - to reject it.

Result: 314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions, 113 absent

The EU is well on the way to becoming a totalitarian government.

ETA: It is shocking that 276 members of parliament would vote to support this. Are so many so naive? Or being paid off?

Just yesterday I was brainstorming with ChatGPT about this. I have an ancient QNAP plus a slightly less ancient NUC running PiHole, Wireguard and other services. Both need replaced, so why not combine them?

I don't know much about ZFS, but it sounds like I need to learn. Docker may have conquered the world, but I plan to stay with LXD for services.

The one thing I take issue with: an appliance like this runs 24/7. It should be low power and fanless. A processor like the N100 seems like the obvious choice.

WTF? Bicycles on sidewalks? At least where I am, that's illegal, and I'm not moving.
I'm a teacher and I've had blind students, so I am aware of the barriers. But: do an honest evaluation of the costs of full, correct accessibility vs. the number of people who benefit. A cold-blooded calculation for a company putting out a project.

It honestly is not worth it. Huge costs, and you sell...maybe an additional license or two. So no one does it.

Which shows why guardrails on AI are just dumb. What harm could come from answering your question? None.
DMCA takedowns should not exist. If it's important, get a court judgement, where the opposing party can present a defense.

If it's not worth a court case, then it must not be very important. Or maybe they have no case.

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