Truly a Solomonic decision.

The Daily WTF

Doesn’t a Google Pixel device come with its own OS image by default, independent of Graphene OS? Is there some kind of step that we’re missing here?

Encrypted data channels can still be vulnerable to man in the middle attacks. Like when you connect to an unknown host with SSH, and the client pops up a big warning.

In this case, ICE or whomever sets up a “valid” cell tower that your phone connects to, and they (law enforcement) route your packets onto the rest of the Internet. They can decrypt the 5G data, and see all of the IP headers. They can’t necessarily read the TLS traffic, such as https. But most important of all, they can log all of the IMEIs that connect, which effectively gives them a database of all of the protestors.

The use of Stingray by US law enforcement has been challenged on grounds that the law enforcement agencies have no spectrum license. Those challenges seem not to have found success.

On the other hand, prisons in the US have been stopped from operating cell phone jammers on prison grounds, on the same complaint of no spectrum license.

Exactly. This is completely insane. The DoD has the negotiating leverage to write these right to repair requirements into their RFPs, specifications, and contracts. The idea that their procurement offices simply failed to do this boggles my mind.

Back in the war, if you had a winning design, you were required to license it, full drawings included, to many different manufacturers at fair prices. The Defense Production Act is still on the books, and it contains a lot of power to control the economy. Why is DoD handcuffing themselves?

Several years ago at this point, Congress passed a bill, and that bill was signed into law by the President. What that law says, is that TikTok cannot continue under Chinese ownership. Byte Dance either have to sell the American video app business so that it is controlled by Americans, or they have to shutdown Tiktok.

Byte Dance did not sell the business, so under the law TikTok has to shutdown. This law was lawyered all the way to the supreme court, and the court said it’s a valid law, and must be followed.

Despite all of these facts, the law is not actually being followed. And Tiktok is still operating in the United States. There is no legally valid reason for it to do so. President Trump has issued extension after extension, even though he has no legal authority to do so.

The latest here is the top law enforcement officer in the US telling the app stores, “yes we know it’s illegal to keep Tiktok in your app store, but I am pinky promising we won’t go after you.”

Sadly most of the great maritime powers have signed onto the 1856 Declaration of Paris where they agreed to give up privateering as a weapon of war. The United States has not signed on, but has also not issued a letter of marque since that period. During the civil war, the confederates experimented briefly with privateering, but the Union declared that it would not.

In 2025, The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025 was introduced in Congress. This bill would authorize privateering against “cartels” (apparently any cartel, like OPEC or the American Medical Association).

They’re definitely throwing the whole book at her. But there’s also a small nugget of a case here. Having been through customs a few times, I think it’s clear that biological materials should be declared. In a normal situation, the infraction would lead to a long wait in the back room, a stern warning, and maybe confiscated embryos. Not felony charges.

But the dam companies are incentived to verify the accuracy.

I’m pretty sure that the military understands in general that the bunker busters don’t really work all that well.

I think the more relevant factors in this calculation are (1) B2 is a technology from the 1980s, (2) B2 still looks fricken cool, (3) Tomahawk was also a big deal in the 1980s, (4) Israel already did all of the work suppressing air defenses, and finally (5) the big parade the week before kinda sucked.

If you want top speed, Fortran is faster than C.

The source character set is implementation defined.

You could even choose the name this.

That’s because he tried to open the door. Everyone knows that on Boeing planes, only the door plugs can be opened in flight.

DB also made sure to select a Boeing 727 aircraft that has a rear stairway exit. It’s much easier to deplane that way into the slipstream.

In normal flight, the pressure differential between the inside and outside is pushing the doors against the frame with thousands of pounds of force. So it’s not possible to open the door.

If you really want to go sky diving, then be sure to dump the cabin (button is on the flight deck) to equalize the pressures. It will also help to slow down below normal cruising speed. If you do dump the cabin, keep the altitude below 15,000 feet or make an emergency descent to that level. Hypoxia is a beast.

Reverse Hackintosh.

In NASA’s lessons learned database, there’s one where the probe made out all the way to its destination, but the pictures came back all black. Because they forgot to take off the lens cap.

Don’t even have to build new buildings in a lot of towns. Just renovate the Carnegie buildings that are still there.