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Internet Archive is continuing to face DDoS attacks after several days, says “this attack has been sustained, impactful, targeted, adaptive, and importantly, mean”
  • Without knowing how, not really. If it's a massive multi-device botnet, like Mirai, for example, that's millions of indvidual devices across millions of addresses, so it isn't so simple as just blocking a domain. Trying to block all of them might well just block legitimate users.

    Request limits also wouldn't work if it's millions of devices making a few requests at once, and an overall limit would have a similar locking-out effect as blocking everything. Especially if the DDoS is taking up most/all of that limit.

  • The reality of modern tech
  • Yes, since most modern chargers and cables have internal chips to communicate capabilities with for things like fast-charging. It is not difficult to have the chip identify itself as something else, and execute a payload.

    A common attack method is to have it show up as a keyboard, and execute a series of key-sequences when connected to a computer (like opening and executing things through a command prompt).

    It is also why you should try and avoid plugging random USB cables/chargers into your phone/computer when out and about, since you don't exactly know if the other end is what it appears to be.

  • 17-year-old girl trafficked into U.S. from Mexico rescued after texting 911 and describing landmarks
  • It probably already is, or is part of one, since those investigating sexual exploitation would check traces in photos and things to get.an idea of location.

    There is/was a website for the general public to contribute, if they knew of the locations in the photo.

  • The reality of modern tech
  • It's also a lot easier to do it in software, since you don't need to splice wires and leave physical traces like you would have had to do in the day.

    A well-configured charger or Flash drive can do that job for you, and can spread itself.

  • “Unprecedented” Google Cloud event wipes out customer account and its backups
  • Backups all tied to the same Google account that got mistakenly terminated, and automation did the rest?

    It didn't matter that they might have had backups on different services, since it was all centralised through Google, it was all blown away simultaneously.

  • Dual headphone jack smartphone scores high in new reparability video
  • But that space usually isn't. No company would make a battery with a tiny little protrusion where the headphone jack once was. That'd cost a lot more, and make it a lot more fragile.

    They'd be more likely to leave it empty, or fit something else in that space, like a third speaker.

  • The snake is high maintenance and doesn't like you to sleep in.
  • It's not that the secret snake likes to hurt, it's that you're (ab)using it in a way that it doesn't typically get used in. That's part of why you don't tend to see cats have back issues, even though they go full slinky.

  • What is Windows 11 'AI Explorer'? Everything you need to know about Microsoft's upcoming defining AI PC feature (including it always watching you)
  • Because I was only aware of Intel (and Apple) doing it on computers, whereas most major flagship mobile devices have those accelerators now.

    GPUs were excluded, since they're not as universal as processors are. A dedicated video card is still by and large considered an enthusiast part.

  • It seems like an inefficient setup
  • At first when I heard the ACAB slogan, I thought it was rather judgemental. All cops are bad? Then I learned that the American police are hired primarily on having low IQs and receive only few weeks of training. Now I understand why Americans hate them. Not all American cops are bad, but majority of them probably are. What can we expect from hiring low IQ folks with minimal training and arm them to the teeth? No wonder the American cops are memes themselves.

    And when they do get things wrong, they rarely get punished.

    The slogan probably wouldn't be quite as prominent if the police that made mistakes like that were held accountable.

  • What is Windows 11 'AI Explorer'? Everything you need to know about Microsoft's upcoming defining AI PC feature (including it always watching you)
  • It's arguably worse, since it seems to be more pervasive than crypto and NFTs were at their peak.

    Crypto never really hit the mainstream, and even NFTs were still fringe. Whereas AI and AI accelerators are packed into basically every new phone and (Intel) processor.

  • What would inorganic species call themselves?

    I've been using "mechanoid" as a classification (similar to humanoid, etc), but a friend pointed out that it's both too generic, and that said inorganics might just consider it biology, with organics being the weird outlier.

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    Why is "Dear X" considered more formal than "To X" in e-mail/writing?

    You wouldn't start off an e-mail with "My Dear X", or "Dearest X", since that would be too personal for a professional email, so "To X" being more impersonal seems like it would make the letter more professional-sounding, compared to "Dear X".

    26
    What caused the change in electronic terminology?

    What caused the shift from calling things like rheostats and condensers to resistors and capacitors, or the move from cycles to Hertz?

    It seemed to just pop up out of nowhere, seeing as the previous terms seemed fine, and are in use for some things today (like rheostat brakes, or condenser microphones).

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    [Stupid Question] Why cut/bulk in cycles instead of doing it all in one go?

    You often see people in fitness mention going through a cut/bulk cycle, or mention one, with plans to follow up with the other. Why is it that cutting and bulking so often happen in cycles, rather than said person just doing both at once, until they hit their desired weight?

    6
    Was the Federation right to grandfather in Earth's laws against genetic modification?

    One of the recent laws in Trek that gets looked at a bit, is the genetic engineering ban within the Federation. It appears to have been passed as a direct result of Earth's Eugenics Wars, to prevent a repeat, and seems to have been grandfathered into Federation law, owing to the hand Earth had in its creation.

    But we also see that doing so came with major downsides. The pre-24th century version of the law applied a complete ban on any genetic modification of any kind, and a good faith attempt to keep to that resulted in the complete extinction of the Illyrians.

    In Enterprise, Phlox specifically attributes the whole issue with the Eugenics Wars to humans going overboard with the idea of genetic engineering, as they are wont to do, trying to improve/perfect the human species, rather than using it for the more sensible goal of eliminating/curing genetic diseases.

    Strange New Worlds raises the question of whether it was right for Earth to enshrine their own disasters with genetic engineering in Federation law like that, particularly given that a fair few aliens didn't have a problematic history with genetic engineering, and some, like the Illyrians, and the Denobulans, used it rather liberally, to no ill-effects.

    At the same time, people being augmented with vast powers in Trek seems to inevitably go poorly. Gary Mitchell, Khan Noonien-Singh, and Charlie X all became megalomaniacs because of the vast amount of power that they were able to access, although both Gary and Charlie received their powers through external intervention, and it is unclear whether Khan was the exception to the rule, having been born with that power, and knowing how to use it properly. Similarly, the Klingon attempt at replicating the human augment programme was infamous, resulting in the loss of their famous forehead ridges, and threatening the species with extinction.

    Was the Federation right to implement Earth's ban on genetic engineering, or is it an issue that seems mostly human/earth-centric, and them impressing the results of their mistakes on the Federation itself?

    9
    What's the food like on your world?

    Can humans eat it? Do they have food at all? What do they have as a staple foodstuff?

    10
    Was the USS Discovery upgraded completely, or does it still keep its original technology?

    Inspired by a bit of discussion over on discord, where there was an argument over whether the USS Discovery had been upgraded by the 32nd century Federation.

    On the one hand, the Discovery did undergo a vast overhaul, being fitted with an upgraded power/propulsion system, detachable nacelles and the works, however, we also know at the end of Discovery Season 3, that Burnham resetting the Discovery's computers effectively put much of the ship back to the 23rd century baseline (or as much of one as it could return to). We're also shown that the Discovery still uses microtapes in its computer room.

    So was the Discovery upgraded completely to 32nd century standards, or is it still a 23rd century ship underneath the 32nd century paint?

    5
    The Federation should not have been surprised that their holograms developed sapience

    We already know from TOS that Mutlitronic computers are able to develop sapience, with the M-5 computer being specifically designed to "think and reason" like a person, and built around Dr Daystrom's neural engrams.

    However, we also know from Voyager that the holomatrix of their Mk 1 EMH also incorporates Multitronic technology, and from DS9 that it's also used in mind-reading devices.

    Assuming that the EMH is designed to more or less be a standard hologram with some medical knowledge added in, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that holograms were either sapient themselves, or were capable of developing sapience. It would only be a logical possibility if technology that allowed human-like thought and reasoning into a hologram.

    If anything, it is more of a surprise that sapient holograms like the Doctor or Moriarty hadn't happened earlier.

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    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)T1
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